I know it is only April, but it’s not too early to talk about Christmas classics.

One of my favorites is It’s A Wonderful Life. The main character, George Bailey, has a lot of life difficulties arise. These struggles seem to mount up on him. He decides to confess that he wished he had never been born.

The classic unfolds with George going through scenes of his life and how they would have turned out if he hadn’t been born. One event involved him saving his brother from drowning in a frozen river. The plot carries on revealing that had he not saved his brother, his brother wouldn’t have been able to save the lives of hundreds of soldiers during the war. No George, no brother saved, no troops saved.

The film ends with the truth that our lives do affect many other lives, and after all, “It’s a wonderful life.”

This makes me ponder what things would be like if certain other events had never happened. This would be one of the late-night considerations in theological dorm discussions, along with “How many angels can stand on the head of a needle and strum a harp at the same time? What if sin had never happened? Would we still be in the Garden of Eden? How many people would be on Earth, since there are no deaths?” Oh, the questions would go on and on.

However, sin did occur, and Romans 5:12 gives us the hard-hitting reality. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” (KJV).

Here we are facing the greatest fear of mankind, the wages of sin, death. That’s a long step from It’s a Wonderful Life.

Yet, I am a firm believer that God has done something amazing. Since sin did happen, how is God able to tell us He has done something and that something allows Him to say to believers that it didn’t happen?

It’s one thing for God to say He doesn’t remember our sins (Hebrews 8:12; 10:17) or He removes them as far as the East is from the West (Psalm 13:12). However, to say, “It Didn’t Happen!”? This takes place because of the greatest event in human history, the Resurrection of Christ. The death of Christ on the cross was the full payment of blood sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. Tetelestai, it is finished. But The Lord wasn’t finished.

According to the scripture and history, three days later he rose again. Romans 4:25 shouts “he was raised again for our JUSTIFICATION.” The word justification reveals a deep truth. The cross was the payment for sin and the empty tomb is the receipt.

Christ rose to make us in the eyes of God just as if I had not sinned. The cross says paid, the Resurrection says “It’s just as if it hadn’t happened.”

Dr. Rick Crews, is the pastor at Clay Hill Baptist Church in Jacksonville.