Category Archives: Resurrection of Jesus

Resurrection: evangelical and liberal debate

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I’ve been listening to the latest podcast from Premier Radio’s ‘Unbelievable’ show.

Last Saturday (7th August) saw Adrian Warnock and Rev Jonathan Clatworthy debate the resurrection of Jesus.

Adrian represented an evangelical perspective, Jonathan a liberal approach.  At one level, Jonathan tried to present the differences as, ‘Well, we both believe in the resurrection; it’s just that you believe in a physical resurrection, whereas I don’t.’  But the more they spoke, the more you could sense the yawning gulf between them. …

The resurrection an historical fact

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It is not difficult to find sceptics who will dismiss the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus with a casual wave of the hand.  Richard Dawkins, for example, says:-

I don’t know where the story of Jesus rising from the dead comes from. The actual documentary evidence is very bad as historical evidence goes, and so, given its enormous inherent implausibility, I’d be much more inclined to suspect it. You needn’t go as far as to say ‘hoax’ – it’s just that when very, very charismatic people die, legends grow up about them in a very mysterious way.

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Paul and the empty tomb

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There are those (including some Muslim scholars) who like to drive a wedge between the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and those of Paul.  ‘Paul,’ they say, ‘never mentions the empty tomb; therefore, he must have believed in a very different kind of resurrection – a ‘spiritual, rather than a physical kind’.  This impression seems to be strengthened by Paul’s insistence that resurrection bodies (of both Christ and others) are ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘fleshly’.

Bultmann famously asserted:

‘The accounts of an empty  tomb are legends, of which Paul as yet knew nothing.

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Mk 9:9-32 – A demonised boy healed – sermon notes

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It had been a mountain-top experience to top the lot. Right there, in front of three of his disciples, Jesus had experienced a brief but amazing transformation. His face shone; even his clothes became dazzling white. Two godly men from long ago, Moses and Elijah, had put in personal appearances. And God himself had spoken: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

As they come down the mountain, Jesus gave Peter, James and John a solemn instruction, v9: “Don’t tell anyone about what you have just seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”…

‘Your labour in the Lord is not in vain’

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In 1 Corinthians  15:58 Paul writes,

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Tom Wright (Surprised by Hope, SPCK) places considerable emphasis on this verse, coming as it does after Paul’s great affirmation of physical resurrection.  Although I do not think that Wright offers a novel interpretation of this verse, I do think that he draws out its implications more clearly and helpfully than most:-

For Paul, the bodily resurrection does not leave us saying “so that’s all right; we shall go, at the last, to join Jesus in a non-bodily, Platonic heaven”…Belief in the bodily resurrection includes the belief that what is done in the present in the body, by the power of the Spirit, will be reaffirmed in the eventual future, in ways at which we can presently only guess.

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Resurrection: what difference does it make?

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Some people ask (says Tom Wright in his Surprised by Hope, 201-206), ‘even if Jesus was raised from the dead, what difference does it make?’  Indeed, even Easter hymns can give an inadequate answer by obscuring the fact that Jesus’ resurrection guarantees something more than life in some kind of future ‘heaven’.

But when the New Testament strikes the great Easter bell, the main resonances it sets up are not simply about ourselves and about whatever future world God is ultimately going to make, when heaven and earth are joined together and renewed at last from top to bottom. 

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1 Cor 15:1-11 – The most important thing in the world – sermon notes

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One of life’s minor frustrations is over-hearing other people’s phone conversations and trying to work out what is going on:

Hi Paul, how are you?
Oh no, when did that happen?
Oh you poor thing. So where is it now?
About 1, you say. Ok, I’ll leave it under the rabbit hutch.

Reading Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians is a bit like listening to one side of a phone conversation. The apostle spends much of his time dealing with problems and answering questions that have been raised by the people at the other end of the line – the Christians in Corinth.…

Quotes on resurrection

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A lawyer’s testimony: ‘As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day.  To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling…I accept [the Gospel evidence for the resurrection] unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts they were able to substantiate.’  (Sir Edward Clarke KC)

A theologian’s testimony: ‘Taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no historic incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ. …

Wright on the resurrection

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I’ve been listening to N.T. Wright’s lecture, given at the The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, in May 2007, entitled, “Can a Scientist Believe in the Resurrection?”

It is most lucid exposition, demonstrating that only an empty tomb and a transformed body do justice to the historical evidence.

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John 20:24-31 – Doubting Thomas, believing Thomas – sermon notes

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Text: Jn 20:24-31

On the evening of the first Easter Sunday, the disciples of Jesus huddled together in a locked room.  They were in utter despair: they had left everything to follow Jesus, but now he was dead.  They were frightened: the same people who had killed their Master would surely come looking for them.  They were confused: where would they go now?  what would they do?  Into that despairing, frightened, confused company steps Jesus.  The grave could not hold him back; neither can a locked door. …