Introduction: Recently, I have been writing on the topic of Reflections in Hebrews. My intent is to continue them, but in studying Hebrews my desire to emphasize the resurrection of Jesus within my writings is intensifying.

Today, I began to write on the cross and resurrection and what you are about to read is what came out. I have so many texts that need to be covered, but this is as far as I have gotten today with the first one.

I hope that you will take the time to read this all the way through, whether I continue this series of teachings or not. I pray that it blesses you in the Lord. Thank you, and let’s begin.

Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost:

Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. ~ Acts 2:22-24

Observation:

God did miracles, wonders, and signs through Jesus, God also raised him from the dead. In this text Peter blames the people for the crucifixion of Jesus. In this text, he makes no mention of God punishing Jesus in our place. Instead, he says that they (the people) had crucified and slain Jesus by their wicked hands. In this text, God raising Jesus from the dead appears to be set before us as the direct opposite of what the people had done to Jesus.

For Your Consideration:

For many years I held to the understanding that many other Western Christians embrace, and that is that Jesus was punished by God in our place, that God turned his back on Jesus, and this is how Jesus bore our sins.

It wasn’t until I took the time to examine what Jesus said about his death and resurrection in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I discovered that possibly, I had gotten the narrative wrong.

Now, before I continue, please hear me when I say that I absolutely believe that Jesus died for our sins, and that by his blood our sins are remitted, and we are redeemed and reconciled to God.

I sometimes fear that if I do not say some things explicitly, people will get the wrong idea as to what I am actually saying.

There are some people who process their understanding of the cross only through the lens of God’s retribution against sinners, and if you don’t see the cross through this same lens, they write you off as not being a true believer or promoting a false gospel.

That is unfortunate, because it means they aren’t willing to take the time to hear what you are saying instead of what you are not saying.

After I took to heart the things that Jesus said about his death on the cross, I saw that the death and resurrection of Jesus was preached in the same exact manner in the book of Acts as Jesus had described in the gospels.

When this happened, I had a foundation upon which I could now understand, not only the cross, but the resurrection as well. Before this, my understanding of the cross was rooted in what I “thought” Paul was saying in his epistles. The key word being “thought.”

When my understanding of the narrative began to change, Jesus’s words and teachings became the cornerstone of my view of his death and resurrection, not Paul’s.

Along the way, I discovered something that I did not realize before. Throughout the book of Acts, Paul himself also preached the same exact narrative about the cross and resurrection as Jesus and those who heard him.

So maybe it wasn’t Paul’s teachings after all. Maybe it was the interpretation of others that I had learned that I was building my understanding upon. Just maybe that is why I never had any real in-depth understanding of the significance of the resurrection as I desired to have.

It is difficult to fit a real and meaningful explanation of the resurrection into a narrative of the cross in which God is the enforcer of punishment.

On the other hand, if the resurrection is in any way the vindication of the Son of God, why is Jesus being vindicated from the justice of a Holy God who was the enforcer of punishment against him as our substitute?

I think many of us have gotten the narrative wrong. In fact, I know we have.

In this examination of the scriptural texts regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus, I want us to see the narrative which Jesus himself gave us, who is the one who actually died for our sins.

What Peter preached on Day One of the Spirit’s empowerment, is exactly what he learned from Jesus. We have 4 gospels which prove that.

Jesus was betrayed, not by God, but by Judas. God did not inspire Judas to betray Jesus. Satan did.

God did not inspire the mob to cry “crucify him!” The Jewish leaders did. These were the same people who paid Judas to arrest him. These were the same people had attributed the works of the Son of God, to Satan.

Oftentimes they had tried to arrest him, kill him, and silence him. It was only when the appointed time came in the sovereign will of God, when the Son of God was to lay down his life, that they could carry out their plan of silencing him.

Correctly understanding the narrative, brings all the scriptures together, and suddenly the teachings of Jesus, along with the interaction between Jesus and his opponents, and the history of the early church within Acts, and teachings in the epistles, all begin to come together.

The death and resurrection of the Son of God is so much bigger and impactful than even the most spiritual among us have ever known. The death and resurrection of Jesus takes center stage in God’s revelation of himself to humanity.

Recently, in my writing on Reflections in Hebrews, I have begun to understand that the whole message of Jesus’s High Priestly ministry after the order of Melchizedek is a revelation of the resurrection.

If we don’t get the narrative of the cross correct, we won’t understand the resurrection as we ought, and consequently we will miss out on the impact of other wonderful truths in scripture that would otherwise benefit us spiritually.

The resurrection is the victory of the Son of God over the powers of darkness. It is the vindication of the Son of God against evil. It is the exaltation of the Son of God, who gave himself. It is the new beginning of God’s new creation in Christ. It is the ordination of the New Covenant, with an eternal Priesthood.

It is the divine declaration, forever, of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

The resurrection is God’s answer to sinful humanity’s confusion about God. The resurrection is God’s approval and response to the humble, obedient trust of the Son of God who laid down his life, not only for his friends, but for his enemies.

It is God saying Yes! to Jesus’s unselfish love to forgive, redeem, reconcile, heal, save, deliver, comfort, accept, invite, and welcome into the family all who will simply accept the Son, as God’s answer.