The Truth of Easter

The Truth of Easter

If you’ve ever been to Israel, you probably visited the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus perspired sweat drops of blood for you and for me. At that site, you may realize these truths:

1. The roots of olive trees never die.

2. Since the roots of olive trees never die, then one of those olive trees in that Garden of Gethsemane grew from the roots of the tree under which Jesus prayed for believers in His Lord’s Prayer of John 17.

Old Testament Job looked at some trees. 1600 years before the cross and Christ’s resurrection, Job said these words in Job 14:7, 14, “Since there is hope for a tree when it is cut down that it will live again, [14] If a man dies, will he live again?”       Throughout the Scriptures, because of the power of Christ’s resurrection, the answer is a resounding Yes!

• Jesus said in Psalm 16:10 that “God would not leave His soul in Sheol nor allow His Holy One to see corruption.”

• A man who was changed by his eyewitness personal encounter with the risen Savior and Lord said these words in Romans 1:4, “[That] Jesus Christ is declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by His resurrection from the dead.”

Sinners cannot be saved unless there is a point in time on our journey through life when we apply God’s words in Romans 10:9-10 and “confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead. When we do, we will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

All it takes for the skeptic to destroy Christianity is to prove Jesus Christ never rose from the grave. Yet skeptics have had 2,000 years to do away with the truth of the resurrection and have not succeeded because the apostles were eyewitnesses of Christ’s resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven (Acts 1:21-22);  the main topic of Christ’s previously discouraged disciples, after the resurrection, was the encouraging message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:24f); Paul and the rest of the disciples were Jewish before the resurrection. Yet a new system of faith emerged because of the resurrection. It is the Church of Jesus Christ. In that church, Christ’s resurrection was one of the fundamentals of the early Christian faith that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). It remains a fundamental truth today because, along with the cross, Christ’s resurrection and ours remain the foundation stones of Christianity today.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:17-18, “If Christ is not raised our faith is in vain, we are yet in our sins, and those who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” But Jesus is alive. He is not there in His grave. He has risen as He said!”

Apply the message of Easter to your life. Experience a new birth through Jesus by asking Him into your life as Savior. Then, live in the power of the resurrection!