Only Christ can banish the terror of death

The resurrection lies at the very heart of the Christian faith.

When Paul describes what the gospel consists of, he lists two foundational elements — “Christ died for our sins” and “he was raised on the third day.” Both events happened “in accordance with the Scriptures,” and the risen Jesus was seen by numerous individuals (1 Corinthians 15:3⁠–8).

‘After all the reasoning and all the rationales, I’d still desperately prefer to be a conscious, healthy human being than a corpse. Who wouldn’t?’

Unlike most other religions, whose teachings consist of moral or metaphysical principles, Christianity depends crucially on the historical death and resurrection of its founder.

As New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg observes in his commentary on 1 Corinthians:

Older Eastern religions do not even require the actual historical