| If Jesus is God, who raised Jesus from the Dead?" Romans 8:11, "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by this Spirit that dwelleth in you." It is evident that Jesus was raised from the dead by the "Spirit." The same Holy Ghost which shall one day raise us from the ranks of the dead is the same power which brought Christ forth from the grave. But as we look further in the scriptures, we see where God was said to have raised Jesus from the dead. Colossians 2:12, "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." So far, we have scriptural evidence of Jesus being raised from the dead by the "Spirit" and by "God"; but if we go even further, we see Jesus himself plainly proclaiming he would raise himself from the dead. St. John 2: 19-21, "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. (v.20) Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?: (v.21), But he spake of the temple of his body." Also John 10:17-18, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. (v.18) No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again..." The preceding verses which have Jesus, and the Father, and the Holy Ghost all attributively raising Jesus from the dead harmonize beautifully in the glowing fact that there is but one God, the eternal Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." This Jesus whom the world knew only as Bethlehem's Baby and the Carpenter's Son was actually he who "was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." Jesus, God and man fused, but not confused; deity and humanity miraculously mingled. "for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." As man, He hungered; as God, He multiplied loaves and fishes; as man, He slept in a boat on a tempestuous sea; as God He arose and calmed the storm: as man, He prayed; as god, He answered prayer, as man, He died; as God, He raised himself from the dead. To borrow the words of Dr. Criswell, "The son is not just another man sent here to teach us a new ethic, as some super-Socrates, nor was His death that of a distinguished martyr. In the providence of God, in the fullness of time, the Lord God descended from heaven, wrapped Himself in human flesh in the womb of a virgin girl, offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins in the body God prepared form him, in whose blood and atonement our iniquities and transgressions are washed away. |