I personally do not know whether the grave was empty or not. The evidence of the texts, the nature of the tradition and the general facts about the way people all over the world rapidly believe appropriate stories to support their religious beliefs leave me wholly uncertain about the Empty Tomb as literal historical fact.
David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham, 1984-94

No tyrant is threatened by Jesus going to heaven, leaving his body in a tomb.
Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, 2003-

Commenting on the title of last week's post - 'the cross alone is our theology' (the words are Martin Luther's) - a facebook friend of mine protested: 'the cross alone is certainly not our theology! Good Friday was followed by Easter Day - the latter being more than just an affirmation of the former!'

He's right of course (though, in context, I think Luther is right too). A theology of the cross with no resurrection is a gospel of condemnation without forgiveness, of punishment that never becomes atonement, of a human Jesus but not a divine saviour, of a world condemned and abandoned but never redeemed and transformed.

That isn't the gospel of the apostles. Check out Acts, for example. Or look at Paul's magnificent opening salvo to Romans:

.the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendent of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead means the public declaration of Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God. That title is not the equivalent of 'God's Son, the second person of the Trinity'. It means that Jesus is the royal son of David now seated on the splendour of God's throne. He is the fulfillment of all the promises of old.

But the term "son of God" also had connotations in the pagan world: it was the title applied to the Caesars. To Greco-Roman ears it would have sounded like a challenge to Caesar; something of which Paul and others made use. The implications of this fill the missionary preaching of the apostles as they forged into the Gentile world. Think of Acts 17, where Paul points to the resurrection of Jesus as confirmation by the creator God of Jesus as judge of all the world.

And it didn't stop there: the resurrection of Jesus in the body supplies the ground from which the NT writers can claim that God has not abandoned, but rather reclaimed the created order from the effects of sin and death, and from the monstrous regimes that assert their power in the world in the present time.

All the ho-humming and tut-tutting by liberal theologians about the resurrection as an internal, personal experience of faith makes the gospel into nothing more than a warm inner glow. But that is not the New Testament gospel. The gospel of the apostles is the declaration of the present rule of the Son of God with power and in the flesh. And it is deeply threatening to those who hold power here and now, because it tells them that their power isn’t the ultimate power.

Here is a genuine alternative Lord, not a shadow.