Resurrection – Part I

Both the Old Testament and Jesus predicted His resurrection for the dead. The writers of the New Testament often refer to it. Why is the resurrection so often mentioned? Is it a key teaching of the New Testament? Yes it is. Why?

It establishes the deity of Jesus. In Romans 1, Paul wrote Jesus was, "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Jesus throughout His earthly ministry accepted the worship of others. He claimed He was the Son of God. In Matthew 16 after Peter’s confession of Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16), Jesus "to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day" (Matthew 16:21). His resurrection form the dead powerfully declares the truth of His claim to deity.

The resurrection also provides the child of God with hope. Peter wrote, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). Our hope is not some wishful hope without any real foundation on which to stand. Rather ours is "lively"or "living" (ASV) hope, a confident expectation of the future based on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This hope involves an inheritance reserved in heaven which is not subject to the problems of inheritance in this world, corruption, decay, fading away (1 Pet. 1:4,5).

Why is the resurrection of this hope? Because it assures us we also will one day resurrect from the dead and receive the reward reserved in heaven. Paul wrote the Thessalonians about this in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Paul wrote,

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

We can have this assurance because the resurrection also establishes the forgiveness of sins. In 1 Corinthians 15:16-19 Paul wrote, "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." Paul argues from the negative, but the point is clear: Jesus was raised from the dead, the faithful child of God will be also.

More next week, Lord willing. Denny.