Why did it take so much power for God to raise Jesus from the dead?
The resurrection demanded greater power than any other act of God because through it Christ totally defeated all the powers of Satan and fully settled the sin debt for every human being. All sins were atoned for, making hell a matter of human choice and rejection rather than divine unfairness. It required all the power God had at His disposal.
Les teaches that more power was exercised out of the Godhead at the resurrection of Christ than in anything else God ever did [s243-s245]. The reason is that through His resurrection, Christ totally defeated all the powers of Satan [s246-s248]. He also totally settled the sin debt for every human being that has ever lived [s248-s250], and the sins of every human being have already been atoned for [s251-s252]. Therefore, those who go to an eternal hell will not be there because of God's fault; they simply did not capitalize on or appropriate the atonement [s253-s257]. Les explains that hell will be awful because they will realize they are there because they chose to be, not because an unfair God sent them, but because a fair God declared those sins paid for at the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ [s258-s265]. Thus it took all the power God had at His disposal to raise Christ from the dead [s266-s268], and that is why it is the benchmark of our salvation experience [s269-s270].