And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. (I Corinthians 15:17 KJV)
There is no Christianity in any Biblical sense apart from the literal, bodily Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. It is upon the Resurrection that Christianity stands or falls. The fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not merely a “theological” issue, but is rather an historical issue. Because someone may not fully understand HOW an event took place does not necessarily demand that the event did not take place. Once “natural” explanations are put to rest, the only other explanation (no matter how improbable it might seem to some) is a supernatural one. Whether or not Jesus did indeed rise from the dead on that first Resurrection Day is the single most important question any human being will ever confront. The answer that one embraces to that question will set the trajectory for one’s life from that point forward. How sad that most people who dismiss the Resurrection of Jesus as myth or legend have never spent at least four hours examining the entire corpus of available evidence surrounding the event. Truly “objective” historians (to such a degree as objectivity is possible in human beings) examine the facts and allow all of the available data taken together in context to inform and shape their hypotheses. They do not try to force “cherry picked” pieces of data to fit their preconceived conclusions.
Once we have settled the issue of the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we then move on to the significance of that Resurrection. What does the Resurrection of Jesus mean to us? These points are taken in no specific order of importance. They are all significant!
FIRST, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that everything Jesus said about Himself was TRUE! When challenged by the religious leaders of His day to produce an authenticating “sign” to validate His Authority, Jesus offered only the Resurrection (John 2:18-19). Jesus staked His entire Ministry on the fact that He would rise from the dead after being killed. Because He predicted His Resurrection and then made good on His prediction, we can trust completely that everything else He claimed for Himself was true as well. The Apostle Paul also staked the validity of all of Christianity on the Resurrection of Jesus, affirming that the Resurrection vindicated Jesus’s claims about Himself (Romans 1:4).
SECOND, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that the Cross has been vindicated! Jesus was certainly not the only Jewish man to be crucified by the Romans. Not only were there two others crucified with Him, the roads of first century Palestine were more than once lined with the crosses of those who had been identified with various anti-Roman political factions. In addition, Jesus was not the only “messiah” to have been crucified. It was said by one teacher that one could not walk through Palestine in the first century and spit without hitting a “messiah.” Messianic expectation was at a fever pitch due to Daniel’s prophecy (Daniel 9:25). Many of these pseudo-messiahs were captured and executed by the Roman authorities. Yet the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is unique among all historical crucifixions in that Jesus both predicted He would rise again, and then He did! We can be confident that the price for the sin of all humanity was paid at the Cross because Jesus rose from the dead (Isaiah 53:6). We can be confident that the claims of Divine Justice against fallen man have been met and the Wrath of a Holy God against sin and rebellion has been satisfied.
THIRD, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that the New Birth is now a reality and is available to “whosoever will” (Revelation 22:17). According to Peter, we were “begotten again…by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:3). Paul tells us that those of us who are “in Christ,” and thus identified with Him, were crucified with Christ, died with Christ, were buried with Him, quickened together with Him, raised with Him, and are now seated with Him in Heavenly Places! This entering in to union with Christ and identification with Him through the New Birth is made possible by the Cross and Resurrection.
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:18 KJV)
Jesus is the firstborn from death to life through the Resurrection. Since He is the firstborn, then there must be subsequent others also born from death to life. That number includes you and me if we are “in Christ.” This birth from death to life is possible only through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ!
FOURTH, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that those that are “in Christ” have been made righteous. Our standing before Almighty God has nothing to do with anything we might have done, and everything to do with what has been done for us through Jesus’s death, burial, and Resurrection!
Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:25 KJV)
The Greek word translated “justification” [δικαίωσιν], is the same Greek word that is in other places translated “made righteous” or “righteousness.”
…and was raised to life that we might be pronounced righteous. (TCNT)
…and was raised up because of our being declared righteous. (YLT)
…and raised to life that we might enter into a right relationship with God. (BAR)
…and he was raised from the dead to make us right with God. (NLT)
The Apostle Paul also affirms to us that Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, was made to be sin for us in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (I Corinthians 5:21). To the same degree that Jesus Christ was made sin for us, those who are Born Again have been made the righteousness of God “in Christ!”
FIFTH, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that the Holy Spirit has been given. While certainly the Holy Spirit of God has been active in the earth since its very creation, the Holy Spirit was not poured out in His fullness upon the people of God until the Resurrection made it possible. In the Old Testament, certain ones were anointed by the Spirit. Today, believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and have His anointing and power available to them through the Baptism in the Holy Ghost!
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
John 7:38-39 (KJV)
The Holy Spirit could not be “given” in His New Testament fullness until AFTER Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and glorified! But since we live on this side of the Cross and Resurrection, and Jesus has already been raised and glorified, the precious empowering Baptism in the Holy Ghost is available to every single believer in Jesus Christ.
32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
Acts 2:32-33 (KJV)
The outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost was directly connected by Peter to the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Because Jesus rose, was exalted, and was glorified, the promise of the Baptism in the Holy Ghost, with the initial physical manifestation of speaking with other tongues, is a present tense reality and available to every believer who will simply ask in faith and receive. It’s all because of the Resurrection!
SIXTH, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that satan is eternally defeated! Through His death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ spoiled demonic principalities and powers and made an open demonstration of their utter and complete defeat (Colossians 2:15). Jesus destroyed and defeated the enemy of our souls, in order to deliver us from the “fear of death” which is the root of all fear (Hebrews 2:14-15). Not only are the devil and his demonic hordes eternally defeated, we as believers are identified with Jesus Christ in His eternal Triumph! Jesus’s Victory has become OUR Victory! When we enter the arena of what many call “spiritual warfare,” we enter with confidence, knowing that Jesus has already triumphed, and we are simply standing in His delegated Authority to enforce the Victory in the earth that He has already won!
SEVENTH, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ means that we are guaranteed a future resurrection!
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
I Corinthians 15:20-23 (KJV)
The Apostle Paul assures believers that the time is coming when these “vile” bodies of ours will be “fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Philippians 3:21), and this this “mortal” shall put on “immortality” (I Corinthians 15:54). John informs us that when Jesus returns and we are glorified that “we shall be like Him” (I John 3:2). And all of these promises of our future resurrection are guaranteed by the fact of Jesus’s Resurrection!
I do not claim necessarily that my list is exhaustive. You may yet see other Biblical reasons as well why the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so vitally significant to us. But perhaps these will get you started and seed your heart for future study and illumination. May God’s Richest and Best be vitally yours as you discover in your own experience the Significance of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ! Be Blessed!
