In last month’s column I spoke about the importance of the people of Israel. In response to such ideas, Christians sometimes say, “But that is not the Good News of Yeshua!”

Then what is the Good News of Yeshua?

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul summarizes the Good News for us: Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, in what terms I proclaimed to you the Good News…that Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve (1 Cor 15:1, 3–5).

Most popular treatments of the Good News focus on the first act that is “in accordance with the scriptures”—the death of the Messiah “for our sins.” However, Paul’s emphasis in 1 Corinthians 15 is on the last act that is “in accordance with the scriptures”— the resurrection of the Messiah on the third day. The rest of the chapter elaborates on the implications and importance of Yeshua’s resurrection, not on his death.

On the day he was raised, unrecognized for who he was, Yeshua joined two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, who were discouraged and confused about the events that had lately occurred—the one whom they thought was the Messiah had been turned over to the Romans to be executed, he had been crucified, and to top it all off, a group of women from their group had visited his tomb, and, finding it empty, claimed they had seen a vision of angels and that he was alive.

Notice especially their comment in Luke 24:21: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

Anglican theologian, N. T. Wright, helps put their comment in context:

The worry about the afterlife, and the precise qualifications for it, which have so characterized Western Christianity, especially (it seems) since the Black Death, and which have shaped and formed Western readings of the New Testament, do not loom large in the literature of Paul’s contemporaries [including Jesus and the Apostles].