The Resurrected Christ

Acts 4:33“And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.” 

I read  a short devotional on Acts 4:33 that I'd like to share today. It stated that there are multitudes today who believe that Christ’s resurrection was a “spiritual” resurrection, insisting that the idea of a dead body returning to life after three days in the grave is completely unscientific and impossible. This was not what the apostles preached with great grace and great power, however. They would hardly have been excited about any kind of spiritual resurrection since everyone (both Jews and the pagan Gentiles) believed in life after death. If that was their message, no one would have doubted, and no one would have cared. Per Luke 24:37, even when the disciples saw the resurrected Christ, they first “supposed that they had seen a spirit”. Christ even had to urge them to “behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

John 1:1-4 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

When the disciples finally became convinced of His bodily resurrection, they were quickly transformed into courageous evangelists, willing even to die in support of their glorious message of salvation. The supernatural resurrection was, indeed, contrary to scientific law and all human experience, and this very fact proved to them that their Lord was Himself the divine lawgiver and author of all human experience. All other founders and leaders of human religions, ancient or modern, are themselves subject to death, but the Lord Jesus Christ alone has triumphed over death. Only the Creator of life can conquer death, and the resurrection proves that Jesus Christ is Creator as well as Savior. Therefore, when we today, like the apostles of old, proclaim the resurrection of Christ, we know that His name is above every name, and this enables us also to witness with great power, in great grace.

Saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.