Why is the resurrection central to Christianity?

Paul writes that if Christ has not been raised, Christian faith is futile; the resurrection is taken to vindicate Jesus' claims, demonstrate the defeat of death, and ground the believer's hope of future resurrection.

What is the exaltation of Christ?

Exaltation refers to the sequence following the resurrection, the ascension into heaven and Christ's session at the right hand of God, where he is confessed to reign as Lord and to intercede for believers.

Resurrection and Exaltation of Christ

The resurrection is the Christian claim that God raised Jesus from the dead, vindicating him and inaugurating the new creation; his exaltation concerns his ascension and reign.

Definition

The doctrine of God's raising of Jesus from the dead and his subsequent ascension and heavenly reign.

Scope

This topic covers the New Testament witness to the resurrection, its centrality to Christian faith (1 Corinthians 15), the question of its historical and theological status, and the related doctrines of ascension, session at the right hand of God, and Christ's continuing reign and intercession. It surveys interpretations ranging from bodily-historical to existential or symbolic, and the resurrection's role in soteriology and eschatology. The treatment is descriptive, presenting the positions and debates rather than adjudicating the historical question.

Core questions

What does the New Testament claim about Jesus' resurrection?
Is the resurrection a historical event, and in what sense?
How does the resurrection relate to salvation and to the believer's hope?
What is meant by Christ's exaltation, ascension, and session?

Key theories

Bodily-historical resurrection: The view, defended by N. T. Wright, that the early Christian belief is best explained by an actual bodily resurrection, evidenced by the empty tomb, the appearances, and the otherwise inexplicable rise of resurrection faith within Judaism.
Existential reinterpretation: Rudolf Bultmann's demythologizing approach, on which the meaning of the resurrection lies in the rise of faith and the believer's new self-understanding rather than in a reanimated corpse.

History

The resurrection stands at the center of the earliest Christian preaching and Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15. Patristic and medieval theology treated it as a settled article of faith; the Enlightenment raised historical-critical questions, to which Bultmann responded with demythologization and Pannenberg with an argument for the resurrection as a historically grounded eschatological event. Recent historical-Jesus scholarship, including Wright, has revisited the evidence.

Debates

Historicity of the resurrection: Whether the resurrection is an event open to historical investigation and best explained as bodily, or whether it lies beyond historical inquiry and is to be understood existentially or symbolically.
Resurrection as basis for Christology: Whether, as in Pannenberg's Christology from below, the resurrection is the event that discloses and confirms Jesus' divine identity, rather than a consequence of an already affirmed divinity.

Key figures

Paul the Apostle
Rudolf Bultmann
Wolfhart Pannenberg
N. T. Wright

Seminal works

wright2003
pannenberg1968
bultmann1953

Frequently asked questions

Why is the resurrection central to Christianity?: Paul writes that if Christ has not been raised, Christian faith is futile; the resurrection is taken to vindicate Jesus' claims, demonstrate the defeat of death, and ground the believer's hope of future resurrection.
What is the exaltation of Christ?: Exaltation refers to the sequence following the resurrection, the ascension into heaven and Christ's session at the right hand of God, where he is confessed to reign as Lord and to intercede for believers.