Christ Is Risen
The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christian faith and the guarantee of our resurrection.
Paul declares, 'If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.' But Christ has been raised, the firstfruits of those who have died. The resurrection is not optional add-on but essential foundation. It validates Jesus's claims, demonstrates victory over death, and guarantees believers' future resurrection. The early church proclaimed 'He is risen!' as its central message. The resurrection transforms grief into hope, fear into courage, death into doorway. Without it, Christianity collapses; with it, everything changes.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
N.T. Wright argues that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is 'the foundation of everything else in the entire Christian faith.'
First Epistle to the Corinthians
Written about in
- What Christianity says about grief
Everything above is arguably optional; this is not. Paul writes that if Christ has not been raised, the faith is futile — he stakes the whole structure on a historical claim rather than on consolation. N. T. Wright calls it the foundation of everything else. A grieving Christian is being asked to believe something, not to adopt an attitude.