Ending our series on the core doctrines of Christianity, I wanted to address what I consider to be the most important doctrine in all of Christianity, the doctrine upon which our entire faith rests: the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. We were all reminded of this doctrine yesterday, on Easter Sunday, as we went to church and our pastors preached the good news of the risen Christ. Paul goes far enough to say that Jesus' resurrection is what our entire faith hinges on. He says, "Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there (W)is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain" (I Corinthians 15:12-14). If Jesus' resurrection did not occur, then we might as well leave the faith.
But Jesus' resurrection did occur, he lived, he died, and he rose again, defeating death and giving us all hope. But I am sure that none of my Christian readers would dispute that.
I am reluctant to say that this is a much debated doctrine today, but none of the really core doctrines of Christianity are much debated. I would even venture to say that those doctrines which are core are the ones the vast majority of Christians agree on, and those that are marginal (doctrines that do not have ultimate significance for our faith) are the ones we tend to debate about.
That is why I think many of our debates, you know, the ones where we get so infuriated that we resort to name calling and online tirades, are in vain, because we are fighting so voraciously over doctrines that do not even matter, and in the long run end up turning people away from the Christ. The most important thing for us to believe is the Jesus rose from the dead; in the long run, that is all that matters.
I agree that it is fun to engage in philosophical, though provoking debate. But if we do not do it out of an attitude of love, we are running away from the greatest commandment Christ gave us: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself.
My purpose for this series was not to look in depth at the different doctrines. It was not to provide an all inclusive look at the marginal and core doctrines of Christianity. My purpose was to get Christians to see and to understand how and why we treat other Christians the way we do. This lack of distinction we tend to have between core and marginal issues is one of the reasons we treat each other so poorly at times. We take a marginal issue and make it a core issue, and end up fighting barbarically for our side. Or we take what is a core issue and fight barbarically for it. With marginal issue, such as what is and what is not sin, we need not argue voraciously for our viewpoint. We can state our viewpoint, tell the other person that they have the right to their opinion, and when the do not agree with us, we can drop the issue. When we are arguing for a particular core doctrine, the resurrection for instance, we can do the same thing. The most important thing Jesus wanted us to practice was love. So in the name of love, in the name of Jesus, let us be more peaceable to one other, allowing others to have their own viewpoint, without feeling the need to convince them, knowing that giving up the argument does not mean we are giving up our own beliefs.
Happy Easter.
-Brandon
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