Dr. Jeffress Tells Newsweek/Washington Post Readers "Why The Empty Tomb Matters"
Why the empty tomb matters
By Robert Jeffress
pastor, First Baptist Church of Dallas
For most Americans, Easter has more to do with bunnies, eggs, and candy than Christ's resurrection from the dead.
According to a recent survey by the Barna Group, less than half of U.S. adults link Easter to the resurrection. This is especially troubling when you consider the attitude of some Christians, who would likely shrug their shoulders and say, "So what? Even if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, my faith would still be important to me."
In reality, the resurrection is essential to the Christian faith. Let me suggest four reasons an empty tomb matters:
It verifies the truth of Scripture
The Old Testament prophesied the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And in John 2:19, Jesus, talking about his body, said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
Even Jesus' enemies knew that His resurrection was the heart of His claim to be God. That is why after Christ's death they were so insistent to Pilate that the tomb be guarded.
Followers of many religions, including the Jews, believed that when good people died, their spirits (not bodies) went to heaven. That was nothing new. If that had been what Jesus was predicting, then why guard the tomb?
The only reason to guard the tomb was because both Jesus' followers and His enemies understood that Jesus was claiming that His physical body -- flesh and bones -- would be raised from the dead.
It ratifies the sufficiency of Christ's death
Jesus' physical resurrection proves that he was the unique son of God who died for the sins of the world. Romans 4:25 says, "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."
Justification is the act by which God takes our sin and places it on Christ and takes Christ's righteousness credits it to us. As a result, God declares us not guilty.
Christ's resurrection is proof that God has accepted Christ's payment for our sin.
It would be easy for Jesus to have said, "I am going to die for your sins." But if His story had ended on Good Friday, who would have known whether His death was for His own sins or for ours? The empty grave proves that God accepted Christ's death as "payment in full" for our transgressions.
It clarifies the nature of eternity
Popular author Tim Lahaye says that one of the things that kept him from becoming a Christian was the thought of spending eternity floating around as a disembodied spirit on a cloud playing a harp.
Such a thought probably doesn't excite you much, either. And it shouldn't because that is not an accurate portrayal of heaven.
The empty tomb clarifies what our bodies are going to be like in eternity. When Jesus arose from the grave, He did not leave His body behind and enter into some eternal spiritual existence.
No, the Bible says that Christ's physical body was transformed into a new body that was superior to His old body, and yet retained some of its characteristics. The same will be true for our new bodies. We will be able to eat and drink as Christ did, and will be recognizable to others as Christ was to His disciples.
It exemplifies God's victory over sin
God created a perfect world. But because of sin, the earth was infected with sickness, sadness, broken relationships, and death. Those things were never a part of God's original plan. Satan is the great usurper who has taken temporary control of God's creation.
However, God is not about to abandon his creation. God's plan is and always has been to reclaim and redeem this world.
That means that ultimately God is going to reverse the effects of sin and death. One day the clouds are going to part, the graves are going to open, the Lord is going to descend, and the kingdoms of this world will once again become the kingdom of God.
The pain and heartache you may be experiencing now are real . . . but also temporary. There is a final chapter to be revealed, and the empty tomb gives us a hint of how that chapter will read. Death, sin, and suffering will be swallowed up in victory.
That's why an empty grave matters.
Dr. Robert Jeffress is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas.
By Robert Jeffress | March 31, 2010; 5:07 PM ET
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