The Seven I AM Statements Series #5: Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life

Probably one of the greatest miraculous signs that Jesus had done while He was still in the world, bringing light to the world and showing them how much He loves them and cares for them, was when He brought the dead back to life.

Truly Jesus has been given the authority by the Father over life and over death so that God may be glorified through the work that Jesus did in the lives of the people.

Even when Jesus laid His own life down as He was crucified at the cross, God the Father had given the command that He can lay down His life and take it up again as He had foretold in John 2 that He would raise the temple again after three days.

This He did so that whoever believes in Him that He indeed rose from the dead shall receive life eternal. All of this happened according to the plan that God had set to fulfill the prophecies that had been declared centuries ago by the prophets of old.

The context of this I AM statement, according to John 11, is that Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, had become ill. Martha sent word for Jesus to come and to heal Lazarus but Jesus had known what would happen and stayed where He was for two days.

He knew that the sickness of Lazarus would not end in death, but it will be used for the glory of God and so that the Son of God may be glorified through it. When Jesus decided to go to the place where Lazarus lived, He had already known that Lazarus was dead and went to Judea so that He could raise him up again.

When Jesus and the disciples reached the place where Mary and Martha lived, He found out that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days already. Martha told Jesus that if He had been there, Lazarus would not have died and that even then, she knew that God will give Him whatever He asks.

Jesus answered that Lazarus will rise again and says to Martha in John 11:25-27:

"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. 

Do you believe this?' 'Yes, Lord,' she told Him, 'I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.'"

Jesus elaborates further here what it means to have eternal life by believing and receiving Him into our lives and living for Him. Isn't it truly wonderful that God had made a way for us to enter into heaven and to be forgiven of our sins and rescued from eternal death through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?

Even though our lives on earth is short and momentary, we have this hope in Jesus that when we die physically, since we believe in Him and have received Him as personal Lord and Savior, we will spend eternity with Him in heaven and with God the Father and dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

He also says in the next statement that whoever lives and believe in Him shall never die. So this statement is actually two-fold.

One, we have been freed from the clutches of death and sin through Jesus' sacrifice. Two, we must then believe in Him and live for Him since we owe our eternal life to Him.

Remembering what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15:

"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again."

This affirms what Jesus said and did for us. Since from the fall of man, sin had entered into the world and caused death to the world as well. By death here, we mean both the physical death and the spiritual death, the latter being the more fatal because that signifies the separation of man from God.

At that moment, we lost the closeness that we had with God and our relationship with Him was broken because even though God loves man, He is still a holy God and He cannot tolerate sin so man went astray from God.

God did not want that to happen but because of the wrong choices made by the first man and woman, all of their descendants which is the entire human race became separated from God.

But since God loves man, He devised a way so that we can be redeemed through His Son, Jesus Christ so that by Jesus' death and resurrection, we may have a way to the Father.

For us, this means simply that living for Christ is essentially dying to self.

To take up Jesus Christ in our lives and receive all the benefits that He readily has in store for us, we must humbly deny our self, its wants and desires and the sinful nature that comes with it, and truly live for the glory of the Name of Jesus Christ and live according to the ways that God has set for our lives.

As it is written in Philippians 1:21:

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Being Christians, we have been given the gift of eternal life by the grace of God through our faith in Jesus Christ so we have already received everything that we would ever need in our lives.

That is the restoration of our relationship with God the Father and each day that we live under the grace of God, we need to constantly submit ourselves to the will of God and to continue to share Jesus Christ to others through evangelism and also through the way we live.

When Jesus entered into our lives, He changes us and slowly transforms us to be like Him until the day we are taken up to heaven and receive our eternal home from God, a perfect body without blemish or disease.

So, as a way of thanking God and being grateful for what He has done, let us live a life dedicated for His glory and use the talents and gifts that He has given us to serve Him and His people.