Our Hopeful Beginnings

As the blog reopens, we will look at a topic that bridges the three main veins that this blog will run off of (the historic church, theology, and living). I feel it necessary to begin this endeavor with the same fount from which we began – the resurrection of Christ.

Without the resurrection, we have no church, no salvation, and no hope in Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15, listen to what Paul says of the centrality of the resurrection:

• If there is no resurrection of the dead:
• Not even Christ has been raised (v. 13)
• If Christ isn’t raised, then:
• Our preaching and faith is in vain (v. 14)
• We misrepresent God (v.15)
• Our faith is futile (v. 17)
• We are still in our sins (v. 17)
• Those who believed in Christ have perished (v. 18)

Lastly, he ends with this: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (v. 19).

In that short section, we see that the entirety of our faith depends on the risen Christ, not just future hope, but our present hope as well. We will deal with more of the theology behind resurrection and end times later, but now we must move on to how this affects the Church’s beginnings.

We all know the story – Christ was “crucified, dead and buried. On the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended to heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” as the old creed says. But what was the resurrection’s role in forming the Church?

As noted above, it is the only reason we have reason to hope or believe in God’s promise of salvation through Christ. Resurrection meant that God the Father approved of Christ’s sacrifice and was ushering in his kingdom on earth. Without resurrection, there is no kingdom, no community of believers, no reason to trust in Christ for anything other than a few noteworthy nuggets of wisdom here and there.

Instead of a church we would simply read of a few disillusioned Jewish men and women who believed a crazy man and died in despair when their hopes were crushed by the authorities of synagogue and state. But that’s not the story! We have a risen King and mighty Savior. God has honored His Son’s obedience and crowned him with glory and honor above all others!

And because of this foundation of hope, the inauguration of God’s kingdom came with Christ, and remains with us even today as we eagerly await his Second Coming and the consummation of all history and the Final Judgment. Thus we partake in the eternal, ecumenical hope that is ours as the church! We stand as a community of believers, hopeful and vigilant, waiting on a victory that is already proclaimed in the written Word, purchased by the blood of Christ.

In the upcoming posts we will explore how the Early Church actually began, what practices defined them, and what they preached.