As He Said

"He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. 

Come, see the place where the Lord lay."  

Matthew 28:6

There has been no event more amazing, nor more significant, upon the face of the earth than the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In a lifetime of miraculous events -- a sinless life, a virgin birth, a transfiguration -- the culminating event had to happen to make the others significant.  If the Lord Jesus Christ had not risen from the dead, there would be little cause to discuss the other events.  The Resurrection is the evidence that all the others were true.

There is one point of the resurrection which makes it even more spectacular.  He told His disciples that it would happen.

"For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."  Matthew 12:40

"And He began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again."  Mark 8:31

It would have been one thing for God the Father to have resurrected the Lord Jesus when no one knew about it.  It is quite another for it to be predicted and then actually happen. 

This had to speak so much about the faith the Lord Jesus had in His Father's words, His Father's purpose and His Father's character.  He believed His Father would raise Him from the dead, He said so, and it was so.

Now if I tell you I am going to do something for you, you might expect it.  But I might forget I had made that promise, or I might be providentially hindered from fulfilling my promise.  I have learned that even the best intentions and plans sometimes are thwarted by no fault of our own.

The Lord Jesus, however, knew that nothing would, or nothing could prevent His Father from accomplishing His resurrection.  He said it would happen, and it happened just as He said.

There are many promises the Lord has made of us, His children, in the Scriptures.  We need to search them and know that what He has promised, that He will do.  Let us remember the One who has promised is called "Faithful and True."

"Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; 

(for He is faithful that promised;)" 

Hebrews 10:23