Why is Christ's Death Important?

Celebration of Easter Sunday

Khen Lim



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Christians around the world based their belief in Christ not just as the Son of God and the only way to the Father but just as importantly, as the very tenet and centrality of the faith that is founded on His resurrection. In other words, it is important that He died because He died for us. And there are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, by rising from death, Jesus Himself becomes a witness to the immense omnipotence of God Himself. When we believe in the resurrection of Christ, we literally believe in God. To know that God exists is to know that He is the One who created the universe, the life force and that only He has true power over life and death. Therefore only He has power to raise the dead including the Son of God. 

If there is no power in Him, then He is unworthy to be the God of our faith and our praises and worship. The One who creates life has power to resurrect it after death. The One who is able to reverse the hideousness of death is also the One who removes the sting of finite mortality and the victory that is the grave’s (1 Cor 15:54-55). In raising His Son from the grave, God serves up an unforgettable lesson that He is the sovereign God over all that surrounds life and death.

Secondly, the principle of the Christian faith is cornered by the testimony of the resurrection of Christ that all humans can be risen from death. No other faith compares because in Christianity alone, we have a Founder who can look death in the eye and surpass it, and who promises that those who believe in and follow Him will also be able to emulate Him. 

Because Christ founded our faith, our end is no longer the grave. The same cannot be said of any other religions anywhere in the world because they were founded by sin-clad men and faux prophets cloaked in death. We can take comfort that we have a God who became flesh, died for our trespasses and then was risen on the third day. By the force of the Father, His grave could not hold Him back and He now sits at the right hand of the Father God in heaven.

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1 Corinthians 15 is an important cornerstone in understanding the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection and Paul explains it in unprecedented detail. Because some in the church in Corinth underplayed its significance, Paul went to great lengths in offering six outcomes in the event that Christ’s resurrection did not occur:

There will neither be any point preaching or having faith in Christ (v.14). Those who preach and witness the resurrection would be seen as liars (v.15). Without the power to resurrect, none of us would be redeemable from sin (v.17) and as a result, all those who had died in faith would have perished in hell (v.18). 

In fact Christians would be laughed at for being the most pathetic of all people on earth (v.19). Besides all the prophecies that foretold Christ’s death and resurrection would all be nothing but lies and therefore much of the Bible would be useless. God’s Word would be considered totally unreliable.

But Christ did arise from the dead and as Paul says, “He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died” (v.20). The NIV translates that as “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” meaning that there is an absolute guaranteed assurance that we will follow Jesus in resurrection as well. 

This guarantee resolves that all believers will arise at the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Body – the church – at the moment of Rapture. And with that, Paul mocks death, asking, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (v.55)

How are all these important for us to know? Paul’s last verse in the chapter assures us that so long as we work passionately for God, “…you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (v.58). The parts of the verse ‘work enthusiastically’ and ‘you do for the Lord’ are key to Paul’s reminder that we will be resurrected to a new eternal life just as we suffer persecution and risk our lives for the love of Christ (vv.29-31) to the point that we lose it, just as He did. 

This weekend edition of Sunday Weekly tells the story of Lijsbeth Dirks the Anabaptist who exemplifies this very point exactly 467 years ago today. There are, of course, thousands of other martyrs throughout history who gladly gave their earthly lives to the glory of Christ for all of eternity via the resurrection.

The reality of the resurrection is a triumph and an ever-glorious victory for every believer of Christ. Jesus died, was brought down from the cross and buried. His tomb was sealed so no one could tamper or remove His body. But despite whatever man had done to secure His body, Jesus did rise on the third day and fully defeated the sin of death on our behalf. And the greater news is that He is coming again! And so the dead in Christ will be raised up. Those who remain alive at His coming will be transformed and receive new and glorified bodies (1 Thess 4:13-18).

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So why is Christ’s death important? It is critically important to our salvation. One cannot be resurrected unless there is, first, death. Christ had to die so that He may rise again. His death underscores the significance of God the Father accepting Jesus’ sacrifice on all our behalf. 

It also verifies that God and only Him has the power to raise us from the dead so we may live again for and to His glory. Christ’s death and resurrection gives us an iron-clad guarantee that those who choose to believe in Him will not remain dead but will arise unto life eternal. Nothing in life could ever be more important than this.