Happy Resurrection Sunday! Today, Christians all around the world celebrate that fact that our Savior was crucified and rose again in victory on the third and appointed day. Death could not hold Him, and the grave could not keep Him. Christ is alive and our sins have been forgiven. It is not uncommon in many churches for one believer to declare, “Christ is risen,” before another believer replies, “Christ is risen, indeed.” For centuries, believers have reminded themselves of the glory of Christ’s resurrection simply by discussing it with other believers.
Over the course of the last several weeks, many believers have also participated in Lent. While the Lenten season ended a couple days ago, today is the culmination of the season. This period of self-examination is designed to show us areas in our lives that aren’t in total subjection to God’s will and God’s Word. Through prayer, study and fasting, we are able to identify these areas and allow the Holy Spirit to correct them.
As there are seven days of Passion Week, we have also been looking deeper at the seven last sayings of Jesus from the cross. As Easter is the final day of Passion Week, we will look at the last words that Jesus spoke in His earthly body.
Into Your Hands…
Luke 23:46 (TPT)
Then Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Father, I surrender my Spirit into your hands.” And he took his last breath and died.
After a sleepless night filled with farcical trials and physical torment, Jesus had spent six long, painful hours suspended between Heaven and Earth on a cross. With nails holding Him in place through His writs and feet, He had endured an unimaginable amount of physical pain. He had been the subject of a government conspiracy that involved the betrayal of one of His closest friends, Judas. He was fully aware of the fact that Peter had denied even knowing Him. He had even endured being abandoned by God the Father as He carried the sin of all of humanity. Jesus was tired, Jesus was hurting and now, Jesus was dead.
Over the years, skeptics and doubters have tried to dispute the fact that He was actually dead. They claim that He simply passed out because of the amount of pain that He had endured combined with sleep deprivation. However, Biblical scholars who have studied the Biblical and historical accounts of crucifixion confirm that no human could have withstood the amount of physical punishment that Jesus endured without dying.
The chief priests were so sure that He was dead that they paid the guards who were watching the tomb to say that the disciples stole the body of Jesus while they slept (Matthew 28:12-13). Would they have bothered to go through the process of bribing guards to lie if Jesus had simply fainted? Doubtful at best. Make no mistake about it, Jesus was dead. And in His last words, He spoke to God the Father and told Him that He was committing His Spirit to the Father.
Why would He do that? Because He knew that death was not the end. Jesus was fully aware of the fact that death He was about to experience was temporary. Thousands of years before Christ took His first breath as a baby born in Bethlehem, He knew about the plan. The Bible says that He was the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Jesus knew the plan from the day that the world was formed. He knew the plan didn’t stop at the tomb, so He was confident in surrendering His Spirit back to the Father.
Everything that Jesus had done leading up to this moment was about submission to God. When He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked God if there was any other way for the plan of salvation to unfold. Staring down the certainty of unimaginable pain, He asked God to come up with a different way to save all of us. However, He ended His prayer by acknowledging that His wishes didn’t matter, only the will of God (Luke 22:44). Jesus carried out His commitment to God’s will up until the last moments of His life.
It’s also important to realize that Jesus knew that death wasn’t the end of the story. He had told the disciples multiple times about how He was going to die but that He would raise again. When He surrendered His Spirit into the Father’s hands, He did so with the promise that death was not the end; it was simply the last step that had to be taken for us to be saved. The crucifixion accomplished part of the plan, but the resurrection finished it.
Romans 4:25 (TPT)
Jesus was handed over to be crucified for the forgiveness of our sins and was raised back to life to prove that he had made us right with God.
If Christ had stayed in the grave, we would not experience justification with God. Paul told the church at Corinth that the resurrection was the key element to the Christian faith:
1 Corinthians 15:14 (TPT)
And if Christ has not been raised, all of our preaching has been for nothing and your faith is useless.
Jesus committed His Spirit to the Father so that we could experience right-standing with God. His death allowed us to receive forgiveness, but His resurrection ensured that we could eternally live as a child of God.
What It Means for Us
Jesus’ resurrection not only ensures that we can experience true forgiveness, but it also ensures that we can view death the same way that Jesus did. To the human mind, death is final. There is nothing that seems more final than a casket being lowered into the cold, heartless earth. However, for the child of God, death is not the end; it is just a necessary step that allows us to go from the temporary to the eternal. Take a look at how Paul explained the resurrection to the Roman church:
Romans 8:11 (TPT)
Yes, God raised Jesus to life! And since God’s Spirt of Resurrection lives in you, he will also raise your dying body back to life by the same Spirit that breathes life into you!
The writer of Hebrews tells us that at some point in time, we will all experience death (Hebrews 9:27). While none of us are looking forward to that day, the fact remains that we will all taste death. What that looks like varies from person to person, but each of us will experience the transition from this life to eternal life. David referred to it as “the step of death” (1 Samuel 20:3). The Bible discusses death in several different ways, but in the end, it is never seen as the last step for the child of God.
Jesus’ resurrection gives us the assurance of a resurrection. How is that possible? Because the same Holy Spirit that brought Christ back from the grave now lives inside each and every one of us.
1 Corinthians 3:16 (TPT)
Don’t you realize that together you have become God’s inner sanctuary and that the Spirit of God makes his permanent home in you?
The same Holy Spirit that made His way into the tomb of Christ Jesus on the first Easter Sunday now lives in your heart. It is the same Holy Spirit who has helped you to recognize areas in your life that need to be put under subjection to God’s will for you over the course of the Lenten season. It is the Holy Spirit that will raise us from the dead and give us the ability to declare the powerful words that Paul wrote about to the Corinthian church when he told them that we will now be able to slide out of these mortal clothes and put on immortality. Once we have made that transition, we will be able to say, “Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory?”
Christ’s resurrection ensures that we no longer have to fear death. Instead, we view it as a temporary step, just like Jesus did.
A Closing Prayer
God, thank You for everything that You have revealed to me during this Lenten season. Thank You for miraculously raising Your Son from the grave. Not only does it ensure that I can walk in redemption and justification, but it means that I do not have to fear death. Thank You for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in my life! In Christ’s name, Amen.