Luke 24:1 Commentary and Bible Study

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, what was it? We usually speak of it as a great proof of the divinity of Christ, a great encouragement to his people, but one thing we should never forget is that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was a great substitutionary act. If ever there was a truth that was laid aside and forgotten among evangelicals today, it is this: the resurrection is not just a demonstration of power, not just an encouragement, but a substitutionary act. When you think of the substitutionary atonement, think of this: that there was also a substitutionary resurrection. Without the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the atonement would be pointless. What would be the use of the Son of God coming down out of the courts of heaven, taking my sin upon himself, suffering and dying in my place, undergoing an atoning death, and paying the price so that I might be forgiven, if even after that I would have to die? Because while the atonement took away the guilt of sin, the punishment of sin, the consequences of sin, it did not alter the fact that I was still doomed to die. There was no eternal spiritual life in me; I was still under the sentence of death. When the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead and broke the bands of death, it was a substitutionary reversal of death, just as it was a substitutionary atonement. It was as though in his death, the Lord Jesus Christ was held not only by the chains of physical death for himself, but he was held by the chains, the holding power, of the death of all those for whom he gave his life. It was as though he was wrapped up in the chains of a great host, a multitude which no man could number, and he burst those bands on behalf of all his people. Having become our substitute, he could not rise from the dead without defeating death for his people as well. At the resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ broke the chains and the grip of my death and your death, if you belong to him, and all his people, past, present and future, until the end of time. By his own virtue and life-giving strength a quantity and quality of life-power was given to all of us, imputed to all of us. The Lord Jesus Christ was taking our death in himself. As in Adam all die, so in Christ all his people shall be made alive.