Why the Resurrection Matters

Another Easter Sunday has come and gone and with it, the temptation to let the "Resurrection" fade into the background much the same as Christmas fades into the past and we are left paying off our credit cards from over-celebration. We don't celebrate in the same fashion for Easter. Despite the attempts to commercialize it with the Easter Bunny, new outfits, and candy, it still remains primarily a religious holiday that isn't recognized by people other than those who identify with Christianity. Yet the temptation to move on with our lives and compartmentalize the truths of the resurrection is just as much of a temptation as it is to throw out the wrapping paper and mentally move on to the next big event.

Easter is fundamentally different than Christmas, however. While the events of Christmas are incredibly important and contain a great deal of doctrinal truth, they don't stand on the same level as the events of Easter. In fact, the events of Christmas have no value whatsoever apart from Easter, since the death and resurrection of Jesus are the culmination of everything that he came to accomplish. If they never occurred, then his birth, life, and whatever else occurred would still have been interesting, miraculous, potentially life-altering even if we chose to use Christ's life as an example, but not near as important as they are because of the events of Easter weekend. I'm not sure if the importance of the resurrection can be overstated: if it doesn't happen, there is no hope, there is no ultimate salvation, and practically there is no foundation for the church. The first two points are theological in nature and I won't address them here. It is that last point–the practical necessity of the resurrection for the church–that I want to address.

As we examine the broader culture (at least of America) it's easy to notice that there are some very sharp disagreements regarding how we view various cultural issues. Pick any issue you'd like, and chances are you can find not just diverse views on the subject, but polarizing views. Our tendency is to believe that these disagreements are themselves the problem, but they aren't. They are a symptom of the problem. The real problem, as it turns out, is that we are standing on fundamentally different foundations.

Imagine that the two of us were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we began to describe to one another what we see. To a certain extent, our descriptions may seem similar. We might describe a deep gorge, the relative color of the dirt and clay, the vastness of what we are viewing. As we go further in our descriptions, however, they inevitably begin to diverge. One of us argues that the canyon is a thousand feet deep, the other says it is only a couple of hundred feet. Perhaps we argue about the vegetation, or what it is that makes it so beautiful, or how the sun sets–or rises–on the opposite end of the canyon. Soon we would find that our disagreement is so sharp, that it is impossible for us to figure one another out. We end up completely polarized, convinced that the other person is a lunatic.

Of course you may have already figured out the problem. We are viewing the same canyon, but from two different vantage points. Where we are standing makes all the difference in recognizing why it is that we disagree on our perspective. Once we understand that we are not even fundamentally seeing the same things, we can come to terms with the fact that we disagree.

This is why the real issues of culture have nothing to do with our perspectives on the issues, and have everything to do with the foundation on which we are standing. Christians in particular have taken for granted that for the vast majority of the history of the United States, most of the population stood on a similar foundation. Call it "Judeo-Christian values" or whatever you wish, but really it was just the foundation that there was a God and that we could find out more about him in the Bible. I don't assume that the entirety of the country was Christian, let alone religious, but at very least the foundation was roughly similar. Thus, if there were disagreements on certain subjects, they weren't extreme. We might be arguing about the color of the clay in the canyon, but at least we are looking at the same clay.

Unfortunately that foundation has shifted and the vast majority of culture is no longer standing on the same foundation. This is the effect of post-modernity that claims that there are no universal truths. One of the impacts of this was the supposed destruction of the meta-narrative, which is by it's nature a comprehensive truth claim. Of course the theory falls on it's head. Even saying that there is no universal truth is a comprehensive truth claim about how the world works, it simply shifts the responsibility for decision making to the individual, rather than the universal. Again, claiming that every decision is up to the individual is a universal claim. Thus the meta-narrative was not done away with, but simply changed, and as a result, we find that when we are describing what appear to be similar issues, they are not the same at all. Those of us who are Christians are standing on an entirely different foundation than those who are not-Christians, and vice versa.

This in itself is not a bad thing, it is just something that simply "is". If anything, it provides an opportunity for Christians to have more clarity about what it is that they actually believe. I also think that it should provide Christians more opportunity to have grace with skeptics, since we ought to understand that the issues is not a disagreement, per se, it is a foundational issue. We are not standing on the same footing. We aren't looking at the canyon from the same angle. I can't expect my skeptic friend to see the world from the same perspective that I do, unless we first understand where it is that we are standing.

All of this brings me back to the church, and my original point about the practical need to remember the resurrection. Over the past decade, at least, and perhaps longer than that, post-modernity has come into the church in a variety of ways. The easiest entry way has been to offer differing perspectives on traditional Christian perspectives. Some of those perspectives have been healthy and offered appropriate correctives in the church. Like all institutions (and individuals, I might add), when you have held onto a particular belief long enough, you typically end up abusing it in it's application. For example, the longer you believe you are a safe driver, the less likely you are to use your seat belt. The better you are at a particular activity–skiing, for example–the more likely you are to push the limits verging into the unsafe, even for an expert. The same goes for churches. What might begin as a helpful doctrine or tradition can end up being abused in the long run, in desperate need of correction and a reminder of where the application should begin and end. Other perspectives, however, have not been corrective in nature, but downright incorrect. As a seminary professor said, "the only corrective to bad theology is better theology." Unfortunately many of the critiques in the last decade have not been better theology, but just more bad theology from a different perspective. The pendulum might swing to embrace it, but it doesn't mean that we are any better off. Change for changes sake is not necessarily a good thing. So how do we combat these perspectives? The answer is the resurrection.

The resurrection provides Christians with the foundation on which unity can be built as a church, for at least two reasons. The first reason encompasses both Jesus death, and resurrection, which puts all Christians on the same plane. If Jesus death and resurrection are real, historical events that happened and on which Christianity is based, so that faith and confidence in those events is essential to being a Christian, then the very nature of them mean that all of us arrive into this new kingdom of God on the same train. No one gets in on their own power. No one is more righteous than another. In fact, we all have the same righteousness from the same savior and get in on the same ticket.

The second reason that the resurrection is necessary is that it proves that Jesus is the king of this new kingdom, and thus, he gets to set the expectations. I believe that one of the chief reasons that some of the sharp disagreements that the church has experienced with the culture have become sharp disagreements within the church itself is that many within the church have unwittingly shifted their foundation. This was more evident than ever in the week leading up to Easter when a variety of articles were published claiming to come from Christian sources, but as I examined them, I noticed that they weren't Christian at all. They claimed to have a similar value structure, but they so minimized the death and resurrection of Jesus that those two events were no longer the foundation on which they based the rest of their so-called "truth". Realizing that meant that I could accept their conclusions at face value–as the author's opinion–but also realize that they weren't Christian perspectives, even though they claimed to be. It has become increasingly easy for people in the 21st century church to disagree with Jesus, or try to change his words to fit our meaning, and the reason that we can do it is because we, essentially, deny the power of the resurrection or take it to mean something it doesn't mean. The resurrection is not hope just for hope's sake; it is hope because it revealed that Jesus really was who he said he was. Jesus really was God incarnate who had the ability to defeat death on our behalf. The power of the resurrection wasn't limited just to him; it's a power that all who put their faith in Christ have access to. Far from being just some nebulous, ill-defined hope, it is a hope that very clearly identifies Jesus as God of very God, and King of every King. In other words, if we believe the resurrection is true, we don't get to disagree with Jesus.

As believers, then, the starting point for our unity must be the resurrection of Jesus. This is what gives him His claim to authority, as well as clarifying for us why we don't get to be authoritative in our own right. The Resurrection is the foundation on which the Christian views the rest of the world. When we stand on the power of the Resurrection, then we may still discuss and dialogue about what, exactly, Christ believed, but we don't get to disagree with Jesus or the rest of the Bible, or interpret it to fit our cultural milieu or cultural understanding at the time. Rather we stand on the authority of Christ himself.

If there are sharp disagreements in the church, I am much less interested in knowing what you think about the disagreement, and much more interested in knowing what you think about Jesus. Is he the risen Lord, or not? If he is, then you and I can both submit our opinions to his. If he isn't, then we're not on the same foundation to begin with, and I don't care much that you disagree with me. We'll never agree on what the canyon looks like so long as we are standing on different lookouts.

This is why we can't put Easter in the past. Easter Sunday, and what it represents, are not just a day in the life of the church calendar, but the foundation on which every day must be built. To the extent that we remember that, we'll have a united church. To the extend that we forget it, we'll be divided. It might really be as simple as that.

Resurrection and What it Means for Marriage

I heard a quote recently from someone who was asked about what the Bible says about homosexuality and marriage. The person responded, “The first thing I ask is whether or not they believe that Jesus rose from the dead. If they say no, then I ask them why they care what he thinks about anything. If they say yes, then we can have a different type of discussion about what Jesus believed about issues like this.”

Most Christian’s don’t know what they believe about marriage, or why they believe it. Is there any reason to have confidence in what they think is true? For the Christian, the answer–and ultimately the place we find our confidence–stems from the core conviction of our faith. Did Jesus rise from the dead, or not?

Resurrection trumps dying, every time.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead–or if someone doesn’t believe that he did–then there is no reason for us or them to be concerned with how he calls us to live. If Jesus was just a first century rabbi who taught about being a good person, but ultimately died like the rest of us, then his words have the equivalent authority of every other religious prophet or teacher who came before or after. They’re easy to dismiss; we should pay them the same mind as we might pay the instructions of Muhammad.

If, however, Jesus really did rise from the dead, then what was proved was that he was who he said he was: God in the flesh. That changes everything. If Jesus is God, then what he says about how we should live has real meaning; now it has authority. What Jesus believed about how God calls us to live should matter.

Jesus believed that the entirety of the Old Testament was God’s word. He consistently upheld it as having authority. He upheld the Old Testament Law of God when he claimed that not a single iota or a single dot would pass from the Law until all was accomplished, and his new Kingdom was in full force at the end of days. And what the law and the Old Testament as a whole affirm is that marriage is a God-ordained institution between one man and one woman. That is what Jesus believed; it’s part of the “will not pass away”.

The resurrection gives us a new view towards marriage that restores the original intention. Marriage in the Old Testament was a mess; most people couldn’t get it right, even when they tried. Christ’s life, death and resurrection reveal what Paul articulates in Ephesians 5: the real meaning behind marriage was actually always about Jesus and his church. When God gave Adam and Eve to one another in marriage back at the beginning of the Bible, the institution itself was a shadow of a greater reality, which was God’s relationship with his people.

Marriage is rooted in creation and restored in Christ. That’s why orthodox Christianity doesn’t believe in a progressive hermeneutic (the so-called telephone theory). This is the view that biblical truth changes over time as culture “progresses” and our understanding of things evolves and changes, similar to the old game of “telephone” that you’d play in grade school. Orthodox Christianity bases its view on God’s original intention and design, affirmed, supported, and restored in Christ, and not on what seems right to us, particularly those of us living 2000 years after the resurrection.

Christian people are called to view marriage through that lens as the chief understanding of what marriage is. One man, one woman, called to reflect the reality of Christ and his church. The resurrection gives them hope that they can, in some small way, pull it off, but only because Jesus has already pulled off the greatest marriage proposal in history by dying and rising from the dead. The resurrection gives single people hope, too, since we know that this life is just a blip on the radar of eternity, and marriage won’t be a relational institution in the kingdom of heaven, since we will all live in the reality of what it formerly represented.

The resurrection means new citizenship.

The resurrection is the catalyst for this view towards the new kingdom that is to come. When we are associated with Jesus through faith in his life, death, and resurrection for our salvation, we are made citizens of a new kingdom, where Jesus is king. Our allegiances have changed. We live in this world; but our citizenship is found in the next. We are called to live according to a different standard; a different set of rules.

The history of American Evangelicalism has revealed what biblical scholars usually refer to as an “over-realized eschatology”. Eschatology is the study of the “end times”, or in this case, the study of the Kingdom of God and what that is going to be like when Jesus returns. Over-realizing our eschatology means that we go overboard in assuming that this life–the American life–will look like the new kingdom of which we are citizens. In other words, we’ve drawn too close a parallel between the United States and the Kingdom of God, as if the former is called to reflect all of the values of the latter. Consequently, Christians have too often assumed that the government will promote their particular values, and they are shocked when they discover resistance. The resurrection reminds us that the United States is not the new kingdom.

As such, Christians must take care to discern the difference between the values they are called to live by as citizens of a new kingdom, and the values that everyone should hold by virtue of being a human, and more specifically, a citizen of the United States. Christians are called to the biblical view of marriage because of the resurrection of Christ. But not everyone will hold that view. In fact, the majority of people won’t. By allowing the government to define what marriage is, we’re also giving them the freedom to define it in a way that we disagree with. That’s why the Christian must define marriage based on the resurrection of our new King, according to the values of the new kingdom. Our confidence shouldn’t be in the government, or in those who don’t believe in the resurrection, to define it exactly as we see fit, and we won’t be disappointed when they inevitably don’t.

A far better approach for Christians in handling the marriage debates would have been to encourage the government to get out of the marriage definition bit altogether! The government’s question should be, what type of relationships will we grant benefits to, and which ones won’t we? So long as they are continuing to call those government recognized relationships “marriages”, then whatever the cultural definition of it is will win the day. We are seeing the implications of that now.

Failure to understand the resurrection.

The failure to recognize the authority that comes with the resurrection, and the new citizenship we have as a result is the reason that most Christians are confused about how they ought to respond. If they’re not confused, they’re angry. If they’re not angry, they’re depressed. How could this have happened? Jesus death reminds us that the new kingdom values are antithetical to the way that most of us want to live, but his resurrection gives us hope to press on.

The failure to recognize the authority that comes with the resurrection is also what leads Christians to reject the teaching of Scripture on marriage altogether, and to redefine it according to what will be popular in this life. It has always been the case that there will be a segment of the Christian population that sacrifices doctrine for the sake of acceptance, and history consistently repeats itself in the same manner: it never works. If there is no difference between the values of the Jesus of Christianity and the Jesus of culture (who is all about love, however we define that), then there really is no need for the Jesus of Christianity.

It’s also important to note, however, that the failure to recognize the authority that comes with the resurrection is also what leads to the horrendous track record that Christians have, even in their supposed biblical marriages. And the culture has noticed.

How should we respond?

Because of the resurrection, the Christian person can be confident that what Jesus believed is true, and they can be confident in living out the values of the new kingdom. Our covenant marriages between a man and a woman should reflect that reality. New kingdom marriages should stand out as examples of self-sacrificial love. They should mirror, as best they are able, the great love that Jesus has for his church, and that she has for her savior.

Because of the resurrection, the Christian person can love those who disagree. Religious people always want to know what someone believes about morality, or how they behave, before they can accept them. That’s why the religious leaders of Jesus day could never hang out with people who they considered to be “sinners”. True Christianity is not religion. Jesus knew that it was only once people knew that he loved them right where they were at that they could even have the possibility of being able to live according to the standards of the new kingdom. And even then, they’d probably fail miserably. It’s the reason that Christians are given the righteousness of Christ in full measure, not dependent on anything that we bring to the table.

Because of the resurrection, the Christian is free to not force their values on someone who believes differently. Instead, a Christian is free to live like the resurrection is really true, that Jesus is really who he said he was, and that the power of his life, death, and resurrection is sufficient to save.

This Good Friday and Easter, spend some time reflecting on the goodness of Jesus and the power of his life, death, and resurrection, to save sinners like all of us. Then live in the confidence of the new kingdom.