The Role of Human Response in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

This article argues that as a saturated phenomenon, Jesus's resurrection has objective dimensions, but people also have a role to play in it, and in the present, part of that role can be described as taking the crucified people down from the cross. I begin by examining some recent discussions of Jesus's resurrection that understand it as an eschatological event in which people have a role to play. I then examine 1 Timothy 3:16 and other resurrection traditions to show that the resurrection is understood in the New Testament as an objective event that remains incomplete without peoples' participation in it. Augustine will then be shown to have continued this way of understanding the resurrection of Jesus with his notion of the "whole Christ." The arguments of Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino will be used to show that a significant part of this role in the present and foreseeable future consists in working to take the crucified people down from the cross. Finally, the notion that God's goodness is inherently self-diffusive will be used to help explain how Jesus's resurrection can be at once objectively real and yet still incomplete without people's participation in it.