For thousands of years, Christians around the world celebrate Easter by rejoicing in the risen Christ. We grieve Jesus’s last hours that were marked by betrayal, humiliation, torture, and agony. We humble ourselves in gratitude for his innocent blood shed for our behalf.
And most gloriously, we rejoice at his victory over death and the grave!
Christ’s victory is our victory. Our debts are paid, and our tarnished records are wiped clean before a just, holy God. Believers inherit his victory over death through faith in the resurrected Savior King.
As we ponder these quotes about Christ’s death and resurrection, may we hold them close to our hearts and apply them to our lives as redeemed sons and daughters of the risen King. He is risen; he is risen indeed!
Sin
“Never did God so manifest His hatred of sin as in the death and suffering of His only begotten Son. Hereby He showed Himself unappeasable to sin, and that it was impossible for Him to be at peace with it.” ― Jonathan Edwards
“[Jesus] became the final Priest and the final Sacrifice. Sinless, he did not offer sacrifices for himself. Immortal, he never has to be replaced. Human, he could bear human sins. Therefore he did not offer sacrifices for himself; he offered himself as the final sacrifice. There will never be the need for another.” ― John Piper
“Thou Son of the Blessed, what grace was manifest in Thy condescension! Grace brought Thee down from heaven; Grace stripped Thee of Thy glory; Grace made Thee poor and despicable; Grace made Thee bear such burdens of sin, such burdens of sorrow, such burdens of God’s curse as are unspeakable.” ― John Bunyan
The Blood of Jesus
“The only answer in these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us, where will we turn? We turn to Christ. We turn to the suffering and death of Christ—the blood of Christ. This is the only cleansing agent in the universe that can give the conscience relief in life and peace in death.” ― John Piper
“God declares to us that Jesus Christ, who once had His side pierced, today has His heart open, as it were, that we may have assurance of the love that He bears us; that as He once had His arms fastened to the cross, now He has them wide open to draw us to Himself; and that as once He shed his blood, so today He wishes us to be plunged within it.” ― John Calvin
“I thought I could have leaped from earth to heaven at one spring when I first saw my sins drowned in the Redeemer’s blood.” ― Charles Spurgeon
“We trample the blood of the Son of God if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only explanation for the forgiveness of God and for the unfathomable depth of His forgetting is the death of Jesus Christ… It is not earned, but accepted… Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The atonement is a propitiation whereby God, through the death of Jesus, makes an unholy man holy.” ― Oswald Chambers
“Christ is so in love with holiness, that at the price of His blood He will buy it for us.” ― John Flavel
The Cross
“By the cross we know the gravity of sin and the greatness of God’s love toward us.” ― John Chrysostom
“All heaven is interested in the cross of Christ, all hell terribly afraid of it, while men are the only beings who more or less ignore its meaning.” ― Oswald Chambers
“Only at the cross do we see the love of God without ambiguity. Here is God’s farthest reach, His most ambitious rescue effort. God personally came to our side of the chasm, willing to suffer for us and with us. At the cross His love burst upon the world with unmistakable clarity.” ― Erwin Lutzer
“The cross stands high above the opinions of men and to that cross all opinions must come at last for judgment.” ― A.W. Tozer
“The Cross is the vindication of God. The Cross is the vindication of the character of God. The Cross not only shows the love of God more gloriously than anything else, it shows His righteousness, His justice, His holiness, and all the glory of His eternal attributes…” ― Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Christians have learned that when there seems to be no other evidence of God’s love, they cannot escape the cross… When we suffer there will sometimes be mystery. Will there also be faith? Yes. If our attention is focused more on the cross and on the God of the cross than on the suffering itself.” ― D.A. Carson
“Faith is the acknowledgment of the entire absence of all goodness in us, and the recognition of the cross as the substitute for all the want on our part. The whole work is His, not ours, from first to last.” ― Horatius Bonar
Love
“It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will… it was his love for sinners like me.” ― D.A. Carson
“Behold, what manner of love is this, that Christ should be arraigned and we adorned, that the curse should be laid on His head and the crown set on ours.” ― Thomas Watson
“Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; but the Father, for love!” ― Octavius Winslow
“God must either inflict punishment or assume it. And He chose the latter course.” ― Erwin Lutzer
“Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to—because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.” ― Philip Yancey
Christ’s Resurrection
“The message of Easter is not that Jesus is alive; it is so much more. The message of Easter is that Jesus has risen!” ― Colin Smith
“Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won’t stay there.” ― Clarence W. Hall
“The resurrection was God the Father’s way of authenticating all of the truths that were declared by Jesus.” ― R.C. Sproul
“We understand and acknowledge that the Resurrection has placed a glorious crown upon all of Christ’s sufferings!” ― A.W. Tozer
“The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is one of the best attested facts on record. There were so many witnesses to behold it, that if we do in the least degree receive the credibility of men’s testimonies, we cannot and we dare not doubt that Jesus rose from the dead.” ― Charles Spurgeon
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time. ― Martin Luther
“Paul put all of his eggs in the basket of resurrection. If that didn’t happen, then Christianity is just a sham.” ― John Piper
“After death something new begins, over which all powers of the world of death have no more might.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“And He departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here.” ― Augustine
Salvation
“Salvation was bought not by Jesus’ fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.” ― A.W. Tozer
“Come, and see the victories of the cross. Christ’s wounds are thy healings, His agonies thy repose, His conflicts thy conquests, His groans thy songs, His pains thine ease, His shame thy glory, His death thy life, His sufferings thy salvation.” ― Matthew Henry
“It is at the cross where God’s Law and God’s grace are both most brilliantly displayed, where His justice and His mercy are both glorified. But it is also at the cross where we are most humbled. It is at the cross where we admit to God and to ourselves that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn or merit our salvation.” ― Jerry Bridges
Joy
“No man shall ever take from me the joy that Christ rose from the dead.” ― Charles Spurgeon
“The resurrection of Christ is the most joyful event that ever came to pass.” ― Jonathan Edwards