THE BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?

EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?

GOD - MAN
Is Jesus really God?

RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?

SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?

TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.

SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.

FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?

GUIDANCE
How does God guide?

REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.

BORN AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?

SAVING FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven

ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?

TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?

MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.

THE CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the new millennium.

PURPOSE
How can I find a great purpose for living?

IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of God.

SELF-ESTEEM
How can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.

LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.

THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.

Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.

God’s “Yes” of Easter Day

I have dealt with historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead in my booklet Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead? and in the book Life After Death: Christianity’s Hope and Challenge. For serious students, you won’t do better than the 738 pages of The Resurrection of the Son of God by N. T. Wright (SPCK, 2003).

First, if the resurrection proves anything at all, it proves that, despite all evidence to the contrary, God had indeed been present through all the events of the previous two days. The empty tomb does not cancel out the cross or the occupied tomb, but it does confirm beyond all doubt that God was there.

Second, it reveals once and for all the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. When Thomas responded to Jesus’ revelation of the wounds in his resurrection body by declaring, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28), he was confirming what John declares in the beginning of his Gospel, that the eternal God, the Word of life, had indeed become identified with mortal flesh, made from the dust of the earth and doomed to return to it (1:14). And the idea that he was indeed the promised Messiah, who had been so brutally extinguished and excluded by death, was now returned with conviction and certainty, as is so apparent in the testimony of the first disciples in the early chapters of Acts. From birth to burial, God has been among us, not only with this man and in this man, but also as this man. Knowing now who he is, we can see more clearly what it was that was actually happening in his crucifixion, and in all that led up to it.

Third, it reveals the sufficiency of Jesus’ sacrifice for the sins of mankind. Paul says, in his great chapter on the resurrection, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile: you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). Commenting on this verse in an article in Decision magazine, John Piper writes:

The point is not that the resurrection is the price paid for our sins. The point is that the resurrection proves that the death of Jesus is an all-sufficient price.

Death and judgement are both very personal things. We will face them both naked and alone. But the one who bore my sins in full on the cross and who endured my death in the tomb is now the living Lord who represents me in glory. In Christ I will never be alone.

Fourth, it proves that the overflowing love and power and grace of God are indeed greater than all the forces of evil, godlessness and hopelessness that can be mustered against it. The God who, at the beginning of time created the universe out of nothingness, is able to take the brokenness, defeat and alienation of the tomb and, against that backdrop, demonstrate in a single instance that he is, and has always been, the one ultimately in control. The Devil had won the battle, but lost the war against God’s love and grace. And God’s victory over death is not a matter of smooth, ensured survival but a new existence after nonsurvival. Though God has more work to do, this demonstration is the guarantee of a greater and more final and complete victory yet to come. “[God] has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

One implication of all this is that there are no depths to which a human may sink, morally or spiritually, from which God cannot deliver him or her, where there is acknowledgement of guilt and a willingness to be identified with this Christ in his life-transforming ministry. Lewis says:

God in humility…has triumphed through the grave, for its many dis-graced, defeated victims and in the form of one of them. That form, seen first in the cradle, later on a cross, and finally as a corpse, is the shape of resurrection, and there is no other. Let others dream of divine salvation for the righteous and the wise, for those able to transcend the flesh and rise to heights of timelessness and sanctity; the gospel of Christ is for the mortal and the carnal, the earthbound and the sinner. For it was just as such a one that Jesus lived, and still as such a one, fleshly, crucified, and buried, that he was raised. In him, concealed in weakness and in death, are God’s true power and life at work.

Another implication of this is spelled out clearly, though briefly, in Paul’s magnificent chapter, Romans 8, where he speaks of the certain future hope that is provided by the cross, the resurrection and the ministry of the Spirit. Not only will our created bodies be redeemed (v. 23) and transformed (v. 30), but the whole of creation itself, now “groaning as in the pains of childbirth” (v. 22), “will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (v. 21). As Easter Day follows Holy Saturday and did not avert it, so the ultimate victory and transformation of all creation could follow even such a disaster as the ecological destruction of our planet or a nuclear war and the holocaust of all humanity. As J. I. Packer says in Your Father Loves You , "You could speak of Jesus' rising as the most hopeful (hope-full) thing that has ever happened--and you would be right!"

Fifth, even though it often seems that evil wins the day, there is no hint of goodness prompted by the Spirit within us, no effort to show our gratitude to the Lord by our service to him, to others, or to his creation, that can ever be wasted, however much it may appear to be so. That is why Paul finished his great chapter on the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15, with the words, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain” (v, 58).

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