Why is Christ's resurrection so important?

Consider Romans 10:9–10, the condition for salvation:

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

A person can profess Jesus as Lord all he wants but he is not saved unless he believes that God has raised Him from the dead - this encompasses believing what Christ accomplished for us through His resurrection. But why was Christ raised from the dead? What did He accomplish for us through His resurrection? This is the key to right believing:

God raising the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead was not just because He could. Christ's resurrection is the divine receipt showing that we who believe in Him have been forgiven of our entire lifetime of sins and made righteous by His "single sacrifice for sins, good for all time" (Hebrews 10:12.) This according to Romans 4:25-

“Who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous."

See the TPT: “Jesus was handed over to be crucified for the forgiveness of our sins and was raised back to life to prove that He had made us right with God!”

Christ would not have risen from the dead if our entire lifetime of sins had not been forgiven and we had not been declared righteous by God. His resurrection is akin to seeing someone who went to serve a death sentence in an impregnable prison for the crimes and future sins of another walking free.

The wages of sin is death -- one death preceded by its symptoms of earthly ills such as stupid mistakes, poverty, sickness, anxiety and depression which is followed by physical death and the second death in hell. No matter how many sins you commit within your entire lifespan, you can only die once. Hebrews 9 tells us:

"27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. ..."

Believer, Christ died that death once for all. He died the death that the law demanded of us, fulfilling every single demand that the law made of us. Beloved of God, Jesus is not going to come and die again or demand payment for sins that you might commit in the future. All of our lifetime of sins have been fully paid by His one-time sacrifice. Romans 5:9 says of how our heavenly Father sees all who believe Him--

"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."

This is Grace- undeserved, unearned unmerited favour. In Him, God sees us as righteous, "even though we are guilty of many sins" --

“16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins." Romans 5:16.

Unbelieving Christ professors who erroneously think that they can keep even a tittle of the law, do good deeds in order to be godly (be like God) or merit salvation which comes through God's unmerited favour alone find this truth hard to swallow. But for the helpless sinner who sees the futility of trusting in the arm of flesh (human effort) that will fail and looks utterly to Christ for salvation from sin and death, this is the Good News.

Beloved of God, let's not be found reposing even an iota of (self-)confidence in what we think we can do in order to be righteous aka be like God as Eve was deceived into doing by Satan. This is the "a way that seems right to a man but at its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12.)

Many churchgoers are being led to believe the lie that God’s abundance of Grace and His gift of righteousness to us in Christ will make we who receive go on sinning sprees, but the word of God whose ways and thoughts are higher than man's says differently in Romans 5:16–17:

“16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.”

On the flip side, 1 Corinthians 15:56 says: “It is sin that gives death its sting and the law that gives sin its power.”

Sin strengthens its grip over those who try to keep the law in order to be godly aka dependence on human effort/arm of flesh for the attainment of godliness (be like God) :

“For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under Grace.” Romans 6:14.

But many have this verse backwards. The message of the cross is illogical to human reasoning. Our salvation and life in Christ is a mystery to the world and not subject to human logic or common sense. God's word says in 1 Corinthians 1:18:

18 "For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] to those who are perishing and spiritually dead [because they reject it], but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God."

As believers, we know that the wages of our entire lifetime of sins (death and all of its symptoms aka earthly ills) have been fully paid by Christ and we have everlasting righteousness because Christ is risen. This righteousness is not dependent on how well we obey the law. It is a gift. This helps us see Romans 10:10 in its correct context:

"9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

"Salvation" here is not just being saved to go to heaven; it is also deliverance from the molestation of enemies and redemption from all earthly ills aka death begun in the form of stupid mistakes, anxiety, depression, sickness lack, etc. It is being saved from the power, pleasure and penalty of sin. The word used in the original Greek text of the New Testament is Swthria (pronounced soteria) and it encompasses all these meanings.

When you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead aka speak out your righteousness in Christ that you believe in your heart, salvation follows -- even salvation from sin and its deathly consequences.

Beloved of God, come to Christ with your baggage of sins and imperfections, trusting His goodness, and experience what He came to do:

"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Matt. 1:21.

Right believing always produces right living