Neighborly Apologetics

(Thumbnail Sketch from Del Tackett’s Webinar, July 2, 2024)

Neighborly apologetics begins with the royal law. Scripture sums up every commandment in the single command to love one’s neighbor. That command is not a soft ideal; it is the only biblical way forward for the church in a culture that has largely lost its bearings. God has entrusted the primal work of the kingdom to the common Christian family. Believers are a royal priesthood, called to live out a priestly role in the ordinary places where they live, work, and raise children. The resurrection of Jesus stands at the center of that calling. More evidence surrounds the empty tomb than any other event in the life of Christ, precisely because the resurrection is the key apologetic of the Christian faith. Yet the facts of the empty tomb, the appearances, the early creed, and the polemic are only the beginning. If Jesus truly rose from the dead, then a set of deep, amazing, and profound implications follows. Those implications reach into the identity of Christ, the defeat of death, the forgiveness of sins, the hope of reunion, the intercession of the risen Lord, the sending of the Spirit, and the mission of the church to turn the world upside down.

The first and most immediate implication is that Jesus is alive. Thomas was absent when the risen Lord first appeared to the disciples. He declared that he would not believe unless he could place his fingers in the nail prints and his hand in the side. That demand was not mere stubbornness; it was the honest reaction of a man who had watched Jesus die under Roman brutality and be sealed in a cold tomb. When Jesus appeared and invited Thomas to touch Him, Thomas answered, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus replied that those who have not seen and yet believe are blessed. The same living Christ who spoke to Thomas hears and sees His people today. He transforms lives the way He transformed Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road. A song from the musical Then Came the Morning captures the reality: “I’ve just seen Jesus, and I’ll never be the same again.” The resurrection is not merely an apologetic fact; it is a present reality. Jesus lives, and because He lives, He is the interceding Lord who makes His presence known.

That living presence means Satan has been defeated. In the garden, after the fall, God did not annihilate the rebels. He breathed out a promise: the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head even while His own heel was bruised. Hebrews 2 explains that Jesus shared in flesh and blood so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death—the devil—and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. The resurrection put an end to the agony of death. Peter declared in Acts 2 that God raised Jesus because it was impossible for death to hold Him. Because Christ has been raised, those who are in Him need no longer fear the grave.

The defeat of death carries a further promise: believers will also rise. Romans 8 links the Spirit who raised Jesus with the guarantee that the same Spirit will give life to the mortal bodies of those in whom He dwells. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Paul therefore exults that death has been swallowed up in victory. Christ is the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. The language of first fruits implies more fruit to come—those who belong to Him at His appearing. On the road to Emmaus the risen Jesus opened Moses and the prophets and showed how the entire Old Testament pointed to Him, including the feasts. The Feast of First Fruits was to be offered the day after the first Sabbath after Passover—the very morning of the resurrection. Jesus Himself is the substance of that shadow.

Because the resurrection is true, every word Jesus spoke is confirmed. In John 2 He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” speaking of the temple of His body. After He was raised, the disciples remembered and believed both the Scripture and the word He had spoken. More profoundly still, Romans 1 declares that Jesus was designated the Son of God in power by His resurrection from the dead. The empty tomb is the great public confirmation of His identity, His claims, the prophecies, and the entire old covenant that pointed to Him. That confirmation reaches into the heart of the gospel itself. If Christ has not been raised, faith is worthless and people remain in their sins. Yet Romans 10 ties salvation to the confession that Jesus is Lord and the belief that God raised Him from the dead. Because He has been raised, sins are forgiven, salvation is secured, and faith is not in vain.

The same resurrection supplies the hope of reunion. In 1 Thessalonians 4 Paul comforts the church so that they will not grieve as those who have no hope. Because Jesus died and rose again, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. At the Lord’s coming the dead in Christ will rise first, and those who are alive will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so they will always be with the Lord. For every believer who has buried a loved one in Christ, the resurrection is the solid ground of that future meeting.

The risen Christ also intercedes. Romans 8 asks who can bring any charge against God’s elect or who can condemn, since Christ Jesus died, was raised, is at the right hand of God, and is interceding for us. First John 2 presents Him as the advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Hebrews adds that He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. The fact that the resurrected Jesus continually intercedes is almost beyond comprehension. When believers feel the weight of their own shortcomings, the knowledge that He always lives to intercede becomes a source of deep comfort.

Scripture even links the resurrection to the coming judgment. In Acts 17 Paul declares that God overlooked former times of ignorance but now commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man He has appointed. God has given proof of this appointment by raising Him from the dead. The resurrection itself is the public demonstration that Jesus will one day judge the world.

All of these implications are bound together with the sending of the Holy Spirit. In John 16 Jesus said it was to the disciples’ advantage that He go away, for if He did not go the Helper would not come. Because He rose, ascended, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, He sent the Spirit of truth who would be with them forever. The Father and the Son make their abode with the believer; the fullness of the Godhead dwells within those who are in Christ. That indwelling equips the body of Christ to change the world. Believers are not consumers who gather once a week to be entertained. They are a royal priesthood—truck drivers, janitors, nurses, and every other vocation—filled with the Spirit and sent as witnesses to the ends of the earth.

A fresh reading of John 14 sharpens the point. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions…​ I go to prepare a place for you.” The word translated “mansions” is mona, the same term used when Jesus promises that He and the Father will make their abode with the believer. The word “place” is topos, which elsewhere means “opportunity.” What if Jesus is saying that He is going away in order to prepare opportunities for His people and desires that they join Him in those opportunities? When a believer sees a neighbor struggling with groceries, that moment can be recognized as an opportunity the risen Lord Himself has prepared. The perspective transforms ordinary encounters into shared work with Christ.

Jesus also promised that whoever believes in Him will do the works He does, and greater works still, because He is going to the Father. “Greater” may refer less to individual miracles and more to the collective work of the Spirit-filled body of Christ operating as the royal priesthood. Historically that work has turned the world upside down. Acts 17 records the charge against the early believers: “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also…​ saying that there is another king, Jesus.” Christians were the first to declare that abortion, infanticide, human sacrifice, prostitution, pedophilia, and slavery are evil. The Christian worldview transformed the understanding of marriage, the dignity of women, the care of widows and orphans, the treatment of the blind, lame, diseased, and poor, and the sphere of labor. Believers rescued infants exposed in the Roman world, built hospitals, workhouses, and safe houses. A culture bent on evil still needs that same Spirit-empowered presence.

The change is visible in the disciples themselves. In Acts 4 Peter and John were arrested for proclaiming the resurrection. Only days earlier they had been huddled behind locked doors in fear after the brutality of the crucifixion. Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, they stood before the same power structure that had executed Jesus—Annas, Caiaphas, and the high-priestly family—and declared that the lame man stood healed by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom they had crucified and whom God had raised. Jesus is the stone the builders rejected, now the chief cornerstone; there is salvation in no other name under heaven. When commanded not to speak, they answered that they must obey God rather than men and could not stop speaking of what they had seen and heard. With great power they continued to testify to the resurrection, and abundant grace was upon them all.

The question returns to every hearer: has the resurrected Lord Jesus radically changed you? In a culture where evil has become the default and speaking truth appears costly, only those who have been changed by the resurrection will turn the culture upside down in the positive sense. The early believers made the resurrection the focus of their testimony, their apologetic, and everything they did. That same focus must return. Believers are to pray for their neighbors, build relationships of trust, and ask God for wisdom to know when and how to speak of the risen Christ.

The implications of the resurrection are not abstract theology. They declare that Jesus is alive, that Satan and death are defeated, that sins are forgiven, that the dead in Christ will rise, that the risen Lord intercedes, that the Spirit has been given, and that ordinary Christians have been equipped to change the world. The same power that emptied the tomb and transformed fearful disciples still dwells in the body of Christ. The call is to make those implications personal, to recover the vision of the royal priesthood, and to live as those who have seen the Lord and will never be the same.

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(Thumbnail Sketch from Del Tackett’s Webinar, July 2, 2024)

Neighborly apologetics rests on the royal law: love your neighbor. God has entrusted the work of the kingdom to ordinary believers as a royal priesthood. At the heart of that calling stands the resurrection of Jesus—not only as historical fact, but as the source of profound implications for every Christian.

If Jesus rose, He is alive today. He hears, sees, and transforms lives just as He did for Thomas and Saul of Tarsus. Because He lives, Satan has been defeated and death’s power broken. Christ is the first fruits of those who sleep; those who belong to Him will also rise. The empty tomb confirms that Jesus is the Son of God and that every word He spoke is true. Faith is not in vain: sins are forgiven and salvation is secured. Believers hold the sure hope of reunion with those who have died in Christ. The risen Lord intercedes continually for His people and has provided public proof that He will one day judge the world.

The same resurrection sent the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not leave His followers as orphans; the fullness of God now dwells within them. He prepares opportunities—ordinary moments with neighbors—and calls the church to join Him in greater works. Historically, Spirit-filled believers turned the world upside down: opposing abortion and slavery, elevating the dignity of women and the poor, and building hospitals and places of refuge.

The early disciples moved from locked-room fear to bold proclamation of the risen Lord. The question remains: has the resurrection radically changed us? When it does, we pray for our neighbors, build relationships of trust, and speak of the living Christ with wisdom and courage—so that the world may again be turned upside down for the glory of God.

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