He’s Alive!

Today we celebrated the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the grave. Obviously we have to back up a moment and speak of Jesus’ death by crucifixion, and why that event took place. The Resurrection is an Essential Truth of the Christian Faith, since if Jesus did not rise again, just as He had said, then as Paul pointed out in 1 Cor.15:1-19, the whole Christian religion is false! So Paul went to great lengths to show how important Christ’s Death, Burial, and Resurrection were.

Let us not think for one moment that Jesus’ disciples were so gullible that they would easily believe that Jesus had actually been raised again from the dead. They were so convinced that He was 100% dead. In fact Thomas was so convinced that he said, “Unless I can put my fingers into those nail prints and put my hand into His pierced side, I will NEVER believe!” (John 20:24-25).

Jesus provided ‘many infallible proofs‘ (Acts 1:3). And some of these ‘proofs‘  included:

1. The empty tomb.
2. The grave clothes left neatly folded up in the tomb (evidence that the body wasn’t stolen by grave robbers).
3. Jesus’ appearance to Mary.
4. His appearance to two disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Lk.24:13-35
5. His appearance to 10 of His disciples (Lk.24:36-48; John 20:19-23).
6. His appearance to all 11 disciples, this time Thomas being present (John 20:26-28).

As for us, we have not seen Jesus but we have believed. But Jesus spoke of us when He said to Thomas, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29). And that is you and me, if we have been blessed by God to have had our eyes opened, and our hearts and understanding opened. That is to say that we have been given a gift from God called ‘Faith‘, which is God’s gift to enable us to believe. Repentance and Faith are the results of the New Birth. If you have been Born Again, please turn from your sin and place your trust in Jesus, and God will instantly declare you “Justified”, “Not Guilty” before Him!

Michael Robson