The Resurrection of Christ and it's Meaning to us Today
Introduction
This is a dying world. Recently in a week-long revival meeting in Macon, Georgia, I visited with the pastor in two homes where death had taken away a loved one. We visited another home where a man was in the last stages of cancer and already taking dope as life was slowly ebbing away! A call came into the church office asking prayer for a young girl with dreaded leukemia. We are being constantly reminded that we are a dying people. Job reminds us that, "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward," (Job 5:7). But, there Is HOPE!
The Christian message offers to us dying men the joyful anticipation of a glorious future. It is a message from God, recorded in His infallible Word, the Bible, and it has to do with one great Personality, God's Son and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. "Christ Jesus, Our HOPE", Paul writes to hopeless men, and we look in vain for the victory over death and the grave from any other source, whether the gods of the heathen world or from weak, sinning and suffering men.
When I was pastor of a church, I visited two homes where death had come to take away a loved one. In the first home they were not Christians and the place was full of darkness, misery and despair. In the second home I found, while there was the sense of loss and sorrow, a peace and victory and even rejoicing their loved one was with Christ in heaven and the confidence they would meet him again one glorious reunion day!
I was struck with the contrast in the attitude of the people in the two homes. What made the difference? Not what, but WHO is the answer? It was Christ. Absent in the hearts of those who had time for everything and everyone but HIM, but gloriously present in the lives of those who took the time to investigate His claims and find Him to be Lord and Savior of their lives and Sovereign Destroyer.
In the final great crisis of our lives, CHRIST is our only hope! As we think of Christ, we think of Him in ETERNITY past, creating all things, becoming a man, dying on the Cross for our sins, His Resurrection from the dead, His living to make intercession for us and His glorious coming again to restore all things and establish God's Kingdom. All these great truths are precious to the believing soul.
At this Easter season, we want to think about HIS RESURRECTION and what it means to every one of us sinners who believe in Him, and made Him Savior and Master of our lives. For if Christ did not rise from the dead Paul says so plainly and unmistakably - I Corinthians 15:13-19, "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: Whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."
What a dark but accurate picture of the hopeless plight of every human being without Christ. But Paul goes on to triumphantly sing out the faith of every born again believer (1 Corinthians 15:20), "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept."
But, I repeat, just what does this resurrection of Christ mean to me? What does it say to me: what is the message of the Resurrection of Christ?
Five Wonderful Things
I. Jesus is Truly the Eternal Son of God
First, it tells me that HE IS TRULY THE ETERNAL SON OF GOD! Dead men do not raise themselves. Their graves are never opened from within. Silence reigns in the cemeteries and the very word means, "sleeping place" because there is no activity there. Out of all the time man has existed on this earth only two men have escaped death - Enoch and Elijah. Every other human being has lived and died and not one has been able by his own power to raise himself from the dead. But Jesus did!
In John 2:19, He said to the people of His day, "Destroy this temple, and in THREE days I will raise it up," and in verse 21 we read, "He spake of the TEMPLE OF HIS BODY." JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY MAN WHO EVER RAISED HIMSELF FROM THE DEAD! This takes power - supernatural power. The very power of God.
Man has discovered and invented all kinds of power. He is able to drive automobiles through the streets, ships across the oceans, planes through the skies and around the world, but NOT ONE has ever raised himself from the dead but Jesus Christ. He became man, indeed, but let us never forget He IS God, always has been, and always will be, and He proved Himself to be truly the Son of God when He raised Himself from the dead.
II. The Bible is Truly the Word of God
Secondly, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ PROVED THAT THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD and is trustworthy!
Jesus Christ foretold His death and Resurrection. When He rose from the dead and suddenly appeared to two of His disciples on the Emmaus Road who were saddened and hopeless and convinced that they would never see Him again, He gave them a gentle rebuke because they had not believed His Word that He would rise from the dead. They were "foolish" because they were plunged into sadness they should have never experienced and would not have if they had believed this Word in Luke 24:25-27, which says, "Then He said unto them, 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself."
Jesus said, "I told you so, but you wouldn't believe, so you foolishly suffered as though you had lost me forever!" I wonder what He is saying to His professing people today who do not study, believe and live His infallible Word?
In Luke 22:44 Christ bears witness that all the Bible in all its divisions of revelation, the law, the prophets, and the Psalms foretold His Resurrection. Christ's Resurrection proved that the Bible is the infallible Word of God.
III. Believer's Sins are Truly Forgotten and Forgiven
Thirdly, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ proves the Believer's sins of his entire life are forgiven and forgotten FOREVER.
God sent Christ on a mission - A mission of amazing love! He sent Him to die as a sacrifice for the sin (nature) and sins (activity) of every human being. God laid on Him, in those six hours, all the iniquity of us all. "He tasted death for every man." God so loved the world, "He gave His only Son", so that any human being, red, yellow, black, white, who will trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Master and Lord, "should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
God sent Him to die for all sins - He did it! The work was finished. He put away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself, and the very fact that God welcomed Him back into Heaven proves our sins are blotted our forever. The sacrifice was accepted. This is very logical. If Jesus "bore our sins in His Own body on the tree," then when God welcomed Him back to Heaven, our sins were no longer on Him because SINS cannot enter Heaven. What happened to them? They were destroyed forever, "put away from before God's Holy eyes." Even He cannot see a single evil thought, word, or deed on the soul who trusts in Jesus' sacrifice and atoning blood!
"We are accepted in the Beloved," No believer in Jesus can ever be judged for sins, John 5:24. So it is impossible for sins to be brought up at the Judgment Seat of Christ by the Christ Who "put them away." They were not "put away" if I will ever have to face them again.
But praise God THEY WERE put away - forever, gone destroyed, never to be mentioned or even in God's thoughts. "Your sins and iniquities will I remember no more." If He has forgotten them, so can I! Christ's Resurrection from the dead guarantees the forgiveness of every believer.
IV. Our Personal Resurrection is Truly Guaranteed
Fourthly, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees the resurrection of our bodies. Paul, divinely inspired, tells us that Christ is personally coming from Heaven into space (the air) and at His shout of victory and command, THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE FIRST (1 Thessalonians 4:16) leaving the non-Christians dead in the graves. "This is the first resurrection," John tells us, "and they are truly 'Blessed and Holy' who have a part in it." Revelation 20:5-6. "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."
That moment we will be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51-54); He will give us a body like the "Body of His Glory," (Phil, 3:20-21) and make us like HIMSELF, (I John 3:2). We shall bear His very IMAGE (Romans 8:29). What a change! From a sinner to be like Jesus! Unbelievable if God did not say this in the Bible. But He does! Christ's Resurrection guarantees the Resurrection of every believer.
V. Believers will Truly Share His Glory
Fifthly, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is God's promise WE SHALL SHARE HIS GLORY IN HEAVEN FOREVER. In Romans 8:17, "That WE may be also GLORIFIED TOGETHER," the believer and Christ "together" forever! What a destiny! The Greek word "glorified" means to honor, magnify, praise, and be clothed in splendor, majesty, and radiance. "We shall also reign as kings forever and ever," Revelation 22:5.
Christ, through His death, has brought us life, DIVINE LIFE, the very life God enjoys in Heaven, and we have been born into a family of God and are Heirs of God. Heirs together with Jesus as we inherit all God's possessions and share all He has and is FOREVER! And all this because of God's CHOICE! (Romans 8:29-30). Whom He justified---them also Glorified!
So, dear friend, trust Jesus Christ and the Word of the Living God and pick up the Bible and seek daily to live to please Christ and soon we shall see His Face and Glory Forever! His RESURRECTION guarantees all the wonderful things to everyone who believes in JESUS