It follows, therefore, that this great miracle forms the very key of the Christian position. Everything else is an outwork, an important one it may be, but yet an outwork. If this position can be successfully assailed, the entire fortress of Christianity must surrender at discretion. If, on the other hand, the most determined unbeliever could be convinced that there is good historical evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he would find no difficulty in accepting the Gospels as historical documents, and the whole à priori objection against them would disappear.
Again: If the Resurrection of Christ is a fact, Christianity [pg 370] must be a divine revelation. The perfect historical accuracy of the Gospels in minute details may be still open to question; deep thought and careful investigation may be necessary for ascertaining the precise amount of truth communicated by that revelation; past ages may have erred in its interpretation, or in their deductions from it; many questions as to the relation in which revelation stands to science or history may be open ones—all this is both conceivable and possible—but still, if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, his entire manifestation, work, and teaching, must be a communication from God to man.
This then is my position. The real question stands within very narrow limits. The miracle that requires strong historical proof is the Resurrection. The other supernatural occurrences recorded in the Gospels are important portions of the revelation made by Christ. They were important evidences to those who witnessed them. But to us in these latter times the one great question is: Is the Resurrection capable of being established as an actual occurrence? If it is, it will carry with it all the others. If it is not, the proof of the others will fall along with it.
Let us examine the historical conditions of the case. Christianity differs from all other religions in professing not to consist of a mass of abstract dogmatic statements, but to be founded on, and largely to consist of, a number of historical facts. There are unquestionably a considerable number of dogmatic statements in the pages of the New Testament; but they profess to grow out of the facts and to be explanations of them. The facts form, so to say, the essence of the religion. The Christianity of the New Testament is a growth which encircles itself around the person of its founder in a manner in which no other system of thought or religion, [pg 371] which has existed among men, has ever done. If we take the person of Jesus Christ out of the New Testament, the whole system of its teaching crumbles into nothingness. If we remove the person of its founder from every other system of human thought—its great religions form no exception—the system remains intact. This is a very striking peculiarity in Christianity. In this respect it stands absolutely unique.
But as Christianity is founded on an historical person, who lived in a particular age, so He is the founder of a great historical institution, the Christian Church. This institution differs from every other society which has ever existed, in that both its origination and its continued existence are inextricably bound up with the person of its founder. Other societies could exist even if it could be proved that their reputed founders were creations of the imagination; but this would be fatal to the life of the Church of Christ. If it could be proved that Jesus Christ was a myth, or nothing but a learned Rabbi, the Christian Church, mighty society as it is, would certainly collapse. The Christian Church without Christ would be far more out of place than the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted. In this respect it is a institution unique among all those which the world has ever seen, whether political or religious.
This great society, which now comprehends a vast majority of the intelligence of mankind, and all the progressive nations of the world, had a definite beginning in historical times. It differs wholly from a philosophic sect, whose bond of union consists in the acceptance of a body of dogmatic teaching. It is and ever has been an organized society with specific purposes and aims, and one which has ever meditated schemes of conquest. It differs widely from all political [pg 372] institutions, and yet ever since its birth it has taken a place beside them.
The origin of this society is not lost, like that of many others, in the mists of the hoary past. History enables us to assign a definite time when this society was certainly not in existence. It no less definitely marks out a period when it not only was in existence, but had entered on a condition of active growth. Its origin did not take place in the cloud-land of the mythic or the semi-mythic period of history, but in the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, and in a country occupied by Roman garrisons, and presided over by Roman governors.
It will be objected that our only accounts of the causes which led to the organization of this society are writings composed by its own members. In this there is nothing peculiar; for until societies have grown sufficiently powerful to attract the attention of the world outside them, there can be no other source of information. Still the fact can be ascertained on the most unquestionable authority, that at a certain date this society was not in existence, and that within a certain number of years afterwards, it was not only in existence, but rapidly increasing; and that it originated in Jesus Christ, who was put to death by the Roman government.
This society, therefore, came into existence at a definite period of time. Its early writers give us an account of how it originated. They affirm that its founder was Jesus Christ; and that, having been interrupted by His death, it was called into a new existence by His resurrection. To this great event they most positively affirm that the origin of the Church, as an institution, was due. To the belief in it as a fact, it has certainly owed its gradual enlargement, until it [pg 373] has attained its present dimensions after more than eighteen centuries of existence. To this belief is due the great moral power which it has exercised on mankind; and if its members could be persuaded that the belief in the Resurrection of its founder was a mere delusion, great as this society is, it would certainly perish.
There are five facts connected with the origin of this society, which no one who believes in the possibility of historic truth will dispute.