{"id":36530,"date":"2022-09-13T12:59:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T17:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/why-is-jesus-called-the-first-born-from-the-dead\/"},"modified":"2022-09-13T12:59:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T17:59:48","slug":"why-is-jesus-called-the-first-born-from-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/why-is-jesus-called-the-first-born-from-the-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Jesus called the first born from the dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Revelation 1: 4, 5, “John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead<\/strong>, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”\u200b<\/p>\n

The Apostle John is here referring to the risen Jesus as being the first one born of the dead.<\/p>\n

The New Testament teaches that Jesus died or sacrificed his own human life to pay for the sinfulness of mankind. “Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death<\/strong>…might taste death for everyone<\/strong>,” Hebrews 2:9.\u200b<\/p>\n

But how exactly was Jesus dead? What is death? Death is the opposite of life<\/strong> – a complete lack of vitality in any form. Ecclesiastes 9:10, 5, “…for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol (state of death; grave) where you are going…the dead know nothing.”<\/p>\n

When Jesus died he was completely dead<\/strong>.  There was no spirit nor soul that lived on, indeed, no consciousness at all. He died the death that has befallen all humanity<\/strong>. He suffered our punishment. And He did so willingly. As He said, “…I lay down my life…” John 10:17,18.\u200b<\/p>\n

When our Father in heaven resurrected Jesus, it was to the divine nature; he was no longer a mortal being. Philippians 2:8, 9 “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name…”\u200b<\/p>\n

Never before had anyone had a true<\/strong> resurrection to life. There were some who were temporarily raised <\/strong>from the state of death. But those resuscitations could not be considered true or complete resurrections as those people eventually died again<\/strong>. Jesus <\/strong>was the very first one<\/strong> to be brought forth from the state of death (non-existence) to eternal, immortal life<\/strong>! (See 1 Corinthians 15:53.) \u200b<\/p>\n

First-born also implies others will be resurrected, as was Jesus. Faithful Christians, called Christ's body members, will experience a resurrection to immortality, and become “sharers in a divine nature<\/strong>,” 2 Peter 1:4. “Now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him<\/strong>, because we will see Him just as He is,” 1 John 3:2 (NASB).<\/p>\n

Thus, Jesus has the pre-eminence as the first one to be resurrected, the first-born. Afterward, His body members will be resurrected. Romans 8:17, “if children, then…joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together<\/strong>.”  This is what is meant by the first-born of the dead.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revelation 1: 4, 5, “John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler … Continue reading “Why is Jesus called the first born from the dead?”<\/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-36530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36530","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=36530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}