Mission Venture Ministries

He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you, while He was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’  (Luke 24:6-7) 

The death and resurrection of Christ is the core of the Christian message. The placing of Jesus’ body in the tomb after His death on the cross is as equally important as His exit from the tomb (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). It is impossible to separate the death of Christ from His resurrection. 

To believe in one without the other is to believe in a false gospel that cannot save. In order for Jesus to have truly arisen from the dead, He must have truly died. And in order for His death to have a true meaning for us, He must have a true resurrection. We cannot have one without the other. 

The reason why the early church began to meet on the first day of the week was to celebrate Jesus’ defeat of death and His resurrection; Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4). 

We need to realize that without the resurrection, there would have been no church at all since after Jesus’ arrest and death, the disciples were lost, helpless, and afraid. Peter denied Jesus, as the rest ran away. It is hard to imagine of anything other than the resurrection of Jesus that would have led them to share the message of Christ in such a way that it grew into the largest spiritual movement ever known to man. 

Without Christ’s resurrection we would have no salvation from sin and no hope for our own future resurrection. That is why when Paul spoke about the gospel; he always announced the glorious victory of the risen King. It is this gospel that is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). 

When we ask most Christians about justification, they move straight to the cross, and Jesus paying the price for our sins. However, Paul emphasizes that: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). 

What this means is that when Jesus resurrected He was declared to be righteous and the credit of Jesus’ perfection outweighed the debt of our sins. 

Without this wonderful truth, we will not fully grasp the joy of salvation. Jesus was our obedience substitute during His life, our punishment substitute in His death, and our rebirth substitute in His resurrection. 

The resurrection therefore, gives us the joy of knowing that Christ has promised that He will be with us to the end of time (Matthew 28:10), and that He will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Since our risen Savior is in heaven this gives us great confidence, especially since He told us before His resurrection, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms; if that were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be” (John 14:1-3). 

Because the tomb is empty and Jesus is on the throne, we can know for sure that we will be victorious no matter of what is happening in today’s world. The resurrection gives us hope, and because Jesus conquered the grave, we have confidence that one day we too will be lifted up, and so we will be with Jesus for all eternity, “For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died . . .For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 16-17). 

The resurrection unites every Christian with the life-giving force that raised Jesus from the dead. It is through the resurrection that, “the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45). And Paul tells us that, “if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). 

This amazing power is available to transform, equip, and empower us as Paul tells the Ephesian church, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:18-21). 

Because of the resurrection, we can be sure that this same Jesus will return, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). 

We are eagerly awaiting His return so that He will take us home. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). 

The empty tomb is proof of Christ’s deity and guarantees the future resurrection of believers. 

Happy Resurrection Day! 

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