THE CREED CONFESSES THAT JESUS was resurrected on the third day (Ancient Western Form of the Apostolic Creed, SCD 2). The truth about Jesus was not finally revealed until his resurrection. The resurrection was the seal and confirmation of Christ’s saving activity on the cross. Christ Jesus was “declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4; John of Damascus, OF 4.18).
The redemptive value of his death for others was made effective by his resurrection. The resurrection is that mystery by which the value of his death for others is realized (Origen, Comm. on Rom. 1.4). Resurrection is the necessary complement and sequel to the incarnation.
The best human intelligence could not have predicted this reversal. The signs that pointed toward it were disbelieved. What looked like the collapse of God’s mission turned out to be its most signal victory. God’s saving event stood contrary to all normal human expectations.
The resurrection threw instant light upon all that had preceded it. Every aspect of his teaching that had earlier seemed to be a “hard saying” (John 6:60) was now seen in the light of his resurrection as a sign of hope (Chrysostom, Hom. on John 47.2–3; 87.1).
Modern chauvinism assumes the inferiority of premodern insight. When modern chauvinism looks at the resurrection, it can see little but irrationality and myth. When classical Christianity looks at the resurrection, it beholds clarity, revelation, plausibility, and evidence of the highest order (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Comm. on John 7.20.17). Peter and John inferred “his resurrection from the bundle of linen clothes, and from that time on they believed that he had burst the bonds of death” (Cyril of Alex., Comm. on John 12.20.9)
Resurrection Defined
Jesus’ resurrection is that event in which the Messiah was raised from the dead, his body brought to life to demonstrate to the disciples the completed work of redemption (Augustine, CG, FC 24:68–71, 423–32).
The root meaning of resurrection (anastasis; exanastasis; verbs: anístēmi, egeirō Lat. resurrexist, Creed of 150 Fathers) is simply to raise or arise from the dead. Resurrection is God’s own way of demonstrating the defeat of death. God brought forth his body reunited with his soul and so appeared before the disciples risen from the tomb (Hilary, Trin. 9.9–18, SCD 422). “Thanks to his resurrection—his death manifested its power and efficacy to us” (Calvin, Inst. 2.16.13).
Resurrection is not merely an optional addendum or incidental epilogue to the gospel. It is intrinsic to the gospel, crowning the narrative, and validating the earthly ministry of Jesus. The reasons why resurrection is necessary to Christian teaching are drawn together by Thomas Aquinas: because justice required that the humbled be exalted (Luke 1:52); because faith in his divinity is thereby kindled (2 Cor. 13:4); because it gives believers hope that they too will rise again (1 Cor. 15:12); because by it we too may die to sin and walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4); and because only by the resurrection is God’s saving work on the cross confirmed (ST 3, Q53.1).
A Temporal Event Reveals the Hidden Meaning of Universal History
Christians understand the cross-resurrection event to be the most illuminating event in salvation history. The despair of all past history is reversed by it. The hope of all future history is set in motion by it. It is of all events the most edifying disclosure of God’s plan of salvation. To understand the resurrection is to understand the meaning of history from its end (Augustine, Sermon 229M.1; Gregory I, Forty Gospel Homilies 24).
“The Lord has risen indeed” (Luke 24:34) has thereafter been the hallmark of Christian testimony. The appearances of the risen Lord occurred at particular places and times, beginning from a stone sepulchre near Golgotha (John 19:41) and continuing for forty days. Yet they had universal historical significance (Lactantius, Div. Inst., FC 49:297–99; Chrysostom, Hom. on John 87.1–2).
The Raising of Humanity
By rising from the grave the Lord raised up a new human nature and honored humanity in an unparalleled way (Rom. 5:15–19; Acts 2:24; 1 Cor. 15:20–23). By the resurrection, the drama of God’s coming was brought to an astounding climax and resolution: God became human that humanity might share in the life of God. That did not imply that we cease being creatures or lose our humanity in God, but that we in faith become partakers of or members of Christ’s own resurrected body. His resurrection makes possible the intended and fitting consummation of our humanity (Irenaeus, Ag. Her. 3.19.1; 5.16.2; 5.21.1; Athanasius, On the Incarn., 54; John of Damascus, OF 3.17).
The witnesses were numerous, competent, and willing to suffer for their testimony. The testimony of the apostles was accompanied by God’s own testimony: “This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:3–4).
It was Jesus himself who proved he was alive by showing up. “After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3, italics added). The resurrection is an event that explains why the good news was proclaimed, why the gospel story was told (Chrysostom, Hor. on Acts, 1). It was not that the gospel story “solved” the enigma of the resurrection or fathomed its mystery. The Spirit continues to bear inward witness to the truth of this saving event in our hearts (Rom. 8:9–17; Origen, Comm. on Rom. 8.16).
Sabbath observance for Christians is on resurrection day (Sunday) as a continuing testimony of the church to the centrality of the resurrection. The resurrection is not celebrated on Easter alone but every Lord’s Day. “The first day of the week” was not celebrated in Jewish tradition until the Gospel was proclaimed (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 9; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2).
His Death and Resurrection Inseparable as a Single, Integral Salvation Event
It is best to think of Christ’s death and resurrection as a single event or complex of events, rather than two separable events. For “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
The cross “contains in itself the mystery of Easter” (Leo I, Serm. 71.1). “Christ underwent suffering for our sins in order to pay our debt and so that his resurrection might prefigure the general resurrection of us all” (Theodoret, Interp. of Rom. 4.25). Cyril of Jerusalem understood that one sees Jesus’ death most clearly through the lens of the resurrection: “I confess the Cross, because I know of the Resurrection” (Catech. Lect. 13).
Similarly Calvin: “So then, let us remember that whenever mention is made of his death alone, we are to understand at the same time what belongs to his resurrection. Also, the same synecdoche applies to the word ‘resurrection’: whenever it is mentioned separately from death, we are to understand it as including what has to do especially with his death” (Inst. 2.16.13).
Beliefs prior to Jesus about the general resurrection shaped the New Testament interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection.
History as Revelation
To understand why the resurrection is so decisive for Christianity, it is necessary to consider whether there is meaning in the whole narrative of universal history. Put in a late Judaic frame of reference: The resurrection is best understandable as a historical event in the context of apocalyptic hopes.
Universal history is the most comprehensive horizon of the human imagination. The revelation of God cannot be grasped apart from the end of universal history. If God is revealed in history, history as God’s address cannot be finally revealed until it is over. Universal history, if its meaning could be grasped, would necessarily constitute the decisive revelation of God.
The intellectual burden of Christian teaching has always been to inquire rigorously into the meaning of universal history. The creeds of the churches have sought to interpret the whole of history from beginning to end, not merely a part of history. The meaning of universal history is the proper subject matter of theology. What the resurrection is all about is disclosing the meaning of universal history.
Final Revelation Is Knowable Only at History’s End
If the whole of history is revelation, then revelation is complete only at the end of history, for it is only on the last day that one may hear the completed story of “what history says” or grasp the resolution or conclusion to which history has come.
History could come to an end at any moment. At no point in history is there a certain guarantee that it will continue. Whatever its duration, it is only from the end of history that its final meaning can be discerned.
Julia of Norwich grasped the decisive analogy: “We can never fully know ourselves until the last moment” (Aphorisms, IAIA: 191). As a person’s life is only interpretable when one’s last responsible decision is made, so is the life of history only interpretable on its last day.
Since the course of future history could always reverse our theories about it, the meaning of universal history remains a puzzle until the last day. It is precisely to this dilemma that the hope of final resurrection speaks.
Resurrection in the Light of Apocalyptic Expectation of the End
The apocalyptic movements of late Judaism were keenly aware of the incompleteness of history. They understood how limited human vision of history is. They looked toward completeness, toward final resolution of the injustices of history. The meaning of history was not to be derived from past or present history, but only from the last day of history.
They sought to reflect anticipatively and imaginatively upon the end, for only then would the meaning of history be apparent or even possible to grasp. Hence the whole of history is not interpretable from any of its parts, which could be reversed on the last day. History is interpretable only from its final day. Upon that day apocalyptic writings are precisely fixed (Rev. 22:6–13; Oecumenius, Comm. on the Apocalypse 22.10–19).
Apocalyptic writers were among the first to unveil the idea of universal history by focusing in an unprecedented way upon the end of history. Until apocalyptic thought, there could be, strictly speaking, no cohesive or integral idea of universal history, because the end was missing. Subsequent philosophies of history have been decisively shaped by these writers. Those in the early Christian tradition who especially shaped western views of universal history are Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius, and above all Augustine.
End-Time Expectation Saturated the Environment in Which the New Testament Was Written
For apocalyptic writings in the intertestamental period, the resurrection is the key for grasping the meaning of the whole of history (Pannenberg, TKG: 51ff.). Jesus’ resurrection does not make sufficient sense if artificially abstracted from this actual history of expectation.
Many first-century documents attest intense expectation that the general resurrection (and hence the end of history) was imminent. This is seen in the Qumran scrolls and late Judaic apocalyptic writings. A quarter century after Jesus’ death, Paul was still expecting that the general resurrection (the end of history) would occur soon (1 Thess. 4:13–18; 1 Cor. 15:51; Theodoret, Interp. of 1 Thess. 5.3; Ambrose, On Belief in the Resurrection 2.92–3).
The unitive grasp of the whole of history (including its end) has been truncated in modern (especially existentialist) reading of history. For those in the twentieth century who become fixated primarily upon here-and-now decisions instead of objective history, the meaning of universal history tends to become collapsed into our present experience. In psychological and existentialist interpretations, the revealing whole of history is lost. What remains are our introversions. The study of Christ needs to transcend a subjectivist existentialist exegesis that collapses history into introverted inwardness or subjective decision (Bultmann). On the other hand, it cannot take flight into an entirely suprahistorical view that sees salvation history as existing over and above universal history. Both tendencies resist revelation as universal history and have been rightly resisted in our time by Pannenberg (Revelation as History), as they were previously resisted by Irenaeus (Ag. Her.), Lactantius (Div. Inst.), and Augustine (CG). “All theological questions and answers are meaningful only within the framework of the history which God has with humanity and through humanity with his whole creation—the history moving toward a future still hidden from the world but already revealed in Jesus Christ” (Pannenberg, BQT I, 15).
How Jesus Transformed the End-Time Expectation
Jesus’ Ministry Constantly Pointed to Its End
During his entire earthly ministry, Jesus’ identity (according to his own testimony) awaited future confirmation. It was a story in anticipation of a hidden conclusion. He did not play into the hands of those who sought to force him into an instant identification. He often taught that the confirmation of his ministry would be clearly and certainly revealed in future events.
When the Pharisees demanded a sign from heaven, Jesus resisted their demand, not because there was no way to legitimize his claims, but because the time for their confirmation was not yet (Mark 8:11–12; Matt. 12:38–42; 16:1–4; Luke 11:16, 32). At that stage Jesus merely pointed to his deeds as preliminary verification of his claim to authority (in his response to John’s disciples, Matt. 11:5–6, and in Luke 11:20). But the final confirmation, he said, would have to await the resurrection and the coming judgment of the Son of Man.
The apocalyptic understanding of history was radically transformed by the history of Jesus, especially through his own bodily resurrection (John 20:19–22). Until then, he was willing to reveal only that the future of God is at hand and that he himself was the sign of its imminent coming.
What the Resurrection Meant to Jesus’ Contemporaries
Resurrection is the word God speaks from the end of history. First-century Jews knew that resurrection meant the end of history.
The general resurrection event was a way of speaking about the universal awakening at the end of time of those who sleep in the grave (Dan. 12:2–3; 1 Thess. 4:13–16; Baruch 30:1; 4 Ezra). Resurrection was the event of the consummation of history. It was an action that only God had power to take.
Universal resurrection is the event that occurs at the end of history. Resurrection is the end of history. Thus if resurrection takes place in our midst, then we are already at the end.
The testimony to the resurrection cannot be discounted as unreliable history, for it is clear that witnesses to it were radically transformed by what they saw. It requires some empathic effort for modern persons to understand what an actual resurrection would have instantly and self-evidently meant to Jesus’ contemporaries.
The key: The resurrection would have meant that the end time had begun. Only the reader who has grasped this is ready to move on. If its plausibility remains unclear, ponder the preceding arguments of this page.
Jesus’ Resurrection in the Light of Apocalyptic Hopes
Jesus shared with apocalyptic hopes the intense focus upon the end. Jesus came proclaiming a particular understanding of the end—namely, that it is immediately at hand and already being anticipated in his own ministry of healing and proclamation. When he rose from the dead, he confirmed what had been anticipated in his proclamation (Bede, Hom. on the Gospels 11).
In Jesus the End Is Now
Jesus’ earthly ministry is an anticipation of the end time, an expectation or anticipative act of receiving (prolepsis) or preparation for receiving the end time (hence it is called a proleptic consciousness). Everything is in readiness for the end.
In him the end event is already being anticipatively experienced in the present. The end occurs in a sense “ahead of time” as a “foretaste of the age to come,” as if the end were already flowing freely into the present. The end was not only conceptualized in advance but it was in effect beginning to “happen in advance” (i.e., proleptically).
Whether hearers would participate in God’s saving event therefore depended upon what they decided about Jesus and whether they participated by grace through faith in his life, death, and resurrection.
In Lazarus “we see in a single instance what is to be understood more generally of all in the future” (Maximinus, Sermon 14.3). The same voice that called Lazarus will call us at the resurrection (John 11:3; Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 25.11).
The Risen Lord Meant the End, the Final Revelation
In Jesus’ resurrection the disciples understood themselves to be hearing the final word that history was to speak. After that everything else was to be seen in relation to that. To anyone who earnestly shared the hope in the general resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus would have revealed the meaning of universal history. It glimpsed and foretold the end of history. The meaning of the whole was made known through the lens of this one end-time event (Pannenberg, JGM: 53–88).
The moment the disciples were met by the risen Jesus, they understood that they were already standing at the beginning of the end time, the last days, the general resurrection. In an instant it became clear to them that the end had indeed appeared and begun and that Jesus was “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). Jesus’ resurrection was at once recognized as the firstfruits of general resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20; Col. 1:18). Jesus was regarded as the first born from the dead, the one through whom the believing community learned to look for the final coming of the kingdom of God, and the fulfillment of the apocalyptic hope (Cyril of Alex., Letters 17).
This recognition was not a matter of gradual or lengthy development. The kernel of the confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ was fully formed in the single instant of meeting the risen Lord (Athanasius, Letter 59.10) Having already undergone extensive anticipatory development, it did not need to undergo other further developments in order to be understood (Gregory I, Forty Gospel Hom. 26). Thereafter the faithful lived in communities that confessed to “know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10; Gregory Nazianzus, Orat. I).
Lacking Resurrection, Faith in Vain
Either the resurrection was an event in history or the whole of Christianity is pathetic (1 Cor. 15:17). So central was the resurrection in defining the meaning of history that Paul wrote: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Cor. 15:14). The gospel depended upon an event—resurrection—to validate the ministry of the person—Jesus as the Christ. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (v. 17). The reduction of Christianity to humanistic hope is rejected in the strongest terms: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (v. 19; Cyril of Jerus., Catechet. Lect. 13).
Resurrection as a Distinct Event in Human History
On historical evidence, Pannenberg backs into this same conclusion but ever so cautiously: “only if one examines it [the Christian proclamation] in the light of the eschatological hope for a resurrection from the dead, then that which is so designated is a historical event, even if we do not know anything more particular about it” (Pannenberg, JGM: 98). Those who first attested the resurrection did not have to use such guarded language, but they did not live in our era, saturated as it is with reductionist empiricism.
Due to this matrix of historical expectation, resurrection did not mean simply a resuscitation of an individual corpse. A resuscitation such as that of Lazarus could (like Jesus’ resurrection) point toward the end, but it was not the end, for Lazarus had no signs of being called to messianic sonship. He lacked theandric identity.
Jesus’ resurrection is a more intricately layered event, framed by prophetic expectation. When a dead body appears to be resuscitated, there is a temporary revitalization of a single individual from the dead. Yet no one would imagine that Lazarus would be freed from the destiny of dying in the future.
In Jesus’ resurrection, there is a major difference—the resurrected one lives on. The same body is transformed into a glorified body for which there is no future death—imperishable (1 Cor. 15:35–56). The general resurrection was expected as a universal historical event, not something that happens only to one or a few resuscitated individuals who were themselves again bound to die.
Jesus’ Resurrection Confirms His Identity as Anointed Son of Man
Any Jew learned in scripture who beheld the crucified and resurrected Jesus could have made the connection: in the risen Jesus, God was confirming that Jesus really was who he was suspected of being—Son of Man, sent of God, Anointed One. The claims that before the resurrection seemed blasphemous to Jewish ears now seemed to be confirmed in God’s own uniquely eventful way.
Before the resurrection there had been an ongoing debate as to whether Jesus was regarded as Son of Man or regarded himself as such. But there can be little doubt that immediately after the resurrection he was viewed as Son of Man, an identity confirmed by his own appearing. After the resurrection the conclusion was unavoidable: we have met on earth the expected Son of Man who will come again to consummate history in a fitting way (Leo I, Tome 5).
“Jesus’ unity with God was not yet established by the claim implied in his pre-Easter appearance, but only by his resurrection from the dead” (Pannenberg, JGM: 53). Newman had similarly argued that there is no reason for supposing that prior to his resurrection the disciples adequately grasped that He was God in our human nature (SD: 138–41).
By This Sign the Final Revelation Made Known
If true, the resurrection would have meant to beholders that God is finally revealed in his chosen Son. The promised kingdom is already appearing! It is a reliable tenet of Hebraic historical logic that if the Messiah is risen, then God is unsurpassably revealed, for only at the end of history is the meaning of history knowable.
The end of history is in a sense already present in Jesus’ rising from the dead. The general resurrection is foretasted in Jesus’ resurrection. In this way, Jesus’ divinity is implied from his resurrection (Rom. 1:4; Ambrosiaster, Comm. on Paul, Rom. 1.4). If risen, then Son of Man, Son of God.
All who shared the expectation of a general resurrection felt themselves grasped by the end time in the living presence of the risen Jesus. They acquired an incredibly confident and otherwise implausibly courageous attitude toward history, suffering, and life’s ambiguities. Why was the New Testament community so confident about the historical process? Because in Jesus’ resurrection, the end was already beheld. The resurrection is thus the clue to the whole of history, through which God is finally made known (Pannenberg, JGM; Oden, This We Believe).
His Messianic Authority Made Clear—The Atoning Value of His Death Was Confirmed
Jesus had explained “plainly” to his disciples in advance that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31).
Through the resurrection it was made clear that his sacrificial offering of himself for others had been accepted. His atonement for humanity was received of God, and thus humanity raised up, made new, brought near to God (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 14).
Christ became exalted as messianic king through the resurrection. From the tomb he arose to give his disciples the Great Commission wherein the legitimate authority of the risen Lord became explicit: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go…” (Matt. 28:18).
Peter proclaimed that the risen Christ had “commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:40–43).
The resurrection was the first evidence of the ascent of the humbled Son. While no one could see his descent into the abode of the dead, the resurrection was beheld. Descent and resurrection are correlated as victory hidden and victory revealed. His life and death embodied the full measure of obedience to the Father (actively through his life, passively through his death). Thereafter history would be divided into promise and fulfillment of the Christ, the old and new law, the prophetic anticipation and the messianic fulfillment of divine promise.
It was a resurrection of the body. The bodily resurrection was consistent with the bodily incarnation, demonstrating that the creator God is vindicated in and through material creation (Origen, Dialogue with Heraclides, LCC 2:440–41). Resurrection is not counter to the purpose and order of creation, but God’s way of redeeming humanity by remaking fleshly creation (Isa. 26:19; Rom. 1:4). Cosmic history is being brought toward a redemption that involves the whole of creation and not merely human history (Rom. 8:19–23).
He rose on the third day (tertia dei; Creed of 150 Fathers). Like “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” this phrase of the creed reminds us that the redemption of the world was a datable event, an occurrence in history, not an abstract idea.
In Jewish calculation, each day in which he was dead, whether part or whole, is counted as a day, hence he died and was buried on Good Friday (the fourteenth of Nisan), remained in the tomb on Holy Saturday (pascal Sabbath, second day), and arose on Easter morning (the sixteenth of Nisan, third day). It was customary to count each new day as beginning at sunset. Thus Christ was in the sepulchre during part of two days, and the full day between (Augustine, Trin. 4, FC 45: 157).
Three days of burial, no less, no more, were required to establish the fact of his death. Athanasius set forth reasons why the resurrection could not reasonably have been sooner or later than the third day. If earlier, his death would have been denied. If only two days, “the glory of his incorruption would have been obscure.” It had best not be later because the witnesses to his death would disperse and the identity of his body might be placed in question (Incarn. of the Word, 26).
The Sign of Jonah
The eighth-century BC prophet Hosea had used the third day time frame for the healing of Israel: “on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence” (Hos. 6:2; cf. 1 Sam. 30:12; 2 Kings 20:5, 8; Lev. 7:17–18). The risen Christ himself “opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day’” (Luke 24:45–46).
The third day was linked liturgically with the wave offering, when “on the day after the Sabbath” the Levitical priest was instructed to “wave the sheaf before the Lord” (each person having brought the priest “a sheaf of the first grain you harvest”); for “On the day you wave the sheaf, you must sacrifice as a burnt offering to the Lord a lamb” (Lev. 23:9–12). The sheaves were waved as a sign to the people that the sacrifice had been offered and accepted. Similarly it occurred in the case of the resurrection, that God’s own sign of acceptance (analogous to sheaf-waving) occurred on the day after the Sabbath, namely Easter Sunday (Pope, Compend. 2:169ff.).
The chief prefigurative type that entered into the memory of the proclaiming church was Jonah. Jesus had said that no sign would be given to his “wicked and adulterous generation” “except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:39–40). Jesus’ death and resurrection was like Jonah’s entombment in and disgorgement from the great fish (Ambrose, Flight from the World, FC 65:296–97).
Raised by Whose Power? The Triune Premise
The resurrection was the act of the triune God—not only of the Father, but also of Son and Spirit. Since God is three in one, it is fitting to teach that “God raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12; cf. 1 Cor. 15:4; Acts 2:24; 13:30), raised by the glory of the Father, by the Son’s own will, through the Spirit.
Paul taught that Christ was “raised from the dead through the glory of the Father” (Rom. 6:4, ital. add.). God the Father, who gives “the Spirit of wisdom,” “raised him from the dead” (Eph. 1:20).
It is not inconsistent, according to the triune premise, to affirm that Jesus rose by his own power. For the Son, being God, had power to raise himself. Christ explicitly stated of himself that he had authority to lay down his life and “authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). This implied a voluntary act of surrendering his life in death, and an equally voluntary act of resuming his life (Eleventh Council of Toledo, SCD 286). When his detractors demanded that he prove his authority to them, Jesus answered in a way that assumed that he himself was the agent of raising in the resurrection: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 3:19).
The Spirit is equally active as an agent of the resurrection, as Paul writes: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (Rom. 8:11). It was “through the Spirit of holiness” that Christ Jesus “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4).
This distinction is useful: when the resurrection is viewed as the vindication of Jesus’ own divine power, it is viewed as the act of the Son. When the resurrection is viewed as the confirmation by the Father of the Son’s life and death, it is viewed as the work of the Father. The triune premise is embedded in Jesus saying: “Whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19; Chrysostom, Hom. on John 38).
Can it be rightly said that the Son brought back to the triune God an enriched Trinity, enhanced by his human experience? Has he who was sent from heaven by the Father into the hazard of history brought out of history a new experience to the deity? It is not fitting to say that God learned something from incarnation or crucifixion, due to the premise of foreknowledge, since the all-wise God foreknew all that was to be known about the unfolding historical events that the disciples witnessed. Being eternal, God lives in eternal simultaneity with all events past and future. Yet since God and humanity are one in Jesus Christ, the costly, hard won experiences of being human. though foreknown from eternity, are received into the eternal memory of the Godhead. Assuming the permeant logic of the theandric union, there is now a person in the Trinity in whom human experience has become indissolubly united in and with the eternal God: “The heart of man and the heart of God beat in the risen Lord” (Mackintosh, PJC: 371).
Resurrection: An Event Without Analogy
Of everyone else it is understandable that healthy skepticism might assume the high improbability of resurrection from the dead. But in Jesus’ case, we are not talking of the usual human situation, for he is the unique theandric surprise unexpectedly embodied in time who breaks through our native skepticism.
The more one learns about Jesus, the more the presumption reasonably shifts in favor of his resurrection—precisely due to who he is. The church was attesting not the resurrection of just anyone, but of the one mediator: Jesus Christ. It is only because of who he was—his identity as Son of God—that he had the power to raise himself up, a deductive argument based upon the premise of theandric union.
The Raising of Enoch, Elijah, and Lazarus Distinguished from Jesus’
In neither Enoch nor Elijah do we have the crucial premises of theandric union and messianic vocation that apply to Jesus. Nor is there an attested direct ascent into heaven. Different distinctions applied to Enoch and Elijah: “Recall that Henoch [Enoch] was translated; but Jesus ascended,” and “Elia [Elijah] ascended as into heaven, but Jesus, into heaven” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 14; Gen. 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11).
In three miracles in the Gospels Jesus is reported as raising others from the dead: the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11–18), the daughter of Jairus (Matt. 9:18–26; Mark 5:22–24, 35–43; Luke 8:40–56), and Lazarus (John 11:43). All point anticipatively toward the coming unparalleled resurrection of Jesus the Son of God.
Yet all three of these events are quite unlike the resurrection of Jesus in that those raised all died again! (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q.53.3). The primary occurrence attested in these narratives is that Christ speaks and the dead hear as if they could hear his voice from the abode of the dead. This suggests that somehow the dead in the tombs were able or made able to hear and obey him.
Only by Jesus may it be claimed: “I have authority to lay [my life] down and to take it up again” (John 10:18). This is what most sharply distinguishes Jesus’ resurrection from all others. Others have been raised by a power not their own. Jesus was raised by his own power, God’s own power. This is why his resurrection is without analogy.
The Untombed at Jesus’ Death
It is in this light that Matthew’s startling account of the moment of Jesus’ death must be understood: “The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people” (Matt. 27:52–53).
This text does not imply that they rose before Jesus’ resurrection, assuming that he was “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). Nor does the passage imply that these believers either continued thereafter to live immortally on earth or ascended into heaven, but rather that “they rose to die again” (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q53.3; following Augustine, Letters, 164, To Evodius). While all of these who rose again from the dead anticipated and prefigured (or, in the case of Tabitha, attested the power of) Jesus’ resurrection, none was of the same genre as the bodily resurrection of Jesus on earth and in heaven.
The Same Body
The same body Jesus received from Mary was raised, glorified, and transformed. “He showed us the conditions of our resurrection in His own flesh, by restoring in His Resurrection the same body which He had from us” (Novatian, Trin. 10, Ursinus, CHC: 234–39). The Council of Constantinople (AD 543) rejected the Origenist tradition’s hypothesis of the ethereal nature and sphericity of the risen body. The glorified state was a real reunion of Christ’s soul with his same body.
At a very early date Ignatius had grasped a pivotal dialectic: “Son of Mary and Son of God” was “first able to suffer” as crucified, “and then unable to suffer” as exalted (Ignatius of Antioch, Eph. 3). “The body was made impassible, which it had been possible to crucify” (Leo I, Serm. 71). Yet there were not two bodies (one crucified, another resurrected), but one.
It was fitting that the risen Christ reassume the same wounded body so as to retain its wounds: to confirm the disciples in their faith in the resurrection; in order rightly to intercede for humanity so as to show the Father what had been suffered for humanity; to demonstrate that it was the same body that had been crucified that was glorified; and to be able to exhibit on the last day the justice of judgment upon the disbelieving and mercy for the redeemed, “as an everlasting trophy of His victory” (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q54.4; Augustine, CG 22).
The showing of marks or signs (tekuria) on his hands and feet, eating, and drinking with his disciples pointed to the mystery of his risen body: He was the same, yet glorified, “of the same nature but of different glory” (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q55.6). “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). He was seen “by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41).
Only the permeant logic of theandric union could have enabled the kind of reasoning we find embedded in the dialectical language of Ambrose: “For the same one suffered and did not suffer; died and did not die; was buried and was not buried; rose again and did not rise again; for the body proper took on life again; for what fell, this rose again; what did not fall, did not rise again. He rose again, therefore, according to the flesh, which, having died, rose again. He did not rise again according to the Word, which had not been destroyed on earth, but remained always with God” (Ambrose, Incarn. of Our Lord 5.36).
Characteristics of the Risen Body: The Same Body Glorified
After the forty days of resurrection appearances and the ascension, the Lord’s body passed into its glorified state. “What that state is we know only so far as may be learned from what the Apostle teaches from the nature of the bodies with which believers are to be invested after the resurrection” (Hodge, Syst. Theol. 2:628). The resurrected life of the believer is like Christ’s glorified body (Phil. 3:21).
Nonetheless, his same risen body was also described as a transformed body, a “glorious body” (Phil. 3:21), a body fit for eternity, a body that could move through doors and walls at any time and appear and disappear; and even those who knew him well did not always recognize him quickly (Luke 24:15–16, 31). Christ caused “immortality to be given to the flesh through resurrection” (Marius Victorinus, Epis. to Phil. 3.21).
The resurrection body had direct continuity with the body that had died, but it now appeared in a changed state of glory. It was not merely flesh and blood physically resuscitated, but a glorified body (Origen, OFP: 252–54). He was capable of appearing and disappearing, of moving from one state to the other while sustaining the identity with the earthly body, and vanishing instantly (Luke 24:31, 36). He truly ate, yet without need (Leo IX, Symbol of Faith, SCD 344; see also SCD 422; Bede, Comm. on Luke 24:41; Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q55.6). It was to the mystery of this spiritual body that the resurrection narratives pointed when they spoke of Christ entering a room through closed doors (John 20:19) or vanishing (Luke 24:31) or suddenly appearing (Mark 16:12; 1 Cor. 15:51–52).
Is the Resurrection Evidence Sufficient?
Is the empty tomb a psychological rationalization or fantasy of the rememberers, hence not “open to empirical verification” (Tillich, Syst. Theol. 2:127, 155–58)? To answer this question, the evidence needs to be fairly presented, as it might be in a fair trial under unprejudiced conditions.
He Appeared to Many
Do the texts support the opinion that the beholder must have first had faith before they saw the risen Lord? No. Thomas had to be convinced visibly by the evidence prior to his confession. The resurrected body of Jesus was seen by those who had not yet come to faith. The despairing Emmaus travelers first saw him and then spoke with him before they recognized him and only then believed (Luke 24:13–32). He was perceived but not personally recognized by the travelers until he was made known in the breaking of bread (for “they were kept from recognizing him,” Luke 24:16). He was mistaken for the gardener until he called Mary by name (John 20:15).
All four Gospels report numerous appearances of the risen Lord. He was seen by Mary Magdalene (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:9; John 20:11–18); the women returning from the tomb (Matt. 28:8–10); Peter (1 Cor. 15:5; Luke 24:34); the Emmaus travelers (Mark 16:12, 13; Luke 24:33–35); the disciples, excepting Thomas, assembled in Jerusalem (Luke 24:36–43), and including Thomas on the next Sunday night (Mark 16:14; John 20:26–29); seven disciples (including Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, and John) beside the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1–24); “more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living” (1 Cor. 15:6); James (1 Cor. 15:7); and all those who witnessed the ascension (Matt. 28:18–20; Mark 16:19; Acts 1:3–12). Paul added to his list: “and last of all he appeared to me also” as to one “untimely born” (1 Cor. 15:8; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect. 14). Acts reported that these appearances spanned forty days (1:3). There may have been other appearances unrecorded.
Luther summarized the types of testimony: “The resurrection of the Lord Christ is made certain (1) by the testimony of His adversaries, (2) by the testimony of His friends, (3) by the testimony of the Lord Himself, and (4) by the testimony of dear prophets and of Holy Scripture” (Luther, WLS 1:181). What follows seeks to assess this evidence fairly.
The Earliest Evidence: The Tomb Was Empty
On Easter morning, women visited the sepulchre where he had been laid. They were astonished to find his body not there. The first layer of evidence is simply an empty tomb.
Shortly thereafter the apostles were actively proclaiming that Jesus had risen. It is hardly convincing that they could have gotten by with inventing this story if it could have been easily squelched by producing the body. But no one could produce the body.
However, there are three standard objections that must be countered.
His Death Could Not Be Made Up
First could it be that Jesus did not actually die on the cross? Perhaps he only fainted? (a theory proposed early by the Gnostics and later by Thomas Huxley, Christianity and Agnosticism: 76–80).
This hypothesis was carefully examined and found deficient by classic scholars on five different grounds: (1) The evidence of his death seemed sufficient to his enemies and to civil officials. The centurion who supervised the crucifixion assured Pilate that Jesus was dead, in effect officially verifying the death (Mark 15:44–45; Ambrose, Prayer of Job and David 1.5.13). (2) The text states plainly the reason the soldiers did not break Jesus’ legs: They “found that he was already dead” (John 19:33; Augustine, Tractates on John 120.1). (3) Joseph of Arimathea “asked Pilate for the body” (John 19:38). “With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away” (John 19:38; Augustine, Trin. 4.13). He was accompanied by Nicodemus. If he were still alive, no one would have described him as “the body.” (4) It is clear from John 19:35 that “John was present at these events” as an eyewitness (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Comm. on John 19.35). (5) Jesus’ body had gone through a complex burial process: “Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen” in accordance with “Jewish burial custom,” and there was “in the garden a new tomb” in which Jesus was laid (John 19:40–42; Chrysostom, Hom. on John 85.4).
Hence it is implausible to imagine that between Friday and Sunday Jesus was not dead. Surely his heartbeat or breath would have been noticed by those attending his wrapping. It is implausible that he could have survived being wrapped in linen and then had strength to remove the boulder that had been set to seal the tomb precisely to prevent any loose talk about a possible resurrection, or that he could have done all this and still not disturbed the Roman guard.
The Location Could Not Have Been Mistaken
Second standard objection: Suppose the women were looking in the wrong place. Two of the women (Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus) had seen where Jesus was laid (Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55) and witnessed the burial, since the eyewitness states in explicit detail their exact location: they were “sitting there opposite the tomb” (Matt. 27:61; Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. Hom. 88.2–3; Simpson, RMT: 45–46; K. Lake, Historical Evidence for the Resurrection: 246–53). It is far-fetched that the women who prepared his body for burial would have forgotten where their Lord was buried.
The Body Could Not Have Been Stolen
Third, perhaps the body was stolen. Could someone have removed the body? It is unlikely that the disciples would or could have covertly removed the body, because a specific plan had been initiated by Pilate to prevent just that (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt., Hom. 89.1; Simpson, RMT: 40–43). The chief priests and Pharisees told Pilate: “We remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead.”
Pilate ordered his guards to “‘make the tomb as secure as you know how.’ So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard” (Matt. 27:62–66). “Because the tomb was sealed, there was no deceitfulness at work” (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. Hom. 89.1). “How could they [the disciples] have burst through the circle of defenders? It would have taken many hands to remove such a great stone that sealed the tomb” (Chrysostom, Gospel of Matt. Hom 90.1).
There may have been an unsuccessful conspiracy to bribe the guards, according to Matthew. The chief priests and elders devised a plan to give “the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep”—a story which has been “widely circulated among the Jews to this very day” (Matt. 28:12–15). Augustine joked at the thinness of the evidence for such a story. Are you going to “bring forward as witnesses men who were sleeping? Truly, it is you who have fallen asleep, you who have failed in examining such things. If they were sleeping, what could they have seen? If they saw nothing, how are they witnesses?” (Expos. on Ps. 64 13).
It is implausible that thieves could have deceived the guards, moved the huge boulder, and taken the body but left the graveclothes—what possible motive could be conceived for that? Alternative explanations strain credulity (Chrysostom, Hom. on Matt. Hom. 90.1; Daniel Whitby, in Angl.: 270).
If the authorities themselves had removed the body, then they would have had at their disposal the ample means of silencing the earliest proclaimers of resurrection. Or if the civil or religious authorities had it in their power to disprove the resurrection, the integrity of the earliest witnesses could have been quickly refuted.
But it was not within their power to disprove the resurrection because they did not have a body. The authorities would have had sufficient motive to squash the resurrection report, but only if they had a body—but they did not. Hence the tomb was empty. Their very silence gives weight and plausibility to the kerygma. “We know that his resurrection was confirmed by the testimony of his enemies” (Scots Confession 10).
All these skeptical theories have serious difficulties. Classical exegetes thought that no hypothesis is more plausible than the straightforward narrative we have, told by persons who hardly can be charged with either psychosis or insincerity. Their testimony was simple: God raised Jesus up to authenticate his messianic mission, to prove his divine sonship.
Finally historical judgment must fall on one side or the other: either the remembering community brought to life the deceptive story of a risen Christ or a living risen Christ brought to life the remembering community. There is no middle way.
The Graveclothes Were Left Collapsed and Undisturbed
Careful unpacking of the evidence presented by John 20:1–9 yields a remarkable conclusion: Jesus’ body was not there, but the graveclothes were there precisely in the place and in the exact form in which he had been lain. The account bears peculiar marks of a direct eyewitness account in its precision and detail. John reached the tomb first and looked in, but Peter entered it first. John entered the tomb and saw something that immediately convinced him that Jesus had risen (Eusebius, To Marinus, Supplement, 2–3).
The account is precise: he “went inside. He saw and believed” (John 20:8). But exactly what evidence did he see that elicited instant belief? Not just the absence of the body, but the particular way the graveclothes were lying, precisely as they would have been as if on the body but now collapsed without the body and left in an undisturbed condition. Joseph and Nicodemus had wound the linen around the body, inserting spices in the folds, and used a separate linen for the head (John 20:40; Chrysostom, Hom. on John, 85.4).
The resurrected body in some way moved through the graveclothes leaving them limp. How do we know this? There was a space between the head napkin and the body clothes. “He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen” (John 20:6–7, italics added; cf. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. Lect 14)! This is what they report as having objectively seen that elicited belief instantly. The linens had not been disturbed by anyone and lay limply like a discarded cocoon (Leo, Serm. 71.3; Stott, BC: 53). His glorified body had passed through them (H. Latham, The Risen Master, 1–3) without disturbing them. It is astonishing that we have such a precise description of such a crucial moment by an eyewitness that has survived twenty centuries. “The linen clothes also, which enveloped Him and which He left behind when He rose” were early regarded as silent “witnesses.” Three centuries later, Cyril of Jerusalem was confident that the specific location of this sepulchre had been correctly remembered and identified, “the spot itself, still to be seen” (namely, the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the very place where Cyril was offering his catechetical lectures, Catech. Lect. 14).
Eusebius reasoned: “The cloths lying within seem to me at once to furnish also a proof that the body had not been taken away by people, as Mary supposed. For no one taking away the body would leave the linens, nor would the thief ever have stayed until he had undone the linens and so be caught…. For God, who transforms the bodies of our humiliation so as to be conformed to the body of Christ’s glory, changed the body as an organ of the power that dwelt in it, changing it into something more divine. But he left the linen cloths as superfluous and foreign to the nature of the body” (To Marinus, Suppl. 2).
True or False Testimony?
Could the testimony be based on an invention or hallucination? If the testimony had been sporadic or dubious, these reports might be easier to dismiss. But one must search for some explanation of the extensive testimonies to Jesus’ resurrection.
Three hypotheses seem to exhaust the possibilities: they were either inventions, hallucinatory projections, or true. The first is sometimes called the fraud theory, and the second the projection theory. These challenges have been carefully examined and answered by the classic exegetes.
If one believes from the outset that there cannot under any circumstances be a third alternative (that he truly rose), then one must scramble hard for some way to support one of the other two hypotheses. If the examination rules out from the beginning the possibility that any resurrection can ever occur in any sense, then the examiner is no longer looking at historical evidence concerning the resurrection—there is no need of that—but rather imposing a predisposing philosophical bias upon historical investigation.
The Invention Theory Is Implausible
The problem with the hypothesis of invention is that the narratives are exceedingly graphic and enriched by the specific features of an eyewitness. They show every evidence of being the testimony of people who were there and candidly reporting exactly what they saw (Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels 3.24). The narratives of the discovery of the empty tomb seem to be too particularized to be fabricated, too molded by specific detail to have been invented.
If the Easter narratives were invented, we would say that they were not very good inventions. If someone had wanted to contrive a resurrection story, would it sound like the meeting on the Emmaus road? If one were inventing the story, one might at least have played down the resistance and anxieties of the disciples. The Gnostic noncanonical narratives of the resurrection indeed do display many such embellishments, but they do not have the plausibility and concreteness of the New Testament narratives.
The Projection Claim Generates Serious Objections
A hallucination is the supposed perception of an object that does not exist. Did all these above-named (more than five hundred) eyewitnesses see a risen Christ that was not there? The problem with the hypothesis of hallucination or projection is that it requires two elements missing in the Gospel narratives: intensified wish projection and memory-eliciting occasions.
The core of the projection theory is found in Hegel, anticipating Freudian views of wish projection: “The need for religion finds its satisfaction in the risen Jesus” (Hegel, The Spirit of Christianity, OCETW: 292). The projection theory requires that there be a strong disposition on the part of the rememberers in a particular, predisposing direction.
The texts indicate the opposite tendency, “because their hearts were not disposed so as to accept readily the faith in the Resurrection. Then He says Himself [Luke 24:25]: O foolish and slow of heart to believe; and [Mark 16:14]: He upbraided them with their incredulity” (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q55.6). The evidence against projection is compelling (Augustine, Sermon 236).
Thomas even more stubbornly refused to credit the reports—“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it” (John 20:25)! Far from being portrayed as intensely expecting the resurrection, the disciples were portrayed as stubbornly resistant, cautious, and skeptical. Jesus indicated their resistance when he described them as “slow of heart to believe” (Luke 24:25; Augustine, Sermon 352.4).
John’s Gospel specifically notes that at the time Peter and “the other disciple” (John himself) reached the empty tomb to inspect it, “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9, italics added). Thus they were no frame of mind that corresponds to a projection.
The range of moods in which the disciples were found by the risen Lord were extremely varied: grief (Mary Magdalene), skepticism (Thomas), fear (the women), remorse (Peter). Some appearances were to persons alone, others to small groups, others to large groups. There is no pattern in the situations of the appearances and no plausible psychosocial evidence on which to base a theory of hallucinatory projection. So the hallucinatory hypothesis must itself press and stretch the evidence in order to pretend plausibility.
Deciding Fairly About the Evidence: Why the Account Is True
The only remaining option is that the account is true. According to Thomas Aquinas’ analysis, Jesus sufficiently manifested the truth of his resurrection by showing that he had (1) a physical body after death (he is remembered as eating); (2) an emotive life capable of interpersonal relationships (by greeting and talking with others); (3) an intellectual life (by dialogue and discoursing on Scripture); and (4) the divine nature (by working the miracle of the draft of fishes, and by ascending).
Each of these four testimonies or proofs “was sufficient to its own class,” so as to maintain a correspondence between the testimony of human observers and testimony of Scriptures (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q55.6). Daniel Whitby concluded: “Tis equally incredible that they [the disciples] should deceive or be deceived” (Angl.: 271).
Something Must Have Changed Their Lives
The radically changed behavior of the disciples after the resurrection is the most obvious evidence of the resurrection. They do not intend or propose that we look at their behavior—all they want us to do is look at the evidence on which they base their testimony. But their behavior itself becomes a compelling argument for the authenticity of their testimony.
Their lives were completely reversed by the resurrection. They were changed persons after the resurrection. This is evident in their actions. They had left the burial scene with a deep sense of loss, facing the collapse of what they had hoped would be the decisive event in Israel’s history. Suddenly these same persons we see portrayed in Acts as willing to “risk their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 15:26), who were proceeding to “turn the world upside down” to attest the living Lord (Acts 17:6). Their behavioral change was instantaneous, radical, and enduring. Some cause must be posited to account for such a sweeping change.
Two Cases in Point—Peter and James
What caused Peter’s change? During the trial Peter had denied that he had ever known Jesus—three times! Peter and the other disciples had anxiously met “together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19). Within days after the resurrection he was preaching with such extraordinary power that “three thousand people were added to their number that day” and baptized (Acts 2:41). What had changed him? “He spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (Acts 2:31–32). Soon he was calling all hearers to repentance, healing the lame, challenging the Sanhedrin, and suffering persecution on behalf of this testimony. What had happened? It is not just that something had happened, but that everything had changed. It is unconvincing to imagine that a falsification or mistaken perception could have elicited this change.
What caused James’s change? He was one of the relatives of the Lord who had resisted him, who “did not believe in him” (John 7:5). But after the resurrection, James became a major figure among those attesting the resurrection. Paul specifically noted that “he appeared to James” at some later point after he had appeared to the five hundred (1 Cor. 15:7).
The primary evidence for the resurrection today remains: changed lives, walking testimonies, people willing to proclaim the good news the world over. “It is prodigious to think that a poor ignorant young man, of meanest birth and breeding of a most hateful nation, and hated by that nation to the death, because pretending that He was a prophet sent from God, and after this His death, only avouched to be so by twelve fishermen, pretending with loud boasts of miracles, false as God is true, to testify His Resurrection through a greater falsehood, and promising to all that would believe it nothing besides this power of working miracles but death and miseries at present, which their experience proved to be true; I say, it is prodigious to think that He and His disciples should with no other charms work such a lasting faith in all the wisest part of men, that neither time nor vice, though most concerned to do so, should ever be able to deface it” (Daniel Whitby, Angl.: 272).
After Jesus’ resurrection, many religious leaders desired to stamp out any sign of the preaching of his resurrection. But the wise rabbi Gamaliel urged caution in applying this test: “Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:38–39). Gamaliel “all but preached the gospel” (Chrysostom, Hom. on Acts, 14).
The Nature of Resurrection Evidence
The most indisputable evidence for the resurrection is the continuing existence of the Christian community itself. Some hypothesis is necessary to make plausible the transformation of the disciples from grieving followers of a crucified messiah to those whose resurrection preaching changed the course of world history. That change could not have happened, according to the church’s testimony, without the risen Lord. There would have been no community to remember the cross had there not been those whose lives were transformed by their actual meeting with the risen Lord (Chrysostom, Hom. on Acts, 1).
It is only a living Christ, thought Athanasius, who could be empowering the witness of martyrs who do not flinch from torture. The demonstration of his resurrection lies in factually embodied evidence—that of persons whose lives have been decisively changed by the One who is alive. One dead gradually ceases to influence. Christ’s death increased his influence. The works of costly witness and service are not “of one dead, but of one that lives” (Athanasius, Incarn. of the Word 30).
Attested as a Fact
Jesus’ resurrection is not considered myth or symbol in the New Testament documents but simply a fact attested by credible witnesses: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (Acts 2:32; Cyril of Jerus., Catech. Lect., 13).
The church did not receive its life from a moral teacher whose body was decomposing in the grave, but from one whose incomparable power made him known as risen Lord. The conclusion that the resurrection actually occurred as an event in history, not merely as a figment of imagination, is integral to the gospel (Chrysostom, Hom. on Cor. 39.3–4).
There is no evidence that the resurrection narratives were contrived and foisted upon the remembering community some months or years after Jesus’ death. The resurrection testimony could not have exercised the power that it did in the lives of the apostles if it were not rooted in an actual occurrence immediately attested (Ambrose, On His Brother Satyrus 2.103). Its truth value for its attestors depended entirely upon its authenticity as historical occurrence.
Differences in Detail of Resurrection Reports Enrich Their Authenticity
Those who were reporting the resurrection were reporting an event for which they had no adequate language. Of such an event it is not to be expected that the reports will display absolute coherence in every detail. That seldom occurs even in a court of law where testimony is strictly controlled.
Whether there were one or two angels (Mark 16:5; Luke 24:4) or whether the resurrection appearances were all in Jerusalem (Mark) or Galilee (Luke) or in both places (Matthew and John) remains a matter of textual analysis that takes into account the sources and context of the writers.
There was no fixation upon neatly harmonizing the chronologies. This reveals the confidence of the attestors in the authenticity of the accounts. Differences of detail were due to the fact that each Evangelist was selecting from numerous testimonies, traditions, and recollections available to him. The alleged inconsistencies are due to our historical ignorance or lack of attentiveness to the texts (Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels).
Many witnesses were still alive at the time Paul wrote to Corinth. They were available to correct statements made about these appearances.
Witness to the Resurrection a Criterion of Apostolicity
When it became necessary to choose someone to replace Judas among the Twelve after his apostasy, the stated criterion was that he must be an eyewitness who has “been with us the whole time,” “beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection” (Acts 1:21–22). Matthias was chosen.
On a special basis Paul was regarded as an apostle, for “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (1 Cor. 15:8). Thus Paul also was considered a witness to the resurrected Lord (Chrysostom, Hom. on Cor. 38.5–7).
The Willingness to Die a Premise of Testimony to the Resurrection
Witness to this event necessarily called for the witnesses’ readiness to die for this truth. Lacking historical credibility, it would hardly be a truth to die for. Those willing to attest the resurrection in fact did so at the risk of their lives. This makes it more than casual testimony.
Cyril of Jerusalem wrote: “Twelve disciples were witnesses of his resurrection, and the measure of their witness is not their winning speech, but their striving for the truth of the resurrection unto torture and to death” (Catech. Lect. 4.12). Their witness to his resurrection made them more alive than ever, despite the risks. “Paul, this athlete of Christ, who was anointed by Christ…was nailed to the cross, and through him made glorious” (Augustine, CG 14.9).
Resurrection No Less Possible Than Creation
Is it more difficult to believe that God can create renewed life out of death than out of nothing? When compared to the miracle of creation, resurrection does not look so implausible. “If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:11–15; Chrysostom, Fourth Instruction 12–16, ACW 31:71–72).
Both creation and resurrection are finally a matter of God speaking a word: “If you ask reason to explain this, you will never believe it. But then God will prove His divine power and majesty. Thus He did when He created heaven and earth out of nothing. He spoke only one word, and immediately they stood there. So it will be at the time of the resurrection” (Luther, Serm. on the Death of Elector Frederick).
Naturalistic reasoning puts up stiff resistance to the entire idea of resurrection. Understandably so, for “no article so contradicts experience as this one does. For our eyes see that all the world is swept away by death…. Therefore it is necessary for every Christian to have before him the testimony of the Holy Scripture concerning the resurrection” (Luther, Serm. on John 20:1). The textual evidence is of utmost value to the worshiping community, and not to be easily dismissed (Eusebius, To Marinus, 2–3).
Modesty in Evidentiary Presentation
It is too much to ask of any historical event that it be historically validated according to the analogy of laboratory experiment. Historical argument generally proceeds without the types of verification required in natural science and would be hampered by them.
The resurrection was a unique event without analogy in human experience. There was no other instance with which the witnesses could compare it. “Therefore the generalizations and rules of historical inquiry cannot, when exclusively employed, enable us either to demonstrate its reality or to overthrow its credibility” (Hall, DT 7:170).
This is why a general principle of modesty and toleration is fitting to this subject. There remains an element of mystery in all historical events, and not only those attesting divine revelation. Trustworthy historical inquiry does not claim omnicompetence.
It is demeaning to the resurrection narratives to treat them as if they are merely objective reporting. Hegel’s admonition, though overstated, should be carefully weighed: “To consider the resurrection of Jesus as an event is to adopt the outlook of the historian, and this has nothing to do with religion. Belief or disbelief in the resurrection as a mere fact deprived of its religious interest is a matter for the intellect whose occupation (the fixation of objectivity) is just the death of religion, and to have recourse to the intellect means to abstract from religion. But, of course, the intellect seems to have a right to discuss the matter” (OCETW: 292).
Gregory Nazianzus plunged deeper. He thought that the limits of historical argument would be inevitably met in the mystery of the empty tomb, so that God’s strength would be made perfect through our weakness: “For when we leave off believing and protect ourselves by mere strength of argument, and destroy the claim which the Spirit has upon our faith by questionings, and then our argument is not strong enough for the importance of the subject (and this must necessarily be the case, since it is put in motion by an organ of so little power as is our mind), what is the result? The weakness of the argument appears to belong to the mystery” (Orat. 29.21). If one appeared to present an airtight case of evidence for resurrection, so that the argument appears stronger than the event it attests, then the human ability to present evidence towers over the event itself. That would detract from the mystery to which the intrinsically limited evidence seeks to point (Kierkegaard, TC, 2).
No Event of Jesus’ Life Musters More Evidence Than His Resurrection
No aspect of Jesus’ ministry was more minutely recorded than his resurrection. Due to the pivotal importance of his resurrection, the evidence for it appears to have been assiduously collected, transmitted, and embedded in the essential proclamation of salvation attested by the earliest Christian communities. The Gospel narratives seem to be saying to us that if we cannot credit the last validating episode of his life, we are not likely to grasp anything else said about him (Augustine, CG 22.12–22).
The Gospels set forth the multiple layers of resurrection evidences. To refuse to consider the evidence is not only biased historical inquiry, it amounts to a fundamental philosophical decision about what is knowable. “The decision to accept Jesus as Lord cannot be made without historical evidence—yes, historical—about Jesus. If it were a decision without any historical evidence it would not be about Jesus (a historical person) but only about an ideology or an ideal” (C. F. D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the NT: 78).
The resurrection provided evidence to the disciples that Jesus is the Christ (Tertullian, Ag. Marcion 5.9–10). A major reason for writing the Gospels was to summon up this evidence (John 20:31; Hilary, Trin., 6.41–42) and communicate it accurately. The gospel Paul proclaimed far and wide was summarized simply as “the good news about Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:19). The faithful thought that those who rejected the resurrection were thereby rejecting the whole revelation of the Son of God (Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh), who “enlightened our faith with proofs,” (Bonaventure Tree of Life, CWS: 16).
Resurrection: The Proof of Lordship
What the Resurrection Demonstrates
The resurrection was viewed in the New Testatment as evidentiary demonstration of Jesus’ messianic identity. This notion of proof comes directly from Jesus himself. Jesus clearly indicated that he would rise from the dead within three days. Luke, who said that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning,” and who reported things “just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:2–3), insisted that “After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. (Acts 1:3, italics added; Chrysostom, Hom. on Acts, 1).
The disclosure of Christ’s deity was to come not by rational argument alone but by historical argument of events which would stand as tekmērion (“infallible proofs”), “an evident sign affording positive proof.” Jesus’ resurrection was the decisive event that proved the truth already attested in Scripture (Chrysostom, Hom. on Acts, 1; Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q55.6).
The first Christian confession was the simple, straightforward acknowledgment: “Jesus is Lord.” Such a statement could never have been plausibly made if it lacked the evidences for the resurrection.
That Jesus is Lord meant that he now lives, despite his death, as the living God. The Gospels were written to proclaim the kingdom of God known through the resurrection, not to satisfy the picayune or ideological interests of social history or literary criticism centuries later.
His birth and death were natural in the sense that he really was born and really died in a way familiar to ordinary human existence. Yet his conception and resurrection were preternatural (transcending empirical explanation) in the sense that he was both conceived and resurrected in a way without any analogy in ordinary human experience. There is strong congruity in both respects between the nativity and resurrection accounts. If he were indeed the unique eternal Son of the annunciation, it is only natural to expect that he would leave the world in a unique way fitting to his appearing (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Christian Mode of Life, FC 58:141–2).
The Earliest Testimony: 1 Corinthians 15:3–7
Suppose it could be demonstrated that we have in hand a source exceptionally close to the resurrection event itself. Would that not mute the argument that the resurrection has its source in a much later remembering church rather than an event that had just occurred on the first Easter? We do have such an account. The most primitive written source attesting the resurrection is Paul’s Letter to Corinth. There are several reasons why this source is of very early date.
Paul was by his own attestation using language that had been directly passed on to him from eyewitnesses. “For what I received I passed on to you” (1 Cor. 15:3). By reliable evidence, Paul was converted about AD 33 or shortly thereafter. Hence we have an account of what the church already considered to be an established tradition only a few months after the event itself (Chrysostom, Hom. on Cor., 38.2).
The fact that the early church accepted Paul’s testimony as a beholder of a resurrection appearance—probably within months after the other disciples—also attests to the exceptionally early date of this tradition: “and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born” (1 Cor. 15:8; Theodoret, Comm. on 1 Cor., 266).
Ironically, the probable reason why the attestations of women were not in Paul’s account of 1 Corinthians 15 is that Paul was here attempting to provide an account that would be acceptable under the specific conditions of a court of law of his time. Since women were not admitted as official witnesses in a court of law, the appearances to women were not mentioned. Paul’s omission thereby indicates that he had deliberately shortened his list to provide the most officially acceptable evidence available. This does not mean that the women’s testimony was questionable or that Paul had discounted it, but that it did not have sufficient standing in formal court testimony. But it did not escape the notice of the classic exegetes that it was to women that Christ appeared first (Ambrose, Expos. Of Luke 10.144–6). Women were “first to see and proclaim the adorable mystery of the Resurrection; thus womankind has procured absolution from ignominy, and removal of the curse” (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q55.1).
Why were women, not men, the first beholders? “Because the women whose love for our Lord was more persistent,” Thomas reasoned, “did not depart” after the others had withdrawn from the sepulchre—hence “were the first to see Him rising in glory” (Tho. Aq., ST 3 Q55.1; cf. Phoebe Palmer, The Promise of the Father; Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her).
The Modern Mythographers: Rewriting the Texts to Fit with Reductive Naturalism
Is the Resurrection Merely the Rise of Faith?
If one begins by entirely eliminating the possibility of resurrection, then the worshiping community’s reflection upon the revelation of God is effectively immobilized. This has in fact happened in the tradition from David Friedrich Strauss to Bultmann. Bultmann concluded that “The resurrection itself is not an event of past history.” “The real Easter faith is faith in the word of preaching. If the event of Easter Day is in any sense an historical event additional to the event of the cross, it is nothing else than the rise of faith in the risen Lord (New Testament and Mythology, KM: 42).
Tillich also specifically denied that the resurrection of Jesus had “the character of a revived (and transmuted) body”—rather it was thought to have had the character of only a diffuse “spiritual presence,” not a body (Syst. Theol. 2:157). The only “event” he can identify is that which occurs in the minds of the disciples when they connected Jesus with the reality of the New Being, and it is that “event” that became “interpreted through the symbol ‘Resurrection.’” (Syst. Theol. 2:157). Bultman and Tillich, under the spell of existential analysis, desperately attempting to accommodate to modern consciousness, do not take the evidence seriously; rather in fact they interdict all evidence, because they have already decided in advance that it is not credible evidence. This is why they find the New Testament so hard to read and so belabored in its interpretation.
A prevailing assumption of much modern historical interpretation is that nothing preternatural can happen or ever has. Almost anything can be alleged as a historical event except an event that alleges a divine cause. Yet the Bible constantly alleges God as causal factor in events. Hence the conflict continues between modern historicism and the Bible.
In the parable of the poor man, Lazarus, Jesus pictured him as saying to Abraham: “If someone from the dead goes to them”—those who find their righteousness in the law—“they will repent.” Abraham answered: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:30–31). Here is an anticipation that some would not be prepared to listen to any evidence of God’s coming—even the evidence of one risen from the dead! (Jerome, On Lazarus and Dives 86).
The Reductionist Bias
The kind of evidentiary presentation that is so painstakingly displayed in the New Testament is peremptorily ruled out in advance on the basis of a rigid philosophical commitment to naturalistic reductionism. This preempting takes place largely in the modern university and only occasionally in the clergy—seldom in the worshiping congregation or even in the general modern populace.
If one begins by first deciding that no resurrection can ever occur and that no evidence could ever convince anyone that a resurrection had happened or ever could, then there is little sense in trying to convince such a person of this resurrection. One had best seek to show such a person that such a premise amounts to a predecided bias, a prejudgment based on philosophical grounds prior to the presentation of evidence. Much of the effort of New Testament studies of the last century has proceeded under just this bias and with this handicap. No amount of evidence for an event will persuade one who remains doggedly committed to a philosophical predisposition that has already in advance precluded the possibility of that event’s occurrence.
The challenge then becomes to explain the New Testament without the resurrection or to assert reasons for a plausible belief in resurrection yet without a resurrection. For over a hundred years, this line of reasoning has been applied to the debunking of the bodily resurrection by means of alleged criticism and psychological analysis.
If one depends exclusively upon a historical method that starts with a postulate that begs the question by assuming that an alleged event cannot happen, then that method has ceased to study history and has begun to assert untested axiomatic philosophical predispositions (1 Tim. 4:1; Ambrose, Of Christian Faith, 2.15.133–5).
Modern skepticism approaches the resurrection narratives with a predisposition to disbelief, sometimes with absolutely fixed determination not to hear the evidence, not unlike the Athenians who first heard of the resurrection from Paul: “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered” (Acts 17:32). Luther found the same response in his time: “Moreover, to this day there are many who laugh all the more at this article, consider it a fable, and do so publicly, the greater their mind and learning are” (Luther, Bondage of the Will).
No Historical Event Can Be Duplicated or Seen by All, Each Only Attested by Some
The natural sciences cannot, without overleaping their method, put the resurrection (or any historical event) under duplicable conditions, for history is not reduplicable. That is where history differs from science. Good natural science is aware of its own limits and does not transgress them. When the natural sciences claim that nothing can be observed or be said to exist except that which comes within empirical observation, “they venture into an extra-scientific field and indulge in an a priori dogmatism for which their specialized methods of inquiry afford no basis” (Hall, DT 7:166).
Jesus appeared to numerous witnesses (Acts 10:40–41). But why not to everyone, instead of some? The resurrection in this sense is more rather than less like other historical events—seen only by some (Tho. Aq., ST 3, Q55.1). What other historical event was ever seen by all?
Peter preached that “God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:40–41; Severus of Antioch, Catena on Acts 10.42). That this event was attested only by some, not all, humanity qualifies rather than disqualifies it as a historical event, for ironically an event alleged to be seen by all could hardly have been an event in ordinary history. When the decisive event comes, it comes quietly, personally, in low key, and like ordinary events it happens in the presence of some and not others.
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). For the apostles, this spiritual discernment depended heavily upon accurate evidence (Chrysostom, Hom. on Cor., 7.9–11).
The Believers’ Participation in Christ’s Resurrection
The resurrection forms the basis for the believer’s hope amid death. By sharing in Christ’s resurrection by faith, the believer is delivered from the power of death.
Four benefits to believers accrue from the resurrection: “For by it (1) righteousness is obtained for us (Rom. 4:24); (2) it is a sure pledge of our future immortality (1 Cor. 15); and (3) even now by its virtue we are raised to newness of life, that we may (4) obey God’s will by pure and holy living (Rom. 6:4)” (Calvin, Catech. of the Church of Geneva, italics and numbers added; cf. Augustine, Trin., FC 45:382–87).
Luther wrote of the believer’s new life quickened with him: “I believe that He rose on the third day from the dead, to give me and to all who believe in Him a new life; and that He has thereby quickened us with Him, in grace and in the Spirit, that we may sin no more, but serve Him alone in every grace and virtue” (Brief Explanation, WML 2:370).