Is the resurrection of Christ a necessary component of the gospel message? After all, certain biblical texts seem to imply that Paul may have focused more on the cross. In Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth he says, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23). He doesn’t say, “We preach Christ crucified and raised,” but simply that he preaches Christ crucified.[1]
Just a few verses later Paul seems to double down on his singular focus on the cross: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). This seems rather exclusive. Earlier Paul even insists that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing” (1 Cor. 1:18). Again, he doesn’t include the resurrection. To the Christians in Galatia, Paul likewise says that the cross is an “offense” (Gal. 5:11) and that he boasts only in the cross (6:14). To believers in Rome, Ephesus, and Colossae, Paul writes that we have been reconciled to God through Jesus’s death on the cross (Rom. 5:10; Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:22). He says that “we have redemption through his blood ” (Eph. 1:7) and that Jesus has made “peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20). It seems like Paul emphasizes the cross more than the resurrection.
Nevertheless, a more careful look at these texts reveals that Paul saw the cross and resurrection as intricately connected. The cross without the resurrection would be like a bird without wings, for the resurrection discloses the significance of the cross. When Paul spoke of one, he implied the other. Only when we see to the other side of the cross does it begin to make sense (see John 12:16). The New Testament never speaks of the crucifixion as an isolated event but speaks of it from the perspective of the victory of Jesus’s life. Jesus’s death and resurrection have a cosmic and scriptural unity.
This can be seen in that the Scriptures describe both Jesus’s death and resurrection as not only being “raised up” but also being “glorified” (for the latter, see John 12:23; 13:31). Additionally, although Paul claims that he only preaches Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23), in the next verse he affirms that Christ is “the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). Paul elsewhere says that Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God in power . . . by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). The cross wasn’t the power of God until it was transformed by the resurrection.
When Paul says that he knew nothing but Christ crucified, this was shorthand for the complete work of Christ more generally. A little later in the same letter, Paul indicates that he imparts a secret and hidden wisdom of God (1 Cor. 2:7).
This wisdom of God implies that Jesus’s death was not final. It was through Jesus’s death that he was able to offer life. Paul even concludes the letter with his longest reflection on the resurrection in all his correspondences (1 Cor. 15). Paul knew nothing but Christ crucified, but paradoxically this included his resurrection from the dead.
Reconciliation and peace come through the cross and the resurrection. Paul proclaims that “Jesus died and rose again” (1 Thess. 4:14). Paul’s gospel can be summarized in this way: “Christ died for our sins . . . he was buried . . . he was raised on the third day” and “he appeared” to many (1 Cor. 15:3–8). Paul affirms that these realities—all of them—are of “first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3). These four realities are really two realities with confirmations. Jesus died, and this is proved by his burial. Jesus was raised, and this is proved by his appearance to many witnesses.
As one author has said, Christian theology has mostly shined a spotlight on the cross with occasional light aimed toward the incarnation. What we need instead is to shine a floodlight on the total event of Christ’s life, including the resurrection.[2] It is not that the resurrection is more important than the incarnation or the cross; rather, the incarnation and the cross are incomplete without the resurrection. Apart from the resurrection, the death of Christ is void of power.
A gospel message that does not include the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is no gospel at all. To quote another author, “At the heart of Christianity is a cross; and one of the most significant things about it is that it is an empty cross.”[3]
Raised for Our Justification
Most people connect the term justification to Jesus’s death. Justification is a law court term communicating that someone has been declared to be in the right. If you are guilty, a judge can declare you to be righteous. By the judge’s declaration, you are no longer under a sentence, nor must you pay a penalty. Paul, surprisingly, connects our justification not only to the cross but also to Jesus’s resurrection. In Romans 4:25 Paul says that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” The text can be visualized like this:
Jesus was delivered for our trespasses
Jesus was raised for our justification
According to Paul, Jesus’s resurrection is for justification. We have to think carefully about what for means here. It could mean that Jesus was raised because we had been justified. In this case, justification should be tied more closely to the cross and not the resurrection. Some translations even say we have been “raised to life because we were now justified” (NEB marginal note). This is possible but not likely.
I think it means that Jesus was raised in order that we might be justified. In this case, Jesus’s resurrection was not only his vindication but also the vindication of all who believe in him. Jesus was handed over to death because all people have trespassed the law of God, but Jesus was raised to life so that people might be declared righteous. The goal of salvation was not simply to save us from sin but to unite our humanity to God. John Calvin puts the point well: “Through his death, sin was wiped out and death extinguished; through his resurrection, righteousness was restored and life raised up.”[4]
Martyn Lloyd-Jones agrees: “If it is not a fact that Christ literally rose from the grave, then you are still guilty before God. Your punishment has not been borne, your sins have not been dealt with, you are yet in your sins. It matters that much: without the resurrection you have no standing at all.”[5]
In short, Christ’s resurrection is both “part of the atonement as well as being the seal of what happened on the cross.”[6] The resurrection is the decisive deed of justification, the actualization of what is declared.[7] Jesus’s death alone does not secure our justification. He had to be raised from the dead to declare us righteous. God justifies believers by not counting our sins against us and by clothing us with life and righteousness. Spurgeon rightly says,
When our Lord rose from the dead, it was certified that the righteousness, which he came to work out, was finished. For what remained to be done? All was accomplished, and therefore he went up unto his Father’s side. Is he toiling there to finish a half-accomplished enterprise? Nay, “This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” Our righteousness is a finished one, for Jesus quits the place of humiliation, and rises to his reward.[8]
Our justification hangs as much on the resurrection as it does on the cross. The resurrection guarantees our salvation and, therefore, is good.
Editors Note: Content taken from The Hope of the Resurrection by Patrick Schreiner ©2026. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Il 60187, www.crossway.org.
[1] Adrian Warnock, Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything (Crossway, 2009), 71–72.
[2] Theodore B. Clark, Saved by His Life (Macmillan, 1959), 70. Quoted in Thomas S. Kepler, The Meaning and Mystery of the Resurrection (Association Press, 1963), 84.
[3] Michael Green in his preface to George Eldon Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Hodder and Stoughton, 1975), 5.
[4] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Westminster, 1960), 1:521 (2.16.13).
[5] Martyn Lloyd Jones, The Assurance of Our Salvation (Crossway, 2000), 492.
[6] W. Ross Hastings, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Exploring Its Theological Significance and Ongoing Relevance (Baker Academic,2022), 25.
[7] Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (T&T Clark, 2019), 62.
[8] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “The Power of His Resurrection,” April 21, 1889, The Spurgeon Center, https://www.spurgeon.org/.