Is Jesus dead?
Ask this of any other founder of a religion and the answer is a grave you can visit. The question the verse settles is not whether Jesus died — He did — but where He is now, and what His being alive means for anyone still afraid of death.
A Real Death
Nothing here is softened into metaphor. Writers stress that the burial itself is the proof He truly died:
F. B. HoleHaving become Man, how could His spirit be other than human, though never ceasing to be divine? For He brought into manhood all that was perfect in manhood according to God. Passing into death in Luke, He commends His spirit to His Father. His death was a reality, as His burial attests.
The body raised was not a replacement, but the very one laid in the tomb:
H. J. VineWhen the body of our Lord Jesus Christ lay in the grave, His spirit was with the Father, into whose hands He commended it before He died. The body in which He bore our sins on the tree, and which was laid in the grave, was the same precious body that was raised again, but now quickened by the Spirit, the blood having been poured out for our redemption. The marks Thomas saw, which convinced him, declare plainly that it was the very same body: the temple raised from death to die no more.
Not a Memory — A Living Person
Keepsakes of the dead move us but cannot give the person back. That is exactly where Christ is unlike everyone else we have loved:
J. T. MawsonMost of us probably have some precious relics that in some way keep memory alive, and move the heart, and bring tears — but how unsatisfying they are. They cannot bring back the touch of the vanished hand, or the sound of the voice that is silent. It is not so with Christ. He is not dead; He lives. Peter is dead, Paul is dead, many whom we loved are dead... but Christ is not dead; He lives victorious over death, and fellowship with Him is a blessed reality by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Empty Tomb
The women who came to the tomb on the first morning came to care for a corpse. What they found made their errand pointless and their grief obsolete:
J. Wilson Smith"Him who lives"! What could that mean to those downcast women? The One they were looking for was not there — He was risen! The tomb was empty; the spices and ointments were useless. But if He was alive again, the power of death had been broken, along with everything that could mean.
The Keys
He does not merely survive death; He holds its keys. Commentators read the keys as ownership of everything that could threaten a human being:
William KellyWhen the Lord says that He has the keys of death and of Hades, He means that He is the absolute master of all that might threaten a person, whether in body or in soul. Satan's power in this respect is annulled; Christ has it all.
The keys also point forward, to a day when what death holds must be handed back:
W. W. FeredayHe spoke of the completeness of the victory He gained by His death. Death has no more dominion over Him; He has annulled the one who had the power of death; and He has authority (symbolised by the keys) over both Death and Hades, and will summon both at the appointed hour to deliver up what they hold.
Everything Rests on It
If the tomb still held Him, Christianity would be a kind grief and nothing more:
J. A. TrenchAgain, "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." But if He is raised, it is the magnificent proof to everyone who believes in Him that the sins He bore on the cross are gone for ever.
Alive to Carry People Through
His being alive is not only a fact to believe; it is the reason anyone who comes to God through Him gets all the way home:
F. B. HoleThis verse is often quoted to show that the Lord is able to save the worst of sinners. That is most happily true, and the verse that states it is 1 Timothy 1:15. Had that been the point here, our verse would surely have ended, "seeing He died for them and rose again." But the word is, "seeing He always lives." The salvation therefore is the one that flows to us by His life of unbroken priestly intercession.
Summary
- Died — His death was real, attested by His burial; His spirit was with the Father while His body lay in the grave.
- Risen — the tomb was empty and the same body was raised, marks and all, never to die again.
- Living — He is not a memory kept alive by relics; He lives, and fellowship with Him is real now.
- Master — holding the keys of death and Hades, He is absolute master of all that can threaten body or soul, and will one day make both give back what they hold.
- Saving — because He always lives, the sins He bore are proven gone, and He carries His people to the uttermost.