Here is a general question I might use to get a Sabbath School class discussion started:

What gives the resurrection such power that people are willing to die because of it?

I might be willing to die for the belief of the resurrection because it stands alone as the reason why I can believe I will be resurrected when He comes again. He really has the power to do it! He really has power over death. If His resurrection is not true, then there is no hope for life after death, no heaven, no assurance that death will not be the winner after all. There are no other resurrected gods! No other God can manifest the power of giving life.

I often wonder why Seventh-day Adventists place so little emphasis on the resurrection. We tend to hear little of it, nor do we celebrate its importance at Easter, or hear sermons preached with the resurrection as the central theme. I understand the hesitancy to mix it with the pagan customs of Easter, but if we don't talk about it at all, Satan has truly managed to keep it hidden in the tomb! If it's because of it's roll in the theology of Sunday sacredness, when will we have opportunity to explain the difference between the nature of the resurrction and the nature of the Sabbath? I believe the Resurrection is the most important evidence of the power of God in all the Bible!

I can think of two things that God can do that no one else, the devil included can, and that's to predict the future and to raise the dead. Ellen White makes clear that in heaven satan was jealous of Jesus and His position. The resurrection shows Jesus power in a way that satan will not be able to duplicate and vindicates God in placing Jesus in authority over the angels. Satan claimed God was unjust in preferring Jesus over him, but the resurrection shows that this was not an arbitrary decision based on preference, but a real distinction based on a difference in their natures. Jesus said "I lay down my life and I take it up again". It was the power that Jesus posessed in Himself that brought Him back to life. One of the points yet to be demonstrated in the Great Controversy is that satan does not have this power. It will be seen that when satan dies, he's truly dead and gone, and will not come back again. Beyond this, the resurrection is proof that God has power to resurrect us when we die, to bring our loved ones back to life when they die, and to give us power to live a life for Him. The resuurection is proof of God's creative power to change our lives, to recreate us if you will and give us victory from sin and satan. steve.