From Metaphysics to Mealworms

How the resurrection changes everything

“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He determined, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30–31, LSB)

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The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is without a doubt one of the most history-shaping, world-altering, and life-transforming events ever to take place; second only, perhaps, to the incarnation. It is an event, in other words, that quite literally turned the world on its head, ushering in a new era of human history and making it necessary to reexamine the very foundations of reality itself. As Flannery O’Connor, via the lips of one of her characters, put it: Christ, by virtue of His resurrection, has “thown everything off balance.”¹ He has set the whole world off kilter, such that everything now — from empires to hovels, from metaphysics to mealworms — must be reconceived in light of the empty tomb. 

Thus, whether we like it or not, the shadow of the risen Christ looms large over the landscape of human history, and there isn’t one thing any of us can do to change it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is as permanent a fixture of our world as the sky above or the earth beneath. And though some may, in moments of fleeting sanity, wish such verities away, at the end of the day we all have to reckon with their reality and effects. You can throw yourself off a cliff, but the ground is sure to meet you at the bottom, no matter how much you may have hoped to the contrary. 

One of the important effects of the resurrection, however, is that of bearing witness to the true identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, contrary to what many today assume, the resurrection wasn’t simply a divine party trick. It wasn’t, in other words, a mere demonstration of God’s power and authority over sin and death — though it certainly was that. Rather, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was, first and foremost, a public declaration of His lordship and divinity. It was a cosmic coronation, the moment when God Almighty vindicated His Son before a watching world and installed Him forever upon the throne of the universe. 

The texts could be cited in support of this are many, but I’ll make use of three. The first is from Psalm 2. Speaking of the resurrection, it reads, in verses 7–9:

“The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel’” (Psalm 2:7–9; cf. Acts 13:33). 

Paul, similarly, in Romans 1:4, says that:

“[Christ] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead…”. 

And Peter, on the basis of Christ’s resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of the Father, draws the resounding conclusion in his Pentecost sermon:

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36)

The resurrection, therefore, was the public vindication of the crucified Christ. It was Heaven’s indisputable affirmation that the Son the world had rejected was in fact its Lord and Saviour. 

Thus, no matter how sinners may rage against it or tyrants vainly try to suppress it, the cosmic verdict has already been given — Christ is King. And of this God has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:31). 

But not only is the resurrection a theological bombshell, it also contains powerful implications for a pluralistic age such as ours. For one, it eliminates the need to give every religious claim equal weight and consideration. Like Paul, simply passing over the majority of idols in the Greek Agora on his way to the proclamation of Jesus Christ (Acts 17:22–31), Christians too can move straight to the proclamation of the gospel without getting bogged down in myriad disputes.

Athena, in other words, doesn’t need to be meticulously disproven before the preaching can begin. If Christ has been raised, the matter is already settled; God has spoken. If He has not, then “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32). Truth and authority, morality and certainty, hinge on whether or not Christ came back from the dead. Christian apologetics, then, should begin with this fundamental claim, with everything else being built upon it. We do not need to give an answer to the claims of every idol and individual cult built up around them. Rather, we can simply point to the resurrection and let God’s own testimony speak for itself.

So let that truth fill your soul with confidence, Christian. God has not left Himself without witness. Consequently, our task is not that of persuading every skeptic, but rather of drawing attention, by word and deed, to the testimony God has already given. After all, the resurrection is the best argument for the reality and significance of Jesus Christ that has ever been made, and it is so because it is an argument made by God Himself. Thus, in an age of pluralism and profound epistemological uncertainty (which is to say, paganism and unbelief), I think the best course of action might just be what Spurgeon recommended years ago, namely, to get out of the way and let the Lion roar.

1. Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find, 21.