The Gospel of the Resurrection: The Good News About How Jesus Defeated Death

It's a cliche, but it's also still quite true that the preconceived notions that one has will affect how one interprets the world around them. For Christians, we see this most strikingly when it comes to interpreting the Bible. Often we miss major biblical emphases simply because we struggle to put ourselves into the world of its writers, reading our own culture or values into the text. Perhaps the most significant negative impact on our theology that can come from reading our own preconceptions into scripture is how we understand (and thus live out and preach) the gospel.

It is the aim of this work to demonstrate that a theme which runs throughout scripture, the mortality of human beings, has been obscured by a belief in the inherent immortality of the human soul, thus resulting in our misunderstanding the apostolic presentation of the gospel, or the good news about Jesus Christ. To put it simply, humanity is in a state of decay heading toward death and non-existence. It is only by being joined to Christ who conquered death that we can have hope of life that goes on forever.