What Difference Does Easter Make? - Pt. 4

 

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4 ESV).

 

The second result we experience of being joined with Christ in the resurrection is that we receive a new identity. You may remember that I recently had eye surgery to remove the cataracts that had developed over the years. With the new lenses implanted I now have 20/20 vision and do not require any prescriptive correction. I no longer wear glasses! That hasn’t been the case since I was ten years old! So far, the reaction to the “new look” has been universally unsettling for most people. In fact, Mary is not sure she can get used to me without glasses! She suggested I get the optometrist to just give me glasses with no correction so I won’t look different (LOL!). I will admit I am still getting used to not wearing them. Sometimes I’ll catch myself reaching up toward my eyes in an unconscious effort to adjust glasses that aren’t there any longer. I have a new identity of sorts.

 

Well, we have a new, unshakable, glorious identity in Christ. The world looks at us after our conversion to Christ, and outwardly there’s nothing very spectacular. We’re not really physically different. Our true life is hidden. You are a son of God. Let that sink in… we are a son of God. Yet, that heritage is hidden. Listen again to the Apostle Paul: “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ [the risen Christ] in God” (vv. 3-4). That’s where you are; that’s who you are. “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also [the real you] will appear.” That is, you will be finally manifested to the world. You will be glorious just as He is glorious! To the church in Corinth, Paul says: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).

 

So, in union with the risen Christ, you are not a mere mortal. Your true identity as a child of God is hidden with Christ in God now… but then it will be manifest in spectacular glory at his coming!

 

What Difference Does Easter Make? - Pt. 3

 

Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. (John 11:17-26 ESV).

 

There are at least five specific results of our being joined with the Risen Christ. I am going to just write about one of these in each of the next five days. These are very personal to each of us as we face life and its challenges. However, the certainty of our own future resurrection results in the same experience. First, we share in Christ’s indestructible life. Believe me when I write that I am well aware of how unbelievable that statement seems. As I have aged, I have discovered how fragile my body is becoming with each passing day.

 

However, we cannot deny the new security and confidence of hope in our lives that comes with the truth of our reading today. Christians are, in a profound sense, immortal. We will never see the full destructive power of death. Listen to Jesus again as he speaks to the grief-stricken sister of Lazarus: “I am the resurrection and the life… everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26). There is is… we shall never die!

 

The effect of this certainty in the future is to make our present experience in this world joyful. It is a joyful freedom from fear and a full security, confidence, and hope. Here’s what the Apostle Peter said: “[God] caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).  All of us know there’s a world of difference between living right now in despair, uncertainty, insecurity, and fear or, on the other hand, living right now in security, in confidence, hope, joy, and freedom from fear because we share an indestructible life. This is the result of sharing the fullness of the resurrection life of Jesus. That’s the first effect of Christ’s resurrection on our present experience. There are four more!

 

What Difference Does Easter Make? - Pt. 2

 

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:1-5 ESV).

 

Those of you who have known me for any length of time also know my “go-to” portion of the Bible for theology is the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Roman believers. Our reading today comes from that book. It starts by teaching us that what happened to us in our conversion to Christ, in our new birth, is that by faith we were spiritually united to Jesus Christ. God established a bond, a union — a living, unbreakable attachment — to Jesus Christ, and the point of this union, this bond, was that Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection would count as our death and our resurrection.

 

And the key verse of our reading today is “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (v. 5). I can imagine there would be listeners who say, “Whoa, okay, you say we’re united; I don’t know where to look in my experience for that.” If you ask, “How do I personally experience a union with Christ in his death, in his resurrection?” the biblical answer is: by faith in Christ. When the Holy Spirit brings about your embrace of Christ — your believing in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and Treasure of your life — that is his way of establishing the union between you and the risen Christ.

 

The Apostle Paul explains this even more in his letter to the Galatians when he writes, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). So, there’s the union. I have been united with Christ in his dying. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ [the risen Christ] who lives in me.” And now, here comes the conscious experience of that as Paul describes it: “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.” So, by faith, power of God is transferred into our lives through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That secures our future resurrection. “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” (Romans 8:11). So, if Christ is in you now, if the risen Christ is dwelling in you now, you will be raised from the dead. There is the great truth that enables us to face every experience in life with the attitude of an overcomer. Even death has no hold over us any longer. Jesus conquered death and so shall we!

 

The answer to the often asked question, “What’s the worst that can happen?” is not “They can kill you.” Go ahead… kill me… you will only open the door for me to enter into heaven! That’s the difference the resurrection makes!

 

What Difference Does Easter Make? - Pt. 1

 

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21 ESV).

 

I hope you were encouraged with the past few devotionals dealing with the proof of the resurrection; however, I wonder if you may have come away with a sense of “so what?” Recently I received a message from a reader asking that question. They wrote: “I believe in Jesus whether He was really resurrected or not. Does it really matter?” So, for the next few days I want to explore some differences that the resurrection means for every believer.

 

We can say so many things about the effect of Christ’s resurrection on our present life as Christians. No one has truly exhausted the possibilities of what God may be willing to do in us and through us because of the power of the resurrection of Christ in us. This is what the Apostle Paul referenced in our reading today. Read it again: “[God] is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (v. 20). There’s the connection between this verse and what he said earlier in the letter (cf. Ephesians 1:19): the power that makes it possible for us to do far more abundantly than we even dream we could is the very power of God that he worked when he raised Christ from the dead. This is the power for the abundant life Jesus came to give us (cf. John 10:10).

 

Every other religious sect depends largely on the individual’s effort and leaves them powerless in the face of life’s greatest fear, which is death. Jesus’ work on the cross and his resurrection changes all of that. We have a God who does for us more than we could even dream of, including the elimination of death’s grip on our life. And that’s just the beginning. The resurrection matters enormously! Embrace it! Celebrate it!

 

Prove It! - Pt. 5

 

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. (Acts 1:1-5 ESV).

 

Sometimes we have failed to understand one of the greatest affirmations of the resurrection of Jesus is simply the existence of the Christian church. However, it is one of the strongest proofs for the resurrection. Even the most skeptical NT scholars admit that the disciples at least believed that Jesus was raised from the grave. I like the way William Lane Craig gives us three possible causes: Christian influences, pagan influences, or Jewish influences. We should spend a bit of time looking at the plausibility of each of these.

 

First, shouldn’t we ask if it could have been later Christian influences? Craig writes, "Since the belief in the resurrection was itself the foundation for Christianity, it cannot be explained as the later product of Christianity." Further, as we saw, if the disciples made it up, then they were frauds and liars--alternatives we have shown to be false. We have also shown the unlikeliness that they hallucinated this belief.

 

Second, what about pagan influences? After all, it is true that there were many myths of dying and rising savior-gods at the time of Christianity. Some have suggested that the disciples were simply deluded by those myths and copied them into their own teaching on the resurrection of Christ. However, serious scholars have almost universally rejected this theory since WWII, for several reasons. It has been shown that these mystery religions had no major influence in Palestine in the first century. Also, most of the sources which contain parallels originated after Christianity was established. And most of the similarities are often apparent and not real. They were a result of sloppy terminology on the part of those who explain them. For example, one critic tried to argue that a ceremony of killing a bull and letting the blood drip all over the participants was parallel to holy communion. Last, the early disciples were Jews, and it would have been unthinkable for a Jew to borrow from another religion. For they were zealous in their belief that the pagan religions were abhorrent to God.

 

Jewish influences cannot explain the belief in the resurrection, either. First century Judaism had no conception of a single individual rising from the dead in the middle of history. Their concept was always that everybody would be raised together at the end of time. So, the idea of one individual rising in the middle of history was foreign to them. Thus, Judaism of that day could have never produced the resurrection hypothesis. This is also another good argument against the theory that the disciples were hallucinating. Psychologists will tell you that hallucinations cannot contain anything new; that is, they cannot contain any idea that isn't already somehow in your mind. Since the early disciples were Jews, they had no conception of the messiah rising from the dead in the middle of history. Thus, they would have never hallucinated about a resurrection of Christ. At best, they would have hallucinated that he had been transported directly to heaven, as Elijah had been in the OT, but they would have never hallucinated a resurrection.

 

These things ultimately point us to the beginning of the Church with the First Pentecost with the Jews and continuing with the Second Pentecost with the Gentiles. From that beginning the Church began to grow expanding through the years to the entire globe. This could not have been sustained for this length of time and with this magnitude of belief. Jesus is indeed risen!

 

Prove It! - Pt. 4

 

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them. (Luke 24:36-42 ESV).

 

Perhaps the most compelling of the evidences is that Jesus' disciples had real experiences with one whom they believed was the risen Christ. This is not commonly disputed today because we have the testimony of the original disciples themselves that they saw Jesus alive again. And you don't need to believe in the reliability of the gospels to believe this. In, Paul records an ancient creed concerning Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection appearances that is much earlier than the letter in which Paul is recording it:

 

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

 

It is generally agreed by critical scholars that Paul received this creed from Peter and James between 3-5 years after the crucifixion. Now, Peter and James are listed in this creed as having seen the risen Christ. Since they are the ones who gave this creed to Paul, this is therefore a statement of their own testimony. As the Jewish Scholar Pinchahs Lapide has said, this creed "may be considered the statement of eyewitnesses."

 

Now, I recognize that just because the disciples think they saw Jesus doesn't automatically mean that they really did. There are three possible alternatives: they were lying; they hallucinated; or, they really saw the risen Christ.

 

If the disciples knew that Jesus had not really risen, but they made up this story about the resurrection, then why did 10 of the disciples willingly die as martyrs for their belief in the resurrection? People will often die for a lie that they believe is the truth. But if Jesus did not rise, the disciples knew it. Thus, they wouldn't have just been dying for a lie that they mistakenly believed was true. They would have been dying for a lie that they knew was a lie. Ten people would not all give their lives for something they know to be a lie. Because of the absurdity of the theory that the disciples were lying, we can see why almost all scholars today admit that, if nothing else, the disciples at least believed that Jesus appeared to them. But we know that just believing something to be true doesn't make it true.

 

That brings us to the second of the theories: the disciples were wrong and had been deceived by a hallucination. The hallucination theory is untenable because it cannot explain the physical nature of the appearances. The disciples record eating and drinking with Jesus, as well as touching him. This cannot be done with hallucinations. Second, it is highly unlikely that they would all have had the same hallucination. Hallucinations are highly individual and not group projections. Further, the hallucination theory cannot explain the conversion of Paul, three years later. And perhaps most significantly, the hallucination theory cannot even deal with the evidence for the empty tomb.

 

Since the disciples could not have been lying or hallucinating, we have only one possible explanation left: the disciples believed that they had seen the risen Jesus because they really had seen the risen Jesus. So, the resurrection appearances alone demonstrate the resurrection. Thus, if we reject the resurrection, we are left with a second inexplicable mystery--first the empty tomb and now the appearances. The answer… Hallelujah… He is risen!

 

Prove It! - Pt. 3

 

For 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 in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8 ESV).

 

One last bit of information that will be encouraging in your unwavering faith, sometimes in the face of those who would merely scoff at the idea of Jesus’ resurrection. The truth is that because of such weighty evidence for the empty tomb, most recent scholars do not deny it. D.H. Van Daalen has said, "It is extremely difficult to object to the empty tomb on historical grounds; those who deny it do so on the basis of theological or philosophical assumptions."

 

Of course, there are still those who simply refuse to accept Jesus’ resurrection any more than they would the Easter Bunny. I'm sure you've heard of the various theories used to explain away the empty tomb, such as that the body was stolen. But those theories are ridiculed today by all serious scholars. In fact, they have been considered dead and refuted for almost a hundred years.

 

No one of any reliability can believe the Jews or Romans had a motive to steal the body of Jesus. They wanted to suppress Christianity, not encourage it by providing it with an empty tomb. The disciples would have had no motive, either. Because of their preaching on the resurrection, they were beaten, killed, and persecuted. Why would they go through all of this for a deliberate lie? No serious scholars hold to any of these theories today. All the critics are as Criag suggests: "…they are self-confessedly without any explanation to offer. There is simply no plausible natural explanation today to account for Jesus' tomb being empty. If we deny the resurrection of Jesus, we are left with an inexplicable mystery."

 

The resurrection of Jesus is not just the best explanation for the empty tomb, it is the only explanation!