The whole of
Christianity rests on one fact: “Christ has been raised from the dead.” Indeed,
Paul labors this fact in many of his letters, but nowhere more clearly than in
his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15. There he says, “If Christ has not been raised,
our preaching is useless and so is your faith; you are still in your sins.” But
that’s not all Paul says about the essential reality of Jesus’ resurrection.
In Romans 1, Paul notes that Christ’s divinity finds its
surest proof in His resurrection since He was “through the Spirit of holiness
declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead.”
Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to doubt His Deity if He had not risen.
In Romans 14 Paul notes that Christ’s sovereignty depends
upon His resurrection. “For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life
so that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”
In Romans 4 Paul argues that Christ’s resurrection assures
us of our justification; the choicest blessing of the covenant of grace. Listen
to what Paul says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised
to life for our justification.”
In I Peter another apostle gets into the act of pointing out
the blessings of every believer when he links our regeneration to the
resurrection of Jesus. Listen to what Peter says, “Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us
to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead.”
Finally, Paul maintains in Romans 8 that our
ultimate resurrection rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Listen to how
he puts it, “And if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead will also
give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.”
Thus, the golden thread of the resurrection runs through ever grace
bestowed on every believer, from regeneration to our eternal glory, and binds
us together with one another in Christ.
It’s hard to over-estimate the importance of the resurrection.
Listen to Paul again, “His incomparably great power for us who believe. That
power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead.”
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is our subject this Easter
Sunday. We will begin with its veracity and then move to consider Jesus’
clearest teaching on it in John 14:1-7.
In preparation for Sunday’s message you may wish to consider
the following:
- Who is Jesus talking to in John 14 and why are they scared?
- This is one of only two places in the Gospels where Jesus speaks in imperative tense. What does that mean?
- Where else does He use the imperative tense?
- On what grounds is Jesus angry with His disciples?
- What are His arguments for them to trust Him?
- In verses 2 and 3 Jesus uses the word “place”. What does he mean by “place”?
- How does His statement in verse 3 correspond to His statement to Mary in John 20:17?
- How does the resurrection give unassailable credibility to His words in verse 6?
- What’s the implication of His statement in verse 7?
- How credible is the resurrection of Jesus Christ in our modern, rational, and scientific age?
