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Acts 25:18-19  [Festus reported to Agrippa]: “When [Paul’s] accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected.  Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus whom Paul claimed was alive.”  

Paul was experiencing what Jesus had ‘promised’ would happen to his disciples (and, by implication, to all who would align themselves with him): “They will lay hands on you and persecute you.  They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.” (Luke 21:12)

The fact of the resurrection – that Jesus had conquered death, had been raised to life, and was alive as ruler and Judge of all men – was at the heart of all of Paul’s preaching (see Acts 23). This meant that the claims and evidence that Jesus had conquered death presented a massive problem for the powerful Jewish Sanhedrin.  At the Areopagus in Athens Paul had proclaimed boldly and confidently to the Greek intellectuals: “[God] has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.  He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)  The resurrection and the empty tomb together were the final ‘proof’ and incontrovertible evidence that Jesus was God’s Promised Messiah before whom “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that [he] is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:10-11)

This has eternal implications for every human being (but especially the Jewish Sanhedrin), and is therefore the message we need to proclaim, and the warning we need to sound, at every possible opportunity, regardless of the consequences.  At the Areopagus, “some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject.’, and “a few … believed.”  That’s how it will be for us, too.  We live in an age and culture that refuses to face and acknowledge what God reveals so clearly in his Word about divine Judgement and accountability, so we can expect the same response to the preaching of the resurrection of Christ.

Could it be that the reason we are not facing strong opposition and persecution today is because we have gone ‘soft’ on the importance and centrality of the resurrection and, therefore, the uniqueness of Jesus as the only Saviour and Lord?  In the present philosophical climate, are we succumbing to the subtle pressure of multiculturalism, and unwittingly giving the impression that we think Christianity is just one of many options available in a ‘smorgasbord’ of religions, and that the doctrine of the Resurrection is not essential to the message of Jesus?  The Early Church was aware of the potential danger of this philosophical pressure, so they incorporated into the Apostles Creed the statement: “I believe the Resurrection of the body”, referring to Jesus’ body as much as to ours.

– Bruce Christian