IT HAD TO HAPPEN

"Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death,because it was not possible that He should be held by it." (Acts 2:24)

When Peter preached his fantastic sermon on Pentecost, we might think it good enough to stop after quoting the prophet Joel. In quoting that passage from Joel, Peter described a glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit - miraculous dreams, visions, and prophecy; signs and wonders regarding the day of the Lord; and the passage from Joel finished with an invitation to call on the name of the Lord. But the Joel passage wasn't enough, because Peter hadn't spoken about the saving work of Jesus on our behalf. Everything until that was introduction; then came the essential
message.

In bringing the core message to his audience, he first confronted
them with their sin. Peter did not flinch at saying, "you crucified this
Man who was sent by God" - his first concern was not to please his
audience, but to tell them the truth. But Peter couldn't stop there, as
if his point was to make them feel bad about their sin. He had to
show that there was a fact greater than man's guilt in executing the
Son of God.

The greater fact was the power of God and the greatness of Jesus,
both demonstrated by the resurrection. "It was not possible" for
Jesus to remain bound by death, as explained by Peter's following
quotation from Psalm 16. It was not possible for Jesus to remain a
victim of the sin and hatred of man. He had to come out ahead,
glorious in triumph over it. To demonstrate this, notice that Peter
used the term "pains of death." The word "pains" is actually the
word for "birth pains." The idea is that the tomb was a womb for
Jesus! As one commentator wrote, "It was not possible that the
chosen one of God should remain in the grip of death; the abyss
can no more hold the Redeemer than a pregnant woman can hold
the child in her body."

Just as a baby has to come out of the womb, the resurrection of
Jesus simply had to happen. There was no way the Holy One - the
sinless Son of God - could remain bound by the chains of death.

When Jesus died on the cross He bore the full wrath of God as if
He were a guilty sinner, guilty of all our sin, even being made sin for
us (2 Corinthians 5:21). Yet even that was an act of holy, giving
love for us. Therefore Jesus Himself did not become a sinner, even
though He bore the full guilt of our sin. This is the good news – that
Jesus took our punishment for sin on the cross, and remained a
perfect Savior through the whole ordeal - proved by His
resurrection.

For this reason, He remained the Holy One, even in His death; and
it was incomprehensible that God's Holy One could remain bound
by death - the resurrection was absolutely inevitable. We don't see
many things in life that simply must happen. In almost everything
we can think of another way things could turn out. But it was not
this way with the resurrection of Jesus - it had to happen. It could
be no other way. And it proves that God's love and power are
greater than the worst of man's sin and rebellion.

By David Guzik