PHILIPPIANS in the last day upon the earth" Job 19:25). This certainly is a verse that has to do with the sec ond coming of Christ. The Hebrew for "stand" actually means to "rise up," which is exactly what our Sav iour did. Only Jesus Christ has opened the portals of heaven for those who believe in Him. The resurrection of Christ abso lutely proves His virgin birth. The two must go together. To deny one is to deny the other. For all ages and all individuals a personal, incarnate Lord is the only way to the Father. He has to be a risen Saviour. Both His coming for the first time to this earth and His resurrection from it, following the cruel death which He suffered are supernatural and can only be ex plained by faith in this manner. In His initial event in humanity Christ emptied Himself and took the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5-11). He laid aside His vested glory as God and came down into this world, voluntarily assuming human nature. This is what will come to us who believe in a day which is yet to come and all of it because Christ arose from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ also proves that He was and is a true prophet and teacher. Dr. W. B. Riley points out, "Jesus Christ repeatedly prophecied His own resurrection. We see it in Matthew 16:21, 17:9, 22-23, and John 2:19- 22. Our Lord's honor and credit were entirely staked upon the issue of His resurrection since He had foretold it as the sign which would justify all His claims." For this rea son we can and should readily ac cept His teachings on all subjects, absolutely relying on them. This is why Paul, in the epistle to the Phi- Page 48
lippians, constantly affirmed his desire to be conformable to the life of Christ. He looked forward to the hour when his own body would be changed on the resur rection day. These are just a few more reasons why the resurrection of Jesus Christ should be so vitally important to each of us. There is one bright and won derful truth toward which all be lievers should be pressing and that is, having lived for Jesus Christ in this life, we can anticipate with assured hope the day of resurrec tion. Christ will come for us and transform these bodies of humilia tion into the likeness of His glori fied body. He is the forerunner or the first-fruits of this marvelous hour to which we should be look ing day-by-day. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ proves that He was and is in a very unique sense the Son of God as well as God the Everlasting Son (Romans 1:4). Dr. Charles Hodge has pointed out, "It may be safely asserted that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is at once the most important and the best authentic fact in the history of the world. If Jesus Christ rose, He is the Son of God equal with God, God revealed in human flesh. He is the Messiah, predicted to Is rael by the prophets. Therefore the Bible is true from Genesis to the book of Revelation, the triumph of truth over error, of good over evil, of happiness over misery, and the credence and the validity of the Bible is forever secured." The resurrection of our Lord proves all the truths of Christianity (I Corinthians 15:14-17). If a person rejects the physical resurrection of Christ then he automatically has denied Christianity. The two rise
Made with FlippingBook HTML5