Acts 2:24-32
24 “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. 25 “For David says of Him, ‘I SAW THE LORD ALWAYS IN MY PRESENCE; FOR HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, SO THAT I WILL NOT BE SHAKEN. 26 ‘THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE; 27 BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. 28 ‘YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE.’ 29 “Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 “And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT one OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE, 31 he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY. 32 “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
If Peter’s sermon ended at verse 23, there would be no hope for us. Jesus’ crucifixion, even with Him taking on our sins, is just another recorded death in history without His resurrection. I think we tend to lessen the impact this has on our lives to a simple Facebook post on Easter Sunday that says, “He is Risen!” The fact that Jesus came back from death, unaffected by its power, gives us hope and removes our own fears about death. His death and resurrection weren’t for Himself, but for us. The apostle Paul says it well in Romans 6:
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
The very power that resurrected Jesus is the same power that now, as a result of this outpouring of the Spirit that we are reading about in Acts, is available to us! This has more than just physical applications. We are able to overcome our spiritual depravity and bondage to sinfulness! We can finally see things unveiled and in the truth of God and understand the slavery we have been subject to in our sin. We are also able to fight our sinfulness through constant surrender to God, who is always in our presence. God never leaves us to fend for ourselves; He is always on our side. Many times, however, we run off to do things on our own only to slink back in shame and disappointment realizing we shouldn’t have tried to do it without Him.
The hope we have in resurrection is that it is available to us as well! We get to join with Christ in the death of our flesh in sin and be resurrected in the power of the Holy Spirit.
