I have taken part today in an on-going discussion about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. As always I was distressed and confused by some Christians who deny the physical resurrection of our Lord.
One contributor asked two questions:
1. Why do Followers of the Jesus Way need a body in the tomb or even a literal resurrection?
2. Why not free Jesus, the Man and his message for contemporary minds, from something that was of little interest to the authentic Paul and to pre-70 C.E?
Why do ‘Followers of the Jesus Way’ (curious phrase in itself, why not just say Christians) need a literal resurrection? Why do we need what is at the heart of Christian faith? How do you even begin to respond to that question?
For me, if Christ was not resurrected, if he was not raised from the dead, then the whole Christian faith is open to question. The resurrection is what vindicates Jesus sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, it is what shows us that he was and is God incarnate. As Paul wrote 'if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins... If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.' (1 Corinthians 15:17-19) It is not that I need a literal resurrection in the sense that I am desperate for it: it is that I believe it is utterly central to the Christian faith as without the resurrection there is no Christianity.
John Polkinghorne, a respected scientist (theoretical physicist) and Christian, has written the following concerning the physical resurrection of Jesus, ‘One of the strong lines of argument for the truth of the resurrection is the astonishing transformation of the disciples from the demoralised, defeated men of Good Friday to the confident proclaimers of the Lordship of Christ at Pentecost and beyond, even to the point of martyrdom. Something happened to bring that about. I believe it was the resurrection and that if Jesus had not been raised it is probable that we would never have heard of him.’ Can anybody take seriously the suggestion that this courage came from a growing feeling that Jesus was still with them in spirit in the weeks and months following the resurrection?
Would Sunday have become the special day of worship for the Early Church, distinct from the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) if Jesus had not physically risen on that day?
The resurrection stories point to a physical resurrection. The resurrected Jesus eats fish, breaks bread and invites Thomas to touch his wounds. These details are included to demonstrate the physicality of the risen Lord. Yes, he also seems to appear and disappear and we don’t know exactly how, if he was solid; but then Paul speaks of the resurrection body as having different properties from our physical body. One explanation I’ve been given is that as Jesus was moving between earth and heaven physical barriers like doors and walls became irrelevant. Ultimately it is a mystery we won’t know the answer to this side of heaven, and I’m content with that.
I believe, along with those who wrote the gospels, along with Paul the Apostle and along with millions of Christians over countless centuries that the resurrection of Jesus, whilst it was indeed an intensely spiritual event and experience, involved the resurrection (not resuscitation) of his physical body, transformed into the spiritual body Paul writes about in 1 Corinthians 15.
Why not 'free Jesus, the man and his message for contemporary minds'?
First, because you can't do that; part of Jesus message was that he would die and rise again. Mark 8 tells us that Jesus ‘began to teach them 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.’ The crucifixion and resurrection were an integral part of the message of Jesus. You cannot separate the man from the message!
Second, Jesus was not just another human prophet with a good message, he was and is so much more than that; he was and is God incarnate, fully divine and fully human. To say that he was just a good teacher is to reject both the man and his message.
Jesus was an is God incarnate, fully man and fully God, he died on the cross to save us and he indeed rose physically from the dead, resurrected to new life. For me this is the core of Christian faith; so, yes, I do need a literal resurrection because Christianity isn’t Christianity without it.
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