Paul is adamant that the ship of Christian teaching must include the historicity of the resurrection (though we will encounter important arguments about its precise nature in chapters to follow). To the Christians in Corinth, Paul writes:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then, Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor 15:12–18)
The author of the letter to the Hebrews refers to “the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant” (Heb 13:20); Peter says of Jesus that “through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory” (1 Pet 1:21); all New Testament writers refer to Jesus as being alive, and about to come again in glory. The hope of the Christian, according to these authors, seems to be predicated on the resurrection of Jesus. Can something that appears so key to the Christian message and so universally shared in the apostolic age be negotiable in ours?
In the last few centuries, the Renaissance, the discovery of the New World, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of the scientific paradigm, the industrial revolution, the harnessing of electricity, the rise of socialism, the adoption of the evolutionary paradigm, the invention of modern aeronautics, two pan-European armed conflicts, the unleashing of nuclear power, the technological revolution, and now the dawn of the information age have all served to underscore change as the only constant in the mind of the contemporary Westerner. Is it possible that doctrines once thought indispensable to Christian faith could be replaced with new ones, and that the claim that the resurrection of Jesus is a historical event can be dispensed with as a relic of a bygone era? There are many theologians who say that this can be done, should be done, and must be done, if Christian faith is to have any credibility in its third millennium. In this view, the greatest service that contemporary theologians can do for their forebears is to do as they have done, and adapt the basic symbols of the Christian faith to current conceptualities.
On the other hand, there are others who argue that the durability of Christian doctrine in the context of massive intellectual and social upheaval is one of the church’s greatest gifts to the twenty-first century. The continuity of what the church proclaims—even if practices alter—not only provides some sense of stability in uncertain times, but it also serves as offering continuity with what was understood and taught by Jesus himself. The early church, as contemporaries and eyewitnesses of Jesus, would have endeavored to proclaim Jesus on his own terms, and remain faithful to his understanding of God and God’s workings in the world, and so should we. In this view, it is up to the church to engage scholarship of every kind and discover ways to faithfully maintain its teaching as the teaching of Jesus, being careful to find points of agreement with and distinction from contemporary ideas in every new era.
This debate isn’t new to the twenty-first century, but with the waning of the authority of Christianity as the dominant cultural force in Western culture, the historical claims of the early church have been held up for examination in a way not seen since the first centuries of the church’s existence. What has gone unnoticed by many, however, is that the debate over how to deal with the resurrection of Jesus has been affected by the ground shifting under historians’ feet. What is considered to be sound historical method has undergone its own dialectical evolution, and this has affected—sometimes consciously, other times unconsciously—how theologians deal with the historical dimension of the resurrection of Jesus. What has happened over the last few decades, I believe, is the revival of a fuller, more robust understanding of historical method and the process of historical reconstruction, offering a renewed opportunity for contemporary theologians to assist the church in proclaiming the historical resurrection of Jesus.
There will be many who read what follows and will still not be prepared to assert that the resurrection of Jesus needs to be proclaimed as a historical event. It is likely that this very issue must have been at play among Christians at the end of the first century, when the story of Thomas’s doubt was recirculated in the Gospel of John. While the Gospel writer’s point of view on the resurrection of Jesus is clear, the story is related with a great deal of sympathy to those who find it hard to believe. Thomas is not portrayed as stupid, stubborn, or sinful: he is the one who, earlier in this same Gospel, is willing to meet his end with Jesus in Jerusalem, if that’s what loyalty demands. Thomas is not disowned by the other disciples, and is not shunned by Jesus. Jesus comes and makes a point of approaching Thomas, and it is Thomas who in the end offers one of the most profound expressions of faith in the entire New Testament: having come to believe that Jesus was in fact resurrected from the dead, he proclaims, “My Lord and my God!”
What follows is dedicated to all the Thomases among us, and the Thomas in every one of us, because with Thomas we know right down to our bones that history matters.
Questions for Consideration
Seminary
1. How would you describe the evolution from the notion of collective immortality to the notion of individual mortality?
2. How does the idea of resurrection reflect the image of God as being just?
Study Group
1. What scriptural stories, ideas, or quotes come to mind when you consider how history matters to our understanding of God?
2. What difference do you think belief in Jesus’ resurrection made to the apostles and the early church?
Individual
1. What would you offer to someone in your parish or congregation who said they didn’t believe in life after death?
2. When does believing in the resurrection seem easy? When does it seem hard?
2. Globe and Mail, August 2, 2012.
3. Crenshaw, “Love Is Stronger than Death,” 71–72.
4. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 374.
5. Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 3 (ANF 1:87).
6. Tertullian, Five Books against Marcion, 5.9 (ANF 3:447–49).
7. Origen, Against Celsus, 2.52 (ANF 1:456).
8. Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word of God, 50 (NPNF2 4:63–64).
9. Augustine, City of God, 22.5 (NPNF1 2:481–82).