The Resurrection

We believe in Jesus Christ because God has given us faith in Jesus – and there’s no believing apart from that gift of faith! That being said, this series will explore some of the most powerful logical and philosophical arguments that support our faith in Jesus, beginning with the powerful case for the resurrection of Jesus, since God’s Word encourages us to, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have.” (1 Pet. 3:15) 

When Jesus rose again, something changed the Mediterranean world in unprecedented fashion, beginning at Jerusalem; faith in the crucified and resurrected Jesus swept across the Roman Empire!  Nowadays, people have a tendency to look down on the people of Jesus’ day with what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery” – i.e. the belief that people in Jesus’ day were just superstitious and gullible, and that’s why faith in Jesus’ resurrection spread so quickly.  However, Jews didn’t believe in or expect resurrection from the dead in this life (nor did many, such as the Sadducees believe in a future resurrection at all), nor did Greeks or Romans. In fact, Greeks and Romans saw this physical life as something to be liberated from – not something that should be preserved! The idea that people would just superstitiously and gullibly soak-up the Apostles’ claims that Jesus had risen from the dead, without the many eyewitness testimonies of which Paul speaks, the miracles that the Holy Spirit performed, and the miracle of the resurrected Jesus revealing Himself to so many in Jerusalem, was no more likely to happen in Jesus’ day than it would today. Furthermore, the absolute courage-transformation of Jesus’ cowardly disciples, and the absolute life-transformation of an arch-persecutor such as Saul of Tarsus, only further reinforce the likelihood that something very powerful and very real happened after that first Easter.