Futile Faith?

1 Corinthians 15:12-19

"But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."

Indeed if the resurrection of our Lord Jesus — a Jewish carpenter and preacher who is, considered by some in His time, the Christ, a historical figure, as much as his contemporaries (more or less) on the records of antiquity, Alexander the Great, The Caesars and the Roman Empire, Cleopatra, Anthony etc — is a false historical account, then "we are to be pitied more than all men"; for if it is no more than fable and not factual and that "Christ has not been raised, [our] faith is futile". What are the lines of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and what does it imply about the reality of God as He revealed Himself to us through the Bible? In a nutshell, the evidence can be summed up in three independently established facts: (1) Jesus's empty tomb {premised by (a) the historical reliability of the Jesus's burial stories (1 Cor 15:3-5), (b) the story of Jesus's empty tomb independently reported in very early sources, (c) simplicity of Mark's story lacking in legendary development, (d) women as first discoverers of the empty tomb, (e) and the earliest Jewish response pressuposing an empty tomb} (2) Jesus's post-mortem appearances {premised by (a) the apostle Paul's list of eyewitness to Jesus's resurrection appearances (1 Cor 15), (b) multiple independent reports from the gospels, (c) that the resurrection appearances were physical bodily appearances}, and finally, (3) the origin of the disciples' belief in His resurrection {premised by (a) Jewish messianic expectations, (b) Jewish belief in the afterlife preclusion of rising from the dead to glory and immortality before the resurrection at the end of the world}. Furthermore, the 'best explanation' of these historical facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead. The significance of Jesus's resurrection "is given by the context in which it occurs: It comes as God's vindication of Jesus's radical personal claims for which He was condemned as a blasphemer" by the Jewish religious authorities. From these, and a lot more, we can rejoice in God's awesome power and more importantly, His amazing love and grace. May we continue to stand by the truth of the Bible, despite the world's rejection of its claims and ultimately, may these truths encourage us to live lives well-lived in obedience and trust in God's great plan for us and also that we share the same great news to the people we love and care for.

Mark 8:29-31

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again."

~25.11.2013

References:

Craig, William Lane. "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?", On Guard, 2010.