You Need a Resurrection

Every year the world celebrates Easter. For some, it’s simply a springtime day of fun to hunt for eggs, decorate with bunnies, and have a special dinner with family. For Christians, however, it’s a day to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb the third day after His death. It’s a fun day that usually includes special worship music and a sermon and fun for the kids. But do we understand the significance of Jesus’ resurrection? I’m confident that if we look into what it means, we will walk away with a revived appreciation that Jesus didn’t stay in the tomb!

Let’s look at three resurrections that resulted from Jesus’ resurrection:

The Salvation Resurrection

The most critical resurrection is Jesus’ resurrection three days after His death. The payment for our sin was death. We had to die because of the sinful nature we were born with (Romans 6:23). But Jesus became sin for us and paid for our punishment by dying Himself (2 Corinthians 5:21). Then He was buried, showing that our sinful nature had died with Him on the cross. But then God raised Jesus from the dead with a glorified body. This act completed our redemption by making way for us to have a new, born-again spirit that held the nature of God.

If God had not raised Jesus from the dead, we would still be sinners. We would not have a right to be a child of God and would not have an eternal home in heaven. Without Jesus’ resurrection, we would still be bound for hell because God’s requirement for salvation was not complete (1 Corinthians 15:17). But the power of God was strong enough to finish the plan and raise Jesus from the dead (Romans 8:11)! If we confess Jesus as our Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection are applied to our lives (Romans 10:9, 10)!

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his (Romans 6:5, NIV).

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20, NIV).

A Life of Resurrection

Sadly life is full of death. We may experience the death of dreams, relationships, finances, or health. But Jesus’ first resurrection also produced a way for their resurrection. When we face hardship due to living in an imperfect world controlled by an evil devil, the power of God can restore, or bring back to life, what we have lost. God can resurrect the broken marriage and empty bank account. He can restore the shattered dreams. He can bring back to life a sickly body (Romans 8:11). The first Resurrection made these resurrections possible, a redemption that purchased life and life more abundantly (John 10:10)!

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly (John 10:10, NKJV).

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13-14, NKJV)

The Final Resurrection

The power of Jesus’ resurrection didn’t just stop there. If we die before Jesus returns the second time, our dead bodies will be resurrected! They won’t be the same broken bodies we lived in on the earth. They will be glorified bodies, perfect and complete, and not subject to death. These are the bodies that will live forever into eternity with Jesus!

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NIV).

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51-52, NIV).

Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, should be filled with joy! Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we’re no longer slaves to sin and have a home in heaven. We have God’s promise of life as we live on the earth. And because of our second resurrection, we will have new, glorified bodies as we enjoy heaven. In His love and goodness, God gave us multiple reasons to celebrate the Resurrection and the Life!

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die…(John 11:25-26a, NKJV)