Jesus Christ Is The Resurrection And The Life

John 11:23-26, “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

The Lord made this precious promise of the resurrection in John 11:25-26. His friend Lazarus had died four days earlier. Lazarus' body already smelled with rotting decay in the tomb. Jesus is speaking together with Martha, the sister of Lazarus. She is confident that one day in the future her brother will rise up again. The Lord reiterates to her that He is fact IS THE RESURRECTION, AND THE LIFE. 

The Lord says that whosoever liveth and abideth in Him shall never die. It would be bad Bible interpretation to add living to believing based solely upon this Scripture passage. In the Gospel of John we find the word “BELIEVE” mentioned 85 times, with no mention of anything else required for salvation. You don't have to believe AND live in Christ to be saved; but rather, to believe in Christ produces the new birth, which makes a person alive in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9).

I heard Pastor John MacArthur the other day on YouTube speaking very deceitfully. He was saying simply to believe to be saved. Yet, I can show you dozens of other places in his damnable writings where MacArthur requires much more than just believing to be saved. You see, in John MacArthur's errant mindset, faith means commitment of one's entire personality to Christ as absolute Lord, denying of self, turning away from sin, following Jesus no matter what the cost. But that is not the Bible meaning of faith. True faith is resting in Christ's finished work of redemption, and nothing more! Requiring anything more than simply resting in what Jesus did on the cross to pay for our sins is a perversion of God's grace.

We have God's promise in John 11:25-26 that whosoever BELIEVES in the Son of God has eternal life, and will be wholly resurrected someday. The heathen world is continually searching for new technology to extend human life, and even revive the dead in the future. Companies like Alcor freeze dead bodies and decapitated heads of clients for large sums of money. Their hope is that technology will greatly advance in the future, so that their frozen mind can be extracted and reinserted into a new cloned human body. I can confidently tell you that such nonsense will never become a reality. God would not allow such a bizarre thing to happen.

Dear friend, why go to such crazy extremes, when we can simply BELIEVE on the Savior and have the Lord's promise of a new resurrected body in the future? My hope is built on nothing more or less, than Jesus Christ and His righteousness! I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.