Real Life Part 2

Part 2 - Resilient Resurrection Life

Some say Jesus was a profound philosopher, a great Rabi, or a skilled moral teacher. Some say he was a political instigator or just a religious deliberator. Some say that he did not exist at all. But history, even revised, cannot deny the fact that he was more than just an average man.

His name was Jesus (Yeshua) of Nazareth. Yeshua is a derivative of the name Yehowshuwa (Joshua-Jehovah has saved; from the root yasha’ meaning savior or deliverer) and the name Yoceph(Joseph- meaning Jehovah has added or brought increase). Now Jesus is from Nazareth meaning “a guarded one”. But upon his baptism he is no longer called Jesus of Nazareth but Christ which is Greek meaning “the Messiah”. In Greek thought it is simply an anointed one or a person with chrisma or a special gift. But in Hebrew thought he is Yeshua Ha Mashiach, the Messiah, the deliverer of Israel and the savior of the world.

In Jewish thought it is said that in every generation there is a potential messiah. Prior to Jesus the Messiah was perceived as an anointed king redeeming the kingdom of Israel. But, in Jesus’ day it had evolved into one who would deliver Israel from its oppressors and usher in a new age. Thus, there were many ideas of YHVH sending a deliverer or a savior in the likes of those of old such as Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Gideon, David and many others throughout the history of the Tanakh. Some professing to be a messiah came before and after Jesus including: Bar Kokhba, David Alroy, David Reuveni, Shabatai Zevi, and many others. To the Jew the messiah would come as a man through the line of David. But he was not to be worshipped or considered as divine. To be a King, Rabi and a prophet was one thing. But to claim to be divine and to bring increase through divine order is another and blasphemous to the Jew of Jesus’ day. And to add the fact of a professing messiah who would forgive sins and graft the Gentile and Samaritan into the same covenant as that of Israel was a death wish.

This is why it is so important to understand the connection between the blood (‘adam) that in Genesis received the Ruach Ha Kodesh (divine Spirit of God) making man a living soul then having tasted death to communion with God due to sin; the blood of the paschal lamb sacrificed in Egypt under enslavement then placed over the doorpost on the eve of deliverance; the blood of the Christ conceived in the womb but not born of the seed of man and without sin yet shed as innocent blood; and the resurrection of the Christ that redeems from sins curse, restores communion with the Father, and imparts the eternal life breathe of the Holy Spirit.

The Sadducees of the day did not believe in resurrection of the dead. But the Pharisees did. However, the one raised would continue to live in the flesh and on the earth. His body as they knew it would be restored if it met certain parameters. With all the other professing messiahs, who were never resurrected, all of us were still left with the question Job asked in Job 14:14, “If a person dies, will they live again?” But the resurrection of Christ blows these pre-conceived ideas of resurrection away. It answers the question of eternal life. And the resurrection is essential to the solid evidence of Jesus Christ as the one and only Savior and Deliverer of the world, not just the Jew.

If the detailed fulfillment of Hebraic Messianic prophecy and the life he lived were not enough, the resurrection was still left to be contended with by those who chose to deny Him.

The Apostle Paul addressed it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, in short he states, “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.”

Real life is the resurrection life of Christ Jesus. There are at least four significant things the resurrection gives us:

1. God’s acceptance of the paschalsacrifice during pesach (Easter). The Hebrew פֶּסַח‎ pesach is rendered as Tiberian [pɛsaħ] and Modern Hebrew: [ˈpesaχ] Pesah, Pesakh. The verb pasàch (פָּסַח) is first mentioned in the Torah's account of the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12:23), and there is some debate about its exact meaning. The commonly held assumption that it means "He passed over" (פסח), in reference to God "passing over" (or "skipping") the houses of the Hebrews during the final of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, stems from the translation provided in the Septuagint (παρελευσεται [Greek: pareleusetai] in Exodus 12:23, and εσκεπασεν [Greek: eskepasen] in Exodus 12:27). Targum Onkelos translates pesach as ve-yeiḥos (Hebrew: וְיֵחוֹס we-yēḥôs) meaning "he had pity" (coming from the Hebrew root חסה meaning to have pity).

The term Pesach (Hebrew: פֶּסַח Pesaḥ) may also refer to the lamb or goat which was designated as the Passover sacrifice (called the Korban Pesach in Hebrew). Four days before the Exodus, the Hebrews were commanded to set aside a lamb (Exodus 12:3), and inspect it daily for blemishes. During the day on the 14th of Nisan, they were to slaughter the animal and use its blood to mark their lintels and door posts. Before midnight on the 15th of Nisan they were to consume the lamb.

[Our English word Passover, happily, in sound and sense, corresponds to the Hebrew [pesach], of which is a translation. Exodus 12:27. The Greek pascha, formed from the Hebrew, is the name of the Jewish festival, applied invariably in the primitive church to designate the festival of the Lord’s resurrection, which took place at the time of the passover. Our word Easter is of Saxon origin, and of precisely the same import with its German cognate Ostern. The latter is derived from the old Teutonic form of auferstehn, Auferstehung, i. e. resurrection. The name Easter is undoubtedly most common in Western culture to paschaor passover, but the latter was the primitive name. (Eusebius of Caesarea, An Ecclesiastical History to the Twentieth Year of the Reign of Constantine, 4th ed., trans. Christian F. Cruse (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1847), 221.)]

2. God’s vindication of Yeshua.

3. God’s evidence of eternality. Techyat-metin meaning the resurrection of the dead of which Christ’s resurrection was the proof. Through His birth He brought the promise of restored communion to the Father in holiness free from the enslavement of sin. He was the promise of the Yeshua (Savior) to usher in the Yalador time of deliverance. Through His death Christ made “The Way” over the mavethor penalty of sin. His eternal life revealed “The Truth” of eternal life or cheymeaning living, springing, to be revived.

4. God’s demonstration of the resiliency of His great love.

You need to know and celebrate that Jesus Christ was born. It is essential to understand that he was conceived of a virgin having been born not of the seed of man but by the spoken word of God. For God must redeem us in blood covenant with Himself alone being the sacrifice having come into the world through the womb of a woman but not of the sinful and condemned seed of man. For it was a man who sinned and it must be more than a mere man who could take the sin of the world away and restore us to the Father.

You need to be, know, and emulate the life Jesus lived in obedience to the Law of God and in the integrity of the holiness of God. You need to embrace his moral teachings and pursue his heart for the Father.

You need to realize the horrific beating and death of the cross and the price he paid as an innocent man without sin of any kind, yet died for the judgment of your sin against God.

Some would have your Christianity stop there. If they can deny his existence historically; if they can claim he was immoral; if they can claim he never died; then there can be no resurrection. But as hard as they try, they have not been able to accomplish any of these. And to this day, the overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ remains.

Without the resurrection you are left with just another religion, a moral teacher, or crutch for those who seek to cope with no real answers as to the meaning of life, the hope of eternality, and simply something to ease one’s moral conscience. Without the resurrection, there is no forgiveness, the only thing eternal is your condemnation. There is no answer to your guilt, shame, sorrow or pain. Without the resurrection love is left hanging there for you to redefine as you please. Without the resurrection morality is left with a question mark instead of an exclamation point. Without the resurrection life loses meaning, morality loses any authority, and humanity is doomed and left to destroy itself with its own depravation.

We could speak of the evidence to include the empty tomb; the cultural and political problem it presented for the Romans and religious leaders; the many eye witness accounts over a long period of time; the commitment to willingly die for the claim of the resurrection; and the many lives radically touched and transformed such as Saul of Tarsus and numerous Roman, Greek, and Jewish leaders.

As the Apostle Paul spoke to the men of Athens in Acts 17:24-31, "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth. . . . because He has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man he has appointed; and of this he has given to all by raising him from the dead.”

Confront the unbeliever with the cross and they must wrestle with conviction or condemnation; confront them with the resurrection and they must wrestle with God’s sovereign judgment and the truth of their immortality. If he resurrected, then it means he was who he said he was. And if he was who he said he was, then he will return. And when he returns there will be a day of judgment.

But for those who believe it is the power of life in Christ both now and forever. If he resurrected, then he was who he said he was and I have been forgiven. He now lives within me and I can sin no more. I have an identity in Him and through him I can commune with God. He is my healer, deliverer, and savior. I can know what tomorrow brings. I need not fear death or what men can do to me. My old nature has been crucified with Christ. I can live in His victory free from the bondage of sin and death. I am a new creation in His resurrection. I can find hope in eternity with Him. I can know real life now for “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Do you believe in the resurrection? Do you live each day as if you believe it? Is the resurrection just a biblical account or historical event in your religious theology? Is His resurrection a real, tangible, visible, living evidence of the Savior’s life you now live as a testament to God’s great love? When you doubt, fear, or struggle with temptation, it is the resurrected Savior living within you; it is His life that is the resiliency of your faith.

Real life is the forgiven life; the surrendered life; the obedient life; the consecrated life; the resurrection life; the life of Christ Jesus the risen Lord and Savior.