If Christ Has Not Been Raised

"If Christ Has Not Been Raised"

St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church contains one of the greatest expositions on the resurrection of the dead.  From beginning to end, chapter 15 is one long defense of the resurrection of our own bodies rooted in the resurrection of Christ.  Paul is certain that our bodies, raised in Christ, will be immortal.

There are many people today, mostly secularist, who believe that “all religions are the same” because “all religions are seeking the same thing.”  I can only imagine the letter St. Paul would write to them.  But logically, statements like “all religions are the same” cannot be true.  The only way that all religions can be the same is if they are all wrong.  But if the resurrection of Christ is historically true, then Christianity must be placed in a different category than all other religions which would deny the resurrection.

St. Paul writes: “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain…If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Cor. 15:14, 19).  Paul wrote this approximately six years after establishing a Christian community in Corinth.  The community there were infants in the faith and had begun to question and doubt the resurrection of the dead.  Receiving this disturbing word, Paul realized the necessity of make a clear and logical argument regarding the necessity of the belief in the resurrection.  But the problem of that early Christian community is not uncommon today.

A former student in one of my classes once asked me a question that would have spurred St. Paul to respond in a manner similar to what he wrote to the first century church in Corinth.  My student’s question went something like this.  Is it possible to be a practicing Christian, yet still hold to the possibility that reincarnation may be true as well?

Quite simply, the answer is ‘no.’  It is absolutely impossible to be a Christian and believe in both the resurrection and reincarnation.  The resurrection and reincarnation are contradictory beliefs and it is absolutely heretical for a Christian to believe in reincarnation.  Why?  There are many reasons, but I will only look at a few.

First, Hebrews 10:27 reads: “It is appointed that men die once, and after death be judged.”  Reincarnation teaches the exact opposite.  While Christianity teaches that death brings a final and decisive judgment, religions that teach of reincarnation argue that there are many, perhaps endless, opportunities to bring oneself to perfection.

Likewise, the Christian view of the body is quite different from those religions which teach of reincarnation.  Those religions which believe in reincarnation view the body as an unimportant and transitory dwelling.  In the Christian view, the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Cor. 6:19-20) which, if saved, will rise in a glorified state as did Christ.

Now there may be some people who argue that the church believed in reincarnation at one time.  This is historically and verifiably false.  One only needs to read the writing of such early church fathers as Origin, Tertullian, St. John Chrysostom, and others, to see through that this has never been the teaching of the church.

Every person who claims to be a Christian, must eventually come to realize that the doctrine of the resurrection is not negotiable for Christianity.  If the resurrection of Christ did not happen, then all of Christianity is based on a foundation of sand.  The resurrection is the basis for our faith.  I would argue that the resurrection makes perfect historical sense for the very reason that people do not die for something that they know to be a lie.  Aside from Judas who killed himself, and John the apostle who tradition tells died of natural causes, the remaining ten apostle died as martyrs.  Each of the remaining ten claimed to see the risen Christ and all that was necessary to save their lives was to recant something that they knew to be false.  No, logically, seeing the risen Christ impacted the apostles in such a way that they viewed their own earthly lives as expendable compared to the glory of participating in Christ’s resurrection.

The books of the New Testament never claim that anyone witnessed Jesus in the actual process of rising from the dead as it happened.  The resurrection is never described.  But what we are told is that witnesses “saw” Jesus alive after his death and burial.  What is noteworthy is that they use the same word that the Old Testament uses when it says that the prophets “saw” God.  This includes physical sight, but it is much more than that.

Those who witnessed the resurrection and those who wrote about having seen Jesus alive again, are not merely claiming that Jesus was returned to his former state in life, as if he were a resuscitated or a reanimated body.  The apostle John tells us of the “raising” of Lazarus in Bethany of Judea which was very different than Jesus’ resurrection.  Lazarus’ raising was a sign pointing to the greater reality of the resurrection of Jesus.

There is no doubt that the tomb of Jesus was found empty since no one, neither Roman, Jew, family, friend, or enemy, could produce his beaten and crucified body.  The only question that remained was whether those who claimed to see Jesus alive again were telling the truth.  Beginning with the apostles, many have answered that question by giving their own lives and this is the foundation of our faith.  Christ is risen.  He is, truly, risen!