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Topic;The Radical Resurrection
Jesus is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
Acts 4:11-12
This is a startling declaration! It says that there is no other who can fulfill the place of being the cornerstone of authority in the world. No other name! None of the religious leaders, none of the political leaders of all time could possibly do this work. There is only One adequately equipped, qualified to be the foundation of human government, the basis of human authority. You take all the religious names of history — Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Mahatma Gandhi, Ramakrishna, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy — whoever and whatever. The most that can be said of these men and women is that they are moral teachers. The best we can say of them is that they taught what is right. Many of them did. Christians are often accused of being bigoted, of being intolerant of other faiths. There is a sense in which that accusation is perfectly just. We are intolerant of other faiths, in the final analysis. But this does not mean that Christians do not recognize that there is much truth in other religions. Other great religious leaders have uttered fine moral teachings and precepts which have helped people. But there is one thing they could not do: They could tell us what was right; but they could not enable us to do it. That is the difference between Jesus of Nazareth and any other name that can be named in this world. That is why we can never consent to considering any other name to be equal with that of Jesus of Nazareth. No other has solved the problem of death. No other has broken through this ghastly terror that hangs over the human race — only Jesus of Nazareth. God has made him the cornerstone, and there is no other name by which we can be saved.
We do not need someone to tell us what to do; we know what to do. Most of us know better than we are doing! What we need is One who will change us, give us a new motivation, make us want to do what we ought to do, and give us a new heart, a new outlook, a new ability, a new capacity, a new life. This is what Jesus does.
Lord Jesus, thank you that you are ready to save any who will trust and believe in you, by this wonderful miracle that you have made possible — that wherever a heart in emptiness and loneliness, in pain and despair, cries out to you and asks you to enter that life and dwell within, you take up residence there.
Life Application
What is the unique distinctive that makes Jesus’ moral authority comparable to none other? Do we like the Apostle Paul want to know Christ and the life-changing, radical power of His resurrection?
