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  THE FACTS OF THE EXTERNAL RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
  by Adolf Schlatter
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Summary: The sermon emphasizes that faith in Jesus is based on the
objective fact of the resurrection, rather than internal experiences or
subjective feelings.

Topics: "Resurrection Of Christ", "Christian Apologetics"
Scripture References: John 20:29, Romans 10:17, 1 Corinthians 15:14, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Peter 1:16

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DESCRIPTION
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Adolf Schlatter emphasizes that the disciples did not base their faith
in Jesus on internal mystical experiences but on the objective truth of
what God did through Christ. The early Christians understood faith
through sober reasoning and the tangible evidence of God's actions,
rather than seeking emotional enhancements or mystical visions. The
disciples' conviction of encountering the risen Jesus was not rooted in
subjective visionary states but in the external event of Easter, which
provided the foundation and power for their lives.

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CONTENT
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If the disciples had looked for the basis of their faith in Jesus to the
internal movements of their soul, the church would have turned into a
gathering of mystics who spent their time trying to produce within them
the ecstatic condition by which the Christ would become visible also to
them.

The idea, however, that it was Christianity's calling to enhance its
emotions to such a degree that it would culminate in a vision of Jesus
wherein the assurance of salvation was rooted or completed is not
interwoven with early Christian history. The disciples always and
solely, by a sober use of the idea of truth, understood faith in such a
way that what happened showed them what God was and did, so that the
objectiveness of an accomplished fact would present the basis for their
conviction and the goal for their will.

The Easter account did not create the effort in the disciples to retreat
into their inner lives and to seek there the revelation of God that
world history denied them. Conversely, their lives rather received its
basis and its power from the event that came to them externally.

If the disciples' conviction of having seen Jesus once more subsequent
to his death was derived from visionary states of being, the
consequences of this process would have had to be revealed in the entire
state of piety.

As a result, we would have received in the place of Christianity a
religion in which the individual elevated himself to God one way or
another.

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/adolf-schlatter/the-facts-of-the-external-resurrection-of-christ/
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