’If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile: you are still in your sins.” – 1 Corinthians 15:7
The second significance of the resurrection is that it assures us of God’s forgiveness. I need to note that forgiveness is both one of our basic human needs and one of God’s best gifts through the gospel. I have read the statement of the head of a large English mental hospital: “I could dismiss half my patients tomorrow if they could be assured of forgiveness.” For all of us have a skeleton or two in some dark cupboard – memories of things we have thought, said, or done, of which in our better moments we are thoroughly ashamed. Our conscience nags, condemns, even torments us.
Several times during his public ministry Jesus spoke words of forgiveness and peace, and in the upper room her referred to the communion cup as his “blood of the covenant….…poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Thus he linked our forgiveness with his death.
That is what Jesus said. But how can we know that he was correct, that he achieved by his death what he said he would achieve, and that God has accepted his death in our place as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for our sins? The answer is that, if he had remained dead, we would never have known. Rather, without the resurrection we would have to conclude that his death was a failure. The apostle Paul saw this logic clearly. The terrible consequences of no resurrection, he wrote, would be that the apostles are false witnesses, believers are unforgiven, and the Christian dead have perished. But in fact, Paul continued, Christ was raised from the dead, and by raising him, God has assured us that he approved of his sin-bearing death, that he did not die in vain, and that those who trust in him receive a full and free forgiveness. The resurrection validates the cross. (adapted from John Stott)
Just a few questions to keep you thinking:
a. Have you been forgiven? Have you forgiven yourself for things that you have done?
b. Why do we often hold on to things in our lives that even God Himself has already forgiven? We can be assured we are forgiven since Christ was raised from the dead.
c. Is this a new devotion to you? What have you learned from it?
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