The RESURRECTION!

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This is the Truth Network. You're Entering Outer Brightness This week we're talking about the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in human history. The book of Romans chapter 1 verse 4, Paul states that Jesus was quote declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead end quote.

In other words the resurrection was God's powerful declaration of Jesus as his son. As we celebrate resurrection day today our topic is the risen Christ. Thank you for joining us. All right fireflies welcome back to this episode of the Outer Brightness Podcast and no that's not a special guest you see there that is Brie the Christ Warrior Princess. She'll be joining us from now on on Outer Brightness Podcast. So welcome Brianna happy to have you join us.

Thank you to be part of this. Okay so love the love the nickname Brie the Christ Warrior Princess. It's kind of a play on Xena Warrior Princess for any listeners that remember that show from I think the 90s. Is it that far back?

Yeah. All right but she's also what's that Michael? I'm surprised she knows what that is. That was way before her time.

I'm surprised that wasn't a grand Paul joke. I thought it was but uh Brianna has um she's also got an altar that everyone needs to be aware of. My name is Bri Hulk and don't make me angry. So that's a recording I got this morning when I had to wake her up for a second. Yeah so uh I guess Bri Hulk is gonna be uh her altar like Mr. Coop is Michael's altar.

Yeah everyone in our family has an alter ego. All right so welcome to Brianna and uh so let me um let me just ask a quick question of you Brianna put you on the spot. Welcome um when you were a latter-day Latter-day Saint was the resurrection the ultimate event in the liturgical calendar? And I know that's kind of a weird way to to ask it especially for for Mormons but um was it was it the most was it the ultimate event in in the year of worship or for you as a latter-day saint? Um yes and no I guess um I mean I I think back um when I was a latter-day saint and there was a production that I was a part of uh one year where they it was called Savior of the World um and it was like basically the story of like Jesus but act one had to do with like his birth like leading up to his birth and then his birth. Act two begins when Christ has already died on the cross and he's being buried in the tomb and it ends with this finale of him being risen and like he he leaves but he's only there for a moment so I don't know if it was really super significant but they did emphasize that more than some of the other things when it came to Christ's life um yeah that's my answer. All right Michael you look like you're getting ready to say something there. Yeah I was just gonna say I agree with my wife you're gonna hear me probably say that a lot in the coming uh coming weeks um it was to me it was definitely the kind of the highlight of the year was Easter Sunday you know Christ is is risen and I did view it as being special you know it's like okay because of this we're all going to be physically resurrected now because Christ was resurrected and and they'd always say in church like this is what gives us hope because since Christ is raised from the dead we can overcome whatever obstacles are in our path so it would kind of come back to man but I did think it was the the best part of the year.

All right Matthew what do you think? Yeah um it was pretty important time of year um basically there would usually be like a primary program or there would be some kind of special guest and you had to play a special instrument like a violin or or something else that would that would perform for us and so there's a really big program every year for it so it's a pretty it's pretty important. So throw this one out to any one of you that would like to like to take it up and respond um would you say that there were any other events that that got more love so to speak or more emphasis or were given more import than the resurrection in the in the year uh if so what would those be? I I don't think that there was um personally I always kind of wondered you know why don't we celebrate you know Good Thursday and I wonder if you guys ever had this thought you know the what happened in the garden would have been on Thursday and why don't we celebrate that but for whatever reason the LDS church doesn't really emphasize that day as far as I remember anyways. Or Good Friday for that matter right? Well well yeah but the garden is so emphasized that I would have expected them to do something that Thursday night and they never did it was it was all about Easter Sunday. Yeah so yeah I mean that's an interesting thing interesting topic that maybe we can take up at another time is you know why does why is there not um an emphasis on on Good Friday because there is such I mean if you think about the um and I didn't really even know about things like Lent um you know the whole uh Christian liturgical calendar leading up to uh Resurrection Sunday um you know Palm Sunday, Good Friday, none of that was really emphasized and so I didn't really know about those things or learn about them until I was on my mission uh in an in an Eastern European country you know where Catholicism and Lutheranism were were very prominent and so uh and really yeah it was just kind of interesting for me to learn those things so and I remember you know fielding questions after I moved out here to the Cincinnati area fielding questions from my from my kids because they would go to school with lots of Catholics and you know why don't why aren't we as giving up anything for Lent you know and having to kind of go and look okay what's Lent you know because it's just not emphasized uh but um yeah any any anyone else want to talk about a second question there if there was there were other events that maybe got more love well I was kind of thinking about like just coming to my head like um well during Christmas time they like they celebrate like the birth of Jesus but around that time there's Joseph Smith's birthday so they'll kind of bring that up too like they'll insert that into that or during Easter like general conferences coming around um or like during the summer I think it's during the summer where they'll have like pioneer day and they'll have this big celebration for that um I don't know of really anything else but it's just a few things that come to my mind yeah yeah that's good it sparks a couple thoughts for me as well so uh your comment on pioneer day Brianna um you know I grew up in Utah so there you know of course July 24th is a huge deal you know there's parades uh that actually kind of rival like 4th of July parades uh in terms of uh importance within the state um and and yeah kind of big celebrations and I remember uh you know after moving to Cincinnati you know kind of realizing that that was not a thing anywhere else even among latter-day saints it really wasn't as big of an emphasis that it was uh in Utah um which is kind of understandable you know Utah's where the pioneers ultimately settled so I guess that makes sense but I in relation to the question too I was really kind of thinking about you know like the the restoration of the priesthood um got a lot of um love and and attention uh for you know sometimes several weeks leading up to uh the Sunday when we would kind of celebrate that um and it did seem kind of more uh that it got maybe a little bit more attention than than Easter Easter was it was a special Sunday um like like you guys have touched on you know there were usually special musical numbers and and and talks focused on the resurrection um but it kind of came and went whereas some other events were uh it seemed to me clearly more important to the latter-day saint kind of bedrock core of their their beliefs and faith and reason for existence as opposed to other Christian Christian denominations so really interesting because uh I don't remember them you know at least in Texas ever really celebrating the restoration of the priesthood like you're talking about like what you just said is completely foreign to me so that's pretty surprising yeah I never heard of that either oh that's interesting yeah because even here uh after I moved here to northern Kentucky it was it was got a pretty heavy emphasis in May when it came around I mean yeah obviously too the same with the the church being founded on was April 6th 1830 so they would always have a program that would they would usually dedicate at least one talk to talking about that restoration of the church yep and sometimes that would be on the same Sunday as Easter so yeah pretty crazy all right so would you say that there was uh any messaging that you received as a latter-day saint that that maybe placed the resurrection of Jesus in sort of a second-class position or that distorted the message of the resurrection for me I thought it was strange that um well looking back so most of the time Christians don't really see the resurrection as part of Christ's atony work they see it as kind of like the culmination of Christ's life and and the prophecies that he gave of himself and that others gave of him and how he said that he would give the sign of Jonah as jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and nights and then he was spewed out of the well that was a sign of him being in the grave for three days and three nights and is uh being resurrected but um they don't Christians don't really talk about the resurrection of Jesus being part of our or the atonement between man and god whereas in the LDS church it's a very fundamental part of the of the resurrection is that and then maybe they don't teach it this way anymore but what they used to do is they used to focus a lot on how the sacrifice or the suffering in the garden of Gethsemane was for our spiritual sins or a spiritual life it's a spiritual aspect of the atonement and the death burial and resurrection of Jesus is kind of like the physical redemption of man so it's what allows you to come back to life so those those two aspects the spiritual and the physical are kind of represented in the sacrament where you kind of have the the water being like the blood you know that Jesus shed in the garden and then the the bread which would represent his death burial and resurrection so that's how I at least I remember it sometimes being taught that way not always but some people taught as kind of like you know spiritual and physical and the resurrection obviously being something that's given to all people so that's one difference I would see is that they would they see it as actually part of the atonement whereas Christians typically focus on the cross as what is the atonement yeah Michael and Brianna any thoughts there okay so a couple that come to my mind I guess one just that that we are the same species you know that that really Christ is the same as us just further down the path than we are I think that really dilutes the power of the resurrection because it's just not as special when somebody who's exactly like you pulls something off you know it's almost like not that huge of a leap that maybe I can do that as well or do an atonement or something it just doesn't put us in the same the same position doesn't make it such a miracle I think just trying to humanize everything but another thought that came to my mind was that Latter-day Saints believe that all spirit is is physical you know everything's created from this fine matter called intelligence and if that's the case then Christ you know he already we he already had a body even when he was dead and so being resurrected doesn't really mean anything if he already had a physical body made out of really fine matter if that makes sense so I think there are a couple things like that that kind of dilute the message yeah yeah I think that's that's a good point and you know another another one I would say and it's kind of related to what Matthew was talking about too is you know when when the atonement is talked about within lessons in the latter-day saint faith gospel doctrine etc a lot of times I would hear you know the statement made that you know eternal you know everlasting life is a gift to everyone right and by that latter-day saints mean that because Christ was resurrected all will be resurrected and so everyone has that gift of everlasting life but eternal life is earned right that there was often that that distinction made you get this gift of resurrection but eternal life you've got to earn it and I think that I think that too can kind of dilute the resurrection in addition to diluting what Christ did on the cross and I you know someone might challenge me and say well how can that dilute the resurrection if everyone's going to be resurrected everyone gets that that that everlasting life well I think it I think it dilutes the resurrection in that the resurrection is is God's stamp on what Christ did on the cross and and the way that the latter-day saints present it almost makes it seem like it's just it's just this thing that everybody's going to get and I think it it kind of dilutes what the biblical message of the resurrection is which is why you know I kind of pointed to Romans that Romans passage in the introduction yeah another thing that comes to my mind too is in Mormonism the resurrection is part of Christ's progression it is one of the things that he had to do to become complete and so just it's just a slap in the face where it's saying that you know this is like Christ was not perfect before he was not complete and now he is and it goes completely against Christianity which you know it's like Christ was always complete he was always perfect he was always fully divine yeah and that kind of to that point Michael it kind of goes against you know what Christ prayed right glorify thou me with the glory which I had with you before the foundation of the world right he already had that back where he was already fully God so it well it wasn't him becoming complete so yeah it definitely kind of swerves sideways from from what the biblical message is yeah and what it does is it means that the person who rose from the grave is a different person than the one who went into the grave expound on that what do you mean what do you mean I'm saying that before he went into the grave he was you know an incomplete person he was not a perfect being and then when he comes out suddenly he is he's infinite he's perfect just like the father is okay gotcha gotcha so as a Christian now how is your view of the resurrection different than when you were LDS?

Anyone Bueller Bueller? I feel like I've kind of tipped my hand on this one already but I mean probably the biggest difference is just who was it that came out of the grave was it my spirit brother and now the answer is no it was not my spirit brother it was it was the son of God it was it was God it was a he was a divine being that came out and it it's not someone who's on my level by any means probably the biggest difference yeah it just changes everything fundamentally I think because if you don't know who he was and why he came and what it was for like it it completely undermines like why he came in the first place and why he came in the first place so like in Mormonism you have to like they have the plan of happiness and you come to earth to get a body and you need that so that you can progress to become your own become like God and really it's just all about this really shallow thing when it was about Christ coming to save us from our sins. Yeah and it kind of makes the resurrection I mean sort of feels like a selfish act because it's part of his progression it's not you know completely just something for us it's it's part of his progression and therefore it's part of our progression in a way you know like we can look at that as a Latter-day Saint and say I'm gonna be able to do things that are even greater than this someday when I become a God and I think when you think that way it just it totally undermines the power of the resurrection. Yeah you almost at least I almost see the resurrection when I was a Latter-day Saint as something that was owed to us by virtue of the fact that we are a literal offspring of God and since God had a body just like we do it seemed like well it's natural you know he needs to give me a glorified body because he has one but in Christianity we see it as not something that's owed to us but something that's given entirely by grace and Christ being the first to be resurrected we see a glimpse of that kind of existence that we will have in glory when we live with the Lord and he'll sit us down on you know with him on his throne with crowns of glory and so it gives us something hopeful to look to and it should humble us to recognize that we we aren't owed anything by God but this is something that he's done completely out of grace and love for for us for for his children that he's he's he's he's he's been for his children that he's saved by his sovereign grace so it's it's a lot to think about it's a kind of like that's been said it's just a different perspective it's a different understanding of what what the end is for what the purpose of everything is and what but our purpose is and so when you have a biblical understanding it shifts everything to be focused not on us but on Christ yeah I really appreciate what you said there Matthew um let's see if I can can get this into words um I remember studying early kind of some early Christian um fathers uh thoughts on the incarnation and the idea is that um if if there is anything about human nature that Jesus did not take on then that part of human nature is not is not um risen is not what's the word I'm looking for um so death is death is one of those aspects of human nature that Christ had to take on and to Michael's point and and Brianna's point um you know if if if Jesus is of the same species as us right and and and to be clear Christian theology says that he was fully human but that he is also by nature fully God and so and we are not uh in any way or sense divine uh we are creative beings and so um if there's any aspect of human nature that that Christ did not take upon himself and raise up then that then then humanity is not saved and so death is part of that um whereas uh you know it almost sounds like in some of the things we said about the way Mormons talk about resurrection that it is that right okay so he's he's he's uh provided a cure for death and he's provided a cure for spiritual physical death and spiritual death cures for both of those um but I don't know that Mormon theology uh or anthropology specifically really allows for that theology to play out so to speak um does it make sense where I'm going with that yeah I was gonna add I think I was reading the quote you're talking about earlier um what is not assumed is not redeemed exactly yeah that's Gregory of Nazianzus that was in response to Apollinarianism where they said that Jesus didn't have a human spirit or human soul or mind he just had like the God like the mind part of Jesus was God and the body part of Jesus was human and so Gregory was basically saying like you were saying Paul that if Jesus was not fully man then he could not have redeemed mankind so he had to be truly man and truly God and that's the problem with LDS theology is they don't see the divine nature and the human nature as separate or distinct things they see it they see the divine nature as just the human nature brought to completion brought to perfection so the fact that Jesus came down as the God man where he had the divine nature that was now united to the human nature in one person not divided or separate but united in the same person that's the miracle of of Jesus of the God man but in LDS theology they they don't really have that concept they just see him as the perfect man yeah good you're listening to outer brightness a podcast for post Mormons who are drawn by God to walk with Jesus rather than turn away outer brightness outer brightness outer brightness there's no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth here except when Michael's hangry that is angry that is angry that is we were all born and raised in the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints headquartered in Salt Lake City Utah more commonly referred to as the Mormon faith all of us have left that religion and have been drawn to faith in Jesus Christ based on biblical teachings the name of our podcast outer brightness reflects john 1 9 which calls Jesus the true light which gives light to everyone we have found life beyond Mormonism to be brighter than we were told it would be and the light we have is not our own it comes to us from without thus outer brightness our purpose is to share our journeys of faith and what God has done in drawing us to his son we have conversations about all aspects of that transition the fears challenges joys and everything in between we're glad you found us and we hope you'll stick around I'm gonna throw this out to anyone who wants to take it up uh sometimes latter-day saints will argue that the eyewitness evidence for the book of Mormon plates is just as strong as the evidence for the resurrection how would you respond to that argument I guess I'll take it up um let's see um I guess the difference is between them is that there is evidence for the resurrection and the bible that is verifiable and you can go back and look for it whereas in the book of Mormon you can't really go back to it there's no transcripts for the book of Mormon that you can go back to you have to just go on blind faith based on what some people said but in the bible you don't have to go by blind faith God gives he does give um evidence to show himself to you um I guess one of the things that come to my mind is like the case for Christ it talks a lot about that and so if you're really interested in looking about the evidence to back it up to for Christ and the resurrection all that stuff you can look that up and that's a that's a book right least trouble yeah so I guess my thought on this would be uh I was actually looking at the testimony of the three witnesses and so here's a quote that that they wrote down it says uh and we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates and they have been shown unto us by the power of God and not of man meaning that they didn't see them normally they saw them with their spiritual eyes and I guess the question that I would ask latter-day saints is what's the difference between that and people who claim that they've seen aliens you know I mean when I was latter-day saint I would say oh there's 11 witnesses uh no court on earth could dismiss such a strong testimony but you know going back to my alien analogy there's there's a lot more than 11 people who claim that they've been abducted by aliens so based on that that uh logic aliens must be real and uh so I guess that's that's where I kind of have issue with it because then the angel Moroni uh takes the gold plates and there's just no way to verify anything whereas Brianna was saying we have you know we have thousands and thousands of manuscripts for the bible that we can actually look at we don't need to take somebody's word for it because you can actually look at them yeah good good thank you both for your thoughts there Matthew anything to add we we do have extra biblical accounts too of stating that Christians did believe and worship Jesus that he was an actual historical figure which is something that we don't have of any of the figures of the book of Mormon all we have for the existence of Moroni or Nephi or any of these people is the witness of Joseph Smith and that's about it I mean I think correct me if I'm wrong did Oliver Cowdery no he didn't see Moroni I can't remember what other colleagues of Smith's claimed to see these people I mean Cowdery he claimed to see Moses and Elias and Elijah in the temple but I don't think he ever claimed to ever see Moroni right there was a there's a vision where Martin Harris and maybe others saw the Hill Cumorah open up and they saw the sword of Laban and they claim to see other things on the table but in terms of actually seeing the people in the from the book of Mormon we basically have to trust Joseph Smith's testimony but we have witnesses that that that Jesus was an actual historical figure that was followed and worshipped by Christians in the first century and we have nothing about that for the book of Mormon so even if you don't even if you don't want to count the biblical account as accurate we still have other witnesses extra biblical witnesses of Jesus's existence we can't go and dig up something and find Zarahemla and show that Nephi was an actual person we can't do that for Moroni we can't do that for Mormon so it's really it's really no comparison yeah yeah thank you all for your thoughts there's a there's a famous LDS apologist who makes this case and I can't remember if it is Daniel Peterson or if it's Robert Millet but the case is made that you know for the resurrection you have witnesses eyewitnesses right who are giving their testimony recorded in the bible for the idea that Christ rose from the dead and that for the book of Mormon you also have witnesses who are giving their testimony of the existence of the plates and then the the analogy is continued in the argument to say well today we cannot view uh Christ's living body just as we cannot view the golden plates and so in both cases you're you're relying on witness testimony and so it's kind of like trying to bolster the case for the book of Mormon by uh the strength of the case for the resurrection and my response to it would be um just that you know the witnesses for the resurrection not all of them but the but the apostles themselves went to their deaths preaching the resurrection of Christ um went to martyrs deaths uh preaching the resurrection resurrection of Christ um the three witnesses nor any of the eight witnesses uh went to martyrs deaths didn't they did not so um there's a there's a pretty large difference there uh in my mind all right um moving on do you think that it matters if the resurrection was a historical event why or why not yeah absolutely um i was just going to quote from first corinthians 15 because paul makes it pretty clear that the resurrection is incredibly important for our faith let's see if i can find the verse uh okay now of Christ so this is starting from verse 12 now if Christ has preached that he has been raised from the dead how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead but if there is no resurrection of the dead then not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is in vain your faith also is in vain moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we testified against God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised or if the dead are not raised then not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has been not been raised your faith is worthless you are still in your sins then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished if we hoped in Christ only in this life we are of all people most to be pitied so i don't think i could put it any better than paul did but it's absolutely crucial to our faith and that's why the resurrection is so important it's not i don't think it's necessarily because we needed it to be reconciled to God for our sins but it's it's as you've talked about as we talked about earlier is that it's a stamp from God that is certifying that everything that Jesus said everything that was said about Jesus is true and so when Jesus promises that those who believe in him will have forgiveness of sins and eternal life we can trust those words because Christ's resurrection is a validation of the person and work of Jesus yeah yeah very powerful when paul says if Christ is not raised you're still in your sins why is that like i said i personally think is because he's saying that all the promises that Jesus made for salvation were not true they're false because if he lied about him coming back from the dead and he didn't well then how can we really trust any of his words about us being saved or have eternal life there's if we can't trust Jesus in everything then we can't trust him in anything yeah yeah and also um you know the the atonement uh the the sacrifice that he wrought on the cross on our behalf is uh it's contingent upon him being god and so the resurrection is as you said and we said earlier is is that it's the stamp on Christ as the son of God as God right and so um if if Christ's not raised then then the sacrifice that was wrought wasn't actually wrought in in any kind of way that was effective so Michael Brianna anything to add here i was just looking at uh acts 315 too it says you killed the author of life but God raised him from the dead and we are witnesses of this fact i was just you know it's so powerful for their preaching to be able to say we are witnesses of the risen Christ we've we've witnessed this we've seen it and you know what Matthew was talking about too where Christ rose and it was a stamp and as a latter-day saint i said it hundreds of times you know do not seek for a sign you know but just have faith and and here Paul is saying the exact opposite of that in the verse that Matthew quoted where he says your faith is in vain if Christ is not raised in other words you know and Christ even said it too you know this is a sign just as Jonah was three days in in the belly of the whale and so he he rose to be a sign that this atonement really happened and it's not a blind faith like i would have said as a latter-day saint and so it has to be a historical event if it's not a historical event then we our faith is vain we have nothing to look at and no valid reason to have that faith yeah i don't think i have anything extra to add to that but yeah um yeah i i agree the only the only thing i might add is just to kind of uh kind of come full circle on the the the comparison between the book of mormon and the resurrection um latter-day saint scholars more and more are moving away from a historical book of mormon uh moving towards it being more of an allegory and that's that's the direction that the maxwell institute is taking uh it's a direction that is opposed by uh kind of the old guard of mormon apologists at the book of mormon central um and so for latter-day saints listening i would just say you know your your your scholars and your your apologists are moving away from a historical book of mormon um and it is the keystone of your religion according to joseph smith uh if that keystone is removed the arch crumbles um christians agree that the resurrection is like the keystone of the christian faith if it is removed as a historical event the arch crumbles um so i would just challenge latter-day saints to think about that in relation to the comparison that's made between the book of mormon and the resurrection all right uh next question uh some people uh use the resurrection to argue that the doctrine of the trinity is false uh this was a new one to me uh you know as a as a kind of a new christian but um some people argue it uh the reasoning they give is that uh quote jesus could not raise himself from the dead end quote that he required the father to raise him from the dead so how would you respond to that argument i would respond and ask where they got this idea it's kind of strange i've never heard that myself um yeah when we look at uh scripture as a whole and that's one thing that we're really not taught to do as latter-day saints we're not really taught to look at scripture as a whole and and follow the analogy of faith the analogy of scripture these hermeneutical techniques just basically techniques to understand scripture completely we have to look at all of scripture and see what the witness is and if we look at all of scripture we not only see that god raised god the father raised christ from the dead but we see that it was actually an act by all three persons of the godhead so when we look at scripture we see as michael quoted from excerpt 315 we see you we see peter's excuse me that's weird so we see uh peter's witness that uh he says you killed the author of life whom god raised from the dead so this is while preaching the jews at um yeah in that in that chapter so it's affirming both that that christ was raised from the dead and uh so so it's affirming that he was raised from the dead by the father but it also says that jesus is the author of life and i don't think we think about that too much too deeply a lot of times but that's also affirming that christ is also god being the author of life being the one who has the power to raise from the dead one who created all things he is also god so in in his essence and in the status so he's not secondary to god he's not a second god he's truly and eternally god um we also see that christ himself would promise that he would raise himself from the dead he says uh so this is in john chapter 10 so that's a really great sermon um well not really sermon but in his in his rebuttal against those who were who were doubting him he says for this reason the father loves me because i lay down my life that i may take it up again no one takes it from me but i lay down of my own accord i have authority to lay it down and i have authority to take it up again and he also promised earlier in john's gospel he said destroy this temple and in three days i will raise it up and the jews said it has been 46 years to build this temple and you'll raise it up in three days but he was speaking about the temple of his body and that was john chapter 2 verses 19 to 21 so the father raised jesus from the dead the son christ himself said that he has he has the authority to lay his life down and to raise it up again but there are also passages that seem to indicate that the spirit was also involved in the trend in the in the resurrection making it a trinitarian miracle in romans chapter one paul wrote that jesus was declared to be the son of god in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead so this seems to also indicate that he was declared that jesus was declared to be the son of god in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead so the spirit of holiness also affirms and was also involved in christ's resurrection so it was a trinitarian act jesus's uh resurrection and how all that works exactly you know it's not i don't think there was 33 father 33 son 33 spirit you know uh we're not going to get into that uh we'll have to show that video from uh lutheran satire you know all the all the bad trinitarian uh examples but uh you know we don't exactly know who was involved in what aspect but we just know that the entire godhead was involved in christ's resurrection from the dead yeah really really well said i was gonna quote uh john chapter 10 too and now i don't have to he stole my thunder uh but it's kind of funny because i was like who makes these these arguments anyway and have they not read the bible but it kind of it just gave me a flashback from being lds and attacking the trinity all the time and one of my what i thought was my best argument against uh against the trinity is that since they share a hypostatic union jesus couldn't have actually died because the father was still alive and so therefore there was no resurrection so take that yeah it's a similar kind of kind of argument um yes so there's there's definitely uh some similarity in the way that like oneness Pentecostals handle the text of scripture in the way that latter-day saints handle the text of scripture and so this one is you know this one is um probably playing off of romans one and ignoring all of the rest of the biblical data um i mean you you can look at uh for example you can look at john 5 26 right where and this is the this is the passage where um i'm going to use a fancy theological term well where the aseity of god is kind of declared a scripture aseity being a term that means um having having uh being from one's self right you're not contingent upon another uh for your existence you exist within yourself and so um we are not uh we do not have a sat as latter-day saint doc can teaches um we are contingent beings we are creative beings god alone has a say of you and john 5 26 uh says uh in the new king james version for the for as the father has life in himself so he is granted the son to have life in himself and so um both uh the father and the son have satiety um so yeah that that's kind of that would be where i would go matthew you did a great job brianna any thoughts here um i don't know i guess the one thing that comes that came to my mind when i read this question was like john 1 1 because it establishes that jesus the word was with god and he was god so if he's not divine then how could he not i mean that's that's all i could really add to it yeah good so do you mean like if jesus were not truly divine then he couldn't raise himself from the dead is that what you're saying yeah i guess that's i guess but if he is divine then why couldn't he raise himself yeah if he's yeah if he was god but he couldn't then it would kind of make you ask it would ask you questions if he was truly god if he couldn't do something that the father could yeah exactly didn't uh didn't latter day saints uh i mean have you guys ever heard them say that the resurrection was an ordinance and yeah i mean with every other ordinance that exists you need somebody else to perform that ordinance for you on your behalf i i distinctly remember though there's like a passage in the doctrine of covenants it talks about how jesus grew from grace to grace or something like that and i remember that being quoted in priesthood meetings where they would say well jesus even had to grow in grace and perfection and by his own efforts he was able to resurrect himself kind of a thing that's what i remember hearing but uh yeah i have also heard too the resurrection is kind of an ordinance and i think that has also something to do with the temple ceremony temple marriage maybe paul can enlighten us as long as we don't trigger somebody about it um yeah i mean the only thing i can think of there is uh that um in latter-day saint teaching husbands will call forth their wives uh in the resurrection um so yeah in that sense i guess it it would be an ordinance a priesthood ordinance that would be performed to call uh your wife forth for resurrection which uh wow i hadn't thought about that in quite a while but man that's that's another instance of kind of inserting yourself uh in the place of place of christ i was just gonna quote from that section that i was referring to i found it uh let's see it's in dnc 93 i think this is john the beloved it's like some kind of revelation that he supposedly had uh and it says i john bear record starting with verse 11 that i beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth even the spirit of truth which came and dwelt in the flesh and dwelt among us and i john saw that he received not of the fullness at the first but received grace for grace and he received not of the fullness at first but continued from grace to grace until he received a fullness and thus he was called the son of god because he received not of the fullness at the first that's something i haven't really thought about so they're saying he was the son because he was not truly and completely god originally grew from grace to grace i don't know i'm not quite sure what that's versus saying i'd have to think more about that but that's kind of weird well we know from the book of mormon too that it says that he's the son he's the father because of the power of god or because of the power of god in him and the son because of the flesh so that's even an alternative explanation for what it means for jesus to be the son and that almost sounds modalistic but that's another discussion yeah interesting all right let's close this out with our last question um well maybe two more questions but we'll go to this one first uh as a christian now how is your celebration of the resurrection different than when you were a latter-day saint one thing that's really cool for brianna and i is uh that easter is the time when we both came to christ and so it i think it has special meaning to us and it makes sense because we were already teetering on the edge and then this time of year comes around and we're thinking about the atonement and the resurrection and and just thinking about jesus himself and and that was enough to pull us both off the fence and so to us it has significance because it's like it's also the time when when we were born again of course we were saved you know over 2 000 years ago i hear christians say that a lot and i'm like that like when were you saved over 2 000 years ago when christ died on the cross is uh is when i was saved so as far as like the celebration i mean i don't do a lot differently i think it's just more about how i feel is what's different because as a latter-day saint everything always pointed back to me okay christ was resurrected and so that puts the pressure on me i have no excuse because christ was resurrected and so that gives me the hope the ability to overcome whatever sins i'm struggling with right now and now it's it's more of an appreciation a gratitude um a reverence you know where everything has been taken out of my hands you know christ has done the impossible you know not something that's further down my path but something that is absolutely impossible for a human being to do so i'm just more in awe of of the whole thing than i was before yeah good thank you for those thoughts brianna um i guess yeah i don't really have that much of a different like way of celebrating it per se but like i do definitely appreciate um what jesus did a lot more um and it has a lot more meaning a lot more depth before it was kind of just like it was just a day like when i was lds it just didn't really matter as much to me i'm like oh i get to like live again someday and it was not even important to me as much um and i i honestly felt very bored going to church when we were they would talk about the resurrection because i didn't i didn't really understand it or care until i was saved okay yeah um matthew what about you well yeah we so as lot of the saints we worshiped on sunday and we called it the sabbath and so the reformed view is that the sabbath is a moral command from creation and so as a lot of the same i kind of more believe that we worshiped on sunday because well that's what modern revelation says we worship on sunday to remember jesus's resurrection but now that i understand scripture and coming to a reformed understanding of scripture we see that it's not just because we worship on sunday to remember the resurrection that jesus as the lord of the sabbath when he was resurrected as the lord of the sabbath he actually changed the day of worship from the seventh day to the first day so he actually by the power in him and being raised from the dead he actually changed that day of worship to be on the first day so that's why uh reformed also have a similar kind of view of the lord's day as lot of day saints in the sense that we shouldn't work we shouldn't uh you know do a lot of recreational things so uh there's a lot of there's some disagreement about that amongst christians but um it's just a different perspective of what the lord's day means and and we and we don't call it the sabbath we don't call it sunday and you know we call it the lord's day and that's a day that belongs to the lord and it's and it's to it's to always remember christ and every week we should be thinking or remembering the reason why we're worshiping that day is because of christ's resurrection and um yeah and like i said earlier it's it's more of a perspective thing so i celebrate the resurrection as a reminder of christ's glory and the magnificence and the grace and the the the sovereign uh power and plan of god and all things rather than seeing it as like oh here's something that i'm gonna get someday here's here's my inheritance here's you know as a lot of they say now i thought of it is in terms of like what am i gonna get out of it kind of a thing but it's more of pointing to just how glorious and magnificent god is that's how i see it more now than i did before can you hear me okay yeah um so kind of going back to what you're muted again sorry i'm i'm having technical difficulties on my end like everything is taking longer than it than it should um apologies so kind of going back to what brianna said uh about like as a latter-day saint just kind of viewing the resurrection as like yeah christ's was raised and so i'll be raised too um i would say that the kind of the main difference for me is is actually that it's a celebration now you know as a latter-day saint it was kind of a special sunday you know there were musical numbers but but aside from there being special musical numbers and and the talks uh this the speeches given in sacrament meeting being focused on the resurrection um it wasn't any different than any other sunday um it didn't feel different anyway um but as a christian um at the church you know i attend it's it's very much a celebration and it's it's the it's a celebration of all that kind of like the culmination of all that christ has done for us um because as we as we said you know it's it's it's god's stamp right christ was raised in power um and the just the way that it's the way that it's celebrated um it's it's i mean i don't i don't want to sound crass it's not it's not like it's a party um but everyone's excited you know it's it's a reality that that i never uh kind of felt or grasped that within the latter-day saint worship of of easter so um i appreciate that about how it's different all right so we've um we've covered a lot of ground today uh experiential aspects of of celebrating easter as a latter-day saint now as a christian we've also gone into some apologetic questions between latter-day saints and christians and also between skeptics and christians um regarding the resurrection are there any resources that you would recommend to a former latter-day saint who's a new christian who you know really wants to dig into the the reliability of of the resurrection as a historical event so like i said earlier there's the case for christ um that's a really good resource that was one of those things earlier on when i was a new um ex-mormon and new christian that i really delved into the archaeology and this like understanding the history um and you can also like get like an archaeological bible those are useful for just general studying of some of the history and all that it's really interesting all right good thank you michael what about you any resources on on that topic i don't have any really okay matthew yeah i don't have any specific books related to the resurrection i probably should but i think everyone should have access to some kind of systematic theology or some kind of study bible so the ones that i always recommend are either the esv study bible or the reformation study bible that's obviously a more reformed kind of perspective but they both have great notes on the resurrection and articles in the back that are really helpful to new christians i felt i felt like the esv study bible really helped me as a as a new christian and there's also another um there's another book that i have well i've i bought the study notes for the esv systematic theology something study bible i don't know what it was it's just the study notes and i've been reading those and those are really fascinating but those are also from a reformed perspective so if that kind of turns you off then um i'm sure that there are systematic theologies out there that are from a non-reformed perspective so um from a reformed perspective there's the body of of divinity from um from john gill that i really like or calvin's institutes um so yeah any any one of those will talk about pretty much every important doctrine for christianity including the resurrection all right good yeah there's a couple of uh a couple of resources i would recommend um one is a uh it's a it's a kind of an older uh christian apologetic work called who moved the stone um it's by frank morrison uh that's a good one uh dr gary habermas is probably the foremost uh christian scholar uh doing work on the resurrection right now and he's got a lot of really good resources um and then uh mike lakona is also a christian scholar who has written and published a it's a it's a expand expansion of his doctoral thesis and it's called uh the resurrection a new historiographical approach and so he he applies the uh the tools of historiography to uh the resurrection uh that's a well over 700 page book i i got to see him lecture at an apologetics conference a few years back and shake his hand and get him to sign my book but um yeah those are some i would recommend uh william lane craig does a he has a good um podcast episode that i'm going to try to find and put in our uh our notes for this episode where he kind of works through uh the case for the resurrection uh in about i think it's about 40 minutes long and it's it's uh it'll give you a really good tight um understanding of the kind of the historiographical approach to the resurrection so yeah um some good resources there uh thanks fireflies for listening in i hope you're enjoying your resurrection day and celebrating uh all that christ has done for us talk to you soon we thank you for tuning into this episode of the outer brightness podcast we'd love to hear from you please visit the outer brightness podcast page on facebook feel free to send us a message there with comments or questions by clicking send a message at the top of the page and we would appreciate it if you give the page a like we also have an outer brightness group on facebook where you can join and interact with us and others as we discuss the podcast past episodes and suggestions for future episodes etc you can also send us an email at outer brightness at gmail.com we hope to hear from you soon you can subscribe to the outer brightness podcast on apple podcasts cast box google podcasts pocketcast podbean spotify and stitcher also you can check out our new youtube channel and if you like it be sure to lay hands on that subscribe button and confirm it if you like what you hear please give us a rating and review wherever you listen and help spread the word you can also connect with michael the x mormon apologist at from water to wine.org where he blogs and sometimes paul and matthew do as well music for the outer brightness podcast is graciously provided by the talented brianna florinoi and by adams road learn more about adams road by visiting their ministry page at adamsroadministry.com stay bright flyerflies lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of god the word made fresh the risen son heaven and earth will pass away but the word of the lord endures forever all this world is in decay but the word of our god through ages remains lord you promised that we as your church would remain upon this rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against us because you have power to keep your word unspoiled in purity heaven and earth will pass away but the word of the lord endures forever where all of this world is in decay but the word of our god through ages remains as the rain falls down from heaven and waters heat earth bringing it light so the word that goes out from your mouth will not return empty but does what you desire oh lord we hear your word and believe in you heaven and earth will pass away but the word of the lord endures forever where all of this world is in decay but the word of our god through ages remains the word of god this is the truth network