Eckhardt's Homiletisches Reallexikon, 1907–1917

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Resurrection of Christ. Treatises. The Certainty of Christ's Resurrection. L. W. 41, 33 f. The Significance of Christ's Resurrection. L. W. 42, 6 f. Risen Again the Third Day from the Dead. Mich. 1903. R. Pi. R. Pieper, Catechism, Vol. 1, Part 2, 125 f. R. Pi. Sermons, 73-92. Hymn 6, 7-15. Willkomm. Lecture. Baier 3, 93-97. Schulb. 8, 38-40. 27, 215. L. W. 26, 188. Outline. Importance § 1. Prophecy § 2. The particular circumstances § 3. Of the Triune God § 4. The resurrection account § 5. Contradictions § 6. Appearances § 7. The unbelievers § 8. Their objections: fraud § 9, apparent death § 10, vision § 11, ghostly apparition § 12, other objections § 13. Certainty § 14. Christ's deity confirmed § 15-16. Redemption confirmed § 17. Our faith, rebirth, hope is fruit of the resurrection § 18. Our own resurrection § 19.

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1. The importance of this doctrine. Our whole faith rests on this doctrine. It is the cornerstone of Christianity. Without Easter, Christmas and Good Friday are of no use. Note a. If Christ is not risen, then 1. all Christianity is fraud; 2. Scripture falls; 3. our faith is vain. 1 Cor. 15, 17; 4. we and our departed are lost. Note b. How convinced were the apostles and Luther of the importance of this doctrine! Note c. If, to be sure, one holds him to be a mere man, it does not matter much whether he rose or not.

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2. Prophecies. The resurrection of Christ is prophesied A. in the Old Testament. Gen. 3, 15: Christ shall remain victor. Ps. 16, 10: the soul does not remain in hell. Ps. 22: after his death he will live. Isa. 53: after the suffering he will see the light. Hos. 13, 14: O death, I will be thy plague. Job 19, 25: at the last he shall stand upon the dust. Note a. Here belong 1. all passages that deal with his exaltation. Ps. 110: sit thou at my right hand. Ps. 118: the right hand of the Lord retains the victory; 2. all passages that show he cannot remain in death. Ps. 110, 4: a priest for ever. His kingdom has no end; 3. all types. Jonah. Matt. 12, 39. 40. Note b. Christ is risen according to the Scriptures. 1 Cor. 15. Note c. It is true that we in the New Testament, after the fulfillment of Scripture, have more light and clarity, but the believers of the Old Testament understood these prophecies well: B. in the New Testament through Christ himself. 1. in parables. A little while, John 16, 16. Destroy this temple. As Jonas, etc. Matt. 12, 39. 40; 2. in sayings that show he cannot remain in death, e.g.: I am the life;

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Note. The Reformed say that the blood shed on the cross was not taken back up into the risen body. e. His body was glorified. similar to that described in Phil. 3, 21: his glorified body. Note a. Christ ate with his disciples not out of need, but to convince them of his resurrection. Note b. He passed through the sealed tomb. It was not the angel who let Jesus out, Matt. 28. That would have been a poor proof of Christ's deity. Antithesis. The Calvinists teach that Christ came out only after the opening of the tomb. Note c. So too Christ passed through "the closed door." John 20, 19. Schleiermacher: "The back door was probably open." Note d. Compare here Christ's transfiguration on Mount Tabor. Luke 9, 29. Matt. 17, 2. f. Christ's soul, free from all burden, had entered into the full use of his divine majesty. Note. Christ's resurrection is a mystery that we cannot comprehend.

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1. The resurrection of Christ is a work of the triune God. a. The Father raised Christ. Rom. 6, 4: raised up by the glory of the Father. Eph. 1, 20. Note. This statement sets forth Christ's resurrection as an absolution of the whole world of sinners. b. The Son made himself alive by his own power. John 10, 18: he has power to take his life again. John 2, 19: I will raise it up again. 1 Pet. 3, 18: made alive by the Spirit, that is, according to his divine nature. Note a. Other interpretations of 1 Pet. 3, 18 are: in the state of exaltation, by the Holy Spirit (Löber). That would not be against the analogy. Wrong is Bellarmine's interpretation: "according to the soul." Note b. This statement sets forth Christ's resurrection as proof of his deity. Note c. Yet the self-quickening and the raising by the Father coincide into one. John 5, 19. 21: what the Father does, the Son does also. 5. The resurrection account. Each apostle tells of the Easter story what seemed especially important to him. What one does not tell, another tells. What one summarizes briefly, another sets forth at length.

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Lessing. Matt. 28. Against this: a. If the soldiers were asleep, how could they know that the disciples had stolen the body? b. How could the great stone have been rolled away without waking anyone? c. Are the timid disciples supposed to have done this? d. What use would the dead body have been to them! e. How easily the fraud could have been proven at the time! f. How unanimous the apostles' report would then have turned out! g. As soon as one of them, moved by imprisonment or death, had recanted, they would have been lost. But all remained steadfast. h. The enemies were so careful to guard the tomb. They must, after all, have believed in the possibility of the resurrection. i. Had the apostles been deceivers, God would not have confirmed them as his apostles through miracles. k. What could have moved the apostles to hold fast to the fraud, when by it they reaped only mockery and death? Objection a. Others too, Quakers, papists, have suffered death for their false doctrine; therefore the death of the apostles cannot be a proof of the truth of the resurrection. - But it does prove their sincerity. Objection b. Many criminals have given false testimony and suffered torture and agony over it. But against their will, or to escape still greater punishment, or for other reasons. No one voluntarily takes death upon himself for false testimony.

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10. Apparent death. A good friend is supposed to have helped the apparently-dead man out of the grave. The disciples were not deceivers, but deceived. Schleiermacher. Against this: 1. Apparent death was completely excluded. Even the enemies did not doubt Christ's death. 2. Why did the Pharisees not search out the apparently-dead man? 3. An apparently-dead man, who had to be carried out of the grave, certainly could not have made on the disciples the impression of a prince of life.

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11. Vision. Ecstasy. Christ's appearances are supposed to have been imaginings of their excited fantasy. Celsus. How this is supposed to have happened: a. the appearance that the excited women thought they had seen awakened in the disciples the belief in the resurrection; b. the disciples are supposed to have gained certainty from the prophecies: he must rise, he lives, he stands before us; c. the disciples are supposed to have arrived at this out of overwrought religious enthusiasm and then to have seen all sorts of figures in their excited state of mind. Against this: 1. The disciples, after Christ's death, were not in feverish expectation of Christ's resurrection. They were hopeless, behind closed doors, did not want to believe the resurrection. Mark 16, 12: "fairy tale." Luke 24, 11: "affrighted certain women." Luke 24, 22. What trouble Christ had to convince them! 2. Then all the disciples would have had exactly the same imaginary images. 500 at once. 3. Christ's appearances do not make the impression of visions. He walks, speaks, eats with them, stays with them for hours. 4. To work oneself up, through reading the prophecies, from complete hopelessness into religious ecstasy, the time (33 hours) was too short.

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12. Apparitions of a spirit. Christ's spirit is supposed to have merely appeared while his body lay in the grave. Against this: were the disciples so easily deceived? At first, indeed, they took Christ for a ghost. Luke 24, 37, but they saw the mark of the nails, could touch him. Objection. Paul, in 1 Cor. 15, places the appearances of Christ on the same level as that which happened to himself. But that was only an appearance in the spirit; therefore the others too. Against this: 1. Paul intends, in the whole chapter, to prove that Christ rose bodily. 2. then Paul would have been converted through fraud. 3. fantasy would have been possible for Paul only if he had studied the Christian doctrine and been convinced of its truth, but the opposite was the case. 4. Paul also had visions and sights, but of these he speaks quite differently and knows how to distinguish them from experienced facts.

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13. Various other objections. a. Legend. The disciples' firm expectation that the Lord would rise again gradually condensed into a legend that he had actually risen. b. The apostles' account was not written by the apostles, but much later. c. Christ, when he saw that he had to die, is supposed to have cut into his thigh and inserted the mysterious name Jehovah, which then began to take effect. d. The apostles contradict each other. Their testimonies do not agree. Therefore there is nothing to the resurrection. e. It is impossible for anyone to call himself back to life out of death. f. They by no means wish to deny the resurrection, only the "how." Christ lives on spiritually with his disciples. - Then Christ's resurrection is done away with. To believe the resurrection literally is a hindrance to faith. 14. Certainty. The resurrection of Christ is just as well, and even better, attested than any historical fact whatsoever. Rational proof. a. The testimony of the apostles is 1. human, credible testimony. They wanted, could, and had to tell the truth. See Apostles; 2. more than human testimony, namely divinely inspired and confirmed by miracles. b. the change that took place in the apostles (at first timid, then so fearless) could not be explained at all if Christ had not risen. c. the testimony of the enemies. 1. at that time. They never even thought of fraud, could easily have proven the fraud, but merely forbid speaking of Jesus. Note. Many avowed enemies too have been converted to Christianity. 2. nowadays. Why the tremendous exertions of the enemies, if Christ is dead? d. the origin of the Christian church and its spread through such unskilled instruments (fishermen), with such preaching contrary to reason, would remain a riddle without Christ's resurrection. e. what a tremendous change the world has undergone since then! f. the testimony of the Spirit. For Christians no rational proof is needed. How can he be dead who daily proves to us that he lives! Every Christian is a living proof of Christ's resurrection. Benefit.

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15. Through the resurrection Christ has powerfully proved himself to be the Son of God. Rom. 1, 4. Raised from death by his own power, stronger than death! Can any doubt of his deity still remain? Note a. And at exactly the foreordained time he rises from death! Note b. The Father raised him. Would God have acknowledged a deceiver who falsely gave himself out to be the Son of God? Note c. In Christ all prophecies, including those of his resurrection, are fulfilled: he is the promised Messiah. Note d. Christ did not become God only through his resurrection. He had not laid aside his deity during his humiliation. Kenosis. Note e. But one could already, even before his resurrection, recognize his deity through his miracles. Note f. Jesus is the Lord, yes, my Lord. Note g. In that the Father acknowledged Christ through his raising, he proved Christ's innocence, who had been put to death as an insurrectionist; a justification for Christ himself. Note h. Christ would not have died and risen merely to prove his deity. 16. Through Christ's resurrection it is proved that his doctrine is true. a. if Christ is proved to be the Son of God, then all his words are God's words. b. if the Father raised Christ, then he confirmed Christ's teaching as truth: him shall ye hear. c. if Christ has fulfilled the highest of his prophecies, at which word of Christ would you still want to doubt?

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17. Through Christ's resurrection our redemption is confirmed. a. Rom. 4, 25: Christ was raised again for our justification. b. through his resurrection it becomes certain that not a man, but God suffered on the cross. God's blood shed, God died! Now our debt is paid. c. the Father lets his Son out of death and prison and thereby declares: the debt is paid, the penalty discharged, the sacrifice accepted. Note a. Christ's resurrection is the actual absolution of the whole world of sinners. This doctrine makes all other doctrines comforting. The Gospel does not tell us what we must do to obtain forgiveness, but that our sins are already forgiven. Means of grace. Rom. 5, 18. Note b. Had Christ not risen, we would still be in our sins. d. through his resurrection it becomes certain that he has overcome death and all enemies. His enemies are our enemies. Thus we are free 1. from all sin and its bondage; 2. from death, 1 Cor. 15, 55-57; 3. from the devil, Ps. 68, 19. Col. 2, 15; 4. from the bondage of the Law; 5. from the bondage of all men. Note a. This resounds through all of Christ's discourses!