On Easter Sunday, Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democratic U.S. Senator from Georgia and pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, tweeted “The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Ebenezer Baptist Church is, of course, the church which was pastored by Martin Luther King Jr. Warnock is a fitting replacement as Martin Luther King Jr. once declared in a sermon “Whatever you believe about the resurrection this morning isn’t important.”

Are either of these statements true?

During our Wednesday night Bible study (April 7, 2021), we discussed the topic of the resurrection of Christ and why what you believe about it is, indeed, important.

Most Christians approach the question of the relevance of the resurrection of Christ from the perspective of apologetics. Christ’s resurrection serves as a proof of His divinity and, thus, of the Christian faith. While this is true enough, it isn’t enough. There is so much more to the resurrection that we would do well to contemplate. Here are a few things we discussed:

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1)  We began with a couple of related points:  

If Christ is not risen, then the trustworthiness of all the Scriptures is undermined as they claim that He was, in fact, raised from the dead. This not being so, they would be proven false. If Christ is not risen, then He was a liar as were His disciples who claimed to see Him. Since all Scriptures point to Christ, if He is proven a liar, all the Scriptures are proven to be empty of any worth. And, of course, we pointed to 1 Corinthians 15in which Paul argues that if Christ was not raised our faith is in vain.

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2)  At this point we turned to 1 Corinthians 15, and camped out on verses 20-23:‍

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

We asked “Why is Jesus called the ‘firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep’?” and concluded that the picture of firstfruits is a metaphor for the first of a harvest and it serves as a promise that there is more of that harvest to come. There are several implications that flow from this:

1.      As noted, “firstfruits” implies that there is more of the harvest to come. In this way, the resurrection of Christ is important to us as believers as it serves as a promise to us that our resurrection (i.e., the “second fruits” or “last fruits”?) is guaranteed.

2.       If Jesus is the “firstfruits” of the harvest of which we are a part, the resurrection of the dead which we hope for has already begun with Jesus being the first to be raised. Again, this serves to affirm that our resurrection is a fixed fact as we are a part of the harvest currently being harvested.

3.      As Paul pointed out, if Jesus was not raised our faith is in vain. Obviously, if the firstfruits of the harvest has not, and will not, be collected, no harvest is coming at all.

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3) We then turned our attention onto Ephesians:

1.      Ephesians 2:5-6. Here we are told that we have been “made alive together with Christ” and were “raised up with him” and that God seated us “with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Here we noticed that our resurrection is not only a future event. In some sense, we have already been raised up in Christ. Here we see the importance of the resurrection from a different angle. Since we are united to Christ through faith (“in Christ Jesus”), and He has been raised and is seated in the heavenlies, we too share in this “risenness.” How?

2.     This unity with the risen Christ can be seen in how we have been blessed in Christ “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). Our spiritual life here on earth is begun, sustained and energized by the flow of resurrection life from Jesus to us through the Spirit. Is the resurrection beginning to look important now? Well, take a look at what was next:

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4) Turning to Romans we find two important results of the resurrection of Christ related to what we’ve discussed above:

 1.      It could be argued that the greatest spiritual blessing that we have received is our justification. In Romans 4:25 we read that Jesus was “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Jesus was delivered up to the cross to pay for our trespasses and our justification is tied to His resurrection. How so?

 a.      The resurrection of Christ is what “justified” Christ’s claim to be the Son of God and the answer to the promises of God. Paul makes an analogy between Abraham’s faith in God who was able to bring a nation out of Abraham’s “dead” body (he and Sarah were too old to have kids) and our faith in God who raised Jesus from the dead. Only a faith placed in this God who raised the promised Christ could lead to our justification…and it did.

 b.      It was through Christ’s resurrection that He completed the task before Him. He fulfilled what He had come to do. He fulfilled all righteousness. He fulfilled the words of the prophets. In this way, He was able to be declared righteous. Through faith, we are united to Him and we are, thus, declared righteous as well as we are clothed in His righteousness. If He was not risen, we i) could not be united to Him in any real way, ii) would not be united to one who was righteous in a way that would enable us to stand before God as righteous and holy.

  2.      Along with our justification stands our sanctification. Romans 6 ties this to the resurrection of Christ. Verse 4 tells us that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Our sanctification is this newness of life that we receive by virtue of our unity with the risen Christ. Paul writes in 1Corinthians 15:45 that the “last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Here he is pointing to the work of the risen Christ in giving us this newness of life. This is accomplished through the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of Christ, working in God’s people, providing us with the spiritual blessings mentioned in Ephesians1:3 that is ours by virtue of our being seated in the heavenlies with the risen Christ. So, in other words, if it were not for the resurrection of Christ, there would be no “newness of life” to be given to us by the Holy Spirit. We would be powerless to live lives that were not enslaved to sin (Rom. 6:6).      

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There is much more that could be said, but we touched upon some of the most important considerations related to the importance of the resurrection of Christ:

If Jesus was not raised from the dead:

1.      We could not trust the Bible and it would be empty of any value.

2.      We could not trust the claims of Jesus and His disciples.

3.      We could not have any confidence in our own resurrection from the dead.

4.      We would not receive any spiritual blessings.

5.      We would not be justified.

6.      We would not have newness of life, could not experience the work of sanctification and would be stuck in a defeated life of sin.  

So, does it matter what we think of the resurrection of Christ? Is there a message of Easter that is more important than this?

When Rev. Warnock tweeted that “The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” what he pointed to was everyone’s ability, no matter their faith, to save themselves. He finished his tweet with “Whether you are a Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves.”

This is an unchristian take and leaves us with no hope.

We should pray that Rev. Warnock comes to know the risen Christ and that those who are members of his church will recognize the vapidness of what they are being taught by him.

And we, as the church, need to be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15) and we can start with the resurrection of Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria

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