That troublesome resurrection
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is troublesome for many.
The apostles struggled to believe it (Mrk 16:13-14; Lke 24:8-12, 13-25). The Jewish religious leaders rejected the message that ended with resurrection (eg. Acts 5:27-33). It was an implausible belief to the Athenian intellectuals (Acts 17:32).
The resurrection remains difficult for many. Some deny its reality and others reinterpret it as being a purely spiritual event – whatever that is.
The apostle Paul has no time for this. For him, belief in the resurrection is part of the core message by which people are saved (1 Cor 15:1-4). He says that if Christ is not raised Christians are most to be pitied of all people (1 Cor 15:14-19). He has a bold word for critics: ‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead … ‘ (1 Cor 15:20). He supports this with arguments for the bodily resurrection of Jesus, including citation of 500 and more eyewitnesses (1 Cor 15:6).
The constitution of the Presbyterian Church of Australia asserts belief in the resurrection in these words:
And inasmuch as the Christian faith rests upon, and the Christian consciousness takes hold of, certain objective supernatural historic facts, especially the incarnation, the atoning life and death, and the resurrection and ascension of our Lord, and His bestowment of His Holy Spirit, this Church regards those whom it admits to the office of the Holy Ministry as pledged to give a chief place in their teaching to these cardinal facts, and to the message of redemption and reconciliation implied and manifested in them. (Presbyterian Church of Australia, 1901 Basis of Union, Declaratory Statement, II.1).
These words define the heart of the Christian faith as lying in a set of integrated events concerning Jesus.
These words are remarkable in the context of the late nineteenth century Christian Protestant church. The church of the day was largely captive to the separation of faith and fact that arose in the European Enlightenment. For such people, belief in a historical and bodily resurrection was a quaint and impossible idea.
The Church of Scotland was largely given to these ideas. It was the mother church of Australian Presbyterianism and the birthplace of many Australian Presbyterian leaders when our 1901 constitution was being developed.
In that context, it is startling that the PCA constitution lists the resurrection of Jesus as one of certain objective supernatural historic facts to which its office-bearers are required to give a chief place in their teaching. (You can read the story of how those words came to be included in Read in The Light, edited by Paul Cooper and myself and published by Eider Books in 2019).
Each of those key words flies in the face of modern doubts and reinterpretations of the resurrection and aligns with Paul in 1 Corinthians. The resurrection is objective, rather than being a mere subjective belief. It is supernatural, rather than being a natural event to be explained by things like the swoon theory of Jesus’ death. And it is an historic fact that occurred in a real place at a real time.
For orthodox Christians, the resurrection is not a troublesome belief, but a source of great comfort and hope. Let us hold to it, defend it, and preach it to those who find it a troublesome nonsense.
David Burke,
Moderator-General,
Easter 2024