Because Jesus was resurrected, we too will be resurrected.

It is strange but true that to an increasing number of those who call themselves Christian, Christ’s resurrection is not to be taken literally. It was described by a leading churchman from a different denomination as ‘a conjuring trick with bones’. One college textbook on the New Testament proclaims: “We need to keep in mind that the empty tomb was an ambiguous witness to the resurrection. It attests the absence of the body, but not necessarily the reality or presence of the risen Jesus.” Robert A. Spivey and D. Moody Smith, Anatomy of the New Testament: A Guide to Its Structure and Meaning (New York: Macmillan, 1989), p. 239

The apostle Paul pointed out that if we do not accept the resurrection of Christ we miss the whole point of the Gospel: “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. … If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:14, 19). Without the atonement and resurrection of Christ there is no plan of salvation.

What do we mean by resurrection? As a missionary I used to explain it by using my hand and a glove with the hand representing the spirit and the glove the body. When we lived in the pre-mortal existence we lived as spirits (the hand without the glove). When we come to this mortal life our spirit is clothed in a body (the hand in the glove). When we die, the body is laid in the grave but the spirit lives on (the hand is taken out of the glove). Resurrection is the reuniting of the spirit with the body in an immortal state, no longer subject to disease or death. (The hand is placed back in the glove forever.)

The scriptures give us examples of people who were raised from the dead – for example Lazarus, Jairus’ daughter and the widow’s son at Nain but each of these was still eventually subject to death. The Saviour was the first person to be resurrected.

Right from the beginning of his ministry, the Lord tried to make it clear that he would die and then rise from the dead. (For example John 18:31-33)

To us, looking back through history, this teaching may seem clear and unambiguous, yet Jesus’ disciples “understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken” (John 18:34).

So after his resurrection, Jesus made sure that his disciples witnessed that he had a physical body and was not some sort of spiritual manifestation or vision. See Luke 24:36-43)

He was not a spirit.

He had flesh and bones.

He could eat.

The Bible tells us that Jesus provided “many infallible proofs” of his resurrection (see Acts 1:3), appearing to many during the forty days before his final ascension.

The doctrine of the resurrection is not just of academic interest – the Bible teaches us that everyone who has lived will be resurrected:

 1 Corinthians 15:21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Bruce R McConkie explained it this way: “As Adam is the father of mortality, so Christ is the father of immortality.” It was part of our Heavenly Father’s plan that death and mortality would come into the word through Adam and that immortality and eternal life would come to all through Jesus Christ.

Gordon B Hinckley said:

“I have stood at the tomb of Napoleon in Paris, at the tomb of Lenin in Moscow, and before the burial places of many others of the great leaders of the earth. In their time they commanded armies, they ruled with almost omnipotent power, their very words brought terror into the hearts of people. I have reverently walked through some of the great cemeteries of the world. I have reflected quietly and thoughtfully as I have stood in the military cemetery in Manila in the Philippines where are buried some 17,000 Americans who gave their lives in the Second World War and where are remembered another 35,000 who died in the terrible battles of the Pacific and whose remains were never found. I have walked with reverence through the British cemetery on the outskirts of Rangoon, Burma, and noted the names of hundreds of young men who came from the villages, towns, and great cities of the British Isles and gave their lives in hot and distant places. I have strolled through old cemeteries in Asia and Europe and yet other places and reflected on the lives of those who were once buoyant and happy, who were creative and distinguished, who gave much to the world in which they lived. They have all passed into the oblivion of the grave. All who have lived upon the earth before us are now gone. They have left all behind as they have stepped over the threshold of silent death. None has escaped. All have walked their way to “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns” (Hamlet, act 3, scene 1, lines 79–80). Shakespeare so described it.

But Jesus the Christ changed all that. Only a God could do what He did. He broke the bonds of death. He too had to die, but on the third day, following His burial, He rose from the grave, “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor 15:20) and in so doing brought the blessing of the Resurrection to every one of us.”