Did Paul Take It Too Far?

Resurrection Plus

William Marut

4 min read

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Jun 29, 2026

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“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile…. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

— 1 Corinthians 15

Paul’s argument is absolute. If Jesus was not raised from the dead, Christianity collapses.

Suppose Paul was right about that. Does it then follow that he was also right about everything else?

That question occurred to me after I completed Bart Ehrman’s course Paul and Jesus: The Great Divide. Ehrman argues that Jesus and Paul emphasized different things: Jesus emphasized the coming Kingdom of God, while Paul emphasized the saving significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Whether or not one agrees with Ehrman’s historical reconstruction, it suggests an interesting way to think about Christianity.

There is a difference between accepting an event (the resurrection) and accepting someone’s (Paul’s) interpretation of that event.

Suppose we begin with what many historians regard as the broad outline of events.

Jesus proclaimed that God’s Kingdom was near. He called people to repent, to love God and neighbor, to forgive, to care for the poor, to practice mercy and justice, and to prepare for God’s coming judgment.

Then Jesus was crucified.
The Kingdom did not arrive.
From every outward appearance, his mission had failed.

Then came the event that changed everything.

Jesus’ followers became convinced that God had raised him from the dead. Paul, once an opponent of the movement, became convinced of the same thing after what he described as an encounter with the risen Jesus.

History cannot establish that a resurrection occurred. It can establish that Jesus’ followers sincerely believed it had.

Suppose they were right. What follows?

The first conclusion seems straightforward: If God raised Jesus, then God vindicated Jesus. The resurrection means that Jesus was not rejected by God but approved by God.

The second conclusion also seems natural: If God raised Jesus, then death is not necessarily the end.

The God who raised Jesus is a God who raises the dead.

Now the resurrection becomes much more than a miracle performed for one man two thousand years ago. It becomes hope. Hope that death does not have the final word. Hope that God can also vindicate those who are faithful.

And that naturally leads to the next question: How does one become one of those people?

Here the obvious place to start to look is not Paul’s later theology but Jesus’ own teaching.

Repent.
Love God.
Love your neighbor.
Love your enemies.
Forgive.
Show mercy.
Seek justice.
Live the kind of life that Jesus said God desires.

This focus on works leads to the question: But what about faith?

Faith does matter. Believing that God raised Jesus is itself an act of faith. No historian can prove a resurrection the way one proves an ordinary historical event.

But faith alone does not answer the practical question, “How should I live?” Jesus already answered that.

Faith means trusting that God resurrects.

Works means living the life that Jesus taught.

The two belong together. The Letter of James captured the relationship in one unforgettable sentence: “Faith without works is dead.”

At this point, I feel a sense of closure.

Paul, however, did not stop there. Did Paul take it too far?

Paul concluded that Jesus’ death was an atoning sacrifice for sin.
He developed the idea that salvation comes through faith in Christ.
He described believers as existing “in Christ.”

Later Christian theology would expand these ideas into doctrines such as being “born again” into a mystical union with Christ.

Those are theological conclusions.

My question is whether they necessarily follow from the resurrection. Or whether they are Paul’s attempt to explain its meaning.

Many Christians will answer that Jesus himself taught these ideas, particularly in the Gospel of John, or that Paul’s theology was revealed to him by God rather than constructed by human reasoning. Those are serious claims, and thoughtful readers should consider them carefully.

My point is simply this.

If the resurrection vindicates Jesus, then

• The first thing it vindicates is Jesus himself.
• It tells us that what he taught deserves to be taken seriously.
• It also tells us that death is not necessarily the end.
• It gives us reason to hope that the God who raised Jesus may also raise those who faithfully seek to do His will.

That, by itself, is an extraordinary message.

Everything beyond that, including atonement, justification by faith alone, and mystical union with Christ, are additional conclusions that may or may not be true. They should be evaluated for whether they are persuasive, not merely because they come after the resurrection.

Perhaps the first responsibility of anyone who believes that God raised Jesus is not to begin with Paul’s theology. It is to begin with Jesus’ own answer to the question, “How, then, should we live?”