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FIRST RESPONSE: He is Risen |
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Written by Don Williams
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First ResponseApril 2007He is Risen!Excerpted from Don Williams' Start Here (Regal Books, 2006)
In Jesus’ kingdom ministry God’s reign breaks in upon this presently sorry planet. All our enemies are being defeated; every area of life is coming under his lordship. The heart of this is the overthrow of Satan, the Great Rebel. His demons are sent packing. His lies are exposed. We are not gods. We are not even like gods. We are made in God’s image to love and worship him. Turned into worshipers, we become human again.
For the kingdom of God to be within reach, and triumph, the Messiah, the Davidic Warrior King, must become Isaiah 53's Suffering Servant of the Lord. In this role, Jesus goes to Jerusalem to disarm the devil and die for our sins. But, in the words of N.T. Wright, unlike the Hellenistic world, for most First Century Jews death is not a one way street; it is a “U Turn.” So Jesus dies. His crucified body is wrapped and buried. He is placed in a borrowed tomb. Then early on Sunday morning Jesus makes a “U-Turn.” He comes back from the dead, resurrected, and everything is irrevocably changed.
Context
In Judaism there is preparation but no precedent for this. Jesus’ resurrection prophecies are virtually unintelligible to his disciples. This is because while they believed in the resurrection of the body, this was to be a corporate event at the end of history. What Martha says to Jesus before he raises Lazarus echoes popular opinion: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” (John 11:24) The disciples were totally unprepared for the resurrection of one person breaking into their present history. One person raised alone, before the “resurrection at the last day,” wrenches open the whole category of “resurrection.” All Jews know that no single person was ever raised from the dead, incorruptible and glorified. True, Jesus brings several people back to life, but this was not resurrection as the Jews understood it. It was resuscitation, signs of the kingdom come but nothing more. They all die again later. New resurrection bodies are given only when all the dead are raised in one cataclysmic event at the end of this age. The recreation of all things lies in the future, that is, until Easter morning when that final, irreversible transformation begins.
Content
Jesus’ resurrection is welded to the general resurrection of the dead. He is the “first fruits” of the whole deal (I Corinthians 15:20). And this is not simply overcoming death; resurrection is a part of the bigger picture, the new heavens and the new earth. As Paul says, creation now groans in the agony of childbirth, but one day “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21) For the kingdom to fully come, then, our last great enemy, death itself, must be defeated. This happened when Jesus, in his glorified body, walked out of the tomb, leaving the grave wrappings behind. He then appeared to his disciples for forty days and ascended into heaven, there to reign at God’s right hand. But what documents his resurrection?
Evidence
First, there are Jesus’ appearances. All attempts to explain them as wish-fulfillment on the part of his disciples fail. Not only do they flee at his crucifixion, and grieve his absence, as we have seen, they have no way to understand one person being raised from the dead. When he appears to them, they are overwhelmed. Their whole perception of reality is shattered and remade. Their doubts and fears are overcome by the sheer weight of his presence. He talks with them. He eats with them. He teaches them. They touch him. He commissions them to take his kingdom message and ministry to the nations. He assures them that the Spirit will empower them to do this. He promises his return and then is taken into glory. Fearful, beaten disciples are transformed by meeting the Risen Lord and being forgiven, restored and filled with his Spirit. No fake plot or psychological disorder can account for their transformation and the rise of the early church. Again, as N. T. Wright says, “A crucified Messiah is a failed Messiah.” The disciples would have never imagined Jesus’ resurrection. Like other messianic movements, they might have appointed another leader to carry the work on or recruited a family member to take Jesus’ place. But they would never proclaim that he has been raised from the dead, that death is a defeated enemy, and that the general resurrection of the dead has begun with him. They would never sign this faith with their own bloody deaths, apart from meeting the Risen Lord.
Second, along with Jesus’ appearances, there is the supporting evidence of the empty tomb. If Jesus’ enemies could have produced his body, his movement would be over. They didn’t because they couldn’t. His disciples would have never stolen his body and faked his resurrection. Apart from the moral issues involved in this lame theory, they simply had no category to fit one single resurrection into. They might have said that Jesus lives on in their hearts, or that he has gone to heaven, but to say that he has been raised from the dead didn’t fit their theology, or their understanding of reality (their worldview). The uniqueness of Christianity lies in Jesus’ incarnation, death for sin and resurrection from the dead. Christianity is resurrection faith, grounded in history, or it is nothing. It breaks all our psychological, sociological, theological, historical and spiritual categories. Listen to Paul’s polemic:
But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? [Because you are dualists and believe that salvation is liberation from this evil, materialistic world rather than its transformation.] If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless [in vain] and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God [liars], for we have testified about God [given law-court witness] that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised [as the Greeks hold]. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either [your Hellenistic worldview excludes it by your anti-body assumptions]. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile [vain, empty]; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep [died] in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits [the beginning of the general resurrection of the dead] of those who have fallen asleep [died]. (I Corinthians 15:12-20)
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First Response 
