BECAUSE HE LIVES

A dead Saviour is a powerless Saviour. Calling on someone for deliverance who themselves was conquered is a pointless exercise. No. Jesus did not stay in the grave. He arose on the third day having conquered sin and death and is alive forevermore! In this blog, I touch on a few key things that His resurrection achieved.

First, the resurrection of Jesus verifies His victory over sin and death. It proves that the sins of the world have been wholly judged in His body. His perfect offering was accepted by the Father and deemed sufficient to satisfy the demands of justice. Amen! Since death is the penalty and consequence of sin, His resurrection proves that victory had been accomplished over sin and therefore death and the grave as well. “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades,” Jesus declared in Revelation 1:18 (NIV). Sin did not conquer the Sinless One; therefore, whoever calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved (see Romans 10:13). His resurrection means that faith in Him does indeed result in true, eternal, irrevocable forgiveness. Paul affirms this by teaching, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17, NIV).

Second, the resurrection of Jesus demonstrates His divinity and substantiates His sinlessness. It proves that He is indeed the sinless Son of God. He was “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4, NKJV). Jesus could rightly bear the sins of the world and be judged in our place because of His sinless perfection and divine capacity. If He had been an ordinary man, born under sin, His death would have achieved nothing. He would not have been able to save Himself from death and eternal condemnation, let alone anyone else. Hades—the realm of the dead—could not hold Him. It had no right to His sinless, divine self. Speaking about Jesus, Peter declared: “But God raised Him up from the dead, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:24, NASB).

Third, the resurrection of Jesus is the first obvious step in His exultation. In Philippians 2 we read regarding Jesus: “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in Heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:8–11, NKJV). In reality, His exultation began from the moment of His death, His descent into Hades being victorious in nature. However, for His disciples, it was His resurrection that made His triumph unmistakably apparent. Thereafter, His ascension seated Him at the right hand of the Father (Acts 5:31).

Fourth, the resurrection of Jesus establishes the eventual resurrection of our bodies, setting a pattern that believers will follow. The broken body of Jesus was transformed into a glorified body, never to die again. It has—and still has—the same nature as the bodies that we will receive upon our own resurrection. This is the value that God assigns to our bodies. He exchanges mortality for immortality. He transforms physical matter into transcendent make-up. He renovates the natural and produces the supernatural, refusing to give the devil any spoils of war. Our Lord was the first one to rob him of these spoils, and soon he will be left spoil-less. Hallelujah!

This blog is inspired by my book, “Why Christ Died” which is available for purchase as both a physical and e-book on inhisname.shop.