#DailyDevotion You Killed The Author Of Life. God Raised Him From The Dead.

Easter Wednesday

Acts 3:14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. . . .

 

During the trial of Jesus the Jewish leadership stirred up the Jewish crowd against Jesus. In doing so they denied the Lord’s Holy and Righteous One. Jesus is the Holy One, he is the Righteous One spoken of throughout the Old Testament. God used wicked men and their intentions to accomplish their salvation and our salvation. Look at the mercy and kindness of the Lord that he would send the apostles to the very people who wanted a murderer over himself to call them to repentance and to give them forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

 

For the man they had crucified, instead of Barabbas, was the Author of Life. Consider what Peter is saying. Jesus is the Author of Life.  He is the head, the source, the Creator of all that is living. Jesus, the Wisdom of God, becomes one of us to die for dead men walking or rather the walking dead. We were dead in trespasses in sins. Eternal death was our lot. We had no life in ourselves. Sure, we think we are alive but the life of God was not in us. We were conceived and born death because our ancestor Adam chose death over life.

 

Now he is who is the Author of Life dies for us. Jesus allows himself to die, to take our death due to our sin upon himself and he experiences our punishment, death. But God raised Jesus from the dead. There were more than five hundred witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. Death could not hold him. As the Author of Life, Jesus conquers death. Now he promises eternal life to all who believe this to be true.

 

For everyone who is repentant, who acknowledges their sinfulness and trust that Jesus is their life and righteousness before God the Father, they now possess eternal life. As we are baptized into Jesus’ name, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who seals us for the day of resurrection where the life that in us overcomes our mortal coils and converts them into a body like Jesus resurrected, immortal, imperishable, glorious body. In baptism we are raised spiritually so that on the Day of Judgment we may be raised bodily to everlasting life.

 

Heavenly Father, you gave your Son, the Author of Life, into death that we who are dead may not possess eternal life. Grant us such repentance of sins and faith in Jesus that his life may now be our life and his resurrection may now be our resurrection, in this world and in the one to come. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.