Through the first four thousand years of the history of our fallen race, death reigned with undisputed sway. Then all was changed on that first day of the week when the Son of God stepped from the tomb in the dignity of indissolvable life! His last humiliation over, there could be nought henceforth for our Lord but increasing exaltation, His triumph complete. Forever vanquished, death laid its scepter at the Victor’s feet! Here was victory such as Caesar’s legions had never gained. The Lord Jesus Christ who had power to lay down His life had power to take it again. He surrendered nothing to the grasp of death, but brought forth the marks of His accomplished passion to be the infallible proofs of His resurrection!
The Apostle Paul wrote these words to the church at Corinth: "And now let me remind you [since it seems to have escaped you], brethren, of the Gospel (the glad tidings of salvation) which I proclaimed to you, which you welcomed and accepted and upon which your faith rests, and by which you are saved, if you hold fast and keep firmly what I preached to you, unless you believed at first without effect and all for nothing.
For I passed on to you first of all what I also had received, that Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for our sins in accordance with [what] the Scriptures [foretold], that He was buried, that He arose on the third day as the Scriptures foretold, and [also] that He appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the Twelve. Then later He showed Himself to more than five hundred brethren at one time, the majority of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep [in death]. Afterward He was seen by James, then by all the apostles (the special messengers)." (1 Corinthians 15:1-7 Amplified)
The normal tread of the universe is from complexity to simplicity, from diversity to monotony, from order to chaos. Death is the state of equilibrium into which life lapses. A reversal of the process presupposes the intervention of a power great enough to arrest decay and to inject a new creative principle into the world. Such a power can only be explained by acknowledging the existence of Deity. God is inescapable for anyone who has endeavored to comprehend in one reasoned system the varied complex of ideas, forces, and objects that compose our universe. God is not a compound to be analyzed chemically, nor is He a physical law to be determined by experimentation. He cannot be weighed, measured, or photographed. His Being eludes the usual tests of reality, yet without Him the universe has neither meaning nor purpose, and its organization is a greater puzzle than is His predicated existence.
God’s revelation is transmitted by His Word which embodies His thought and expression in human terms. Christ, that Eternal Word, is the vehicle of revelation because He embodies in personality the nature and message of God for man. The communication through Christ brought the revelation of God into the totality of human existence. He represented God’s person in every situation of life. The totality of experience includes the mysterious and tragic episode of death, the common fate of all men, who irrespective of social station, mental capacity, or physical strength ultimately pass to the grave. Death is the point at which even the semblance of certainty ends; for while life is unpredictable, death is a sealed book. If the revelation of God is inadequate, the real problem of human destiny will remain forever insoluble. The revelation of the Word must therefore include the experience of death to demonstrate how God can grapple with it and remove its terrors. Only in this way can salvation be achieved; the Son of God must, by tasting death for every man, bring the fullness of God’s resources to the rescue of human frailty. Jesus Christ, through death and resurrection, gave the final and eternal evidence that God has achieved all that is necessary for man’s complete and final redemption! Jesus conquered death, hell, sin and the grave! The resurrection was God’s way of demonstrating the defeat of death.
The resurrection is the fullest disclosure of God’s power to man because it

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has overcome his greatest obstacle-- death! The resurrection is the antithesis of human weakness, for it concentrates on one act the vastness of divine strength. The resurrection is the proof of God’s omnipotence, for it demonstrates that His nature is power, and that He can recreate a world paralyzed by sin and devastated by death. Christ's return from death is an abiding witness to a living God, who intervenes in His created order when necessity demands drastic action! The resurrection is the supreme declaration of God's true being. Whereas death is the penalty and result of sin, the risen Christ has made it the gateway to a new life. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old things are passed away; behold they are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The gospel of Christ began with the message of the resurrection, for its foundation was an event, not a web of arguments. The creative life of God was manifested in human history, located definitely in space and time. Christ in the incarnate God, experienced the tensions and frustrations to which humanity is subject, and even endured the agonizing and humiliating death of the cross, yet He was not overcome. The bonds of death could not confine Him; in the words to the Apostle Peter, "It was not possible that He should be holden of it to [death]." (Acts 2:24)
Because this divine act is a part recorded experience, it is proof in understandable terms that God can transcend death by life, and that He has opened a new dimension of existence to believers in Christ. The interpretations of historical events may differ with the knowledge or prejudices of scholars, and the importance assigned to them may change with the perspective from which they are viewed, but the events themselves are irrevocable. The resurrection is a fact of history! The resurrection is not only the proof of divine ability to save man but the unmistakable demonstration that God has already acted!
Please consider with me a brief history of the concept of the resurrection.
Greek Philosophy entertained no conception of a resurrection of the body. It is a small wonder that when Paul spoke at Athens the resurrection of the dead, the Stoics and the Epicureans openly ridiculed him. In Paul’s closing remarks in the sermon of the Mars Hill, he said, "Therefore the, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.
And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, ‘We will hear you again on this matter.’" (Acts 17:28-32) The teaching of the New Testament message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ came to the Greco-Roman world with a message which had not previously been proclaimed in the temples of the gods or in the halls of their philosophers. What was its origin then?
The natural source would be the Jewish Scriptures, since they were the acknowledged basis for early Christian preaching. In them the apostles had found warrant for proclaiming Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah (Acts 17:1-3) and had used their prophecies specifically to undergird the declaration that He must rise from the dead. The first hint of the concept of future life is found in the words of Jacob, speaking of Joseph, whom he thought to be dead: "I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning" (Genesis 37:35). Psalm 49:15 says: "But God will redeem my soul from the grave, He will take me unto Himself." The Pentateuchal Law contains no clear reference to life beyond the grave either in the Decalogue or in the religious and civil ordinances that accompany it.
In the books of prophecy and poetry there are a few veiled references. Second Psalm acknowledges the Divine Sonship of the Messiah. The Sixteenth Psalm declared a personal confidence that the writer’s soul would not be aban-

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doned in the world of the dead [Sheol] nor his body to decay. Both of these were later applied to the Messianic status of Christ by the writers of the New Testament.
The prophecy of Daniel which states, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2), seems to be the first plain expression of the resurrection in the Old Testament. Coming to the end of the exile, it marked a new trend of Jewish thought. Two conclusions may be drawn from this brief history.
1) There was sufficient teaching concerning a bodily resurrection to make the Christian Doctrine plausible to Jewish hearers.
2) The idea was not so essential part of Jewish theology that it would be read into the phenomena of the life of Jesus or arbitrarily superimposed upon His teachings.
Furthermore, the Old Testament nowhere specifically attributed bodily resurrection to the Messiah. The resurrection of the body is, therefore, a concept fully developed only after the manifestation of Christ, who was Himself, the pattern, and the exponent of its meaning.
When Jesus first informed the disciples that He would rise from the dead, they did not comprehend His meaning, but afterwards they recalled His words and "believed the Scripture" (John 2:22). Though John, who recorded the incident, did not identify any single Old Testament source, he implied that the disciples should have understood Jesus’ words immediately from their knowledge of the Sacred Cannon.
Jesus alluded to Scriptural antecedents on several occasions. The first instance appears in Mark. "And He began to teach them, that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." (Mark 8:31)
The verb translated "rise again" indicated that the resurrection was a necessary element of the pattern which the coming Messiah should follow. Jesus repeated the prediction at the commencement of the last journey to Jerusalem. Mark 10:32-34 does not mention His allusion to the Scripture, but the Lukan parallel says, "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things that were written through the prophets shall be accomplished unto the Son of Man. For He shall be delivered up unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and shamefully treated, and spit upon: and they shall scourge and kill Him: and the third day He shall rise again. And they understood none of these things; and this saying was hid from them, and they perceived not the things that were said." (Luke 18:31-34)
By the inclusion of the phrase "the things that are written," Jesus connected events of His passion with the Old Testament. The relation of the resurrection to the Old Testament was most clearly established through Jesus’ conversation with two disciples on the road to Emmaus: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." (Luke 24:25-27)
Jesus’ exposition of Scripture laid the foundation for apostolic teaching. The Gospels do not explain the resurrection...the resurrection explains the Gospels!
Two examples from the Old Testament will illustrate the important types or predictions of the resurrection that are recognized in the New Testament. Recounting the heroic acts of faith, the writer of Hebrews connected the sacrifice of Isaac with the idea of resurrection. "By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac: yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offered up his only begotten son; even he to whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from when he did also in a figure receive him back." (Hebrews 11:17-19)

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A comparison with the original account in Genesis 22:1-19 reveals some surprising features. The promises which God had given to Abraham centered in Isaac and would normally find their fulfillment through his life. If Abraham's descendents were to be multiplied as the stars of heaven, Isaac would have to survive long enough to marry and to have children, for his death would eventually close the succession on which the perpetuation of the seed depended. The command seemed to be a contradiction, for how could God consistently make a promise and then remove all possibility of fulfillment of the promise? Abraham was forced into the dilemma of disobeying God's Word to retain the fulfillment of the promise, or else of relinquishing faith in His truthfulness. The only solution for the impasse would be obedience, based on the belief that God would restore Isaac from the dead.
Let us consider one more example or type of the resurrection in the Old Testament. The feasts of the Old Testament celebrated important events in the life of the nation of Israel. They were intended to remind the people of God’s dealing as He worked out the process of their national redemption. The Passover recalled the deliverance from bondage and death in Egypt. Fifty days after the Passover came the Feast of the Wave-Loaves, later known as Pentecost, when the bread from the new grain harvest was presented to God. The Feast of the Firstfruits (Leviticus 23:10) intervened between these two, on the first day after the Passover Sabbath and three days after the sacrifice of the lamb, when the small sheaf of the first grain of the season was gathered and dedicated to God as a sample and pledge of the more abundant future harvest. The Passover was a type of Christ, as Paul later affirmed, "For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ." (1 Corinthians 5:7) Similarly, the Feast of the Firstfruits prefigures His resurrection, because He is called "The firstfruits of them that are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). The life of the seed springing from the dark, cold earth demonstrates a vitality that death cannot repress. The parallelism seems inescapable.
The witness of the Old Testament, though shadowy and incomplete, presages a greater revelation in the person of the Messiah. He is the fulfillment of its types and the realization of its promises.
Some of Jesus’ comments have already been discussed in connection with fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. He taught that His Messianic career had been planned in the mind of God from eternity and that He was following the divine pattern as it had been revealed in Scriptures. The resurrection was an essential part of His life, and as Jesus’ ministry progressed, He spoke with increasing definiteness concerning it. The initial prediction was connected with the cleansing of the Temple, which John assigned to the first visit to Jerusalem. Jesus began His Messianic mission by sternly expelling the merchants who had made His Father’s House into a bazaar. The priests naturally asked by what right He should take command of the Temple courts, of which they were the official custodians. What sign could He produce to substantiate His authority? He answered, "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19) Because Jesus did not explain the cryptic utterance, His enemies gave it an obvious but wrong interpretation. They assumed that He was speaking of the unfinished stone and wood building which Herod had been erecting for the last forty-six years! John, the author and disciple closest to Jesus, adds the footnote that He was speaking of His body (John 2:21). The multitude did not understand Jesus’ remark, nor did the disciples until they recalled it later. He indicated that He was already anticipating the Passion and was looking forward to the culminating "sign" of His career. Shortly after the imprisonment of John the Baptist, when Jesus’ ministry was approaching a crisis, the Pharisees challenged Him for a sign. He replied, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet: For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:39-40)

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This recurrent series of pronouncements reveals that from the commencement of His ministry, Jesus made the resurrection His objective. To the public He spoke of it in veiled words; to the disciples He expressed Himself openly. The historical fact was inextricably woven into the fabric of Jesus’ life and teaching. The doctrinal aspect was developed more fully when the witnesses had opportunity to mediate on the event and to formulate the implications into an organized theology.
We have considered the resurrection from the viewpoint of Scriptural prophecy and also from the words of Jesus. In our closing moments of this lesson, let's think about the implications of His resurrection in regards to our Christian faith.
The historic resurrection of Jesus transformed predictions into reality and became the core of Christian preaching from Pentecost to the present day. The resurrection changed fear and doubt of the disciples into certainty and joy. The resurrected body of Jesus gives us the promise that we shall have a body like unto His body when we arrive in His presence. "See how very much our heavenly Father loves us, for He allows us to be called His children, and we really are! But the people who belong to this world don't know God, so they don't understand that we are His children. Yes, dear friends, we are already God's children, and we can't even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when He comes we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is. And all who believe this will keep themselves pure, just as Christ is pure." (1 John 3:1-3)
Christ's resurrection ensures our regeneration. Peter says that "We have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." (1 Peter 1:3) When God raised Christ from the dead He thought of us as somehow being raised "with Christ" and therefore deserving the merits of Christ's resurrection. Paul says his goal in life is "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection." (Philippians 3:10) Paul connects the resurrection of Christ with the spiritual power at work within us when he tells the Ephesians that he is praying that they would know "What is the immeasurable greatness of the His power in us who believe, according to the working of His great might which He accomplished in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and made His seat at His right hand in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 1:19-20)
Christ's resurrection insures our justification. Paul says that Jesus "was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:25) By raising Christ from the dead, God the Father was, in effect, saying that He approved of Christ's suffering and dying for our sins, that His work was completed, and that Christ no longer had any need to remain dead. Christ's resurrection insures that we will receive a perfect resurrected body as well. The New Testament several times connects Jesus’ resurrection with our final bodily resurrection. "And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power" (1 Corinthians 6:14). "He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence (2 Corinthians 4:14). Paul encourages us, when we think about the resurrection to focus on our future heavenly reward as our goal. He sees the resurrection as a time when the struggles of this life will be repaid. "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 the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." (Colossians 3:1-4)
Jesus has three basic credentials: 1) The impact of His life through His miracles and teachings, upon history, 2) Fulfilled prophecy in His life, and 3) His resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ and Christianity stand or fall together.
Thank God they stand forever!