Christ’s Glorious Resurrection
Benny Hinn
Jesus went to the cross to save us, then went from the
cross to the throne to become our High Priest.
To truly understand
the resurrection, we must go back to the foot of Calvary’s cross.
The Message of the Cross
When we consider what happened at
Calvary, we see three things:
1.) The
sin of mankind nailed Jesus to the cross.
All mankind was responsible for the crucifixion of our Savior. The Roman
soldiers, the people watching, you and me…we are all guilty, for it was our
sins—collectively and individually—that caused Him to come to earth to give
Himself willingly as the ultimate sacrifice.
2.) God’s
love is overwhelming. It was
at the cross where both God The Father and Jesus His Son gave history’s
greatest gift. The Savior willingly gave Himself as the
only means to The Father. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life:
no man cometh unto The Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Christ
was sinless, yet He became our Sin-Bearer. Instead of symbolically cleansing us
from defilement and death, The Lord cleansed us from actual sin. It was through
His sacrifice at Calvary that The Lord Jesus removed the ultimate obstacle,
sin, that had caused centuries of estrangement between God and mankind, thereby
allowing the restoration of intimate fellowship with The Father: This is good,
and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be
saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and
there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave
Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
(1 Timothy 2:3-6, ESV)
3.) Christ
gave Himself as a ransom, a sacrifice,
to pay a debt none of us could have ever paid!
History’s Focus
The cross, central to all mankind,
stands as God’s ultimate revelation of supernatural love.
Why?
More importantly, why
did He go willingly to Calvary?
The Bible is very clear on the
overwhelming reason:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died
for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though
perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows His love for
us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore,
we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him
from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God
by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be
saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11)
Andrew Murray, noted Bible teacher and
author, wrote:
There was no other way by which His
love could redeem those whom He loved except by Him shedding His blood for them
on the cross. It is because of this that He would not allow Himself to be
turned aside by the terror of the cross, not even when it caused His soul to
tremble and shudder. The cross tells us that He loved us so truly that His love
surmounted every difficulty—the curse of sin, and the hostility of man—and that
His love has conquered and has won us for Himself. The cross is the triumphant
symbol of eternal love. By the cross, love is seated on the throne, so that
from the place of omnipotence it can now do for the beloved ones all that they
desire.
You and I were once bound in sin, but
the Lamb of God, foretold throughout the centuries in the 39 books of the Old
Testament, was sinless.
Through Him and the price He paid to
set us free, we have salvation and deliverance: “In whom we
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the
riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7, KJV).
This redemption is what the Apostle Paul
pointed to when he wrote: “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify
God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:20).
The Son of Man’s blood was not spilled but was willingly
shed.
Christ, who could have called all of Heaven’s
angels to wage war on the Roman soldiers, instead went to Calvary voluntarily.
He chose to die as a
substitute for you and me. He shed His precious blood for us. Jesus told us
candidly:
“Even as the Son of man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom
for many” (Matthew 20:28).
No longer need we
ask, “Why did Jesus go to the cross?”
Yes, the subject is
so eternally huge that volumes of books could not fully answer that question.
He loved us, certainly. But why that much? He gave His life as our sacrifice,
but why would He do that?
It’s
unthinkable. It’s especially unfathomable to think that Christ came to earth to
love the unlovable that resides in each of us.
The late Dr. Billy Graham, one of
history’s greatest evangelists, offered this explanation in his classic book
Peace with God:
He, and He alone, had the power and
capacity to bring man back to God. But would He? If He did, He would have to
come to earth. He would have to take the form of a servant. He would have to
humble Himself and become obedient unto death. He would have to grapple with
sin. He would have to meet and overcome Satan, the enemy of man’s souls. He
would have to redeem sinners out of the slave market of sin. He would have to
loose the bonds and set the prisoners free by paying a price—that price would
be His own life. He would have to be despised and rejected of men, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief. He would have to be smitten of God and
separated from God. He would have to be wounded for the transgressions of men
and bruised for their iniquities, His blood shed to atone for man’s sin. He
would have to reconcile God and man. He would be the great Mediator of history.
He would have to be a substitute. He would have to die in the place of sinful
man. All this would have to be done—voluntarily.
In the Old Covenant, God told His
people to offer sacrifices. These slain animals symbolically bore the
punishment for sin that the people actually deserved. These sacrifices had to
be made again and again. You see, this Old Covenant was a glimpse of what would
come later:
Jesus gave the New Covenant when He
willingly died for our sins:
Then said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh
away the first, that He may establish the second. By the which will we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
(Hebrews 10:9-10)
When Jesus shed His
blood on the cross of Calvary, He sacrificed Himself “once for all.” He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30), not, “To be continued.” The Bible
declares that Jesus is the First and the Last (Revelation 1:17) and the Author
and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
Because of the Savior’s sacrifice on the cross, you and I
are no longer under the law. You have been offered grace (God’s riches at
Christ’s expense) instead. He came to die to take away your sin and mine. He
erases all our sins, blots out all guilt, offers ultimate victory over death.
The Lord endured the
passion on Calvary’s cross to provide each of us with an eternal promise:
“But now hath He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how
much also He is the mediator of a better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6).
And for that more
excellent ministry and New Covenant, we celebrate the resurrection by willingly
giving ourselves to Christ Jesus—to know Him more intimately, to love Him more
fully, and to follow Him more completely!
Christ’s Empowering Blood
In the book of
Hebrews, the Holy Spirit–inspired writer declared that after the Lord Jesus
purged our sins, He “sat down on
the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).
The verbiage is no
accident.
Sitting speaks
symbolically of a finished work.
‘The right hand’
points to power. Jesus, through His death, burial, and resurrection, received
all authority and power.
“Majesty on high”
speaks of His position as “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16).
Because He is on that
throne, the Bible says “we have
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews
10:19).
Jesus went to the cross to save us,
then went from the cross to the throne to become our High Priest and to enable
us to enter God’s Presence.
Do you recall that in the Old Covenant, God responded
with fire when blood was offered on the altar? It’s the same today. When the
blood and sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the cross is honored, The Holy Spirit
comes to touch, enflame, and transform us.
It is for this reason
that I never conduct a service without first thanking Jesus Christ for His Blood,
His sacrifice, His willingness to die for me on Calvary’s rugged cross.
When you enjoy communion,
you should remember that The Lord’s Supper is made possible because The Lamb of
God was willing to come to earth to save us from all sins. It is through His
willingly shed blood that you now can have fellowship with God.
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon
wrote:
The Blood of Christ—nothing but it can
ever save the soul. If some foolish Israelite had despised the command of God
and had said, “I will sprinkle something else upon the door posts,” or, “I will
adorn the lintel with jewels of gold and silver,” he must have perished.
Nothing could save his household but the sprinkled blood. And, now, let us all
remember that “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ.” My works, my prayers, my tears cannot save me. The blood, the
blood alone, has power to redeem. Sacraments cannot save me. Nothing but the
blood of Jesus has the slightest saving power.
As you recall what He
has done for you when His body was broken and His blood was shed, then the Presence
of God’s Holy Spirit can descend upon you in a miraculous way!
Through Christ’s shed
blood, we have hope!
The Apostle Paul
wrote, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians
1:27).
My prayer for you is
that you will come to know the cross of Jesus Christ in a deeper way than you
have ever known, and that you will be filled with hope and power!
It is my heart’s desire
that the work of the cross becomes the most important thing in your life!