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If you've
been asking yourself whether Christianity or Messianic
Judaism is something you should take seriously,
it's necessary to answer the question: did Yeshua
actually rise from the dead? Is He alive or is
He dead? If Yeshua is alive, you would be a fool
not to believe in Him. And if He is dead, you'd
be a fool to believe in Him. There's no in-between.
It's all or nothing.
You see,
Christians and Messianic Jews believe that the
glorious and eternal Son of God, through whom
the universe was made, became a Man. He was born
into a wonderful and very special Jewish family
that was part of Israel's royal line. We believe
that when the Messiah became an adult, this Carpenter-Turned-Rabbi
was tortured and executed and buried, but that
His dead body was raised to life again by God's
almighty power. We believe that certain women
spoke with Him and even touched Him after His
resurrection. The risen Messiah spoke with His
disciples, broke bread with them and even prepared
and ate broiled fish with them. We believe that
at this very moment, Yeshua is physically present
in Heaven in His resurrected body, and that He
will return some day soon to Earth, physically
and visibly, to resurrect and transform the bodies
of all who believed in Him and loved His appearing.
This is what Christians and Messianic Jews believe,
and it all depends on whether or not Yeshua's
resurrection actually happened.
As Rabbi
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:14-20: "If Messiah
has not been raised, then our preaching is vain,
your faith also is vain - empty, worthless, useless,
meaningless. Moreover we are even found to be
false witnesses of God, because we testified against
God that He raised Messiah ... If Messiah has
not been raised, your faith is worthless; you
are still in your sins. Then those also who have
fallen asleep in Messiah have perished. If we
have hoped in Messiah in this life only, we are
of all men most to be pitied. But now Messiah
has been raised from the dead, the first fruits
of those who are asleep."
Let's
consider several important points here. The first
is that if Messiah has not been raised, then the
foundation of Messianic Judaism and Christianity
is destroyed. If Messiah has not been raised then
the preaching of Messiah's Emissaries and our
faith is empty, meaningless, useless. If Messiah
has not been physically resurrected, then the
New Testament, which is the written message of
the Apostles, is worthless. The reality of the
situation is this: if the resurrection didn't
happen, if Yeshua is dead and His body has decayed
and He is not alive now, then the New Testament
is a lie - its claims are not true for you or
me or for anyone else. If Yeshua never came back
to life, you can have all the feelings and opinions
you want, but they won't change the fact that
Yeshua is dead and that your faith is worthless.
Also, the Emissaries would be false witnesses
about God, for they "testified about God that
He raised Messiah from the dead." And if the Emissaries
are false witnesses, then the entire New Testament
is a web of lies. It's deceitful and deadly, and
must not be believed.
If Yeshua
has not been raised, then the One we call the
Messiah, the author of our Faith, was either a
liar or a lunatic. After all, Yeshua claimed to
be equal with God. He claimed to be the Messiah
and the Savior of mankind, and our only hope of
redemption. He predicted that He would die for
the sins of His people and then be raised again
by the power of God. Obviously, if Yeshua didn't
overcome death, He was wrong and wasn't Emmanuel
- God with us, at all. In that case, this man
who claimed to be God and Messiah was either a
deceiver or someone who wasn't in his right mind.
Either way, His message is not worth listening
to.
However,
if Yeshua has been raised, if He's alive right
now, then the situation is completely reversed:
the foundations of Christianity and Messianic
Judaism are firm and immovable. If Yeshua has
been raised, then He was and is exactly who He
claimed to be - the almighty Son of God, the Messiah
of Israel and the only Savior of the world! What's
more, His handpicked Emissaries who testified
as eyewitnesses to His resurrection are accurate
and inspired, and we should believe every word
they wrote. If Yeshua is alive, then the New Testament
is rock solid and reliable. If His resurrection
is real, it proves that Yeshua is Messiah, and
the divine Son of God; it confirms that the Bible
is true, and thus firmly establishes the foundations
of Messianic Jewish and Christian belief. If Messiah
has not been raised, our faith is based on a deception.
It is vain - empty, worthless, useless; but if
He has been raised, our faith rests on a foundation
that cannot be destroyed. It's all or nothing,
and it all depends on the resurrection.
Rabbi
Paul then makes another point: "if Messiah has
not been raised ... you are still in your sins."
The New Testament teaches that only by means of
Yeshua's death and resurrection is genuine forgiveness
and final atonement possible. If Yeshua was not
raised from the dead, then God did not accept
Yeshua's death as a sufficient sacrifice to atone
for the sins of the world. If God didn't raise
Yeshua, then the death of that Carpenter-Turned-Rabbi
was just another case of a man getting himself
killed. But if God did raise Yeshua, then He accepted
Yeshua's death as the perfect sacrifice and final
payment for sin. Everyone who belongs to Yeshua
receives full and final atonement, is reconciled
to God, from whom the whole world is estranged,
and is restored to life and joy and blessing.
But if Yeshua has not been raised, His death did
not atone for anyone, and we are still in our
sins - unatoned for, alienated from God, headed
toward death and Hell and eternal separation from
God. But if Yeshua is alive, then believing in
Him, welcoming Him, joining yourself to Him by
placing your faith in Him, is the only way to
experience God's forgiveness and receive full
and eternal atonement. It's all or nothing and
it all depends on the resurrection.
Paul makes
a related point: if Messiah has not been raised,
then Messianic Jews and Christians have no future.
"Then those also who have fallen asleep in Messiah
have perished. If we have hoped in Messiah in
this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied."
We believe that our bodies will be raised and
that we will live forever only because Messiah
arose again, overcame death, and makes it possible
for us to live forever. But if Messiah didn't
rise, then we won't rise. We will remain dead.
If that's so, argues Paul, Messianic Jews and
Christians are the most self-deceived, pathetic
fools around. We make sacrifices for the wrong
things. We are wasting our time, wasting our resources,
wasting our energy on a false belief system. On
the other hand, if Yeshua has been raised up,
then death is not the end of the story. Those
who have gone to their graves trusting in Him
will also be raised to everlasting life. Life
will have conquered death, and the followers of
Yeshua can look forward to a glorious and everlasting
future. They will enjoy eternal life and unending
joy and pleasures and blessings that last forever!
So, we have either a bleak future or a blessed
one. Either we are the most pitiful people on
Earth, or we are rich beyond measure. It's all
or nothing, and it all depends on the resurrection.
Paul makes
another point about the significance of the resurrection
in 15:32, where he says that without the resurrection,
life has no final meaning or purpose, except to
maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain: "If
from human motives I fought with wild beasts at
Ephesus, what does it profit me? If the dead are
not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow
we die.'" Why would anyone stand up for his beliefs,
even to the point of being thrown to the lions,
if death is the end? If there's nothing beyond
death, then it's stupid to be a hero. Be a hedonist
instead. Grab all the gusto while you can. Have
as much fun as you can before you die. Eat, drink,
and be merry, for tomorrow you die. If death is
the end, then there's no ultimate meaning to life.
If death is the end, then there is no Day of Judgment;
God won't punish you for your sins, or reward
you for your righteousness. If death is all there
is, you might as well live by seeking pleasure
and avoiding pain. If the dead are not raised,
then the saints are stupid and those who devote
their lives to having fun are smart.
But if
Messiah has been raised, then death is not the
end, and each of us must stand before the Great
White Throne, the Judgment Seat of the Son of
God. Selfishness will be punished, and self-sacrifice
will be rewarded. Hedonism will turn out to be
stupid, and heroism will turn out to be smart.
Rejecting Messiah will prove to be Hell, and accepting
Messiah will turn out to be Heaven. So when
you think about the final meaning and purpose
of your own life, you have two basic choices:
you should either live it up and do whatever you
like, or you should devote your life to following
Yeshua, loving God and loving others as He commands,
even if it means making great sacrifices.
I think
you can see why we can't afford to be fuzzy in
our thinking when it comes to Yeshua's resurrection,
because so much depends on it. The foundations
of Messianic Judaism and true Christian teaching,
finding genuine atonement and peace with God,
our future destiny and the ultimate meaning of
life all depend on whether Yeshua was raised from
death. If He's dead, then He is irrelevant. But
if He's alive, the only sensible choice is to
follow Him.
Once we
clearly understand what's at stake in this issue
of the resurrection, the next thing to do is find
out whether it actually happened. What evidence
do we have? Are there any solid reasons for thinking
that Yeshua is alive? Is there any more reason
to believe that Yeshua lives than to believe that
Elvis lives? To answer to these questions, the
inspired Word of God encourages us to look at
the data, to consider the evidence, to weigh the
arguments. One line of argument is that the resurrection
fulfills the words of the Tenach, the Hebrew Scriptures.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 Paul writes, "I delivered
to you as of first importance what I also received,
that Messiah died for our sins according to
the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that
He was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures." Some prophecies about the Messiah's
death and resurrection are found in: Zechariah
12:10: "they will look on Me whom they have pierced."
Psalm 22: Messiah dies a death that can only be
by crucifixion, and yet later in the Psalm is
once again alive! Psalm 118:22 describes the leaders
of Israel who will reject the Stone - the Messiah,
but God overrules them and makes Him the Cornerstone
- the foundation for everything that God is building
in time and eternity! Perhaps the clearest is
found in Isaiah 53. Verses 8-9 predict that "He
was cut off out of the land of the living for
the transgression of my people. His grave was
assigned with wicked men, and He was with a rich
man in His death." Messiah is clearly dead. But
then in verses 11-12 it says, "if He would render
Himself as an offering for sin, He will see His
seed, He will lengthen His days, and the good
pleasure of Adonai will succeed in His hand. As
a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see
it and be satisfied ... Therefore, I will allot
Him a portion with the great, and He will divide
the booty with the strong; because He poured out
Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded
for the transgressors." Messiah is once again
alive!
Still,
if prophecy had been the only proof, it's unlikely
that any of the early Messianic Jews would have
come to believe in the resurrection. As Yochanan
- John puts it, "For as yet they did not understand
the Scripture that Yeshua must rise again from
the dead" (John 20:9). John tells us that what
first convinced him of the Yeshua's resurrection
was His empty tomb. It wasn't the Scriptures;
it wasn't the testimony of Mary, who had seen
the resurrected Messiah earlier that morning.
This emissary who was loved by Yeshua went into
Yeshua's tomb, and saw with his own eyes that
Yeshua's body was gone. He saw the linen wrappings
and the face-cloth that had been wrapped around
Yeshua's head, but Yeshua Himself was nowhere
to be found. When John saw that, he finally believed
(John 20:3-8).
Some of
Yeshua's enemies spread a rumor that the reason
for the empty tomb was that Yeshua's disciples
had come and stolen the body and then had tried
to fool people into believing that Yeshua was
alive. But how likely could that be? The disciples
were shattered by Yeshua's death. They were in
no mood to pull a practical joke and try to fool
everyone into thinking He was alive. Besides,
a squad of heavily armed soldiers was guarding
Yeshua's tomb. How could a few heartbroken fishermen
sneak past those professional troops? And what
did the disciples have to gain by stealing the
body and preaching Yeshua's resurrection? This
wasn't some elaborate swindle that made them all
rich. All they got out of it was persecution,
prison, and death. All of the Emissaries were
either martyred or exiled, so it's downright silly
to explain the empty tomb by saying the disciples
stole the body and then lied about the resurrection.
They had no earthly gain, and if they lied about
Yeshua's resurrection, they would have been advocating
a false Messiah, and could look forward to God's
punishment on the Day of Judgment. And, if His
body was still around somewhere in the vicinity
of Jerusalem, when the disciples started claiming
that Yeshua was alive, the Roman and Jewish government
officials, and the Jewish religious authorities,
who were hostile to Yeshua and His disciples,
would have produced the body to show that Yeshua
was still dead. But Yeshua's body had completely
disappeared, and they were unable to produce His
body. The only explanation that makes any sense
of the empty tomb is that Yeshua actually came
back to life!
But even
the empty tomb didn't really convince most of
the disciples. It was enough to convince John,
but most of the others were convinced only by
an actual encounter with the risen Messiah. In
1 Corinthians 15:5 -8, Paul mentions these encounters
as a primary reason for believing the resurrection:
"Yeshua appeared to Peter, then to the Twelve.
After that He appeared to more than five hundred
brethren at one time, most of whom remain until
now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared
to Ya'akov - James, then to all the Emissaries,
and last of all, as it were to one untimely born,
He appeared to me also." According to the New
Testament record, which is based on eyewitness
testimony, the risen Yeshua appeared on quite
a number of occasions. And these weren't just
mysterious visions or apparitions. No, Yeshua
actually spoke with His followers, and He broke
bread with them, and He ate fish with them. He
even allowed Thomas, the most skeptical of the
disciples, to touch His scars. When Yeshua appeared
to some women, they fell before Him and actually
held on to His feet and worshiped Him. On some
occasions, He even appeared to large groups of
people, some 500 at one time, who all saw and
heard Him at the same time. There was no way they
could all be dreaming or hallucinating together.
Now, if
you were part of a jury and you had the testimony
of hundreds of reliable, level-headed people who
all said they saw a certain person - and those
people were even willing to die rather than change
their story - wouldn't you believe them? Sir Edward
Clark, a British lawyer, wrote: "As a lawyer,
I have made a prolonged study of the evidences
for the events of the Messiah's resurrection.
To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and
over again in the High Court I have secured the
verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling."
Dr. Simon Greenleaf was one of the greatest legal
minds that we have had in this country. The rise
of the Harvard Law School to its eminent position
is partly due to his efforts. Dr Greenleaf was
an expert on evidences in law. While professor
of law at Harvard, Greenleaf wrote a book in which
he examined the legal value of the Emissaries'
testimony to the resurrection of Messiah. He concluded
that the resurrection of Yeshua was one of the
best supported events in history, according to
the laws of legal evidence administered in our
courts of justice (from More Than A Carpenter,
Josh McDowell, page 97).
Rabbi
Paul mentions a final kind of evidence that is
also very important: the change that Yeshua makes
in peoples' lives. In 15:9-10, Paul points to
himself as a prime example: "I am the least of
the Emissaries, who am not fit to be called an
Emissary, because I persecuted God's Messianic
Community. But by the grace of God, I am what
I am, and His grace to me did not prove vain."
Yeshua didn't just appear to Paul; He transformed
him. Paul was once a self-righteous Jewish leader
who helped to imprison and kill the truly righteous,
the Messianic Jews, but the living Messiah transformed
Paul into one of the greatest spiritual forces
the world has ever seen! And Paul wasn't the only
one Yeshua changed. Simon Peter had denied Yeshua,
but after the resurrection, he became a courageous
leader and teacher. Yeshua's half-brother Ya'akov
- James, along with the rest of His brothers,
had once thought that their brother Yeshua was
out of His mind. But when Yeshua appeared to His
brothers after His resurrection, they believed
in Him, and they became completely different people.
Yeshua makes a difference whenever people put
their faith in Him.
That's
been true for 2,000 years, and it's still true
today. Physically Messiah has remained in Heaven
since His ascension, but by the written testimony
of His Emissaries and by the power of His Spirit,
Yeshua continues to convince people that He is
real, and He turns them around and changes their
lives. Millions of people from every nation and
racial background, young and old, rich and poor,
illiterates and geniuses have been transformed
by the Messiah. They have a dynamic, living, vital
relationship with Him that transforms them into
happier, better people.
You see,
when God reveals the Messiah to us, that He is
alive, and real, and the Savior and Redeemer and
Transformer of mankind, and we believe in Him,
and welcome Him, and receive Him, and follow Him,
then God and Messiah send their Holy Spirit to
dwell in us. He gives us new life - God's life.
He enables us to become a partaker of the divine
nature, and escape the corruption that is in the
world. The Holy Spirit enables us to start breaking
away from those sinful things that have enslaved
us. We begin to recognize that they really are
wrong, and displeasing to God. We begin to cry
out to God for help to break free from our sinful
habits, and the Lord responds, and He fills us
with His Holy Spirit, and we gain new power, new
strength, and a new measure of victory!
When you
put the evidence together - the predictions from
the Tenach, the empty tomb, the hundreds of calm,
rational people who insisted they saw the risen
Messiah and even talked with Him and touched Him,
and the millions throughout history whose lives
have been transformed by Yeshua - it only makes
sense to believe His resurrection. It only makes
sense to say, along with rabbi Paul, "Messiah
has been raised from the dead" (1 Corinthians
15:20)!
Yeshua's
resurrection makes Him absolutely unique in the
history of the world and puts Him on a level far
higher than any of the prophets of Israel or any
other religion or any philosopher. Buddha
is still in his tomb. Mohammed is still in his
grave. Confucius is still dead. Marx, Lenin and
Freud are still in their graves. Only Yeshua has
been raised from death! Since God would never
allow a liar, a deceiver, or a false Messiah to
be resurrected, Yeshua's resurrection validates
His person, His ministry and His message. His
resurrection is God's seal of approval on everything
that Yeshua did and taught, and God's declaration
to the world that Yeshua is Messiah and Savior
of mankind. Therefore, we ought to pay attention
to every word He uttered, since He spoke the truth
without any error. It also makes good sense to
become a Messianic Jew or a Christian - to put
your faith in Yeshua, the risen Lord and the eternal
Son of God.
If you
are not a true Christian or Messianic Jew, why
not become one? How? My advice to you is seek,
and you will find. Knock on the doors of Heaven,
and they will be opened. Ask the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, to reveal the truth to you. Ask
Him to show you whether or not Yeshua is alive
now, and the eternal Son of God and the Savior
of mankind. Read the New Testament. Investigate
the Messianic prophecies. Talk to those who have
encountered the Risen Messiah. You will know.
Then, once you're convinced that He is risen,
you must give yourself to Him completely. It's
all or nothing.
And if
you are a genuine Christian or Messianic Jew,
rejoice that Messiah has been raised, and because
He has, you will be raised too, and any sacrifices
you make will be nothing compared to resurrection
glory. And out of your joy, out of your love,
out of your gratitude, won't you serve this great
God who has saved you, Messiah who has raised
you? Won't you dedicate yourself to bring the
Message of the Resurrected Messiah to those who
don't know Him yet?
I'd like
to conclude with Paul's final admonition in chapter
15: "Therefore, my beloved brothers - in light
of our sure hope, and the amazing grace and mercy
of God, be steadfast - remain established and
steady in the direction you are headed, not changing,
firm in your purpose, resolute, immovable - not
moving away from your faith which is true, always
abounding in the work of the Lord - witnessing,
praying, worshiping, reading the Word of God,
serving your fellow saints, trying to help out
those around you, knowing that your toil is not
in vain in the Lord." Those things that you are
doing for the Lord do make a difference, and will
surely be rewarded by the Righteous Judge!
Shalom!
Rabbi Loren
This article
is modified from the original article, "All or
Nothing" by Rev. David Feddes. Used by permission
of The Back To God Hour of the Christian Reformed
Church in North America, 6555 West College Drive
Palos Heights IL 60463. All copyrights are retained
by the Back to God Hour.
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