Weird Ideas: Descent to Hell, Then Raised From the DeadSýnishorn

Here’s a quote worth reading:

“Christianity, you see, isn’t a set of ideas. It isn’t a path of spirituality. It isn’t a rule of life. It isn’t a political agenda. It includes, and indeed gives energy to all those things; but at its very heart is something different. It is good news about an event which has happened in the world, an event because of which the world can never be the same again. And those who believe it, and live by it, will (thank God!) never be the same again either” (NT Wright in 1 Corinthians for Everyone).

That event is the resurrection of Jesus. It is the heart and soul of Christianity.

When the Apostles’ Creed says, “The third day he rose again from the dead,” it is proclaiming that the strangest, weirdest, most unthinkable thing has occurred. Jesus, brutally killed and dead, came back to life! If people know anything, it’s this. Dead people don’t come back to life. But Jesus rose from the dead! And that changes everything.

Coming face-to-face with the risen Jesus changed everything for his disciples. They went from scared, confused would-be followers hiding behind closed doors to emboldened witnesses willing to give life and limb for the one back from the dead.

It changed everything for his enemies. When the Apostle Paul – who once breathed out murderous threats against Christians and sought to stamp them out wherever they were – came face-to-face with the risen Jesus, it changed his life and led him to rethink everything. Rather than Jesus’s crucifixion being a pitiful end to a would-be messiah, the resurrection was proof-positive to Paul that God had vindicated Jesus as his Messiah. This was in fact the dawn of the new age; God’s kingdom was here. The resurrection showed Jesus was God’s son through whom all God’s promises are fulfilled.

Jesus’s resurrection can change everything for you too. Today, read these passages and get a sense for the impact and implication of Jesus’s resurrection.