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Joseph Charles Philpot Bevindelijke geschriften & prediking

365 Days with Philpot

April 11

Christus’ opstanding

Vandaag

2 min. read

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
1 Corinthians 15:17

Observe the remarkable fact that the apostles made the resurrection of Jesus, as it were, the foundation of all their preaching and addresses. We may be sure that the Holy Ghost led them so to preach. And see why they carried this powerful testimony in the forefront of the battle which they waged in the Name of God against the kingdom of darkness and death. The Lord of life and glory had been condemned to death by the Jewish council on a charge of blasphemy. First, because He had said, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands” (Mark 14:58). And secondly, because He had declared in the presence of the council that He was the Christ, the Son of God (Mark 14:61-64).

He died, then, under a charge of blasphemy, in pain and shame, and for that supposed crime was openly crucified before the thousands who had come up to Jerusalem from every quarter to keep the Passover. Now, if Christ had not risen from the dead, that charge would have been confirmed. Then He would have been rightly condemned by the voices of many thousands, as one justly put to death. Therefore it was necessary, not only for the whole plan of salvation, but also for the truthfulness of Jesus Himself and for the whole truth of the gospel, that He should be raised from the dead by the power of God. That was the seal of His mission, the abiding, unanswerable and unassailable proof that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, as He declared Himself to be.

Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-17

To the reader…

On what does your hope rest, dear reader, when you think of your sins? This word says it plainly: “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” The Lord was condemned to death as a blasphemer, because He declared Himself to be the Christ, the Son of God. Had He remained in the grave, that charge would have been confirmed, and no ground would have been left beneath the feet of a poor sinner.

But God has raised Him from the dead, as the seal upon His mission and as the unanswerable proof that He is Who He said He was. Therefore you need not build your hope on your feelings or on your resolutions. The foundation lies outside you, in a living Saviour. If you doubt everything in yourself, do not doubt Him. The tomb is empty, and His Word is truth.

With warm regards,
The compilers of jcphilpot.nl