The importance of the resurrection of Jesus is seen in the sobering words of the apostle Paul:
And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. (1 Corinthians 15:14-15)
How incredible it must have been to witness Lazarus being raised from the dead. But, in reality, his rising wasn’t even slightly incredible. This is what Paul was inferring when he asked King Agrippa this rhetorical question:
“Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:8)
Raising one man from death isn’t difficult to believe in—in the light of the fact that the hour will come when all who are in their graves shall hear His voice. Every human being who has ever lived and died will be raised from the dead to face the justice of God.
But the resurrection of Jesus was infinitely more significant than one dead man coming back to life. It was God’s affirmation that His suffering death on the cross was sufficient to satisfy the demands of eternal justice. That’s why it’s so essential to our faith. But isn’t believing that Jesus rose from death nothing more than an example of blind faith? Do we grit our teeth, shut our eyes, and just believe without question?
“The gospel is the most convincing miracle that God gives to sinful human beings. It has the power to take a hardened, unbelieving, sin-loving sinner and transform him overnight. And that gospel is empowered by the resurrected Savior.”
The Bible tells us that there were 500 witnesses who saw Jesus after His resurrection. That is compelling evidence. But if we’re trying to reach an unbelieving world with the gospel, how do we convince a skeptic that these 500 witnesses spoke the truth? He may simply dismiss that evidence through his unbelief by saying that he doesn’t believe the Bible. Fortunately, we have something even more compelling than the testimony of those 500 witnesses. Listen to Scripture:
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:38-40)
When the Pharisees asked for a miracle to validate that Jesus was who He said He was, He called them “evil.” Then He said that there was only one sign that would be given, and that was Jonah being swallowed for three days and three nights. This was a reference to the gospel: the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
The gospel is the most convincing miracle that God gives to sinful human beings. It has the power to take a hardened, unbelieving, sin-loving sinner and transform him overnight. And that gospel is empowered by the resurrected Savior.
I can personally testify to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ because the same Jesus that said He rose from the dead transformed my life in a moment of time. He took me out of darkness into light, out of death into life, and instantly opened the eyes of my understanding. I didn’t give one moment of serious thought about God in all my 22 years as an unbeliever. But when I obeyed the gospel, He transformed me into someone who loves God above all things and longs to do His will. That’s why I believe.
If you and I have come through the door of the new birth, being made a brand-new creature in Christ, nothing will talk us out of our faith. This is because, as a wise man once said, “The man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument.”
