A hinge of the whole story
The Resurrection
The cross is not the end. On the third day the tomb is empty, and death itself, the last and deepest enemy from the fall, is defeated. The resurrection is God's vindication of His Son and the firstfruits of the new creation, the sunrise the whole story was moving toward.
“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”Matthew 28:6
What happened
What happened. Jesus was truly dead and buried, sealed in a borrowed tomb with a stone and a guard. But on the first day of the week, women came to the grave and found it open and empty. An angel spoke the words that changed everything: "He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay" (Matt 28:6). The risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples on the Emmaus road, and to the eleven, showing them His hands and side, eating before them, proving He was no ghost but bodily alive. To doubting Thomas He said, "reach hither thy finger... and be not faithless, but believing" (John 20:27). Paul records that He was seen "of above five hundred brethren at once" (1 Cor 15:6). He was not merely resuscitated to die again, but raised to a deathless life, the same body now glorified. For forty days He taught His disciples, then commissioned them to carry the news to all nations, promising, "lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt 28:20). The grave, which had swallowed every generation, had been forced to give Him back.
Why the whole story turns here
Why the whole story turns here. The resurrection is the turning point that secures every other. Without it the cross would be a tragedy and the whole story a broken promise; Paul says plainly, "if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (1 Cor 15:14). But because He is risen, the cross is vindicated as victory and not defeat: God has publicly declared that the sacrifice was accepted and the debt paid. More than this, the resurrection strikes at the deepest fruit of the fall. Death entered the world through Adam's sin (Rom 5:12), and here, for the first time, death is broken from within. The last enemy is beaten. And the resurrection is not only a rescue from the past but the beginning of the future; Christ is called "the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Cor 15:20), the first sheaf of a whole harvest to come. His risen body is the first piece of the new creation, the guarantee that the whole world will one day be made new. The everlasting throne of David is secured by a King who cannot die again. From this empty tomb the story turns decisively toward its end, no longer a rescue merely hoped for but a victory already won.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. The resurrection is Christ's own triumph, the Father's "Amen" to the Son. It "declared him to be the Son of God with power... by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:4). Because He lives, all who trust Him are joined to His life: "because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14:19). His rising is the pledge of ours, for "now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept... even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor 15:20-22). He holds "the keys of hell and of death" (Rev 1:18), and the terror that has haunted humanity since Eden has met its Master. The wounds still in His risen hands proclaim that the very body that died for us now lives for us, and that death has no more dominion over Him, nor, in the end, over those who are His.
Questions people ask
Why does the resurrection matter so much?
Because it secures everything else. It vindicates the cross as victory, declares Jesus to be the Son of God with power (Rom 1:4), and defeats death itself, the deepest fruit of the fall. Paul says that without it, faith is in vain (1 Cor 15:14); with it, our own resurrection is guaranteed.
What does it mean that Christ is the "firstfruits"?
In the harvest, the firstfruits were the first sheaf that promised the full crop to come. Paul calls the risen Christ "the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Cor 15:20), meaning His resurrection is the first piece of the new creation and the pledge that all who are His will be raised to deathless life as well.