Telling The Story of Jesus

"Death should have been the end, but Life came."

JESUS WANTS us to know the WORK of the cross and not its pain of punishment. Those graphics that depict its torture may be accurate to some who were crucified, but they leave out the Spirit in Him and upon Him. It says His bones would not be broken in the psalms. This was not normal. We know He was already dead when Joseph of Arimathea asked for His body, and Pilate found that unusual. We also know Satan had “nothing in Him,” meaning Jesus had no sin (John 14:30), so He could not die without willfully releasing His spirit. This He did, commending (the King James word used) His spirit into His Father’s care (Luke 23:46). He bowed His head only when He’d spoken all that the Father wanted said, including the beginning verse of Psalm 22. This was meant NOT as an outcry of mental weakness but to cause those listening to realize He fulfilled prophecy. He was the Messiah.

We know He was filled with peace beyond our understanding because He gave that peace to His Learners (Disciples) before His arrest (John 14:27). Yes, He died on the cross, but God enabled Him to be the perfect sacrifice and never turned His gaze. The Father was always with Him (John 16:32). We must know the truth of redemption’s work, why Jesus had to die to fulfill the Law, why we needed a New Covenant, why Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and why the Holy Spirit came. From creation to that moment on Calvary there is much the Father wants us to understand of His mercy and kindness, His goodness to men, and the work of the Holy Spirit upon us. Knowing Him (2 Peter 1:3) is what gives Jesus’ joy. We shouldn’t linger on the horror of the cross but focus on the beauty of the Resurrection. For, yes, He died, but Hallelujah, He lives.

“He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.” (Acts 2:31)

“And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:” (Romans 1:4)

It is that He lives which brings us God’s everlasting life. When a physical body dies, death overcomes it entirely. We know this. The inner person, our spirit, leaves our body and goes to be with Jesus, if we are God’s child. The body is buried and decays, never to live again. But Jesus was buried, death having claimed His physical body, and then God breathed new life into it, resurrecting Him physically and remaking Him to be what Philippians 3:21 calls a “glorious body.” Death should have been the end, but Life came. Here is our hope. He is our example and the promise of eternal redemption. He conquered the power of death to kill us by returning to life. Death is not the end, but only a doorway to greater, glorious things, and a promise from the Father that we, too, will be made like Him (1 Corinthians 15:52).

Jesus didn’t die because He was a sinner but because He carried the weight of our sins, and He was only able to carry that weight on His physical body because He is the Anointed One (the Christ) and had the Spirit upon Him without measure (John 3:34). The Spirit carried the weight and filled His spirit forever with life. He didn’t die in spirit. He is one with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit cannot be quenched. Psalm 139 tells us we cannot escape from the Holy Spirit but that He is even in the darkness of hell. While we cannot fathom this, we can see it as truth through Jesus. He promised the thief who hung beside Him that he would be in Paradise that same day. Paradise, also called Abraham’s bosom, was a place described in a story Jesus told about a rich man and a beggar (Luke 16:22). Until Jesus’ death and His return to the Father, those given God’s gift of life, such as Abraham, and in the story, the beggar, remained in Paradise.

Jesus told His Learners (Disciples) that He went to prepare a place for them (John 14:3), speaking in those words of heaven where the throne room is. Until He rose to be with the Father and the Holy Spirit lived in all those who were in Paradise, they could not rise into heaven. In the story, Jesus said there was a “great gulf fixed” between Paradise and the place of torment, and no man could cross it. No man would cross it but Jesus. We know this because of Peter’s words about Jesus preaching to the Sons of Man who’d sinned in Noah’s day (1 Peter 3:19).

“And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

All of that is to further reiterate the need for us to focus on redemption and the work of Jesus’ death and Resurrection. We mourn Him. I, too, have mourned Him. Then He speaks through the Spirit and says, “I’m alive.” And that is the point He wants me to make. Seek God for revelation of the fullness of John 3:16. See Him as Creator in Genesis 1. See Him as the Son of Man in Genesis 2. See Him as the promised Redeemer in Genesis 3. See God create the mercy seat at the gates of Eden and learn how vast the promises to Abraham were, which changed the world. Know He died, but Know He lives, and we will, one day, see Him face-to-face.

What is the end result of all these things? That no man is free of sin and death, sickness and disease, and loser influence without the power and Presence of God. There is no other way to walk out of bondage, slavery to death. It is because of the work of the cross that freedom is made available. It is because the Spirit of God lives in us that we can have joy in the midst of sorrow and strength when we should be weak. The name of Jesus is our authority because of who He is. But what His authority works only comes to pass because He sees us, knows us, and does the work. Yes, the Word says to resist the devil and he will flee. But the resisting comes only after submitting to God, and that means in everything. The resisting only happens because we know the truth of the Resurrection and that the power it made available to us comes with relationship. Even in an infant in Christ, it is their belief in Him that His name works. All the spitting and sputtering in the world won’t remove the devil. Telling the story won’t remove the devil. Crying honest tears over what happened to Jesus won’t remove the devil, nor knowing Jesus walked out of the grave.

Instead, it is our trust in Him, that we call on Him, filled with love for Him, that He answers, and we are set free.

“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” (1 Corinthians 15:21)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1 Peter 1:3)

Image by Eglantine Shala from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com