Of First Importance

“The resurrection assures us that when Jesus claimed to be God’s promised Rescuer and when he claimed to have the divine authority to forgive repentant sinners who put their trust in him, he spoke the truth. If he had been lying, he would not be sitting at the right hand of God but suffering the penalty due him for deceiving millions of people into trusting a false messiah. Instead, he was ‘declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.’ (Romans 1:4). The resurrection is God’s stamp of approval on Jesus’ claim to be our Lord and Savior.”

- John Ensor, The Great Work of the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006), 101-102.

“The resurrection validated that Jesus was himself sinless and that he died for our sins, just as he said. Acts 2:24 says, ‘God raised [Jesus] up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.’ Why did the justice of God make it impossible for Jesus to stay dead? It was impossible for Jesus to stay dead because he had lived a perfectly righteous life and therefore death, as God’s just punishment for sin, had not crime against God to pin itself to. On the streets of Boston, the kids salute the law of justice by saying, ‘If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’ In the case of Jesus, the voice of justice says, ‘He can’t do the time, ’cause he did no crime.’”

- John Ensor, The Great Work of the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006), 101.

“The resurrection . . . sharply defines what it must mean to have faith in Christ. Because Christ has been raised from the dead, we are not putting our faith in merely a historical event but in a living, death conquering, and reigning Savior. Our faith is based on something in the past, but it is placed in One who is very much alive today. Notice how the apostle Paul speaks of faith in terms of a living Christ: ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20). Paul is living by faith in the living Christ. And he prays that this would be our normative Christian experience: ‘that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’ (Ephesians 3:16-17).”

- John Ensor, The Great Work of the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006), 102.

“He laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the Living One; and I was dead, and look! I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and Hades’” (Revelation 1:17-18).

Literally, Jesus says, ‘Stop being afraid..’ Why? Because Jesus Christ has walked into the gaping jaws of the greatest enemy there is. On the cross he let all the powers that threaten to undo us have their unrestrained way with him. He let death take him captive. And then he burst out of the prison and carried away the prison keys!”

- Darrell W. Johnson, Discipleship on the Edge (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 2004), 47-48.

“In a broad sense the Old Testament was the economy of conviction of sin. The law revealed the moral helplessness of man, placed him under a curse, worked death. There was, of course, gospel under and in the Old Covenant, but it was for its expression largely dependent on the silent symbolic language of alter and sacrifice and lustration. Under it the glory which speaks of righteousness was in hiding.

In the New Covenant all this has been changed. The veil has been rent, and through it an unobstructed view is obtained of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And with this vision comes the assurance of atonement, satisfaction, acces to God, peace of conscience, liberty, eternal life.”

- Geerhardus Vos, Grace & Glory (Carlisle, Pa.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 96-97.

“The greatest thing that can be said of Jesus’ knowledge is that he knows God perfectly. He knows God perfectly, because he is God. We know God partially and imperfectly. Jesus knows him like no other being knows him. He knows him the way an omniscient person knows himself. ‘All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him‘ (Matthew 11:27). No one but Jesus knows the Father immediately, completely, and perfectly. Our knowledge of the Father depends wholly on Jesus’ gracious revelation; our knowledge is derivative and partial and, because of sin, imperfect.”

- John Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ (Wheaton, Il.: Crossway Books, 2001), 60.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

“The paradox is amazing. The Creator assumed the human frailty of his creatures. The Eternal One entered time. The all-powerful made himself vulnerable. The all-holy exposed himself to temptation. And in the end the immortal died.”

- John Stott, The Incomparable Christ (Downers Grove, IL.: IVP Books, 2001), 37.