The Resurrection of Christ is the Meaning of Easter

"He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

Matthew 28:6


Belief in the Resurrection in an Era of Skepticism

By Ed Enochs

The Evangelical Debate Society


"Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live and whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).

“That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).


Once upon a time in Western Civilization before the cultural ascendancy and advent of Botox, liposuction, Ipod’s and the Internet superhighway, Easter Sunday was a time for reflection and celebration on one of the quintessential and central events in historic Christendom; The Resurrection in of Jesus Christ. Cities and churches throughout North America and Western Europe once were replete with passion plays and other tangible gala festivities commemorating the essential Christian belief that our Lord Jesus Christ rose triumphantly from the grave after being crucified and put to death for crimes He did not commit. Easter Sunday was once the highlight of the year for many in Western Civilization as churches of all denomination stripes were packed to the brim with worshipers paying homage to Christ the King who defeated Satan and the grave once and for all by rising again from the dead.

However, through the fleeting passage of time, a subtle but insidious trend transpired throughout Western Culture; instead of Easter being a time of celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the grave, Easter Sunday became another Halloween or Christless holiday where the emphasis became abject materialism and wanton utilitarian consumerism rather than an upward gaze towards the transcendence and majestic glory of Almighty God. The historic Christian symbols of the Cross and Empty Tomb of Jesus Christ was slowly but surely replaced in many segments of Western Civilization with sorry chocolate bunnies and painted eggs. As the Sacred Scripture says, we as a collective society began to worship the creation rather than Creator who is blessed forever (See Romans 1:18-32).

Furthermore, the decline in Christian values and the appreciation of the historic significance of Easter has taken a decidedly sinister twist in that many within America and Western Europe, especially the secular academic elite and the major media outlets have turned the Easter season into open season on cherished Christian beliefs in realizing new and bolder anti-supernatural and skeptical books against Christianity seemingly every Easter season. Over the last decade or so, an interesting trend has transpired each and every Easter wherein many of the secular publishing houses and major television and cable networks release books and “documentaries” with alleged “new evidence” purporting to debunk the traditional Christian view of the historic and supernatural miracle performing divine Jesus Christ. Skepticism sells in a postmodern era of widespread skepticism and secularization as evidenced by New York Times best selling books such as God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens and the God Delusion by British Biologist Richard Dawkins. Yet a careful examination of these recent attacks on cherished Christian beliefs will conclusively demonstrate that these atheistic and skeptical individuals devoted to destroy the Christian Church have previously held presuppositions against Christianity that factor in and taint their alleged “objective” research.

Rather than providing tangible evidences and arguments that conclusively prove their thesis that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God who rose again from the dead, these godless purveyors of poisoned pen are only rehashing the same old debunked and bogus arguments against Christianity that have been answered by Christian apologists throughout Church history. As Solomon wrote in the wise book of Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun” the skeptical arguments against Christian beliefs such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ are just old arguments in new book covers. I thank God that God has raised up Apologists in the Christian faith such as Lee Strobel, Ravi Zacharias and the late great Francis Schaeffer, Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen and others to refute the error of the wicked and demonstrate that there is in fact evidence substantiating the historic truth claims of the Christian faith. It is terribly sad that each Easter season, instead of celebrating with the historic Christian Church, the secular media and liberal establishment attempts to attack what they do not understand about Jesus Christ and His Church.

However, for the Christian, Easter Sunday has fundamentally different meaning that is diametrically opposed to the insidious and faith destroying forces of contemporary secularism; for the Christian, Easter is a time of blessing and a time of joyful celebration of the central truth of our faith. Easter or Resurrection Sunday (I prefer the latter demarcation) celebrates the fact that God entered into actual time-space human history, atoned for the sins of humanity by hanging on the Cross of Calvary and rose again triumphantly from the dead three days later. As the Apostle Peter eloquently proclaimed in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost;

“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear” (Acts 2: 29-33).

I believe in the central truth behind Easter Sunday because I believe that Jesus Christ of Nazareth rose again from the dead based on the authority of the Bible alone. As St. Anselm rightly said, Credo, ut intelligam, "I believe in order that I might understand." I believe that I might understand and I understand that I might believe that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God and Savior of the world whom God sent to be the Savior of the World. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. He is risen in deed. May God grant us faith that we may believe this truth in its fulness and may we take the glorious Gospel of Christ to every corner of this dark, dark world that men and women might repent and believe. Happy Easter! Happy Resurrection Day! Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!!!

“But these have been written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing, you might have life in His name” (John 20:31).

“…His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:3-4).