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The resurrection of Jesus is not just an odd and awesome fact; it is something that overflows with consequences.
The resurrection is a vindication
Imagine a man being punished for what he didn’t do. He is publicly humiliated and his reputation, and all he stands for, is dragged into the dirt. If justice is to be done then he must be vindicated: the verdict must be reversed and he must be declared free of guilt. This picture applies to Jesus. The cross saw an innocent Jesus treated as a guilty man, and in the resurrection God is reversing that decision and vindicating him to his followers. By raising Jesus from the dead, God was declaring Jesus innocent and saying in an action what he had said before in words: ‘This is my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with him.’
The resurrection is an authentication
Jesus made extraordinary claims. Those claims require our trust and demand our action. Inevitably, we ask whether he can be trusted. In raising Jesus from the dead, God is authenticating who Jesus is and what he said. The resurrection is God’s signature on Jesus’ claims. The resurrection says that Jesus can be trusted with our lives.
The resurrection has implications
The implications of Jesus’ resurrection are extraordinarily profound and far-reaching: not only are Jesus’ claims and teachings authenticated as true and trustworthy but our great enemies of sin, evil and death are defeated. The resurrection shows that God has accepted Jesus’ payment for our sin on the cross, that the power of evil has been decisively broken, that our own personal resurrection from the dead is assured. If we believe in the resurrection of Jesus, our attitudes to life, death, the future, everything, become altered.
These implications of the resurrection apply not just to our heads but also to our hearts. For the disciples, the resurrection was not simply an historical fact, it was also a personal experience. After Jesus had left them, the two on the road to Emmaus said to each other ‘Didn’t our hearts feel strangely warm as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?’ Since that day, countless numbers of people have felt their hearts become ‘strangely warm’ as they have encountered the risen, living Jesus. Indeed, it is that personal experience of the presence of the resurrected Jesus that lies at the very heart of the Christian faith.
To believe in the resurrection of Jesus is not just to put a tick against some box on a list of ‘Things I Believe In’: it is to let it change how we live.
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