We have been working through the issue of the biblical worldview of Jesus Christ for the last several days and understanding who Christ is. It is absolutely pivotal to everything that we know and believe and live as Christians in this world. He is the watershed issue. Those who receive Him and trust in Him will have eternal life. Those that reject Him will have eternal judgment, so there is nothing more important than who Jesus Christ is and what He has done and what He is going to do.
We have seen that He is God in John 1 and other places. We have seen that He has become man in the incarnation. We have seen that He has died for us on the cross of Calvary and took upon Himself our sins dying on our behalf so that we can have the righteousness of God. Without the cross, it is impossible to be right with God. Now we will look at the resurrection. We do not, in our biblical worldview of Jesus, leave Him on the cross. He did go to the cross, He died on the cross at a point in time, but He is not on the cross today. So, when they took Him down from the cross and buried Him, three days later, He was resurrected from the dead. All four gospel accounts talk about the resurrection in one degree or another. Then when the apostles received the power of the Holy Spirit to go out and be witnesses for Christ, their message did not center just on the cross but also the resurrection. Everywhere they went they spoke about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was both a pivotal and important message, and a message that caused many other people who wanted to reject Christ to get very angry.
In Acts 2, we see an interesting verse that puts together the plan of God and the guilt of man. Acts 2:23 says, “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” “This Man,” is speaking of Christ. God had planned all along, as we also see in the Old Testament, we have many records and prophecy that Christ would die in our place. Isaiah 53 is the central passage to this. Act 2:23 said that “this Man was delivered over by God through a predetermined plan and foreknowledge.” This was not an accident. God had planned this.
Acts 2:24 continues, “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” These Jewish leaders and the Jews that follow Him did in fact crucify Christ. They are held accountable for that. They are guilty of doing that, but the Lord resurrected Christ from the dead. Because it is impossible for death to hold Him in its power. This is one of the central pieces of the resurrection. The resurrection is the authenticity of who Jesus Christ is. That He is God, and He is Savior. He is the great Godman, perfect Savior for us. Death could not hold Him because He was God. The resurrection proved that. It is God’s stamp of approval that all that He did met His approval. There is also the verification that He is all He claimed to be. We find that final proof of His deity . . .
