God has given us proof of His existence, showing us the way to Himself. He’s done this so openly and plainly that anyone can see for themselves, and find assurance of eternal life. (Ac 17:31)
According to the biblical account, Christianity began as twelve poor, uneducated Jews, who knew Jesus personally and followed Him, suddenly began testifying of Christ’s resurrection. (Ac 3:15) After Christ was crucified, dead and buried, these disciples claimed He rose from the dead. They claimed they saw Him, spoke with Him, touched Him, ate with Him, and that He continued teaching them for forty days. (Ac 1:3) Eventually, over five hundred people claimed they saw the risen Christ at once; many lived for decades afterwards confirming this firsthand witness to all who would listen. (1Co 15:6)
Proclaiming a risen Christ was unpopular, counter-cultural, and consistently got the disciples in trouble with Jewish authorities. (Ac 5:17) The apostles weren’t trying to start a new religion; they remained observant Jews their entire lives. They never sought power or wealth, and though they were persecuted and tortured for their witness, they all died proclaiming the truth of the risen Christ.
If these early disciples of Christ were not telling the truth, they knew they were lying and trying to deceive people, and it was causing them unspeakable suffering to do this. (1Co 4:9-10) Yet none of them ever recanted, or were even willing to keep silent regarding this unusual claim. (Ac 4:18-20) Rather, they rejoiced in their suffering (Ac 5:41), and went to their graves in confidence and hope. (Ac 7:59)
People sane enough to fabricate new religions don’t behave like this. There’s no reasonable explanation for their behavior if they weren’t telling the truth. So, the foundation of this faith is an empty tomb, and the original historical witness of this fact is extremely credible.
For hundreds of years afterward, Christianity remained unpopular, flourishing under both Roman and Jewish persecution. At no point in this early history could a resurrected Christ have been invented without Christians hearing about it for the first time and recognizing this as a false myth.
Sane people don’t suffer and die for what they know is a lie, and there is zero evidence that any Christian ever complained about the cornerstone of their faith being changed, or newly introduced and strange to them. So, the entire early history of Christianity, well before it was popularized and adopted by Constantine, further verifies the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
All of Christianity, as broken as it is today, continues to uphold this testimony as its very foundation: without the resurrection of Christ, Christianity cannot stand. It has never been otherwise.
This is proof, as solid as any historical proof can be, that God has revealed Himself to all of us. There’s no reasonable explanation for the existence of Christianity apart from the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then He is Who He says He is, and He can be trusted to reveal Himself to us as the Way to God. (Jn 14:6)
Amidst the chaos of world religion, the resurrection of Christ stands out as a remarkable singularity: there’s nothing comparable to it. What do you think of Christ? If we want to know God, to enter into His rest and walk with Him, our journey begins here. (Ro 10:9)
While I agree that Christian theology is grounded in the resurrection of Christ, and that without this historical fact, Christianity as a whole would not be able to survive, to be clear, I also believe that what we may observe today in most Christian churches is not representative of true faith in God, and that most people will be disappointed trying to find God with their help. I certainly was.
It appears to me that the enemy has co-opted the language and foundation of this faith, corrupted it from its intended form, and fabricated many false religions out of it which all claim to be Christian. As a world religion, Christianity appears to be unique in this regard as well; it contains a vast number of denominations, all claiming they are the only right way, and that all the others are wrong in some way. There must be thousands of them.
This is exactly what we would expect the enemy to do if Christianity is actually true at the core: create so many counterfeits, which all have some appearance of legitimacy, that it’s nearly impossible to tell which among them, if any at all, are genuine and pure. And this is exactly what we find.
Given such a problem, it is tempting to “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” so to speak, and to ignore what is evidently true in Christianity due to so many problems inherent in this faith. This is actually predicted in the Bible itself, that many false teachers will rise up in the name of Christ, and many will follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. (2Pe 2:1-2) As tempting as it is, this is still foolish; it is a logical fallacy (ad hominem) to assume something is false because the people who claim it are evil or wrong on other matters.
In the end, there is no substitute for seeking God from the heart as well as we can, testing everything based on the best knowledge of truth we already have, and accepting no contradiction or inconsistency in our faith. For me, the basis for truth lies only in the pages of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, not in any church.