From the very first, the conviction that Jesus had been raised from death has been that by which [the Christians'] very existence has stood or fallen. There was no other motive to account for them, to explain them...

At no point within the New Testament is there any evidence that the Christians stood for an original philosophy of life or an original ethic. Their sole function is to bear witness to what they claim as an event -- the raising of Jesus from among the dead...

The one really distinctive thing for which the Christians stood was their declaration that Jesus had been raised from the dead according to God's design, and the consequent estimate of him as in a unique sense Son of God and representative man, and the resulting conception of the way to reconciliation.

... C. F. D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the New Testament [1967]