UnansweredSample

Body of Proof 

Is it possible that one morning changed the world? Could most, if not all, of life’s problems be answered by an unusual occurrence on a Sunday morning in April A.D. 30? Could it be that God’s answer to the injustice in our world is exactly what happened over a 39-hour period at a Jewish criminal’s borrowed tomb in a Roman outpost? Could it be so simple?

In a word, yes. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the seminal issue for the church today, even as it was that first Easter in the first century. There is nothing more important for a Christian than Jesus’ resurrection. Yet it assumes a heavy burden of proof.

Unfortunately, the most important fact of the Christian faith is also the most misunderstood. Most followers of Jesus have a woefully inadequate understanding of Jesus’ resurrection

It is important to understand that in the world of Jesus and the early church, belief in resurrection from the dead was mocked and attacked by thinkers throughout the Roman Empire. If the disciples wanted to create or invent a new religion, they could not have selected a more confusing place to start than imagining a story of a decomposing corpse coming to life. The early Christian movement should have died. But it did not. Why? Its founder was alive.

There is no passage in the entire Bible that we should take more seriously than 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. The apostle Paul tells us that the matter of Jesus’ bodily resurrection was a matter of “first importance” (v. 3, NIV). Understanding this passage is the key to understanding the theology of Paul and the entire New Testament. This early passage also answers skeptics who claim that the resurrection story of Jesus is a fable created in the years and decades after His death. 

The Greco-Roman culture of the first century did not understand why anyone would believe that a body came back to life. The proclamation of the early Christian leaders—that a ripe corpse came back to life—would have been disgusting and strange to any Roman. This is most likely why Paul was mocked on Mars Hill for proclaiming the resurrection (see Acts 17:32). 

N. T. Wright drives this point home: 

The immediate conclusion is clear. Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was known to be false. Many believed that the dead were non-existent; outside Judaism, nobody believed in resurrection. (The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 35)

The resurrection affects our lives as Christ followers, both in the here and now, and in eternity.