on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures

The Text

The clause is the gospel itself. Christ is risen. The catholic creed places the resurrection at the structural center of the second article and identifies it with the apostolic-kerygmatic formula in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and he was buried, and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures). The creed compresses the earliest preaching of the church into a single confession.

The clause is brief but freighted. On the third day — the chronological specification that anchors the resurrection in the same historical reality as the crucifixion; he rose again — the active verb that names the Son’s own agency in the resurrection; in accordance with the Scriptures — the apostolic claim that the resurrection is the fulfillment of the divine purpose announced in the Hebrew Bible. Each element is dogmatically weighted.

The clause is the church’s confession of the most contested historical claim in Christian faith. From the empty tomb of Easter morning to the present day, the resurrection has been disputed by every form of skepticism, naturalism, and reductionism. The catholic faith has held to the bodily, historical, on-the-third-day resurrection as the central fact of the gospel: not the spiritual survival of Jesus’s cause or teaching or example, not the rise of a resurrection faith in the disciples, not a legendary accretion on the historical kernel — but the actual, bodily, on-the-third-day rising of the crucified Jesus from the dead.

Translation Notes

Anastanta / resurrexit — he rose. The active verb. The New Testament uses both active (Mark 9:31, the Son of Man… will rise; 1 Thess. 4:14, we believe that Jesus died and rose again) and passive (Rom. 4:25, was raised for our justification; 1 Cor. 15:4, was raised on the third day) forms of the resurrection verb. The creedal tradition has used the active form (he rose), which emphasizes the Son’s own divine agency: the eternal Son, who descended into the human reality of death, has risen by his own power. The patristic tradition has held the active and passive together: the Father raised the Son, and the Son rose by his own power; both are catholic, because the divine act is one act undertaken by the three persons in their proper modes.

Tē tritē hēmera / tertia die — on the third day. The chronological specification. By Jewish reckoning (which counts any part of a day as a whole day), Friday afternoon (the day of the crucifixion) + Saturday (the whole day) + Sunday morning (the discovery of the empty tomb) = three days. The phrase is not a numerical puzzle; it is a Jewish reckoning, and it has been the consistent confession of the church from the apostolic period forward.

The dogmatic significance of the third day: the resurrection occurred on the first day of the week, the day of the new creation, the day that has been called the Lord’s day (κυριακὴ ἡμέρα, Rev. 1:10; dies dominicus) from the apostolic period onward (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2). The Christian observance of Sunday as the principal day of worship is grounded in the resurrection’s occurrence on the first day of the week — the day on which the new creation began.

Kata tas graphas / secundum Scripturas — in accordance with the Scriptures. The phrase that anchors the resurrection in the Hebrew Bible. The catholic claim is that the resurrection is not an unexpected divine improvisation but the climax of the divine purpose announced in advance through the prophets. The principal texts that the apostolic tradition has read as anticipating the resurrection are Psalm 16, Isaiah 52–53, Hosea 6:2, and Jonah’s three days in the great fish. The English translation has varied between in fulfillment of the Scriptures (ICET 1975) and in accordance with the Scriptures (ELLC 1988); the ELLC reading has become dominant. The Greek κατὰ τὰς γραφάς means literally according to or in conformity with; both English renderings are defensible, with the in accordance with closer to the Greek and the in fulfillment of perhaps stronger in dogmatic claim.

Historical Context

The clause is one of the most stable and the most theologically central in the entire creed. The 325 Nicene text contained the substance; the 381 Constantinopolitan revision preserved it; the Latin reception has carried it forward in the form et resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas. The Apostles’ Creed contains the parallel confession (the third day he rose again from the dead), and the two creeds together represent the catholic confession of the resurrection.

The clause has done specific dogmatic work against multiple forms of heresy and reductionism. Against Docetism (which often paired its denial of a real death with a denial of a real resurrection), the clause affirms a real rising of a real body. Against Gnosticism (which often spiritualized the resurrection into a piece of esoteric spiritual ascent), the clause affirms the bodily resurrection of the same Jesus who was crucified and buried. Against the ancient skepticism that the apostolic tradition itself confronted (Acts 17:32; 1 Cor. 15:12), the clause affirms the resurrection as the central fact of the gospel.

The clause has also taken on particular weight in the modern period, against the various forms of reductionist Christianity that have wished to retain some piece of the Christian tradition (Jesus’s ethics, his teaching, his example) while abandoning the bodily resurrection. The 19th-century Lives of Jesus tradition (David Friedrich Strauss; Ernest Renan; later Rudolf Bultmann’s program of demythologization) attempted to retain a Christian piety without the resurrection. The catholic tradition has held against this reduction throughout, on the apostolic principle expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:14, 17–19: if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain… if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. The resurrection is not a piece of the gospel; it is the gospel.

The modern apologetic literature on the historicity of the resurrection has been substantial. From the 18th century forward, every major Christian apologetic project has had to engage the question of the resurrection. The 20th-century recovery of historical-critical defense of the resurrection — N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003), Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2006), Gary Habermas and Michael Licona on the minimal facts approach — has been substantial and has shifted the academic conversation in directions friendly to the catholic confession. The apologetic conversation is now between (1) those who affirm the bodily resurrection on historical grounds, (2) those who affirm it on dogmatic grounds without making the historical case load-bearing, and (3) those who deny it. The third position has fewer academic defenders than it did in the mid-20th century.

Lines of Interpretation

Patristic

Tradition: Ignatius of Antioch; Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh; Athanasius, On the Incarnation §§20–32; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XIV; Augustine, City of God XXII; Cyril of Alexandria; Leo the Great

The patristic settlement on the resurrection is the dogmatic foundation of all subsequent catholic confession. The Fathers articulated the doctrine under several integrated headings.

Tertullian’s On the Resurrection of the Flesh (c. 200) is the great early patristic apologetic for the bodily character of the resurrection. Against the Gnostic spiritualizers who would dissolve the resurrection into a piece of spiritual ascent, Tertullian insists: the same body that was crucified is the body that was raised; resurrection is resurrection of the flesh, not the survival of an abstract spiritual principle. The doctrinal substance is the apostolic kerygma; Tertullian’s contribution is the careful articulation against contemporary reductionism.

Athanasius’s On the Incarnation §§20–32 integrates the resurrection with the doctrine of the incarnation. The eternal Word took flesh in order to die, and died in order to destroy death from within; the resurrection is therefore the fruit of the cross — the new condition of human flesh, freed from the dominion of death. The resurrection is not merely the vindication of Jesus but the transformation of human flesh itself, accomplished in the body of the risen Christ and communicated to the believer through the Spirit and the sacraments.

Cyril of Jerusalem’s Catechetical Lectures XIV gives the major fourth-century catechetical treatment of the resurrection. Cyril articulates the multiple lines of evidence: the empty tomb; the appearances; the transformation of the disciples; the testimony of women (which would not be invented in a fraudulent account, given the legal-cultural disregard for women’s testimony); the existence of the church itself. The catechetical genre prevents speculative excess and grounds the dogmatic substance in the apostolic witness.

Augustine’s City of God XXII gives the major Latin patristic articulation of the bodily resurrection in its eschatological scope. The resurrection of the believer at the eschaton is the imitation and participation in the resurrection of Christ; the bodily character of the eschatological resurrection is grounded in the bodily character of Christ’s resurrection on the third day.

Strengths

• The patristic settlement is the foundation of all subsequent catholic confession
• Tertullian’s defense of the bodily character of the resurrection is permanently valuable
• Athanasius’s integration of resurrection with incarnation gives the doctrine its proper depth
• Augustine’s eschatological articulation gives the doctrine its proper scope

Weaknesses

• The polemical context occasionally produced sharper articulations than the catholic substance required
• Some patristic articulations drifted toward speculative refinement of the eschatological resurrection body

Scholastic

Tradition: Peter Lombard, Sentences III; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.53–59; Bonaventure, Sentences III; the medieval Easter sequence and liturgical theology

The scholastic tradition received the clause and articulated it under multiple heads: the truth of the resurrection (its historical actuality), the cause of the resurrection (the Son’s own divine power as well as the Father’s act), the quality of the risen body (its properties: subtlety, agility, impassibility, clarity), the effect of the resurrection (the believer’s hope), and the manifestation of the resurrection (the appearances).

Aquinas’s treatment in ST III.53–56 gives the comprehensive scholastic articulation. The resurrection is fitting (Christ’s victory required this vindication); true (the same body that died is the body that was raised); the work of the Trinity (the Father raised the Son by the Spirit, and the Son rose by his own divine power); and the cause of our resurrection (the believer’s eschatological resurrection is grounded in Christ’s).

The scholastic articulation of the qualities of the glorified body (drawing on 1 Cor. 15:42–44) — incorruption, glory, power, spiritual character — has been pressed into varying levels of speculative refinement. Aquinas’s treatment is restrained; some scholastic writers pressed further, with limited dogmatic warrant.

Strengths

• Aquinas’s articulation of the resurrection’s causal role in our resurrection is permanently valuable
• The scholastic precision on the truth of the resurrection against any reductionist softening is exemplary
• The integration with the doctrine of the Trinity (the resurrection as the work of all three persons) is catholic

Weaknesses

• Some scholastic speculation on the qualities of the glorified body outran the biblical witness
• The Aristotelian-essence vocabulary requires translation

Lutheran

Tradition: Luther, Easter Sermons, Lectures on 1 Corinthians 15; Augsburg Confession III; Formula of Concord VIII; Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus — God and Man

The Lutheran tradition has held the clause in catholic form, with characteristic pastoral integration with the gospel of justification. Luther’s Lectures on 1 Corinthians 15 (1532–33) is the great Reformation treatment of the resurrection. Luther insists on the bodily resurrection as the dogmatic foundation of the gospel: if Christ has not been raised, then sin has not been defeated and the gospel is empty.

Luther’s integration of resurrection and justification: the resurrection is the divine declaration that the sacrifice of the cross has been accepted, that the propitiation has been received, that the sinner who looks to the crucified Christ in faith may be assured that the death has done what it was undertaken to do. The resurrection is therefore not merely the vindication of Jesus; it is the divine acquittal in which the believer participates by faith.

Pannenberg’s Jesus — God and Man (1964), a major 20th-century Lutheran systematic treatment, articulates the resurrection as the retroactive divine confirmation of Jesus’s pre-Easter ministry: the historical-eschatological character of the resurrection is what allows the disciples to recognize the pre-Easter Jesus as the divine Son. Pannenberg’s defense of the historicity of the resurrection has been broadly influential in 20th-century Protestant theology.

Strengths

• The Lutheran integration of resurrection and justification is permanently valuable
• Luther’s defense of the bodily resurrection is patristic in substance and pastoral in form
• Pannenberg’s historical-theological treatment is one of the major 20th-century articulations

Weaknesses

• Some Lutheran scholastic articulations pressed the doctrine into refinements the New Testament does not warrant
• Pannenberg’s reliance on historical-critical method has been criticized by some Lutheran traditionalists as making the dogma dependent on historical contingency

Reformed

Tradition: Calvin, Institutes II.16, III.25; Heidelberg Catechism QQ. 45, 47; Belgic Confession Article 19; Westminster Confession Ch. 8; Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1 and III/2; T. F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection

The Reformed tradition has held the clause in catholic form. Calvin’s Institutes II.16.13 names the resurrection as the dogmatic foundation of the believer’s hope: Our salvation may be thus divided between the death and the resurrection of Christ: by his death, sin was abolished and death extinguished; by his resurrection, righteousness was restored and life raised up. The Reformed integration of cross and resurrection is patristic in substance.

The Heidelberg Catechism Q. 45 gives the catechetical form: What benefit do we receive from the resurrection of Christ? First, by his resurrection he has overcome death, that he might make us partakers of the righteousness which he has obtained for us by his death. Second, we also are now raised by his power to a new life. Third, the resurrection of Christ is to us a sure pledge of our blessed resurrection. The catechetical form gives the three integrated benefits — justification, new life, eschatological hope — that the Reformed tradition has held together.

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics IV/1 §59 articulates the resurrection as the divine vindication of the cross: the resurrection is the Yes by which the divine No of the cross is heard as gospel. Barth’s emphasis on the resurrection as the Yes of God to humanity through the Yes given to the crucified Son has reshaped 20th-century Protestant theology.

T. F. Torrance’s Space, Time, and Resurrection (1976) gives a substantial patristic-Reformed treatment of the resurrection in dialogue with modern physics and the philosophy of time. Torrance’s central claim: the resurrection is not a violation of the natural order but the disclosure of a deeper order; the risen body is real and embodied while transcending the limitations of fallen embodied existence.

Strengths

• The Reformed tradition has held the catholic substance with great care
• The Heidelberg Catechism Q. 45 is one of the great catechetical confessions of the resurrection
• Calvin’s integration of cross and resurrection is patristic in substance
• Torrance’s modern dialogue with physics is a substantial contribution

Weaknesses

• Some Reformed scholasticism pressed the doctrine into juridical refinement
• The decretal Reformed tradition has occasionally treated the resurrection as primarily evidential rather than as constitutive of the gospel

Eastern Orthodox

Tradition: the Paschal Homily attributed to John Chrysostom; John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith IV; the iconographic tradition (the Anastasis); modern: Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church; Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World

The Eastern tradition has held the resurrection as the dogmatic center of the entire Christian faith. The Eastern liturgical year is structured around Pascha (Easter) as the feast of feasts, and the central confession of every Eastern liturgy is Christ is risen! — Indeed he is risen!. The Eastern tradition has resisted, more strongly than the Western, any centering of Christian piety on the cross at the expense of the resurrection. The two are inseparable, but the Eastern liturgical emphasis falls on the resurrection.

The Paschal Homily of John Chrysostom (read at every Eastern Orthodox Pascha) is one of the great Christian sermons of any era. Christ is risen, and the demons are cast down; Christ is risen, and life reigns; Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. The dogmatic substance is the patristic settlement; the rhetoric is incomparable.

The iconographic tradition expresses the resurrection in the Anastasis (the Harrowing of Hell). The icon depicts the crucified-risen Christ descending into Hades and lifting Adam and Eve from the dead — the resurrection as the cosmic act by which the eternal Son enters the place of the dead and raises the human race with him. The Eastern Anastasis is the Eastern icon of Easter, and it has had enormous influence on Christian visual theology.

The Eastern reading of the resurrection has integrated the doctrine with theōsis: the risen body of Christ is the first-fruits (1 Cor. 15:20) of the new creation, in which the human race will participate through the Spirit and the sacraments.

Strengths

• The Eastern centering of Christian piety on the resurrection is permanently valuable
• The Paschal Homily is one of the great Christian sermons
• The Anastasis iconography makes the doctrine visible in the liturgy
• The integration with theōsis gives the doctrine its proper soteriological depth

Weaknesses

• The Eastern Anastasis iconography can be pressed in directions that obscure the historical particularity of the resurrection
• The detailed iconographic-theological vocabulary requires translation

Wesleyan

(See Wesleyan Voice below.)

Modern Ecumenical

Tradition: Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1 and III/2; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus — God and Man and Systematic Theology II; Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ; N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses; Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology I; Fleming Rutledge

The 20th- and 21st-century theological recovery of the resurrection has been substantial. Karl Barth’s articulation of the resurrection as the divine Yes spoken through the divine No of the cross has been broadly influential. Wolfhart Pannenberg’s historical-theological defense of the resurrection (Jesus — God and Man, 1964) is one of the major 20th-century systematic treatments, and his defense of the historicity of the resurrection has helped reshape the academic conversation.

N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003) is the major historical-theological defense of the bodily resurrection in early-21st-century English-language theology. Wright’s argument: the early Christian belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus cannot be explained by reference to pre-Christian Jewish or pagan options (Jewish belief in the general resurrection was eschatological and not yet realized in any individual; pagan belief in survival of death was disembodied), and therefore the early Christian belief requires a historical event (the actual resurrection of Jesus) to explain its emergence.

Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2006) makes the broader historical-critical case for the eyewitness character of the Gospel resurrection narratives. The book is a major contribution to the academic conversation.

Robert Jenson’s Systematic Theology I reads the resurrection as the event of the divine self-identification: the God who has identified himself as the one who raised Jesus from the dead is the God who is known in the resurrection.

Strengths

• The modern recovery has restored the dogmatic centrality of the resurrection
• Wright’s Resurrection of the Son of God is the major historical-theological articulation
• The ecumenical convergence on the bodily resurrection is remarkable
• The academic conversation has shifted in directions friendly to the catholic confession

Weaknesses

• Some modern historical-critical defenses of the resurrection have been criticized for making the dogma dependent on historical contingency
• The continuing skepticism in academic circles has occasionally produced reactive overstatement on both sides

Wesleyan Voice

Wesley’s confession of the resurrection is unambiguous, deeply pastoral, and characteristically integrated with the doctrine of the new birth and the believer’s hope. The Methodist Articles of Religion (1784), Article III — Of the Resurrection of Christ — names the doctrine: Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature; wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all men at the last day. The article is dense and dogmatically careful: truly (against any reductionist softening); with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature (the risen body is the complete human nature, not a partial or apparent body).

Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the New Testament on the Easter narratives (Matt. 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20–21) read them with patristic seriousness and pastoral warmth. His comments on 1 Corinthians 15 lay out the apostolic-creedal substance: if Christ be not risen, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins… but now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.

What is distinctively Wesleyan is the integration of the resurrection with the new birth and Christian perfection. Wesley’s doctrine of the new birth is the doctrine that the believer is raised with Christ (Col. 3:1; Rom. 6:4) into a new life — and the new life is the actual living of the resurrection life by the power of the indwelling Spirit. Sermon 18, “The Marks of the New Birth,” and Sermon 45, “The New Birth,” integrate the resurrection with the believer’s actual transformation. Sermon 40, “Christian Perfection,” integrates the resurrection with sanctification: the believer who has been raised with Christ is being transformed by the Spirit who comes from the risen Christ.

Charles Wesley’s hymnody confesses the resurrection with characteristic passion. Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia! / Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia! / Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia! / Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia! The hymn is the great Wesleyan Easter confession, and it is the dogmatic substance of the present clause in hymnic form.

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia! / Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia! / Death in vain forbids him rise, Alleluia! / Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia! The hymn integrates cross and resurrection in classic Wesleyan form.

Soldiers of Christ, arise and Rejoice, the Lord is King both confess the resurrection in pastoral-eschatological register.

The pastoral Wesleyan posture: confess the bodily resurrection without modification; receive it as the dogmatic foundation of the new birth and Christian perfection; integrate the cross and the resurrection without separation; preach the resurrection as the actual first-fruits (1 Cor. 15:20) of the new creation, in which the believer participates by the Spirit; let the Alleluia of Easter be the Alleluia of the believer’s actual transformation; refuse every reduction of the resurrection to a symbol of new life and confess instead the real new life that the real resurrection has made available to the human race.

Hymnody

The hymnody on this clause is the great Easter repertoire, one of the densest theological traditions in the church.

“Christ the Lord is risen today” (Charles Wesley, 1739) is the great Wesleyan Easter hymn. The hymn was first published as Hymn for Easter Day and has been the central Easter hymn of the Methodist tradition ever since.

“Jesus Christ is risen today” (Latin, 14th c.; English version 1708) is the great Latin Easter hymn in English form: Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia! / our triumphant holy day, Alleluia! / who did once upon the cross, Alleluia! / suffer to redeem our loss, Alleluia!

“The strife is o’er, the battle done” (Latin, 17th c.; trans. Francis Pott, 1861) confesses the resurrection in militant-victorious register: The strife is o’er, the battle done; / now is the Victor’s triumph won.

“The day of resurrection” (John of Damascus, 8th c.; trans. John Mason Neale, 1862) confesses the resurrection in Eastern-Orthodox register, brought into English by Neale’s great translation work: The day of resurrection! / earth, tell it out abroad; / the Passover of gladness, / the Passover of God.

“Thine is the glory” (Edmond Budry, 1884; trans. Richard B. Hoyle, 1923; tune from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus) is the great Reformed Easter hymn: Thine is the glory, risen, conquering Son; / endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won.

“Christ is alive! Let Christians sing” (Brian Wren, 1968) is the major late-20th-century ecumenical Easter hymn.

“Now the green blade riseth” (John MacLeod Campbell Crum, 1928) is the gentle pastoral hymn of the resurrection in agricultural-paschal register: Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain, / wheat that in dark earth many days has lain.

“Low in the grave he lay” (Robert Lowry, 1874) is the great American evangelical Easter hymn: Up from the grave he arose, / with a mighty triumph o’er his foes.

“Hail the day that sees him rise” (Charles Wesley, 1739) integrates resurrection and ascension: Hail the day that sees him rise, / to his throne above the skies.

“This is the feast of victory for our God” (John W. Arthur, 1970) is the major modern Lutheran-Episcopal eucharistic-paschal acclamation.

“Come, ye faithful, raise the strain” (John of Damascus, 8th c.; trans. John Mason Neale, 1859) confesses the resurrection in Eastern register: Come, ye faithful, raise the strain / of triumphant gladness; / God hath brought his Israel / into joy from sadness.

“O sons and daughters, let us sing” (Jean Tisserand, 15th c.; trans. John Mason Neale, 1851) confesses the resurrection in the long medieval Easter tradition.

“Alleluia, alleluia! Hearts to heaven and voices raise” (Christopher Wordsworth, 1862) is the great Anglican Easter hymn.

For the liturgical year: this clause is the dogmatic substance of Easter, the octave of Easter, the Pentecost-octave (which the historic Roman tradition has called Whitsun), and indeed the entire fifty-day Easter season. The pastor who teaches the parish to sing its own Easter hymnody is teaching the dogma of the resurrection.

Pastoral and Liturgical Use

Three pastoral tasks attach to this clause.

The first is teaching the parish that the resurrection is the gospel. Much of contemporary American Protestantism has effectively centered Christian piety on the cross, with the resurrection serving as a kind of postscript or vindication. The catholic tradition refuses the separation. The cross and the resurrection are one event in two days, and the resurrection is the vindication, the transformation, the new creation without which the cross would be a noble defeat rather than the central act of cosmic salvation. The pastor’s task is to teach the parish that the gospel is the gospel of the risen Christ — not merely the crucified Christ, but the crucified-and-risen Christ. The Pauline apostolic kerygma in 1 Corinthians 15 makes this explicit: Christ died for our sins… and was raised on the third day. The two clauses are inseparable.

The second is teaching the parish that the resurrection is bodily. The catholic confession is that the same body that was crucified is the body that was raised. The risen body is not an apparent body, not a ghost, not a spiritual essence; it is the transformed human body of Jesus, real and tangible (Luke 24:39; John 20:27) and yet transcending the limitations of pre-resurrection embodiment (John 20:19, 26 — the risen Jesus enters locked rooms; Luke 24:31 — he vanishes from the disciples’ sight). The pastor’s task is to refuse every spiritualizing reduction. The catholic faith confesses a bodily resurrection, and the believer’s hope of bodily resurrection at the eschaton is grounded in the bodily character of Christ’s resurrection.

The third is the liturgical recovery of Easter as the principal feast. For most of Christian history, Easter — not Christmas — was the dogmatic and liturgical center of the Christian year. In contemporary American Protestantism, Christmas has often eclipsed Easter as the practical center of Christian observance. The catholic tradition holds the proper balance: Christmas is the descent (clauses 10–11), Easter is the resurrection (clause 13), and the two are inseparable, but the resurrection is the climax. The pastor’s task is to restore the proper weight: Easter is the feast of feasts, the Sunday of Sundays, the Pasch of the Christian year. The fifty days of Easter (Easter Day through Pentecost) constitute, in the historic Christian calendar, the principal liturgical season.

For the preacher: every preaching of the gospel is, in some sense, a preaching of the resurrection. Even the Good Friday sermon is preached in the light of the resurrection that is coming on Easter morning. The clause on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures is the foundation of every Christian sermon ever preached.

For the liturgist: the historic Easter Vigil — the great liturgical celebration of the resurrection on the night of Holy Saturday into Easter Sunday — is one of the most theologically rich services in the Christian tradition. The pastoral recovery of the Easter Vigil, where it has been lost, is a significant pastoral consideration for parishes that have lost the depth of the Easter celebration.

Further Reading

• Psalm 16:8–11 — you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the Pit
• Psalm 22:21–31 — the cry of dereliction transformed into praise
• Psalm 110 — the Lord’s vindication of the King
• Psalm 118:17–24 — I shall not die, but I shall live; the stone that the builders rejected
• Isaiah 25:6–9 — death swallowed up forever
• Isaiah 52:13–53:12 — the Suffering Servant and his vindication
• Hosea 6:2 — on the third day he will raise us up
• Jonah 1:17 — three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish
• Daniel 12:1–3 — the eschatological resurrection
• Matthew 27:62–28:20; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20–21 — the resurrection narratives
• Acts 1:1–11; 2:22–36; 3:13–16; 4:10–12; 10:39–43; 13:30–37; 17:30–32 — the apostolic preaching of the resurrection
• Romans 1:1–4; 4:24–25; 6:1–11; 8:11; 10:9 — Pauline articulation
• 1 Corinthians 15 — the great resurrection chapter
• 2 Corinthians 4:14; 5:14–15 — the resurrection foundation of apostolic ministry
• Philippians 3:10–11 — the power of his resurrection
• Colossians 1:18; 2:12; 3:1–4 — raised with Christ
• 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 4:14 — the resurrection and the parousia
• 1 Peter 1:3–9, 21; 3:21 — the living hope of the resurrection
• Revelation 1:17–18; 5:6 — the risen and slaughtered Lamb
• Ignatius of Antioch, To the Smyrnaeans §§1–3
• Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho
• Melito of Sardis, On Pascha
• Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh
• Athanasius, On the Incarnation §§20–32
• Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XIV
• John Chrysostom, Paschal Homily
• Augustine, City of God XXII
• John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith IV
• Anselm, Cur Deus Homo
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.53–59
• Luther, Easter Sermons; Lectures on 1 Corinthians 15
• Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.16; III.25
• Heidelberg Catechism QQ. 45, 47
• Belgic Confession Article 19
• Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 8
• Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church (1784), Article III
• John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament on the Easter narratives and on 1 Corinthians 15
• John Wesley, Standard Sermons, Sermons 18, 40, 45
• Charles Wesley, “Christ the Lord is risen today,” “Hail the day that sees him rise”
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/2 §47; IV/1 §59
• Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus — God and Man (Westminster, 1968)
• N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress, 2003)
• Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans, 2006)
• T. F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection (Eerdmans, 1976)
• Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (St Vladimir’s, 1973)
• Fleming Rutledge, The Undoing of Death (Eerdmans, 2002)