The deep importance of the resurrection of our Lord is seen in that, when some in the early church denied that there was a resurrection of the dead, the inspired Scriptures points out, " If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (1 Cor. 15: 13, 14).
In these two verses we see how the denial of the resurrection means the complete overthrow of the 'Christian faith, than which nothing could be more serious. tut in the case of our Lord the testimony to His resurrection historically is so full and complete, that even acute infidel lawyers have found it impossible to deny that it did occur. Our Lord, had He wished, could have gone straight to glory when He rose from the dead, but instead He spent forty days on this earth, proving to His disciples beyond any doubt that He was indeed risen from the dead. On one occasion the number of witnesses was very great, for we read,
" He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. (1 Cor. 15: 6).
And furthermore, consider the moral results flowing from our Lord's resurrection. Take one outstanding example. Think of the life and labors of the Apostle Paul, once the greatest persecutor of the Church of God. Think of the countries he evangelized, the churches he planted, stretching far out to Asia and Europe, to Rome itself, spreading more and more till, we may say, the whole of the then civilized world was marked as the place where the Gospel of the grace of God had made its deepest mark and gained its greatest triumphs. It speaks of an irresistible urge that led the Apostles to lives of poverty, persecution, imprisonment, scourgings, and generally martyrdom, and has since led countless missionaries to cross the seas, and plant their mission stations in the heart of heathen lands, in many cases at the cost of their lives. And this impetus still continues to this day, after nearly two thousand years.
But to come more closely to the inner meaning of the resurrection of our Lord. It has been truly said, Prove the resurrection of our Lord, and you incontestably prove Christianity.
Our Lord when on earth claimed to be the Son of God, which the Jews resented as blasphemy. He claimed to be the Son of Man, the anointed Christ to reveal God to man. He lived a life for three-and-a-half years of the greatest publicity, meeting continuous opposition and persecution, ending in His crucifixion. He claimed beforehand that His death would be an atoning death, for He said,
He prophesied again and again that He would be crucified by wicked men, and be raised the third day. And what was God's answer to all this? We read,
" God raised Him from the dead." (Acts 13: 30).
Christ's resurrection was unique. Never in all the history of the world was there a resurrection where there were no earthly witnesses to give testimony to it, and when the raised person did not rise to die a natural death in the end. For forty days our Lord lived a risen life on earth, and then ascended to glory, and lives " after the power of an endless life." (Heb. 7:1616Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. (Hebrews 7:16)).
When God raised His Son from the dead, it constituted the fullest acknowledgment of all that He claimed to be, of all that He ever did, and above all it declared on the part of God the fullest acceptance of His sacrificial atoning death on the cross of Calvary, whereby salvation can be offered to sinful men—the sinner's only hope. Can anything be grander than the resurrection of our Lord in all that it involved? There was no resurrection like His.
Then further, as to believers on the Lord, we read that Christ
" was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again
When we come to 1 Corinthians 15, the great Chapter that argues out the whole truth of the resurrection, we see how intimately the believer's resurrection is connected with the resurrection of our Lord. We read,
" But every man in His own order: Christ the Firstfruits afterward they that are Christ's at His coming." (1 Cor. 15: 23).
Note well the word, " Firstfruits." It carries with it the thought of after-fruits. If you will turn to Lev. 23:10-12,10Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: 11And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. (Leviticus 23:10‑12) you will find the solitary sheaf, that was waved before the Lord, was the promise of the whole harvest to be gathered in. Typically it was prophetic of our Lord in His resurrection. So similarly we find our Lord is " the Firstfruits " in His resurrection, and thus the pledge of the whole harvest of grace, that those, who believe on Him, will be raised in the power of His resurrection. The following Scripture shows how the resurrection of the believer flows from our Lord's own resurrection. We read,
We can easily see, even in this very slight sketch, how it would be far from bringing the truth of the doctrine of Christ were we to question our Lord's resurrection, or our own as dependent upon His. The Person of Christ is the touchstone of everything. To be right about Him is to be right about all. May we all be zealous for the truth, and above all to seek to be in communion with Him, who is the truth.