He Is Alive!
The good news of Easter is that Jesus Christ is alive! His empty tomb, the newfound confidence of His disciples after His resurrection, and His presence in the lives of believers today all testify to the fact that the Savior of mankind has literally risen from the dead and is alive!
But the fact of the resurrection alone—amazing as it is—doesn’t tell the whole story. The significance of the resurrection is that Jesus Christ has broken through the death-barrier for you and me. The most solemn fact of all human consciousness is the certainty of death. And it’s God’s book, the Bible, that tells us that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Such death not only means the end of physical life, but the separation of the soul from God—a barrier between us and God: “Your iniquities [sins] have made a separation between you and your God” (Isaiah 59:2).
The death of Jesus was a very public event, yet it was in no way the result of any sin of His own, for He had no sin. But in a mysterious and wonderful way that only God could arrange, Jesus was dying for you and me. By taking the punishment for all our sins, Jesus “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The Lord “laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). By being our substitute, Jesus can thereby save us from the consequences of our sins.
Therefore, when Jesus was raised from the dead, it meant more than restoration of physical life. It meant that He had paid our full punishment, and He had broken through the spiritual death-barrier for sinful people. The payment for our sins had been made to God, and the resurrection proved that God had accepted the payment. The fact that Jesus is alive today assures an eternal destiny in heaven to those who believe that what Jesus did was done on their behalf.
When you put your faith in the risen Jesus Christ, God will first save you from spiritual death. Though we are all spiritually “dead in trespasses,” the Bible says that God will make us “alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5) when we trust in Him for salvation from sin. Those who trust in Jesus Christ are forgiven, accepted by God, and made spiritually alive by Him.
The time is coming when the physical death-barrier will be smashed for those who have died trusting in Jesus Christ. At a future time that only God knows, He will transform the perishable bodies of believers who have died into imperishable bodies like Christ’s resurrection body (1 Corinthians 15:35-57). They will then be truly ready to enjoy living in God’s heaven!
The resurrection of Jesus Christ can mean spiritual life to you now and life in heaven with God after life on earth. Eternal life can be yours if you believe that God’s Son, Jesus Christ, died for your sins, and that God raised Him from the dead. You have Jesus’ word on it from the Bible: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:40).