“A Dead Man Has Risen”

Just three days into his new term in office, U.S. President Donald Trump addressed by videoconference the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which represents many nations and leaders who’ve been diametrically opposed to his positions and renewed ascendance, as they see him as a threat to various globalist aims. WEF head Klaus Schwab introduced him by acknowledging that he and America were indispensable to achieving any international objectives.

In an onstage panel of WEF leaders the day prior, Jan. 22, political scientist Graham Allison said with amazement yet great concern: “Trump has done something no person in the world has ever done before. A dead man, a dead politician, has risen, somebody who a year . . . four years ago at Davos, he’s buried and dead politically . . . He’s now returned. This is the greatest comeback in political history, of a politician. And then, therefore, he thinks he can do anything.”

This was followed by Yale Professor Walter Mead acknowledging: “We need to also factor in not only who’s won, which is Trump, but who’s lost, which is to say, us. And I guess I would add, throw into that the epitome of the us who is losing here is Europe, that the European Union and by and large its member states have misread the direction where events were going . . . The causes that it is interested in (climate, human rights, some others), as well as the methods of diplomacy that it prefers, are simply being gradually kind of marginalized, as something new—not necessarily something better, but something new—moves into the center.”

A few things jump out from these comments and the turn of affairs.

Foremost here is the comparison of Donald Trump’s return to prominence with a resurrection of the dead. Many have made similar comments in calling it the greatest comeback of all time. But rest assured, it is certainly not that. As remarkable as it is, it was not an actual resurrection from death. There have been very few of those—and only one that has been lasting, with monumental impact for all mankind.

That one is of course the resurrection of Jesus Christ to immortality. It’s at this time of year, the season of the biblical Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread to follow, that we reflect on the remarkable story of Jesus Christ’s death for our sins and return to life for God’s ongoing work of salvation. This truly greatest comeback through an actual resurrection is the focus of our cover story.

This is not to diminish the current political accomplishment, which is immense—yet also, of course, subject to the will or allowance of God on high (see Daniel 2:21). Noteworthy, too, in the Davos remarks is the acknowledgment of the radical change that is happening not just in the United States but throughout geopolitics. The dominance of President Trump at this usually antagonistic forum at which he was not even present was palpable. Things have definitely shifted. And as was pointed out, so many had misread the direction where events were going.

Indeed, it’s possible that we are on the cusp of a return to U.S. dominance on the world stage and a time of economic resurgence, though time will tell—and things could easily worsen before they improve (for more thoughts on this, see “A New Chapter for America and the World?”). Of course, conditions can change quickly, and prophecy shows that ultimately American power will wane and fall. But in the meantime, all of us have the opportunity to use the time we have as best we can—especially to repent and live as God directs us to.

A sad reality check on the spiritual condition of society is the expansion of abortion in many places after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its national legalization 49 years earlier, now sending the issue back to the individual states, along with the refusal of many pro-life advocates, including the Trump administration, to seek a ban on the heinous evil of abortion, seeing this as a losing political issue (“The Disturbing Waning Resistance to Abortion”). The words of Thomas Jefferson inscribed on his memorial in Washington, D.C. cry out in warning: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

The rejection of the woke agenda, including returning to the sanity of recognizing the biological reality of only two genders, is a very positive sign. But problems still loom. Which way will things go?

What’s really needed is national repentance. Yet whether that happens or not, you personally can choose to repent of your own wrong ways before God—and He will help you change. “Therefore He says: ‘Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light’” (Ephesians 5:14). Yes, you can be a dead man who has risen!