CREED: I BELIEVE ...the third day He [JESUS] rose from the dead.

As I prepared to approach this phrase “the third day he rose from the dead” it seemed I would need to do extensive reading in preparation to do an in-depth apologetic of “the Resurrection” and the many “infallible proofs” I might need to back up my claim or the reason for my belief. Then in struck me that that is exactly what I DO NOT need to do.

The Creed itself, takes only eight words to declare the pivotal point of THE FAITH. Everything leading up to this statement sets the groundwork. There is the declaration that I believe in God, the Father, the Creator, and that I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, and that He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered, was crucified, dead and buried. The rest of the Creed will finish off the consequences of the Resurrection and what it means to the believer in general, and to me in particular as the one making the declaration.

And that in turn brings us back to the reason the Creed doesn't have to spell out the apologetic for the belief. The Creed is not intended to give the reason for the belief, it was only intended that the one using it had a summary and a confession to give in the face of “trial” or “accusation” or as a “plumb line” to set against any other confessions of the time. If someone were to say “I believe Zeus is the son of Cronus”, and all that that implied, the Christian would say “I believe in God, the Father Almighty...”

The fact that the believer was being called upon to answer “What do you believe?” or to answer, “Do you confess Caesar to be Lord?” is by its nature to acknowledge that the one asking the question already had evidence that the one being interrogated was “different”. The conviction that Jesus was bodily resurrected from the dead is what set the unbelieving Jews (whether Pharisees or Saducees), and the Greeks, or the State, against the believers. It is what sets the unbelievers of today, whether liberal theologians bearing Christian labels, or New Age devotees, or Atheists against the biblical believer.

I declare that I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, because it is the testimony of the Scriptures. I declare that Jesus rose from the dead because it has been the testimony of the church and the earliest believers and their hope, and in fact the only reason for Christianity to exist. As Paul says, if Christ be not risen, then our faith is in vain, we are still in our sins, and we are of all people “most miserable”

The Resurrection is the proof that Jesus was and is God. The Resurrection is the proof that Jesus fulfilled all the plans and purposes of God. The Resurrection is the proof that God accepted His death and sacrifice. The Resurrection is God's great Seal of Approval. Jesus as the “crucified one” did not raise himself. BUT GOD did.

And so, we come again to the “So what?”. No matter how much my confession may be theologically correct in the first part of the Creed or how right I may be about the “last days”, if I do not believe this point about the Resurrection, will anyone care? And if I do believe it, should I care if anyone else thinks me odd, or deluded or whatever?

I started to set out a series of questions wondering about the consequences of saying “I believe that Jesus rose from the dead.” But having thought about it I think it would be more profitable to have your input. What would be the implications in our relationships with fellow believers, with the unsaved, with the local community and the broader world, socially and politically etc. if I, if you, if the Church really believes that Jesus “rose from the dead'?