This may sound like a trick question, but it truly is not. Are you following Christ because He rose from the dead? How many people do you suppose said yes, and how many no, how many cannot even comprehend why such a question should have come up, why one would even contemplate such a thing.
I will tell you at the end of this letter, as best I can, here at the beginning, because the antichrist is going to fake the exact same thing, except of course one thing will be different. “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” (Rev. 13:3) You see my friends, for some of us, it takes quite a bit more than someone coming back from the dead for us to follow them, much less worship that person.
Christ coming back from the dead was not a big deal for God, a simple matter indeed, “But with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26) That is not an understatement, there is not one thing that you or anyone else can think of that God cannot do, and please, do not bring up that ridiculous nonsense of “If God can do anything, can He make a rock so big that He can’t pick it up.” Nothing is greater than the Almighty, anything that the Lord makes is less than Himself.
If you want to see a miracle, you do not need to look at the account of creation, of the Red Sea, of Gideon’s fleece, not even those that Jesus raised from the dead. In fact, our Lord coming back from the dead did not even require God to lift even His little finger, so to speak, a miracle to you and I is not a miracle to the Lord, it is a matter of fact, a passing moment at best. The miracle is the love for us, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4)
Contemplate this, if you will, “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” (Gen. 6:13) So, why not just start over, why not just put things back as they were before Adam and Eve, before even the creation of the animals, and just completely start over? The miracle my friends is the love that is offered to us. The closest perhaps that our finite minds can comprehend of this is if you were to think of the one person in this world that truly despises you, that really hates you, and you die for him in his place when he is found guilty of murder, asking absolutely nothing in return for your deed.
Redemption and the resurrection, they leave no place for works, there is nothing that we can do to add from this offering of love to us, it is free, without any cost to us. It is grace.
“For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” (Hab. 2:3) Think about this verse also, in context to what has been mentioned here, especially the one from Genesis, “The end of all flesh,” Christ came to die for our sins, to pay the debt that He did not owe, to face the fulness of the wrath of God for every living soul from Adam until today.
I do not care to do “what ifs,” what is and is to come is a firmer foundation, yet if Christ would not have arrived, would the wrath of God have fallen upon all at that time, and meant the end of all mankind. We are never going to understand the miracle of the fulness of that love that day on that cross, and Satan’s best trick, his supposed rise from the dead, will only be followed by the same as those that are only following the Lord Jesus because He rose from the dead.
The miracle my friends is the love that walked willingly to that cross, never forget that.
