Talking with Your Kids about JesusSýnishorn

Day Six: The Resurrection of Jesus—Why Does It Matter If Jesus Was Resurrected?

Scripture: Acts 17:30-31

In 1 Corinthians 15:14, the apostle Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” The truth of Christianity, therefore, rests on the truth of the resurrection, and it’s critical that our kids understand why.

First, we need to clearly establish what we mean by resurrection. If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you probably already have a specific idea of the resurrection in mind: Jesus died, was buried, and was then raised to life in bodily form. But it’s becoming increasingly popular for some Christian churches today to redefine the resurrection in symbolic terms, emphasizing what the resurrection means to them personally. The Bible is clear, however, that the reported resurrection event was bodily in nature. The Gospels say that Jesus ate food, was touched, showed his bodily wounds, visited someone’s house, and had conversations. Additionally, we know from other writings at the time that “resurrection” meant embodiment for both Jews and non-Jews. When we consider both the biblical accounts and cultural context, it’s clear that the claimed resurrection event was bodily in nature. 

Now that we’ve established what the Bible means by resurrection, we can look at three key reasons why it’s so important to Christianity: 

1. Jesus’s Resurrection Validated His Predictions and Claims to Divinity. No mere human could choose to be resurrected. Only someone who is truly God, and therefore has power over death, could do so (John 5:21).

2. Jesus’s Resurrection Confirms We Are No Longer in Our Sins. Those who trust in Jesus’s sacrifice as payment for their sins will be found righteous on judgment day (Romans 8:1). 

3. Jesus’s Resurrection Assures Us That We, Too, Will Be Raised. Jesus’s resurrection is God’s pledge that we, too, will be raised from death to eternal life (Romans 8:11).

The truth of the resurrection changes everything. If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, we would be putting the trust for our eternal life in someone who was neither able to conquer death himself nor able to validate his claims to divinity in the ways he said he would. Conversely, if Jesus was raised from the dead, we can place our faith in Him as Lord and Savior with the full confidence that we will inherit eternal life. 

Ask your kids why they think it matters for Christians if Jesus was really raised from the dead. How would our faith be different if He wasn’t?