“Why should the Christian hope of eschatological resurrection appear to modern man as anything more than mere wishful thinking?”
“The answer lies in the Christian conviction that a man has been proleptically raised by God from the dead as the forerunner and exemplar of our own eschatological resurrection.”
The Resurrection: The Turning Point in History
Historical argument alone cannot force anyone to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. But historical argument is remarkably good at clearing away the undergrowth behind which skepticisms of various sorts have been hiding.
The proposal that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead possesses unrivaled power to explain the historical data at the heart of early Christianity. —N. T. Wright
He Answered Nothing
There’s a stillness that lets God work for us, and holds our peace; the stillness that ceases from its contriving and its self vindication, and its expedients of wisdom and forethought, and lets God provide and answer the cruel blow, in His own unfailing, faithful love.
How often we lose God’s interposition by taking up our own cause, and striking for our defense.
What Manner of Man is This?
Death itself could not stop His work or His words! Since that miraculous day over 2,000 years ago, this same Man, Jesus Christ, has done more to change history and the course of civilization and the condition of man than any other leader, group, government, or empire.
If God Could Do That…
If I take Easter as the starting point, the one incontrovertible fact about how God treats those whom he loves, then human history becomes the contradiction and Easter a preview of ultimate reality. Hope then flows like lava beneath the crust of daily life.