100 Reasons to Believe New Testament History
55. The Christian Church
Any inquiry into the historicity of the New Testament must consider the fact of the Christian church. The church has claimed the New Testament truths – most notably the resurrection of Jesus A - as its very foundation since its inception nearly 2,000 years ago. Christians persisted in the belief in the resurrected Jesus of scripture despite the cruellest opposition of their enemies. When one reads of the persecution Christians endured during the first three centuries, it becomes remarkable that such a movement could have survived at all if its claims were easily falsified. The fact of the Christian church can only argue for the historicity of the New Testament.
55. The Christian Church - Notes and References
A. “There would have been no Christianity if the belief in the resurrection had not been founded and systematized…The whole of the soteriology and the essential teaching of Christianity rests on the belief of the resurrection, and on the first page of any account of Christian dogma must be written as a motto, Paul’s declaration: “And if Christ be not risen, then our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” From the strictly historical point of view, the importance of the belief in the resurrection is scarcely less…By means of that belief, faith in Jesus and in His mission became the fundamental element of a new religion which, after separating from, became the opponent of Judaism, and set out to conquer the world.” Wilbur M. Smith, “Great Certainty in this Hour of World Crises”, Wheaton, Ill.: Van Kampen Press, 1951, p. 20-21
“Had the crucifixion ended His disciples’ experience of Him, it is hard to see how the Christian church could have come into existence. That church was founded on faith in the Messiahship of Jesus. A crucified messiah was no messiah at all. He was one rejected by Judaism and accursed of God. It was the Resurrection of Jesus, as St. Paul declares in Romans 1:4, which proclaimed Him to be the Son of God with power” H.D.A. Major, principal of Ripon Hall, Oxford, as cited by Wilbur Smith, “Therefore Stand”, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1945, p. 368