And That He Rose Again

And That He Rose Again

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures….

I Corinthians 15: 3 & 4

The Gospel is incomplete apart from the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Christ was ‘delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification.’ God the Father raised Christ from the dead as evidence that He had accepted His Sacrifice. Paul very clearly understood this, because as he was introducing his exposition of the doctrine of the resurrection in the remaining portion of the chapter from which our text derives, he ties the sacrifice to the resurrection and declares that both of them occurred, ‘according to the Scriptures.’ The resurrection of Christ is inextricably tied to our forgiveness of sins and to the prospect of our resurrection. ‘For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.’ The whole argument which Paul sets forth stands upon the fact that, there is a resurrection from the dead, that Christ has risen from the dead, and that therefore we who are in Christ shall rise from the dead. ‘Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”’ Because Christ is ‘the Resurrection and the life,’ He raises His people from the dead and gives them ‘eternal life, and they shall never perish.’ This is a great joy to us who look forward to that which Christ has in store for us. We live in confidence, not in ourselves, but in Christ, Who guarantees that we cannot die.

Our Glorious, Living Christ,
we rejoice that You have risen from the dead.
We praise You that because You live,
we shall live also.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning