The resurrection and the grounds of Christian hope

Good Friday is the day we remember the death of Christ. As I commented here, the cross is neither the object of our faith nor the basis of our hope. Rather, it is the place at which Jesus fulfilled the work of his mission and secured the salvation of all who believe in him.

Easter Sunday is the day we remember the resurrection of Christ. Unlike the cross, the resurrection is the basis of Christian hope. In Romans 8:24, Paul reminds us "hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" As such, the Christian hope is by definition some future event or happening for which we wait.

As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:20 "Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep". Firstfruits signal the start of a harvest and prove there is more fruit on the way. If Jesus' is the firstfruits of those who have died, his resurrection must signal more of the same to come. The resurrection acts as God's pledge to all believers that they will be raised to glory. Jesus rose as the firstfruits of the resurrection of all believers to come. According to Paul, the basis of our hope rests on the historical event of Jesus' resurrection.

If one can disprove the resurrection, one can destroy the Christian faith. Christian belief rests on the historical resurrection of Jesus. Without it, there is no future hope. Jesus did not rise, he is not in glory and  no believer is going to be there with him for eternity. Evidently, this is what the apostles themselves recognised when they returned to the very jobs from which Jesus first called them in the aftermath of the crucifixion.

The question that remains is this: what best accounts for the empty tomb? What best accounts for the sudden emergence of the Christian church? What best accounts for the willingness of the dejected followers of Jesus suddenly being willing to die for a faith based solely on the resurrection of their Lord? 

The evidence for the resurrection is quite astounding. The points of agreement among scholars on the basic historic facts surrounding the resurrection are enormous (see here for an outline of this). If the answer to the above questions is that Jesus actually, bodily rose from the dead then Christians have remarkable grounds for their current faith and future hope.

The nature of the cross and why Good Friday is still good

In an article I read recently, it was pointed out - via the questions surrounding when Christian was saved in Pilgrim's Progress - that we are not saved by the cross. Having outlined his position on when and where Christian was saved (at the wicket gate, if you are interested), the author states:

“Are you saying that someone can be saved without the cross?” a concerned student asks.

“No,” I answer, “No one can be saved apart from what Jesus accomplished on the cross, but the Bible proclaims that a person gets saved when he receives Christ, and the Bible does not say that a person gets saved through believing that Jesus died for him. Christ himself is the proper object of saving faith, not some part of his work.”

The author rightly goes on to say: 

virtually everyone has been told that if he will believe that Jesus died for him, he will be saved, but I repeat: this is not found in the Bible. A person is saved not when he believes in right doctrine (substitutionary, penal atonement, in this case) but a person is saved when he believes in the right person, namely Christ. So the object of saving faith is not a doctrine but a person. Christ himself is the treasure chest of salvation. Receive him, and you receive all that is in him.

The article correctly notes that penal substitution is a vital, indispensable part of the gospel. However, it is not the whole gospel and it is not through proper understanding of this doctrine that one is saved. In short, "all who receive Christ the risen Lord as Lord and Savior are saved".

It is also worth noting that none of the apostles seem to ground their hope in the cross either. Their hope seems to rest, not on the cross but, on the resurrection event. So, the cross is neither the object of salvation nor the basis of Christian hope.

Before we go throwing out Good Friday and ignoring Jesus' death altogether, here is why the cross is vitally important and Good Friday is still good. Despite the cross neither being the object of our faith nor the basis of our future hope, the cross is where Jesus ultimately and finally secured our salvation. The cross is the place whereby Jesus paid the penalty for sin, once for all, and completed the mission for which he came. At the cross, the price for sin had been paid, the debt cleared and - unbeknownst to them at the time - the salvation of all believers finally secured.

Although our future hope is not based upon Jesus' work of the cross (more of which on Sunday), without the cross our salvation would not, and could not, exist. The cross is of vital importance because it marks the point in salvation-history at which God punished, in himself, the sins of those for whom Christ died. The cross is neither the object of our salvation, nor the basis of our hope, but there would certainly be no salvation without it. 

That is why Good Friday remains good.

A collection of snippets from the interweb

Here are several posts, articles and videos that seem worth a moment of your time:

Schreiner on the New Perspective on Paul - "the Reformers were fundamentally right. What Luther and Calvin said in their day was a right understanding of Paul. They had a good and right understanding of the gospel."

The Church needs Philosophy which, likewise, needs the Church - "if history teaches us anything, it is that we are fickle. We are too easily tossed to and fro by the winds of popular culture, base appetites, and short memories. We need to take the long view, and now, because of the influence of prominent Christian philosophers such as Dallas Willard, Alvin Plantinga, and William Lane Craig it is a good time to remind the church of the usefulness, indeed the necessity, of philosophy in service to Christ."

When is Christian saved in Pilgrim's Progress? - One of my favourite books, through which I was saved. A must read for all Christians (and, preferably, unbelievers too). Nonetheless, a problem has plagued many, including Spurgeon, in that Christian's burden only rolls away at the foot of the cross despite having already entered the wicket gate. So, was Christian saved at the gate or the cross? Spurgeon said of Bunyan: "“If he meant to show what usually happens, he was right; but if he meant to show what ought to have happened, he was wrong.” Was Spurgeon right or had Bunyan something else in mind?

Why moralism is not the gospel - Al Mohler talks through the difference between moralism and the gospel message. "We are justified by faith alone, saved by grace alone, and redeemed from our sin by Christ alone. Moralism produces sinners who are (potentially) better behaved. The Gospel of Christ transforms sinners into the adopted sons and daughters of God."

Why on earth are evangelical statements of this kind treated differently?

I was surprised to read in today's Guardian two particularly good comments, within the same article, by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Here, Justin Welby outlined the difficult position in which the Anglican Communion finds itself regarding gay marriage.

The first comment, which really outlines the difficult position, was the headline of the article. Welby suggested that African believers will be killed if the CofE accepts gay marriage. He told of the mass grave he had seen in Nigeria of 330 Christians who had been killed by their neighbours. He said this atrocity was justified by those who committed it this way: "If we leave a Christian community here we will all be made to become homosexual and so we will kill all the Christians".

Welby went on to say "I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America. We have to listen to that. We have to be aware of the fact". If the Church of England celebrated gay marriages, he added, "the impact of that on Christians far from here, in South Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other places would be absolutely catastrophic. Everything we say here goes round the world".

Welby is right to outline this issue. The Anglican Church does not operate in a Western Liberal bubble and its pronouncements are felt across the world. Moreover, it is not only those who subscribe to Anglicanism who are affected. All Christians will feel the brunt of their decisions and statements, irrespective of whether they themselves are Anglican communicants. Most people do not have enough theological nuance to differentiate between denominations and theological views. Typically, whether believers like it or not, Anglicanism is seen as the authentic voice of Christianity across the world. As such, not only do CofE pronouncements affect Anglican believers, they have knock-on effects for all Christians, especially those in countries in which Christianity is less than welcome.

However, the far more interesting part of the article came later, almost as an aside. The article stated:

Welby also condemned homophobia in England. "To treat every human being with equal importance and dignity is a fundamental part of being a Christian," he said. Although he continued to uphold what he called the historic position of the church, of "sex only within marriage and marriage only between a man and a woman", he agreed with the presenter, James O'Brien, that it was "completely unacceptable" for the church to condemn homosexual people more than adulterous heterosexual people.

This is the closest statement to the scriptural position on gay marriage I have seen from the Archbishop and it was this that caught my attention. 

As a caveat, I appreciate there are some fundamentalist, and fewer evangelical, churches who would not frame the Christian position in this way. There are those who would major on homosexuality in a thoroughly unhelpful (and unbiblical?) way. I also appreciate there are those who, though they would make similar comments, say and do a series of other things that rather undermine their stated position. Again, however, I think these churches are in the minority within both fundamentalist and evangelical circles.

This was the thing that interested me most. The Guardian, the paper most likely to cry foul play on this issue, reported fairly that the Archbishop "condemned homophobia". They rightly stated the scriptural position that all people should be treated with dignity and respect - irrespective of whatever sin they may have committed - as "a fundamental part of being a Christian". All of this was stated alongside the clear view of the Archbishop that sex is for marriage between a man and a woman but that it is nevertheless wrong to condemn homosexual behaviour more than adulterous heterosexual behaviour. All of that, I completely endorse.

Why then, given the Archbishop of Canterbury was deemed - by the Guardian no less - to have "condemned homophobia", do evangelicals who make exactly the same case get castigated as homophobic? Almost every evangelical church I have known (with few exceptions), would state the position of scripture and their individual, independent churches in almost exactly those terms. 

Recently, evangelical writer and rector of St Ebbes, Oxford - Vaughan Roberts - expressed precisely this view in an interview for Evangelical Now, as well as in his book Battles Christians Face. In both interview and book, he bravely spoke of his own personal struggle with same-sex attraction. Other evangelical writers have written similar articles and books making much the same case. It simply beggars belief that this statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury can be deemed to condemn homophobia whilst nigh on identical statements from evangelical quarters are roundly condemned as homophobic.

If the scriptural position stated by Justin Welby is recognised as condemning homophobia, continual claims of evangelical homophobia need to be addressed. If it be homophobic to call homosexual acts (whilst still respecting the rights and dignity of those attracted to people of the same-sex) sinful, in precisely the same way as calling adulterous heterosexuality (whilst still respecting the rights and dignity of those people) sinful, then it is hard to see how Justin Welby's comments escape this charge. If, however, the scriptural view is not deemed fundamentally homophobic - that all people irrespective of the particular sins they commit (of which, we all commit some) are worthy of dignity and respect but that any sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage does amount to sin - then Justin Welby, the CofE and the majority of evangelical churches cannot, and should not, be labelled uniformly homophobic.

I would love it if this signals a change in media reporting. I would be delighted if this means the genuine nuances of the scriptural view, and majority position within evangelicalism, are reported fairly. It would be great if Christians are not simply denounced as homophobic when they differentiate the choice to commit homosexual acts from the homosexual people who do not choose to be attracted to people of the same-sex. This is exactly the same as the differentiation between the heterosexual people who do not choose to be attracted to people of the opposite sex but do choose when, and with whom, to engage in sexual activity. 

When evangelicals speak of homosexuality as sinful, they rarely mean same-sex attraction is of itself sinful, intentional and chosen. I hope these nuances are reported fairly and this marks a sea-change in the way evangelical, and broader Christian, views of homosexuality are seen in the media and the public square. I hope this is the case but I shan't hold my breath.