When we call ourselves Christians we are, as much as anything else, declaring ourselves believers in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus himself, then, who places tremendous emphasis on the resurrection, both before and after the event. And this is why critics of Christianity have, above all else, tried to tear down the witness of the resurrection. This is why Jesus would over and again tell those he healed or performed miracles for not to publish his name yet but then after the resurrection, he would tell all his disciples: “go therefore and make disciples of all nations” in my name. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).Īs the glorified Jesus himself points out, rather than becoming a victim of our sins, when he rose from the dead he became victor over our sins: “ I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18). Jesus again emphasizes the significance of the resurrection, as Jesus consoles Martha after the death of her brother Lazarus: “ I am the resurrection and the life. The resurrection proves Jesus’ power to defeat sin, death, and Satan and to raise us from the dead. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:17-18). No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. Later in John’s gospel, Jesus even emphasized this was his purpose in coming into the world, and that he was sovereign over the entire event: “ I lay down my life that I may take it up again. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” … he was speaking about the temple of his body. More than three years before his death, Jesus told the Jewish leaders in John 2:19-22: So much so that the Jewish leaders in Matthew 27 referred to this claim in order to motivate Pilate to set guards at Jesus’ tomb. Jesus many times spoke publicly and plainly about his coming death and resurrection. Jesus’ death and resurrection were not a surprise, or plan B, for Jesus. It is therefore helpful to consider what Jesus himself had to say about his own death, burial, and resurrection - and the ongoing implications of that event still today. Indeed, no one was more aware of, or insistent upon, its significance than Jesus himself. And it is, as Paul reminds us here, a pivotal point of the Christian message. Then said He to Thomas, Reach here your finger, and behold My hands and reach here your hand, and thrust it. Jhn 20:2629 And after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the middle, and said, Peace be to you. The resurrection of Jesus is a pivotal point in human history. Jesus’ Words to His Disciples After His Resurrection. I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
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