If Christ had not planned on rising from the grave, much of our hope and assurance would be dashed in pieces.
We would be deprived of a view of the face of God. Jesus taught that if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. Hebrews instructs us that Jesus is the brightness of God's glory and the express image of the Godhead.
But had Christ not risen, only the disciples would have seen Him, and the rest of the saints would be left never to see Him.
The Thessalonians turned from idol worship to worship the true God, and to wait for the appearing of Jesus again one day. The whole purpose of idols is to create a false image of God, so that lost men can see God. These believers overthrew that desire in exchange for the promise of seeing Jesus one day!
In fact, if Christ be not risen, then the only physical image of God that we have left lies rotting in some grave somewhere. But that is the very defect in idol worship - those idols, as images of God, are dead!
But praise God, Jesus did rise again, and therefore we do have the image of God, seen by men, and one day soon, to be seen by all those that wait for His appearing!
Seeing Jesus has always been the great hope and consolation of the saints in all our troubles and heartaches and persecutions. The promise that we will see Jesus is a blessed thought!
It was the thought that gave poor Job courage to endure his horrible nightmare of pain and loss and disease - that he knew that one day he would see his Redeemer with his own eyes! The thought took his breath away!
Had not Jesus risen again. Job would have had no hope of ever laying eyes on His Redeemer.
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...
