1. Belief in the Resurrection of Christ is not a later development in Christian consciousness, but derives from the beginning of the Christian Church.  There is no Christianity without the proclamation of the Resurrection. 

2. Belief in the saving value of the death of Christ, and belief that his death and Resurrection fulfill God's plan of salvation expressed in the Sacred Scriptures of the Jews, also appears at the beginnings of the Church. 

3. The Church bases her faith in the Resurrection of Christ on the testimony of those to whom the Risen One appeared;  she keeps these lists as part of her kerygma. 

4. The Resurrection of Jesus does not mean for Paul Jesus's return into our physical life, but rather his exaltation to the state of Lord.  In this state he shares the glory, power, and dignity of Yahweh. 

5. The Risen Lord and Jesus of Nazareth, however, are one and the same person.  Jesus rises with a spiritual body through which he reveals his glory, communicates with us, and joins us to himself.  (An eschatological dimension is combined with personal identity.) 

6. In Paul's mind, the encounter with Christ, which Acts locates on the road to Damascus, was both a historical event and a personal revelation that changed his whole life and constituted him an apostle of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. 

(A) Appearances of Christ:  "objective" vs. "subjective"  
  
  i. "objective": a "thing" – out there 

  ii. "subjective": God does not intervene in the natural order of cause and effect.  The "Resurrection" is a primitive "myth" unacceptable to modern scientific man. 

    (a) Bultmann: The faith of the apostles is what "lives on" after the death of Jesus.  The story of the Resurrection is merely a way of describing (a "myth" about) the meaning of Christ's death.   
What lives on is the "faith": the belief that Jesus is Messiah and His death brought life to the world. 

    (b) Marxsen: What lives on (hopefully) is the "cause" of Jesus.  This is the earlier, "functional" view of the Resurrection. 

  iii. "splitting the difference": 

    (a) Paul carefully distinguishes this experience from the mystical experiences and visions which he had later at various points in his life.  He uses different terms to express this experience. 

    (b) The experience was not caused by himself;  it was not an illusion or a hallucination, rather it originated from the risen Christ himself. 

    (c) We could even call it historical in some sense, he says, since Paul is careful to place it in a historical sequence -- after the death of Jesus and following the other post-Resurrection appearances -- and since he is suggesting that the Resurrection could be confirmed by the converging testimony of many witnesses. 

    (d) On the other hand, the risen Christ was not merely an "object" facing Paul;  he was both above and within the subject, transforming the subject. 

    (e) The appearance of Christ did not force itself on Paul without the mediation of faith.  Importance of responding in faith and love. 

(B) Appearances of Christ: preserving one's own personal identity.  

The effect is transformation, not obliteration.