On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.- G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man
The resurrection of Jesus is central to the Christian faith. Without the resurrection, there would be no Christianity, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14).Read the rest.
Historically, Jesus’ resurrection (along with his claims to be the Son of God and the Son of Man) has always been the point of contention that separates Christians and Jews. However, the Orthodox Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide (1922–1997), in his book The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, turns that expectation on its head. Though he does not believe Jesus is the Messiah, Lapide does believe that the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event. Recognizing that Jesus and his disciples were faithful Jews, he seeks to understand it from a Jewish perspective.
Considering the internal and external arguments for the resurrection of Christ, I don’t ask anyone to look to one of these lines of evidence alone, but to consider the cumulative case. It is very impressive. If the resurrection indeed occurred, it would be hard to expect more evidence. In fact, what we would expect is exactly what we have.Read the rest.
Of course, alternatives to each one of these could be and have been offered. Alternatives to many well established historical events have been offered as well, including the Holocaust, the landing on the moon, and the death of Elvis. However, in most cases the alternatives go against the obvious. In the end, all alternatives explanations for the resurrection, while possible, are not probable and take a greater leap of faith than believing that Christ rose from the grave. The simplest explanation is always the best. The simplest explanation to the historic data here is that Christ did rise from the grave. Those who deny the resurrection do so not on the basis of the evidence, but because they have other presuppositions that won’t allow them to believe. The historical evidence is simply too strong.
I believe that any objective historian must look to the evidence for the resurrection of Christ and concluded that he is indeed risen.
We wrote this book out of our love for skeptics and respect for the questions they help us ask. We also write as believers who oscillate in real belief in the resurrected Christ. We hope it proves to be an insightful, stirring reflection on the resurrection.
We are giving this book away in the hope that churches will make the eBook or hardcopy available to their people, especially to all their visitors on Easter. We are praying God would use it to spark gospel conversations, equip believers, and help people meet the risen Jesus. Download the entire book for free below (Kindle (.mobi), iBooks (.epub), & PDF).Read the rest.
Jim Valvano (most likely known to non-sports fans as the namesake of the Jimmy V Foundation, a cancer research supporter which has given away hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the disease) was the subject of the latest ESPN 30-for-30 documentary, “Survive and Advance,” which premiered on Sunday night. The doc is about the unlikely path-to-a-championship of the 1983 North Carolina State Wolfpack, coached by Valvano, which included nine consecutive must-win games, many of which came down to the final seconds. The team’s run (the final basket in the championship game was recognized by Sports Illustrated and ESPN as the “greatest moment in the history of college basketball) was fascinating, but also typical, in a Disney film sort of way. It played out in exactly the way Michael Eisner might have recommended. What’s interesting to me is how the documentary treats Valvano’s illness and eventual death.
Naturally, Valvano’s diagnosis, foundation-founding, and eventual death are a major part of this story. Jonathan Hock, the director, has said that one of the things that interested him most about this story was that it was a wonderful tale of triumph after triumph being told about the life of “a doomed man.”
Interviewee after interviewee (Valvano’s players, wife, and friends, which include such luminaries as Mike Krzyzewski, Dick Vitale and Sonny Vaccaro) told of how, when Valvano was diagnosed with cancer, they thought — no, they assumed — he’d “beat it.” This is the language we use with cancer: the language of victory. I saw a post on Facebook recently in which a young boy wanted 100,000 “likes” because he’d “beaten” cancer. Valvano’s friends all spoke of being shocked as he became sicker, and ultimately astonished at his death. They’d thought he would win.
Even Jim Valvano died. The Facebook boy might have beaten cancer, but he hasn’t beaten death. No one has, or ever will. Well, except this one guy.
As humans, our most desperate wish is to win. We try to win everything, up to and including the ultimate contest: us against our own deaths. The profundity of the cross is that it looks death in the face and confronts it directly. The cross is the end of the human contest. We lose. Even Jim Valvano lost. No one “survives and advances.”
God, in Christ, brings victory out of defeat. God, in Christ, brings life out of death. We all die, but in Christ, we have the hope — no, the promise — of new and eternal life.
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When our culture’s biggest films express hope – and when audiences embrace them for doing so - it’s evidence that we collectively yearn for something better, that even those without faith ache for a world as God intended it to be.Read the rest.
And yet there is something false about the hope offered by The Dark Knight Rises. It’s false to the series in particular and false, in a wider reading, to the sort of hope that Christians hold dear. The last-minute assurance the movie gives us reminded me of certain portions of N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. Discussing contemporary, feel-good ideas about heaven, he writes, “What we have at the moment isn't as the old liturgies used to say, 'the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead,' but a vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end. ”
As Christians, we need to carefully discern between vague hope and resurrection hope in our popular stories. It does Scripture a disservice to mix one with the other. Christian hope isn’t simply a happy ending. It isn’t a villain’s death. It’s belief in the prospect of a new creation, one borne of sacrifice, forgiveness and even, at times, earthly defeat.
The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven.(HT: Dane Ortlund)
We tend either to ignore the future, because we are so consumed in the drama of the here and now, or to see it as simply a continuation of our present lives, with our loved ones there and sickness and death gone. But in Jesus we see a future that has continuity and discontinuity. In his resurrected life, Jesus has gone before us as a pioneer of the new creation.Read the rest.
Perhaps we dread death less from fear than from boredom, thinking the life to come will be an endless postlude to where the action really happens. This is betrayed in how we speak about the "afterlife": it happens after we've lived our lives. The kingdom, then, is like a high-school reunion in which middle-aged people stand around and remember the "good old days." But Jesus doesn't promise an "afterlife." He promises us life—and that everlasting. Your eternity is no more about looking back to this span of time than your life now is about reflecting on kindergarten. The moment you burst through the mud above your grave, you will begin an exciting new mission—one you couldn't comprehend if someone told you. And those things that seem so important now—whether you're attractive or wealthy or famous or cancer-free—will be utterly irrelevant.
[22] “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—[23] this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. [24] God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. (Acts 2:22-23; Acts 2:24 ESV)Tim Chester and Steve Timmis write in their book Total Church:
[32] This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. [33] Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. (Acts 2:32-33 ESV)
[12] And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? [13] The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. [14] But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, [15] and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. (Acts 3:12-14; Acts 3:15 ESV)
[10] let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. (Acts 4:10 ESV)
[28] saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.” [29] But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. [30] The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. [31] God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. [32] And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:28-29; Acts 5:30-32 ESV)
[28] And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. [29] And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. [30] But God raised him from the dead, [31] and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. [32] And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, [33] this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, (Acts 13:28-33 ESV)
The early church understood mission very well. Vinoth Ramachandra, the IFES Secretary for Dialogue and Social Engagement in Asia, says, “Missionary outreach, both to Jews and to pagans, was not an activity tagged on later to a faith that was basically ‘about’ something else; rather it flowed from the very logic of the death and resurrection of Jesus.”
"Now when Jesus performed this miracle, he did not first have to secure the cooperation of Lazarus. Rather, the miracle resulted in the cooperation of Lazarus. After he was raised from the dead, Lazarus did all the hopping and all the mumbling through the grave clothes. But prior to the resurrecting word of authority, Lazarus was simply dead, to state it simply. The raising of Lazarus was not a cooperative effort between Christ and Lazarus"- After Darkness, Light, p. 141
Too often in our churches the resurrection of Christ is a doctrine of secondary importance. It is neglected and forgotten until Easter comes around each year. The same disregard for the resurrection is seen in how we share the gospel. Christians tend to share the gospel as if Jesus died on the cross and that is the end of the story. We make a zip line from the crucifixion to "repent and believe," contrary to the example Peter sets for us in Acts 2:22-24 and 4:26. The cross is central to our salvation, but what God accomplished there is incomplete unless the tomb is empty on Sunday morning. Therefore, the resurrection of Christ is vital "for us and our salvation" (to borrow from the Nicene Creed). But how exactly?Read the rest.
John 11 records one of the best known miracles of Jesus – the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And yet when you read the story in its entirety, you begin to see some of the great detail John recorded in order to put us in Bethany that day.Read the rest.
Take, for example, the fact that Lazarus had been in the grave for 4 days. That’s pretty significant; a detail that was put there purposely by John.
Jewish folklore was that the soul would hover above the body for up to 4 days after death, looking for signs of life and a chance to return. But after four days of death, there was no hope. Decomposition would have started. The body would have begun to decay.
And the smell. Maybe that would have been the worst part. The smell would have been putrid. Abhorent. Disgusting. The body would be sealed inside a tomb to keep the smell of the dead away from the living.
The smell is the smell of death. Of rottenness. Of lifelessness. A sensory reminder that the situation was beyond repair.
But Jesus isn’t afraid of that smell.
So much for "your best life now." Burdens, weakness, despair, and death sentences are part and parcel of the Christian life. To dismiss this reality is to dismiss the gospel itself. It is into these very things that God acts decisively and eternally and we learn to rely, again and again, on "God who raises the dead."
Tim Keller once said, "Jesus didn't suffer on the cross so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you become more like Jesus," who in His righteousness relied in complete confidence on the God who delivers.
As we become more like Jesus, we learn to rejoice in all things, trusting in the God who delivers, who even raises us from the dead. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ!
Our children need to hear the Gospel. They need to see Jesus. That means they need to see both sides of skull place. That’s graphic, sure. It’s confusing, of course. And not just for kids. But it is the only message that saves. It’s the only message that prepares one for salvation. It is, as Paul says, that which is “of first importance,” the message he received from Jesus Himself (1 Cor 15:3-4).Read the rest.
The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the Gospel. That’s the first word. If we cannot speak of that, we would be better off not speaking of Jesus at all, rather than presenting another Christ, one who meditates but does not mediate, who counsels but is not crucified, who is accessible but not triumphant over sin and death.
The apostle Paul told us the word of the cross would be folly to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18). He didn’t warn us that it would sometimes also be folly to those who are publishing. No matter. It is still the power of God
This Easter, preach the Gospel… to the senior citizens, to the middle-aged, to the young adults, to the teenagers, to the seekers, to the hardened unbelievers, to the whole world. And, yes, preach the Gospel to the preschoolers.
Are you looking for some help in talking with your kids about Christ this Easter? Check this out:
- Do these hands-on family activities the week prior to Easter
- Read this devotion for children called, No More Crying
- Tell the Easter Story with a Playdough Mountain
- Make Resurrection Buns as an Easter snack
- Create Easter Egg Baskets with your kids
- See what Holy Week looks like for John Piper’s family
- Do an Easter Bible Lesson called, “He is Alive!”
- Teach this NEW Easter Lesson with music liturgy and art project
- Read 10 Creative Ways to Celebrate Easter
- Explain the true meaning of Easter to your kids with this book
- Sing this powerful Easter hymn written by a friend of mine
- Watch this video on how to make Resurrection Eggs
- Watch the Jesus Storybook Bible video below w/your kids
The lack of focus given to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in theological thinking, preaching and teaching today is troubling. Surprisingly, many evangelicals seem to undervalue it. It’s not that they do not believe it to be important, nor do they disbelieve its historical authenticity. Yet anecdotal evidence and a perusal of theological works reveal a substantial lack of passion for the importance of Christ’s resurrection.Read the rest.
A brief overview of Scripture–as reflected in Jesus’ teaching, verbal portraits of the evangelists, and the early church in Acts and the epistles–provides strong emphasis on the value and significance of Christ’s resurrection. Therefore, it should be a major part of our thinking, proclamation, and theological framework. It is integral to our faith. As noted by author N.T. Wright,
To put it at its most basic: the resurrection of Jesus offers itself . . . not as an odd event within the world as it is but as the utterly characteristic, prototypical, and foundational event within the world as it has begun to be. It is not an absurd event within the old world but the symbol and starting point of the new world. The claim advanced in Christianity is of that magnitude: Jesus of Nazareth ushers in not simply a new religious possibility, not simply a new ethic or a new way of salvation, but a new creation …We could cope—the world could cope—with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples’ minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one.”
Non-Muslim historians do not even investigate the historical evidence for Islam’s claim that Mohammed was assumed bodily into heaven. According to their followers, the truths of Buddhism, Hinduism, and other world religions would be true regardless of specific historical claims. However, the decisive events surrounding the life of Jesus have received and withstood sustained criticism for two millennia. And there’s a surprising degree of agreement on the historical Jesus even among non-Christians.Read Dr. Horton's short paper here. This is very helpful as you think about discussing Jesus with those who don't know him.
The God of suspense is delivering left and right.
For his daily, less noticeable deliverances I want the Spirit to open my eyes so I can be thankful.
For his mighty acts that appear at the eleventh hour, I want grace to trust him. I want to learn how to express faith in simple obedience amid uncertain situations.
But these after-the-fact deliverances? I hardly know what to ask. What if you actually went through your worst nightmare - sexual violation, death of a loved one, divorce? What then? Where was the deliverance? What difference does the after-the-fact deliverance make then?
It means that there will be lots of sorrow as we walk through life, but we aspire to know sorrow that is mingled with hope. For subjects of King Jesus, death and tragedy are never the last word. The goodness of our God is certain. He has given up his very Son for our redemption. There is no reason to doubt him. The resurrection punctuates how the last word is one of blessing and joy.
- Ed Welch, Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of RestThe resurrection of Jesus issues the surprising command: don't be afraid. Because the God who made the world is the God who raised Jesus from the dead and calls you now to follow him.... Believing in this God means believing that it is going to be all right, and this belief is ultimately incompatible with fear. (source)
, p. 91, 92
It’s depressing to see Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant minds in his field, trying to speak as an expert on things he sadly seems to know rather less about than many averagely intelligent Christians. Of course there are people who think of ‘heaven’ as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that’s a problem as old as the human race. But in the Bible ‘heaven’ isn’t ‘the place where people go when they die.’ In the Bible heaven is God’s space while earth (or, if you like, ‘the cosmos’ or ‘creation’) is our space. And the Bible makes it clear that the two overlap and interlock. For the ancient Jews, the place where this happened was the temple; for the Christians, the place where this happened was Jesus himself, and then, astonishingly, the persons of Christians because they, too, were ‘temples’ of God’s own spirit.Read the rest.
Hawking is working with a very low-grade and sub-biblical view of ‘going to heaven.’ Of course, if faced with the fully Christian two-stage view of what happens after death—first, a time ‘with Christ’ in ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise,’and then, when God renews the whole creation, bodily resurrection—he would no doubt dismiss that as incredible. But I wonder if he has ever even stopped to look properly, with his high-octane intellect, at the evidence for Jesus and the resurrection? I doubt it—most people in England haven’t. Until he has, his opinion about all this is worth about the same as mine on nuclear physics, i.e. not much...
