p. 1 | The Resurrection

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 11, 1916

The Resurrection

The real historical evidence for the resurrection is the fact that it was believed, preached, propagated, and produced its fruit and effect in the new phenomenon of the Christian church, long before any of our Gospels was written. . . . Faith in the resurrection was not only prevalent but immensely powerful before any of our New Testament books was written. Not one of them could ever have been written but for that faith. It is not this or that in the New Testament—it is not the story of the empty tomb, or of the appearing of Jesus in Jerusalem or in Galilee—which is the primary evidence for the resurrection; it is the New Testament itself,—the life that throbs in it from beginning to end, the life that always fills us again with wonder as it beats upon us from its pages, the life which the risen Saviour has quickened in Christian souls. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is the existence of the church in that extraordinary spiritual vitality which confronts us in the New Testament. . . . The existence of the Christian church, the existence of the New Testament,—these incomparable phenomena in human history are left without adequate or convincing explanation if the resurrection of Jesus be denied.—James Denney, D. D.