The Uniqueness of Christianity

 

A compilation

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“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”—John 11:25–26

God created the entire universe by His supernatural power, and this is something we must believe, regardless of explanations and theories that try to persuade otherwise. The conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, His miracles, teaching, His resurrection, ascension and indwelling of His Spirit are all a supernatural work of God, which we must come to believe as truth; not partially, but wholly. There is no other way we can experience God for who He is other than to believe.

The credibility of Christianity either falls or stands based on the authenticity of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There are two things in particular unique to the Christian message. The first is the identity of Jesus. He is not simply a street preacher who got the ball rolling, nor did He just happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right thing. Jesus is the Son of God and part of the triune Godhead, co-equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Secondly, Christ is unique in what He did. He died, was buried, and was raised to life again.

Most of the world’s religions are based on philosophical propositions. That is, if you want life to work well for you, you need to know certain things and live in the good of those things. Four of these major religions are personality based. Judaism regards Abraham as its father, and Abraham lived, died, and was buried. Buddhism was founded by Buddha in the 5th century [BC]. A translation of his death is quoted as saying, “His death was with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains behind.” Islam was founded on the teaching of Mohammed, who died in 632 AD at the age of 61. His tomb is visited by thousands of pilgrims in the city of Medina, and there has never been a claim that Mohammed rose from the dead.

Jesus died a young man at 33 years of age. He was buried, and there are two claims to His tomb in Jerusalem—one within the city walls of Jerusalem and one just outside the city—but both tombs are empty. The empty tomb is not just one of the many tenets of belief in the Christian gospel. It is the indispensable fact of the Christian gospel. Paul tells us, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”¹ In the Christian life, we walk by faith, not by sight, and are truly blessed by a God-given will to believe.—Charles Price

The only way

“All paths lead to God” is a tempting sentence. It has a certain positivity to it. But in actuality only Christianity even claims to lead to God. The Christian destination is an intimate, flourishing, life-giving relationship with God Himself: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent”²; “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”³ Primarily, for a Christian, heaven is not a place but a person; it is not a reward but a relationship.

The Christianization of Western culture has sometimes resulted in us projecting the destination of intimate fellowship with God on to other religious worldviews. But in fact this is distinctively Christian. In Buddhism and some traditions of Hinduism, the destination of Nirvana is the cessation of self and the elimination of desire, two essential components of personal relationship. According to tradition, it was on the very night that his son was born that Gautama Buddha left to pursue his life of detachment from anything or anyone that could cause him suffering. Contrast that with Jesus Christ, who did everything He possibly could to attach Himself to our suffering in His pursuit of relationship with us.

Likewise, the destination of Islam is not relationship with Allah. The paradise spoken of in Islam is one in which Allah is almost entirely absent. Instead, paradise is depicted as a place of carnal pleasure: wine, sex, perpetual virgins, young boys who wait on men. Hasn’t this paradise already been tried and found wanting? How many who have reached the pinnacle of earthly pleasure have testified that it is anything but paradise, that ultimately our longing for authentic relationship cannot be satisfied by anything else?

Christianity is distinctive in its claim to lead to God. But actually, there’s a twist. If we are being precise, even Christianity doesn’t claim to lead us to find God. In fact, it claims the opposite: it claims that God came to find us: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”⁴ … Contrary to every other major belief system, the Christian God “does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”⁵ Because where we are heading in Christianity is based on what God has already done and not on what we might do, we can be assured of our destiny. … Jesus Christ’s starting point is everyone else’s finish line—the assurance of salvation! …

So to return to our question, do all paths lead to God? No. None do… Even Christianity claims not that we are led to God but that God’s love led Him to us.—Vince Vitale⁶

What makes Christianity unique?

Is Christianity really unique, or is it just one of many roads on the path to Truth? Is Christianity truly unique among the many religions around the world? If it is, what makes it so?

Unique among all religions, Christianity makes several claims that others do not. First, all other religions exhort man to reach up to God and grasp hold of Him through their own efforts. Christianity is the only religion where God reaches down to man. Second, other religions are systems of do’s and don’ts to appease God; whereas Christianity is a relationship with God. Third, Christianity looks to the Bible as the singular source of Truth. Finally, Christianity is based upon truly the most amazing event in all of human history—the resurrection…

Perhaps the most defining principle of Christianity that makes it truly unique in every way and provides its fundamental basis is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Within Christianity, the resurrection is vitally important, for without it, Christianity does not exist, and our faith is useless.⁷ It was Jesus’ resurrection that changed the lives of the disciples. After Jesus was crucified, the disciples ran and hid. But when they saw the risen Lord, they knew that all Jesus had said and done proved that He was indeed God in flesh. No other religious leader has died in full view of trained executioners, had a guarded tomb, and then rose three days later to appear to many people. The resurrection is proof of who Jesus is and that He did accomplish what He set out to do: provide the only means of redemption for mankind.

Buddha did not rise from the dead. Muhammad did not rise from the dead. Confucius did not rise from the dead. Krishna did not rise from the dead. Only Jesus has physically risen from the dead, walked on water, claimed to be God, and raised others from the dead. He has conquered death. Only in Christianity do we have the person of Christ who claimed to be God, performed many miracles to prove His claim of divinity, died and rose from the dead, and claimed that He alone is “the way, the truth, and the life,”⁸ and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.—From gotquestions.org⁹

Aren’t all religions basically the same?

Although our basic needs and heart’s desires are the same, the world’s great religions prescribe many different and often contradictory means of meeting those needs. A brief look at some of the most common beliefs and practices makes this evident. Devout believers of many faiths try to fulfill their spiritual needs by regularly attending places of worship—shrines, temples, mosques, cathedrals, and so on—where prayers are made, incense is offered, and a multitude of different traditions, ceremonies, and rituals are observed.

Some seekers of truth worship one God, while others worship hundreds or even thousands of gods. Some of the world’s major religions began simply as moral or ethical philosophies, and their founders never intended that any deity or god should be worshipped. Yet today these very founders are venerated as if they themselves were gods.

For many believers, their highest hope and aspiration is that they will survive after death as an individual personality in a happy and heavenly afterlife. Others scorn the idea of continuing to live on as an individual, but rather look forward to the obliteration of their individual self, so that they may become one with the ultimate reality of the universe. Some believe that after they die they will return to live other lives on earth, over and over again, that their present life is just one of many births and rebirths that will continue indefinitely until full enlightenment or salvation is attained.

God, from the pages of the Bible, lovingly calls out to all people of all nationalities, saying, “Look unto Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, the God of all flesh, and besides Me there is no other.”¹⁰ The Bible’s appeal is universal: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, for the Lord would have all men to be saved, to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For God shows no partiality and is no respecter of persons, but in every nation, all who love Him are accepted by Him.”¹¹—The Family International

Published on Anchor October 2019. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso.

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¹ 1 Corinthians 15:14 NIV.

² John 17:3.

³ Revelation 3:20.

⁴ Luke 19:10.

⁵ Psalm 103:10.

⁶ Vince Vitale, Jesus Among Secular Gods (FaithWords, 2017).

⁷ 1 Corinthians 15:14.

⁸ John 14:6.

⁹ www.gotquestions.org/Christianity-unique.html.

¹⁰ Isaiah 45:22.

¹¹ Romans 10:13; 1 Timothy 2:4; Acts 10:34–35.

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The Resurrection is What Really Matters!

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Encountering the Risen King

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The Message of the Crucifixion

http://anchor.tfionline.com/post/message-crucifixion/

By D. Brandt Berg

Audio length: 14:57
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Tonight Christians around the world are celebrating the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Passion. On this day, known worldwide as Good Friday, there are many celebrations and observances of the Lord’s last day here on earth before His crucifixion. Literally hundreds of millions of Christians, at least professing Christians, have been celebrating this day and especially this night. Some have been celebrating all week, beginning last Sunday with Palm Sunday, the commemoration of our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

Thanks to Jesus’ death and resurrection, you and I were brought into the kingdom, and the kingdom moved its headquarters to the New Jerusalem on high. He was no longer a mere king of the city of Jerusalem and the little kingdom of Israel, but the King of the whole universe, the kingdom of God!

He was the King of kings and Lord of lords and the King of the entire universe, as well as the whole world and heavenly Jerusalem—rather than a mere earthly, physical, ancient little Middle Eastern city called Jerusalem. He became the King that He was and showed His power by dying on a cross, crucified like a common criminal. But even in that moment of His death, God showed His power that this was His Son in whom He was well pleased, as the earth shook and heaven thundered and people trembled at the manifestation of the wrath of God over their iniquity.1

Nearly the whole world is compelled to honor Jesus’ birthday and His death day, the two most outstanding events in His life, and one more, Easter Sunday, His rising day, Resurrection day, to live aloft forever in an immortal, eternal body, which shall live forever—like us—in the heavens. “We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”2

Hundreds of millions of professing Christians around the globe—be they Catholic, Protestant, or nondenominational—are celebrating the last day of Christ’s life here on Earth before His mortal death, as well as the Last Supper. The Feast of the Passover was a celebration, a feast in which the Jews were celebrating an event of their salvation from death by the blood of a lamb killed in a certain ceremonial way that night, cooked in a certain ceremonial way, and eaten with joy and thanksgiving that God had saved them from annihilation in Egypt.

The original Passover event was a happy occasion, a feast, a holiday. Jews came from all over the world, and Gentile believers as well, to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. It was a happy occasion, not at all sad. It was only going to be sad for one small group eventually, but at first it wasn’t necessarily sad. The Lord found His disciples a place to have the supper by a miracle, and I’m sure provided the food for them, and they sat down and enjoyed a good meal. And then they had the first Communion or Eucharist.

They even had lamb stew that night. We know it was a kind of a soup, otherwise they wouldn’t have been sopping the bread in it.3 They drank wine that night too. And it wasn’t until they were through eating and drinking that the Lord suddenly took more of a sober bent and train of thought and began to predict what was going to happen and to somewhat solemnly lead them into a ceremony, one of the few that the Lord commended. It seemed to be something which He considered believers would want to observe to commemorate His death. “As oft as ye do this, ye do it in remembrance of Me.” And Paul said, “Ye do show the Lord’s death till He comes.”4

The Lord was beginning to illustrate for them what He was about to do. That night His body was to be broken, scarred, torn, pierced, lacerated, His blood shed and finally His life given. His body was broken for us. He suffered pain and agony of the physical body, as some suffer today in sickness and in pain, that He might bear our sufferings in His own body. “For by His stripes ye are healed.”5 Not by His death on the cross, not by His final shedding of His blood in His life; that was for our salvation.

He had to suffer not only all His life for 33 years all of the things that we go through, so He could sympathize with us and empathize with us and feel what we feel, but He also had to suffer the final excruciating agony of the physical body to heal our human ills, as well as save us from our sins. He said, “Take, eat, this is My body which is broken for you.” “He bore our infirmities in His own body,” God’s Word says, “and by His stripes ye are healed.”

And He said, “Take, drink, after the same manner the cup. This is My blood of the New Testament shed for the remission of your sins. Drink ye all of it.”6

In other words, He was saying, “I’m also going to suffer agony and pain and illness in My body to empathize with you and your physical troubles and distresses and afflictions to let you know that I know how you feel. I’ve been through it. I know the pain. I know the agony. I know the suffering! I’ve been through it all, even worse than you. I know what you’re going through, so don’t worry.”

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.”7 He was as good as saying, “You need all these afflictions. You’re going to have to have them to keep you righteous. But I will deliver you from them all, one after the other, time after time.” You and I are no exceptions; we have our ups and downs, even discouragement sometimes.

The common people had heard Jesus gladly!8 Thousands upon thousands had heard and believed His message, received it, been healed and fed, and they loved Him. But where were they that night when the religious leaders and their paid mercenaries were shouting, “Crucify Him!”? They must have been home watching television—they certainly weren’t there to stick up for Him. No doubt quite a few of them were even deceived by the lies and figured they had been deluded and deceived and it had turned out He was a false prophet. They thought He was true, thought He was right, but they were so easily deluded and deceived and misled.

The seed had fallen on shallow or stony ground, and had been choked out by thorns and bore no fruit, and they were led astray and led away.9 Perhaps afterward some of them were sorry when they saw how far the enemies of Christ went and how horrible it was. Let’s hope they were convicted and repented and came back, and a lot of people did. There were lots of Christians led by the apostles and disciples who were left, so that on the Day of Pentecost 3,000 got saved with one sermon, and a few days later 5,000 with one healing!10

The ground had been sown and watered and softened and prepared, so that even after Jesus was crucified, many were prepared to understand, comprehend, believe, and receive the whole truth, to then know that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and to receive Him as their Savior. Not just to follow a personality, a human being, His words, His miracles, His free meals, but to finally understand the deep spiritual meaning of it all, that He was the Messiah who had been expected to come for thousands of years.

Jesus died for our sins; He’s the only one who could have done it. Only the Son of God could pay for our sins on the cross. Only God Himself in His Son could have taken our sins in His own body on that tree and borne the suffering of a dying sinner and taken our punishment for us and suffered for us. Only God could have done that in the person of His Son Jesus.

God’s message was: “Only I can save you; you cannot save yourself!” Christ’s message was clear, His death was plain. The message of God was very clear throughout the Old and New Testaments—especially the New Testament, but very clear even in the Old Testament. Abraham was the father of the faithful because he was a man of faith, demonstrating faith that he couldn’t do it himself, he just had to have faith in God.

Tonight hundreds of millions of Christians around the world are commemorating the death of Jesus. And millions of others know it as well and are hearing about it, knowing that this is a very special holy week for Christians. Virtually the whole world is hearing the message, and even if they’re not Christians, even if they’re of other religions, they know that this is the Christians’ holy week and this is its holiest night of all.

Considering the extent of communications and the dissemination of information today, probably the whole world, in all countries, of all faiths, nationalities, and religions are hearing about this week and know that the Christians are celebrating their holiest days of the year, and they are at least getting a little tiny glimpse of the message of Christ or hearing about Jesus, even if they don’t understand it.

Millions of Christians who understand the message of Christ and His death are choosing this week and this night to commemorate this event, and of all the nights in the year, it seemed that we should celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the night in which He and His disciples celebrated that First Supper.

So we thank You for Your sacrifice, Lord, Your blood shed for the remission of our sins, the New Testament in Your blood which was shed for us on that tree that we are commemorating this night—Your suffering, Your love, that You died for us in our place. You took our punishment for us. Instead of us dying for our sins, You died for them, Lord. And we now attest and testify and witness our faith in You and Your death for us and Your sacrifice of Your blood for our salvation to wash away our sins.

What we’re commemorating should not be a sad event, but a happy one, because if it hadn’t been for tonight, we wouldn’t be saved. Praise the Lord for the night that Jesus died for us! He not only died for us, but He went down into the bowels of the earth, three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and He preached to the souls in prison down there to give them a chance to be saved too. Think of it! Isn’t that wonderful? A lot of people don’t believe that, but I do. The Bible says so. So why not believe it?11

And then, praise God, come Sunday, we’ll be able to sing all those wonderful hymns about “Up from the grave He arose!” Let’s not just remember the death of the cross; let’s not always be seeing just a Christ on the cross and a crucifix, the suffering and the death. We don’t have a Jesus on the cross; He has left the cross! We have a bare cross. Jesus is no longer there! We don’t have a Christ in the grave. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”12 We don’t have a dead Christ hanging there on a crucifix; we have a live Jesus living in our hearts!

Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor o’er the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His Saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!
—Robert Lowry, 1874

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today.
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He lives! He lives, salvation to impart.
You ask me how I know He lives. He lives within my heart.
—A. H. Ackley, 1933

Originally published April 1984. Adapted and republished April 2015.
Read by Simon Peterson.



1 Matthew 27:51.


2 1 John 3:2.


3 John 13:26.


4 1 Corinthians 11:25–26.


5 Isaiah 53:5.


6 1 Corinthians 11:24–25; 1 Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53:5.


7 Psalm 34:19.


8 Mark 12:37.


9 Matthew 13:7.


10 Acts 2:41 and 4:4.


11 Matthew 12:40; 1 Peter 3:19, 4:6; Ephesians 4:9.


12 1 Corinthians 15:55.

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Easter Wonders

http://directors.tfionline.com/post/easter-wonders/
by Peter Amsterdam

At this time of year we celebrate the very heart of our faith—the resurrection of Jesus. It is the central theme of the gospel, the key component which proves the validity of everything Jesus taught. The resurrection tells us that Jesus is the Son of God; that as believers we have salvation and forgiveness, we are God’s children, and we’ll be with Him for eternity in heaven.

The apostle Paul said that if Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, then the message of Christianity would be without foundation, and the faith of those who believe would be worthless.1 But as the angel told the women who came to Jesus’ tomb, He has risen from the dead, just as He said He would. This fact validates our belief system and our faith. Jesus is alive! He lives! And because He does, so do we. Jesus said: I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.2

I love that we celebrate Easter and all that it means. I’d like to talk about three effects of the resurrection that are especially meaningful for me.
A sense of renewed awe and wonder

Jesus rising from the grave means that He conquered death, and in doing so, freed us from being bound only to this earth life. Though we presently live in a broken world, we have the promise of a perfect world to come. While we experience heartbreak and disappointment today, our tears and fears will be forever wiped away in our life after this life. He will make all things right. While we presently sometimes struggle with confusion, sadness, fear, and uncertainty, when we join Him and are in His presence, we will experience joy unspeakable.

This is possible because God, who so deeply loves us and wants us to be in relationship with Him, made a plan by which we could become His children. This plan required God entering this world through a miraculous birth and, after living among us, giving His life for us on the cross—and then rising from the dead. Through the completion of His plan, we can enter into the relationship with Him that we were created for—both now and forever.

That God has made it possible for us to have His presence in our lives now and to dwell in His presence eternally is awesome. The appropriate response on our part is one of eternal gratitude, praise, worship, and adoration, for we have been given the greatest gift possible.
Increased faith for life

I believe that if we think about, meditate on, and appreciate what Jesus’ resurrection meant, what it achieved, and how it has changed our lives forever, we can gain increased faith for every area of our lives. Jesus not only rose from the dead, but He’s in the business of helping us rise above the dead ends, deadwood, and deadweights in our lives.

Sometimes we resign ourselves to situations and circumstances because we feel there’s no hope for change, that things are what they are and that we simply have to endure them. However, God is in the business of changing things, of breathing new life into hearts, relationships, or situations that may be or seem “dead.” Perhaps you’re in a situation that seems out of your control or as if all hope is gone, but no situation is beyond Jesus’ control; His power is unlimited. When Jesus was on earth, He regularly did the impossible. He multiplied the loaves and fishes, walked on water, healed the paralyzed, and gave sight to the blind. Dead people were even raised to life.

Mark Batterson expressed this concept well:

If you read the Gospels, what you discover is this: Jesus routinely reversed the irreversible! He reversed weather systems, He reversed blindness. There were no nerves between the optic nerve and the visual cortex, nothing there, no one had ever heard of a man being born blind and then receiving sight, but Jesus reverses things that are irreversible. He reverses leprosy. 2,000 years ago, He reversed death itself. So what we celebrate is the fact that there is a God who is higher than, who is bigger than, the universal laws and the universe that He has created. What God accomplished on that resurrection morning is He defeated death, He reversed the irreversible. And I would suggest that that is exactly what He came to do in your life. He came to reverse the effects of sin. He came to reverse the effects of death. That’s who He is and what He does.3
Renewed commitment to spread the Good News

Jesus coming to earth, dying on the cross for us, and His subsequent resurrection forever changed the course of history. These actions allowed each of us the opportunity to accept Jesus and become part of God’s family. We should be impressed with how wonderful the gift of salvation is and be moved by the great need to share it with as many as we can. This is the most precious gift anyone can possibly receive, and we who have been blessed with it should feel compelled to share it with others.

It’s easy to get so busy with our responsibilities and daily commitments, and end up feeling that there’s no time left to be one of God’s ambassadors. But is that really the case? Or is it a matter of priorities? When we give careful thought to the magnitude and meaning of the priceless gift God has given us, it motivates us to regularly share it with others.

Receiving Jesus’ gift of salvation and reconciliation is the singularly most important thing that anyone can ever do. It’s a gift that will better their life, heal their heart, give them hope for the future, and enable them to help those that they love, not only here and now, but in the life to come.

Jesus telling His disciples to preach the gospel throughout the world to everyone informs us that He wants each man, woman, and child to have the opportunity to become a part of His family, to be saved from their sins, and to experience His forgiveness and reconciliation. Each of us who has already received His marvelous gift, who know what it is to live within God’s family, to be forgiven for our sins, to have God’s Spirit within us, should feel compelled to share the gospel with those who are searching.

We who believe in the resurrection, have been saved because of the resurrection, and will experience resurrection, should remind ourselves as we celebrate the resurrection of God the Son that we are proclaimers of the risen Christ to those who have not yet heard that God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.4

Happy Easter!

1 1 Corinthians 15:12–20 HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible).


2 John 11:25–26 ESV.


3 Mark Batterson, National Community Church, April 12, 2009 (Easter).


4 John 3:16 ESV.

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Easter—Yesterday, Today, and Forever!

By Peter Amsterdam

As Easter approaches, I have been reflecting on Jesus’ resurrection and its significance. What did it mean to His original disciples—all of those who believed in Him during His lifetime on earth? And what does it mean to us today?

By the time Jesus ate the last Passover meal with His disciples, just hours before He was arrested, tried, and killed, they had come to understand that Jesus was the Messiah spoken of throughout the Scriptures (the Old Testament). Their understanding of His Messiahship, however, was different from our understanding today. We look at Jesus through the understanding that He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, that He died for our sins, took our punishment upon Himself through His crucifixion, and that He rose from the dead.

At the time of the Last Supper, Jesus hadn’t yet died and risen from the dead, and the disciples’ understanding of Jesus as the Messiah was rooted in the Jewish people’s interpretation of the Scriptures at the time.

The Jewish people in first-century Palestine believed and expected that God would send a Messiah, as was spoken about throughout the Old Testament. According to their interpretation of Scripture, this Messiah, the anointed one, was going to be an earthly king of Israel. This king would win decisive victories over the pagan oppressors of the Jewish people—whoduring Jesus’ lifetime were the Romans—and would bring true, God-given justice and peace to the whole world.[1] The expectation was that the king of the Jews would free the nation of Israel from oppression and domination by various other kingdoms, from which it had suffered for centuries. As they saw it, the kingdom to come was going to be an earthly one.

The disciples’ understanding of Jesus as the Messiah up until the time of His death was still based on this interpretation. They were expecting that Jesus would be the anointed king of physical Israel. This would have been the motivation behind the request of the brothers James and John (the sons of Zebedee) to be allowed to sit on Jesus’ right and left hand once He came into power. In other words, they wanted prominent positions when He came to rule Israel.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Him and said to Him, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And they said to Him, “Grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at Your left, in Your glory.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.[2]

Even when Jesus was together with His disciples after His resurrection, they still asked when He was going to free Israel and restore the physical kingdom:

“Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”[3]

When Jesus told His disciples about His upcoming death, it was difficult for them to accept this, because there was no conception in the popular Jewish understanding of the role of the Messiah that the Messiah would be killed. We see Peter’s negative reaction—and presumably others felt similarly—in Matthew’s description:

[Jesus] strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that He was the Christ. 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 on the third day be raised. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a hindrance to Me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”[4]

The Greek word Christos, from which the term Christ is derived, means anointed, oranointed one, which is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term mashiyach, meaninganointed, which the word messiah comes from. Jesus didn’t want to spread the news that He was the Messiah, at least not at that point, possibly because it would have brought Him into political conflict with the Roman government. The Romans were quick to stamp out any challenges to their authority, and undoubtedly would move against anyone who was advocating the overthrow of Roman rule or proclaiming himself to be king of a nation the Romans ruled.

While Jesus didn’t want the disciples to spread the news of who He was, He did inform them. Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ statement that He was going to go to Jerusalem to die was basically to tell Him that He was wrong. Why would a disciple tell Jesus that? Because, according to the Jewish perception, the Messiah was not going to die in Jerusalem—he was going to take over the physical kingdom of Israel and would rule and reign in righteousness, which in some way would affect the whole world.

Jesus’ response to Peter was, You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. He’s saying, “Peter, you are seeing it only in the physical realm, with the traditional expectations. You’re not seeing it the way God does. You don’t get it.”

Before Jesus’ time, as well as since, there have been individuals who either claimed to be or whose followers believed that they were the messiah spoken about in the (Old Testament) Scriptures. However, these people—who led rebellions against the foreign rulers of Israel—were killed, and nothing became of their so-called messiahship. They were, rightly, considered failed messiahs.

So, from the natural point of view, Peter’s response is understandable, as is James and John asking Jesus to let them hold positions of power in Jesus’ earthly kingdom. Their expectation was an earthly kingdom with an anointed king, the messiah.

The events of the days before the Passover added to this anticipation. Seeing the large crowd of those who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover taking branches of palm trees and going to meet Jesus, crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel,[5] would have been exhilarating for the disciples! Jesus arrived in the capital city (as the Messiah was expected to do), and many were proclaiming Him as king. And why wouldn’t they? People had heard that He had recently raised His friend Lazarus from the dead. Throughout His ministry He had healed multitudes of sick people, He had fed thousands of people miraculously, He had spoken God’s word with authority. His arrival caused those who didn’t know who He was or what was going on to ask about it, and the crowds who were following Him said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”[6]

The expectation of many that Jesus was likely the Messiah was high.

However, to all appearances, everything soon went wrong. Within days Jesus was dead—unfairly accused and savagely killed in the most degrading manner, a manner which the Jews understood to mean that the person dying was cursed by God.[7] The Messiah was expected to bring the pagans to justice, not to suffer unjust violence at their hands. The hopes of those looking to Jesus as Messiah were crushed—Another failed messiah in their eyes.

You can imagine how devastating this shocking turn of events must have been for the disciples. The teacher they followed, their beloved Master, whom they were sure was the Messiah, was dead. They were confused and discouraged, as seen in the account of two of them who were walking to the village of Emmaus on the day of the resurrection. The risen Jesus drew near and started walking with them. When He asked about their conversation, they stood still and looked sad. In the course of telling their story, they said:

But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel.[8]

Their hopes of Jesus being the Messiah had been dashed, and they were deeply saddened by His death.[9]

But then, the resurrection changed everything! God raised the so-called “failed” Messiah from the dead. There had been no Jewish expectation that the Messiah would be raised from the dead, so it wasn’t as if the disciples, or the Jewish people in general, were waiting to see whether Jesus would fulfill some biblical promise in that respect.

A short time before this, upon hearing that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, the chief priests came to the conclusion that Jesus must die, saying:

“If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” … Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them … “It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”[10]

During Jesus’ trial the high priest had asked Him if he was the Christ, the Messiah, and upon hearing Jesus’ affirmative answer, which included quotations from the book of Daniel about the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God, the high priest and those with him decided that Jesus must die.[11] They accused Him of blasphemy, which by their law was punishable by death. The Jewish leaders rejected Him, did not believe He was the promised Messiah, and feared that if He lived, the Romans would take away their place in the temple and the nation as a whole.

Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, condemned Jesus to death on the basis of His claim of being a king. It seems he didn’t consider Jesus a threat, but due to the insistence of the crowd and the Jewish authorities, he chose to apply the law.[12]There could be no kings without the sanction of Rome, so under the Roman anti-sedition laws He was crucified. The plaque which Pilate hung on the cross said, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”[13]

Jesus was executed because the Jewish leaders rejected Him as the Messiah, and because the Romans said no unauthorized king could live. Yet the extraordinary and unexpected event of His resurrection reversed the verdicts of both the Jewish and the Roman courts.[14]

Despite Rome’s rules that would-be kings must die, and the Jewish leaders’ belief that Jesus was not the Messiah, God Himself overturned their judgments, validating Jesus as both King and Messiah by raising Him from the dead. God gave His stamp of approval.

This in turn validated all that Jesus taught about Himself and about God the Father, about the kingdom of God and salvation. The resurrection, which proved that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, coupled with the coming of the Holy Spirit, established a new understanding about God. The significance of the resurrection in Jesus’ day was that it validated that Jesus was who He said He was.

Before the resurrection, the disciples didn’t fully understand the things Jesus had told them about His death and resurrection. However, after He rose, during the forty days before He ascended into heaven, He explained the Scriptures to them and they then understood.

He presented Himself alive to them after His suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.[15]

Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself … They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the Scriptures?”[16]

The realization that through Jesus’ Incarnation, death, and resurrection, salvation was available to all, was the reason the apostles preached about the resurrected Christ throughout the book of Acts. It’s why the New Testament writers wrote about the significance of the resurrection, stating that it proved He was the Son of God, that we are born again, that we have assurance of our salvation and that without it our faith would be in vain.

[Jesus is] declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead.[17]

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.[18]

He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.[19]

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.[20]

If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.[21]

The resurrection was proof that God had indeed entered into the world in a new way, through His Incarnate Son. Fifty days later, after Jesus had ascended, the Holy Spirit also entered the world in a new way by dwelling within believers. These events motivated the disciples and the early church to spread that news throughout the world of their day. They shared the news that through Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross, humanity could become reconciled with God.

For the disciples then, and for us now, Easter is the bedrock of Christian faith and hope. The early disciples, while initially faced with crushed hopes due to their expectations, soon came to see that because Jesus arose, what He did, said, and promised are true. That carries down through history to us today. The risen Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, gave proof of His divinity, and proof that we can trust Him, by dying for our sins and by doing the impossible and rising from the dead.

Because He died for our sins and then rose from the dead, we know that all He said is true: that we have salvation, that we have eternal life, that the Holy Spirit dwells within us, that we have the promise of answered prayer, that He will lead and guide us when we ask Him to. The separation between us and God has been bridged. We are His children, who will live with Him forever, and we can bring others to Him through our witness.

Because He rose, as the firstfruits,[22] we too will be resurrected in due season. Because of the resurrection, we have the assurance of salvation, the ability to lead a Christ-infused life today, and the honor to live with God forever.

Let’s rejoice in the significance of Easter—yesterday, today, and forever. Happy Easter!

Notes

Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.


[1] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 557.


[2] Mark 10:35–38, 41.


[3] Acts 1:6.


[4] Matthew 16:20–23.


[5] John 12:13.


[6] John 12:12–18, Matthew 21:6–11.


[7] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13–14).


[8] Luke 24:19–23.


[9] That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.

And He said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad.

Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered Him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And He said to them, “What things?” And they said to Him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened” (Luke 24:13–21).


[10] John 11:48–50.


[11] The high priest said to [Jesus], “I adjure You by the living God, tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard His blasphemy. What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death” (Matthew 26:63–66).


[12] Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar” (John 19:12).


[13] Matthew 27:37.


[14] N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 576.


[15] Acts 1:3.


[16] Luke 24:27,32.


[17] Romans 1:4.


[18] 1 Peter 1:3.


[19] Acts 17:30–31.


[20] Romans 10:9.


[21] 1 Corinthians 15:14 KJV.


[22] 1 Corinthians 15:20.

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