It is a somewhat difficult matter to distinguish between Christian doctrines and
facts. The doctrines of Christianity are doctrines only because they are facts;
and the facts of Christianity become its most indispensable doctrines. The
Incarnation of the eternal God is necessarily a dogma: no human eye could
witness his stooping to man's estate, no human tongue could bear witness to it
as a fact. And yet, if it be not a fact, our faith is vain, we are yet in our
sins. On the other hand, the Resurrection of Christ is a fact, an external
occurrence within the cognizance of men to be established by their testimony.
And yet, it is the cardinal doctrine of our system: on it all other doctrines
hang.
There have been some, indeed, who have refused to admit the essential importance
of this fact to our system; and even so considerable a critic as Keim has
announced himself as occupying this standpoint. Strauss saw, however, with more
unclouded eye, truly declaring the fact of Christ's resurrection to be "the
center of the center, the real heart of Christianity," on which its truth stands
or falls. To this, indeed, an older and deeper thinker than Strauss had long ago
abundantly witnessed. The modern skeptic does but echo the words of the apostle
Paul. Come what may, therefore, modern skepticism must be rid of the
resurrection of Christ. It has recognized the necessity and has bent all its
energies to the endeavor.
But the early followers of the Savior also themselves recognized the paramount
importance of this fact; and the records of Christianity contain a mass of proof
for it, of such cogent variety and convincing power, that Hume's famous dilemma
[1] recoils on his own head. It is more impossible that the laws of testimony
should be so far set aside, that such witness should be mistaken, than that the
laws of nature should be so far set aside that a man should rise from the dead.
The opponents of revelation themselves being witnesses, the testimony of the
historical books of the New Testament if the testimony of eyewitnesses is amply
sufficient to establish this, to them, absolutely crushing fact. It is admitted
well-nigh universally that the Gospels contain testimony for the resurrection of
Christ, which, if it stand, proves that fact; and that if Christ rose from the
dead all motive for, and all possibility of, denial of any supernatural fact of
Christianity is forever removed.
Of course, it has become necessary, then, for the deniers of a supernatural
origin to Christianity to impeach the credibility of these witnesses. It is
admitted that if the Gospel account be truly the testimony of eye-witnesses,
then Christ did rise from the dead; but it is immediately added that the Gospels
are late compositions which first saw the light in the second century—that they
represent, not the testimony of eye-witnesses, but the wild dreams of a
mythological fancy or the wilder inventions of unscrupulous forgery; and that,
therefore, they are unworthy of credit and valueless as witnesses to fact. Thus,
it is proclaimed, this alleged occurrence of the rising of Jesus from the dead,
is stripped of all the pretended testimony of eye-witnesses; and all discussion
of the question whether it be fact or not is forever set aside—the only question
remaining being that which concerns itself with the origin and propagation of
this fanatical belief.
It is in this position that we find skepticism entrenched- a strong position
assuredly and chosen with consummate skill. It is not, however, impregnable.
There are at least two courses open to us in attacking it. We may either
directly storm the works, or, turning their flank, bring our weapons to bear on
them from the rear. The authenticity of our Gospels is denied We may either
prove their authenticity and hence the autoptic character of the testimony they
contain; or, we may waive all question of the books attacked, and, using only
those which are by the skeptics themselves acknowledged to be genuine, prove
from them that the resurrection of Christ actually occurred. [2]
The first course, as being the most direct, is the one usually adopted. Here the
battle is intense; but the issue is not doubtful. Internally, those books evince
themselves as genuine. Not only do they proclaim a teaching absolutely original
and patently divine, but they have presented a biography to the world such as no
man or body of men could have concocted. No mythologists could have invented a
divine-human Personality —assigned the exact proportions in which his divinity
and humanity should be exhibited in his life, and then dramatized this character
through so long a course of teaching and action without a single contradiction
or inconsistency. That simple peasants have succeeded in a task wherein a body
of philosophers would have assuredly hopelessly failed, can be accounted for
only on the hypothesis that they were simply detailing actual facts.
Again, there are numerous evidently undesigned coincidences in minute points to
be observed between the book of Acts and those Epistles of Paul acknowledged to
be genuine, which prove beyond a peradventure that book to be authentic history.
The authenticity of Acts carries that of the Gospel of Luke with it; and the
witness of these two establishes the Resurrection.
But, aside from all internal evidence, the external evidence for the
authenticity of the New Testament historical books is irrefragable. The
immediate successors of the apostles possessed them all and esteemed them as the
authoritative documents of their religion. One of the writers of this age
(placed by Hilgenfeld in the first century) quotes Matthew as Scripture: another
explicitly places Acts among the "Holy Books," a collection containing on common
terms the Old Testament and at least a large part of the New: all quote these
historical books with respect and reverence. There is on external, historical
grounds no room left for denying the genuineness of the Gospels and Acts; and
hence, no room left for denying the fact of the Resurrection. The result of a
half-century's conflict on this line of attack has resulted in the triumphant
vindication of the credibility of the Christian records.
We do not propose, however, to fight this battle over again at this time. The
second of the courses above pointed out has been less commonly adopted, but
leads to equally satisfactory results. To exhibit this is our present object.
The most extreme schools of skepticism admit that the book of Revelation is by
St. John; and that Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians are genuine
letters of St. Paul. [3] Most leaders of anti-Christian thought admit other
epistles also; but we wish to confine ourselves to the narrowest ground. Our
present task, then, is, waiving all reference to disputed books, to show that
the testimony of these confessedly genuine writings of the apostles is enough to
establish the fact of the Resurrection. We are even willing to assume narrower
ground. The Revelation is admitted to be written by an eye-witness of the death
of Christ and the subsequent transactions; and the Book of Revelation testifies
to Christ's resurrection. In it he is described as One who was dead and yet came
to life (ii. 8), and as the first-begotten of the dead (i. 5). Here, then, is
one admitted to have been an eye-witness testifying of the Resurrection. For the
sake of simplifying our argument, however, we will omit the testimony of
Revelation and ask only what witness the four acknowledged Epistles of
Paul-Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians bear to the fact that Christ
rose from the dead.
It is plain on the very first glance into these Epistles that they have a great
deal to say about this Resurrection. Our task is to draw out the evidential
value of their references.
We would note, then, in the first place, that Paul claims to be himself an
eye-witness of a risen Christ. After stating as a fact that Christ rose from the
dead and enumerating his various appearances to his followers, he adds: "And
last of all, as unto one born out of due time, he appeared to me also" (1 Cor.
xv. 8 ) . And again, he bases his apostleship on this sight, saying (1 Cor. ix.
1), "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" His "sight" of the
Lord Jesus was, therefore of such a kind that it constituted a call to the
apostleship. It was not, then, a simple sight of Jesus before his crucifixion:
as is also proved from the fact that it was after all the appearances which he
vouchsafed after his resurrection to his other followers, that Paul saw him ( 1
Cor. xv. 8 ). It remains true, then, that Paul claims to be an eye-witness of
the fact that Christ had risen. It will not do to say that Paul claims only to
have had a "theophany" as it were a "sight" of Christ's spirit living, which
would not imply the resurrection of his body. As Beyschlag has long ago pointed
out, the whole argument in 1 Cor. xv being meant to prove the bodily
resurrection of believers from the resurrection of Christ, necessitates the
sense that Paul, like the other witnesses there adduced saw Christ in the body.
Nor is it difficult to determine when Paul claims to have seen Christ: it is
admitted by all that it was this "sight" that produced his conversion and called
him to the apostleship. According to Gal. i. 19 both calls were simultaneous.
Tracing his conversion thus to, and basing his apostleship on, the resurrection
of Christ, it is not strange that Paul has not been able to keep his Epistles
from bristling with marks of his intense conviction of the fact of the
Resurrection. Compare, e.g., Romans i. 4; iv. 24, 25; v. 10; vi. 4, 5, 8, 9 10,
11, 13; vii. 4; viii. 11, 34; x. 7, 9; xiv. 9. We cannot, therefore, without
stultification deny that Paul was thoroughly convinced that he had seen the
risen Jesus; and the skeptics themselves feel forced to admit this fact.
What, then, shall we do with this claim of Paul to be an eye-witness? Shall we
declare his "sight" to have been no true sight, but a deceiving vision? Paul
certainly thought it bodily and a sight. But we are told that Paul was given to
seeing visions-that he was in fact of that enthusiastic spiritual
temperament-like Francis of Assisi for instance-which fails to distinguish
between vivid subjective ideas and external facts. But, while it must be
admitted that Paul did see visions, all sober criticism must wholly deny that he
was a visionary. Waiving the fact that even Paul's visions were externally
communicated to him and not the projections of a diseased imagination, as well
as all general discussion of the elements of Paul's character, this visionary
hypothesis is shattered on the simple fact that Paul knew the difference between
this "sight" of Jesus and his visions, and draws the distinction sharply between
them. This "sight" was, as he himself tells us, the last of all; and the only
vision which on our opponents' principles can be attributed to him, that
recorded in 2 Cor. xii is described by Paul in such a manner as to draw the
contrast very strongly between his confidence in this "sight" and his
uncertainty as to what had happened to him then. Of course, no appeal can be
properly made to the "false" history of the Acts; but, if attempted, it is
sufficient to say that according to Acts Paul saw Jesus after this sight of 1
Cor. xv; but that this was in a trance (Acts xxii. 18 ff.),.), and in spite of
it the sight of 1 Cor. xv was the "last" time Jesus was seen. In other words,
Paul once more draws a strict distinction between his "visions" and this
"sight."
It is instructive to note the methods by which it is attempted to make this
visionary hypothesis more credible. A graphic picture is drawn by Baur, Strauss,
and Renan,, of the physical and psychological condition of St. Paul. He had been
touched by the steadfastness of the Christians; he was deeply moved by the
grandeur of Stephen's death; had begun to doubt within himself whether the
resurrection of Christ had not really occurred; and, sick in body and distracted
in mind, smitten by the sun or the lightning of some sudden storm, was
prostrated on his way to Damascus and saw in his delirium his- awful
self-imagined vision. It would be easy to show that the important points of this
picture are contradicted by Paul himself: he knows nothing of distraction of
mind or of opening doubts before the coming of the catastrophe (cf. Gal. i. 13
ff.). It would be easy, again, to show that, brilliant as it is, this picture
fails to account for the facts, notably for the immense moral change (recognized
by Paul himself) by which he was transformed from the most bloodthirsty of
fanatics to the tenderest of saints. But, it will be sufficient for our present
purpose to not only that all that renders it plausible is its connection with
certain facts recorded only in that "unbelievable" history, the Acts. We find
ourselves, then, in this dilemma: if Acts be no true history, then these facts
cannot be so used; if Acts be true history, then Paul's conversion occurred
quite otherwise; and again, if Acts be true, then so is Luke's Gospel; and Acts
and Luke are enough to authenticate the resurrection of Christ. In either case,
our cause is won.
In regard to this whole visionary scheme we have one further remark to make: it
is to be noted that even were it much more plausible than it is, it still would
not be worth further consideration. For, Paul believed in the fact of the
resurrection of Christ not only because he had seen the Lord, but also on the
testimony of others. For, we would note in the second place that Paul introduces
us to other eye-witnesses of the resurrection of Christ. He founded his gospel
on this fact; and in Gal. ii. 6 ff. he tells us his gospel was the same as was
preached by Peter, James, and John. Peter, James, and John, then, believed with
the same intensity that Christ rose from the dead. We have already seen that
this testimony as to John at least, is supported by what he himself has written
in the Apocalypse. In consistency with the inference, again, Paul explicitly
declares in 1 Cor. xv. 3 ff., that the risen Christ was seen not only by himself
but by Cephas, James, and indeed all the apostles; and that, more than once.
Even more: he states that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, the
most of whom were still living when Paul wrote this letter, and whose
witness-bearing he invokes. Here, Paul brings before us a cloud of witnesses.
In respect to them the following facts are worth pointing out. These witnesses
were numerous; there were at least five hundred of them. They were not a mere
unknown mob: we know somewhat of several of them and know them as practical men.
The most of them were still living when Paul wrote, and he could appeal to them
to bear testimony to the Corinthians.
The result of all of which is that this notice in 1 Cor. is equivalent to their
individual testimony. Paul is admitted to be a sober and trustworthy writer;
this Epistle is admitted to be genuinely his; and he here in a contemporary
document challenges an appeal to living eye-witnesses. He could not have made
this confident appeal had not these men really professed, soberly and earnestly,
to have seen the risen Christ. We have, then, not only Paul claiming to be an
eye-witness of the Resurrection; but a large number of men, over two hundred and
fifty of whom were known to be still living when he wrote. We have to account
not for the claim of one man that he had seen Jesus alive after he- had died,
but for the same claim put in by a multitude. Will any arguing that Paul
sometimes saw visions serve our purpose here? And there is still another point
which is worth remarking. The witnesses here appealed to are the original
disciples and apostles of our Lord. From this, two facts follow: the one, the
original disciples believed they had seen the risen Lord; and the other, they
claimed to have seen him on the third day after his burial (1 Cor. xv. 4). This,
according to Paul, is certain fact.
Then note once more, in the third place, that this testimony (as already pointed
out) was not only absolutely convincing to the Apostle Paul, but it was so also
to the whole body of Christians. Not only did Paul base the truth of all
Christianity on the truth of this testimony, and found his conversion on it; but
so did all Christians. He could count on all his readers being just as firmly
persuaded of this fact as he was. To the Corinthians, Galatians, Romans-this is
the dogma of Christianity. When Paul wishes to prove his apostleship to the
Corinthians or Galatians he is not afraid to base it on the therefore admitted
fact of the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. ix. 1; Gal. i. 1): when he wishes to
make our justification seem sure to the Romans, he appeals to Christ's
resurrection in its proof (Rom. iv. 24, 25). These are but specimens of his
practice. Both purposed and incidental allusions are made to the Resurrection
through all four of these Epistles of such character as to prove that it was
felt by Paul that he could count on it above all other facts as the
starting-point of Christianity in the minds of his readers. Whether he is
writing to Corinthians, Galatians, or Romans, this is alike true. Now, consider
the force of this. In some of these churches, it is to be remembered, there were
dissensions, divisions, parties arrayed in bitter hostility against one another,
parties with contumely denying the apostleship, or discarding the leadership of
Paul. Yet all these parties believe in the resurrection of Christ: Paul can
appeal to all alike to accept a doctrine based on that. It is to his bitterest
opponents that he will prove his apostleship by claiming to have seen the risen
Lord. It is plain, then, that the resurrection of Christ was in Paul's day
deemed a primordial, universal, and essential doctrine of Christianity.
Again, some of Paul's readers were far removed from credulous simplicity. There
was a party in the Corinthian Church, for instance, who, with all the instincts
of modern philosophical criticism, claimed the right to try at the bar of reason
the doctrines submitted to their acceptance. They could not accept such an
absurdity as the resurrection of the bodies of those who slept in the Lord: "If
the dead be raised, With what body do they come?" was but one of their
argumentative queries. The same class of difficulties in regard to the
resurrection of men, as would in modern times start up in the minds of
scientific inquirers, was evidently before their minds. Yet they believed firmly
in the resurrection of Christ. When Paul wishes to argue with them in regard to
our resurrection, he bases his argument on the therefore common ground of the
resurrection of Christ. It is plain, then, that unthinking credulity will not
account for the universal acceptance of this doctrine: men able and more than
willing to apply critical tests to evidence were firm believers in it.
And still again, one of these letters is addressed to a church with which Paul
had no personal connection. It was not founded by him; it had never been visited
by him; it had not before been addressed by him. There were those in it who were
opposed to his dearest teachings: there were those in it who had been humble
followers of Christ while he was still raging against his Church. Yet, they all
believed as firmly as he did in the resurrection of Christ. He could prove his
doctrines to them best by basing on this common faith. It is plain, then, that
this doctrine was not of late growth in the Church; nor had its origin from
Paul. It had always been the universal belief in the Church: men did not believe
it because Paul preached it only, but they and Paul alike believed it from the
convincing character of the evidence. When had a belief, thus universally
accepted as a part of aboriginal Christianity in A.D. 58, had an opportunity to
mythically grow into being? And, if it grew, what of the testimony of those over
two hundred and fifty still living eye-witnesses to the fact?
Here we may fitly pause to gather up results. It seems indisputably evident from
these four Epistles of Paul: First, That the resurrection of Christ was
universally believed in the Christian Church when these Epistles were written:
whatever party lines there were, however near they came, yet did they not cut
through this dogma. Second, That the original followers of Christ, including his
apostles, claimed to be eye-witnesses of the fact of his resurrection; and,
therefore, from the beginning (third day) the whole Church had been convinced of
its truth. Over two hundred and fifty of these eye-witnesses were living when
Paul wrote. Third, That the Church believed universally that it owed its life,
as it certainly owed its continued existence and growth, to its firm belief in
this dogma. What has to be accounted for, then, is: 1. Not the belief of one man
that he had seen the Lord, but of something over five hundred. 2. Not the
conviction of a party, and that after some time, that the Lord had risen, but
the universal and immediate belief of the whole Church. 3. The effect of this
faith in absolutely changing the characters and filling with enthusiasm its
first possessors. And 4. Their power in propagating their faith, in building up
on this strange dogma a large and fast-growing communion, all devoted to it as
the first and ground element of their faith.
There are only three theories which can be possibly stated to account for these
facts. Either, the original disciples of Christ were deceivers and deliberately
concocted the story of the Resurrection; or, they were woefully deluded; or the
Resurrection was a fact.
I. The first of these theories, old as it is (Matt. xxviii. 11 ff.), is now
admitted on all sides to be ridiculous. Strauss and Volkmar, for example, both
scorn it as an impossible explanation. We may, therefore, pass it over in few
words. The dead body of Christ lying in his grave ready to be produced by the
Jews at any moment, of itself destroys this theory. For we must remember that
the belief in the Resurrection dates from the third day. Or, if the body no
longer lay in the grave, where was it? It must have been either removed by their
enemies, in which case it would have been produced in disproof of the
Resurrection; or stolen by the disciples themselves. We are shut up to these two
hypotheses, for the only possible third one (that the body had never been buried
but thrown upon the dunghill) is out of the question, eye-witnesses expressly
witnessing, according to Paul, that it was buried ( 1 Cor. xv. 4 f.)..). No one
will so stultify himself in this age as to seriously contend that the disciples
stole the body. Not only is it certain that they could not possibly have
summoned courage to make the attempt; but the very idea of Christianity owing
its life to such an act is worse than absurd. Imagine, if one can, this band of
disheartened disciples assembled and coolly plotting to conquer the world to
themselves by proclaiming what must have been seen to be the absurd promise of
everlasting life through One who had himself died-had died and had not risen
again. Imagine them not expecting a resurrection nor dreaming of its
possibility, determining to steal the body of their dead Lord, pretend that he
had risen, and, then, to found on their falsehood a system of the most marvelous
truth-on this act of rapine a system of the most perfect morals. Imagine the
body stolen and brought into their midst-who can think they could be stirred up
to noble endeavor by the sight? "Can a more appalling spectacle be imagined,"
exclaims Dr. Nott, "than that of a dead Christ stolen from his sepulcher and
surrounded by his hopeless, heaven-deserted followers? And was it here, think
you, in this cadaverous chamber . . . in this haunt of sin, of falsehood, of
misery, and of putrefaction, that the transcendent and immortal system of
Christian faith and morals was adopted? Was this stolen, mangled, lifeless
corpse the only rallying point of Christians? Was it the sight of this that . .
. fortified,, and filled with the most daring courage, the most deathless hopes,
the whole body of the disciples?" Well have our opponents declared this
supposition absurd. Christ rose from the dead, or else his disciples were a body
of woefully deluded men.
II. Then, will this second theory meet the case? Is the admitted fact that
Christ's earliest followers were all convinced that he rose from the dead,
adequately explained by the supposition that they were the victims of a
delusion? We must remember that the testimony of eye-witnesses declares that
Christ rose on the third day; and that we have thus to account for immediate
faith. But, then, there is the dead body of Jesus lying in the grave! How could
the whole body of those men be so deceived in so momentous a matter with the
means of testing its truth ready at their hand? Hence, it is commonly admitted
that the grave was now empty. Strauss alone resorts to the sorry hypothesis that
the appearances of the risen Christ were all in Galilee, and that before the
forty days which intervened before the disciples returned to Jerusalem had
passed, the site of the grave (or dunghill) had been wholly forgotten by friend
and foe alike. But, there is that unimpeachable testimony of eye-witnesses that
the appearances began on the third day; and the equally assured fact (Rom. vi.
4; 1 Cor. xv. 4), that the body was not thrown on a dunghill but that there was
a veritable grave. So that the empty grave stares us still in the face. If
Christ did not rise, how came the grave empty? Here is the crowning difficulty
which all the ingenuity of the whole . modern critical school has not been able
to lay aside. Was it emptied by Christ's own followers? That would have been
imposture, and the skeptics scorn such a resort: moreover, the hypothesis that
the apostles were impostors has been laid aside already (in the preceding
paragraph). Was it, then, emptied by his enemies? How soon would the body have
been produced, then, to confront and confound the so rapidly growing heresy! Or,
if this were not possible, how soon would overwhelming proof of the removal of
the body have been brought forward! Then, how was that grave emptied? Shall we
say that Jesus was not really dead, and reviving from the swoon, himself crept
from the tomb? This was the hypothesis of Schleiermacher. But not only is it in
direct contradiction with the eye- witness testimony (1 Cor. xv. 3; 2 Cor. v.
15; Rom. xiv. 9, et saepe), which is explicit that Christ died; but it has been
felt by all the leaders of skeptical thought to be inadequate as an explanation.
Strauss has himself executed justice on it. It not only casts a stigma on the
moral character of our Lord; but it is itself laden with absurdity. "It would
have been impossible thus to mistake a wounded man, dying from exhaustion, for
the Messiah of Jewish expectations, or then to magnify this into a resurrection
from the dead." A dying man in hiding, the center of Christianity's life! This
fill with enthusiasm and death-defying courage the founders of the Church!
Besides all which, the hypothesis makes the apostles either knaves or fools,
neither of which, as the skeptics admit, is possible truth. Hence, they
themselves unite with us in rejecting as wholly absurd this dream of
Schleiermacher. Once more, then, how can we account for the empty grave? We
hazard nothing in asserting that this one fact is destructive to all the
theories of Christ's resurrection which have been started in the nervous effort
to be rid of its reality. That empty grave is alone enough to found all
Christianity upon.
But, suppose for a moment, we assume the impossible, and allow to Strauss that
the site of the grave was already lost. What then? The disciples were still
convinced that Christ had risen. How shall we account for this invincible
conviction? The only possible resort is to the worn-out vision- hypothesis.
Renan draws a beautiful picture of Mary Magdalene in her love and grief fancying
she saw her longed-for Lord; and a not so beautiful one of the abject and
idiotic credulity of the disciples who believed her, and then, because they
believed her, fancied they had seen him themselves. But will all this fine
picturing of what might have been, stand the test of facts? That grave stares us
in the face again: if the body was still in it, there was no place left for
visions of it as living and out of it; if not in it, how came it out?
But laying aside this final argument as premised, even then the theory cannot
stand. 1. There was no expectation of a resurrection, and hence no ground for
visions. So far we can go here. Could we appeal to the Gospels we could go
farther and show that the disciples had lost all heart and "so far was their
imagination from creating the sensible presence of Jesus, that at the first they
did not recognize him." Renan gains all the facts on which he founds his theory
from the Gospels: let him be refuted from the same records. How could Mary
Magdalene's own mind have created the vision of Jesus when she did not recognize
him as Jesus when he appeared? 2. There was no time for belief in the
Resurrection to mythically grow. That well-established third day meets us here.
And within forty days the whole Christian community, over five hundred in
number, not only firmly believed in the Resurrection, but believed, each man of
them, that he had himself seen the Lord. We must account for this. 3. These five
hundred are too many visionaries to create. Was all Palestine inhabited by
Francises of Assisi? What might be plausibly urged of Paul or Mary loses all
plausibility when urged of all their contemporaries. And thus we cannot but
conclude that all attempts to explain the belief of the early followers of
Christ in his resurrection as a delusion, utterly fail. If it was not founded on
fraud or delusion, then, was it not on fact? There seems no other alternative:
eye-witnesses in abundance witness to the fact; if they were neither deceivers
nor deceived, then Christ did rise from the dead.
We must not imagine, however, that this is all the proof we have of that great
fact. We have been only very inadequately working one single vein. There is
another very convincing course of argumentation which might be based on the
results of the resurrection of Christ-in transforming those who believed in
it-in founding a Church. And, then, there is that other form of argument already
pointed out which consists in the not very difficult task of vindicating the
authority of our Gospels and Acts, or of the account included in them. Taking
all lines of proof together, it is by no means extravagant to assert that no
fact in the history of the world is so well authenticated as the fact of
Christ's resurrection. And that established, all Christianity is established
too. Its supernatural element is vindicated its supernatural origin evinced.
Then, our faith is not in vain, and we are not still in our sins. Then, the
world has been redeemed unto our God, and all flesh can see his salvation. Then,
the All-Wise is the All-Loving, too, and has vindicated his love forever. Then,
the supreme song of heaven may be fitly repeated on earth: "Worthy is the Lamb
that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might,
and honor, and glory, and blessing." Then, we can know that nothing can separate
us from his love-that even death has failed in the attempt; and that it is thus
given to mortals to utter in triumph the immortal cry, "Death is swallowed up in
victory!"
Notes
1. Enquiry
Concerning Human Understandings, sec. 10 (1894, p. 115f.)..). "No testimony is
sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that
its falsehood would be more miraculous than the face which it endeavors to
establish."
2. Still a third method of procedure would be to waive all questions of the
authenticity of the Gospels, and examine into the origin and trustworthiness of
the triple or double tradition embodied in the three Synoptists or any two of
them. Satisfactory results may be reached thus
3. Such individual extremists as Bruno Bauer, Pierson, and Loman need not be
here taken into account.
The following essay was originally published in The Journal of Christian
Philosophy, vol. III., 1884, pp. 305-318.