Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Do We Need Evidence for the Resurrection? || SLP646

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Do We Need Evidence for the Resurrection? || SLP646 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: How are any of us convinced of anything nowadays?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_07: So I did a a year of studying apologetics, and at the end of that was like, why the heck do I believe why?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: I don't spend any time really thinking about how did coagulated blood start to flow.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: At what point did he fold his grave clothes?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: And how did he move the stone?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: And all of that stuff is utterly irrelevant to my faith.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: I believe it happened.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's got nothing to do with your faith.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's got nothing to do with the faith of two billion Christians around the world.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_06: Whilst you're navel-gazing and turned in on yourself and kind of thinking about like what does it mean for me to believe, you actually will never find out what you believe.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_07: God is speaking through his word by his spirit, and that is how he testifies to everyone.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Which must be the way, if he is Lord, he needs to be the reason why you believe.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: If something else is the reason why you believe, that must be Lord.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a second genus, it's a second Adam.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: The evidence for the resurrection is not enough.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can't believe I just said that on a Christian.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe that you said it either.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be getting into how what people tend to think of when it comes to the evidence of the resurrection, where that might be lacking, why we can ultimately have confidence in the resurrection of Jesus, and what that all means.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm joined by my esteemed colleagues, Nate Mordenlock, Naomi Bryan, Glenn Scribner.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Thomas Thargood, but that's not important right now.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: But the way into this is well, how are any of us convinced of anything nowadays?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because in this age of AI, it seems to me that even photography and footage isn't the silver bullet of evidence that it once was.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if if someone gave you footage of Jesus leaving the empty tomb, if such a thing were possible.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: I would definitely think that was faked.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't actually think that's it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: No one would believe it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: And Nate would be skeptical.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry to bring this up, Nate, but you uh confessed to us uh earlier in the week that you were fooled by an AI video recently.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Not of Jesus coming from the tomb.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I said.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_06: But I it's a video that I yeah, um I'm sure I'm not the only person who's been duped for a period of time by an AI generated video.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_06: But uh yeah, I think I think it is fake now.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_06: I don't think it's a real video.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_07: But I what is a video?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_07: Tell us about it.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_06: You okay.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_06: So it's a video that purports to be like camera phone footage of like a tourist destination where it's like a beautiful valley, and there's all these people, and they're kind of wearing ponchos because it's quite damp, whether because of the rain or the mist or whatever it is, and they're walking along like the edge of this kind of cliff with a walkway, and there's like a kind of barrier or whatever it would be on the side.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_06: And as they're kind of walking along, this guy's holding his umbrella, and then this monkey runs along the top of the barrier, grabs hold of the umbrella, and then floats off down the valley.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_06: And then all the people who are listening in are like, Oh my gosh, did you see that?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_06: I can't believe that just happened.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_06: Wow, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_06: Mary Poppin style.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, the yeah, it's totally Mary Poppin' style.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_06: But the first time I watched it, there was no I didn't have the audio on because you rarely have the audio on unless you stop and look at a video on while you're scrolling.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_06: And then I put the audio on, and it was partly the audio being like this is perfect kind of description of the sorts of exclamations you will make when you see such a strange event.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_06: But then I was like, Well, I'm not a physicist, okay.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I think that's well documented.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_06: That that is not my area of expertise.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_06: But I did think the weight of this monkey relative to the size of the umbrella and the potential for a kind of uplift from the valley was efficient.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_06: To have the monkey be carried by the umbrella.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not silly to think that.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_06: I I think there is a there is a plausible.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_07: Was it like the reactions that made it more plausible?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_06: Like when you so when you hear someone else.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_06: I thought this was too perfect.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_06: These exclamations are too ideal for the context, then I was like, but then as soon as I showed it to anyone else, who's like, you absolutely how did you get convinced of this?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've actually got the video here.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, maybe we can just watch it then.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_07: I mean it could be.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_07: I would be I would be taken in by that, definitely.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's yeah, it's too perfect in lots of ways.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: So too perfect in terms of the reactions, too perfect in terms of the person offering it to the monkey, too perfect in terms of the person like being in the right position framed perfectly.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like if that if that was real.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: But that's interesting, because like there's no criteria of embarrassment here.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: What people say in in history is like if there's something within a historical record and it would be embarrassing for the person who actually gave that report, right?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's more likely to be true because if you're confabulating this story, you're you're you're going to leave out the embarrassing stuff.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_07: But it feels like increasingly AI is going to just add in what would look like human imperfections because then it's more believable.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_07: I yeah, I just really don't trust anything I see anymore.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_06: That's what I went to Sharing.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and it's made me incredibly cynical about everything.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_06: You were once.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_07: It was like, nope, not in the street.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_07: This is the thing, is I feel like we I or we used to say photos already didn't happen.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_07: But for now, but now I'm like, I don't even believe the photo, but also I I'm not on social media anymore, so it's like, well, it doesn't matter if you've posted on tell me about it, because I didn't see your post on social media.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_07: Tell me about it.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_07: I got really I got annoyingly duped by AI music on Spotify.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_07: It was um it was called Psalms in Blues, and it's like this album of yeah, just words from the Psalms put to like blues kind of music, and I was like, this is cool.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_07: Like, I really like this.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_07: It's like a new type of genre of worship music.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_07: I can play this in the backgrounds, like this is cool, I love this.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_07: And then but then as I as I clicked on the artist and was scrolling through, and I was like, wait, all of this is from 2026, multiple albums, the photos, yeah, look too perfect on the album covers.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_07: I was like, dang it, I can't listen to this.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_07: This is this is full on AI music.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: There was the Ed Sheeran thing as well, wasn't there?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like it did go, it duped a lot of Christians, like an Ed Sheeran worship song that looked like he'd sung it live and and all that all the time.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, I mean, Christians I know were sharing it on Facebook.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: Isn't that wonderful that Ed Sheeran's come to Christ?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_07: And oh gosh.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this is raising all sorts of questions around how can we how can we know anything nowadays?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe we could segue from how would you know if a monkey got carried away by an umbrella to how can we know if Jesus rose from the dead?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I love that gear change.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'll lay out how I think the evidence for the resurrection normally is taught, and and what to me seems like quite a reasonable approach, and uh it'd be good to get you your your thoughts.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So so typically um an evidence for the resurrection talk might go into the minimal facts.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So this is an idea popularized by people like Gary Habermas, and he he's basically saying there are certain minimal facts that even the most sceptical historians will agree to.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go through those.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So one is that Jesus existed, Jesus actually existed.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Most historians, even the most sceptical historians, agree on that.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Next, that Jesus died by crucifixion.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's a historic fact that we're pretty confident about.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then that soon afterwards his followers had real experiences that they thought were the actual appearances of the risen Jesus.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Their lives were transformed as a result, even to the point of being willing to die specifically for their faith in the resurrection message.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: These things were taught very early, soon after the crucifixion.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: James, Jesus' unbelieving brother, became a Christian due to his own experience that he thought was the resurrected Christ.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the Christian persecutor Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, also became a believer after a similar experience.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So loads of people agree on that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the question becomes, well, what's the best explanation for those facts?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we could go through different options like did the disciples steal the body?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Seems quite unlikely.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Did they all make it up?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, seems unlikely that you'd die for a lie.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Was it a group hallucination?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not, uh, because they're quite unlikely.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, the most plausible explanation is surely that Jesus rose from the dead, and now that I'm convinced of that miraculous thing that Jesus has done, maybe I should conclude that he is Lord and become a Christian.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what faith flows from.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_07: So yeah, but that's Johnny Baptised?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I get the sense that Naomi, you were doing a talk on the resurrector evidence for the resurrection uh in York University Christian Union recently.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't go for that approach necessarily.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_07: Well, yeah, they asked it as part of a a series of events that I was doing at York.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_07: They asked for one of the evenings to be on um, did Jesus really rise from the dead?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_07: And to focus on the evidence for the resurrection.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_07: They knew it was gonna be probably their most popular talk and topic of the week.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: Was there evidence in the title?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_07: So did Jesus really rise from the dead?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, really?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_07: And I felt a bit stuck because I thought, well, I don't really want to talk about the evidence for the resurrection.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_07: I want to talk about the beauty of the story of life from the dead and the significance of it, and to actually just look at like I I thought what I most want to do is not get a PowerPoint with here's point one, point two, point three, da da da some evidence, like a little you know, checkmate, huh?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_07: And it and instead wanted to just look at one of the accounts of the resurrection and say, and kind of welcome people into the story.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_07: And um yeah, I think I I I'm not I I was like, what do I do here?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_07: Because I don't want to just convince people of some facts, I want them to show them this person of Jesus who walked and talked and ate and and like revealed himself to people in not like a boom, hi, here I am, five points, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_07: But more of like a gentle like the light dawning, oh wow, this was always going to happen.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Which is great, because like 1 Corinthians 15, like he was raised again on the third day according to the scriptures, which is different from saying he was raised again on the third day according to this logical syllogism, or he was raised again on the third day according to CCTV footage.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like he was raised again according to a story of the world.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and he is it's he is the culmination of a story, and you and your hearers might not already agree to the story.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_07: Well, and I I also just thought, okay, in this talk, I do want to give some kind of structured plausibility and aspects of evidence, I suppose, but for them to be in the story, like I most want people to just read and see Jesus and see what he's like, and um and not just think about it as this concept, but a person.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you were kind of more interested in the why or the significance of the resurrection than just simply proving that it happened.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um I think part of the fear that people have around just retreating into oh, it's more about the the the story of it, is that you're going, well, are we seeding ground on it being historically true?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, did it actually happen?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I think there's a level at which we are still operating in a world which like, okay, fine, it might make sense and it might be uplifting, encouraging, etc.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_06: But did it actually happen?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_06: Or not.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_06: And I think that's probably where okay, what are what is the criteria for did this really happen?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_06: And therefore where you get into the mil minimal facts because you're like, well, okay, can we agree this happened, and can you agree this happened, and can you agree this happened, and okay, what makes most sense of that?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_06: So I I do think obviously the the the meaning of it happening is clearly something that is more important than whether you will just tick a box to say, I think this happened in history.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_06: What it means, its interpretation, its significance for the universe is not the same thing as did it actually physically happen and what were the phenomenological properties that took place to make you know it real.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_06: But I do think that a lot of the time people go, okay, is it just a fairy tale?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_06: Like that's I think is probably part of the tension we're feeling.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_06: And I suppose for from our point of view, as those who are preaching the gospel, preaching about Jesus, preaching the risen Lord, we're aware of the fact that sometimes that just gets diminished right down into okay, can you give you know intellectual assent to the event of the resurrection?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_06: If you can do that, we'll just back on the back and say, Welcome to church.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_06: You're now a Christian.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: On the basis of what though?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: On the basis of I think some coagulated blood started flowing again around the veins of a guy called Jesus of Nazareth.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: And on that basis, what?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like what?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like a heart that wasn't beating started beating again.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like, really that's that is the the core of faith.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: Who says?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how did we get to this position where it all hinges on on that kind of factual like issues?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_07: Well, that's and that's what I s I think I started my talk with was saying that the claim of Christianity is not just that a a young man's corpse started breathing again 2,000 years ago.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_07: The claim of Christianity is way, way more audacious than that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_07: It like the question, did Jesus rise from the dead is n is is part of this bigger story that actually is asking a question um because of the implications of it.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_07: It's it's the question, will evil get the better of humanity or will love win in the end?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_07: Like, will we rise from the dead?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_07: And and kind of the bigger it like it's not just significance for us personally, but it is you have to know what it means when you say, yeah, yeah, did Jesus rise from the dead?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_07: Well, depends what you mean by dead.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have to understand And rise and rise and do all of it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by mean?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean the Jordan Beatson approach?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: But like that way around of it, like that corpse reanimated, therefore he is God.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: Is one way of of putting it.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this is my so the way if he's God, therefore, of course he rose, is a very different thing.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just so uncomfortable with with uh an apologists do this.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: They like, well, the corpse reanimated, so that's what makes him God.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like, what if what even is your doctrine of God?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't I don't understand.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because that is the kind of workflow of this argument, isn't it?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is the the starting assumption is it seems unlikely that God exists.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I need to convince you rationally and based on the historic evidence that this particular miracle happened within a clockwork universe that that always just grinds along according to physical necessity.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's a given.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if if this m miracle happened in the first century, oh that proves there's something special about Jesus, maybe he's God.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're s so you're saying actually it goes it should go the other way that we come to see who Jesus is first, then we believe in the resurrection, rather than we believe in the resurrection, then we believe who Jesus is.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean I I I sometimes give three H's, and this the second one is history.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: But the first the first H is the heavens, and the last H is Him.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I kind of slot history in between the heavens, like what kind of world are we living in, and and him, who is this Jesus anyway.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I think without those two, so the the heavens I just sort of talk about where we live in a life from the dead universe already, like your very existence, your the fact that you are around to doubt the resurrection is a life from the dead miracle.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: You're already like like everything's come from nothing, orders come from chaos, life has come from non-life, consciousness has come from from mindless matter, and and you're already living within a resurrection miracle, wondering whether uh a resurrection is possible.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: You already believe that all life emerged from non-life, and and now you're doubting whether this particular like non-living Jesus like emerged like so just just reframing the heavens, but and and then finishing with like him.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um but we we can we can get to that, but uh, but but I I wanna I want to question the question itself.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like I wanna I want to question this the skeptical framing in which basically this is a clockwork universe, but there was this one reanimated corpse that might make you think.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because looking at this evidence alone, I'll be honest, if this is the basis for the entirety of the Christian faith, it doesn't feel like a huge amount to go on.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Are you saying maybe our starting assumptions need to be challenged?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we're maybe giving too much ground to atheism and starting with the assumption that it seems pretty clear that there's it doesn't look like there's a God, but if we can be convinced of this one miracle, then maybe we'll conclude that there is a God, actually challenging that whole paradigm and saying it's a universe.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_06: The idea that the resurrection is this lens through which you will now look at everything else.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_06: So is that not just a question of order to say, okay, if you do use I mean, I'm sure there are some Christians who have been, you know, part of their testimony is having this kind of fairly classical apologetical approach to using kind of you know, um using their worldview and starting from that and just saying, well, there is this moment in human history which you know really does require some explanation at least.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_06: And so, you know, if you what if you started there and then you've got this, I'd like now use that as the way to understand the heavens or like as a way to reframe, okay.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_06: So if this kind of thing is yeah, if this is the true truth, if this is the truth suddenly, this is the what's the Lewis line about it's not just that I see the light of the sun, it's the by the light of the sun I see everything else.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_06: But for a lot of people, the resurrection of Jesus or hearing of the resurrection of Jesus might be the first thing they encounter when it comes to genuinely considering Christianity, and that when they really take it through and look at the world from that perspective, they realize they're in a completely different world than they thought they were.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_06: When they started off on this kind of skeptical, I only believe what has been empirically proven, and you know, if Josephus says it, then it's true, and if it's in the Bible, then probably isn't it.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_06: Um but there is there's something about the way the Bible talks about the resurrection and the way various biblical writers will, you know.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_06: So Paul, when he's starting Romans, will say, you know, Jesus Christ, who from his human nature is descended from is the son of David, but who by the resurrection from the dead was declared to be the son of God.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_06: So there's something about what the Jesus resurrection is saying about him, which you kind of want to say without the resurrection, it isn't saying about him.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_07: Well, yeah, that's that's what I'm just thinking is that like Paul says, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 17, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_07: Like our understanding of of our relationship with God and being brought and reconciled to him, like it does hinge on the resurrection in some way.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_07: Like Paul is saying that.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_07: So I don't think it's right to say that this isn't the basis of our faith.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_07: Like the resurrection is in some ways like the pivotal thing.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_07: Correct.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_07: Because if yeah, like if Christ has not been raised, then we Christians, if like if we if our hope is just in this life and there isn't actually a future resurrection for us as well, we are all of all people most to be pitied.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_06: But when he said that's really interesting, he says you're still in your sins.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_06: Well, that isn't really a category that I would typically have used to say, oh, by the way, you know, what can we all agree on, right?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_06: You're as in earth are basically awaiting the wrath of God, you know, storing up you know wrath for yourself on the day of judgment.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_06: You know that, right?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_06: We can agree on that.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_06: I see, yeah, okay.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_06: You know, but the resurrection says there is vindication because the blood of Christ has cleansed you from all unrighteousness.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, that's a different way of thinking.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_06: But it is interesting that even that concept that you know, so well, Paul say, like in um well, Paul again will say at the uh Areopagus is gonna say the resurrection of the dead, you know, repent.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_06: Like there's actually the the it's It's within the category of human standing under the judgment of God that the resurrection is this good news moment rather than it's just a kind of strange historical anomaly that might make you think differently about what's possible.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: But what does he do?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: He tells a story, he tells a two-atam story, you know, through one man, God made every race of man in Acts 17.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: And by one man, he will judge the world.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so by Jesus, he will judge the world.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: And he's given proof of this.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: So he doesn't give proof for the resurrection.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: The resurrection is proof for judgment.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_07: And forgiveness of sin.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: And forgiveness of sins and all that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_07: So he announces it.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: It really has and and this is this is one of the problems is that you know you you do a minimal facts thing, and then you're so I am therefore quite confident, up to 93% confident.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: I've you know I've done some Bayesian analysis and I'm 93.7, and and literally there are apologists who put a figure on it.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't matter for me how high that number is.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's not the way the Bible does it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: The Bible announces it as the good news that Jesus is Lord, risen from the dead, declared with power to be the Son of God, therefore there's judgment, therefore, you're, you know, you too have a future if you're united to Christ, therefore you're not in your sins anymore if you're united to Jesus, therefore he's the victor over death which otherwise was Lord, but now Jesus is Lord because he's defeated death.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: And it's uh you announce the resurrection as the truth by which those other things are true, and it fits into a different story, not the skeptical story.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_07: At Speak Life, we want to help deep thinkers navigate modern life, bringing clarity and joy by seeing everything through the lens of Jesus.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we do.
• 23:47
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• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: But here on the Speak Life Podcast, we slow down in conversation with each other, guests, and you, our audience.
• 24:01
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• 24:04
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• 24:13
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• 24:15
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• 24:17
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• 24:23
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• 24:23
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• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I am tuning in from my sofa.
• 24:28
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• 24:30
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• 24:35
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• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's podcast at speaklife.org.uk.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_07: Back to the conversation.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is really interesting.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna play Skeptics Advocate for a second, so it's quite a fun game.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: A little game of Skeptics Advocate.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um is so where then is the place for kind of historical rigour when it comes to Christian stories?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: It is it just something that we can't apply that level of analysis to or it needs to be in a different way, or because obviously lots of people around the world and down through history have made extraordinary claims about you know returning from the dead or these kinds of things.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: And as people often say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: So what is it?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: How can we have unique confidence that in Jesus' resurrection and Jesus' claims and who Jesus is over all the other figures who have claimed to be gods or god-like um throughout history?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, we are talking about him right now, and that's you know, that that is extraordinary.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: And and even if you can find these other figures who have claimed to have risen from the dead, like every now and again for a talk, I'll Google like, wasn't there that Indian guy who claimed to have you know, and and I'll try and remember I've escaped my memory.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um the name of Jesus is not escaping anyone's memory.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, Fleming Rutgling.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, sorry.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: Fleming Rutledge, you really are a skeptic.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a Christian, by the way.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: You keep telling us Fleming Rutledge said, yeah, the the best proof of the resurrection is that we're still talking about him.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: And that like let's this that's the second half of the history point that I make.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: And that it is interesting.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_06: I can't remember what the minimal facts are, in fact.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I should at least have a minimal ones.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus died by crucifixion.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_06: But is there is a sense in which the fact that we're still talking about Jesus and we're not still talking about those other ones feels as though it's just a historical extension of one of the minimal facts.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, see what I mean?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_06: So it's like the existence of the church.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_06: Well, that requires some explanation.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_06: Uh the fact they meet on Sundays.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_06: Why is that?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, like yeah, so there is something about that which is kind of just to say, look, okay, um, we can all agree that like Christianity's a big deal.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_06: So it's a big deal.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_06: And you'd kind of think that it would therefore require something significant to make it a thing.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: It was dead and buried on Good Friday.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: And since Easter Sunday, it's burst forth from the grave to take over the world.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's, you know, yeah.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_07: So that is evidence.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_07: But just because lots of people believe something doesn't make it true.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_04: Whoa, true.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_07: Like if everyone who watched that AI monkey video.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_07: But what if we really sucked into it?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_07: And they they really wanted that monkey to fly with that umbrella, and billions of people believe that.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_07: And they're and they're like, no, like this is you know, just because billions of people throughout human history and across you know, I say this kind of thing as a reason to read the Bible.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_07: I I'll say billions of people across very like culture around the globe, across human history, have um well, uh the last 2,000 years in particular, um, have claimed that this book has transformed their life.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_07: Um you know, you should read it, but warning, it might change yours too, kind of thing.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_06: So we're saying it's not about the minimal facts, it's about the maximal facts.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give you the maximal facts.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_06: So sorry, what's converted in Argentina, yes.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Lydia McGrew makes that point.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: No, I don't understand.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: What's the maximal facts?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's there to be made.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_03: Independent invention.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_07: I don't know what you mean.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_06: So, in a sense, it's like the minimal facts like what's the smallest number of things you can get someone to go, uh-huh, yeah, or two, and then you go, oh yeah, and so explanation, might as well.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_06: Whereas it's essentially what I'm trying to say is that when we refer to the fact that we're still talking about Jesus today, 2,000 years on, and it's had this phenomenal history of like change and like life from the dead.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely you can't if you try to take out Christianity from the last 2,000 years of human history, you've got very little left.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_06: It's there's almost this is the story that we clearly have been living in, whether you call yourself a Christian or not, we've been living in Christendom or we're now post-Christian or whatever, but it's its impact on our world is undeniable.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_06: And I I suppose what I'm saying is that that is kind of just a little step further along from uh but those early disciples, you know, they they talked about Jesus confidently, they ch their attitudes seem to change, and that seems to be historically recorded, and so you need some explanation for that change of attitude, and probably the most plausible thing for that must be the resurrection.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_06: And I suppose what I'm saying is that if we're gonna say, oh no, one of the great things about the resurrection is that we're still talking about it today, and that that gives it a plausibility because it's so it's been so impactful.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I think I would I would say this is more of a uh it's less evidence that would underpin someone's belief and more a reason why someone should come and get to know Jesus and see if they can trust him.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_07: So like I guess what I mean by that is you're saying so some of the minimal facts include specific individuals who've had their lives completely changed and it's hard to explain in other any other way.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_07: You talked about James, you talked about um Paul, yeah, and we could do the same thing, and we do, we share testimonies of people, and I did that in York, interviewing students, sharing their amazing stories, and it makes you think, oh wow, like I wonder how you know, and and that is how we you know buy into lots of different things.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_07: You'll see adverts of stuff, things you know, pop up in your algorithm algorithm, and it's like a this is a life hack you really should try because it's changed my life.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_07: That is that is how we we will give an ear to something and consider it.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um but I but I'm still thinking that the claim that other like for other people to have experienced a thing and believe in a thing isn't really the basis why I should believe like it's part of this the difference between the claim that Jesus rose on Easter Sunday and the claim that Jesus is risen.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because I I I think the the history of the church is very good proof that Christ is risen.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: It might not be the best proof that coagulated blood on that Sunday morning started to flow again.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the problems with the whole minimal facts things that it just it it focuses you in on where the Bible does not focus you in on.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: If the Bible was that interested in that moment that Jesus rose on that Sunday morning, then we would have a record of, and then the stone rolled away, and then I saw Jesus emerge from the tomb, and he took away the grave clothes and he folded them up and he left them.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: The Bible is not interested at all in that.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's interested in the claim that Jesus is risen, and he is risen.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_07: So you mean that he is alive now?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_07: He is alive now.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_07: That's kind of what you mean.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: As the one who has passed through death and come out the other side as the victor over sin, death, and hell.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: He is that sort of person, he is that Lord.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: And from that I infer, I don't know the physiology of it, but coagulated blood must have started to flow, right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: And the thing is, no Christian has like, I I don't I don't spend any time really thinking about how did coagulated blood started to flow.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: And in what at what point did he fold his grave clothes?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: And how did he move the stone and all that kind of and all of that stuff is utterly irrelevant to my faith.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: I believe it happened.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: I believe coagulated blood started to flow and all that physiological stuff.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing to do with my faith.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's got nothing to do with your faith, it's got nothing to do with the faith of two billion Christians around the world.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: Christ is risen rather than and did from that.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he he he did rise on that Sunday.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: The fact that he did rise on that Sunday is is far less important than that he is risen.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: He's alive and you can know him now.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: So what is evidence for he is risen?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: Therefore, I met him in yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, and have happened.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: I met him in Luke 15, not in Luke 24.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like when I read Luke 15, I was like, this Jesus is amazing.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think he's Lord.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: And from that I infer, well, if he's Lord, he's not gonna rot in some Jerusalem tomb, is he?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: But I didn't you don't you don't always become a Christian because you read the resurrection accounts about that Sunday morning.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, well, this talking about meeting Jesus in scripture is helpful because I did so I so I did a a year of studying apologetics and at the end of that was like, why the heck do I believe what I believe?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_07: I was like, it's like you know, we did a term of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, a term of philosophical arguments against the existence of God, and it was great, I highly recommend anyone doing that.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_07: But I kind of came to the end of it and was like, my my faith has never been based in any of these things, and even now after studying this, I don't think it I don't think any of these things are the reason why I believe and and I and I did some real soul search.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_07: I didn't have like a crisis of faith, but I did have had at other points in my life, but I had did do a real just like, hey, be honest with yourself, Naomi.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_07: Do you just believe this because you want it to be true?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_07: And do you just believe this because billions of other people do?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_07: And do you just believe this because it kind of makes a difference to your life now and it gives you something to hope in?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_07: And and I was like, oh, if I'm honest with myself, my actual experience of this Christian faith thing is that when I read the Bible, it resonates with me like it is true in a way that nothing else I read does.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_07: Like there, there is there is like a I I read this and it makes sense of the beauty and brokenness of human life, and I feel like it's speaking to me.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_07: And in some ways I was like, oh, that is a very, you know, subjective reason, a very kind of like, oh you know, I feel like it might be true, so therefore it is, but but at the same time what's going on is actually the the the author of this book, yes, God Himself, speaking by his Holy Spirit.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_07: So speaking through the word on the page through his spirit in my heart, testifying to the word that is Christ, the tr the Trinity communicating, like three witnesses to the same thing.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_07: It's like actually what's happening is not just I feel like it's true, so it is, but God is speaking through his word by his spirit, and that is how he testifies to everyone of the truth of Christ.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, which must be the way, if he is Lord, then he needs he needs to be the reason why you believe.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: If something else is the reason why you believe, that must be Lord, right?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: So if if the Lord is going to self-authenticate, he kind of needs to do it through his word.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah, and I did a bit of study on this last term um in my graduate diploma on the authority of the Bible, because and it's similar if you put something else, if you put a particular historical method or um the you know, mode of reasoning or something else as the reason why the Bible is authoritative, then actually that thing is more authoritative than the Bible.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_06: So thinking about the Apostles' Creed, as I often like to do, um that does start with I believe.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so each each you know, of the three stanzas, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, and I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, I believe in the Holy Spirit, etc.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_06: It doesn't spend very much time thinking about and questioning that first word credo, I believe.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_06: It's not going, why do I believe on what basis do I believe?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_06: What is the thing that's making the most difference?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_06: Like if I had to boil it down to like eight reasons why I believe God the Father Almighty, you know, it doesn't do that, it just says I believe.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_06: And so the focus of the attention is on what is believed in rather than the believer, the belief itself, yeah.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_06: And I think actually we are all at risk in you know in our age of you know, introspection and kind of all of that, of just kind of going, oh what and whilst you're navel gazing and turned in on yourself and kind of thinking about like what does it mean for me to believe, yeah, you actually will never find out what you believe.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_06: All you'll do is like just question yourself and and get locked in, and you know, that's not gonna help anybody, certainly not you.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it's maybe it's like right.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_07: You guys know that I like cold water swimming, and I find it really hard to convince people that it is a brilliant way to spend your time.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_07: But the thing I most want to do is to just say, come with me, and just like get in the sea as the sun is rising on the horizon, and you can't think about anything else but the beauty of the sun, like glinting on the um on the waves and the freezing colds, like you know, like it's it's such an amazing experience, and it makes you feel so alive.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_07: And then, you know, I come out and dry myself off and get changed and come into work, and you're like, you're like, You're crazy.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm like, no, no, you just need to see it.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_06: There is a slight pushback on the don't knock until you tried it.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_06: So ayahuasca.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_06: No, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_07: I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, I know you're not convinced.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, give it a pop.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, no, that's fair.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_07: But no, what I guess what I'm trying to say, it's not just don't knock until you try it, it's more of like a it's like a look, but but look at this rather than dissect dissect and figure out and da da da da and then and then maybe you will come and believe in this Jesus.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_07: It's just a like, why do you believe in him?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_07: Well, look.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_07: And that's what I was trying to do in my talk was to yeah, was to say, instead of be, instead of to think, well, let me break down for you some helpful reasons why you might want to believe in Jesus, it was uh and his resurrection, it was more a well have a look, and as we walk through the story, let I'll pull out a few things, you know, like okay, women were the witnesses, and that's you know, a bit embarrassing in those days, and uh they saw where Jesus was buried, so definitely the right tomb.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_07: And it like, let's have a look.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_07: But but what I most want you to do is to just oh look at him like how could you not?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_07: And love this guy.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: And the the cold swimming thing as well, it's different from ayahuasca in that you come back from that looking healthier, rather than if you went away and you know, and and got high on heroin, you might not be the best witness to that.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's it's a health-giving thing.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, but also you see it on my face.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_07: See that also.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: If all three of you went cold swimming and I was the only one left out, and then it wasn't just I believe, but we believe.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: So the Nicene Creed starts we believe.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like Apostles' Creed starts I believe.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: But there is this community of faith that seems quite healthy and seems to have a lot of life to it, and and I think at that stage that that begins to authenticate the message of the believers there.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: But uh but I do think the real fairy tale going on is not that Jesus rose from the dead, which is you know what our skeptical friend might think.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: The real fairy tale is the post-Christian enlightenment myth that there's facts on the one side and there's value on the other side, and there's publicly available evidence that can be scientifically analyzed over here, and then there's just this internal value-laden, subjective thing over here.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: And what often gets heard is like, do you really believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that that means that we're in this realm over here, divorced from the value realm.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_07: Over here being the head, the reason.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_03: The head, the reason, the evidence, publicly available, objective, right?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: And can we build up a case entirely over here that makes you think that something odd happened?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because if we don't, the fear is then, oh, it's it's just the value thing, right?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: Which is your your fear after doing a year of apologetics training.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: You're like, oh, so if I'm not actually convinced by that fact thing, I guess it all just boils down to subjective and I just want it to be true and all that kind of thing.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that's just not that that's the mythology that I think the resurrection is there to unite.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: That like the fact value split is kind of united in the word who became flesh, who went down into death and rose up again, as the one who unites these realms in a way that's just like we've we've been living with the divorce of fact and value.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: And actually the resurrection should be the way of healing that rift.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Speak Life is a creative community of people who see life through the lens of Jesus.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Our projects, including this podcast, are supported by people like me.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Pierre.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite sport is rock climbing, and I'm from Brussels, Belgium.
• 41:51
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• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love you to join the team.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Head to speaklife.org.uk.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: But that's what I try to do with the heavens thing, is to say, like, just notice the universe that you're living in.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's a life from the dead kind of a universe.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: In which you you believe that everything's come from nothing, and orders come from chaos, and life has come from non-life, and and minds have come from mindless matter, and there are such things as these moral values that aren't grounded in this fact, factual realm.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: And you live your life by the like you're you're you're not living in the universe.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_03: You're actually not living in the universe you tell me you're living in.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: You tell me you live in this double-decker universe in which downstairs it's just a factory floor and we pull the levers, and upstairs it's just beanbags and you know, groovy lava lamps, and and and you you and and yet that's not the real and reality is that Jesus rose from the dead.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because reality is that you're living in a life from the dead universe.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: This is a this is an Easter kind of a world.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: So of course Jesus rose from the dead.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so you're just you're constantly having to not just focus in on Sunday morning.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: You you're kind of having to Easter Sunday morning.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: You're having to do a much bigger thing.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_07: Uh something I was thinking about um a bit with the the talk was try wanting to frame it in a way that it that it does end with a but didn't we know all along that this was going to be the case?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_07: Because that's kind of how Jesus does it in terms of explaining from the scriptures to um the two on the road to Emmaus, and there's a bit of like a oh, wasn't this always going to be the way?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_07: And and the way that I have thought about that, actually maybe inspired by the lovely Emma Scrivener in her um book A New Day, is thinking that so often we might think about um the pattern of twenty four hours going from day into night, and that that's what life is like.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_07: Life ends in death, and l what what is good becomes corrupted, and um and this is just like the cycle that happens every time.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like darkness to darkness.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: Darkness to darkness.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and and there are bits of light that punctuate it, but actually we all born and die.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and that death is death and decay is is the end of the story.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_07: We just know that.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_07: We make the best of it while here.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_07: Um but what the resurrection, well not just the resurrection, but the Genesis 1 account does for us is to reframe it as and there was evening and there was morning.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and so to say it's it and it's not this world isn't a darkness, life, light, darkness world.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_07: It is a light darkness, light world where um from the beginning, and we talked a bit about this in our previous episode on um like the incarnation, from from the beginning, God's speaking life into the darkness, uh light into the darkness, and then throughout there being stories of his his light and hope and life in the midst of human mess and sickness and and death and decay.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_07: Um and so and so then saying, Well, didn't we know this?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_07: Because every morning the sun rises again.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_07: Every morning we wake from our sleep, and that is the normal pattern of our day, is that we rise again.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_07: Didn't we know that this was the story of reality?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_07: And why were we surprised?
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm hearing two things from you guys at the moment.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: One is that we need a richer vision of what evidence is, and it's not just a head rational thing, but also a heart thing.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we need it, we need a more expansive vision of of of evidence um rather than just the the cold scientific thing.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: But you're also saying that simply believing in the resurrection doth not make a Christian.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it'd be interesting to press into that.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: What would it yeah, it is it's so it's possible to believe that Jesus rose from the dead but not be a Christian?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: What what would that look like?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: If you have the trouble is this is precisely where the minimal facts takes you.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like it would be possible to believe that a corpse reanimated on Sunday morning and to have nothing like Christian faith.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_07: But but I was talking to some to a friend yesterday who you know was describing a friend of theirs saying, Um, yeah, she she probably would say she's a Christian, she would say Jesus was real and rose from the dead, but but I I don't really think she is.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_07: And so that that kind of comment of someone might say, I believe it's rose from the dead, you know, yeah, I'm a Christian, I go to church on a on Christmas.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_07: Those kinds of things might be categorized together, yeah.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_07: But does that make someone a Christian?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_07: I I I've actually had Romans 10 open on my lap for the last few minutes because I find it helpful.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_07: Paul's little summary um where he says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_07: So Romans 10 verse 9.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_07: And I think what it sounds like we've been saying is that very often what we're trying to get people to do is confess with their mouth Jesus rose from the dead.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_07: And maybe at some point they might believe in his heart, their heart that he's Lord.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_07: But actually, it's the other I mean, and I I don't necessarily want to read too much into it, but it maybe it's the other way around in terms of the order and what thing is confessed.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_07: So confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_07: That is a like public speaking out.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_07: Your life has changed externally, people can see it, and you're living like Jesus is is Lord, and that's a thing you believe.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_07: And in your heart, in the secret, in the hidden, you just really believe God raised him from the dead, and that is different to well, you were sent to in this Talking Jesus survey, or at the end of my talk.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_07: Would you say Jesus rose from the dead?
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, great, okay.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_07: I'm gonna go and pray that one day you'll believe in your heart he's he's Lord.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_07: Like I think it's maybe it's the other way around.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to really believe that Jesus rose from the dead in the world?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: Or maybe, or maybe to how that's a quote post-enlightenment romanticized in your heart.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, chew, chew.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think we we read through the lens of Disney.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like upon a star.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we're about for this podcast.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_03: We see all things through the lenses of Disney.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Mary the Purchase.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_06: I think I probably do.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas if you read it through like what has Paul said about resurrection up until Romans 10?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: Quite a lot.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: In terms of like Romans 5, like here is here is you know, here here's the answer to Adam.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Adam, we share, we have shared in Adam's death.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_03: We will share in in Christ's resurrection through the one man.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: Romans 6, we're we're you know, we're baptized into his death that we might be, you know, united with him in his resurrection.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_03: And it's that it sweeps us up into his resurrection such that by the time you get to Romans eight, like it's the great chapter of resurrection, and and it's a cosmic kind of a truth.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like, yeah, chapter 10, verse 9 is not can you really nurse a feeling within your breast that that Jesus has risen from the dead, yeah, you know.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's it's it's an all-of-life conviction that not only is Christ on the far side of sin, death, and hell, but me too.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm in here, you know, it's like the my my Lord, my Lord has gone through the the realm of Adam, through the realm of sin, through the realm of death, through the realm of hell, has stood again on the far shore as the first fruits of new creation life.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's that's the Jesus that I'm gonna When I confess Jesus as Lord, footnote It's the Jesus who is the second Adam, who is the seed of David, who has, you know, lived my life and died my death and and stands now on the far shore of you know, it's it's it's with and with my whole life, because I think again.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's what heart means.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_07: It's not it's not with my feelings.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_07: The way we we would say uh your heart.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_07: You probably would equate it to feelings and insight, yeah.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_07: But yeah, but it but it is a it's like a core um yeah.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's a description of who of who you are at your core as a He's not and it so I've confessed to him with my mouth that Jesus is Lord, not like the Buddha.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_03: A Buddhist might say the Buddha is Lord, right?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_03: He's dead.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_04: That guy's dead, right?
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, yeah.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: He said he said some interesting things.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's great teaching.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_03: He's he's left us a a way to live.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: Great, he's dead though, right?
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: The Jesus I'm confessing is Lord is a living Lord who's punched a hole through death and come out the other side.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like it's he's that's the kind of Jesus.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_07: So are we saying that actually so your question was, what does it actually mean to believe in the resurrection?
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_07: I guess what we're maybe now saying is the bigger question to ask is what does it mean to believe Jesus is Lord?
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_07: Because that is the part that determines really whether you're in him, whether you are a Christian.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_07: Is that what we're saying?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um well, dep depending on like where you want to go with that, because like because I'm not saying therefore every aspect of your life has to be, you know, has to be perfectly in accord with the resurrection of Jesus, or you're not a Christian.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because there's all sorts of aspects of my life that are very out of out of whack with that.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: But um But that yeah, the the Jesus you're confessing as as Lord is a very specific kind of a Jesus um that that I am in a faith union with.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of the question, did Reza Jesus rise from the dead, we do get to that, but you kind of want to start with who is Jesus?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: What is your prior view on who he is?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: And when you come to see who Jesus is through Scripture, then of course he rose from the dead, of course he ascended to the right hand of the Father.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_07: Um Do you know what was really beautiful in in York?
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_07: Um in the middle of of the evening, I interviewed a student who in the last I think it was it was 18 months ago, um, she came to know Jesus and she studies physics and philosophy.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_07: So she's got you know double whammy of reason and logic going on.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_07: And so as part part of the interview, I asked her, I said, how how can you then believe in the resurrection, you know, with your physics-y philosophy brain.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_07: And really beautifully, she said the miracle isn't that Jesus rose from the dead, the miracle is that he would forgive my sin, that God would die on a cross for me.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_07: She was just so like captivated by the by this that by the mercy of God and by what Jesus was accomplishing on the cross, and it was it was for her, she was like, I know what I've done, I know who I've been, and Jesus has forgiven that, and that is the miracle.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_07: And the resurrection is kind of easy to believe after that.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_07: And I was like, wow, okay, preach it, sister.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_07: In some ways, the resurrection can feel like the can feel like the footnote, even though it is it's an underpinning of our of our faith.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_07: Um, because the a a dead man coming back to life is not sufficient for the claim that I actually am making about what what life is and who Jesus is in that.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's this dead man coming back to life.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is the key thing.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's who it is.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_06: As whether it's it's through, not back.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_06: Oh yeah.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: Say more, say more.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_06: Well, you know, like so Jesus raises Jairus' daughter, Jesus raises Lazarus, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, they go back to being dead because it's like, oh, you were dead, you were alive and you were dead, and then we brought you back to the live thing again, and then you died again.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_06: So it's like you didn't actually got to this point, and then you were brought back to okay, do you want to have another go?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_06: Like, you know, second chance.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_06: Well, that sucks.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_06: Man, I had to die twice.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_06: The the Christian faith is because of the nature of Christ's resurrection, because it's through death.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_06: Through death, because it's the first fruits from the dead, that your faith in him is not um, hey, we've wiped the slates keen clean, you've been forgiven.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_06: See, let's not do it again, though.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: Second chance this time, yeah.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a second chance, it's a second Adam.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_06: Sorry.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_06: So, yeah, but you're going to be T one bingo.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_06: Your sin has been crucified on the cross, it's been taken down as the grave, it's been you know, and and Christ has risen as your righteousness for your justification such that your justification, your righteousness is in heaven, is not just risen but ascended.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_06: And you're not just going back to square one, kind of a game of sort of snakes and ladders where it's pretty much all snakes.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_06: Even the gospel is a snake, it just brings you back to like try and get it better this time.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_06: So I do think in terms of the living the Christian life, there is the nature of Christ's resurrection is valuable.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and you we definitely don't want to downplay it.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_06: We also don't want to divorce it from, as you were saying, your friend said, the crucifixion.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_06: Taking the punishment for sin as well.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because isn't that one of the problems with the um minimal facts things?
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_03: It kind of foregrounds the So obviously Jesus died.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_03: This we take for granted.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but here's the question Did he rise from the dead?
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_03: Which like in a gospel frame, it should be the other way around.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_03: In a gospel frame, well, if he's God, of course he's gonna rise from the dead.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_02: The amazing thing is God died.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like, which is fine because of course the skeptic is gonna have things that way around.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, of course they're gonna think if they don't think that he's God, then of course they're gonna think that that's more obvious.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_03: But it's it's just worth being aware of that the gospel that we proclaim is actually, well, of course he's not going to decay in in in the Jerusalem tomb.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_03: But the the thing that's not, of course, and we and we mustn't, you know, we mustn't be heard to be saying, well, of course he died.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think I think and and what did Thomas want to see, you know, as proof of the resurrection, the wounds, right?
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_03: The wounds that have been passed through the furnace and out the other side, it's it's a through kind of a thing.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_03: But it's the the very one who went to hell and back for me.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: If he's risen from the dead, my Lord or my and my God, right?
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_03: Not just some kind of sign that a freaky thing happened one Sunday.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm intrigued by this, yeah.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a yeah, Jesus goes through death and out the other side.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if death is like this uh dark cave, it's not that Jesus has walked in and then come back out and go, surprise.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's gone he's gone out the other side of the cave.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_07: Someone needs to check the back door of the tomb.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: He's smashed through it.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the Jesus who comes out of the tomb isn't the same.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it is the same Jesus who goes in, but he's he's kind of been passed through death and out of the side that he has a glorified resurrection.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_03: He still has the wounds, but they've glorified wounds somehow.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that body now can't die.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right, exactly.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_03: Into immortality.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_03: So he hasn't come back onto this corruptible side of things.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: He's passed through into incorruption incorruption and immortality.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_07: Okay, so to talk about did Jesus really rise from the dead, we need to frame it as it's not that he came back from the dead, but that he passed through death.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_07: He defeated and that it's yeah, and that it's not this we're not trying to convince people of a one-time event, but that he is alive now.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: He is risen.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_03: He is risen presentation.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_03: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_07: And I used to find that I used I remember growing up in church and thinking, why do we sing on Easter Sunday?
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_07: You know, Christ is risen from the dead.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_07: Thinking, like, surely like it should be has.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_07: Why are we saying Christ is risen?
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_07: Hallelujah, he's risen from the dead.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, he's risen indeed.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_07: But I didn't understand the tense of it.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_07: But now I do.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, well.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: So what are the minimal facts that Christ is risen from the dead?
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: Join us next time.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_03: The maximal facts are the heavens and the history and him, you know.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's like it's a maximal truth that we're proclaiming.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, guys, uh, we've dropped some bombshells today, haven't we?
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like you have just dismantled the entire apologetic project for the past few decades.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hope that's not what we're saying.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: But just but maybe whilst uh those uh minimal facts give us confidence that that that it's historically reliable, maybe our evangelism shouldn't boil down to them.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is is that what we're saying?
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's more, there's more to say, there's a richer vision.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure even you know the people who use this regularly would say that as well.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, yeah.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think we yeah, let's let's let's be more maximal.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you've got any thoughts on that, you can email us at podcast at speaklife.org.uk.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can also comment on Spotify and uh get in touch with us on uh the various socials.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: But uh guys, thanks for it it's been uh it's been fun.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_07: Happy Easter Easter Easter Happy Easter.