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Lee Grey
Mar 31, 2024

The Third Day: "He has risen..."

SOMEONE ONCE SAID that the ratio of death to man is 1 to 1, and we are all going to make it! During our lives we will experience pain and suffering, for no one can escape the consequences of Genesis 3. The only hope we have and ever could have, is if someone, who exists outside of time and space, demonstrated that they have the power to lay down their life, and to take it up again. The only one throughout history who fulfills this qualifier is Jesus Christ. At the foot of the cross, stands the ultimate demonstration of love and sacrifice. When Jesus breathed His last and cried out the words, “It is finished,” God’s redemptive plan was brought to completion (John 19:30, 17:4). The demonstration came three days later at the resurrection.

       As with all things, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, was to demonstrate Christ’s power over death, His claims of divinity, and ultimately, to bring Glory to the Father. Resurrection leads directly to life and as the resurrected Lazarus lived again, so too, the resurrection of Jesus brings life to every believer. Consider the words of Warren Wiersbe:

Resurrection leads to life, and Jesus is both the resurrection and the life. Faith in Jesus Christ raises us from the spiritual death caused by sin (Eph. 2:1-10) and imparts to us everlasting life and abundant life. When the spirit leaves the body, the body is dead (James 2:26). For the Christian believer, this means going to be with Christ (2 Cor. 5:6-10; Phil. 1:22-23).

       Wiersbe goes on to say:

The narrative in John 11 is so profound that it touches our lives in numerous ways. It deals with love (v. 5) and makes clear that God’s love doesn’t prevent God’s people from experiencing pain, sickness, and sorrow. It also deals with hope and the loss of hope (vv. 3, 8-10, 21-22, 32). Christ is able to raise the dead and meet every need of the new life that follows that miracle because He is both “the resurrection and the life.”

       For the Christian, the resurrection is the lifeblood of our faith. For without it, we don’t have any hope of eternal life. The Apostle Paul delineates this truth in 1 Corinthians 15:12-17 when he says:

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact that dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins (1 Cor. 15:12-17).

       Paul clearly says that if Christ did not rise on the third day, then not only is our preaching and our faith “empty,” but we are still in our sins and worse yet, we have been found to be “false witnesses of God.” However, Jesus says otherwise! In John 11:25, we read Jesus’ own words, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

       Is there any greater promise, any greater gift, or any greater reward for the one who can genuinely say, “Yes Lord, I believe” (John 11:27).


- Lee


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“OF ONE THING I AM CERTAIN—IF TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY CHRISTIANS WOULD GRASP THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RESURRECTION LIKE THE FIRST-CENTURY CHRISTIANS DID, OUR LIVES WOULD BE RADICALLY REVOLUTIONIZED. RATHER THAN BEING MICROCOSMS OF THE CULTURE, WE WOULD BECOME CHANGE AGENTS. LIKE A SMALL BAND OF SEEMINGLY INSIGNIFICANT BELIEVERS WHO SUCCEEDED IN TURNING AN EMPIRE UPSIDE DOWN, WE WOULD LEAVE A LASTING MARK ON SOCIETY. IN THE END, IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHETHER WE ONLY SAY WE BELIEVE IN RESURRECTION OR WHETHER WE REALLY BELIEVE.” - Hank Hanegraaff


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Resources:

Hanegraaff, Hank. The Legacy Study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2007.

Hanegraaff, Hank. Resurrection. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2000.

Wiersbe, Warren. Jesus In the Present Tense: The I AM Statements of Christ. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2011.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version ®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.






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In Congress, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of

Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

​

       He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

       He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

       He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

       He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

       He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

       He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

       He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

       He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

       He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

       He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

       He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

       He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

       He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

       For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

       For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

       For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

       For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

       For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

       For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

       For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

       For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

       For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

       He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

       He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

       He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

       He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

       He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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