Every year at about this time, Christians around the world celebrate Easter. Now the word “Easter,” of course, is not found in any ancient New Testament texts. It is found only one time in the King James Version (KJV), in Acts 12:4 where it reads: And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.
There it is used in a context of Peter’s arrest by King Herod after the execution of James, and his plan to do the same to Peter “after Easter.” Actually, the Greek word is Pascha, meaning “Passover.” The New King James Version (NKJV) has it corrected. Christian Standard Bible (CSB Nashville: B&H Publishing Co., 2017), like all other modern translations renders Acts 12:4 like this: After the arrest, he put him in prison and assigned four squads of four soldiers each to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover.
So, we might wonder, just where did that word come from and how did “Easter” become the English name for Resurrection Sunday or Pascha (Greek and Latin), the most important celebration on the annual Christian calendar? That’s a good question that is not clearly explained. Some trace it back to a pre-Christian pagan Spring celebration of a goddess named Eostre or Ostara. That may also explain why pagan symbols are often associated with Easter including the Easter Bunny, colored eggs, and baby chicks. Somehow, possibly because of the closeness in time, northern European Christians adopted the name Easter for the Pascha season. Other historians speculate differently about it origins. In any case, it stuck. So, though I prefer calling it Resurrection Day, “Easter” is the common term for the day set aside to remember Jesus’ resurrection.
Regardless of the name, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is indeed the most important event in world history. It is the focal event of the Christian faith. It is what we might call “The Heart of the Gospel.” The Apostle Paul made that clear in his first letter to the Corinthians (actually it was his second letter to Corinth, but the first one is no longer extant – see 1 Cor. 5:9). He wrote that epistle to correct some problems that had come to his attention in the Corinthian church; which he had founded. One issue was the reality and nature of life after death. Apparently there were some in the church who were questioning the literal nature of resurrection from the dead.
In order to address that crucial issue, in chapter 15, Paul reiterated what he and the other Apostles considered an essential teaching of the Christian faith. In so doing, Paul repeated for them just what exactly was the content of the “Gospel” (euaggelion – “Good News”) he and the others had preached to them, and that they had received (15:1). He reminded them that it was on that message they had taken (past tense) their stand, and by which they were now in the process of being saved (present tense) (15:1-2). He went on to say they should hold tight to that teaching, because if they did not their faith was in the wrong thing and their salvation was in serious doubt (15:2 “believed without careful thought,” or “believed in vain”).
So what was that message Paul had preached or delivered to them? Paul says it was the most important thing that he had received and had passed on to them (15:3a).
“…that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried,
and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that He appeared to Cephas,
then to the twelve.” (15:3b-5 Christian Standard Bible – 2017 [CSB]).
For Paul, this was, indeed, the heart of the Gospel message. This particular section is especially significant in that Paul was probably quoting a very early church creed that long predated his letters. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in about AD 53-55. He says he “received” this sometime in the past. That leaves us the question, from whom did he get it? Well, for one thing he got it from God Himself by revelation, but it is also implied he received it from the Apostles who had witnessed the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. When was that? According to Acts 9:26-28 Saul (Paul) went to Jerusalem very soon after his conversion on the road to Damascus:
“When he arrived in Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, since they did not believe he was a disciple. Barnabas, however, took him and brought him to the apostles and explained to them how Saul had seen the Lord on the road and that the Lord had talked to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus. Saul was coming and going with them in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord” (CSB).
In Jerusalem he was discipled by Barnabas. Most scholars estimate that this meeting likely happened about AD 35, only a few years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. In Jerusalem Paul interacted with the apostles, so he would have learned the factual and historical content of the Gospel from eye-witnesses. It may well have been where he first heard the early creed he quoted in 1 Corinthians 15: 3b-5.
The ancient creedal statement would, therefore, must have been used in Christian circles almost immediately after the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Thus, this section of Paul’s letter is perhaps the earliest written attestation to the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Notice it includes several key elements:
1) Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. (Which Scriptures? The Old Testament.) This emphasizes the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ death on the cross. He paid the price for “our sins.”
2) He was buried. This stresses the fact that Jesus was truly dead and buried, not just in a coma or something else.
3) He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. This, of course, emphatically accentuates the fact that Jesus literally rose from the dead. How do we know?
4) He appeared to Cephas (that is “to Peter”). The first of the disciples of Jesus to see the empty tomb was Peter (though the women actually got there first). Later He appeared to him.
5) He then appeared to the Twelve (a generic term for Jesus’ disciples). This reiterates the fact that all of the “Twelve” also witnessed the resurrected Lord in their midst.
We cannot overemphasize how much credibility this section of 1 Corinthians gives to the Christians belief that Jesus rose from the dead. Even skeptics (almost all of whom affirm that Paul definitely wrote 1 Corinthians) have a difficult time explaining how Paul could have been wrong in describing the historical basis of the Gospel’s truth claims. He had direct access to men and women who were present at the events before and after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul reports that three years later, he had met with Peter and James (Jesus’ half-brother).
“Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas, and I stayed with him fifteen days. But I didn’t see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. I declare in the sight of God: I am not lying in what I write to you” (Gal. 1:18-19 CSB).
Paul, however, did not end his foundational statement on the Gospel message with 1 Corinthians 15:5. In the following verses he adds even more evidence to his claims that Jesus was risen from the dead and that the Gospel was true.
“Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. (15:6-8 CSB).”
Paul mentions two more occurrences where people had seen the risen Lord. First, he said that Jesus had appeared to more than 500 people at once. We do not have that particular event recorded anywhere else in Scripture. Nonetheless, Paul states that most of those people were still living when he wrote this report. If he had presented false information, it would have been easy for an enemy of Paul to challenge those eye-witnesses (or even if they existed). No one did.
Paul also states that Jesus had appeared to James, Jesus’ half-brother. Remember, James was not a believer in his brother’s Messiahship at the beginning. It may well have been Jesus’ appearance to him that had changed his mind. In any case, James became a leader in the Jerusalem church. Why would he have taken that position (and later be martyred) if he knew that Jesus had not risen from the dead.
Finally, Paul mentions his own personal encounter with the living Jesus (see Acts 9:1-30; 22:1-16; 26:1-20). Note, how much Paul focuses on the grace of God for his salvation and his ministry as an apostle. It was God, not Paul, who deserved all the credit for who he was.
“Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Cor. 15: 8-10).
So in these personal words, Paul concludes his explanation and defense of the Gospel. He again declares to his readers that this was the truth he and all the other apostles proclaimed. It was for them, then, to believe it and live it out!
“Whether, then, it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed” (1 Cor. 15:11 CSB).
And so it is with us as we celebrate the Lord’s resurrection this week! It is the Heart of the Gospel!
For more on Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and the resurrection see Gary Habermas as interviewed in The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1998) pp. 228-231.
© 2017 by Tal Davis