On Easter all people celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. People greet each other with “Christ has risen!” and the answer to this greeting is “He has risen indeed!” Most people want to know why the Lord Christ has risen. Here are 8 reasons that are written in the Epistle of Paul to Romans.
1. To prove that He is the Son of God
At the beginning of the Epistle to Romans, after he introduces himself, Apostle Paul introduces the Gospel he preaches and he says:
(the gospel) concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead… (Romans 1:3–4)(NASB)
By the resurrection from the dead the Lord Jesus has declared with power that He is in God’s nature, He is God of God Himself.
2. Because we have been justified
The word “justified” is a juridical term applied to a person who has been justified or declared right while being judged. In other words, after he was declared guilty of some things, or murders, someone pays or takes the punishment upon himself and in this way, that certain person is declared innocent before the law. This is justification. After he wrote about Abraham, who was justified by faith before God, Apostle Paul wrote:
Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification. (Romans 4:23–25)(NASB)
3. So that we may live a new life
The baptism of a Christian simbolizes the identity of the Lord Jesus’ death, that is the death of the sinful way of living that we were used to live once. Apostle Paul writes:
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romasns 6:4)(NASB)
4. To present the nature of our resurrection
All people will rise again. Some to inherit eternal life and others to be judged. The Holy Scriptures say:
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection. (Romans 6:5)(NASB)
When the Scripture says that we shall become united with Him in the likeness of His death, it doesn’t mean that we shall die on the cross, but to die toward sin. If this has happened in the reader’s life, then he will rise in the likeness of His resurrection.
5. To bear fruit for God
As Apostle Paul goes on in the Epistle to Romans, he wrote to the people of Israel, who were under the law of Moses until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and he tells them:
Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:4)(NASB)
Fruit for God are the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and Apostle Paul writes about them:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22–23)(NASB)
6. To confirm our future resurrection
By the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, God, His Father and ours confirmed the truth about our resurrection in future, as the Scripture says:
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:11)(NASB)
7. To intercede for us with God
If we believed in the Lord Jesus from all our heart, if we died with a death in the likeness of His, no one will be able to bring charge against us and no one will be able to condemn us, because it is written:
Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. (Romans 8:33–34)(NASB)
The Lord Jesus interceded for His elect with God since His resurrection to the present moment, so that no one will be able to bring charge and condemn us.
8. To rule over all people
The Bible says:
For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:9)(NASB)
It is true that many do no admit His domination now, but it comes a day when…
…so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10–11)(NASB)
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved
The New Testament was written in the time of slavery, when all people knew what a slave meant – one who doesn’t have his own will, doesn’t have freedom and doesn’t have choise, only duties. Slaves called “Lord…” their masters. There were some who became slaves out of love. To be saved you have to enter into such kind of slavery of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scripture says:
If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)(NASB)
The first condition for salvation is to choose to obey God’s Word to its fullness, and the second condition is to believe that He has risen. Do you believe this?
Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!
Translated by Felicia Djugostran