26-0826wc Neighborly Apologetics

Marc Fey turns the session over to Dr. Del Tackett, who welcomes the participants and expresses gratitude for their presence. Tackett announces that this is the final session focused on the resurrection before the series moves on to the remaining topics in neighborly apologetics. He shares his long-held conviction that discussions of the resurrection often emphasize the details and apologetic arguments surrounding the empty tomb—important as those are—while overlooking a number of deep, profound, and amazing implications that follow from the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. That set of implications forms the heart of the evening’s study. Tackett indicates he will share slides to guide the group through the material and identifies the session as the seventh in their examination of the resurrection, specifically addressing its amazing and profound implications.

Tackett places the evening’s topic within the larger framework of neighborly apologetics, which is grounded in the royal law. Scripture sums up all the commandments in the single command to love one’s neighbor, and Tackett regards this as the only truly biblical way forward for Christians in the present culture. The vision flowing from the royal law is that God has entrusted the primal work of the kingdom to the common Christian family—a vision that has largely been lost and must be recovered by the body of Christ. Believers need to understand why Jesus left and what He left them to do, recognizing their priestly role in the neighborhood as members of the royal priesthood. After a brief interruption while Tackett re-shares his screen, he returns to the series categories. The group earlier examined evil and suffering, then moved to the claims of Jesus and the resurrection. Extensive time has already been given to Jesus’ claims, life, miracles, and prophecies, followed by seven sessions on the resurrection itself. Tackett underscores how critical this focus remains.

Tackett emphasizes that the resurrection stands at the heart and forms the key of the Christian apologetic. More evidence surrounds the resurrection of Jesus than any other event in His life, precisely because it is the pivotal key. The evening will explore the implications of the resurrection both for Christianity as a whole and for the individual believer. Scripture binds together five interrelated realities—the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost—because Jesus Himself brought them together and the biblical text continually links them. The implications to be considered tonight arise not only from the resurrection proper but also from Pentecost and the other linked events, forming a five-pointed star of interconnected truth. Beyond its apologetic importance, the resurrection is the key event in all of human history; it divides time into B.C. and A.D. and splits history in half.

Tackett briefly reviews the ground already covered so that participants can build a solid apologetic for conversations with a neighbor such as “Mrs. Smith.” They have examined the historical facts of the resurrection, the witnesses who encountered the physically risen Lord (including appearances to as many as five hundred at once), and the critical nature of the early polemic—the argument already circulating at the time of the resurrection and even before it. That early polemic and the related creed are vital because they undercut the claim that the resurrection was a myth or legend developed many years later. The group has also studied the times, events, and places associated with the resurrection, showing how the accounts harmonize without contradiction. With the factual and apologetic foundation in place, Tackett now turns with excitement to the amazing and profound implications that follow if Jesus truly rose from the dead.

If Jesus really rose, certain implications follow immediately and are already reflected in the biblical record. The tomb had to be empty, the stone had to be rolled away, and the guards would have known the truth—all of which Scripture records. Because the event was so massive that it split history, creation itself reacted: the sun went dark and an earthquake shook the ground. Angels announced the resurrection; Jesus Himself told the women and the disciples and appeared to many. God recorded the events for later generations. The evidence that Jesus rose also means He truly existed as a physical person, was executed, died, and was buried—facts already supported by the earlier apologetic material. Tackett highlights one further implication that will open the detailed study: Jesus was alive, and He is alive still.

The first and foundational implication is that the risen Jesus is alive. Thomas was absent when Jesus first appeared to the disciples and declared that he would not believe unless he could put his fingers into the nail prints and his hand into Jesus’ side. Far from being merely a doubter to be dismissed, Thomas was responding to the sheer magnitude of the claim: the same Jesus he had seen brutally executed and sealed in a cold tomb was now said to be alive. When Jesus appeared and invited Thomas to touch Him, Thomas confessed, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus replied that those who have not seen and yet believe are blessed. Just as the disciples were radically transformed by the resurrection, believers today stand in the same position: Jesus is the living, resurrected Lord and Savior. He hears, as He heard Mary Magdalene at the tomb; He sees, as He saw Thomas; and He transforms lives, as He transformed Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road. Tackett recalls a song from the musical Then Came the Morning in which Mary Magdalene sings that she has seen Jesus and will never be the same. The implication is personal and present: Jesus is alive today, hears and sees His people, intercedes for them, provides opportunities, and lives within them. This is not merely another apologetic argument; it is the living implication of the resurrection for every believer and for any neighbor who comes to Christ.

A second implication reaches back to the proto-evangelium in the garden. After the fall, God’s first response was not annihilation but a promise spoken to the serpent: enmity would exist between the serpent and the woman, between his seed and her seed; the woman’s seed 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 therefore marks the defeat of Satan. In the same way, death itself was defeated. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 declares that God raised Jesus, putting an end to the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to hold Him. Because of the resurrection, those who are in Christ need no longer fear death.

The defeat of death carries a further implication: believers will also rise. Romans 8 connects the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead with the promise that the same Spirit will give life to the mortal bodies of those in whom He dwells. Jesus Himself 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 that more fruit will follow—namely, those who belong to Him at His coming. On the road to Emmaus, the risen Jesus interpreted Moses and all the prophets, showing 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. Thus Jesus Himself was offered as the first fruits; the Old Testament shadow finds its substance in Him.

Another implication is that every prediction Jesus made proved true. In John 2 He had 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 the word and believed both the Scripture and what Jesus had spoken. The power of the resurrection therefore confirms that everything Jesus said is true. More profoundly still, the resurrection is the great confirmation of who Jesus is. Romans 1 states that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead. The resurrection validated His identity, His claims, the prophecies, and the entire old covenant that pointed to Him. This is why the resurrection remains the key apologetic.

The resurrection also means that sins are forgiven and believers are saved. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ has not been raised, faith is worthless and people remain in their sins. Romans 10 ties salvation to the confession that Jesus is Lord and the belief that God raised Him from the dead. Because Christ has been raised, sins are forgiven, salvation is secured, and faith is not in vain. If Christ had not been raised, preaching would be empty, faith futile, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ would have perished. The implications bound up with the resurrection are therefore immense.

A further implication is the spiritual future hope that believers will be reunited with those who have fallen asleep in Christ. 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 those who have lost loved ones—and Tackett notes that he still occasionally grieves the absence of his own father—the resurrection supplies the solid hope of reunion with all who are in Christ.

One of the most profound implications is that the risen Christ intercedes for His people. 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 and advocates is almost beyond comprehension; it is an eternal expression of His sacrifice. When believers feel the weight of their own shortcomings, the knowledge that Jesus always lives to intercede for them becomes a source of deep comfort and meditation.

Finally, Scripture 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—Jesus. God has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead. The resurrection itself is the public demonstration that Jesus will one day judge the world. Tackett closes the section by reiterating that these implications are best understood when the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost are held together as the single, interconnected reality the Scripture presents.

Continuing from the interconnection of the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost, Tackett turns to John 16, where Jesus tells the disciples it is to their advantage that He goes away, for if He does not go the Helper will not come, but if He goes He will send Him. The implication is clear: because Jesus rose from the dead, He was able to send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who would be with them forever. That sending was documented at Pentecost and throughout the rest of Scripture. Tackett reminds the group that God is not divided into three separate pieces; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one. Jesus promised He would not leave them as orphans but would come to them, and both He and the Father would make their abode with believers. Thus the fullness of the Godhead dwells within those who are in Christ. This promise was tied directly to Jesus’ departure—His execution, burial, resurrection, and ascension—after which He would send the Spirit. The implication is enormous: by sending the Holy Spirit, Jesus has equipped the body of Christ to change the world. Tackett expresses his deep drive to see the church recover the vision of who believers truly are—members of the royal priesthood. Whether a person is a truck driver, janitor, or nurse, if that person is in Christ, he or she is part of the priesthood, not a consumer to be entertained once a week, but one whom Christ has equipped to change the world.

Returning to John 16, Tackett repeats Jesus’ assurance that it is advantageous for Him to go so that the Helper may come. He then cites the risen Lord’s command in Acts that the disciples not depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father. John had baptized with water, but they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days later and would receive power when the Spirit came upon them, becoming witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Tackett hears these words as addressed to the entire body of Christ, which, empowered by the Spirit as Jesus promised, is to reach the ends of the earth. He acknowledges that he had hesitated to develop the next portion of the teaching because it might unsettle some listeners, yet he feels compelled to offer a deeper reading of a familiar passage often used at funerals.

Tackett quotes the well-known words of John 14: “Let not your heart be troubled\ldots In my Father’s house are many mansions\ldots I go to prepare a place for you\ldots I will come again and receive you to myself.” He has long been troubled by popular interpretations that picture Jesus spending two thousand years hammering nails to construct elaborate heavenly dwellings, an image difficult to reconcile with the One who spoke the universe into existence. Examining the Greek, he notes that “mansions” translates the word mona, the same term Jesus uses when He promises that He and the Father will come and make their abode (mona) with the believer. In the Father’s house—His kingdom—there are many places of abiding. The word translated “place” is topos, which in Acts 25 is rendered “opportunity” when Paul speaks of the right of an accused person to make a defense. 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? The practical implication is radical: when a believer sees a neighbor such as Mrs. Smith struggling with groceries, that moment can be recognized as an opportunity Jesus Himself has prepared, an invitation to join Him in the work. Such a perspective would transform how Christians view their neighbors and their daily encounters.

The larger implication is that Jesus left and turned the work over to His people. In John 14 He declares that whoever believes in Him will do the works He does, and greater works still, because He is going to the Father. Tackett suggests that “greater” may refer not primarily to individual miracles such as raising more people from the dead, but to the collective work of the Spirit-filled body of Christ operating as the royal priesthood. He prays that this greater work will indeed take place. Historically, the early church did turn the world upside down. Acts 17 records the charge leveled against the believers in Thessalonica: “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also\ldots saying that there is another king, Jesus.” One of the wonderful historical realities is that the body of Christ, empowered by the Spirit and shaped by a biblical worldview, has radically altered the world for good.

Tackett catalogues some of those changes. Christians were the first to raise the moral issue 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 even the sphere of labor. Believers rescued infants exposed in the Roman world by catching them in nets; they built workhouses, hospitals, and safe houses. Christianity brought a biblical worldview into a world bent on evil. The culture today still desperately needs the body of Christ to recover the reality that Jesus rose, ascended, sent the Spirit, and now dwells with the Father inside His people who form His royal priesthood. That same resurrection reality radically changed the first disciples, and the record of that change is preserved in Acts 4.

As Peter and John spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees arrested them for teaching and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. Tackett recalls that notable ministers of past generations lamented that they had not given more attention to the resurrection, realizing that the apostles continually wove it into their messages because of its central importance and profound implications. Despite the arrest, about five thousand men believed. Only days earlier these same disciples had been huddled behind locked doors in fear—an understandable response after witnessing the scourging and crucifixion. Now they boldly proclaim the resurrection. The next day the rulers, elders, and scribes, including Annas, Caiaphas, and the high-priestly family, assembled and placed the apostles in their midst, demanding by what power or name they had acted. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, answered that it was by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom they had crucified and whom God had raised from the dead, that the lame man stood healed. Jesus is the stone the builders rejected, now the chief cornerstone; there is salvation in no other name under heaven.

The boldness of Peter, standing before the same power structure that had recently executed Jesus and that still held the authority to put the apostles to death, is striking. There is no longer any timidity or trembling. When the authorities command them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, Peter and John reply that the rulers themselves must judge whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to them rather than to God; the apostles cannot stop speaking about what they have seen and heard. Scripture records that with great power the apostles continued to give their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. The resurrection had radically changed the disciples, and it did so publicly and irreversibly.

Tackett turns the question to his hearers: has the resurrected Lord Jesus radically changed you? Has He radically changed me? The question is especially pressing for those who now live as a remnant in a culture where speaking and doing what is evil has become the default, and where speaking truth appears to carry a high cost. If believers have not been radically changed by the resurrection, they will not radically change the culture; they will not turn their world upside down in the positive sense. This session concludes the sub-series on the amazing and profound implications of the resurrection of Christ.

Tackett points listeners to the forty articles he has written that trace the resurrection through to Pentecost, many of which expand on the implications discussed. He urges each person to pray and ask the Lord specifically, “What are the implications in my life?” The resurrection must become personal. Too often the church celebrates Resurrection Day and then simply presses on with Monday; that was not the pattern of the early believers, for whom the resurrection was the focus of their testimony, their apologetic, and everything they did. Tackett believes it must become that focus again, especially in relationships with neighbors. Believers are to pray for their neighbors, build trusting relationships, and ask God for the wisdom to know when and how to speak of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Looking ahead, the series will return to the remaining categories of neighborly apologetics, beginning next time with absolute truth and relativism—a critical topic in a culture that increasingly elevates the individual heart as divine (homo deus) and therefore the final arbiter of good and evil. Tackett expresses the hope of seeing everyone then and prays that the Lord will make fruitful whatever has been shared. He turns the meeting back to Marc Fey.

Marc Fey thanks Dr. Tackett and all who remained engaged throughout the session, noting that the steady number of participants was itself a sign of attentiveness. He announces that he will send an email containing the recording of the livestream, the slides Tackett used, and a link to the first of the forty articles on the resurrection so that interested participants know where to begin. He again thanks everyone for their presence and asks Dr. Tackett to close in prayer.

Tackett prays, expressing awe before the Father at the implications of the resurrection—that Jesus was declared the Son of God by rising from the dead, that the resurrection confirms Him as Lord and King and validates every promise of God. He asks that the Lord bless the minds and hearts of the hearers as a result of the evening’s reading of Scripture, making the truth fruitful especially in the relationships God has called them to build within their own “Jerusalem.” He prays for fervent intercession, for open doors, hearts, and minds, and for attractively winsome relationships of trust so that believers may respond to questions in ways that bring honor and glory to God alone, in Jesus’ name. Fey adds a final word of thanks and the blessing, “God bless you.”