John 2:19 Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. (21) But He spoke of the temple of His body. (22) When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this... Acts 2:32 This Jesus God has raised up… Acts 3:15 And the Author of life you killed, whom God has raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.
According to the New Testament, the Lord's resurrection is mentioned in two ways. First, we are told that the Lord Jesus resurrected Himself, that is, that He raised Himself up. On the other hand, the New Testament tells us that He was raised up by God. On the one hand, the Lord raised up Himself; on the other hand, He was raised from the dead by God. The Lord's raising up Himself shows His life power, the ability in His resurrection life. But God's raising Him from among the dead was a sign that He was justified and vindicated by God. God raised Christ from the dead as a proof that He justified what the Lord was and what He did on earth. The Man-Savior lived in a way that others thought strange. His way of living was absolutely different from religion, culture, and society. He lived and worked in a very unusual way. If God had not come in to raise Him up from the dead, this would have meant that God did not justify Him. But God's raising Christ up from the dead was a sign of God's justification and vindication. Romans 4:25 says that Christ "was delivered because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification." The death of Christ fulfilled and satisfied God's righteous requirements so that we may be justified by God through His death (Rom. 3:24). Christ's resurrection is a proof that God was satisfied with His death for us. If Christ had died on the cross, having been judged there by God, but had not been raised from among the dead, there would have been no justification or vindication rendered to Him by God. That would have affected our salvation because, in such a case, His death would not have been followed by God's vindication. But God judged Christ in death and then raised Him up from the dead. God's raising up Christ from the dead was His justification and vindication of what Christ was and did. From this we may have the assurance that God has accepted what Christ did for us on the cross. We are justified by God because of Christ's death, and in Christ, the resurrected One, we are accepted before God.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Luke, pp. 465-467. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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