AP

1 Corinthians 15:3-8    For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

For the Apostle Paul, the evidence for the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, leaving the tomb empty, leaves its historical validity beyond all doubt.  Anyone reading Frank Morison’s “Who Moved The Stone” is without excuse for persisting in denial of its reality.  Morison, an investigative journalist and erstwhile agnostic influenced by 19th Century skepticism, set out in the 1920s to prove once-and-for-all that the Gospel account of the resurrection was nothing more than a myth.  In the process, after investigating all the available evidence, he became convinced that Jesus did, in fact, conquer death.

Paul’s experience on the Damascus Road left him without any doubt also, so much so that he made the statement in his Sermon at the Areopagus: “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.  For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.  He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).

 It is a sobering and challenging thought that, on the Day of Judgement, all those who have persisted in rejecting Jesus will be rendered speechless in his glorious presence!  In the light of this, let us be bearing witness in our generation, and praying earnestly that the Holy Spirit will be opening people’s eyes and softening and humbling their hearts to receive this truth and to turn in repentance-and-faith to accept Jesus as their Saviour and Lord, because he is the only Saviour and Lord.

Let us pray especially for Jewish people, that they will not persist in rejecting Jesus as their Promised Messiah, and the One who fulfils, and shines a wonderfully bright and clarifying light on their (Old Testament) Scriptures, as Paul himself discovered.

– Bruce Christian