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Pastor Jay's Blog

The Resurrection is not the Apologetic Cornerstone

 

For many apologists and would-be apologists, there is a central single fact that serves as the cornerstone of their apologetics. It is both the frontline of engagement and the Calvary that runs in for the rescue. It is the grand evidence of all other evidences and the reality that confirms all other Christian claims of reality. This apologetic cornerstone is the resurrection. If there is no resurrection, then there is no God, no Bible, and no heaven and hell in the reality we exist in.

Now, to be clear, it is hard to overstate the importance of the resurrection. A dead Savior is no Savior at all. The resurrection of Christ is a core fundamental teaching that must not be denied. However, it can be wrongly used. And viewing it as the apologetic cornerstone is making it a foundation stone it was not intended to be. It is a capstone to be exalted, not an apologetic foundation stone to be built upon. To make the resurrection the grand center of your apologetics is to miss how it was viewed by Paul, and it is also setting yourself up in a precarious apologetic situation.

Let’s first understand how the resurrection, and the rest of reality, is understood by Paul. The place to which we must go is the densest teaching on the topic: 1 Corinthians 15. In verse 12-19, Paul addresses the assertion of some that there was no resurrection. For this particular point, I want you to look closely at verse 15, 17, and 18. These verses demonstrate that the resurrection is not the cornerstone apologetic reality. Verse 15 tells us that if Christ were not raised, then the apostles were false witness of God. This means that if the resurrection did not happen, God still exists and He would be angry because He was misrepresented. For many, it is reversed. God existence is proved because there is an empty grave. Not for Paul. Paul understood that God is necessary. There is no reality outside of the Biblical God. If the resurrection didn’t happen, it doesn’t mean God disappears.

Additionally, verse 17 says that your faith is worthless. Why is it worthless? Not because it is in a God who does not exist, but because you are still guilty before God. God is still there, but now your sin against Him is in full effect, waiting for wrath to fall, which is what verse 18 explains. If there is no resurrection, then you are going to hell because your sin is not paid for. The right and wrong that holds our souls accountable still exists, and it will send you to a Hell that still exists.

The point is that the resurrection is commonly referred to as the reality that confirms the existence of God, biblical right and wrong, and heaven and hell. But that is just not the case. All of those things remain because it is impossible for them to not exist. So if the resurrection didn’t happen, your faith is worthless because you don’t have a Savior, you don’t have eternal life, and whatever sacrifices you make here on earth won’t matter whatsoever. You are going to hell without a resurrected Savior.

Now, in case you are thinking that I am minimalizing the resurrection, let me assure you I am not. I am putting it in it proper place, which is still a place of vital importance. Just in case you are doubtful, let me demonstrate the second problem you run into when you make the resurrection the cornerstone of apologetics. I said above that if you make it the cornerstone of apologetics you put yourself into a precarious apologetic situation. How so? Imagine that someone said to you, “Alright, I will concede to you that the resurrection happened. So what? Lots of weird, unexplainable things happen. This does not mean I must worship Christ any more than I would worship birds in the Middle Ages before aerodynamics and flight were understood.” If you make the resurrection the cornerstone of apologetics, you are completely stuck. You have nowhere else to turn. They just took your trump card and threw it into the ocean of the unknown. If they are going to do that with the resurrection, they will do it with every other piece of evidence you are going to give them.

But if you view the resurrection properly, then you have a proper place to view what they just did. What did they just do? They made a statement of 100% certainty and a statement of 100% uncertainty at the same time. They said, “Unexplainable things happen”, which is 100% uncertainty, and they said “This does not mean I must worship Christ”, which is 100% certainty. Not only does this beg the question of how they can know with complete uncertainty or complete certainty, but it also is absolutely illogical. It is a self-refutation.

Viewing the resurrection properly means viewing it according to the word of God. This is the apologetic cornerstone. The apologetic cornerstone is that the Triune God exists and He has spoken in His Word. This is where 100% certainty comes from. The all-knowing God knows all things with 100% certainty and He has told us some of them. This foundational authority is the presupposition that is necessary for anything else to be seen rightly. If you are going to do math, or make moral judgements, or speak English, or admire a mountain range then the reality of God and His Word must be necessarily true. Until you presuppose this reality, you will live with painful contradiction and arbitrary reasoning.

Take the resurrection for example. Why is it absolutely vital and central to Christian doctrine? Because God said so in His Word. The resurrection has meaning because God gives it meaning in his Word, not because it is a brute fact. When Paul spoke of it in 1 Corinthians 15 he put it in its proper place.

        3) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our          sins according to the Scriptures, 4) and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the            third day according to the Scriptures,

Does the resurrection have meaning? Yes. Paul emphatically stated twice that the Scriptures are what assigns true meaning to anything, especially to Christ’s death and resurrection. God is the source of life, truth, morality, logic, physical law and everything else. That means he has to tell us what they mean, if they have importance, why they have importance, and how we should respond to them. The resurrection is important because God has told us that it is the seal of victory over sin and the foretaste of another coming resurrection. We must bow before the Lord who died and who is raised with the name that is above every other name.

The resurrection is vitally important, but let us not get ourselves into trouble by putting a brute fact, even the fact of the resurrection, above the Word of the living God.

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