What the Resurrection Proves

Good stuff over at STR.

R.A. Torrey, a prominent evangelist at the turn of the last century, published a book called The Bible and its Christ. Torrey opens his fourth chapter, on the resurrection, with a recap of the previous arguments, and then asks,

But suppose He did rise from the dead, what of it? What does His resurrection prove? It proves everything that most needs to be proved. It proves everything that is essential in Christianity.

There follow six points:

1. The resurrection of Christ from the dead proves that there is a God, and that the God of the Bible is the true God.

2. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that Jesus is a teacher sent from God, who received His message from God, that He was absolutely inerrant, that He spoke the very words of God.

3. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that He is the Son of God.

4. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that there is a judgment day coming.

5. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that every believer in Christ is justified from all things.

6. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves that all who are united to Christ by a living faith shall live again.

Fred Sanders at Biola University goes on to say,

The apologetic project of “proving the resurrection” is important, especially to demonstrate that the Christian faith is not a leap into the irrational or a retreat to personal commitment. But on its own, it’s a fairly tiresome business. Unless, that is, you keep the theological context in view: Christ as the revelation of God the Father, as the one judge whose claim on all humanity has been vindicated in a mighty act of divine self-demonstration, as the one whose sacrifice is salvation, and whose rising from the dead catches humanity up in its momentum. (more)