The Greatest Evidence

God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.
–Acts 2:24

Seven weeks after Jesus’ death, Peter stood on the steps of the temple and delivered a sermon to some of the very people who had crucified the Messiah. How do you explain Peter’s transformation from cowardly denier of Jesus to courageous defender of the faith? Peter had seen the resurrected Jesus, and this changed his life forever.

According to Peter, the largest neon arrow pointing to Jesus as the Messiah was His resurrection. In Acts 2:24, Peter said, “God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” Then he quoted David’s words in Psalm 16, saying, “My flesh also will live in hope; because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Your Holy One to undergo decay” (Acts 2:26–27). Who is “Your Holy One”? Jesus Christ. As Peter explained, “[David] looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay” (v. 31).

Why did Peter center his sermon on the resurrection of Jesus? First of all, the resurrection was the signal proof that Jesus was the Messiah. In John 2:19, Jesus said of Himself, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And that’s exactly what happened. Anybody can claim to be God, but only God can raise Himself from the dead.

Second, evidence for the resurrection was all around them. In Acts 2:32, Peter continued, “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.” For forty days after the resurrection, Jesus walked the earth and was seen by many; on one occasion, He appeared to more than five hundred people at once (1 Corinthians 15:6). But the greatest evidence for the resurrection was the empty tomb. The people in Jerusalem could go to the tomb and see that there was no body. If the Jews and Romans had wanted to stop Christianity in its tracks, all they had to do was produce Jesus’ body. They could have interrupted Peter’s sermon and paraded Jesus’ body through the temple area, and there would be no Christian faith today. But they couldn’t find His body, and nobody ever will. Jesus is not in the tomb; He rose from the dead, just as He said He would.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “The Greatest Sermon Ever Preached,” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2021.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.