The Resurrection

Christ rose from the dead: (a) to manifest the divine Justice which exalts the humbled; (b) to instruct and establish usin the faith, for the Resurrection is the central truth of our faith; (c) to give us firm hope of our own resurrection; (d) to teach us to rise from the death of sin to newness of life; (e) to complete the work of our salvation, and, after enduring evil, to rise triumphant to lasting good.

Christ rose on the third day. He delayed the Resurrection long enough to establish the fact that he had truly died. Yet he did not delay it so long that men might fail to see itas the unquestionable proof of his Godhead. Besides, the third daycommends to our notice the perfection of the number three which, as Aristotle says, is the number of everything that has beginning,middle, and end. And, mystically, since Christ’s one death destroyed our two deaths, the number three is significant. The third day also indicates the three epochs of mankind in their relation to God: before the Law, under the Law, and now under grace.

Christ was the first to rise from the dead, to die nomore. Those who had been miraculously restored to life in the Old and the New Testament, had to die again eventually. Not so with Christ who “is risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep” (I Cor. 15:20); “Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more; death shall no more have dominion over him” (Rom. 6:9).

Scripture speaks of Christ (Acts 2:24) “whom God hath raised up.” Yet our Lord himself says (John 10:18):“No one taketh my life from me; but I lay it down, and I takeit up again.” There is no conflict or contradiction here. Christ is God, and when he causes his own Resurrection it is God who raises him up. It is perfectly accurate, then, to say that Christ himself is the cause of his Resurrection from the dead.