Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3053. How is Jesus different from other religious leaders? It is one of the most common questions a thoughtful unbeliever asks, and it deserves a serious answer rather than a slogan. The world has produced many revered religious leaders: Moses and Muhammad, Buddha and Confucius, gurus and philosophers beyond counting. Popular culture likes to…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3040. The resurrection body of Jesus is the single best piece of evidence for what your own future body will be like. That is not my speculation; it is Paul’s explicit argument. Christ has been raised as ‘the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep’ (1 Corinthians 15:20), and the firstfruits of a harvest…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3027. Jesus is still human now, and His glorified humanity is not a temporary costume He will one day set aside once His earthly mission is fully wrapped up. The incarnation was permanent. The Son of God became a man at Bethlehem, and He remains a man today, seated in heaven, and He will…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3025. Jesus’ descent into Hades is a phrase drawn from the historic creeds, and it has confused almost as many Christians as it has clarified, because the words can sound as though Jesus spent three days suffering in hell. Scripture actually paints a rather different and far more comforting picture of what happened to…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3019. Did Jesus really rise from the dead in a bodily resurrection, or is this simply a comforting story the early church told itself? I want to take that question with complete seriousness, because Christianity stands or falls on the answer, and honest people deserve more than a demand that they simply believe. Let…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3016. Jesus had to rise from the dead, and I mean that word “had” with full theological weight rather than as a loose figure of speech. His resurrection was not a fortunate rescue after a plan that had somehow gone wrong at the cross. It was the necessary and always intended second half of…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 3014. The resurrection of Jesus is the hinge on which the entire Christian faith turns, and I say that without any exaggeration. Paul makes the same point in blunt terms in 1 Corinthians 15: if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. He is not softening the…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 01151. Biblical authority runs into the same objection almost every time I discuss it with a thoughtful sceptic: is it not simply circular reasoning to say the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true? It sounds like a genuinely decisive objection the very first time you hear it stated plainly, and…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 4057. The Spirit and resurrection are linked in Scripture far more tightly than most Christians realise, and once you see the connection you will not read Romans 8 the same way again. It is easy to speak of the resurrection purely in terms of God’s raw power, and leave the Holy Spirit as a…
Reading Time: 8 minutesQuestion 4199. The bond between the Spirit and resurrection is one of the richest truths the New Testament holds out to us, and it answers a question that sits quietly in the heart of every believer. What happens to me when I die, and how do I ever arrive at the glory God has promised?…