A Physical Resurrection

This and every Easter, Christians celebrate the greatest miracle weekend in the history of all humanity. Our Lord Jesus suffered and died upon the cross on Good Friday. He bore our sin, paying the rightful penalty of disobedience through His perfect sacrifice. 

Through His death, the penalty was paid, and then through His resurrection three days later, He got the receipt. This was the proof that His sacrifice was acceptable AND guaranteed the same resurrection life is available to all who would repent and believe in Christ.

That physical resurrection is crucial to the faith and theology of Christianity.
1 Corinthians 15:16-19 says, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Christ’s resurrection proves there will be a physical resurrection one day, one group for judgement, and the others, by God’s grace, to be united with Christ forever. 

If there is no resurrection, there is no Easter and we are fools. Our faith is pointless, and we are all still stuck in our sins. How crucial is believing in the resurrection? Tim Keller said this, “If Jesus rose from the dead, then you must accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? 

“The issue on which everything hangs is not whether you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.” We aren’t left with Jesus, the good moral teacher. We are left with Jesus, God-in-the-flesh who conquered sin and the grave, or we are left with nothing but a man.

So how does physical therapy come into this? I’m glad you asked. The resurrection means that one day, those who have put their faith in Christ will received glorified resurrected bodies just like His! His resurrection paved the way for God’s future kingdom of broken, sinful humans to gain glorified, perfect bodies. 

Here’s where that hits home. My dad died a year ago. Cancer. The promise of the resurrection is that one day, cancer will be defeated, and we will have glorified bodies that sickness, death, and the grave can’t touch ever again. There will be no more illness, no more brokenness where our bodies fail us. Physical therapists and preachers alike will be out of jobs one day. I can’t wait.

Until that day, we labor in love, not in vain, and we possess our hope in wonderful eternity to come. But not in futile ways. Not in pitiful ways as fools who believe fairy tales, but as blood-bought children of God who will be with Him forever and ever. As Keller says again, “If the resurrection is true, everything is going to be alright.”