Today is Resurrection Day. It is the third divine annual moed or appointment called Yom haBikkurim or the Day of Firstfruits:

"But Messiah (Christ) has indeed been raised from the dead, the bikkurim (firstfruits) of those who have fallen asleep (died). For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Messiah (Christ) all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Messiah (Christ), the bikkurim (firstfruits); then, when He comes [back, the second time], those who belong to Him" (1 Cor.15:20-23, NIV).

How do we know that the resurrection is real? How do we know it happened to Yah'shua (Jesus) and that therefore it will happen to us too in the way He promised? Yesterday we talked about the historical evidence a little, and that is important for the rational mind, but there is another component to the seeking process by we can know for a surety the truthfulness of this momentous event in the history, not just of planet earth, but of the whole cosmos and created order.

This kind of evidence for the resurrection appeals primarily to the spiritual faculty of spiritual men and women. It is the partner of the rational mind and arguably the most important one because it determines whether, and how, the rational mind will be engaged. You see, those who already know and love Yahweh, our Heavenly Father and Elohim (God), who feel in their souls a yearning for eternal communion with Him, and a deep sense that the injustices, disappointments, and failures of this life that Solomon so eloquently nighlighted in Ecclesiastes, point to a future life in which Elohim's (God's) righteousness and ahavah (love) will be finally vindicated - such persons will inevitably, under a compulsion which they cannot fully understand, be drawn to examine attentively the evidence for the resurrection of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Those, on the other hand, who are living without emunah (faith) in a personal Elohim (God), and to whom nature therefore manifests only a series of unvarying mechanical laws, will either reject the evidence without examination, or, if they do examine it, will pronounce it insufficient. Yesterday I recommended some resources for those willing to subject the evidence of the resurrection to the kind of rigid scrutiny that historians perform in their labours.

Nearly every modern critic - believer and unbeliever, conservative and liberal, alike - acknowledges the authenticity and historicity of the Pauline epistles. And since that apostle was converted soon after the resurrection event (somewhere between 30 and 36 AD), his epistles are a valuable witness to what the first Christians/Messianics believed. It is clear from these letters that the congregations established not only by Paul but by the other apostles too, firmly believed in the resurrection of Yah'shua (Jesus). Paul himself writes:

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter, and then to 'the Twelve [apostles]'. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep (died). Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born...Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed" (1 Cor.15:3-8,11, NIV).

We learn from this passage that the resurrection of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) was regarded as one of the foundational doctrines of Christianity. Over 500 souls met the risen Master. In other words, we have more than the witness of one falsely accused by the critics as being a mere 'hysterical' woman, and some of the witnesses were leading officers in the messianic community (church) like Peter, James and (latterly) Paul. Two of these resurrection appearances were to unbelievers, one of whom was James, from Yah'shua's (Jesus') own family (Jn.7:5; Mk.3:21; Mt.15:37), and it was likely it was this manifestation that led to his conversion (Ac.1:14). As for Paul, like the other unbelievers, he was an implaccable enemy and persecutor when Christ appeared to him outside the gates of Damascus (Ac.9.1). All the witnesses were taken by surprise, off guard, unawares. After the shock had worn off, they were overjoyed and filled with awe. Who wouldn't be?!

After all, this wasn't just someone reviving after being clinically dead for a few minutes (or in some cases a few hours) - he had been dead over three calendar days. This wasn't the same as the raising of Lazarus or the son of the widow of Nain either (Jn.11-12; Lk.7:11-17) - those are properly or technically called 'thaumaturgies' because after they were raised they resumed being mortal human beings and died naturally at later dates (see On Funerals). They were not resurrected. I underline that because there are those who confuse thaumaturgy with resurrection, and in consequence of which some pretty awful doctrines have been advanced by people like the Jehovah's Witnesses who teach that the wicked are 'resurrected' for the Final Judgment, and then exterminated, physically and spiritually (see Annihilationism).

The point about being resurrected is that you are permanently immortal - your spirit and body are inseperably connected, never to be divided again, so that you can no longer speak of having a 'spirit' and a 'body' because they are completely integrated by supernatural means. You are a 'soul' in perpetuity (see Dualism).

Indeed, it is the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) that does that 'super-gluing' together, in exactly the same way Yah'shua (Jesus) was resurrected. If I can put it this way, 'once resurrected, always resurrected' but 'once raised, not necessarily always raised'.

The term 'raised' in Scripture is used to describe both resurrection and thaumaturgy, a case where one word has multiple meanings. Thus there is a qualitative and quantitative difference between "the dead [being] raised" (Mt.11:5, NIV) during Yah'shua's (Jesus) mortal ministry (like Lazarus and the son of the widow of Nain) and "the Son of Man [being] raised from the dead" (Matt.17:9, NIV). When 'raising' (Gk. egeiro) is spoken of in the Scripture, it was understood qualitatively to mean to 'be aroused' or 'woken up' by an external agency, and thus to 'regain ones conscious faculties' as when one arises from a sleep and into the world of the 'awake'. The same word was also used of a conscious person sitting or standing up. Like I have said so many times, the Hebrews did not have such a precise or voluminous vocbularly as we do.

Their language was a much more expressive and poetic than technical or analytical. As I have also pointed out before, it was designed to be heard rather than read. Scripture was a story to be experienced in the innermost being rather than a doctrinal text book to be analysed minutely in the brain and from which to build complex theological schemes, though certainly it was that too in a secondary sense. They were more interested in communing with Yahweh by experiencing the moment than intellectually dissecting it and then reassembling it to build a theological scheme. In other words, they didn't think the same way we do. That's not to say they didn't think or philosophise because they absolutely did. Indeed, two of the world's greatest thinkers were undoubtedly Solomon and Paul, not forgetting the brilliance of the mind of Elohim (God) Himself. There's enough food for the intellectual in the Bible to keep him occupied for a lifetime but that isn't its principle function.

The Hebrew viewed everything as motions. A river to them wasn't a body of water between two banks - it was something that was alive and moving, providing Him with vidid imagery with which to explain baptism (which was always conducted in moving water in the earliest days) and the very Chayim or Life that proceeds like a river from the throne or essence that is Elohim (God). The motions of the Ruach (Spirit) are described like a fountain welling up in the guts. If you try to analyse this the Greek and Western way, you'll miss the point altogether. Indeed, when I was born again, I was aware of a motion in my chest that I could only describe as being like a cascading waterfall filling me up and overflowing. That was the imagery the Ruach (Spirit) gave me afterwards with which to illustrate my testimony. Very physical, isn't it, like we were talking about yesterday?

The Hebrews didn't even use nouns in the same way we do. Thus in witnessing either Lazarus being 'raised' or Messiah being 'raised', as far as they were concerned, they were quite simply viewed as being 'back' among the living, and that was all that mattered to them. A movement had happened - from death and back to life. They were not scientists and philosophers as we are. They didn't think whether Lazarus had been brain-dead or not (not that they would have understood that concept anyway). They loved miracles, unlike the Greeks who were much more into Wisdom and the intellect. You need to remember that Western civilisation is a blending of the Hebrew, Greek and Roman mindsets. We have to be retrained to think, experience, and be like our forefathers in the Bible if we're serious about wanting to dialogue with Elohim (God) face-to-face as the patriarchs did instead of just talking into empty space and hearing nothing back other than receiving vague impressions inside to which we add our own explanatory words as best we can and hope the two match up. Just go and listen to the so-called 'prophesying' done by Pentecostals and Charismatics and you'll see what I mean.

This is a huge subject and, as many of you know, one that drives me powerfully because one of the goals of this ministry is to transport 21st century, westernised minds and hearts back into the phronema - the flow, movement, taste, atmosphere, spirit, or motion - of the ancients - to 'swim' with them, as it were, in the same existential 'waters' - so that we can experience and understand Yahweh the way they did and, more importantly, the way they wrote about their experiences in the Bible for us to make sense of.

The Bible isn't just a collection of words, phrases and sentences that can simply be strung together and be understood in a modern 21st century culture 2,000 years later. That is why we are told we can only properly understand the Scriptures by possessing the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) (2 Pet.1:20). What that doesn't mean is that you let go of your mind or just follow whatever you happen to be feeling in your heart. This is what the nihilistic post-moderinists do, and is where that attitude finally leads, away from the Torah and all structure. In Christianity this is the chaotic and anarchistic legacy of the charismatics, that has been building up for the last century since Azuza Street. That's an equally dangerous mistake. The Ruach (Spirit) first and foremost isn't feelings - that's what we metaphorically call the 'heart' and we are warned that that is particularly deceptive:

"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jer.17:9, NIV).

Can you? We none of us want to turn our hearts off - that's one way to kill your inner life off. Neither are we supposed to turn our minds off, because our thoughts shape our will and provide the vessel for our emotions. But the Ruach (Spirit) is neither of these - it's the energiser and quantum-booster. In fact, one of the aspects - if not the key aspect of the Ruach (Spirit) is resurrection energy and power, which is why I am labouring this point somewhat. A whole, complete, human being is a synthesis of mind, heart, physical body and ruach (spirit) - his or her own personal ruach (spirit), their essential identity expressed like the layers of a cake in many levels of being including thinking, feeling, sensations and the deeper, more refined aspects of ruach (spirit). The resurrection power of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), released to believers as the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), not only will one day bind all the layers of this allegorical 'cake' together into an immortal soul but - most critically - be the ongoing chayim or life of that resurrection life.

But I digress somewhat, because this is such a huge, integrating subject with many strands that must be woven together. We were talking about the various New Testament witnesses so let's briefly continue with that. We spoke of Paul earlier. Now the first epistle of Peter is one of the best attested documents in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament). It's testimony to the resurrection is remarkably strong. For this leading apostle the resurrection is not a speculation but a most certain fact and the basis of the Christian/Messianic hope:

"Praise be to the Elohim (God) and Father of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living tiqveh (hope) through the resurrection of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) from the dead..." (1 Peter 1:3, NIV).

"Through Him (Messiah) you believe in Elohim (God), who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your emunah (faith) and tiqveh (hope) are in Elohim (God)" (1 Peter 1:21, NIV).

The testimony of Matthew is explicit (Mt.28), as is that of the apostle John. To these we could, of course, add Luke who obtained testimonies from numerous eye-witnesses (Lk.1:1-4). And Mark, the secretary and interpreter of Peter (1 Pet.5:13), obtained first hand accounts from this leading apostle too. And aside from the 500 and 11 ('the 12' minus Judas), we must not forget Mary Magdalene (Jn.20:16; cp. Mk.16:9) and the other good ladies (Mt.28:9) who were witnesses too.

I need to tie this all up before it becomes too long. We can talk more over the next four days. By all means send in your questions if you have any and we'll try to cover them then. As I said previously, I am not going to look at all the challenges made by the critics but rather talk about the core of what the resurrection is. There is one important companion doctrine to the resurrection that I mentioned in passing at the conclusion of yesterday's talk, which we have actually talked about indirectly without naming it. For we cannot properly understand the doctrine of the resurrection without understanding the divinity of Yah'shua (Jesus), and that means we must talk a little about the doctrine of the incarnation, albeit it very briefly, and that's what we'll end with in this slightly longer talk today, because it is Yom haBikkurim.

Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) is Divine. He is Elohim (God). He was divine before He incarnated, He was divine when He was on earth (even though that was largely hidden from our eyes so that He could share in our life), and He is divine today. Somewhere out there there is a part of Elohim (God) with a resurrected, human body in which has been preserved, as an eternal memorial, the wounds He received on the cross. It was not, and still is not, the same kind of 'raised' body as that of Lazarus or the son of the widow of Nain. It was that resurrected body that allowed Yah'shua (Jesus) to walk through walls and doors, the immortal body and ascended or levitated into the atmosphere and passed between dimensions from the third heaven (the air) and into the first heaven (the heavenly realm). He was able to do what He did only because He was, and is, incarnate Deity.

He was not, as the lying occultic New Agers and a few very deceived messianics and others teach, simply a human being who got 'christed' and 'became' God in a pantheistic sense. He did not realise some innate 'christness' in Himself that every man and woman can realise by doing x, y, and z occult acts. He was Elohim (God) from the beginning. Be in no doubt about that. He didn't become anyone greater than He already was before He was born a mortal in Bethlehem.

My very first face-to-face encounter with Elohim (God) was in a Buddhist meeting in Oxford when He SPOKE AUDIBLY to me, supernaturally elevated me to my feet like a spring unfolding, and in response to a Buddhist teacher's statement that Jesus Christ was inferior to Buddha, having only reached the penultimate state of perfection called by them 'Boddhisatva', said, like a roaring thunder in my innermost soul, "NO!" As my body was propelled into the air and onto my feet, I knew, deep within my essential being, that Yah'shua the Messiah - or Jesus Christ as I knew Him then - was in some sense 'God'. And you have to remember I was not a Christian at this time and I had an aversion toward traditional Christianity. I walked out of that room and never went back to another Buddhist meeting because I knew, then, who my Creator was. It was that one central emet (truth) that fixed my spiritual trajectory for the rest of my life and led me to the next important day, on 30 March 1977, when I was born-again - spiritually regenerated, infused with New Creation Life (see A Glimpse Into Heaven).

This I know, for my Saviour told me so, just like He did to Saul on the road to Damascus. I know He is Divine. I know He is Elohim (God) - and by that I don't mean 'I believe He is Divine, or I believe He is Elohim (God)', I know He is, because He told me with the incomparible force of resurrection power. I have spent the last 43 years of my life confirming what I have always known in the very essence of my existence and learning to articulate my testimony better. This, truly, is the Saviour of the World, the incarnate Son of Elohim (God). And He is risen! Until tomorrow's talk, have a wonderful Resurrection Day - a special Yom haBikkurim [1].

End Notes

[1] Find out why we do not observe, or call Resurrection Day, 'Easter'