Focus: God Raised Him!

Text: Act.4:10

"Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom YE CRUCIFIED, whom GOD RAISED from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole."

Humanity crucified Christ, but God raised Him from the dead, and that means that death is not final.

The courts of men sentenced Christ to death, but the Supreme Court of Heaven nullified or set aside that judgment, and by the sovereign and supreme power of God, Christ was resurrected to life. Peter says, "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it" (Act.2:24). God is the final arbiter of justice. Human judgment is not final except God is in agreement with it. 

It was absolutely impossible for death to hold Him down or keep Him dead forever. Why so? It is because He was wrongly or unjustly convicted and executed. All the courts He was brought to for His case to be adjudicated found Him not guilty, yet they sentenced Him to death by crucifixion. What offense did He commit? Absolutely none! Peter declares, "Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1Pet.2:23). There's nothing retaliatory in His gene and in His vocabulary or dictionary. All He did was appeal to the Supreme Court of Heaven, knowing fully well that in that court, no iota of injustice or unfairness is ever tolerated. Abraham thought to himself, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen.18:25). God judges rightly. Fairness is the hallmark of the heavenly throne, and so we read, "But God raised him from the dead" (Act.13:30).

His resurrection was a vindication and a justification for the Lord Jesus Christ. His resurrection was an announcement that death lacked the power to hold Him. The resurrection was a demonstration of the power of God. The Jewish leaders demanded from Pilate for the tomb of Jesus Christ to be thoroughly sealed and secured. Pilate said to them, "Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch" (Mt.27:65,66). They sealed His tomb with a huge stone and concretized it with asphalt, and secured it further with armed guards. The word 'sure' is asphalizō in the Greek, and it's from it that we derive the word 'asphalt,' and we know how effective the asphalt can be in road construction. Yet, all they did to keep Jesus Christ in the grave could not stop Him from being resurrected. 

The Living Lord Jesus Christ says, "I am he that liveth, and WAS dead; and, behold, I am ALIVE for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death… These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive" (Rev.1:18; 2:8). He lives! He says to His disciples, "Because I live, ye shall live also" (Jh.14:19). Paul tells us, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Col.3:4). Indeed, Christ is our life, and as the Scripture says, "For in Him we live, move, and have our being."

Interestingly, when Christ died, there was an earthquake, and when God raised Him from the dead, there was a great earthquake (Mt.27:54; 28:2). That was the power of God! That was creation and the grave reacting to the holy blood of Christ that touched the ground and His body that was buried in a tomb. That was God making a sign that something out of the ordinary had occurred in human history.

Peter tells us that the healed cripple was an evidence for the power of the resurrected Christ. The resurrected Christ continues to perform miracles in people's lives.

I pray that you encounter the resurrected Jesus Christ for yourself. Humanity killed Him, but God raised Him from the dead.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter