The Resurrection of Jesus, THE Truth
For 40 days after our Lord bodily rose from the dead in victory over sin, death and the devil, He continued to show Himself to His disciples. He continued to be with them, talk with them, eat with them, assure them of His resurrection victory. They would need such assurances and evidence as do we all, for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is THE heart and foundation of our faith and salvation. All those who question and attack the Christian faith of course have to and do deny the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. After to all, “everyone knows that’s impossible”. Luther had the following thoughts on this:
“This article (of resurrection) has suffered and still suffers the most opposition and is most difficult to believe….The reason for this is that no article so contradicts experience as this one does. For our eyes see that all the world is swept away by death and dies. Emperors and kings, high and low, young and old, and, in a word, all the children of men, one after the other, are laid in the grave and buried. Wild animals devour one, the sword devours another; this man leaves a leg in Hungary, fire consumes that one…Hence it is difficult to believe that man, who dies and perishes in so many different ways, is to live again; that his members, so widely scattered, reduced to dust and ashes in fire, water, and soil, are to be gathered again; that his soul is again to live in the same body in which it lived before; and that he is to have the same eyes, ears, hands, and feet, except that the body, together with its members, is to have a different manner of existence. This, I say, is difficult to believe. If you want to look at this with reason, the article of the resurrection of the dead seems to be either nothing at all or at least entirely uncertain… You will find few people on earth today who sincerely believe this article. Particularly men of great influence, the wealthy and mighty of this world, believe nothing of it. The same thing happened in Judaism. Hardly half of the people believed the resurrection of the dead; even the religious leaders thought nothing of it. The whole sect of the Sadducees believed neither in God nor in heaven, neither in a resurrection of the dead nor in an eternal life, neither in angel nor in devil. In a word, if you consult reason and judge according to external appearance and experience, faith fails, and man lets this article go.
Therefore it is necessary for every Christian to have before him the testimony of Holy Scripture concerning the resurrection of the dead and then also the resurrection of the Lord Christ, proved and attested by certain revelation; that he must rest firmly on these and abandon outward appearance and the experience of reason.”
God the Holy Spirit puts it this way for us through the Apostle Paul:
(1 Corinthians 15:16-22 ESV) (16) For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. (17) And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (18) Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. (19) If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (20) But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (21) For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. (22) For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Our entire being and eternal hope rests in this one doctrine. If Christ did not bodily rise, He was a liar and we are dead in the guilt of our sins, without hope whatsoever. But Jesus did rise from the dead. He is Living and is still truly, physically, incarnationally, sacramentally present with us. Ours is not a dead faith or vain hope, but an ever-present truth and reality that gives life eternal now and forever more, because Jesus is truly alive and with us ever more. You are never alone – ever!
He is Risen, He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
Pastor Reiser
