The Resurrection – vitally important to everyone

by | Mar 9, 2023 | 2012 | 0 comments

Easter is a time of great excitement, especially for little children.

Unfortunately their joy is short lived, as it is mostly about bunnies and chocolate eggs. I sometimes wonder how many remember that we are celebrating one of the greatest, most mind boggling events that ever occurred, the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus the Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christianity – without it, all else crumbles. When we fully comprehend the significance of resurrection, our lives will be revolutionized. We will never be the same again! Without the empty tomb that Sunday morning, there is no hope. Indeed without the resurrection, there would be no Christianity.

The Reality of the Resurrection

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is more than a fairy tale, more than a legend, and more than just some religious symbol. It is a historical fact that is indisputable. Billy Graham once wrote that, “There is more historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived or that Alexander the Great died at the age of 33!’1
The question that you may be asking yourself is, “Why should Christ’s resurrection be important to me?” Let’s examine a few things that help us understand just why the empty tomb that Sunday morning almost 2000 years ago is so important to us.
Firstly, Christ’s resurrection proves he was God, and not an imposter.
 “Then the Jews demanded of him, ‘ What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was his body.” (John 2:18-21).
Christ  delivered on this miraculous sign, thus proving who he was.
Paul opened the letter to the Romans like this: …he was “declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).
The resurrection proves Jesus to be the Son of God and brings us face to face with the fact that he is who he claimed to be, God. The founder of every other religion died and stayed dead. Jesus rose in victory over death. This is important to you because it forces you to make a decision in your life. Since Christ is who he claimed to be, how will you respond to him?

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is more than a fairy tale, more than a legend, and more than just some religious symbol.
Another important aspect of the resurrection is the fact that it makes your salvation possible.
Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, every person is still dead in their sins. Romans 4:25 says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
You can be made right
If Jesus died and had not been raised, then his death did nothing to accomplish justification. God, in raising him from the dead, showed acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice. If Christ’s sacrifice had not been acceptable, he would have been left in the grave, and no one would have received cleansing from sin.
Paul declared, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith … And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17-18).
If there had been no resurrection, then Christ would have proved himself nothing more than a self-deceived prophet or mentally unstable, and all of us would be fools for trusting him. But thankfully, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical fact. Faith in Christ is not in vain. This is important to you because Jesus’ being alive means the way to God has been ‘paved’ by Christ, and you can be made right with him and have a very meaningful and intimate relationship with God.
The final point that I would like you to note is that his resurrection makes your resurrection possible.
You and I are created in the physical form. Unlike the beliefs of the Greek philosophers who thought the body was evil and something we should want to be released from, God made our bodies as part of who we are and they complete us. Because our bodies are physical, they wear out and die. This no longer becomes a problem when we understand that God has a plan to resurrect our bodies to perfection.
These resurrected bodies, our current bodies transformed, will be completely perfect and dominated by the Spirit rather than sinful nature.
And our resurrection is only made possible by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ’s resurrection and ours are part of one and the same plan of God. Christ’s resurrection guarantees our own bodily resurrection. The Bible refers to him as being the ‘first fruits,’ which guarantees the whole harvest, of which you and I are a part if we are in Christ. In other words, since he was raised first, we know we will be raised.
“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first-fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him” (1 Corinthians 15:20-23).
When will our resurrection take place? The passage we just read said, “when he comes.” This second coming is referred to in Titus 2:13 as the “blessed hope.” Philippians 3:20-21 tells us that we are awaiting a Saviour from heaven who “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” When Christ returns we will see him and we will be transformed! This is something really worth pinning our hopes on!
Faith in Christ is not in vain.
Now, just take a look at yourself. How do you feel? Tired, worn out perhaps? Got aching joints or suffering from allergies? Or perhaps you are battling a disease that threatens your very life? Are you in constant pain? Whatever problems, illnesses and imperfections you have are temporary and will one day be changed in the twinkling of an eye, if you are in Christ. That is our hope. It is the completion for us of the ultimate extreme makeover. Raised in a heavenly body for eternal living.
Let me close by using an illustration:
Your life was like Humpty Dumpty’s. Remember, he sat on a wall and fell, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put him back together again? You and I were just as broken because of sin. And there was not a thing any person could do to fix us. We were utterly helpless and hopeless and stood in judgment before God because of our sin.
While you may have been broken like Humpty Dumpty because of sin, and unfixable by anyone in the world, because that tomb is genuinely empty and Jesus is alive, what he did on the cross paid for your sins and you’ve been given an opportunity to not only be fixed, but to become a new creation and to have eternal fellowship with God. That’s the joy of Resurrection morning!
 

1 Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional -Billy Graham  – Thomas Nelson Inc. 2010

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