Why Is It Important That Jesus Rose from the Dead?
While many claim to be Christian, not everyone understands the importance of Christ’s resurrection. As we will see, the resurrection of Jesus is not an insignificant footnote to the gospel, it is a vital piece of the good news of salvation.
An excellent case for His
resurrection has presented by Gary Habermas precisely, as well as in Edwin
Yamauchi’s formidable defense of the historically unique nature of Christ’s
resurrection in contrast to the “dying and rising gods” tradition. In this
chapter, we will review ten reasons that Christ’s resurrection from the grave
is so important, and consider why this is the greatest event in human history.
Man’s Greatest
Enemy—Death—Must Be Defeated
If mankind is to have any
hope, his greatest enemy—death—must be defeated. Blaise Pascal, the
seventeenth-century philosopher and mathematician, painted a vivid picture of
the human dilemma when he wrote:
Imagine a number of men in
chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the
sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their
fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn.
This is an image of the human condition.[1]
Pascal understood that death was mankind’s greatest enemy. If it could not be defeated, then there is no hope for any of us. As a response to this malady, some have resorted to wallowing in despair or diverting attention to self-amusement. But, the wise man, said Pascal, will wager his life on God and seek deliverance from this enemy!
Only in Christianity does God
become a man, die for our sins, and rise bodily from the grave to conquer death
for all of us. If Jesus of Nazareth did not physically rise from the grave,
then human history is one cruel joke.
Everyone is born into this
world and then they die—death apparently wins in the end. However, if through
the resurrection Jesus has conquered the grave, then death has been defeated,
giving mankind a unique living hope for life beyond the grave.
Jesus Rose to Validate
His Claims: He Is God, Savior, and Messiah
Christ’s resurrection is
confirmation His bold claims are true. As this work has shown, Jesus revealed
Himself to be God incarnate—the Son who became a man (John 5:17-18; 8:23-24;
58-59; 10:30-33; 17:5). In addition, He also presented Himself as the Savior of
mankind (Matthew 11:28; Mark 10:45; Luke 19:10; John 3:16-18; 11:25-26; 14:6)
and the Jewish Messiah, the one anointed by God the Father to rescue Israel
from her enemies (Matthew 16:15-17; Mark 14:61-64; John 4:25-26). To seek
confirmation of these claims is only natural, for the bodily resurrection
provided the crucial
evidence needed to validate
His message (Matthew 12:38-40; John 2:18-22; Acts 2:22; Romans 1:4; Hebrews
2:3-4). After all, if Jesus had not risen from the dead, why should anyone
believe His promise of eternal life?
Jesus Rose to Fulfill
Old Testament Messianic Prophecies
The apostle Paul explained to
his readers that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day in accordance with
the Old Testament Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:4). Jesus said, “Everything
written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be
fulfilled…Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day
rise from the
dead” (Luke 24:44-46).
Therefore, He had to rise from the dead on the third day if He truly was the
Jewish Messiah who came to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies.
Of note are the several
allusions to Christ’s resurrection in the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah
spoke about the Messiah (the suffering servant) who would die for the sins of
His people. Yet Isaiah predicted that, after the Messiah’s death, God would
“prolong his days” (Isaiah 53:10).
This clearly means that the
Messiah must come back to life after His substitutionary death for the sins of
His people.
What is more, King David said
that God would not allow His Holy One’s body to see decay or corruption (Psalm
16:10). This strongly implies that if the Messiah dies, He must rise before His
body begins to show outward signs of decay (which usually begins on the fourth
day—John 11:38-39). Many Bible scholars believe Hosea 6:2 is a clue that the
Messiah would rise from the dead on the third day. Moreover, Jesus interpreted Jonah’s
being swallowed by a fish and remaining there for three days and three nights
as a foreshadowing of His own bodily resurrection (Jonah 1:17; Matthew
12:38-40).
It was important for Jesus to
rise from the dead to fulfill Old Testament prophecies concerning the
resurrection of the Messiah. That is to say, if Jesus had not risen from the
dead, then He would not have been the Jewish Messiah.
Jesus Rose to Show Us
That the Father Accepted His Sacrifice for Our Sins
The Messiah’s resurrection
shows that God the Father accepted Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross as a worthy
offering for the sins of mankind. Had God allowed Jesus’s corpse to decay in
the tomb, we would have had no way of knowing, in an empirically verifiable
manner, that Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins was accepted by the Father. Paul
said that because Jesus was “obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross,” God “highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above
every name” (Philippians 2:8-9). It is inconceivable that the Father would have
accepted Jesus’s sacrifice as atonement for man’s sins, and exalted Him,
without having raised Him from the dead. Christ’s resurrection is a clear sign
that God the Father not only raised Him from the dead, but that His sacrifice
was approved by the one who sent Him (Acts 17:30-31).
Jesus’s Resurrection
Confirms Christian Truth
Jesus’s bodily resurrection
from the grave is the crowning proof that Christianity is true. According to
the apostle Paul, if Jesus had not risen, then Christianity is an empty belief
system; we are still dead in our sins, our preaching of the gospel is a waste
of time (1 Corinthians 15:14,17), and we are without hope (verse 32).
Christians have long recognized that the faith stands or falls on the
historical reality of the crucified Christ emerging alive from the tomb. This
well-attested event is the keystone in the arch of Christianity. If it is
removed, all else crumbles.
Jesus’s Resurrection
Guarantees Our Future Resurrection
The risen Christ is the only
guarantee believers have that they will be raised immortal. Paul explained that
Jesus is the “firstfruits” from the dead, the guarantee that all true believers
will be raised immortal in their own body (1 Corinthians 15:20, 35-58;
Philippians 3:21). The apostle also considered Jesus’s resurrection, and the
future resurrection of all believers, as a “package deal” (1 Corinthians
15:12-17). That is to say, if Christ is not risen, then the church will not be
raised. Likewise, if the church will not be raised, then Christ was not raised.
However, Christ did in fact emerge from the tomb alive, making eternal life
possible (physically and spiritually) for all people (1 Corinthians 15:20).
Christ’s resurrection is
God’s pledge that He will someday raise us believers from the dead—giving us
total victory over the grave (Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 15:55; Philippians
3:20-21).
Jesus’s Resurrection
Gives Meaning to Our Work
Because of Christ’s resurrection, we can have confidence that the work we do in God’s kingdom is not in vain or a waste of our time (1 Corinthians 15:58). When no one is watching, or when our Christian duties become difficult, we might wonder whether our acts of Christian service really mean anything. However, because Jesus rose, our work carries meaning and great significance. God will reward us in the afterlife for our faithful service for His kingdom and His glory.
Jesus’s Resurrection
Gives Us Peace and Hope
Jesus conquered death!
Knowing this fact calms our fears and gives us a future hope and comfort. That is
to say, the historically verifiable resurrection should give us confidence of life after death—it should overcome our fear of
death. This realization kept Peter and Paul in confident peace, without fear,
when facing death (Philippians 1:19-26; 2 Timothy 4:6- 8; 2 Peter 1:12-15), as
it did Stephen the martyr (Acts 8:54-60).
Jesus’s resurrection should
also give us a sense of comforting optimism in the midst of our sufferings.[2] Paul was not ashamed of
suffering for what he believed, because he knew the risen Christ was able to
guard him until he entered the Lord’s presence (2 Timothy 1:11-12). It is
always painful when a loved one dies, but there is great comfort in knowing the
story is not over. Paul stated, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers,
about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus,
God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians
4:13-14). In the midst of our fears, pain, and suffering, we can trust in the
Lord Jesus, the one who died for our sins and rose to conquer the grave.
Jesus’s Resurrection
Shows Us the Power of God at Work in Us
The same power that God the
Father displayed when He raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us (Ephesians
1:19-20). Often, believers feel powerless to make a difference when it comes to
serving the Lord and impacting our world for God’s glory. Understanding the
resurrection reminds us that God’s power can be unleashed in our lives as we
humbly serve our King. This powerful fact changes our focus from dwelling on
our finite limitations and bleak circumstances to marveling over how big our
God is. We must remember that our God is all-powerful— He is the God who raises
the dead, He is the God who raised Jesus, He is the God of the possible that
works in us to do great things for His kingdom and His glory. This is the
resurrected life in Christ!
Jesus’s Resurrection Is
Essential to Salvation and a Test for Sound Doctrine
Finally, the resurrection is
important because it is an essential belief for Christians. Paul wrote that in
order to be saved, we must acknowledge with our mouths that Jesus is Lord
(i.e., Yahweh) and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead (Romans
10:9). Alternatively, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, He could not be our
Savior, thus leaving us without hope or confidence in eternal life (1
Corinthians 15:14,17).
Furthermore, by including the
bodily resurrection of Christ as an essential aspect of the gospel, it provides
us the theological criteria for discovering who is saved and for discerning
truth from error (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). Universally speaking, only Christianity holds that God sent His Son in the flesh (John 1:14), to die on the cross for our sins in the flesh, rise from the dead in the flesh, ascend to heaven in the flesh, and currently reside at the right hand of the Father in the flesh! To sum up the matter, the believer’s identity is so joined to
Christ’s resurrection that when the church ceases to preach and believe the resurrection,
the church ceases to be the church (Acts 2:42; Romans 4:25).
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