In the last generation, the rise of existentialism says that there are fixed, closed natural laws, that make the world understandable and scientifically manageable, and these laws do not allow the truth of the claim that someone has risen from the dead to live forever. That was a commonly held assumption: The modern world with its scientific understanding of natural laws does not allow for resurrections. So unbelief was often rooted in that kind of assumption.
Today the assumption is not that there are natural laws outside of me forbidding the resurrection of Jesus, but there is a personal law inside of me that says: I don’t have to adapt my life to anything I don’t find helpful. Truth for me is what I find acceptable and helpful.
I put the resurrection of Jesus before you, with heightened self-awareness you will not so easily be carried along by modern assumptions from 40 years ago or post-modern assumptions today, but may, with God’s help have a true concern for what really matters to you-not just what nature or your own heart says matters to you.
The sermon recounts the eyewitnesses who saw the risen Lord and other proofs of His resurrection.
By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org. Used by permission.