The Son Rises: Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus

6

Finding Resurrection Life

“There ain’t gonna be no Easter this year,” a student friend remarked to me.

“Why not?” I asked incredulously.

“They found the body.”

Despite his irreverent humor, my friend displayed a measure of insight often not shared by modern theologians. His joke correctly perceived that without the resurrection Christianity is worthless.

The earliest Christians would certainly have agreed with my friend. The apostle Paul put it straight and simple: “If Christ was not raised then neither our preaching nor your faith has any meaning at all. . . . If Christ did not rise your faith is futile and your sins have never been forgiven” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17, Phillips). For the earliest Christians, Jesus’ resurrection was a historical fact, every bit as real as His death on the cross. Without the resurrection, Christianity would have been simply false. Jesus would have been just another prophet who had met His unfortunate fate at the hands of the Jews. Faith in Him as Lord, Messiah, or Son of God would have been stupid. There would be no use in trying to save the situation by interpreting the resurrection as some sort of symbol. The cold, hard facts of reality would remain: Jesus was dead and anything He started died with him.

David C. K. Watson tells the true story of another man who understood this, with tragic consequences.1 The man was a retired clergyman who in his spare time began to study the thought of certain modern theologians on the resurrection. He read books on the resurrection and watched television talk shows on the subject. In his old age, he felt sure that the highly educated professors and writers knew far more than he did and that they were surely right when they said Jesus had not literally risen from the dead. He understood clearly what that meant for him: his whole life and ministry had been based on a bundle of lies. He committed suicide.

I believe that modern theologians must answer to God for that man’s death. One cannot make statements on such matters without accepting part of the responsibility for the consequences. The average layman probably expects that theologians would be biased in favor of the resurrection, when in fact exactly the opposite is often true. It has not been historians who have denied the historical resurrection of Jesus, but theologians. Why this strange situation? According to Carl Braaten, theologians who deny the resurrection have not done so on historical grounds; rather, theology has been derailed by existentialism and historicism, which have a stranglehold on the formation of theological statements.2 Hence, the statements of many theologians concerning the resurrection of Jesus actually are not based on fact, but are determined by philosophical assumptions. That makes statements that deny that Jesus’ resurrection was a historical fact all the more irresponsible, for their conclusion has not been determined by the facts, which support the historicity of the resurrection, but by assumptions.

The point is that the Christian faith stands or falls with the resurrection of Jesus. It is no use saying, as some theologians do, “We believe in the risen Christ, not in the empty tomb!” For as has often been pointed out, one cannot really believe in the risen Christ without the empty tomb. So let us have no talk of the resurrection’s being false but having value as a symbol. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then He was a tragedy and a failure, and no amount of theologizing or symbolizing could change the situation. My student friend was right: without the resurrection there would be no Easter. As Gerald O’Collins puts it, “In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all.”3

But we have seen that the historical evidence supports the resurrection of Jesus. The empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith can be explained only if Jesus actually rose from the dead. This amazing fact has three profound consequences for us today:

1. The resurrection of Jesus was an act of God. In order to see that, it is important for us to remind ourselves of exactly what Jesus’ resurrection was. For Jesus’ resurrection was not just a resuscitation of the mortal body to this earthly life, as with Lazarus, miraculous as that would be. Rather Jesus rose to eternal life in a radically transformed body that could be described as immortal, glorious, powerful, and supernatural. In that new mode of existence, He was not bound by the physical limitations of this universe, but possessed superhuman powers. The disciples proclaimed the resurrection as an act of God: “This Jesus God raised up, to which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32). Anyone who denies this explanation is rationally obligated to produce a more plausible cause of Jesus’ resurrection and to explain how it happened. It is not enough for a skeptic glibly to assert that there might have been some cause of the resurrection other than God; rather he must name that cause, and explain its operation in this unique instance. For the resurrection of Jesus so far exceeds the causal power of nature that nothing that we have learned in the two thousand years that have elapsed since that remarkable event enables us to account for its occurrence. Most men recognize this truth, as is evident from the fact that those who have opposed the resurrection have always tried to explain away the facts without admitting that Jesus was raised. Once it is admitted that Jesus really did rise transformed from the dead, the conclusion that God raised Him up is virtually inescapable. Only a sterile, academic skepticism resists this inevitable inference.

2. The resurrection of Jesus confirms His personal claims. Jesus’ resurrection did not occur at an accidental point in history. Rather it came in the context of and as the climax to His life and ministry. Jesus, even humanly speaking, was an incredible person.4 He evidently thought of Himself as being the Son of God in a unique sense. That is seen in His prayer life. Jesus addressed God in prayer as “Abba,” the word a Jewish child used for “Papa.” For a Jew the very name of God was sacred, and no one would dare to address God in such a for one’s teaching. But Jesus did exactly the opposite. He to His heavenly Father as “Papa.” He taught His disciples to pray, “Our Father.” But he always prayed, “My Father.” God was Jesus’ Father in a distinctive sense that set Him apart from the disciples.

Jesus’ special sense of being God’s Son is evident in His words “Everything has been put into my hands by my Father, and nobody knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son—and the man to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:27, Phillips). This is a claim to sonship in an exclusive and absolute sense. The relationship between Jesus and His Father is here declared to be unique. Jesus also claims to be the only one who can reveal the Father to men; in other words, Jesus claims to be the absolute revelation of God.

Jesus not only claimed to be God’s Son in a unique sense, but He also claimed to act and speak with divine authority. That is especially evident in the Sermon on the Mount. The typical rabbinic style of teaching was to quote extensively from learned teachers who provided the basis of authority for one’s teaching. But Jesus did exactly the opposite. He began, “You have heard that it was said to the men of old” (Matthew 5:33, RSV) then quoted some interpretation of the law of Moses. Then he continued (5:34) “But I say to you,” and gave His own teaching. No wonder that Matthew comments, “When Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28-29, RSV). Jesus’ special sense of authority is also evident in His use of the expression “Truly, truly, I say to you,” which He used as an introduction to His authoritative word on some subject.

His authority was also evident in His role as an exorcist. It is an embarrassment to many modern theologians, but it is historically certain that Jesus believed He had the power to cast out demons. That was a sign to the people of his divine authority. He said, “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20, RSV). That saying is remarkable not only because it shows He claimed divine authority over the spiritual powers of evil, but also because it shows that Jesus believed that in Himself the kingdom of God had come. The Jews believed that the kingdom of God would come at the end of history when the Messiah would reign over Israel and the nations. But Jesus was saying, “My ability to rule the spiritual forces of darkness shows that in Me the kingdom of God is already present among you.”

We can also see Jesus’ consciousness of authority in His claim to be able to forgive sins. We find such a claim, for example, in the context of a healing miracle related by Mark. “[I will] prove to you that the Son of Man has full authority to forgive sins on earth” (Mark 2:10, Phillips). Such a claim is remarkable when one considers the Jewish belief that only God could forgive sins. Mark relates, “Some of the scribes were sitting there silently asking themselves, ‘Why does this man talk such blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’” (Mark 2:6-7, Phillips). Jesus’ claim was thus a claim to an authority held only by God.

Jesus also believed Himself to be able to work miracles. Jesus said to the disciples of John the Baptist, “Go and tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:4-5, RSV). James D. G. Dunn comments on this saying: “Whatever the ‘facts’ were, Jesus evidently believed that he had cured cases of blindness, lameness and deafness—indeed there is no reason to doubt that He believed lepers had been cured under His ministry and dead restored to life.”5 One might go on to argue that Jesus could surely not have been mistaken about such palpable facts as these, but that is not the issue at hand. The point is simply that Jesus at least thought he had the power to perform miracles.

Finally, Jesus held that men’s attitudes toward Himself would be the determining factor in God’s judgment on the judgment day. “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8-9, RSV). “Son of Man” is often thought to indicate the humanity of Jesus, just as the reflex expression “Son of God” indicates His divinity. In fact, just the opposite is true. The Son of Man was a divine figure in the Old Testament book of Daniel who would come at the end of the world to judge mankind and rule forever. Thus, the claim to be the Son of Man would be in effect a claim to divinity. I have no doubt that in this passage Jesus is not referring to a third figure as the Son of Man, but is referring to Himself by means of that title. That is, however, for the moment beside the point. The point is that whoever the Son of Man may be, Jesus is claiming that men will be judged before Him on the basis of their response to Jesus. Men’s eternal destiny is fixed on their response to Jesus. Make no mistake: if Jesus were not the divine Son of God, then this claim could only be regarded as the most narrow and objectionable dogmatism. For Jesus is saying that men’s salvation depends on their confession to Jesus Himself.

A discussion of Jesus’ personal claims could go on and on, but I think this is sufficient to indicate the radical self-concept of Jesus. Here is a man who thought of Himself as the Son of God in a unique sense, who claimed to act and speak with divine authority, who held Himself to be a worker of miracles, and who believed that men’s eternal destiny hinged on whether or not they believed in Him. So extraordinary was the person Jesus thought Himself to be that Dunn, at the end of his study of the self-consciousness of Jesus, feels compelled to remark: “One last question cannot be ignored: Was Jesus mad?”6

Dunn rejects the hypothesis that Jesus was insane because it cannot account for the full portrait of Jesus that we have in the gospels. The balance and soundness of Jesus’ whole life make it evident that He was no lunatic. But the decisive disproof of this hypothesis is, of course, the resurrection. The resurrection vindicates the claims that Jesus made concerning himself. Wolfhart Pannenberg explains,

The resurrection of Jesus acquires such decisive meaning, not merely because someone or any one has been raised from the dead, but because it is Jesus of Nazareth, whose execution was instigated by the Jews because he had blasphemed against God. If this man was raised from the dead, then that plainly means that the God whom he had supposedly blasphemed has committed himself to him.7

Pannenberg points out that the key element in Jesus’ teaching was Jesus’ personal claim to authority, evident in His handling of the Mosaic law and His preaching of the dawning of the kingdom of God. It was this claim that led to His execution for blasphemy by the Jews. But His resurrection showed that Jesus’ claim was justified. “The resurrection can only be understood as the divine vindication of the man whom the Jews had rejected as a blasphemer.”8 Therefore, the resurrection shows that Jesus, in making those astounding personal claims was not mad, but really was who He claimed to be.

3. The resurrection of Jesus shows that He holds the key to eternal life. As the one who decisively conquered death, Jesus is the one to whom we must turn for victory over man’s most dreaded enemy. On the subject of death and immortality, Jesus spoke with the authority of the victor over death. In this light His dispute with the Sadducees becomes very important. The Sadducees were a Jewish sect that denied there was any future resurrection life and concocted puzzles designed to show its impossibility. For example, suppose a woman was widowed and remarried seven times in this life. In the resurrection, who out of the seven husbands will have her for his wife? The Sadducees posed that question to Jesus, and Mark recorded what He said:

Jesus replied, “Does not this show where you go wrong—and how you fail to understand both the scriptures and the power of God? When people rise from the dead they neither marry nor are they given in marriage; they live like the angels in Heaven. But as for this matter of the dead being raised, have you never read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him in these words, ‘I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’? God is not God of the dead but of living men! That is where you make your great mistake!” [Mark 12:24-27, Phillips]

Jesus could not have been more clear or emphatic. He held that the Old Testament Scriptures teach immortality through resurrection, and He believed it himself. He rebuked the Sadducees for their ignorance of Scripture and their limited conception of God’s power, as evident in their puzzle. As for Jesus’ solution, He may mean simply that in the same way that angels are not married, neither will people in the resurrection life be married. But He may also mean that people will be like the angels in heaven physically. The descriptions of Jesus’ resurrection body in the gospels coincide closely with biblical descriptions of angels. Angels, too, can appear and disappear in space. When they appear, they are really physically present. Though they are created beings they are immortal. They are often described as glorious, and they possess superhuman powers. Thus, there is a great resemblance between angelic bodies and Jesus’ resurrection body. That does not mean that people become angels when they die, as is often mistakenly pictured in cartoons of people receiving their harps and wings. According to the Bible, angels are a separate order of beings higher than man. Jesus said that in the resurrection people would be like angels. If he means physically like angels, then his teaching is very similar to Paul’s teaching on the resurrection body as immortal, glorious, powerful, and supernatural.

Jesus’ teaching therefore holds out hope for man in the face of death. The grave is not the end. At history’s end we shall be raised up by God and simultaneously transformed into persons having glorious, supernatural bodies. We shall never again experience disease or deformity or aging. We shall have powers that the present body in no way possesses. We shall apparently overcome the limits of space, so that travel from one point to another may be accomplished instantaneously. At the same time we shall still be ourselves, as recognizable to others as Jesus was to His disciples after His resurrection. Evil will be gone, along with all the ugly sins that men have committed against one another. And death will be forever vanquished, never again to hold sway over man. What a wonderful prospect! What a hope! That is what Paul so magnificently describes:

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. 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 thy victory?

O death, where is thy 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.” [1 Corinthians 15:51-57, RSV]

Thus the resurrection of Jesus offers to man both God and immortality. It is almost too wonderful, too incredible to believe. But the facts are there. God has revealed Himself in history, and the evidence is there for all to see.

But the question now becomes, How am I to appropriate the immortal life God offers? In order to answer that question, I want to share with you by means of four points the message proclaimed by the New Testament Christians.

1. God loves you and created you to have a personal relationship with him. Man is not the accidental product of nature. Rather God created man to be a personal being, just as God is personal. In that way man could know and commune with God. John reports the words of Jesus in prayer to the Father: “And this is eternal life, to know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent—Jesus Christ” (John 17:3, Phillips). What a striking definition of eternal life! Eternal life is knowing God. That is why God created us as persons: that we might have a personal love relationship with Him.

2. Man’s own evil has broken the personal relationship between God and man. In creating man as a free personal being, God took a terrible risk. Man might freely choose to reject God’s love and not to have a personal relationship with Him. God could have made man like a puppet, so that when God asked, “Do you love me?” all He had to do was pull the appropriate strings and man would mechanically respond, “Yes, God, I love you.” But what sort of personal relationship is that? Love must be freely given to be meaningful. But that, as I say, involves the risk of being rejected. And that is exactly what has happened. Man freely chooses to go his own way and commits evil acts and thoughts that are contrary to the absolute goodness of God. The Bible indicates that all men have succumbed to and are therefore under the sway of such evil. If any biblical truth has been proved by the experience of mankind, it is certainly the fact of evil in man. There are at least three terrible consequences of that fact.

a) Man stands morally guilty before God. What man has done is really evil, for it goes contrary to the very nature of God. God’s nature is absolute goodness, so that before Him man is morally guilty. To be sure, some are more guilty than others. But it is only a matter of degree, since no man reaches the moral perfection of God’s nature. Therefore, all men are accountable to God for their evil thoughts and deeds and must be punished. If God did not punish evil, then He would not be all-good, for His justice would be flawed. Before the bar of God’s perfect justice, man stands condemned as morally guilty.

b) Man’s personal relationship with God is broken. “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). And just as light dispels darkness, so the light of God’s absolute goodness dispels the darkness of evil from His presence. Man in his sinful state cannot have a personal relationship with God. The prophet Isaiah said:

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,

and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear.

Isaiah 59:1-2, RSV

Because man is stained with evil, his personal relationship with God is broken. Hence, Paul could write, “Everyone has sinned, everyone falls short of the beauty of God’s plan” (Romans 3:23, Phillips).

Man senses in this condition that he is lost and often tries to get back to God by his own efforts. He invents religions, develops philosophies, meditates, takes drugs, or chooses any one of a number of other avenues to reach God, but in vain. For none of those self-his being by separates man from God. Were man to die in this state, he would go into eternity forever cut off from God. This is really what the New Testament means by “hell.” Paul warned, “This judgment . . . will bring full justice in dazzling flame upon those who have refused to recognise God or to obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Their punishment will be eternal loss—exclusion from the radiance of the face of the Lord, and the glorious majesty of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, Phillips). Thus the separation from God brought about as a result of man’s evil destroys any personal relationship with God, which man was created to have.

c) Man is spiritually dead. Morally guilty and separated from God, man is spiritually dead. Paul reminded the Christians at Ephesus, “You were [spiritually] dead in your trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Man is like a light bulb with a burned out filament. Externally he may look fine, but internally he is defective. That aspect of his being by which he should know God is rendered inoperative and dead because of his evil.

Thus, man stands morally guilty before God. His personal relationship with God is broken, and he is spiritually dead. If this were all the Bible had to say to us, it would be bad news indeed.

3. Through Jesus man’s personal relationship with God is restored. We have already said that in creating man as a free personal being, God was running the risk that man would turn away from Him. That in fact has happened. As a result, God puts Himself in a moral dilemma: on the one hand, God’s goodness and justice demand that man be punished for his evil, but on the other hand, God’s love and mercy demand reconciliation of man to God. God’s goodness demands punishment and God’s love demands forgiveness. Neither can be compromised. What is God to do? Now I do not mean to imply that God has unwittingly got Himself into this situation. God is all-knowing. Before the creation of the universe He knew that the man He would create would go astray, and that this dilemma would arise as a result. But He also knew what He would do to solve it.

What God has done reveals His genius. He Himself became a man, lived a sinless life, and died in man’s place to pay the penalty for man’s sins. Now when the New Testament says that God in Jesus took the form of a man, it does not refer to the sort of transformation by which the gods of Greek mythology turned into swans, bulls, men, or whatever. The incarnation does not hold that God somehow turned into a man, which is self-contradictory. Rather, in Jesus God took on a human body without at the same time ceasing to be God. Jesus was thus both God and man simultaneously. That is, the mind of Jesus was God. Jesus of Nazareth was thus the unique Son of God, the God-man. John wrote:

At the beginning God expressed himself. That personal expression, that word, was with God and was God. . . . So the word of God became a human being and lived among us. We saw his glory (the glory like that of a father’s only son), full of grace and truth. . . . It is true that no one has ever seen God at any time. Yet the divine and only Son, who lives in the closest intimacy with the Father, has made him known. [John 1:1, 14, 18, Phillips]

Jesus did what no man had yet done: He lived a sinless life. This meant that He was therefore not morally guilty before God and not obligated to be punished for sin. Because of that, only Jesus could offer Himself voluntarily to be punished for someone else’s sin. That He did on the cross. There He took upon Himself, the sinless Son of God, the punishment for all the billions and billions of sins ever committed by all the billions of people who ever have lived and ever will live. That is why in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to His crucifixion Jesus prayed to God with tears and loud cries. It was not that He feared the physical suffering, gruesome as that was; it was the knowledge that He was about to be punished for the sins of the world that shook Him to the core. While Jesus was on the cross, the Father turned His back, as it were, on His Son, and He who had never known separation from the Father went through hell for us. At the cross, therefore, we see the fulfillment of God’s justice and love. We see God’s justice in His punishment of sin. We see His love in that He does not punish us for our sins as we deserve; but rather in Jesus He Himself pays the penalty He had exacted. That is why Paul could exclaim, “The proof of God’s amazing love is this: that it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, Phillips), and why John could write, “We see real love, not in the fact that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to make personal atonement for our sins” (1 John 4:10, Phillips).

But that is not the whole story. Although Jesus died for our sins, He did not stay dead. God raised Him from the dead, thus robbing hell of any claim on Him and vindicating Jesus’ work on man’s behalf. The resurrection broke the power of sin, death, and hell over man and is the victorious climax to Jesus’ life and ministry.

On the basis of Jesus’ death and resurrection, God can freely forgive man, for the penalty has been paid by God Himself. But again, God does not force this pardon on anyone. We are not puppets. God offers forgiveness to us; it is up to us to accept or reject. The final point tells how we may appropriate the new life God offers.

4. We may come to know God personally by receiving Christ as our Savior and Lord. God’s gift of forgiveness and eternal life is found in His Son. Thus, John states boldly, “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (1 John 5:11b-12). How then may we have the Son? John answers, by receiving him: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13, RSV).

Perhaps this is somewhat confusing. We have said that Jesus rose physically from the dead and then left the universe; He will return at the end of history. So how can one receive Him? I think the answer can be found in John’s further explanation that those who received Him were born, not by physical means, but of God. That clearly refers to the spiritual birth discussed in John 3:1-13. In a conversation with a Jewish leader, Jesus stated that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again. The Jewish leader thought Jesus meant physically born again, which is impossible. So Jesus explained that He was talking about a spiritual rebirth. “Flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6, Phillips). Jesus used the analogy of the wind: you cannot see the wind itself, but you can see its effects. “So is every one who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

This discussion teaches that it is God’s Spirit who causes the spiritual rebirth in the soul of a man. According to John, after Jesus’ resurrection and departure from the world, the Spirit would take over Jesus’ ministry here. Jesus said:

And I will pray the Father and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. . . . I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. [John 14:16-17; 16:7, RSV]

It is clear that the Spirit would “stand in” for Jesus while Jesus was physically absent from this world. This implies, therefore, that when John talks about receiving Christ, he means, more technically, receiving the Spirit. When a man receives the Spirit of God, he is spiritually born again. The reason this can be spoken of as receiving Jesus is because the Spirit is acting on behalf of and in the role of Jesus.

That is confirmed by Paul’s use of certain expressions. Notice how freely he interchanges “Spirit,” “Spirit of Christ,” “Christ”:

But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. [Romans 8:9-10, RSV]

Since the Spirit acts on behalf of Christ, He becomes so closely identified with Christ that He may be referred to simply as Christ.

Thus, it is by receiving God’s Spirit that a man becomes a Christian. That fact may also be vividly seen by one’s reading the book of Acts. Time and again we see that it is only when a person receives the Holy Spirit that he really becomes a Christian. James D. G. Dunn in his study of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament concludes,

The one thing which makes a man a Christian is the gift of the Spirit. Men can have been for a long time in Jesus’ company, can have made profession of faith and been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, can be wholly ‘clean’ and acceptable to God, can even be ‘disciples,’ and yet not be Christians, because they lack and until they receive the Holy Spirit.9

Later Dunn remarks, “This has an important consequence, for it means that the thing which determines whether a man is a Christian is not his profession of faith in Christ but the presence of the Spirit.”10 That has shattering implications. It means clearly that one is not a Christian because he is a member of a church or is religious or follows the Golden Rule or even is a minister or priest. It is one of the greatest and most tragic errors of our day that most people think that a person is a Christian because he goes to church or believes certain doctrines or lives a good life. This notion, which is preached from thousands of church pulpits, is not true. A person is a Christian only because he has received the Spirit of Christ and so has been born again.

If a person has truly received Christ (i.e., the Spirit), he knows it. As Dr. Dunn remarks, the gift of the Spirit was a fact of experience for the early Christians, and it would be unthinkable for them that someone could have received the Spirit and yet not be aware of it.11 For New Testament Christians, the reality of the Spirit in their lives was unmistakable. He was the source of power in their lives and gave them the firm assurance that they had been born again and were thus God’s children. It is the same today for anyone who receives the Spirit and lives in His power.

When a person receives Christ, certain consequences of sin are eliminated. Let us review the three consequences we discussed before and see how each is removed when a person receives Jesus.

1. He is forgiven of all his sin. We saw that man stands morally guilty before God. But since God Himself in Jesus has borne the penalty for our sin, we need no longer be punished ourselves. God offers us complete and free pardon. He promises, “I will have mercy on their transgressions and will no longer remember their sins” (Hebrews 8:12, RSV). In placing our trust in Jesus and receiving His Spirit, we receive God’s gift of forgiveness. Thus, we are free from the bondage of evil that enslaved us, and free to live for God.

2. His personal relationship with God is restored. We saw that it was man’s evil that separated him spiritually from God. But now that our sins are forgiven through Christ, the gulf separating us from God has been bridged. Jesus Himself is the bridge by means of which we come to God. In receiving Christ we come to have a personal relationship with God as our loving heavenly Father. Paul wrote,

Nor are you meant to relapse into the old slavish attitude of fear—you have been adopted into the very family circle of God and you can say with a full heart, “Father, my Father”. The Spirit himself endorses our inward conviction that we really are the children of God. [Romans 8:15-16, Phillips]

Perhaps the most wonderful gift that God gives to those who receive Christ is that they are adopted into the family of God.

3. He is born again to new spiritual life. Apart from God, man is spiritually dead. But when we receive the Spirit of God, we are spiritually born again to new life. Paul said, “You were spiritually dead. . . . But even though we were dead in our sins God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, gave us life together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:1, 4, Phillips). And Peter exclaims, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, RSV). Where death and darkness once reigned, there is now life and light. If you have never received Christ, if you have never been born again by God’s Spirit, then there is a whole plane of life and reality that you have not yet experienced. To be spiritually alive, to know God and walk with Him daily, is the greatest adventure that there is in life.

Thus, when a person receives the Spirit of Christ, his sins are forgiven, his personal relationship with God is restored, and he is born again to new spiritual life. “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15, RSV).

But if we may come to know God personally by receiving Jesus Christ, how do we go about receiving Him? According to the New Testament, there are only two conditions for receiving God’s Spirit: repentance and faith.

Repentance means a genuine sorrow for one’s evil acts and thoughts and a firm resolve to turn away from them to God. Repentance is a vital part of receiving Christ. When Jesus began His ministry, the first words that fell from His lips were: “The right time has come, and the Kingdom of God is near! Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News!” (Mark 1:15, TEV). It should be emphasized that repentance is not penance, such as making a pilgrimage or crawling on one’s knees at some holy place. There is nothing we can do to earn forgiveness from God. Forgiveness is a gift, and all we can do is receive it with joy and gratitude. Repentance is an attitude of the heart, a disgust with one’s sin and resolve to turn from it. It says to God, “Lord, I’m sick and tired of my sins and the way I am. I’m ready and willing to turn away from all of that.”

Faith is wholehearted trust. Mere repentance does not save; it is through the extra step of placing one’s trust in Jesus that one receives salvation. Paul said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31, RSV). It should be emphasized that faith is not simply giving intellectual assent to some doctrines. One can sincerely believe that Jesus is God’s Son, that He died on the cross for one’s sins, and that He rose from the dead, and still not be born again. The faith we are talking about is a commitment, a giving over, or a trusting of one’s self to Jesus. It is that sort of personal trust that results in receiving the Spirit and being born again.

Thus, salvation is not something that we can earn. It is God’s act in response to our turning from sin and our committing ourselves to Him to save us. Repentance and faith are not works that we do to earn salvation; they are just the lifting of the cup to receive God’s lifegiving water. The Bible calls this grace, God’s unmerited favor. It is God’s grace that saves us, as Paul explains: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, RSV). This then is the proper understanding: God saves us by His grace through our faith on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

The whole operation of salvation is wonderfully summarized in this passage:

For we ourselves have known what it is to be ignorant, disobedient and deceived, the slaves of various desires and pleasures, while our lives were spent in malice and jealousy—we were hateful and we hated each other. But when the kindness and love of God our saviour dawned upon us, he saved us in his mercy—not by virtue of any moral achievement of ours, but by the cleansing power of a new birth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured upon us through Jesus Christ our Saviour. The result is that we are acquitted by his grace, and can look forward in hope to inheriting life eternal. [Titus 3:3-7, Phillips]

Here we clearly see (1) our sinful condition and need, (2) the love of God, which inspired our salvation, (3) our inability to earn that salvation, (4) the agency of the Holy Spirit in bringing about salvation by imparting new spiritual life, (5) the person of Jesus as our Savior, (6) the grace of God, which freely gives us what we did not deserve and could not earn, and (7) the result of salvation in our restored relationship with God and our having eternal life. (Praise the Lord!)

If you have never come to know God in a personal way and have not received Christ as your Savior and Lord, may I encourage you to do so now? Simply tell Him of how you regret your sin and turn from it; then in faith give yourself over to Christ. This can be done by prayer, which is just talking with God. Since many find it difficult to know what to pray, here is a suggested prayer—it is not so much the words that count as the attitude of the heart:

Lord, I admit that I am guilty before you because I have sinned. I am sorry for my sins and now turn from them to you. I give my life, all that I am, to you. Come into my life, forgive my sins, give me your Spirit, and make me the kind of person you want me to be. Thank you for answering this prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

If you sincerely come to God with such an attitude in your heart as is expressed in this prayer, if you truly turn from your sin and believe, then you may be confident that God answers this prayer and sends His Spirit to you. You may not feel any different at first, but that is not the important factor. We are saved through faith in Christ, not through feelings. Feelings—such as the love, joy, and peace that the Spirit produces in a believer’s life (Galatians 5:22-23)—will assuredly come as the Spirit makes His presence felt in your life. Sometimes others may notice the change in you before you do. Such feelings are confirmation that we have been born again; they are not the basis of that assurance. The basis of our assurance is the promise of God Himself: “WHOEVER WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED” (Romans 10:13). If we sincerely turn to God in repentance and faith, believing that He will produce in us spiritual rebirth, then He will.

If you have just committed your life to Christ as your personal Savior and Lord, today marks your spiritual birthday, an event more significant than your physical birthday. Spiritually you are now like a newborn baby, and you need to be spiritually nourished and cared for. So begin to read your New Testament and talk to God daily. We speak to God in prayer, and He speaks to us in the Bible. Communicate often with your heavenly Father. If you sin, confess it to Him immediately, claiming the promise, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, RSV). Tell someone about your decision to commit your life to Christ. That public witness to Christ is an outward evidence of the inward change in your heart. The New Testament promises, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved” (Romans 10:9-10, RSV). There is no such thing as a secret Christian.

Since you are part of God’s family of sons and daughters, seek out a church where the Bible is preached and where you can make friends with other Christians. You should make this a matter of earnest prayer for God’s guidance, since many churches today have departed from biblical Christianity and are sadly little more than social organizations. Visit different churches and look for one where salvation and spiritual rebirth by grace through faith is emphasized and where you sense the love, joy, and enthusiasm that the Holy Spirit brings.

Then you should ask to be baptized as an expression of your faith in Christ. Although most of us are accustomed to infant baptism, that is not the biblical pattern. The New Testament pattern is that a person first believes in Jesus and then is baptized as a public expression of that faith. Your baptism as a believer is in a sense the climax to your becoming a Christian and therefore ought not to be delayed indefinitely.

Finally, may I suggest that you write to Moody Correspondence School (2101 W. Howard St., Chicago, IL 60645) and ask about “The Good News,” a home study Bible course to help you grow as a new Christian.

I wish you all God’s richest blessings in your new life, a life that is possible because in the midst of the darkness of the night of sin, the Son has risen. “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21, RSV).