Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity, somehow both the true God and true man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin (Mary). He lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the only sufficient payment for man’s sin. He was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven and will one day return as King and Judge of the whole earth.
Last time we looked at the truth of the God Who walked among us. The almighty eternal Creator God Who came to earth as a baby, born to a virgin in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago, and He walked among us for 30 years. His birth, AND the life He lived, and the death He died - including the fact that He did not in fact stay dead, constitute the crux of the entire foundation of the Christian faith.
C.S. Lewis puts it like this: The Christian "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. In other words, in order to better understand ALL that God would have us believe, all we need to do is [take a good long look] at the God-man in the manger, on the cross, and walking out of the tomb.
Paul tells us that he received these all-important truths directly from the Lord. Two things in particular. The first we just observed, the celebration of the [Lord’s Supper] (1Cor 11). The other is 1Cor. 15:3-4 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He HAS BEEN raised (perfect tense!) on the third day according to the Scriptures. Christ was raised - HAS BEEN raised - on the third day, according to the Scriptures. Perfect tense, referring to something that happened, with continuing effects in the present [obviously that's a really big deal]. Paul specifically says that this truth, this pillar is of first importance. The entirety of the Christian faith rests on this fundamental pillar of all pillars. He goes on to say, 1Cor. 15:14,17-19 If Christ has NOT been raised [emphasis mine], then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain… and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
What Paul is saying is that all of our teaching, all of our hope, is tied to the reality of the resurrection. Our hope of eternal life is inseparably tied to THIS truth. Cuz it means death has really been defeated. For real. Fact! Our hope of heaven is founded on fact. [The Tomb is Empty!] And it means the Scriptures are really true.
The LIE comes in and says, Jesus is dead. He was just a man, and IF He ever walked this earth, He is dead. He is certainly dead to me. He is irrelevant. 1Corinthians 15:32 If from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, LET US EAT AND DRINK, FOR TOMORROW WE DIE. It’s a logical conclusion: why waste your life trying to get to heaven if the dead are not raised? But the premise is flawed - cuz Jesus smashed a gaping hole in it. At this point both the skeptic and the apathetic need to carefully consider the question: [what happened to the body?] All the Jews and Romans had to do to shut down this sect of Nazarenes, to stop it dead in its tracks, was to produce the body. See, this one you call Messiah is still dead. No way He’s who you say He is. BUT there was no body in that tomb. That tomb which was sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers (on threat of death). [Mt 27] And when they couldn’t produce a body, they concocted the lie that the disciples STOLE the body. Are you kidding me? Those cowards? Who scattered like cockroaches when Jesus was arrested? Yeah right - that’s totally what happened. Those timid untrained fishermen not only overpowered those Roman soldiers, they managed to dispose of the body, outwit the Jewish mob AND the Roman empire, and then live out the rest of their lives for a flat-out lie. In fact all the hundreds of people who saw Him after He was raised were all lying. 1Cor. 15:5-8 He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. There is no record that even one of these witnesses, many tortured and executed as martyrs, ever recanted. Far more likely that these hundreds of people actually did see Jesus alive, risen from the dead (MANY convincing proofs) - and the reality of His resurrection changed them forever. It gave them a hope AND a boldness that never fizzled! The truth of the resurrection is what turned those early believers from timid cowards into bold world-changers. They turned the world upside down! He walks among us!
The miracle, the wonderful impossible of the Christian life, is that we have a Messiah Who has been raised! That is THE game changer of all game changers. No other religious leader, no one else in history has ever come back to life. Jesus is alive, ascended, and He is present. He walks among us! The hope and joy of the Christian is that Jesus is not just an idea or a cute little baby or some dead preacher but that He IS. Emmanuel: God WITH us. And not just in some vague spiritual sense. He is alive! Christ alive - and living with us - is the cornerstone of eternal life, that is, a personal relationship with our Creator that lasts forever. Jeremiah 31:34 “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” IF you are a believer in Christ today, almighty God the Son-Who-made-the-universe-and-everything-in-it is living in your heart! Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
(Lewis) "The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the 'first fruits,' ‘the pioneer of life,' He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the new creation, a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.” EVERYTHING is different because Jesus has been raised!
The resurrection of Christ gives believers hope - real hope. The assurance that we will live forever with God in heaven. 1Thess 4:13-14 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 1Peter 1:20-21 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. There literally is, NO true hope apart from the risen Jesus.
He lives! It’s the assurance that death HAS BEEN defeated. Death has lost its sting. We do not need to let death hold us in the grip of fear. Resurrection assures us that this life is just the warmup for the real thing, a mere vapor. Our real hope is that real life awaits on the other side of the veil. So all the troubles and threats of this life, and even death itself, are truly nothing more than momentary and light affliction. (Read below in Jn 11.25; Moses&Serpents in Num 21.5-9 --> point to Jesus Who was lifted up Jn 3.14; you will have tribulation Jn 16.33; and in it we are fixing eyes on Jesus Heb 12.1)
Nothing in this life is guaranteed. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. But the resurrection of Christ is God’s guarantee of eternal life, a better life, life as God designed it to be. It keeps us going. The tomb is empty! He walks among us!
Matthew 27:62-65 Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.
John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Num. 21:5-9 The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
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