Was Jesus Christ Raised From the Dead or Not?

"Easter - what is that?" More than a few young people might be heard asking that question. For most, perhaps, Easter is little more than a Spring vacation. Beyond a reprieve from school and work, what is Easter anyway?

What is even sadder is that attendance at many ‘houses of worship' will not answer the question. Some people will attend church this Sunday who normally do not. They may hear that Jesus has given us a new spirit and reason to live, namely, that by loving our fellow man and doing what we can to ease his burdens we duplicate our lives in others—a sort of resurrection. In this and numerous other ways, the idea of resurrection will be drained of its true meaning.

Humans need much more than the hope that someone will have a fond memory of us when our bodies are rotting in the ground. Death is real and inescapable. Death promises to end all our joys and hopes. Beyond, death God has guaranteed a judgment in which He will display what He really thinks about our deeds, our disregard for His holy Law. In the face of such undeniable realities what comfort is there in the idea that we may duplicate our lives by leaving pleasant memories and examples behind?

What we need is deliverance from death! What we need is protection from the justice of God against us on account of our sins! What we need is forgiveness with God and eternal life.

This, my dear friends, is what Jesus Christ came to give us. Christ is God Who became man so that He would be able to represent man before God and especially that He might endure the wrath of God by dying in the place of guilty people like you and me. Because He is of infinite value as the God-Man, His death absolutely satisfied the offended Justice of God, thereby canceling the power of death. This was demonstrated in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That is what Easter is, it is the celebration of Christ's conquest over our great enemies—sin and death. The living Christ freely imparts the legal right to live forever and to be raised from the dead to every sinful person who believes upon Him. That is what Easter is about—it is about true and certain hope.

Do you need this hope, or have you found another way to live forever—another way to bring your bodies from death and corruption to life and immortality?

1 Corinthians 15:1 - Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,

2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you -- unless you believed in vain.

3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,