If Christ has not been raised, and you are a Christian, then you are a fool, and you are wasting your time reading this magazine. Claiming to be a follower of Christ, you would be basing your whole life on a lie. Your existence would have no real meaning, no real purpose. Your faith would be futile.

That would be pretty devastating, wouldn’t it? To discover that Christ has not been raised from the dead? Anything else could hap­pen to you, and it wouldn’t have nearly the same consequences. You could lose your job, your life could be shattered by a flood or a fire, you could be forced to un­dergo the most severe torture, you could die of the most painful dis­ease. But none of these could come close to being as earth-shattering as finding out that the resurrection of Christ is a lie.

Thanks be to God, the resurrec­tion is not a lie. It was the most glorious event in history. It continues to be the most glorious truth that could ever be known.

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Corin­thians 15:20). It happened. It hap­pened in time and space. The life­less body of Christ breathed again. His dead heart began to beat again. Death could not hold our Lord and Saviour.

And just as surely as having the resurrection of Christ being a lie would have been devastating, so surely the truth of the resurrection is of amazing consequence. The truth of the resurrection makes all the difference in the world for us, in the most wondrous way you can imagine.

The Past Benefit of Christ’s Resurrection⤒🔗

By His resurrection, Christ has overcome death. And by His res­urrection, He enables us to share in the righteousness He won for us by His death.

We have to remember that Christ’s resurrection is connected to His death. Without His death, He could not have been resur­rected.

That may sound rather obvious, but there’s an important principle here. In celebrating His rising from the grave, you have to first of all remember the sufferings that led Him to the grave. You have to remember how Christ suffered and died in order to satisfy God’s wrath against sin. You have to remem­ber how everything He went through, the terrible humiliation and suffering, suffering hell on the cross, He did it all so that He might win righteousness for His people.

Never forget that Christ died as your substitute. He died so that you would not have to eternally die. He died so that you could be made right with God.

Now consider this: if the death of Christ had not paid the price for sins, if he in his death were not substituting for us, achieving right­eousness for us, then his rising from the dead would have no meaning. What good would it have done for anyone if he had risen from the grave after dying an ordinary death? It would simply have been an interesting miracle. A big deal perhaps, but not earth-shattering. But because His death was special, so too His resurrec­tion had great significance.

But on the other hand, if He had stayed dead, it could hardly be said that He had indeed con­quered death. So the thing is, Christ had to die, AND He had to rise from the dead. He really couldn’t have done anything else after dying. His death won right­eousness for us. His resurrec­tion allows us to have that right­eousness attributed to us, im­puted to us.

Look at it this way: by raising Christ from the dead, God was acknowledging that the death of Christ did what it was supposed to do. By raising Christ from the dead, God was saying, “Yes, the sins of my people are paid for. Yes, my wrath has been suffi­ciently appeased. Yes, my peo­ple can be brought back into fel­lowship with me. And now I look at my sinful people as if they are completely righteous. Not be­cause of any goodness they have in themselves, but because of the righteousness of my Son that He won for them on the cross.”

Without Christ rising from the grave, we would never have known the righteousness that is ours because of Christ’s death. It would be like winning a prize, but not receiving it. That prize doesn’t help you sitting in a warehouse miles away, does it? Christ has won the prize of right­eousness by dying for us, and He made it possible for that prize to be delivered to us by rising for us.

And now, when God looks at his people, he looks at them and sees the righteousness of His Son. What an incredible benefit. Think about it: if Christ had not risen, we would still be seen as objects of wrath. But we’re not. Thanks be to God, we are spared from His wrath, because Christ lives.

The Present Benefit of Christ’s Resurrection←⤒🔗

The resurrection of Christ goes on to have an immediate and total impact on how we live our everyday lives, right here, right now.

Christ has risen to new life, so we also are risen to new life. As Ro­mans 6:10, 11 says, “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider your­selves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

We were lost in sin, meaning we were consumed by the flesh, ob­sessed with the things of this world, captivated by sinful desires. Being dead in sin means being obsessed with things like sex, alcohol, enter­tainment, food, or other things which are not wrong in themselves, but can easily be abused. It means being obsessed with serving our­selves rather than others. It means being obsessed with anything or anyone except for Jesus Christ.

But because of Christ’s resurrec­tion, we have died to all that and have been raised with Christ. The old self is dead. Oh, that old self has the nasty habit of rearing its ugly head up from the grave every now and then, like some undead zombie from a cheap horror movie. And we will never be completely free from sin on this side of the grave.

But still, we want to run away from evil. As question and answers 89 & 90 of the Heidelberg Catechism say, “What is the dying away of the old self? It is to be genuinely sorry for sin, to hate it more and more, and to run away from it. What is the coming to life of the new self? It is wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a delight to do every kind of good as God wants us to do.”

We will want to do good. Does this mean we can stop sinning? No. Does it mean that we want to stop sinning? Of course, abso­lutely.

Galatians 5 is helpful for showing us how different being raised with Christ will make us. In this chapter, the fruits of darkness and the fruit of the Spirit are listed in stark con­trast. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh ...Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immoral­ity, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divi­sions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these ... But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, pa­tience, kindness, goodness, faith­fulness, gentleness, self-control.” Familiar words, but oh so impor­tant. I would urge you to consider deeply what you can do to demon­strate the fruit of the Spirit more and more, showing more and more how you have been raised with Christ.

You might think it’s just too hard to live that sort of life. Showing love? I’d rather be bitter. Showing joy? I’d rather be grumpy. Show­ing peace? I’d rather complain and sow discord. How can I do it? It’s too hard. I fail so often.

Perhaps we are too caught up in self-pity as to how hard it is to live the Christian life. As Jay Adams has said, “Self-pity is the stuff of which the rationalization of sin is made.” We feel so bad about how hard we’ve got it in our fight against sin, we end up justifying our gratify­ing the desires of the flesh.

We need to remember that it is a privilege to live the new life. It is a privilege, a benefit of immeasurable worth, to be raised to new life in Christ.

Do not look at the Christian life as a burden. Do not try to rationalize your sin away. Of course the weight of sin is a horrible burden to bear, it can weigh us down some­thing fierce. And of course the struggle against sin, the world and the devil is a hard struggle. But we are privileged to be engaged in that struggle. God did not have to raise us up with Christ. God did not have to allow us to live the new life. But He did. What an awesome benefit!

The Future Benefit of Christ’s Resurrection←⤒🔗

Christ resurrection leads to our future resurrection. Christ’s resur­rection broke down the door, defeating death. Our resurrection will simply be following Him as He leads the way to eternal life.

How can you be sure of this? Because not only did His resur­rection pave the way, but it serves as a guarantee that others would follow. “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). You will appear with Him in glory. No ifs or buts about it.

Think about it: as a believer raised to new life, you have a guarantee. Because Christ rose from the grave, you have a guar­antee that you too in time will rise from the grave.

This is the promise of the ulti­mately faithful God who will never break His Word. You have trou­ble believing His Word? You doubt your salvation? Remember the resurrection. It serves as an abiding testimony to the truth that God’s people will be saved.

Reading again from 1 Corin­thians 15, — “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep ... in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first-fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:20, 22 -23). As the first leaf of spring testifies to the fact that more are coming, so too, the first resurrec­tion, Christ’s resurrection, guaran­tees the fact that more resurrec­tions will follow. We too will be given resurrected bodies. We too will enter into eternal life, because Christ led the way.

We have a wondrous past, hav­ing shared in the righteousness Christ won for us on the cross. We have a wondrous present, being raised to new life. And we have a wondrous future, knowing that a future resurrection unto eternal life awaits us. All because of Christ’s resurrection. Thanks be to Him!