{"id":33320,"date":"2022-09-10T20:44:17","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T01:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/death-is-dead-christ-has-conquered\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T20:44:17","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T01:44:17","slug":"death-is-dead-christ-has-conquered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/death-is-dead-christ-has-conquered\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Is Dead, Christ Has Conquered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven Spielberg is my favorite movie director. E.T.<\/em>, Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em>,\u00a0and Jaws<\/em> form the perfect trifecta. Childhood dreams and fears were built around them. But for all his brilliance, the man just can\u2019t do endings. Too often his movies are over-resolved, with\u00a0things tied up a bit too neatly\u00a0and set against a sunset that begs belief\u2014the three sappiest endings being Minority Report<\/em>, Saving Private Ryan<\/em>, and A.I<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Too many of us view the resurrection of Jesus similarly\u2014as little more than a nice, happy conclusion to the gospel story. As if after all the darkness of the betrayal, denial, and death, Spielberg was brought in to do the ending. Somewhere in the background\u00a0a lavish sunset blazes away.<\/p>\n

But the Easter story isn\u2019t just \u201cwhat happens next\u201d to Jesus after his death. It doesn\u2019t just wrap up the story; it fulfills it. In fact, there really is no story without it. It\u2019s not just a matter of chronology but theology\u2014vital, glorious theology. Without it we have nothing, and are nothing. The resurrection saves us. Good Friday is no good at all without Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n

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The resurrection doesn\u2019t just wrap up the story; it fulfills it. Good Friday is no good at all without Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No Resurrection, No Salvation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Paul reveals the necessity of Easter in a striking way:\u00a0\u201cHe was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification\u201d (Rom. 4:25).<\/p>\n

He connects the resurrection to our justification. He\u2019s not saying we\u2019re half-saved by the cross and half-saved by the resurrection. But he is saying without<\/em> the resurrection, we are lost. No resurrection means no justification: \u201cIf Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins\u201d (1 Cor. 15:17).<\/p>\n

If Jesus is dead, our sin debt remains unpaid, and we remain under sin\u2019s\u00a0dominion. If there was no Easter life for Jesus, there is no new life for us. The blood of Jesus saves us\u00a0because he is now alive.<\/p>\n

But why exactly do we need the resurrection for these things to be certain?\u00a0The wider story of the Bible shows us. The raising of Jesus from death is significant because death is significant. Only when we understand what death means will we be able to grasp what Easter means.<\/p>\n

Sin Births Death<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Death is the consequence of sin. Adam was told this as far back as Genesis 2\u2014eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and \u201cyou will surely die\u201d (Gen. 2:16\u201317). God is life, so turning from him is fatal. Sin both\u00a0earns death (Rom. 6:23) and births\u00a0death (James 1:15). Death is what sin chooses, what sin receives, and what sin deserves.<\/p>\n

This accounts for why we have such a strange perception of death. Death is, when we think about it, one of the most normal things about life in this world, as sure as our birth. Yet we can\u2019t reconcile ourselves to this reality. Death never really feels natural. It feels\u00a0wrong<\/em>.\u00a0So we put huge effort into living as though death is\u00a0not going to happen.<\/p>\n

Our unease with death indicates we know perhaps more than we realize. Death (like sin) does not belong here. It\u2019s something we were\u2019t meant\u00a0to experience. But sin leads to death, and so the existence of death proves the reality of sin.<\/p>\n

Closed Deal<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As we grasp the significance of death, we can start to see the significance of resurrection. Raising Jesus from the dead was not an arbitrary stunt by God the Father. It wasn\u2019t just a mega-miracle to prove he\u2019s still there and still bigger\u2014though that is true. No, the resurrection has meaning. The resurrection is the outworking and proof of our salvation because death is the outworking and proof of our sin. Jesus\u2019s new life shows us the cycle of sin and death\u00a0has finally been broken. There is new life to be had. Sin has been conquered.<\/p>\n

It is therefore the resurrection of Jesus\u2014and can<\/em> only be the resurrection of Jesus\u2014that assures us of salvation. Only the resurrection proves\u00a0that our sins have been fully dealt with, that death is no longer our destination\u00a0but a gateway to perfect,\u00a0endless\u00a0life.<\/p>\n

The cross is not a starter pack. God doesn\u2019t\u00a0drum\u00a0up most of what we need only to leave us fishing\u00a0around in our pockets to provide the rest.<\/p>\n

By dying and rising for us, the Son has closed the deal. In raising him from the dead, the Father has signed for it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on TheGospelCoalition.org. Used with permission.<\/p>\n

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Steven Spielberg is my favorite movie director. E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark,\u00a0and Jaws form the perfect trifecta. Childhood dreams and fears were built around them. But for all his brilliance, the man just can\u2019t do endings. Too often his movies are over-resolved, with\u00a0things tied up a bit too neatly\u00a0and set against a sunset that … Continue reading “Death Is Dead, Christ Has Conquered”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}