Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 1
The speaker argues from Acts 2:24 that Jesus’ resurrection was “not possible” to be prevented because death couldn’t “get a hold of him”; what picture of God’s moral order (cause/effect, justice, “law in the universe”) is being assumed in that claim, and how does that reshape the way you talk about God’s power and miracles?
Another way to ask: If death "couldn’t hold" Jesus and his resurrection couldn’t be stopped, what does that assume about how God built right and wrong into the world? How does that change how you talk about God’s power and miracles?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the speaker’s teaching, the universe has a real moral order where sin and death belong together, and righteousness and life belong together—so death could not “lawfully” hold Jesus, because He lived in perfect obedience. That picture doesn’t deny miracle; it reframes resurrection as God’s powerful action working with His moral order rather than as an arbitrary override.
- Peter’s line is central: God “raised up” Jesus, “having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.”
- The speaker rejects “magic resuscitation… overriding of natural effects,” saying Peter treats it like something that “had to happen.”
- He ties the “not possible” to Psalm 16’s lifestyle: Jesus “set the Lord always before him,” resulting in stability and not “rot in the grave.”
- He later says Satan tried something “not allowed under any kind of law in the universe,” since Jesus “never sinned… there was no law by which he could rightfully be put to death.”
- He still calls resurrection “a miracle… God’s power,” but “not overriding natural causes and effects… [rather] the inevitable result” of Jesus’ obedient human life.