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resurrection legend by the help of conceptions imported into Judaism from Babylonia and other
oriental countries. This school claims not only that the mythology of the ancient oriental
religions contains analogies of the resurrection story, but that this story was actually derived
from pagan myths. This theory has been worked out in several forms, but is equally baseless in
all its forms. It is characterized by great arbitrariness in bolstering up a connection of the gospel
story with heathen myths, and has not succeeded in linking them together. Moreover, it reveals
an extreme disregard of the facts as they are found in Scripture.
e. The doctrinal bearing of the resurrection.
The question arises, Does it make any difference,
whether we believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, or merely in an ideal resurrection?
For modern liberal theology the resurrection of Jesus, except in the sense of a spiritual survival,
has no real importance for Christian faith. Belief in the bodily resurrection is not essential, but
can very well be dropped without affecting the Christian religion. Barth and Brunner are of a
different opinion. They do believe in the historical fact of the resurrection, but maintain that as
such it is merely a matter of history, with which the historian may deal to the best of his ability,
and not as a matter of faith. The important element is that in the resurrection the divine breaks
into the course of history, that in it the incognito of Jesus is removed and God reveals Himself.
The historian cannot describe it, but the believer accepts it by faith.
Belief in the resurrection certainly has doctrinal bearings. We cannot deny the physical
resurrection of Christ without impugning the veracity of the writers of Scripture, since they
certainly represent it as a fact. This means that it affects our belief in the trustworthiness of
Scripture. Moreover the resurrection of Christ is represented as having evidential value. It was
the culminating proof that Christ was a teacher sent from God (the sign of Jonah), and that He
was the very Son of God, Rom. 1:4. It was also the supreme attestation of the fact of
immortality. What is still more important, the resurrection enters as a constitutive element into
the very essence of the work of redemption, and therefore of the gospel. It is one of the great
foundation stones of the Church of God. The atoning work of Christ, if it was to be effective at
all, had to terminate, not in death, but in life. Furthermore, it was the Father’s seal on the
completed work of Christ, the public declaration of its acceptance. In it Christ passed from
under the law. Finally, it was His entrance on a new life as the risen and exalted Head of the
Church and the universal Lord. This enabled Him to apply the fruits of His redemptive work.
2. THE ASCENSION.
a. The ascension of Christ does not stand out as boldly on the pages of the Bible as the
resurrection does.
This is probably due to the fact that the latter rather than the former was
the real turning point in the life of Jesus. In a certain sense the ascension may be called the
necessary complement and completion of the resurrection. Christ’s transition to the higher life