Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
History and Religion
How fundamental is Christ’s resurrection?

How fundamental is Christ’s resurrection?

Last updated on: October 13, 2025 at 1:49 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

How fundamental is Christ’s resurrection? 2025-10-13T13:49:55-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The San Diego California Temple (image from LDS Media Library)

For a large occasional project of mine on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I’ve put together some notes toward a discussion of the topic. How important is the claim of Christ’s resurrection to the Christian message? How central is it to the message of the Restoration?

A well-known and vitally important text from the earliest Christian movement is the detailed declaration of the apostle Paul that is recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:1-22. For the sake of freshness, I will quote portions of that passage here from the English Standard Version:

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Probably deliberately echoing 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that

The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it. (Elders’ Journal, July 1838, page 44)

So the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus are declared by the apostle Paul to be “of first importance” and, with the ascension into heaven, are identified by the Prophet Joseph as “the fundamental principles of our religion.”

Paul contjnues as follows:

14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

In other words, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the preaching of the Christian message is pointless, in vain, and even a lie.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Moreover, if Christ did not rise from the dead, if there is no hope for a life beyond the grave, then it seems pointless to sacrifice our time, our talents, our energy, or our wealth for any cause beyond ourselves:

32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

We may as well spend our short lives in pursuit of pleasure and self-interest, because nothing will survive and nothing has any lasting value.

At the conclusion of 1 Corinthians 15, though, Paul assures his audience that — owing to the resurrection of Jesus, of which he has just been testifying, and because of the hope that it gives us into the eternities — our lives and works are not pointless. They are not without purpose:

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Jesus was, of course, a great ethical teacher and moral sage. According to the New Testament account, though, when he was asked what sign might demonstrate that he was God’s chosen representative and authorized spokesman, he didn’t point to the self-evident wisdom and merits of his teaching. Rather, he referred on more than one occasion to his own pending death and resurrection:

38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12)

1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 3 And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed. (Matthew 16)

The apostle Paul, too, saw the resurrection of Jesus as the decisive proof (or sign) of his divine calling and authority. Speaking to the pagan Athenians, he testified that

30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17)

The gospel accounts indicate that Jesus saw his atoning sacrifice, death, and resurrection as the crucial part of his own life and story and as the basis of Christian preaching. On the evening of the very day that he emerged from the tomb, he met two bewildered and disheartened disciples on the road to Emmaus:

25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. . . . 44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24)

According to the Acts of the Apostles, the fundamental message of early Christian preaching began to go public within at most a few weeks of the resurrection:

1 And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, 2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. . . . 33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. (Acts 4)

Jesus had taught that his own resurrected life would be the basis of the continued postmortem life of others:

19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. (John 14)

This seems to have been the teaching of the authors of 1 John and 1 Peter, as well:

2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3)

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (1 Peter 1)

Christianity without the resurrection isn’t really Christianity at all. It’s certainly not what the prophets and apostles have taught.

For closely related but distinct thoughts on this subject that I published in the Deseret News back on 17 November 2011 and that will eventually be integrated with the notes above, see “Apostles became fearless preachers.” See also “Once More, John Updike’s “Seven Stanzas At Easter,”” which I also intend to incorporate into the finished essay.

Posted from Newport Beach, California

History and Religion

Travel and Religion

Previous Post

October 12, 2025

Revisiting Frenchy