The Cross's Vulgarity and the Resurrection's Victory
An excerpt from Did the Resurrection Really Happen? at The Gospel Coalition
I have an article today on The Gospel Coalition website, excerpted from my new book Did the Resurrection Really Happen? If you want to read the entire article, go to this link: “The Cross’s Vulgarity and the Resurrection’s Victory.” Here’s a quick excerpt:
Longing that Calls You to Faith
Whether or not you think Jesus’s resurrection happened, there’s a longing for resurrection inside you. You yearn for a world where all things are made right and new. You long for a realm where death no longer reigns.
Perhaps these yearnings are merely empty fantasies and wishful thinking.
But what if they aren’t?
What if you were made with a longing for life that never ends? If so, maybe your aching for eternity isn’t a defect in your mind but a part of your design. If you disbelieve the resurrection, or if you’re not sure what to think about a man returning from the dead, my encouragement to you is to read the four New Testament Gospels with an open mind. Consider Jesus’s claims, and hear this invitation Augustine spoke to his fifth-century congregation in North Africa:
Jesus . . . promised us his life, but what he actually did is even more unbelievable; he paid us his death in advance. [It is as if Jesus said,] “I’m inviting you to my life, where nobody dies, where life is truly happy, . . . to the region of the angels, to the friendship of the Father and the Holy Spirit, to the everlasting supper, to be my brothers and sisters. . . . I’m inviting you to my life.”
By suffering the punishment for sin in our place, the crucified Christ made a way for you and me to have fellowship with him through faith. Through his resurrection, the same Christ opened the door for us to share in his eternal life. Will you at least consider the possibility that all this might be true?
Victory That Changes the World
If Jesus has truly been raised from the dead, every victory has been won. The kingdom yet to come has burst into our present world, and that present-yet-future kingdom is every believer’s true home. Jesus’s resurrection guarantees the renovation of the world. That’s why we’re not those without hope, or hoping in hope alone. Resurrection shows that this world isn’t our home. Because every wrong will be made right, you can forgive, trusting that God will deal with every sin and abuse of his creation in his time and in his way.
Since Jesus has been revealed as the risen King of all creation, you can be set free from placing your hope in earthly political allegiances. Because your future home is guaranteed to be a place of perfect peace and justice, you can commit yourself to practicing peace and justice in the present. As Esau McCaulley says, “If the resurrection is true, and the Christian stakes his or her entire existence on its truthfulness, then our peaceful witness testifies to a new and better way of being human that transcends the endless cycle of violence.”
If Jesus left behind an empty tomb—and there’s good evidence he did—that changes everything. What will the resurrection change for you?