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“If a man dies, will he live again?”
-Job 14:14a

That is really the question of Easter isn’t it. Anyone here personally know anyone who has come back to life after being dead?

In this modern age of science we have learned a lot about death.

In fact, science has identified many kinds of death that can affect a person.

There is:

Necrobiosis which is the death of cells over the lifespan of an
organism. After necrobiosis, a cell is replaced with a new one in a
continual process throughout a human’s life. In fact, every cell in
your body completely replaces itself every 2 years. 98% in less than 1
year. So every cell in your body that you called your “self” two years
ago is dead. You physically are a completely different person.

Necrosis which is when many cells die at once. Necrosis is the
death of an organ or part of an organ. In medicine this is called
infarction. Necrosis is caused by infections, cancer, serious injury,
the presence of venom, severe inflammation, and a variety of diseases.

Clinical Death. No breathing, no circulation, and no brain
activity characterize clinical death. It begins at the very onset of
the symptoms of death, say right after cardiac arrest has cause the
heart to stop. It lasts for about four minutes, and it is the interval
in which life can be brought back through CPR. After a short few
minutes, death is permanent, because the state of the body has gone
from clinical death to…

Brain Death. A brain deprived of oxygen survives for 3 to 7
minutes, making it the first organ to die when circulation or
respiration ceases or is impeded, whatever the cause of trouble may be.
After a few minutes, the brain can’t be brought back to life by any
means available today. This is brain death, and it’s the reason why
clinical death, the period in which a person can be resuscitated, is so
short. Once the brain goes, the heart doesn’t know how to pump and the
lungs don’t know how to breath.

Somatic death. Eventually an organism ceases to be in the
process of dying and proceeds to be dead. Somatic death is the death–
the permanent, irreversible death– of an organism as a whole. In
humans it is usually after brain death, as the other vital organs are
unable to function without the brain. With modern technology, though,
one can be brain dead but still have circulation and respiration
artificially. In such a case one isn’t somatically dead because other
organs are still alive. Once artificial support is removed somatic
death occurs, because the person is then entirely and completely
inactive with regard to brain, circulation, and respiration.

I could go on from there to what happens to the body after that, but
it’s kinda gross, tho’ you may have picked up some facts from watching
CSI. But we don’t have to live in the scientific age or be all that
smart to realize that death is permanent and irreversible. So why would
anyone make the claim that Jesus rose from the dead?

Well, it’s not just one person that made that claim. The Bible records Jesus appearing to many different people:

• To Mary Magdalene and other women returning from the tomb
• To two disciples on the Road to Emmaus
• To all Eleven apostles
• To James, Jesus’ half-brother
• To 500 other believers disciples

The claims are so many and involve so many people it is either a massive
delusion repeated many times over the period of 40 days or a huge
conspiracy. The delusion is too complex, too detailed, and involves too
many people for it to be true. The conspiracy could have easily been
revealed by the Romans if they would’ve just produced the body. The
only other possibility is the impossible truth that he really did come
back to life, and seeing how fervently the disciples believed it, most
of whom were killed for claiming it, it seems that this is the likely
answer.

Yet we still struggle with the fact that when people
die, they stay dead. This universal truth is something that is very
hard to get over, unless there is a truth that is even more universal.
There is and it is right before our eyes. That truth is that when sinful
people die, they stay dead. Aha! We’re onto something here. In the
Bible, death is inseparably tied to sin. Sinners die. So what happens
when a person dies who is not sinful? If we accept that Jesus is
sinless, it would become hard for us to explain why he should die at
all. It is only that he took upon himself the sins of humanity. Your
sins and mine. Apart from this he would never have died. And so, after
that sacrifice on our behalf was finished and accepted by the Father it
is only natural that he would come back to life.

So where does that leaves us with sinners. Well, we already know the answer…we’re
going to die. But Jesus changed all that and provided us a way to live
again. Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” a lot in his epistles and it is
in that simple phrase where we can find the answer.

Ephesians 1:13-14 says:

“And you also were included in Christ
when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having
believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of
those who are God’s possession–to the praise of his glory.”

Which basically means that when you heard the good news that Jesus paid the
penalty for your sins, the Holy Spirit lives in you and gives you all
the privileges of son-ship that Jesus has, including his sinless life
which we now know includes victory over death.

Paul repeats the idea a little later in Ephesians in 2:4-10:

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us
alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by
grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated
us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in
the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you
have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the
gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do.”

So, if a man dies, will he live again? Only if he lives a perfect, sinless life, OR trusts in the only one who has.

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