upon the resurrection of its founder. For any other religion to
base its claim on such a doctrine would be to court failure. Test
all other religions by this claim and see.

2. IT IS FUNDAMENTAL TO CHRISTIANITY.

In that wonderful chapter on the resurrection (1 Cor. 15) Paul
makes Christianity answer with its life for the literal truth of
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That the body of the founder of
the Christian religion did not lie in the grave after the third day
is fundamental to the existence of the religion of Christ: "And
if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith
is also vain" (v. 14). "If Christ be not raised . . . ye are yet
in your sins" (v. 17). "Then they also which are fallen asleep in
Christ are perished" (v.18). Remove the resurrection from Paul's
Gospel, and his message is gone. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
is not an appendage to Paul's Gospel; it is a constitutive part of
it.

The importance of this doctrine is very evident from the prominent
part it played in the preaching of the Apostles: Peter--Acts 2:24,
32; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 1 Peter 1:21, 23. Paul--Acts 13:30,
34; 17:31; 1 Cor. 15; Phil. 3:21. It was belief in such preaching
that led to the establishment of the Christian church. Belief in
the resurrection of Christ was the faith of the early church (Acts
4:33). The testimony to this great fact of Christian faith was borne
in the midst of the fiercest opposition. Nor was it controverted,
although the grave was well known and could have been pointed out.
It was in this fact that Christianity acquired a firm basis for
its historical development. There was not only an "Easter Message,"