Chapter 6

Why Is This So Important?

Think of the key world events of the last couple of decades. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The Persian Gulf War. The conflict in Bosnia. The El Niño weather events. The terrorist destruction of New York’s Twin Towers and attack on the Pentagon.

Or go back to an earlier era. Watergate. The oil crisis of the 70s. The Vietnam War. Man landing on the moon. Perhaps you’ve been around long enough to recall the assassination of President Kennedy. Hiroshima. The Holocaust. Pearl Harbor. Whatever comes to mind, you can be sure of this: No event in the last 100 years has affected every human on earth—no matter where he or she lives.

Now think back through history. The Civil War. The Fall of the Bastille. The American Revolution. The discovery of the New World. The invention of the printing press. The signing of the Magna Carta. The Battle of Hastings. The Fall of the Roman Empire. Each of these events had extraordinary historical significance. But none of them has the kind of monumental, worldwide, eternal effects that one event almost 2,000 years ago claims to have. This event? The resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that God came to earth as a man to pay the penalty of death for the sins of the world (Jn. 1:1-29; Rom. 6:23). But the Bible also says that if Jesus did not overpower death’s grip to escape that cold, rocky tomb, He would not be able to provide us with victory over death (1 Cor. 15:12-19).

The implications of the resurrection of Jesus Christ

“If Jesus is, as the resurrection asserts, God Himself who has come to our rescue, then to reject Him, or even to neglect Him, is sheer folly. That is why Jesus is not, never has been, and never can be just one among the religious leaders of mankind.” Michael Green

must be considered honestly. Everything depends on it. Here is what Paul said:

[God] commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31).

According to the Bible, the eternal destiny of every human is at stake. Because of what Jesus did, each of us has two choices. We can live forever under God’s blessing in heaven, or we can be separated from Him eternally in the torment of hell. It all depends on our response to Jesus’ resurrection.

Our destiny is in God’s hands. He alone must be satisfied. Not scientists. Not philosophers. Not educators. That’s why what you believe about the resurrection is a matter of eternal life or eternal death.