 In this Easter season, we celebrate God's raising of Jesus from the dead, as we see it explained and expounded in the New Testament Scriptures. Well then, said Paul, if we really are God's offspring, we ought not to suppose that the divinity is like gold or silver or stone formed by human skill and ingenuity. That was just ignorance, but the time for it has passed and God has drawn a veil over it. Now instead, he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has established a day on which he intends to call the world to account with full and proper justice by a man whom he has appointed. God has given all people his pledge of this by raising this man from the dead. When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them ridiculed Paul, but others said, we will give you another hearing about this. This is the climax of Paul's famous speech on the Areopagus, which is the supreme court of the great philosophically minded city of Athens. The Areopagus wasn't a philosophical debating society, it was the highest court in the land and Paul had been taken there because he was being accused of a very serious crime of introducing new gods to the city because people had heard him talking about Jesus and Resurrection and the Greek word Anastasis Resurrection. Sounds like perhaps a female deity that would go along with this new male deity, namely Jesus. Bringing new gods into one of those famous ancient cities was a very serious crime. That was part of what had got Socrates killed some centuries earlier. And so this is part of Paul's defense and by way of defense, Paul, never shy, takes the fight to the opposition and he says, actually let me tell you about the God who does true and proper justice. That's one in the eye for the old gray beard judges on the Areopagus in Athens. But what Paul has done here in this speech is very cleverly woven together, things which he can affirm about their culture, things which he can deny about their culture. He is happy to start his speech with a reference to an altar which he'd seen in Athens an altar to an unknown God and he says, well, you admit that there is a God of whom you're ignorant, let me tell you about him. Bit of a risky move to make, Paul, but probably quite good rhetorically. But then he says, looking across the valley at the Parthenon with the temple to Athenian, with the temple of Nike and the various other temples, actually those temples are just a waste of space. God is not like that. So Paul is navigating throughout this speech between things he can affirm in the culture and things he must confront. But at the heart of it, he is saying something quite new, which is shocking to the Athenians, which is why they laugh at him. Because when the court of the Areopagus was founded, at least in ancient Athenian myth, which we know from one of the great plays of the time, Apollo himself, the great God Apollo, had declared that we need a court like this to do final justice, because when a man dies and his blood is spilt on the ground, there is no resurrection. In other words, don't expect justice in the future life. We've got to do it here. And Paul says, let me tell you about the God who did and does resurrection. So this is direct confrontation. And what it does, what this mention of resurrection does, is to put a stop to a kind of endless rigmarole of, we're doing this and we philosophers think that, and we jurists decide cases like that, and say, no, we're on a timescale. God has fixed a day. The Creator God, the one God whom you don't know about, but who you acknowledge might be there somewhere. He has fixed a day on which he will call the world to account, by a man, a man whom he has authorised and accredited, and he's given assurance to all people of this, by raising him from the dead. This is Jewish messianic language, because throughout the Old Testament, it is the Messiah, the coming Davidic King, who will do true justice. Think of Isaiah 11. Think of Psalm 72. Think of Psalm 2. All those other passages which speak of the coming King as the one who will put everything right at last. And Paul says, we now know who this man is, and it is Jesus. And you can imagine the shock note that not only he's talking about a Jew of recent memory, he's talking about a Jew who was crucified. This is, of course, scandalous nonsense, and he's talking about a crucified Jew who was raised from the dead. The reaction is fascinating. Some of them just mock. They think, oh, this man's been sitting in the sun too long, or he's been drinking some odd drink from wherever he comes from. We can't give him any credence. Which may have been a cunning move on Paul's part, because the trial seems to break up in disorder at that point. But the mention of a God who raises the dead, who has done so, and who is thereby calling the world to account, this makes some people sit up and take notice. And they say, we'd like to hear you again about this. A seed has been sown. We don't know how much that bore fruit. I was in Athens many years ago on an Easter day, and I saw and heard at midnight the mayor, the council, and all the rest of them shouting in response to the phrase, Christ is risen. Christ is risen. They all responded. He is risen indeed. And I thought to myself, well, only a few people, when Paul said it, may have believed. But for some reason word seems to have got out. That's what happens when we invoke the God who raised Jesus from the dead, and we declare that in him God has put and is putting the world to rights at last.