We live in a time where equality is the mantra of the day. What a person thinks they are must be accepted by all and the person treated equally. No one has a right to say this or that is not true, because if a person feels or thinks something then that is “their truth.” Many make this same demand of the world’s religions, and for Christians to claim that only in Christ can heaven be accessed goes against the grain of this kind of thinking.
The problem with this thinking is that we are not all equal. We are different by God’s design. Men and women are different. Men are different from one other. Women are different from one other. People come in all shapes and sizes with different abilities and talents. While all humans are of equal value, we are not all the same – and by “equal” I mean the same or identical.
Not all religions and belief systems are the same either. But unlike people, they are not of equal value. One is not “just as valid” as another just because it is believed and practiced, even if by billions.
In Your Inbox
The main difference, though there are many others, between the Christian faith and all others is this:
1 Corinthians 15:16-20 KJV – “For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.”
What Paul said to the Corinthians is true for any belief system. If there is no afterlife, why follow any religion? Following a belief system and its precepts and doctrines would make for a pitiable existence if it led to nothing after this life was over.
Yet even the early Christians understood that this life is not all there is and that, because Christ is risen, they would later rise, too. They believed this to the degree that they referred to the death of the body as “sleep.” They understood that their bodies being in the ground was a temporary condition and that Christ, as the firstborn from the dead, meant all who believe in Him will experience the power of His resurrection and someday rise from the dead, too.
Romans 5:6-11 KJV – “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”
Paul writes about the death of Jesus as a demonstration of God’s love, and then mentions the life of Jesus that saves us. This is the unique feature of what we believe. We do not worship a book or set of creeds filled with unproven promises. We worship and serve a resurrected Lord who is alive forevermore.
Think of how the resurrection of Jesus has impacted not only our eternal destinies, but everyday life as well.
Because of the resurrection:
- We know there is life after death, and, thus, death has lost its sting
- We need not wonder if what we believe is true; it’s been proven
- We know God loves us because He demonstrated that love
- Since death has been conquered, we are more than conquerors in Him
- The wrath of God is not in our future
- He said He is coming to get us and take us where He is, and He will
We could fill pages and pages with the things that the power of the resurrection has given us, but the dead founder of a religion can do none of those things. The tombs and graves in the world still house the bones of the one laid to rest there, except one. And because the tomb of Jesus is empty, we do not have a most pitiable hope.
Romans 15:13 KJV – “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Jesus said that after He ascended to heaven He would send a Helper, the Holy Spirit. We will abound in hope by the power of the Spirit which will fill us with the joy and peace that comes only through believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and being saved.
The world can think to be true whatever it wants, but the resurrection of Jesus from the dead confirms that the Bible actually is true. Since the day of Pentecost, Christians have been walking in Holy Spirit power knowing that the great enemy of death has been conquered. This will be true for all who believe until we meet Him in the air and are forever with the Lord.
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus,
