The resurrection is the best argument for the reality and significance of Jesus Christ that has ever been made, and it is so because it is an argument made by God Himself. Thus, in an age of pluralism and profound epistemological uncertainty (which is to say, paganism and unbelief), I think the best course of action might just be what Spurgeon recommended years ago, namely, to get out of the way and let the Lion roar.

Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now commanding men that everyone everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He determined, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:30–31, LSB)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is without a doubt one of the most history-shaping, world-altering, and life-transforming events ever to take place; second only, perhaps, to the incarnation. It is an event, in other words, that quite literally turned the world on its head, ushering in a new era of human history and making it necessary to reexamine the very foundations of reality itself. As Flannery O’Connor, via the lips of one of her characters, put it: Christ, by virtue of His resurrection, has “thown everything off balance.”1 He has set the whole world off kilter, such that everything now — from empires to hovels, from metaphysics to mealworms — must be reconceived in light of the empty tomb.

Thus, whether we like it or not, the shadow of the risen Christ looms large over the landscape of human history, and there isn’t one thing any of us can do to change it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is as permanent a fixture of our world as the sky above or the earth beneath. And though some may, in moments of fleeting sanity, wish such verities away, at the end of the day we all have to reckon with their reality and effects. You can throw yourself off a cliff, but the ground is sure to meet you at the bottom, no matter how much you may have hoped to the contrary.

One of the important effects of the resurrection, however, is that of bearing witness to the true identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, contrary to what many today assume, the resurrection wasn’t simply a divine party trick. It wasn’t, in other words, a mere demonstration of God’s power and authority over sin and death — though it certainly was that. Rather, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was, first and foremost, a public declaration of His lordship and divinity.

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