The resurrection of Christ could have no natural explanation or human cause. It is inexplicable without relation to God.

God alone could achieve it — and his omnipotence is the reality against which it is rightly set and upon which it depends.

Resurrection is no less possible than creation.

The World Is Not Closed

Calvin reckoned belief in Jesus’ physical resurrection rests on two ‘helps’: the reality of the resurrection appearances, and the omnipotence of God.¹Calvin, Institutes, 3.25.3-4; 990, 993-94.

Note what follows. The resurrection could have no natural explanation or human cause. It’s inexplicable without relation to God. God alone could achieve it, and his omnipotence is the reality against which it is rightly set and upon which it depends.

God’s relationship to the world he created is one of action and revelation. The Creator continually acts to sustain, preserve, direct, govern and provide for all creatures — showing humanity ‘his eternal power and Divine nature’ generally and universally (Rom 1:19-20).

Which means the earth is not closed off from its Creator or beyond the reach of his activity. The world is completely open to God’s intervention, and its regular processes are adaptable to his direct action whenever he determines. ‘For by him all things were created … and in him all things hold together’ (Col 1:17).

Scripture reports many extraordinary acts of God that interrupt and set aside for a time the laws of nature he himself established. It calls them miracles. Christ’s resurrection was obviously one — and one without parallel, its cause plainly beyond the normal processes. A mega-miracle, a super-miracle, exhibiting the very essence of the event itself. And as strong an endorsement as could be imagined of the full unqualified Deity of Christ’s person: ‘God’s authenticating signature’ upon his life and work.²Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 123.

He Can Do Whatever He Likes

Jesus said doubt about any resurrection results from ignorance of two things: ‘the reason you are wrong [is] because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God’ (Mark 12:24).

Only an omnipotent God could possess competency and resources adequate to raise the dead. Omnipotence is God’s infinite power, placing him in a position of unchallenged supremacy toward creation. It means he is perfectly able to do whatever he wants — to achieve whatever is consistent with his character and purpose, executing his will without difficulty or inability of any kind. God knows no limits, brooks no opponents, fears no threats, suffers no frustrations.

Nothing is too hard for God (Gen 18:14; Jer 32:17). Everything logically possible is possible for him. His plans are never at risk; his purposes will of necessity be accomplished. In terms of potency, energy and ability the Lord God Almighty operates without external restriction, with capacity to achieve ‘whatever pleases him’ (Psa 115:3).

And laws of nature are, from God’s perspective, not ultimates but contingents. Everything that exists does so by virtue of his ‘causal power.’³Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2019), 193. Regularities may be overridden by the One who instituted them. ‘Ah, LORD God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you’ (Jer 32:17).

Beneath the visible landscape of the cosmos lies ‘the full force of Divine omnipotence,’ and that force ‘resides in the eternal and infinite nature of God.’⁴Barrett, None Greater, 190. His power is without limit besides himself — ‘the Father of an infinite majesty.’⁵Taken from the text of the early hymn ‘You, O God, we praise’ [Latin, Te Deum laudamus], dating from the fourth century or earlier, with authorship variously ascribed to Ambrose, Augustine, or Hilary of Poitiers.

Two qualifications. God’s power is independent of creation, tied to nothing outside himself. And he does nothing that violates his nature or contradicts any other quality of it — his power operates only in ways complementing his other perfections.⁶See Anselm’s discussion, ‘How [God] is omnipotent although he cannot do many things,’ Proslogion, 7; eds. Davies and Evans, 90. Usually his actions follow a given pattern, but occasionally the Creator may elect to ‘put his signature’ on something unmistakably.⁷Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 123.

If Creation, Then Resurrection

Scripture links resurrection and the creation of the universe out of nothing. God ‘gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist’ (Rom 4:17).

Both are signature events. Both are inexplicable without God’s action. They’re comparable in that only God could bring about either — creation out of nothing, and recreation following death. Edwards saw it:

‘a resurrection must be God’s own work and his only … no creature can bring body and soul from nothing again. Therefore whatever may be supposed of other miracles, of the possibility of their being performed by creatures, we know of this that it cannot. I can think of no other miracle whatever that would be so full an evidence and manifestation of the finger of God.’⁸Jonathan Edwards, The ‘Miscellanies’: (Entry Nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500) (Works of Jonathan Edwards Online Vol. 13), ed. Harry Stout (Yale University Press), 394; slightly amended.

So here’s the question that actually decides the matter. Can you conceive of a God powerful enough to produce this entire universe, and everything living in it, wholly from nothing? If you can — if it’s thinkable for God to bring what doesn’t exist into being simply by deciding it should — then there is no sufficient reason to doubt that he possesses power enough to outdo death.

Creation and resurrection are comparably feasible, similarly likely, equally viable. ‘Resurrection is no less possible than creation. … When compared to the miracle of creation, resurrection does not look so implausible. … Both … are finally a matter of God speaking a word.’⁹Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:493.

Peter drew exactly this connection, announcing that it was ‘the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead’ (Acts 3:15). Paul draws it too, identifying the Son as ‘the firstborn of all creation,’ the one by whom ‘all things were created,’ and ‘the beginning, the firstborn from the dead’ (Col 1:15-18).

‘They have but a poor knowledge of God,’ reckoned Tertullian, ‘who suppose Him to be only capable of doing what comes within the compass of their own thoughts.’¹⁰Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 38; ANF, 3:573. He is ‘able to do far more abundantly’ than we can conceive (Eph 3:20).

Indeed, raising the dead may be the smaller matter. ‘Resurrection, though miraculous, is not the creation of a body ex nihilo.’¹¹Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 481-82. ‘It is no more strange that the human body should exist a second time than that it has existed the first time. … The omnipotence that originated the body can of course reoriginate it.’¹²Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 868. Tertullian again:

‘For if God produced all things whatever out of nothing, he will be able to draw forth from nothing even the flesh which had fallen into nothing … And surely he is most competent to re-create who created, inasmuch as it is a far greater work to have produced than reproduced, to have imparted a beginning, than to have maintained a continuance. On this principle, you may be sure that the restoration of the flesh is easier than the first formation.’¹³Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 11; ANF, 3:553.

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• 1
  Calvin, Institutes, 3.25.3-4; 990, 993-94. ↩︎
• 2
  Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 123. ↩︎
• 3
  Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker Books, 2019), 193. ↩︎
• 4
  Barrett, None Greater, 190. ↩︎
• 5
  Taken from the text of the early hymn ‘You, O God, we praise’ [Latin, Te Deum laudamus], dating from the fourth century or earlier, with authorship variously ascribed to Ambrose, Augustine, or Hilary of Poitiers. ↩︎
• 6
  See Anselm’s discussion, ‘How [God] is omnipotent although he cannot do many things,’ Proslogion, 7; eds. Davies and Evans, 90. ↩︎
• 7
  Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, 123. ↩︎
• 8
  Jonathan Edwards, The ‘Miscellanies’: (Entry Nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500) (Works of Jonathan Edwards Online Vol. 13), ed. Harry Stout (Yale University Press), 394; slightly amended. ↩︎
• 9
  Oden, Systematic Theology, 2:493. ↩︎
• 10
  Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 38; ANF, 3:573. ↩︎
• 11
  Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 481-82. ↩︎
• 12
  Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 868. ↩︎
• 13
  Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 11; ANF, 3:553. ↩︎