What’s better on a hot day than a cool breeze? Not much! That’s why fans are common household items throughout America.
Let’s say you have a really great fan in your living room. It has thermostat control, speed control, an Air Conditioner built in, and even a heating coil for cold nights. Now let’s say you never plug that fan in. Will it work? Of course not! Unless you plug your fan in, it’s useless. Is it still a fan? Of course, and a great one at that, but electricity is crucial for the fan to serve its purpose. Without electricity the fan will not do anything.
When some people look at the truth of the gospel, the sometimes pass over, or even question the importance of the resurrection. To me, the resurrection is one of the most important parts of the Christian faith and today I will explain why.
So why did Jesus come back to life? Why is it so important? Well, looking back at our fan story, Christianity can relate. The Christian faith is amazing, the way to eternal life! But now let’s say we don’t accept the resurrection. You say it never happened, after all, it sounds a little far fetched right? Well, the problem is, if you take the resurrection out of Christianity, we loose the power of the Bible. If Jesus had not been raised from death, we would have had no evidence that Jesus Conquered death.
First Corinthians 15:14 reads: And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” Now you might ask, “How could disbelief in the resurrection make our faith useless?” Because without the resurrection we have nothing to believe in. Let me further explain:
Humanity is broken and sinful, and from disobeying God, the perfect creator of the universe who is always right, we deserve death. Romans 6:23a reads “For the wages of sin is death”. But then, Jesus came to earth and was infinitely perfect. Think about that for a second. He was completely perfect, forever and always, he was infinitely perfect. When Jesus died on the cross, he paid for our sin. He took out place. Plus, since he was of infinite perfection and innocence, and since you can’t take away from infinity, he took all our places, and still had infinity left over. He came back from death because of that truth. Death was the punishment that he conquered. He was resurrected because you could never kill God.
The resurrection is essential to Christianity, because it is Christianity. Without the resurrection, it would mean that Jesus wasn’t perfect. It would mean that Jesus could not fulfill our sins. It would make the entire Bible a lie.
J.S. Whale put it well in this quote: “The gospels do not explain the resurrection, the resurrection explains the gospels. Belief in the resurrection is not an appendage to the Christian faith, it is the Christian faith.”
The truth of the Bible truly can be summed up to this one sentence: “Jesus lives.”
The resurrection shows us that God truly is in power. This trust defines what Christianity is, and is what puts it apart from other religions. No other religion has had a savior who has been documented to have been raised from the dead. No other religion admits the obvious truth that we are broken people, without peace, without hope, and offers us what we are missing
Jeremiah 29:11 reads ““For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.””
So accept the future God has planned for you. Take the hope, the peace, the joy. Take the free gift God offers. Like in our analogy, all you have to do is to plug into the power of God.
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