Read Acts 13.
When Paul described the core of the gospel, he wrote: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-4).
“The Scriptures” Paul talked about in those verses are, of course, what we call the Old Testament. It isn’t hard to show how the scriptures prophesied that Christ would die for our sins. But where exactly does the Old Testament predict the burial and resurrection of Jesus?
Verses 32-37 answer that question. In verse 32, Paul said that “God promised our ancestors” that Christ would rise from the dead. He quoted from several Psalms in the following verses. The most relevant to the promise of Christ’s resurrection was Psalm 16:10 which Paul quoted here in Acts 13:35: “So it is also stated elsewhere: ‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’”
David wrote those words and people naturally interpreted those words as referring to him, that is, to David. But, as Paul pointed out in verse 36, David died, “was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed.” So, Paul reasoned, David must not have been writing about himself (v. 36).
Instead, David was writing prophetically about Jesus. Verse 37 says, “But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.”
The death and resurrection of Jesus were not an unexpected detour or change in the plan of God. Old Testament prophesies show that the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus were the plan of God all along. They are essential to everything we have through faith in Christ and to every promise God has made to us in eternity.
So, rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus and don’t ever look at it as optional to our faith or a secondary point of doctrine. Instead, hold fast to the resurrection of Jesus; it means everything to us as his followers and children.
