◄ What Does Mark 16:4 Mean? ►

The glorious Resurrection of our Saviour is as much a part of the gospel of Christ as His sacrificial death. He was delivered to death to pay the price for our sin, but His Resurrection from the grave secured our justification. The message of the Cross does not finish with Christ's death, but integrates His rising from the dead. And His victory over sin, death, and hell is an inescapable part of the whole story of our great salvation.

Resurrection reality is an integral part of the good news of Redemption. Indeed, Paul wrote in Romans: "Christ was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." As the eternal God, death had no hold on Him. As the sinless Man, death had no claim on Him. As the innocent, guiltless sacrificial offering for our sin and the sin of the world, death received its full and final payment. Death had no hold on the eternal Prince of Life after He paid the price for sin, for in Him is life eternal.

And so He rose from the dead.

Christ's Resurrection from the dead broke the power of sin and death in the life of all who trust in His name for the forgiveness of sins. His death became our death and His resurrected life becomes our eternal life when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. We do not become a god as some falsely teach, but we receive His life and are indwelled by His Holy Spirit.

Repeatedly, Jesus had told his disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things: that He would be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and that He would be handed over to the Gentiles and delivered into the hands of sinful men. He told them that He would be condemned to death in Jerusalem, but after three days would rise again. And for three years, Jesus had told them that He was Stone which the builders rejected Who would become the Chief Cornerstone; that in Him was Life, and that He was the Way, and the Truth, and the Life, and that after three days the destroyed temple of His human body would be raised it up once again into an immortal Body.

But few if any took to heart what He said about rising from the dead. Few if any took heed to His various utterances concerning His Resurrection, which prophetic Scriptures endorsed. Few if any believed His prophetic words, for we discover that very early in the morning on the first day of the week, some women came to the tomb weeping, expecting to embalm Christ's dead body with perfumed spices.

On the way, they worriedly discussed how they would roll away the huge and heavy stone which some of them saw heaved across the gaping mouth of His burial chamber hours earlier. Their recorded conversation implies that they had not even heard of the Romans seal, which had been placed on the fastened tomb at the request of the scribes and Pharisees.

I wonder what ran through the minds of each of those faithful women who loved the Lord so much that they sped with haste to the tomb that Resurrection morning, expecting to find a dead Christ, but when looking up: "They saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large."

These precious women were to have their spiritual vision extended when they also realised that Christ's glorious Resurrection is as much a part of the gospel of grace as His sacrificial death. Praise God that Christ died to pay the price for our sin but praise God also that His Resurrection from the grave secured our justification and breathed into us the breath of eternal life.

Let us never forget that the message of the Cross does not end with His death but integrates His glorious Resurrection and His victory over sin, death, and hell as an inescapable part of the good news of our great salvation.

Thank You, Heavenly Father, that Christ's Resurrection is an integral part of my redemption. Thank You that through His death, the full and final payment for my sin was made. And thank You that through His glorious Resurrection, He has broken the power of sin and death in my life, and in the lives of all who trust in Him for the forgiveness of sin and life everlasting. Thank You, in Jesus' name, AMEN.