Part Five of Nine: The Resurrection

6000 years ago, God the Father had a plan. He desired children for Himself and a bride for His Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, to make a long story short, He sent His Son to die on the Cross to forgive Adam’s sin of disobedience and the sin nature embedded in mankind in the Garden of Eden through inheritance. This opened the door for mankind’s individual salvation but only through repentance and acceptance of His Son Jesus Christ.

Part of God’s plan was that the wages of sin is death [1] and in accordance with that plan, Jesus had to die. For one, to purchase His bride and two, to take all the sins of the world upon Himself to complete God’s plan [2]. The term “It is finished” is an accounting term meaning, “Paid in full.” When Christ uttered those words on the Cross, He was saying that He paid the debt of sin owed to His Father. This was not Christ’s sin, but the sins of the world present and future.

Since God is Spirit [3], He needed a spirit bride [4], so man had to die metaphorically to be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Man had to be born again [5]. Not like Nicodemus thought [6] but by the spirit [7]. To solve this God created the ceremony of baptism [8], which is a metaphorical death and resurrection into spirit by the convert. It is the death of man’s flesh through repentance and acceptance of Christ’s own death on the Cross, which resurrects in man’s spirit.

The Resurrection is the central tenet of Christian theology. Therefore,

v14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

v15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

v16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

v17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. [1 Corinthians 15:14-17 KJV]

To be a Christian and be in the pale of orthodoxy, we have to believe not only believe that Christ is God and came in the flesh, salvation by grace, but in Jesus’s resurrection.

Tomorrow, we will be a reminded of the fourth essential doctrine of the Christian faith. I’ll see you then.

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[1] Romans 6:23
[2] John 19:30
[3] John 4:24
[4] Galatians 3:28
[5] John 3:3
[6] John 3:1-21
[7] John 3:6
[8] Sprinkling: Ezekiel 36:25, or immersion: Matthew 3:6. Both are legitimate and biblical forms of baptism. The main thing is the public conversion of a convert. If you are ashamed of me, I’ll be ashamed of you, Luke 9:26. Baptism is a nonessential doctrine but we’ll talk about that later.