“Fact-Checking” the Resurrection
The resurrection of Christ Jesus was not a fantasy or a vast conspiracy. There were too many witnesses and too much written testimony to easily dismiss it. Today, skeptics should be encouraged to examine the historical evidence and then consider the evidence of Christ’s church.
Is Christianity private or public? Does the truth about Christ Jesus, who is the object of my faith, depend on my own private beliefs, or is there something verifiable that can be “fact-checked”? The reason I pose these questions is because we are living in a time when the determination of truth and untruth have turned inward, making one’s own personal beliefs the measure of what is true or not.
While examining and verifying evidence and testimony may be found in courts of law, in the press and many political and personal interactions it is common to observe persons passing off as truth what are merely their own feelings, opinions, and beliefs, often without evidence or verifiable testimony.
The resurrection of Jesus was a very public miracle.
Not so with the resurrection of Christ Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus was a very public miracle witnessed by many and supported by evidence at the time it occurred and afterward. The evidence is recorded in Scripture. There are about 5,250 ancient Greek manuscripts of books and parts of the New Testament that record Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The earliest is dated to about 90 years after his death (Rylands Library Papyrus 52).
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A Lesson on Wisdom and Folly: An Ecclesiastes Meditation, Part II
Written by Samuel G. Parkison |
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
God’s Wisdom, by the power of his Spirit, makes us like himself. The Triune God shapes us into the image of true Wisdom. To be brought into Christ, then, is to be brought into Wisdom. And to become more like Christ (to become who we are—the journey of sanctification in the Christian life) is to become wise.Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning! Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness! Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks. Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life, and money answers everything. Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich, for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter.(Ecclesiastes 10:16-20)
This chapter ends with further wisdom regarding kings and their influence on a land. A foolish king is a disaster for the land, and a wise king is a great blessing to the land. The higher the authority, the higher the stakes. Foolishness and sin have ripple effects for everyone, of course, but the greater the authority, the further the ripple effects extend. So, a child who acts sinfully effects the home. But not as severely as when a mother acts sinfully. And whether he realizes it or not, a husband and father’s sinfulness have a far greater impact on the home than anyone else. Likewise, when a member of the church breaks his marriage vows, the whole body is affected. But not nearly as affected as when a pastor breaks his marriage vows.
When a king is a fool, it is disastrous for the whole land, because his influence stretches far. But when the king is wise, it blesses the whole land for the exact same reason. We should also note folly and wisdom here is all about fittingness. This puts us squarely within the conversation of natural theology. God has created the world and we must live in it. There is a nature to everything—including wine, laughter, money, and authority. It is unnatural—unfitting, foolish—for a king to feast and drink in the morning in a spirit of pure indulgence; to be lazy, ignoble and childish. But it is natural—fitting, wise—for a king to conduct himself with nobility and hard-working diligence; to drink and feast at the right time. Since wisdom begins with a fear of the Lord, it knows that God has created everything in its proper place, and to try to impose our own wishes on nature is folly. The best kind of authority recognizes that it is under authority.
One of the best illustrations of this kind of kingly authority is the example of King Lune in Lewis’s Narnia classic, The Horse and His Boy. In this story, King Lune finds his long-lost son, Cor, who is heir to his throne. Cor also has a brother, named Corin, and he would rather Corin be king. But the wisdom King Lune demonstrates how authority doesn’t change nature—it doesn’t buck against natural hierarchies or roles of responsibility—but rather harmonizes with it:
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Ten Looks at Jesus, Part 2
In his extravagant generosity, grace, and mercy, he will lavish his people not only with entrance to a new heavens and new earth, where righteousness dwells, but on top of it all, he will reward his people for what good they have done “in the body” (2 Corinthians 5:10). On that great day, we will see it with our own eyes — and feel its full effects as recipients of his great mercy by faith: our advocate will stand supreme as final judge and complete the arc of his glories as the God-man.
We ended the first session, and Look #5, with why Jesus was despised, rejected, and crushed to death at the cross: for us, for “the many,” for those who receive him through faith (Isaiah 53:4–6). I noted there, at the end, “the joy set before him.” That, as Isaiah 53:11 foretold, “out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.” In other words, it pleased him. He delighted to be put to death. His willing was not an empty willing but a full, satisfied willing — full enough to sustain him in horrifying agony and suffering.
But what such joy requires is resurrection. If Jesus stays dead, there is no joy, no delight, no God-honoring and church-loving willingness. But resurrection is right there in Isaiah 53:10–12:
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;he has put him to grief;when his soul makes an offering for guilt,he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,make many to be accounted righteous,and he shall bear their iniquities.Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,because he poured out his soul to deathand was numbered with the transgressors;yet he bore the sin of many,and makes intercession for the transgressors.
So much there: substitution, willing submission, intercession (which we’ll come to). But for now, amazingly, resurrection:Verse 10: “He shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.”
Verse 11: “He shall see [his offspring] and be satisfied.”
Verse 12: “I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death.”The resurrection is not icing on the cake of Christianity. With Christ’s life and his death, it is the cake. If he did not rise, then he is dead — and it all falls apart. Unlike with sacrificial animals, appointed as a temporary provision, the once-for-all salvation is not accomplished without the resurrection of the suffering servant.
So before we go on, here are our five looks at Jesus so far:He delighted his Father before creation.
He became man.
He lived for his Father’s glory.
He humbled himself.
He died for sins not his own.Now, to the rest of our ten looks at Christ.
Look #6: He rose again.
Colossians 1:15–20 might be the most important six consecutive verses in the Bible. Here we find both creation and salvation cast in utterly Christ-centered terms:
[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead.” During his life, all those he restored to life died again. But when Jesus rose again, he rose never to die again.
Our key term for Look #6 is resurrection. Which means not to be restored to your fallen, human body to die again, but to rise in your body to the indomitable life of the next age. It is a real body. In fact, we might even say a more real body. What will be true of us was true of Christ’s human body first. 1 Corinthians 15:42–44:
What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body [not a spirit but a spiritual body]. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
So resurrection refers first to Jesus’s human body, then also, in him, to ours. And the resurrection of Christ not only made good on God’s word, and not only vindicated Christ’s sinless life, and not only confirmed the achievement of his death, and not only gives us access to his work, but the resurrection means he is alive to know and enjoy forever.
There is no final good news if our Treasure and Pearl of Great Price is dead. Even if our sins could be paid for, righteousness provided and applied to us, and heaven secured, but Jesus were still dead, there would be no great salvation in the end. At the very center of Christ’s resurrection is not what he saves us from, but what he saves us to — better, whom he saves us to: himself.
Look #7: He ascended into heaven.
Twice Luke writes about Jesus’s ascension. The first time at the end of his Gospel, Luke 24:50–51:
[Jesus] led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.
Then, in more detail, at the beginning of Acts:
When [the disciples] had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:6–11)
So, Luke 24 says, “He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” And Acts 1 says, “He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Then the angel says, “Jesus . . . was taken up from you into heaven.”
Jesus — in his risen human body — was lifted up, carried up, taken up, until a cloud shielded the sight of his apostles, and he was gone. And this was no novelty act. This was crucial for the presentation of his finished work in the very presence of the Father and for the fulfilling of the ancient prophesies of his sitting on David’s throne and ruling as sovereign over the nations.
Christ’s Coronation
Luke 24 and Acts 1 give us the earthly vantage of his ascension. But we also get a glimpse from the other side in Hebrews 1. His ascension, human body and all, brings him to heaven, and Hebrews 1 captures something of this great moment of his processing to the throne and being crowned king of the universe. Hebrews 1:3 says,
After making purification for sins [that is, through his death, and being raised and ascending], he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Hebrews 1:5 then takes the great coronation hymn of Psalm 2 and applies its Messianic declaration to Jesus as the heir of David: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.” And Hebrews 1:6 says that “when he brings [carries, lifts up, takes up] the firstborn into the world [that is, “the world to come,” Hebrews 2:5], he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’”
All this to set the scene for Psalm 110 in Hebrews 1:13: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” Not a full account, by any means, but a taste of that climactic moment of coronation on the other side of the ascension.
Enthroned as Man
There are two critical realities worth mentioning with his enthronement and sitting down. (1) In taking his seat on the very throne of heaven, he comes into the fullness of divine sovereignty, and now as man. As he says at the end of Matthew, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). It always was his as God. But now, he has come into full possession of the divine rule over the universe and all nations as man, sitting as the climactic human king on the throne of heaven.
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A Different Way of Growing Churches
It was the habitus [habitual behavior] of patient endurance that made Christianity both deeply disturbing and yet attractive to outsiders amid the turmoil, paganism and hurly burly of the first century.
What did the early Christians actually do?
In Evangelism in the Early Church,[1] Michael Green declares ‘A priority of the early Christians seems to have been to have personal conversations with individuals.’ But Green’s emphasis on every Christian being a personal evangelist got it wrong.
That is the claim of Alan Kreider’s recent investigation into the church of the first few centuries, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.[2] In fact, the teaching given to Christians in those early days after the apostolic period contains no instruction in, or pressure to do, what we call personal evangelism. It seems that Green was assuming twentieth century evangelistic methods and trying to find a rationale for them which simply wasn’t there. In the NT there is no constraint put on ordinary believers to buttonhole their neighbours and confront them with the claims of Christ. Rather what we find is that Christians are to ‘make the most of every opportunity’ when their stand-out lives provoke questions from people (Col 4:5-6; 1 Pet 3:15). It is a responsive witness, not an aggressive one.
This also looks much more like what Kreider finds in the writings of early fathers like Justin, Tertullian and Cyprian and what has been discovered of ancient catechisms.
The church during those years not only withstood empire-wide persecution but grew remarkably. How did it grow? We need to ask that question. As we see the current state of the churches in the West, we must have wondered at some point whether we have been missing something vital—something which builds better churches in the long run.
I do not think that we should swallow what Kreider has to say uncritically. But it is worth pondering what he has found in his investigation of the sources.
Four Basic Elements
According to Kreider the early church grew through a combination of four things, all of which are counter-cultural, to a greater or lesser extent, to current mainstream evangelicalism. These were:Patience—this virtue was centrally important to the early churches and early Christians. The first attribute of love, according to Paul, is that it is patient (1 Cor 13:4). Whatever the circumstances, patience reigned.
‘Habitus’—habitual behaviour. They took seriously that it was behaviour that spoke truly about what they believed. ‘We do not speak great things, but we live them,’ said Cyprian.[3] A ‘Sermon on the Mount’ patient generosity was to be the Christian’s default setting even under persecution.
Catechesis and worship—the churches committed to forming these habits of behaviour in their members. A thorough catechesis, which majored on a changed life rather than simply the acceptance of certain doctrines, was the way habits were nurtured. Deep engagement with God in worship provided the motivation in maintaining that changed life.
Ferment—they relied not on Christian activism, but on God’s invisible power to fulfil his plans, which was seen as not susceptible to human control. Kreider chooses the metaphor of fermentation because, though it is a relentless process, it is both unseen and not in a hurry. The churches were grown by the life of the Spirit not by thrusting evangelistic strategies.
These elements of church life don’t look very much like the exhortations we receive in our churches today. This should make us curious. It was the habitus of patient endurance that made Christianity both deeply disturbing and yet attractive to outsiders amid the turmoil, paganism and hurly burly of the first century.
Character Formation
Instead of making it as easy as possible to become members of the church, it was emphasized that to become a Christian meant committing oneself to a deep change of life. A course of catechesis before baptism and joining the church could take up to three years.
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