Why the Empty Tomb Matters, by Robert Jeffress

According to a recent survey by the Barna Group, less than half of U.S. adults link Easter to the resurrection. This is especially troubling when you consider the attitude of some Christians, who would likely shrug their shoulders and say, "So what? Even if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, my faith would still be important to me."

In reality, the resurrection is essential to the Christian faith. Let me suggest four reasons an empty tomb matters:

The Old Testament prophesied the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And in John 2:19, Jesus, talking about his body, said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."

Even Jesus' enemies knew that His resurrection was the heart of His claim to be God. That is why after Christ's death they were so insistent to Pilate that the tomb be guarded.

Followers of many religions, including the Jews, believed that when good people died, their spirits (not bodies) went to heaven. That was nothing new. If that had been what Jesus was predicting, then why guard the tomb?

The only reason to guard the tomb was because both Jesus' followers and His enemies understood that Jesus was claiming that His physical body -- flesh and bones -- would be raised from the dead.

Jesus' physical resurrection proves that he was the unique son of God who died for the sins of the world. Romans 4:25 says, "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."

Justification is the act by which God takes our sin and places it on Christ and takes Christ's righteousness credits it to us. As a result, God declares us not guilty.

Christ's resurrection is proof that God has accepted Christ's payment for our sin.

It would be easy for Jesus to have said, "I am going to die for your sins." But if His story had ended on Good Friday, who would have known whether His death was for His own sins or for ours? The empty grave proves that God accepted Christ's death as "payment in full" for our transgressions.