The Empty Tomb
In one of the villages in northern India, a Christian preacher was speaking in a market. A religious man came up and said, “You must admit we have one thing that you Christians do not. We can take our people to a well-known city where they can see the tomb of our prophet, but when you Christians go to Jerusalem, you have no coffin, just an empty tomb.” To this the preacher replied, “Thank God, you’re right!
That’s the difference between our faith and yours. Your leader is in his grave, but Jesus Christ, whose kingdom is to include all nations and kindreds and tribes, is not in any grave. He is risen! And He says from the resurrection side of an empty tomb, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). Our risen Lord is our ever-living Savior. And His promise is, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19).
You ask, “Did Christ really live?” That is one thing that all agree upon—that this Person who claimed to be the Son of God really lived here on earth among men, and much historical evidence proves it.
- We know when He lived—from about 5 B.C. until about 31 A.D.
- We know where He was born—in Bethlehem, of Judea, a real town, not a mythological one. We know where He lived for most of the years of His life—in Nazareth, in northern Galilee. There He worked as a carpenter.
- We know many of the characters of His day—their names appear in other historical writings outside of the Bible: Herod the Great, his son Herod Agrippa, Salome, Pontius Pilate, Tiberius Caesar, Gamaliel, and others.
- Every history of the ancient world and every encyclopedia records the fact that Jesus lived during the first century of our era.
Millions in each generation have had their lives gripped and changed by the firm belief that Christ has given the world the perfect revelation of God, the only gospel that delivers men from the power of sin, the only assurance of forgiveness of sins, and the only certain hope of life to come.
Christ has done more to lift and empower the ethical standards of men than all the philosophers of Greece combined. Among all the great men of history, He “is above all.” “That in all things He might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:18). Jesus Christ lived! And now “He ever liveth to make intercession for them” who believe on Him (Hebrews 7:25).
WHAT AM I TO BELIEVE?
A young man once wrote to an older Christian, “Will you write down what I am to believe? There are so many texts; please, tell me one, and I will try to believe it.”
The answer came: “It is not any one text, nor any number of texts that saves the soul. It is by trusting the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are saved.”
He was the only one that could pay for the penalty of your sin, and the cost was that He gave his life for you: That was the cost of your sin that you will never be able to pay for. But He is risen in power and glory and now from His place in heaven He offers you the forgiveness of sin and eternal life. Would you accept Him today as your Lord and Savior? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).
