Christ the Lord has risen!  Alleluia!  This truth is known, shouted and rejoiced over, worldwide.  This momentous fact of history, that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, is either celebrated or despised; few are merely ambivalent.  Those who don’t follow Jesus, but say they don’t despise Him, will ultimately come to despise Him.  You cannot serve two masters.  You will love one and hate the other; this is also truth.

Resurrection sets Christianity apart from all other religions.  The others were founded by men who desired worship, but Christianity has the God-man as its founder!

How do we prove this?  It begins at the beginning – with the Bible.  Christians must always start here.  To do otherwise risks misunderstanding Scripture, and what it teaches about Jesus and His blessed resurrection.

Paul the apostle teaches us: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Peter echoes this truth: “No prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation.  For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21).

So these two giant Christians from the past ought to grab our attention and move us to celebrating the veracity of God’s word; standing firm in our confidence in the same.  Why would we ever shy away from the truth in the midst of misguided cultural antagonism?  Let us stand sure of our beliefs, and shout our convictions of the risen Christ.

Jesus Himself said: “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day” (Matthew 17:22b-23a).  While He walked the earth, told His followers that the resurrection would take place.  Though the apostles were distressed by His words, they chose to deny and ignore until the day He was crucified.  They thought as men think, not as God does, and it led them to the wrong conclusion.  They were overcome with grief and fear until the third day, as Jesus had foretold.

Again in Matthew 20:17-19 we read these timeless and truthful words: “And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, See, we are going up to Jerusalem.  And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day” (ESV).

This truth was in the mind of God in eternity past, to send Jesus to be our substitute criminal on the cross and then show the power of God to overcome that which seems impossible to overcome.  Our sin was a curse that was impossible for humankind to overcome.  So Jesus came to earth motivated out of love for His created beings to stand in our place before the Judge and reconcile us to His Father.  Hallelujah, what a Savior!

In First Corinthians 15, Paul states the very foundation of the Christian faith is that Jesus did live, die and rise again as the Old Testament foretold through prophecy.  In the first eleven verses Paul teaches the four foundational pieces of the gospel, Christ died, was buried, raised and seen by His followers.  The rest of the chapter teaches that Jesus did rise from the dead; if He could not, then His death would have been for no reason.

But if we believe what the Scripture teaches as “evangelicals” then we must believe all of Scripture.  We cannot believe certain parts of the Bible, but all of it or none of it.  There are parts of the Bible that are hard to understand and swallow but we must come under God’s rule and not have God come under our rule.  We are made in God’s image; He is not made in our image.

Two major differences in religions and Christianity: first, God came to man, when we had strayed away from God.  Second, Jesus rose from the dead; in any other religion the founder, whoever or whatever it is, either died or never lived.  Jesus Christ came from heaven, became a man, died a cruel death and rose again for eternity.

One remaining fact; Jesus is coming again.  The question for the one reading is “What do you say about Christ?”  It is the most important question you must ask yourself because your answer determines your destiny.

Christ the Lord is risen today!  Alleluia!  Happy Resurrection Day!

2 Responses

  1. Wonderful! Keep up the good work. I will do what I can to help spread the word. Please tell me if I get out of bounds

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