Christ is Risen: He is risen indeed!

Christ Is Risen

He is Risen Indeed.

We Christians have been a bunch of complete mugs. Over many decades we have harboured people who claim to be Christians but say they don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Instead of telling them the truth: “you are not Christians”, we have made them professors of theology, priests and even bishops!

We could learn a lesson from the secular world! Imagine for a moment a local soccer club.

Imagine one of the players turns up to practice with a hockey stick over his shoulder. Imagine a conversation that goes like this:

Coach: “OK lose the hockey stick … this is soccer!”

Player: “Don't be so last century coach! I really believe that now soccer should be played with hockey sticks!”

Coach: “No, no no sunshine! This is soccer not hockey. Lose the stick!”

Player: “Well I've been re-reading the rules coach. To me when the rules say “feet” this is just a metaphor for "stick" – so I say we should use hockey sticks!”

Well we all know how this is going to end! It will be some variation on “lose the stick or get lost!”

So why have we put up with people wanting to pose as Christians, even take prestige and pay as Christian theologians and prelates when they publicly deny the core belief of Christianity.

Just two tales of the inroads this madness has made:

1. When I was twenty or so I wanted to become a “local preacher” in the then Methodist Church (it became the “Uniting Church” just after I went over to the Anglicans).

I had a long-standing and sincere faith, but I had never studied theology. There was a course of  study required to be a local preacher. I embarked on this. In a nutshell the thrust of this course was that pretty much everything I had believed was naive and actually something close to a fairy tale! In particular Jesus was basically a good teacher whose death was unintended and unforeseen by him and the resurrection story was a myth invented by the early Christians. In reality, said one text book, his body was still in some unknown grave.

Readers can guess who destructive this rubbish was to my faith! Two events saved me.

The first was my presentation – having passed the exams – to the local preachers of our circuit. Most of these were old no-nonsense Christians. One just looked at me. It may have been barely more than a glance, but a glance that conveyed more than I can put in words. His glance cut deep. It was a glance that said: “You are not one of us!” That glance hurt – but it started my healing!

God, as all who know him have found, is incredibly kind. He is also incredibly severe. He loves us too much to let anything mar our eternal joy as his children. “Circumstances” pushed me into attending an Anglican church where there was sound doctrine. Eventually God manoeuvred me into a theological college. No, not the Uniting Church one, not even the university faculty I thought I wanted to study in, but Moore College – a brutal Calvinist institution. It was not nice, I was not happy there, and eventually I got thrown out.

(for details see http://lifeuniversegod.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/7-we-go-to-anglican-church.html and the couple of posts after it).

It was a severe mercy that God sent me there … but a great mercy. Over the course of three years at Moore, everything I had absorbed from the Uniting Church course was shown for the garbage it was, and thrown out of my soul. I was back to believing in the real God.

2. My second story is only a decade and a half old. My sons attended a prestigious Anglican school in Melbourne. My second son Tim was in senior year when this story takes place. It was approaching Easter. There was a chapel service for the whole school. The senior chaplain preached. He was was explaining to the boys that the resurrection story was not actually true.

Tim who even then was well over 6 foot tall, barrel chested and broad shouldered was a conspicuous figure. Hearing the chaplain preach this Tim jumped to his feet. He pushed his way along the row of students to the aisle. By now all eyes were fixed on this senior student doing the unthinkable in a chapel service! Tim said not a word. He turned and marched head erect out of the chapel!

Later several of the school masters who were devout Christians furtively came up to him and whispered things like “Well done!”

These stories are a little indication of how people who are no Christians at all have managed, not just to hide under some rock in the Christian Church, but have become its spokesmen!

Does this matter? What follows if the resurrection was a lie?

Jesus Said “I have come that (my sheep) may have life and have it to the full … I am the Good Shepherd … and I lay down my life for my sheep … I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.” (John Ch. 10) If Jesus did not rise from the dead he is no messiah … just a liar!

The apostles from the day of Pentecost preached the resurrection as central:

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles wonders and signs … was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you with the help of Gentiles put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him … God raised this Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of it. … Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah” (Acts Ch. 2)

“With great power the Apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus...” (Acts 4:33)

Paul put it bluntly:

“If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be lying witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he he raised Christ from the dead. … If Christ has not been raised your faith is futile: you are still in your sins. … If only for this life we have hope in Christ; we are of all people most to be pitied.

But Christ has indeed been raised, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. …”

These are only a taste of the unanimous teaching of the Bible – but enough to show that if the resurrection is not true in the fullest sense then Christianity is but a cruel lie.

Hence those who do not believe it are in no way Christians. Such persons who lurk in church positions are not even fellow travelers, they are at best masqueraders who have so little integrity that they will take the name and the pay of an organisation whilst they work to destroy its core belief. At worst they are ugly saboteurs.