Jesus Lives

You ask me how I know he lives, he lives inside my heart, the popular hymn tells us.  Although "He Lives" is well intentioned it actually gives us weak theology and a weak answer to the question of how we know Jesus lives.  

It presents Christianity as something that is just internal and feelings based, like a leap of faith.  In this regard it is much like the view of skeptics and atheists.  Christian belief is seen as not being reasonable or historically verifiable.  One is to believe in spite of evidence to the contrary.  A false dichotomy is set up between faith and reason.  

In reality Christianity is reasonable and historically verifiable.  It deals with external reality as well as internal reality. The Christian worldview is intellectually robust and satisfying.  

People learn theology from hymns and spiritual songs so they are important.  Weak theology produces weak Christians, a weak church, and a weak Christianity in the public square.  

So how do we know Jesus was raised from the dead?  We will look at how the Apostle Paul dealt with the question in (1 Corinthians 15).  

(1 Corinthians 15:3-4) "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:  that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (ESV)

Paul starts with the testimony of Scripture as a reason for believing in the bodily resurrection of Christ.  At this time the Scriptures were the Old Testament.  Christ's death and resurrection fulfilled prophecy from the Bible.  Paul may have had in mind (Isaiah 53, Hosea 6:2, Psalm 16:10).  

Then in (1 Corinthians 15:5-9) Paul recounts  resurrection appearances of Christ.  The appearances were to Cephas (Peter), the 12 Apostles, more than 500 brothers (most still living), James, all the apostles, and last of all to Paul.  

If anyone doubted the resurrection of Christ he could ask over 500 witnesses who had seen the risen Lord.  The resurrection is a historically verifiable fact.  There were witnesses to the actual historical event.  

Ultimately we know the resurrection is true because the Bible tells us it is true.  God has revealed it to us in his Word.  The Bible is self authenticating.  The Bible is the inerrant, infallible, authoritative Word of God.  The Biblical worldview is consistent, non contradictory, livable, and it gives us reality.  No other worldview can measure up to this standard.  

So why is the resurrection of Christ so important?  If there is no resurrection there is no Christianity (1 Corinthians 15:17).  The resurrection proves that Jesus is the Son of God and that his substitutionary sacrifice was accepted by God the Father as payment for sin.