The Cornerstone
The resurrection is the cornerstone of our faith. Our faith is built on the belief that Jesus Christ not only died on the cross but that He rose from the dead!
If that weren’t true, there would be no Christian faith.
The first sermon ever preached at pentecost was preached by Peter and it was a sermon on the resurrection.
Acts 2 :22-24 “fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”
In every place Paul preached, he preached the resurrection.
In every epistle the resurrection is the key point.
If Christ’s bones were still in Jerusalem, there would be no hope for anyone in the world, but his body is not there, he is alive, having been resurrected from the dead.
Jesus’ resurrection is the Bible’s greatest miracle and history’s greatest fact.
Jesus Rose Bodily From The Grave.
When the believers first came to Jesus’ tomb, his body was missing. It had not been stolen as the Jewish leaders said, this would have been impossible because of the guards set at the tomb by Pilate.
Matthew tells us that he placed a seal on the tomb and guards to protect it. There was no way the disciple’s, who wouldn’t even stand next to Jesus at his crucifixion, would risk their lives simply to steal his dead body. His body was not stolen, God had raised him from the dead
It was not just Jesus’ influence, his spirit or his energy that rose, but his actual glorified body. When Jesus met with his disciples after his resurrection, it was in bodily form.
Many new-age religions and mystics try to say that Jesus did not rise bodily, but he rose only spiritually, but listen to Jesus’ own words in Luke’s gospel:
Luke 24:39 “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”
Jesus rose from the grave as not just a spirit, not just a force, not just an energy, but as a glorified body of flesh and bone.
Jesus Rose Eternally From The Grave.
Jesus was not the first person to be resurrected from the dead, Elijah and Elisha saw people raised from the dead. Jesus also raised others from the dead himself; Jairus’ daughter, the widow’s son at Nain, Lazarus at Bethany. What separates Christ’s resurrection is that all of these others eventually died again.
He is called the ‘First Fruit’ of the resurrection.
Corinthians 15:20 “but now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
This is not because he was the first to be raised, but because he was the first to be raised ‘eternally’.
Jesus came forth from the grave, “alive forevermore”. Jesus rose victoriously from the grave.
By Pastor Eugene Pagliarulo
