“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” Genesis 2:15-17 ESV
The fact of death is inescapable. There is no discharge from it and it is, truth be told, the greatest single apologetic (logical defense and explanation) for the Faith that there is. Easter Sunday is the celebration by those in Christ of His victory over death. While Christians rally and worship a risen and living Lord, all others follow dead or dying men. With respect to Pascal, the wager of the atheist is on the loser.
Easter Sunday is the day around which the Christian system of truth stands or falls. In our humanistic-materialistic age (that is, an age of philosophical materialism) that believes Easter is just about values and faith, not hard reality, not scientific fact, we have the greatest line of demarcation in history. Sunday morning as Christians celebrate the risen Lord of glory they actually declare the greatest argument of the age. Of all ages. Every other religion and philosophy buckles under the weight of Christianity’s greatest fact.
The empty tomb.
But it’s not merely the fact of the empty tomb but what it means that’s important. That Jesus rose from the dead means that He’s the Lord. A man may be a great philosopher or debater (1 Corinthians 1:20). He may be many things, a wonderfully talented and impressive being indeed. But death conquers him. It conquers all. Buddha is dead. Confucius and Mohammad too. Christ walking out of the tomb on that Sunday morning is the central fact of the universe. It shows He wasn’t a mere teacher or philosopher, nor just a talented leader. A man who says He is the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6) but stays silent and still in the grave is just like any other man. But the fact of the resurrection proves that Jesus Christ is the God-man who holds the keys to the universe. To not follow the risen Christ is like Marty McFly going back to 1955 and betting against the Brooklyn Dodgers. All other worldviews and religions are following the dead. Easter Sunday means that unbelievers are betting on the losing team. And they double down.
Does this language strike you as truculent? Well, when we consider the issue as we should, which is with sound reasoning, we understand that indulging a man who insists that he’s Superman, and is about to jump off a building, isn’t a very nice thing to do. The logic is clear. All men die and yet only Christianity explains why (Genesis 2:17). A philosophy of life that looks at death and says, “oh, well…it is what it is…” fails on the most central part of the issue. A philosophy or religion should, by its very definition, explain the fact of life (existence) and death. The thing is, nothing else does. Only Christianity. Thus, telling our delusional neighbor that he can’t, in fact, leap tall buildings in a single bound, isn’t confrontational. It’s the truth. And telling people about Jesus Christ logically must include the fact of His supremacy over death. He conquered the grave and no one else has. The most loving thing in the world to do is to tell others the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let no one deter from that great and dear privilege. Let us not be ashamed (Romas 1:16) before a world that wants to silence us.
In my field as a martial artist a constant refrain from skeptics is the desire for proof. They want to see an instructor actually do it. It’s the desire for physical verification under pressure. Put up or shut up. Of course, there’s a degree of philosophical validity in the demand to witness proof. Most people making the demand to see an instructor spar or fight for real are unaware of the intellectual nuances at the bottom of their request. They’re showing that the word of the Lord is written on their heart because it is God who says that His divine nature and eternal power are clearly perceived through the whole of creation (Romans 1:18-21) and that nature quite emphatically declares the Lord’s existence (Psalm 19:1). Only a fool contends that everything comes from nothing (Psalm 14:1). God isn’t mincing words, you know. He’s not leaving us without a witness or rational defense of Christianity’s truth (an apologetic). You see, the “show me” or “prove it to me” aspect of any such demand is already written into the fabric of life by the Creator. Again, it’s important to know that He hasn’t left Himself without witness.
The demand for evidence is itself evidence that we’re image bearers of the most high God (Genesis 1:26-27) because if this was an accidental world, or a purely mechanistic one, the concept of proof – that is, of logic and truth – would never occur to anyone. Like a fish puzzling over whether to move to Chicago and get a condo downtown is a man in a chance universe worried about evidence. The very act of questioning proves Genesis 1:26! Logic and reason (and, therefore, science) are only possible in the world created by God. Immaterial laws like logic in a material world is an impossibility.
To claim that everything came from nothing, or that the universe is “just because” is to cast oneself into that dark land of nihilism – a world of nothing, for nothing, and to nothing. Nihilism is the inverse of Romans 11:36. True reality is from God, for God, and to God. The tragedy of unbelief is akin to a man who refuses to open his eyes and declares that nothing exists, just darkness. Atheism is the supreme act of irrationality because it must kill reason and meaning at their source yet still try and use them. Through persistent effort it must shut out the obvious declarations of God from nature and conscience.
It’s not just madness to resist the witness of nature but vicious too! To teach our young that the universe is pure mechanics is to murder their soul, to throw them overboard into a pool of life’s sharks. And those sharks are despair, aloneness, depression, meaninglessness, addictions, and self-destruction in the name of freedom. Death by a shark is fast and bloody; the death of a soul, the slow strangling by fear and hopelessness, gasping for air, wheezing and writhing, sometimes for decades, is worse. How hideous a thing is it to teach our young the lie of Darwinism and despair! How hateful a thing is it for a teacher, with a smile and the whole power of the state behind her, to instruct a young mind that they exist for nothing!
What option is left for the rational child? What philosophy of life now makes sense in the vacuum? It’s hedonism. They know the truth in their hearts (Romans 1:20, 2:14-15) but must suppress the obvious. They must suppress the horror of living as their own God – and it is truly a horror because the evidence is abundant that we can do nothing metaphysical. The pursuit of pleasure is then the only path open to us. The escape from responsibility and truth is all that’s left in a universe of nothing, so we pursue pleasures of the flesh – some like crazed frat-boys (hedonists) and others, if resources allow, pursue a more high-minded path (epicureans). Some will debase themselves all at once, drunken, high, and wasted; others will sip fine wines and live for their wealth. But all will die. Indeed, as Scripture says, “If the dead are not raised, ‘let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’ (1 Corinthians 15:32).”
It’s for this reason that Christ calls all of us to declare His name and call people to repent. The general revelation of nature and conscience is already there but the gospel, the “special” revelation of Christ and redemption, must come from Christians whose hearts ache for the fallen world. Christians, like the Lord who saves us, become servants of all – yes, servants, not masters – bringing the good news of reconciliation to all.
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.” 2 Corinthians 5:14-16 ESV
“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 ESV
Christians aren’t called to dominate their neighbor but to love them in Christ, which is to say to show them Christ and to teach about Him. In love we confront the false ideologies that lie about reality and creation, and that cast people into death and despair.
“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV
We destroy arguments, not people. The world will say that teaching Christ is “intolerant” but the reality is the opposite. Christ is true freedom and peace, not sin and error.
“For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.” 2 Peter 2:18-19 ESV
“…but whenever a person turns (in repentance and faith) to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, true freedom).” 2 Corinthians 3:16-17 AMP
The Lord’s servant isn’t quarrelsome, but steadfast in witness to the truth. The lie is that man isn’t in active rebellion against Him. That’s a lie. A bald-faced and provable lie. How so? Because the penalty of sin, which is death, is the inescapable fact of life that no philosophy, save Christianity, explains. Universal death proves the Christian philosophy. And this means that all men are not only suppressing the obvious (Romans 1:20) but, so much worse, calling God a liar.
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1 John 1:8-10 ESV
The greatest fact of life is now in Christ because unless He is alive, unless the tomb grows dusty in its emptiness, we are most to be pitied.
“For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Than those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” 1 Corinthians 15:16-19 ESV
This is the celebration of Easter morning. It’s what it means to say “He is Risen.” The power of Christ is the power of life and the undefeated champion over sin and death. There’s nothing else like it and that’s why we can rejoice even in our current sufferings – because we know what’s coming. We patiently endure this present evil age because the reality is Christ and His victory, which is ours to through faith. Ten thousands years into eternity (forgive me for the flawed analogical language) how will we consider our current challenges? Will we remember at all a day’s burden? I think not. Death is gone in Christ and someday…someday soon we will see Him face-to-face and all will be clear.
“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
1 Corinthians 15:54-58 ESV
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