He Is Risen—So What? 20 Things Jesus’s Resurrection Accomplished

We often excel at understanding and teaching the meaning of Christ’s death—its significance for accomplishing our salvation. Sometimes, we are less adept at grasping the significance of Christ’s resurrection, at least beyond how it signals retrospectively the effectiveness of the cross. We may struggle to explain why Christ’s resurrection itself matters, what the resurrection specifically contributes to our salvation.

To fill that void, this article aims to survey the New Testament’s theology of Christ’s resurrection.

1. Christ’s resurrection demonstrates the remarkable power of God

In Acts 26:6–8, when Paul is on trial for preaching the resurrection, he equates this to being on trial for his hope in “the promise made by God to our fathers.” Paul contends, “For this hope [of resurrection] I am accused by Jews, O king!” He then asks rhetorically, “Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?” The question implies it is not incredible that God would raise the dead. God, of course, is omnipotent, all-powerful, able to do as he pleases: even raising the dead.

Yet let’s not neglect how rather incredible it is to be able to say that it’s not incredible for God to raise the dead! Raising the dead is by every other account impossible. For instance, when God asks Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, “Can these bones live?” (Ezek 37:3), the expected answer under any normal circumstances would be no. (But Ezekiel wisely punts, “O Lord God, you know,” since he knows ordinarily dead bones don’t live—but he also knows to whom he is speaking!)

God’s raising Jesus from the dead demonstrates his immense power to accomplish what seems impossible (cf. Matt 19:26; Rom 4:19–21). Raising the dead is an incredible thing. But what is even more incredible is that for God, it’s not incredible.

2. Christ’s resurrection serves as decisive proof of his ministry and claims

In Matthew 12:38–40, when the scribes and Pharisees demand a sign, Jesus responds, “No sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Just as Jonah spent three days in the fish’s belly—something of a death for Jonah (see Jonah 2:2–7)—so “will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” But, of course, three days is a limited amount of time, implying eventual resurrection. The ultimate sign validating Jesus’s ministry, therefore, would be his death followed by resurrection.

Similarly, in John 2:18–22, when asked for a sign of his authority to cleanse the temple, Jesus responds, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John clarifies that Jesus was speaking of “the temple of his body.”¹ When Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples “believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:22). The sign that Jesus will give to demonstrate his authority to do things like cleanse the temple is raising his temple (body) three days after his death. His resurrection validated his authority and claims.

3. God’s act of raising Christ expresses God’s approval and affirmation of Christ

As I looked across the New Testament, I found at least twenty-two times where it attributes the resurrection to God, often specifically to God the Father. God is the one who raised Jesus from the dead.² For instance, 1 Peter 1:20–21 states that God “raised him from the dead and gave him glory.”

Although we might easily overlook this, such statements carry significant implications about God’s disposition toward Christ. Rather than signaling disapproval of Christ, which death by crucifixion could be taken to mean (see Mark 15:34), God’s resurrection of Christ vindicates him and implicitly communicates God’s approval of Christ. In this way, God contradicts the verdict that humans had placed on his Christ: that Jesus was nothing more than a criminal. God’s resurrection of him definitively declares otherwise.

In Acts 5:30–31, Peter declares, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.” Notably, Peter describes Jesus’s death as being hung “on a tree.” This language evokes Deuteronomy 21:23, which states that anyone hung on a tree is cursed by God. We might expect the apostles to be embarrassed by this fact: How could Jesus be God’s Messiah, the one in whom God delights, if he was cursed by God? Instead, they intentionally draw attention to this, since it underscores the significance of Christ’s death: He bore our curse (Gal 3:13). Yet Christ’s resurrection by the Father reverses that verdict: The one who was cursed by God has now been raised by that same God, signaling that punishment for sin has been absorbed and that sentence of condemnation overturned, i.e., justifying him.

So 1 Timothy 3:16 also refers to Christ being “vindicated [or justified] by the Spirit,” likely a reference to his resurrection by means of the Spirit (the New Testament elsewhere specifies the Spirit as the agent of Christ’s resurrection, e.g., Rom 1:4; 8:11; cf. 1 Pet 3:18).³ God’s act of raising Christ vindicates (or justifies) him.

4. Christ’s resurrection fulfills the enthronement of a king from David’s line

In his Pentecost sermon, Peter argues that Christ has been exalted to God’s right hand, enthroned as the promised Davidic king (Acts 2:14–36). Peter observes that the tongues-speaking, which had just occurred, evidences that the Spirit has been poured out in fulfillment of Joel 2 (Acts 2:14–21; cf. Joel 2:28–32). And this, Peter concludes, evidences that Christ has been exalted with authority to pour out that Spirit (Acts 2:22–36).

Peter cites Psalm 16:8–11, where David, speaking of himself, confidently asserts that God will not abandon his anointed to death but will preserve him from his enemies. Yet Peter notes that David himself did eventually die and see corruption, and so Peter sees this psalm as anticipating a greater David and a greater act of preserving his Davidic king from corruption. According to Peter, Psalm 16 ultimately looks beyond David to his descendant whom God swore to put on his throne (Acts 2:22–30; see 1 Sam 7; Ps 89:3, 34; 132:11–12; Isa 55:3), and he identifies Christ as that descendent and Christ’s resurrection as that enthronement (Acts 2:31–33). Christ’s resurrection enables his exaltation to the Father’s right hand (Acts 2:34–36; Ps 110:1; see also Acts 5:30–31; Rom 8:34; Col 3:1; Eph 1:20–22; 1 Pet 3:22), from where he is granted authority to pour out God’s Spirit.

Moving to Acts 13:16–41, specifically 13:30–37, we find Paul making the same type of argument. Paul cites Psalm 2:7’s enthronement language: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you,” concluding that God appointed his messianic king “by raising Jesus” (Acts 13:33).

Romans 1:3–4 describes Jesus as “descended from David according to the flesh” but “declared to be [or appointed] the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead.” His resurrection signals his appointment to the Father’s right hand as the “Son of God,” i.e., the Davidic king.

5. Christ’s resurrection grants him universal authority

Matthew 28:18–20 also testifies to Christ’s post-resurrection kingship, namely, his regal authority. Following his resurrection, Jesus declares, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Here he alludes to Daniel’s Son of Man receiving everlasting dominion over all nations (Dan 7:13–14).

As the resurrected Son of Man, Jesus now possesses all authority, commissioning his disciples to make disciples from all nations and teaching them to observe all he has commanded. In other words, because Christ possesses universal authority, they are to see that authority realized by making disciples from among all those nations (ἔθνος) over which Christ has authority. They are to bring them under Christ’s rule specifically by naturalizing them as citizens of his kingdom.

He is the “Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” who has “conquered, so that he can open the scroll” in which is written God’s purposes to bring history to its redemptive end (Rev 5:1–5). But how has he acquired this authority? Instead of seeing a lion, when John looks he sees a Lamb who, despite having been slaughtered, now stands (Rev 5:6). In other words, it is through Jesus’s death and resurrection that he wins the authority to break this scroll’s wax seals thereby executing its contents (Rev 5:7–14): the enactment of God’s kingdom in the form of both judgment (Rev 6:1–17) and salvation (Rev 5:9–10; see also 7:1–8:1).

6. Christ’s resurrection vindicates him as the messiah by fulfilling the Scriptures

In Acts 26:22–23, as Paul testifies to the resurrection of Christ, he describes this as “nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass.” Christ’s resurrection, in other words, fulfills what the Old Testament Scripture’s anticipated (see also Acts 2:22–36; 13:30–37). In this way, Christ’s resurrection vindicates him as the messiah precisely because it fulfills Scripture’s testimony about the messiah.

Likewise in Acts 17:2–3, Paul reasons “from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead.” Having established this profile of the messiah, Paul concludes that Jesus, who fits that profile, must therefore be that very Messiah.

7. Christ’s resurrection confirms his appointment as judge

According to Acts 17:30–31, God requires all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world. But notice how this judgment will be conducted: by the agency of a man whom he has now appointed. Paul explains: “Of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Jesus’s resurrection confirms that he is the one whom God has appointed to eventually judge all people (see also Matt 16:27; John 5:22, 27; Acts 10:42; 2 Cor 5:10).

8. Through his resurrection, Christ triumphed over demonic forces

First Peter 3:18–22, though a notoriously difficult text, reveals Christ’s victory over spiritual powers through his resurrection. Having died for the sins of the unrighteous (1 Pet 3:18), Jesus was “made alive,” i.e, resurrected, by the Spirit, after which he ascended into heaven and proclaimed his triumph over demonic spirits (1 Pet 3:19).⁴ In other words, his resurrection enables him to claim victory over demonic spirits; it is his triumph over the forces of darkness. By his resurrection, he is seated at the right hand of God with “angels, authorities, and powers” subjected to him (1 Pet 3:22; see also Eph 1:20–21).

Hebrews 2:14–15 explains that God the Son took on human nature so that he might experience death and, through that death (and resurrection), destroy death itself. In this way, he defeats not only death but the one who held the power of death, that is, the devil. By releasing us from the fear of death, he releases us from the stronghold of the devil who wielded death over us.

So too, Paul declares that Christ disarmed “rulers and authorities,” publicly shaming them, by triumphing over them through his cross and resurrection (Col 2:11–15; see also 1 John 3:8). He knocks the weapon out of their hand, we might say, by ridding them of their ability to accuse us of sin.

9. Christ’s resurrection shows he successfully dealt with sin

In Romans 6:23, Paul states, “the wages of sin is death.” Death is the punishment for our sin. It is what our sins deserve, the “paycheck” sin earns for us. So for Christ to truly cancel sin, he must fully nullify its payment: death (Rom 6:23). Christ’s resurrection shows that he successfully paid our sin’s full debt. As we might say, it proves the check he paid for our sins didn’t bounce, but cleared.

Conversely, Paul reasons, if Christ hadn’t been raised, our faith wouldn’t save: We’d still be in our sins (1 Cor 15:17). For Christ not to have been raised from the dead would signal that sin had still not been dealt with. As Paul says later in this chapter, sin is the venom that brings death (1 Cor 15:55). Thus, for death not to be defeated would mean sin still stings.

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10. Christ’s resurrection was his own justification and, by extension, ours

In Romans 4:25, Paul confesses that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” He parallels Christ’s death for our trespasses with his resurrection for our justification.

Justification, receiving the verdict of “righteous” in God’s judgment, has both negative and positive dimensions. Christ’s death here addresses the negative: In it he bears the consequences of our crimes against God’s law. Conversely, in his resurrection, that verdict of condemnation is reversed: Christ is declared justified (see also 1 Tim 3:16). Inasmuch as Christ’s death is God condemning Christ (Rom 8:3), so his resurrection is God justifying Christ.

This makes sense when we consider Scripture’s teaching on resurrection. Resurrection was associated with the final judgment, when God would vindicate the righteous by raising them to glory and honor (Dan 12:1–3). Those who are raised to eternal life are the righteous (Rom 2:7; John 5:29). So to be raised by God in this sense is in effect to receive his verdict of “righteous.” Resurrection is proof of a righteous standing.

But, of course, we lack this standing on our own. Thus, as Paul says, Christ was raised for our justification. Christ’s own justification is the justification for all united to Christ who thereby share in his justified status. In him, we’ve already passed through the final judgment and received God’s verdict of “righteous.” As Christ identified with our sin (2 Cor 5:21), so we are identified with Christ in his justification. We are only forgiven of our trespasses inasmuch as we pass through Jesus’s death with him, and we are only justified inasmuch as we are united with him in his justification, that is, his resurrection.

11. Christ’s resurrection enables us to appeal to God for a clean conscience

According to 1 Peter 3:21, baptism saves us “not as a removal of dirt from the body,” but inasmuch as baptism embodies an appeal to God for a good conscience.

But how can we make this appeal to God for a clean conscience? Of course, in our sin we do not have clean consciences. So we cannot make this appeal based on our own record. Rather, the grounds for our clean consciences is Christ’s resurrection, “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 3:21). Christ’s resurrection signals sin has been dealt with and our justification is secured, which secures for us a clean conscience.

12. Having been raised to indestructible life, Christ makes permanent intercession for believers

Hebrews 7 argues that Jesus is a superior priest compared to the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priests served on the basis of the law’s requirement that priests be descendent from Aaron. In contrast, Christ’s Melchizedekian priesthood is established by his “indestructible life”; that is, Christ’s resurrection (Heb 7:15–16). The author of Hebrews makes his case from Psalm 110, which foretold of a future priest-king from Melchizedek’s order who will be a priest “forever” (Heb 7:17, 20; cf. “forever” in Heb 6:20; 7:24, 28).

Thus, one of the ways Jesus’s priesthood is better is that, unlike the Aaronic priests who died and so could only serve temporarily, Christ is “able to save to the uttermost,” since his resurrection-life enables his constant intercession, “forever” applying his finished work before the Father on our behalf (Heb 7:23–25).

Likewise, in Romans 8:34, Paul asserts that no one can condemn us since Jesus’s resurrection means he now intercedes for us at God’s right hand (see also 1 John 2:1).

13. Through his resurrection, Christ annihilated death and obtained immortality

Second Timothy 1:10 declares that through the gospel, i.e., Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection, he “abolished death.” Jesus absorbed our death, fully experiencing it on our behalf (see also Heb 2:9), and, having vanquished death, achieved immortality, that is, eternal resurrected life (1 Cor 15:50–57). Christ’s resurrection wasn’t mere resuscitation. Christ passed through death and emerged completely free from its claims on the other side. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, death itself has died.

Jesus overcame death and escaped its grip, so that we who are in Christ would share in his victory over death. We do not yet experience that victory. We still die. But we die knowing that death does not have a permanent grip on us. Eventually, at Christ’s return, Christ’s defeat of death will be applied to us as well, when this “last enemy” is to be destroyed (1 Cor 15:26).

Nonetheless, Hebrews 2:9 and 2 Timothy 1:10 make clear that this victory is already achieved in principle in Christ’s death and resurrection. It’s already been won. We are yet to experience it, but Christ has already defeated death for us. It’s a done deal.

So in Revelation 1:9-20, John records a vision he had of the Son of Man. In it, Jesus declares, “I am … the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev 1:17–18). Keys represent authority, the power to lock and unlock. Jesus announces his dominion over death itself and over Hades, the place of the dead. The basis of that authority is his resurrection. Because he personally conquered death, he now has authority over it. This is meant to assure us as we face death: He has won the authority to release us from it. Through his resurrection, Christ holds authority over death.

14. Christ’s resurrection inaugurates the end-time resurrection of the dead

From the Old Testament’s perspective, God’s people looked forward to the day when he would intervene at the end of history to judge all of humanity, raise the dead, and decisively establish his kingdom. Resurrection belongs to this “end-times” category: It’s inherently eschatological.

Yet Christ’s resurrection has occurred in the middle of history, injecting the end into the present age. Jesus’s resurrection inaugurates that broader end-time resurrection. He is the first to rise, launching new creation in the midst of the old, fallen order.

For instance, Colossians 1:15–18 declares that not only is Christ preeminent (the “firstborn”) over creation (Col 1:15), since he himself is its Creator (Col 1:16–17), but now he is also preeminent over the new creation, since he is its source. “He is the beginning,” that is, he is the origin of this new creation, since he has launched it as “the firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18).

Likewise, Acts 26:23 identifies Christ as “the first to rise from the dead,” signaling that his resurrection is representative of a larger resurrection. “First,” of course, assumes more to come. There is a broader group to which the first belongs. Christ’s resurrection belongs to, and is the first of, the general resurrection anticipated at the end of history. He is the first to embark into resurrection existence.

Other passages in Acts confirm this. For instance, in Acts 4:2, we see the apostles “proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead [pl.].” Notice, they do not merely proclaim that Jesus rose from the dead, but that “in Jesus” is resurrection from the dead (pl.). Jesus’s resurrection launches that broader resurrection from the dead, so it is in Jesus that the hope of that future resurrection is found.

Again, in Acts 17:18, Luke does not record Paul merely preaching Jesus’s resurrection, but “preaching Jesus and the resurrection” (emphasis added). According to Luke, for Paul to preach Jesus’s resurrection is also for him to preach the general hope of resurrection (see also Acts 17:32).

In Acts 23:6, when Paul describes why he is on trial, he does not merely say, It is because I preach that Jesus was resurrected. He assumes that to preach that Jesus is resurrected is to preach “the hope and the resurrection of the dead.” Jesus’s resurrection fulfills the Old Testament’s hope of resurrection and is the reason for our hope in resurrection. As Paul says later in Acts 24:14–15, 20–21, to be on trial for Jesus’s resurrection is to be on trial for “a hope … that there will be a resurrection” (see also Acts 26:6–8).

John 11:25–26, though predating Jesus’s resurrection, assumes it. When Jesus tells Martha her brother Lazarus will rise, she responds, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” She expresses the traditional hope in resurrection on the last day, stating that she knows her brother Lazarus will participate in that resurrection. Yet Jesus responds quite shockingly, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus identifies himself with the very hope of resurrection life. It’s as if he says, You want to participate in that resurrection? You want to experience resurrection life? That is to be found in me. I embody that hope. Jesus is the source of our hope for resurrection, which he ultimately accomplishes by means of his own resurrection.

If you are familiar with John’s Gospel, you know that the beginning of John’s Gospel is structured by various signs. So here, Jesus claims, “I am the resurrection,” and then he signifies this by demonstrating his power to raise Lazarus from the dead.

15. Christ represents us in his resurrection, securing our future resurrection

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul addresses some in the Church of Corinth who denied a future bodily resurrection while accepting Christ’s resurrection. Yet Paul argues these are inseparable: If there were no resurrection, then not even Christ has been raised.

Underlying Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15:12–19, his presupposition, is the link between Christ’s resurrection and ours. His entire argument assumes that for Christ to be raised necessarily means that believers, those who belong to Christ, will be raised with him. Christ’s resurrection secures our future resurrection, such that for Christ to rise from the dead means we will be raised from the dead with him (see also 1 Thess 4:14). This means that to deny the future resurrection of the body—to deny our own resurrection—is implicitly to deny the gospel (1 Cor 15:1–11); namely, that Christ rose from the dead.

In 1 Corinthians 15:20–23, Paul uses two illustrations to describe the relationship of Christ’s resurrection to ours. First, he describes Jesus as the “firstfruits” of those who will be raised. This is agricultural imagery: When a farmer grew wheat or barley, the firstfruits were the first portion of the crop to ripen. As the first, they signaled that there was more to come. They represented the full harvest that would follow. In other words, Christ’s resurrection is the first of a larger resurrection harvest (see similar eschatological harvest imagery in Matt 13:36–43; Rev 14:14–20). His resurrection comes first, anticipating and guaranteeing the future resurrection for all those united to him by faith.

Second, Paul describes Christ as a “Second Adam.” Adam was what we might call a “public person.” He represented all of humanity, such that when he sinned, his sin affected us all. We all experience the consequences of his rebellion, namely, death came through him to us all. But Christ is a new “public person.” He represents a new humanity, acting on behalf of all those united to him. What the first Adam did, the Second Adam has come to undo (see also Rom 5:12–21). Where the first Adam brought death, the Second Adam brings resurrection-life. So at his coming, all “in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). His resurrection includes and so guarantees ours.

Scripture will speak of believers being raised “with Christ” (Rom 6:5, 8; 2 Cor 4:14; 1 Thess 4:14; 5:10; 2 Tim 2:11)—not merely that Christ is raised and then we will be raised, as if those were two isolated things. Rather we are raised with him. In other words, our eventual resurrection is a participation in his resurrection, even though they may be separated by however many thousands of years. Our resurrection rides on the coattails of his. They belong to the same resurrection harvest.

According to Philippians 3:21, when Christ comes again, he will transform our current bodies to be like his resurrected body. We may be familiar with the idea that salvation involves being made like Christ. This happens progressively in sanctification as we are conformed to the image of Christ. But eventually, we will be made like Christ even in terms of our physical bodies: We will be raised from the dead (1 Cor 6:14). Salvation involves the entire person, including our physical selves.

In summary, Christ represents us in his resurrection. He resurrects on our behalf, thereby securing our future resurrection.

16. Believers already experience resurrection with Christ inwardly (spiritually)

Resurrection involves the renewal of the whole person. Yet, as we arrive at the New Testament, we discover that this promised end-time resurrection unfolds in two stages: one resurrection with two installments.

When Christ returns, those found in him will be raised physically (i.e., bodily). Yet even now believers experience resurrection with Christ inwardly or spiritually. In this latter sense, believers already participate with Christ in his resurrection-life. They have been regenerated—brought from death to life (John 5:21–24), born again (John 3:1–15), granted eternal life (John 3:16)—and so undergo a decisive moral transformation.

In Romans 6:1, Paul asks the rhetorical question, Should believers continue to sin since we’re saved by grace? His answer is an emphatic, “No!” since believers have undergone a death and resurrection in Christ. We have died with respect to sin’s tyranny and now, “just as Christ was raised from the dead,” so we too live new resurrected lives by the Spirit (Rom 6:1–7:6).

In other words, our justification, far from giving us a license to sin, necessarily involves our sanctification. God’s saving grace that forgives also transforms. The same union with Christ that results in our justification (Rom 5) also produces our sanctification (Rom 6). The two cannot be separated anymore than Christ can be divided: both are received in union with him. Not only have we died with respect to the penalty of sin, we have also died to the power of sin—and been raised to new life.

Likewise, in Ephesians 2 Paul describes believers as formerly “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1). “But God,” by his grace, “made us alive [i.e., resurrected us] with Christ” (Eph 2:5–6; see also Col 2:12–13; 3:1).

Already, through Christ, we undergo the end-time resurrection. We experience the power of the age to come. We are part of that new creation. Inwardly, we are being renewed (2 Cor 4:16), even as we await the day when outwardly we will be raised. At that time, our bodies will catch up with what is already spiritually true of us (John 6:40)

17. Christ’s resurrection ushers in the renewal of creation

Resurrection belongs to the anticipated end-time renewal. At the very end of history, God was expected to raise the dead, bring about his new creation, and establish his kingdom in full. But, of course, Christ has already risen from the dead, launching that new creation in the midst of the present, fallen, created order.

Thus, those united to Christ already participate in the salvation and restoration that belongs to the end. Christ’s resurrection is a new creation reality, so those raised with him partake in this new creation. As ones raised with him, they too are a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17).

This new creation involves a resurrected humanity characterized by the new covenant’s promised Spirit. So Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15:45–49: As we have born the “image” of Adam, a man created from dust (hear allusions to Gen 1:26–28; 2:7; 3:19), so we will bear the “image” of the Second Adam (Jesus) when we are raised with him (1 Cor 15:46–49). Where the first Adam received life, the Second Adam gives life through his Spirit (1 Cor 15:45), who animates life in the new creation (Rom 7:4–6).⁵ The new Adam creates a new, resurrected humanity, conforming it to his image, thereby restoring it to the image of God.

We see this as well in Colossians 2:16–3:17. Because believers have died with Christ (Col 2:20; 3:3), they have stripped themselves of the “old self” (Col 3:9), better translated, “old humanity” (ἄνθρωπος). This old humanity is fallen humanity as it exists in connection to Adam. Because believers have been raised with Christ (Col 3:1), they have instead clothed themselves with “new humanity” (Col 3:10).⁶ In short, death and resurrection with Christ transitions believers from old humanity to new humanity.

This new humanity recreated by Christ is “being renewed … after the image of its Creator” (Col 3:10; emphasis added), evoking the creation account (Gen 1:26–28).⁷ Again, as believers are resurrected with Christ, they are renewed according to his image, thereby making us into a new creation that reflects the true image of God: Jesus.

18. Christ’s resurrection means our labor is not in vain

Seven times in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul uses words like “vain” and “futile” (ὄφελος, εἰκῇ, κενός, μάταιος) to describe how things would be if Christ were not raised—nor we with him. Our faith would be worthless. It would not save (1 Cor 15:17). So too, our preaching of Christ would be pointless (1 Cor 15:14). Paul would have endangered himself for nothing (1 Cor 15:30–32). In fact, Christians would deserve more pity than anyone else (1 Cor 15:19).⁸

Consider Ecclesiastes, which issues its resounding refrain: “Vanity!” No matter what the Preacher searches out, it proves to be vanity. And the backstop, the ultimate reason for the vanity of all these things, is the reality of death. Even if you accumulate a bunch of wealth in this life, eventually you are going to die, and what will you have to show for it? Or even if you experience a lot of pleasure in this life, eventually it comes to an end. It is fleeting, and you will die. Or even if you accumulate something good like wisdom, the wise die just like the fool. Death is this ultimate “vanitizer.” No matter what you achieve or experience in this life, at the end of the day, death will always render it “vanity” (e.g., Eccl 2:12–17; 3:19–20; 9:1–6).

That is, unless death can be undone. So Paul concludes his instructions on the resurrection this way: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58; emphasis added). Because of the resurrection, our labor is no longer “vanity.” By defeating death, Christ removes its verdict of vanity.⁹ Our present labor matters because we labor for something that survives this present life. Death is no longer the final word. Resurrection is.

19. Christ’s resurrection is the reason for our hope

As we’ve seen, Christ’s resurrection is regularly associated with the theme of hope. Jesus’s resurrection is the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture, the very “hope of Israel” (Acts 28:20; see also Acts 23:6; 24:15; 26:6–8). It is the climatic resolution to God’s covenants with Israel, the concluding chapter in a story whose hopes aimed at the reestablishment of God’s kingdom and the restoration of creation.

But Christ’s resurrection is not only the object of our hope, but also its basis. Peter reflects this in his opening doxology, where he blesses God who “caused us to be born again to a living hope” (1 Pet 1:3). Having been made alive now (“born again”), we become recipients of an even greater hope in the future. What is the grounds for this hope? Peter specifies: This hope is based on “the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet 1:3). Our hope is a “living hope” because Jesus is living. He is our hope.

In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul explains the hope of believers who have died. He describes them as “asleep” (1 Thess 4:13).¹⁰ In addition to being a polite euphemism for death (similar to how we speak of people “passing away”), this imagery of sleep also likely signals that death is temporary for the believer. Implied by “sleep” is the idea that they will eventually “awake” (so Dan 12:2). The picture is pregnant with hope, implicitly anticipating resurrection.

So Paul confirms that although believers grieve when our fellow Christians die, we do not grieve as those who lack the hope of resurrection (1 Thess 4:13). We grieve knowing that death is only temporary. Because Jesus rose from the dead, believers who have died in him will be raised with him when he returns (1 Thess 4:14–17; see also 1 Thess 5:10).¹¹

Our ultimate hope in the face of death is resurrection with Christ. When he returns, we will mock that which once mocked us all: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:54–57). On that day, we will taunt the very thing that once held us in terror (Heb 2:15).

20. Having been raised to life, Christ continues to work and reign today

Dead men don’t reign. But Christ is not dead. He is alive and actively at work among his people by his Spirit.

For instance, after Peter healed the lame beggar, he repeatedly clarifies that he did not do so by his own power. It is through Christ—who by implication is very much alive!—that Peter heals this man. It is actually Christ who has worked through Peter to enable this man to walk (Acts 3:6; 12–16; 4:10). Peter explains that Jesus, who has died, risen, and is now ascended into heaven, continues to work through his church.

So likewise, in Matthew 28:20, the resurrected Jesus promises, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The risen Jesus is present with his church, working and walking among the lampstands (Rev 1–3). He is not dead or distant, but present and involved in our lives.

In that, we take much encouragement.

Share your thoughts

How would you explain the significance of Christ’s resurrection? Join us in Word by Word group to share your thoughts.

Kirk E. Miller’s recommended books for studying the resurrection

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1. See also John 1:14, where John describes the Son’s incarnation as him “tabernacling” among us. In other words, the tabernacle and temple foreshadow what God would ultimately accomplish through Christ, God’s presence among his people.
2. In addition to those I discuss here, see also Acts 2:23–28; 3:15, 26; 4:10; 10:40; 13:30–37; 17:31; 26:8; Rom 4:24; 6:4; 8:11; 10:9; 1 Cor 6:14; 15:15; 2 Cor 4:14; Gal 1:1; Eph 1:20; Col 2:12; 1 Thess 1:10.
3. Each line in this early church hymn or creed references an aspect of Jesus’s mission, or something that flows from that mission. First, we see his incarnation: “manifested in the flesh.” So what follows—“vindicated by the Spirit”—likely describes his resurrection. Afterwards, we get references to his ascension (“taken up in glory”) and proclamation among the nations (as recounted in Acts).
4. For a more detailed explanation and defense of this interpretation, see my What in the Word? interview with Tom Schreiner on this passage, “When Did Jesus Preach to Spirits in Prison?”
5. The Holy Spirit is an agent in the first creation and the new creation. As the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters and was involved in the first creation, so the Holy Spirit is the agent and animating presence of the new creation.
6. Colossians 3:11 confirms that when Paul speaks about the “new self,” he really does have a corporate, new humanity in view, since according to Col 3:11, this “new self” is not an individual, but involves a multitude of people: Greek, Jew, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, etc.
7. Paul uses the same word (“image,” εἰκών) as Genesis 1 (LXX) uses for the “image of God.”
8. Notice: Paul assumes here that our lives must be shaped by our belief in resurrection in such a way that someone could say of us, “They have wasted their lives,” if the resurrection were not true. According to Paul, we should never be able to say, “I’d live my life the same way regardless of whether Christianity were true or not.”
9. See also Romans 8:18–25 where Paul connects resurrection, “the redemption of our bodies,” with the undoing of “futility” (Rom 8:20), a word from the same root as that used in Ecclesiastes (LXX) for “vanity.”
10. So also 1 Kings 2:10; Matt 27:52; Acts 7:60; 13:36; 1 Cor 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1 Thess 5:10; 2 Pet 3:4; etc.
11. Observe how believers who are dead are described here not just as “the dead” but the “dead in Christ” (1 Thess 4:16; emphasis added; see also 1 Cor 15:18). Even in death, we remain united with him. Not even death can sever our connection to Christ!