What brought about this amazing transformation? Quite inescapably, it was their unshakable conviction that Jesus had not been held by the grave in which he had been put after he was quite dead, but that God had raised him from the dead and that he was with them, beside them, among them, as a living and active presence. The "risen Christ" was no theory to them, but a fact, a fact of their own experience. They knew he was alive because he and they were once again in intimate fellowship. And as we look at the record of the things they did, the sermons they preached, the letters they wrote, the stories of Jesus which they compiled, a startling fact emerges. The basis of the whole enterprise was not (as we are often led to believe) the ethical teachings of Jesus, but rather the "good news" of the resurrection.
It was indeed "good news" on every level of life. It vindicated the claims of Jesus, and the faith the disciples had had in him. It showed that even out of a catastrophe like the crucifixion God could make something supremely good. It showed that death need no longer be feared, since God is more powerful than death, the Lord of life and death. It showed that God could take human sin (even the terrible sin of those who put Jesus to death) and triumph over that. It demonstrated, in short, that through death could come resurrection, that out of tragedy could come triumph, that even when men did their very worst, God could do his very best. This good news "upset" everything that people had believed before about God and his manner of working.
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