The Resurrection

There is one reason we follow Jesus. There is one thing that has made us Christians. Jesus died for sin and rose from the dead.

There would be no church and no Christianity if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. Jesus’ life was exemplary, his teaching was authoritative, his miracles were unprecedented. But none of those things are the foundation for Christianity. Good teachings and good moral examples were enough to start world religions, but Jesus wasn’t interested in starting a religion. He was interested in bringing people from darkness to light and from death to life. And the only way that could be accomplished was through dying for sin and rising from the dead.

The resurrection of Jesus is the core doctrine of our faith. You can’t be a Christian and not believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

The Stumbling Block 

Yet this is THE STUMBLING BLOCK for many people I talk. If you could become a Christian apart from believing in the resurrection of Jesus, then there would be tons more Christians. I’ve got a non-Christian friend who told me he’s all on-board with Christianity all except for the resurrection of Jesus.

Here is the thing. I don’t believe it is fundamentally a problem believing that, if there is a God, that he could live as a human, die and rise again. I think, more than that, the problem is with why he would need to die and rise again.

We generally like to think of ourselves as pretty evolved, pretty good, pretty civilized. So why would God need to die a gory, bloody death on the cross and rise again? Just give us some good moral teaching, get us on the right track, and we can take it from there. We don’t really need God to die for us, do we?

The death and resurrection of Jesus does not only challenge what we believe about God. It challenges what we believe about ourselves.

Did this really need to happen on my account? Am I really that bad off? 

There is a glorious humiliation that comes through believing the Gospel.

The humiliation comes not in confessing that you believe Jesus died and rose again. Rather, the humiliation comes in confessing that you needed him to. I am so sinful, so broken, so far from good, that my only hope is in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

There is a humiliation that comes in realizing you are completely dependent on someone else. There is a humiliation in being stripped of all pride and attempts at self-righteousness and coming to the realization that I am not good enough, strong enough, moral enough, creative enough, smart enough, or wealthy enough. I cannot finally save myself, rule myself, or bring good to myself. I need someone else for all of that.

Humiliation is generally a bad thing, a shameful thing, something to be avoided. But Gospel humiliation is a glorious humiliation.

There is glory found in humbling yourself, turning from the myth of self-reliance, laying down your pride, and resting in the truth that Christ has become our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).

In the next post, I’ll contrast the difference between the glorious humiliation of believing the Gospel and the shameful humiliation of self-reliance.