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“The Power of the Holy Ghost

Romans 15:13

It was by the power of God the Holy Ghost that our crucified Savior was raised from the dead. If you have ever studied this subject, you may have been perplexed to discover that the resurrection of Christ is sometimes ascribed to the Lord Jesus himself. By virtue of his own power and godhead, he could not be held by the bonds of death. As he had power to laid down his life, he had power to take it up again (John 10:17).

In other places, our Savior’s resurrection from the dead is ascribed to God the Father. — “He raised him up from the dead” (Acts 13:34). — God the Father raised him up, “having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24). And Holy Scripture declares that our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the power of God the Holy Ghost.

By the Father

He was raised by the Father. God the Father said, “Loose the prisoner. Let him go. Justice is satisfied. My law requires no more satisfaction. Vengeance has its due. Let him go.” He was delivered to death for our offenses. Because our sins were made his, justice demanded his death. And he was raised again for our justification. Because he had, by the sacrifice of himself, put away our sins and justified his redeemed, he was raised from the dead, declaring that all for whom he died were justified by his obedience unto death (Romans 4:25).

By His Own Power

Our almighty Savior was raised from the dead by his own majesty and power, because he had the right to come out of the grave. He burst the bonds of death, because he could no longer be holden of them. Death no longer had a claim on him.

By the Spirit

And he was raised by God the Holy Ghost, who gave the energy of life again to his mortal frame, after he had laid in the tomb for three days and nights (1 Peter 3:18; Romans 8:11; 1 Timothy 3:16).

What a great display this is of “the power of the Holy Ghost!” Could we have stepped in, as the angels did, into the Savior’s tomb, we would have seen there his sleeping body, sleeping in hope of the resurrection (Psalm 16:9-10). We would have found his lifeless body as cold as that of any other corpse. But when “the power of the Holy Ghost” came upon him, he arose in the majesty of his eternal divinity and in the majesty of his immortal humanity, God and man in one, God in our flesh resurrected to live forever, “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16), “Prince of the kings of the earth” (Revelation 1:5).

New Birth

It is by the same, almighty power of the Holy Ghost that sinners are born again in the first resurrection and given faith in Christ (Ephesians 1:19-20). Yes, it takes the same power to raise sinners from death to life, the same power to create faith in man as it took to raise Christ from the dead.

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s