The Principle Of The Resurrection by Dr. Myles Munroe: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The power of death was destroyed.

The greatest fear of mankind is death. Secondly, all religions are motivated by the need to resolve the death question. Death is such a major issue that entire belief systems are built around it. Thirdly, death is the only power that controls every human. No one can stop it, no one can defy it, and no matter how important a person thinks they are, death wins. Medical science can perhaps delay it, but cannot resist it. The Bible says it is required that all men die. Death is the great equalizer. Whether a person is a prime minister, a king, or a maintenance worker, death places everyone in the same position.

Where Death Came From

First of all, death was not created by the devil. According to scripture, death was created by God. But death was created without power. Wherever there is life, death must exist, because the opposite of life is death. The only difference is that death had no power to kill.

When you read Genesis 2, God is the one who introduces death. Death was not introduced by the devil. God told Adam: you are free to eat of everything in the garden, but do not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Adam never knew what death was. The word never entered his mind.

Death was given the power to kill by man. When God created death, it had no power to kill. It existed but was useless. God told Adam: the day you eat, you will activate death. Death is present in this garden, but cannot touch you as long as you do not touch that tree. Death is present but cannot kill unless you activate it by disobedience to God's word.

The Power of Death Is Sin

What is the power of death? Where did death get its power from? If you can find what gave death power, then you can depower death. Paul understood this. He understood that death is powerless, and the only power death has is the power we gave it.

1 Corinthians 15:54 says death has been swallowed up in victory. Paul cries out: Oh death, where is your victory? This is post-resurrection talk. Paul is daring death face to face. 1 Corinthians 15:55 declares: the sting, or the power of death, is sin. And the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Death gets its power from sin. Sin brought death to life. Death was created dead. Sin gave life to death. Therefore, the key to destroying death is to destroy sin.

People from other religions have asked: why did a man have to die? Why couldn't God simply wave his hand and save everyone? The answer is that God himself established the very nature of man's relationship. God told man: if you disobey my commands, you will surely die. God therefore became the judge and the jury of a guilty human.

Hebrews 2 shows how death was destroyed. It says: for as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. He became a man. Why? Because it had to be a man that died. Because it was a man who disobeyed God. The price had to be paid by a man to satisfy justice.

Notice: the devil does not own death. But he had the power of it. Because the devil convinced the two humans to disobey God. The devil knew: if he could get them to sin, he would not need to kill them. Death would come alive and kill them. Satan had the power of death because he had the power of sin. He instigated the rebellion of children against their own Father. That rebellion gave life to death.

Christ Stripped Death of Its Power

Here is Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. If he could get rid of sin, he would automatically get rid of the power that death had.

The resurrection of the body is not a goal to achieve. It is a natural result of death not being able to keep you anymore, because what it was using to keep you, it lost.

Christ did not struggle to come out of the grave. Death was struggling, but could find no power to use to keep him, because the power death was using to keep men in the grave, Christ took away. He took away sin.

You do not need to try to get rid of death and its power. Just get rid of what gave death power.

Hebrews 2:14 — since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were under the fear of death, enslaved to it.

Now here is the problem with Jesus. He was born without sin. And in order for death to kill him, death must have sin on him. So Christ says: I know the Father loves me. No man can take my life. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.

Since death cannot kill Christ, Christ had to do something so that death could kill him. Death needs sin. And he does not have any. But humanity does. So Christ goes to earth and collects the sin of mankind. He takes the sin off them and puts it on himself, so that death can kill him. But once he does that, death can no longer hold the people whose sin he carried, because the sin that gave death the right to hold them has been removed.

So death thought it won when it killed Christ. But death miscalculated. It did not calculate that Christ could come back. So death lost twice: first, it lost you. Then it lost him.

Matthew 20:28 — the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Romans 5:9-10 — since we have been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?

Hebrews 9:22 — almost all things are purged by blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.

Romans 3:25 — God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood.

Where there is sin, death has a right to kill. That is why the word power is used. When you have rights, you have power.

So if sin is removed, death has no more rights. When death killed Christ, it was actually destroying itself. Because when death killed him, death lost the right to keep us in the grave. The price was paid by Jesus, so death lost its power.

2 Corinthians 5 — God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.

If someone shot a gun at you and another willfully jumped in the way and took the bullet and died, for the rest of your life you would owe them your life. Death was aimed right at you, guaranteed to kill. And Christ, 2,000 years ago, jumped in the way on the cross. Every disease, every depression, every fear, every virus, everything that kills was placed in his body.

He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ.

As Colossians says, God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

The Message of the Resurrection

The power of death is sin. So if sin gives death power, then the destruction of sin is victory over death. All Christ had to do was get rid of sin.

The resurrection, therefore, is proof that the sin problem was solved.

Because if someone rose from the dead, that means death lost its power. And if death got its power from sin, and death lost its power, then somebody got rid of what gave death power. According to the scriptures, it was Jesus Christ.

The resurrection is evidence that sin was destroyed. That is the greatest message of the resurrection.

If you have never confessed before Jesus Christ that you accept his blood and his death on your behalf, never allowed him to forgive you and remove the sins in your life, then you are still in danger of being held in the grave by death.

To make sure you rise again, you must get rid of what keeps you down.

He already paid the price, but you have to cash it in. Come to Jesus and say: I receive your forgiveness of my sins. I receive the fact that you took my sin. Therefore I am free from sin, free from the fear of death.

The resurrection morning was the most embarrassing morning for death. Paul says, if Christ had not risen from the dead, we would be most miserable. But because he rose, he proved that death's power is gone.

Matthew 27:50-52 — when Jesus cried out on the cross and gave up his spirit, at that moment the tombs broke open. Even before he was raised, the moment he died, death realized it was over. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus's resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many.

They could not leave yet, but they could not stay down anymore. Death had a problem: they could not leave, but he could not keep them. And the Bible says when Christ appears again, those who are dead in Christ will hear the trumpet sound and rise. Death no longer has the right to reign over mankind.

Jesus said: I am the resurrection and the life. Even if you die, you shall live again.

Death can only kill you once. And even that is temporary.