Review of The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

(avg. read time: 8–17 mins.)

In contrast to our previous review, the book on resurrection that we are reviewing today is decidedly aimed at a broader audience:

Hastings, W. Ross. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Exploring Its Theological Significance and Ongoing Relevance. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022.

Hastings’s aim and target audience are surely influenced by his extensive pastoral experience, and he designed this book to be a kind of study resource for churches, as each of the proper chapters ends with three discussion questions. As he says, the purpose of book is to address questions about Jesus’s resurrection such as, “So what? What did and what does the resurrection mean? What does it mean for God? For Jesus? For humanity? For creation? For science? For the arts” (xi)?

A resource like this that explores the theological significance of the resurrection is indeed crucial, especially as there is too little of this teaching from the pulpit or in church study groups or small groups in the Western Church. The resurrection is often only talked about on Easter Sunday or maybe in the Sundays preceding or following it, if one is lucky. Paul’s statements about its importance will usually be recited, but not explored. It can appear that these recitals are made out of obligation more than by extensive reflection, particularly since many Western preachers have a way of proclaiming the gospel as if it all comes down to Jesus’s crucifixion and his death for us, while leaving the resurrection as more of an add-on. One of the memories that highlights this most vividly for me is when a friend of mine forwarded me via text message a question from one of his students at his church asking why the resurrection matters since it is Jesus’s death that saves us. I proceeded to send the longest series of texts I have ever sent just giving the simplest articulation of reasons that I could without nearly the extensive explanation I wanted to give. That student and many others need books like this that explore why Jesus’s resurrection matters, and they need a reshaped vision of what the gospel is about so that we do not reduce it down simply to Jesus’s death.

But it is one thing to say that this kind of resource is needed. It is another thing to say that a particular book fulfills the need well. How does Hastings do? Let us explore.

Hastings intends for his book to be complementary to the number of popular apologetics resources or books like Michael Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach that tend to focus on the historical evidence for Jesus’s resurrection, but do not spend similar space on what the resurrection means. But that is not to say he ignores such considerations, as ch. 1 (“The Resurrection as Good History”) does provide a brief review of evidence for the resurrection (as opposed to “proof,” which was something of a hang-up for Sandnes and Henriksen), the reliability of the Gospel witnesses, and so on. He argues that the resurrection best accounts for the combination of Jesus’s crucifixion with reports of his empty tomb, the testimony of post-resurrection appearances, and the centrality of the resurrection in the teaching of the early Church. The arguments here will be familiar to anyone experienced in reading arguments about Jesus’s resurrection, but they will serve as an easily digestible orientation for those who are less familiar. What is most helpful about this approach is that Hastings acknowledges the importance of the historicity of the resurrection, but properly contextualizes it:

Theology functions properly in an epistemological sense when it encounters mystery, responds in faith, and then pursues understanding. The order is mystery, faith, understanding, and not the other way around. Separating reason from faith and disallowing all mystery is the epistemology of modernity. Christian apologetics, if we are not careful, can sometimes be of modernity, and I want to avoid this while still engaging the historical evidence well and fruitfully. I believe that the road to convincing people of the resurrection of Jesus is actually explaining what the significance of the resurrection is, theologically speaking. When they grasp this and gain a sense of wonder about it, which is the core purpose of this book, they will rise in faith to accept the history and, even more, to believe in the Lord of history. (5; emphasis original)

As such, only the first chapter is devoted to this subject. He still refers his readers to the more historically oriented books for those who are curious. But the truth of the resurrection and the exposition of the same goes beyond the epistemological issues of how it is that we may know about the historical happening.

Chapters 2 and 3 relate Jesus’s resurrection to the atonement, first in terms of resurrection as the “seal” of atonement and second in terms of resurrection as the “substance” of atonement (since Jesus’s defeat of death in resurrection is itself an act of atonement and not merely the seal of what he did otherwise). These chapters illustrate the broad theological scope of Hastings’s book, as he engages with biblical texts, the history of theology, and systematic theological concerns (particularly in some conversation with historical figures like Karl Barth and T. F. Torrance [Hastings studied under his nephew, Alan]). Indeed, it is systematic considerations that drive the organization of his book and the individual chapters, more so than, say, canonical organization or tracking ideas in relation to historical progression. For what is functionally an introduction to the various topics Hastings covers, this approach is understandable. The problem is that there are multiple occasions in which he explores texts in more depth, while in the majority of cases he settles for quoting multiple texts but not exploring any of them. Personally, I think it might have helped if he could have had one major text for each chapter that served as a center around which other references could orbit, ones he could direct readers to for further exploration. But as it stands, the balance of his approach in expositing Scripture leans all too decidedly towards breadth rather than depth. But even in its breadth one could suggest further room for exploration, as Hastings does not devote much space to resurrection in the OT and how it contextualizes the NT.

That is not to say that there are no benefits to this approach. For one, this focus on breadth allows him to make more references to texts that people might too easily overlook in expounding on resurrection. Most notably, he makes frequent reference to Hebrews, especially Heb 2. As I have done some work of my own in drawing attention to the resonances of resurrection in Hebrews and I plan to do more in the future, I certainly appreciate this aspect of Hastings’s work in drawing attention to this under-utilized book for a theology of resurrection.

Still, the drawbacks of this approach manifest in the fact that there is nowhere in the book that he engages in-depth with Paul’s teaching on resurrection in 1 Cor 15 or 2 Cor 4:13–5:10. He mentions them, to be sure, but there is no sustained examination of them, such as he provides for a couple other texts. Even at points when it seems like he is preparing for such a sustained examination of one of these texts, such as with 1 Cor 15:20–23 in ch. 3, the text becomes more of a point of departure for talking about other subjects. I think there was missed potential here and at many other points at which he had opportunities for more sustained engagement and showing his points more thoroughly from Scripture.

That being said, he still articulates well the fundamental points. For example, in terms of the relationship of resurrection and justification (indicated most succinctly in Rom 4:24–25), he says:

In a word, the resurrection was God’s yes spoken over the Son, and because the Son became one with humanity at the incarnation, the same yes has been pronounced over humanity and the creation that the Son represented. The resurrection speaks the reality of the justification of humanity because Christ, the last Adam and the representative of humanity, participated in our humanity and stood in our place. All who enter into life in Christ by faith and are therefore in union with Christ receive assurance that they are personally justified. All of this we may speak of as the forensic aspect of our salvation. (19; emphasis original)

This illustrates a frequent emphasis of his in these chapters—there is significant repetition between the two on basic points—on the salvific participatory union with Christ. Jesus’s resurrection is what makes such salvific union possible and his union with people by the Spirit who was poured out after his resurrection and ascension is what makes possible our own resurrection in his likeness. In my dissertation and elsewhere (such as here and here) I have also worked to draw attention to this theological connection, wherein our own resurrection is the theo/logical end or goal for our present union with Christ. While there may be significant repetition of points in these chapters, Hastings nevertheless effectively demonstrates how, in his words, the “forensic” aspect of justification is grounded in the “ontological” reality of who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Or, in another point he makes, the ordo salutis is grounded in the ordo historia of Jesus in his death, resurrection, ascension, and session (41; which is related to what I have reviewed in a five-part series on this Substack).

This in turn leads to his point in ch. 4, that the resurrection is the ground of participating in the life of God via sanctification. The pattern of sanctification is the pattern of Christ, summarized as knowing the power of his resurrection by sharing in his sufferings, that is, making the gospel story our story. This is what we signify in our baptism and rising to walk in the newness of life, that we take on this story as the story with which we identify. But what gives the ritual its substance and effect is the fact that Jesus has been raised. Without that resurrection, it would be an imitation without effect, as we would be emptily signifying a union with one who is still dead. This chapter also features one of the exceptions to the trend I noted previously in which Hastings too often avoids deeper engagement with particular texts. In this case, Col 3 is especially illustrative of the point, and he invests some significant space in tracing it in the text.

Chapter 5 then provides examination of Jesus’s resurrection as grounding in another respect in that the resurrection grounds vocation and mission. This is one of the most basic connections established in Scripture. Each of the Gospels make it in their own ways (though it is more implicit in Mark if vv. 9–20 is not the original ending, which I will address at another time), as the Great Commission in Matthew is predicated on Jesus’s resurrection and exaltation, Luke connects Jesus’s resurrection and ascension with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the proclamation of the gospel, and John likewise links Jesus’s commissioning of the disciples to Jesus’s appearance to them. This last one is Hastings’s focus, especially as it relates resurrection to new creation (61–64) and thus implicitly to the “cultural mandate” in how God created humans in Gen 1 and 2. I think this was one of the major highlights of the book and the connections of this text to Genesis, especially in the image of Christ breathing the Spirit to the disciples further illuminates the analogy of this text to 1 Cor 15:45 with its description of the Last Adam as the life-giving Spirit. His conclusion to this section on resurrection and new creation is worth quoting: “That resurrected body signifies the trajectory of the gospel for humanity, which is resurrectional transformation beginning in the ‘now’ through new birth and sanctification and vocation, which affect all of life, to be fully fulfilled through bodily resurrection when Christ returns in the kingdom to come, the new creation” (64; emphasis original). Related to this point, later in the chapter he also provides one of his cases of engaging at some length with a text in the case of Peter’s story post-resurrection in John 21, which reads like it was based on a sermon he has delivered.

This brings us to ch. 6, which I think is the weakest part of Hastings’s book, which is particularly unfortunate given that it addresses “The Resurrection as the Ground of the Bodily Resurrection.” The points he makes about the main subject are fine and he directs readers to a number of Scriptures to uphold what he says, but the disappointment comes from the level of depth and focus on that subject. If there was anywhere that a detailed engagement with 1 Cor 15 was necessary, it was here. But we do not get that. The logical links that Paul makes in 1 Cor 15:12–23 and elsewhere in the chapter, as I explore in my dissertation, are not expounded. In fact, although Hastings makes reference to what is regularly translated as the “spiritual body” in 1 Cor 15:44, he does not explore the controversy around this term, nor the meaning of the key term in its context. Rather surprisingly, in this chapter about how resurrection is the ground of our own bodily resurrection, he devotes more space to addressing questions of how personal identity is maintained after death and where a person goes (88–91) than to 1 Cor 15. Here, he makes the typical claims using the typical texts about the “intermediate state” that I have addressed in my entry on 2 Cor 4:13–5:10 and here. And, of course, being someone who holds to conditional immortality/conditionalism/annihilationism, I have issues with his section on resurrection for judgment and how he thinks final judgment would be pointless on this view (92). The universally public character of the judgment and the ultimate declaration of who is in the right and why, as well as the judgment’s revelation of God to all and sundry in his execution of justice and putting the world aright, and the need for resurrection—acknowledged also in Judaism and Islam—for the execution of justice for embodied creatures, all of these points and others are apparently not sufficient in themselves. But I will address these things and the points about annihilationism in more depth another time, as I do not wish to go too far afield here (for now, what I can say is that there are a variety of articles at Rethinking Hell and Glenn Andrew Peoples’s Right Reason website that are worth consulting).

Chapter 7 returns to the ontological significance of resurrection, although this time Hastings does not repeat as much of the points on justification. He summarizes well what he reviews in this chapter in the following quote: “it [resurrection] declares him the victor over death and the devil; it vindicated his essential identity as God the Son and declared that he is Lord, the Christ (Messiah), the Son of God in power, the Kingly High Priest exalted to the right hand of the Father, the Head of the Church, and the Lord of creation; its upshot was the outpouring of the Spirit; its confession became the criteria and agent for human conversion” (99–100). Unlike the previous chapter, I have no problems with this one. In fact, it is one of the best of the book. It is a fine outline of many of the dimensions of the christological significance of Jesus’s resurrection. Indeed, it is the linchpin of biblical Christology (as Sandnes and Henriksen note in their own book).

Chapter 8 continues the christological focus, but with an emphasis on Christ’s entry into heavenly office as the heavenly High Priest and King. This brings up a helpful discussion of the traditional threefold office of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, which he relates particularly to Hebrews. This chapter again highlights one of the virtues I have already noted of Hastings’s book. He shows the importance of Hebrews in articulating a theology of resurrection and likewise shows the importance of resurrection to Hebrews, even as it is not explicitly mentioned often. The one point of disagreement I have is with his statements on multiple occasions that the author of Hebrews “conflates” resurrection with the ascension, when it would be more correct to say that in describing Jesus’s exaltation, in light of his larger argument, the author frequently “assumes” the resurrection, only explicitly referencing it in 13:20. (I have written on resurrection in Hebrews previously and I will look at this more fully another time, but for now, I recommend David Moffitt’s Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, particularly ch. 3, on this point). One other point that merits mention in this chapter is how Hastings stresses that Jesus’s resurrection enables truly Trinitarian worship—whereby God enables us to participate in divine communion when we worship—by virtue of our participation in Christ the High Priest (129–32).

Somewhat more repetitive with the rest of the book in the basic points made is ch. 9 on “Resurrection as the Reaffirmation of Creation.” He makes points here that he makes elsewhere in the book by reference to John 20 and Rom 8, as well as additional reference to Col 1:15–20. Of course, the points are worth making again to stress the link of resurrection and new creation wherein the former is integral to the latter in the demonstration of God’s inexorable, faithful love that even death cannot ultimately hinder. He is also keen to note here what has separated orthodox Christianity from many of the heretical movements over the years, in that orthodoxy, in line with the consistent biblical witness of the OT and NT (along with several Second Temple Jewish texts), insists on holding together creation and redemption, because the God who is Creator and Sustainer is the God who is Lord and Savior. From this point, he also explores the implications of the resurrection’s reaffirmation of God’s creation and creative will for science, the arts, and ethics.

The final proper chapter (i.e., not counting the conclusion that serves as a recap) is “The Resurrection and the Nature of the Second Coming.” Despite that title, though, Hastings says less about the Second Coming than one might expect. He notes its importance, to be sure, and he stresses the need for churches to proclaim the hope of the Second Coming, but he devotes much more space to Jesus’s resurrection and its relationship to the “already” and “not yet” dimensions of NT eschatology. In the latter category, he devotes his longest exposition of the entire book to Rev 21–22 (160–68). Again, this more extensive exploration is appreciated, but there are two issues I have with it. One, I think he once again treats conditional immortality/annihilationism too dismissively, implicitly contrasting it with what it means to “take hell seriously” (167). Two, it could have been helpful to link resurrection and the new creation in ways more specific to Revelation (as there is less said specifically about resurrection in this section on new creation in Revelation), which is something I hope to explore more next year.

With all my caveats stated, I ultimately recommend this book as a good introductory and study resource for both academic and non-academic audiences. We need more works focused on these kinds of issues and we need more people to be aware of them. Hastings’s book is a great place to start. We need to soak in these lessons of the resurrection’s significance, and the awareness of the significance should saturate every aspect of our lives, so that when we present the gospel and summarize it, what we say may better resemble what the NT says at many points about Jesus’s resurrection and our own resurrection.