First Christian Church

By Bruce Humes

Pastor

In two weeks, Christians around the world will celebrate resurrection morning. It is the morning that God raised his son from the dead. This is something that Jesus spoke of often, such as in Matthew 16:21: “From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”

In Matthew 16:13-16, Peter responds to Jesus’s question “Who do you say I am?” with “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” With this profession of faith, Jesus now begins to speak of his death and resurrection.

In Matthew 17:22-23, Jesus says, “The son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and the third day he will be raised up.” Jesus predicts his death and resurrection for the third time as recorded in Matthew 20:17-20, “Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the 12 disciples aside on the road and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the son of man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day he will rise again.’” In all his predictions, Jesus speaks of his death and resurrection. Without his resurrection, he is just another dead prophet. With his resurrection, he becomes the fulfillment of what the Old Testament prophets wrote concerning a Messiah that was to come.

The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all, that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Jesus is the Gospel, the good news, and that good news is that he died for all of us and rose from the grave, conquering death. If by faith we believe and receive these two things, we will be saved. The apostle Paul tells us that in Romans 10:9 that “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

I look forward to the next few weeks as we celebrate the resurrection of our wonderful God, Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

If you want to speak to someone or have a need, call the church office at (562) 431-8810.