Present-Tense Benefits of Jesus’ Resurrection
1) Deliverance From Spiritual Death “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5). Read those two verses carefully again. When Jesus came out of the grave, believers were delivered from spiritual death right then.
We were “made alive together with Christ,” resurrected from the grips of sin. When we received the resurrected Savior in our hearts, He began the resurrection process. Just like Adam in his fallen state died spiritually and then began dying physically, so believers are resurrected first spiritually on their way to a complete physical resurrection at the coming of the Lord. God puts a “new spirit” within us (Ezek. 36:26).
2) Restoration of Spiritual Breath After Jesus arose from the dead, He appeared in the upper room and “breathed” on His disciples, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). This was a restoration of what Adam lost in the beginning. The Bible explains that “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being [a living soul]” (Gen. 2:7 NKJV/KJV).
After the rebellion, Adam and Eve lost the breath of God. They may have retained breath naturally, but not spiritually. God does not breathe oxygen and other gaseous vapors; God “breathes” His own divine essence. The word inspiration means “to breathe into.”
When Adam sinned, he lost divine breath in his spirit, so he could no longer live an “inspired” life—full of divine wisdom, knowledge and love. Jesus came out of the grave with the passion to restore this breath of inspiration, to breathe into us the life-giving attributes of God’s character and image, and to make us “living souls” once again.
3) Justification and Righteousness Romans 4:25 reveals that Jesus was “delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” To be “justified” means to be legally acquitted of all guilt and reckoned righteous, as if we never sinned. What an amazing truth!
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12). Because of what Jesus did, God has made us righteous in His sight, given us “the gift of righteousness” and even named us “the righteousness of God in Christ” (Rom. 5:17; 2 Cor. 5:21).
4) Hope Peter launched his first epistle with the statement of praise, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). At one time, we had “no hope, without God in this world” (Eph. 2:12). Then “the God of hope” filled us “with all joy and peace in believing” (Rom. 15:13).
Hope is desire married to expectation. The most hopeless scenario in this world is death, but because Jesus conquered death and gave His people the gift of immortality, we have endless, boundless hope—in every situation.
