Easter Messages

When death claims a person, we all consider that final. And why wouldn’t we? We don’t see people escaping death’s clutches. I think it’s fair to say that were we to see someone dead, & later alive, well, that should cause us to sit up & take notice. And that’s precisely what happened with Jesus of Nazareth. A man who even non-Christian historians tell us actually walked the earth. His story is not a fairy tale. It’s factual & historically verifiable. The climax of his life was his brutal death on a Roman cross. But then just 3 days later, he rose from the dead, & appeared to 5-600 people over 40 days. The critical takeaway is that Jesus broke the mold of when a person dies, it’s final. So for Jesus, death’s power was broken, & it could not hold him!

Among Evangelicals the Christian hope is often reduced to ‘going to Heaven when we die,’ as disembodied souls/spirits.  Yet this pagan idea owes more to Plato than to Paul, who rebutted this notion when writing to Corinth (1 Cor. 15). It’s time to retrieve a genuine, biblical hope—the bodily resurrection and transfiguration of those ‘in Christ.’ En route we address some misunderstood Scriptures. Contrary to many, Paul’s enigmatic saying, ‘The last Adam became a life-giving spirit,’ does not describe Christ’s relation to the Holy Spirit. Rather it denotes the glorified body of the risen Lord. That’s important, since

Christians are promised fully conformity to Jesus, the glorified ‘Heavenly Man.’ Resurrection hope was a great incentive to Paul, governing his life & labor; it should do the same for us

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