The world is full of all kinds of religion - even within what is called
'Christianity' - where man does good works to become a better person or to be
accepted by God. Sound familiar?
Yet, the problem is that such is impossible. Good
works do not change who you are on the inside. No amount of feeding the
poor is going to make you stop wanting to fornicate. No matter how much time
you spend caring for the elderly, it won't remove the urge to lie. We are only
changed inwardly as we abide in relationship with Jesus
Christ. A dynamic relationship is awareness and epignosis a knowledge from a higher source...from an indwelling God. Why wait or guess, looking in all the wrong places? gets old over time.
Internalization, expectation, faith real love and reason for life. No log Hut or stone pile can contain God only you can, that's why we're the temple now. The external artifices are removed by God sending his son to die for us, we're now the temple, once we get to realize what we become maybe we can finally change to come next step is to know what faith might look like by walking in spirit and truth. Blessings
Know the difference? 1 Corinthian 1-4 is an entirely different world than us at the helm.
The thing to remember is this: Religion concentrates on the
external (outward performance). but
relationship with God deals with what is internal (inward transformation) (I Samuel 16:7; Matthew 23:27; John 7:24) John 17.
However, there are plenty of people who are willing to let you try to
work up your redemption in servitude to them (their opinions, rules,
etc.). Narrowway is about grace and awareness and your being connected to life source.
Scripture references the Kj3 and Young;'s literal.
NW
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Fellowship ?
You may be thinking, “My view of fellowship is much richer and deeper than ever... True fellowship involves getting together for spiritual purposes: for sharing needs, for prayer, for discussing and sharing the Word our lives to encourage, comfort, and edify one another, reaching and Faith.” And you are right it's much more than the mere sophistical in nature but close, the way it was with Jesus and the 12 which became the body, the spirit of God lives in.
Try and imagine a state of awareness and nearness and can grow the mind of Christ 1 Corinthians 1-4..This certainly is an aspect of Christian fellowship. It is an area of fellowship where real growth and ability mature out of. Just image for a sec doubt is removed and your as free as ever to know God, all there perhaps so simple it's hard because we feel to much out side of faith than seek the one who loves the impossible.
Another way of seeing, Blessings.
Try and imagine a state of awareness and nearness and can grow the mind of Christ 1 Corinthians 1-4..This certainly is an aspect of Christian fellowship. It is an area of fellowship where real growth and ability mature out of. Just image for a sec doubt is removed and your as free as ever to know God, all there perhaps so simple it's hard because we feel to much out side of faith than seek the one who loves the impossible.
Another way of seeing, Blessings.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Upward !
Young's Literal Translation - Sample VersesJohn 1:1, 14 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;” “And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth.”John 3:16 – “for God did so love the world, that His Son -- the only begotten -- He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during.”John 8:58 – “Jesus said to them, `Verily, verily, I say to you, Before Abraham's coming -- I am;'”Ephesians 2:8-9 – “by grace ye are having been saved, through faith, and this not of you -- of God the gift, not of works, that no one may boast;”Titus 2:13 – “waiting for the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ,”
Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/Youngs-Literal-Translation-YLT.html#ixzz3ZxJpHwIm thanks for the sight.
I use the kj3 as well etc. and few others out side the standard political translated versions, with their additions adverbs etc. Thanks enjoy the venture into truth it's well worth it.
Thanks to Doug D and Frank C, Bave B, Jon Zens never give up.. Uniting and building.
Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/Youngs-Literal-Translation-YLT.html#ixzz3ZxJpHwIm thanks for the sight.
I use the kj3 as well etc. and few others out side the standard political translated versions, with their additions adverbs etc. Thanks enjoy the venture into truth it's well worth it.
Thanks to Doug D and Frank C, Bave B, Jon Zens never give up.. Uniting and building.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Escaping the noise, getting to know him his way.
When He was alone…the twelve asked Him about the parable. —Mark 4:10
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship— when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. Notice Jesus Christ’s training of the Twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were confused. His disciples constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly explained things to them, but they didn’t understand until after they received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing to you. We think we understand another person’s struggle until God reveals the same shortcomings in our lives. There are vast areas of stubbornness and ignorance the Holy Spirit has to reveal in each of us, but it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now? Or are we more concerned with our own ideas, friendships, and cares for our bodies? Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him.
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing to you. We think we understand another person’s struggle until God reveals the same shortcomings in our lives. There are vast areas of stubbornness and ignorance the Holy Spirit has to reveal in each of us, but it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now? Or are we more concerned with our own ideas, friendships, and cares for our bodies? Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Wisdom
“Faith enables our
spiritual sense to function. Where faith is defective the result will be inward
insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things.”
Ephesian 5-6
― A.W. Tozer,
Ephesian 5-6
― A.W. Tozer,
Sunday, April 5, 2015
than just an historical miracle or a theological explanation,
but must be understood as a living reality.
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The Living Reality of the Resurrection
I observed a sign outside of a local church building this last week. That seems to be the “in-thing” in ecclesiastical circles these days – to post trite sayings on a display sign so the world can observe their superficiality (or stupidity). This sign read, “The CROSS – That’s My (God’s) final answer.”
What do you think of that statement?
As a take-off from the contemporary television program, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” where each contestant must verify, “That’s my final answer,” I found the statement cute and catchy. Theologically, I found the statement inaccurate and misleading.
If the cross is God’s final answer, then what are we doing here today? Is Easter an irrelevancy?
If the death of Jesus on the execution instrument of a cross is the final answer, then Jesus is just a martyr figure that Christians rally around to persuade others to join their cause -– in this case, their religion.
Martin Luther King is such a martyr figure for the blacks in America, allowing them to emphasize their cause of victimization in the history and policies of America.
Che Guevera is such a martyr figure for the Hispanics, serving as a focal point to emphasize their oppression at the hands of others.
Sayyid Qutb is such a martyr figure for the Muslims, serving as a springboard for radical Islamic terrorism to combat Western civilization. Maybe Saddam Hussein will become a martyr figure for some Arabs in the years to come.
But is that all that Jesus is for Christians?
If the cross is an end in itself, i.e. “God’s final answer,” then all the gruesome execution of Jesus can do is create a martyr figure that allows people to focus on the death of this individual in order to perpetuate a particular ideology. Granted, that is how much of the Christian religion operates in our day, but is that what Christianity was intended to be?
What happened on the cross, the death of Jesus, represents a remedial action. A remedial action is action taken to remedy a problem of deficiency. Many students, for example, are required to take remedial math or remedial English courses in order to qualify for college level courses. The remedial courses remedy and correct the problem of these students’ deficient understanding of the subjects. The problem that needed to be remedied for the human race was a deficiency that disqualified mankind from being man as God intended, and thus from participating in the course of life as God intended man to live.
Original man (represented by Adam and Eve) was given the choice of life and death in the garden. The life choice was to receive from the “tree of life” which represented the derivation of God’s life operative in man. The death choice was to partake of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” concerning which God had said, “In the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Was that a threat by a God who would take punitive action if His intents were violated? Or was that simply a statement of inevitable fact, indicating that the rejection of the power of God’s life would be to open themselves up to the only alternative of “the one having the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14) functioning in them?
The original sin of the original couple (who represented all humanity) allowed death to reign (Rom. 5:17) in the human race. The resultant deficiency of divine life in mankind (fallen man is “devoid of the Spirit” – Jude 19) disqualified humanity from being man as God intended. That is why remedial action was necessitated – so that man could enroll again in the course of life!
The Son of God, who was incarnated as the man, Jesus, was willing to enroll in the remedial course of death on man’s behalf – as an alternative representative man for humanity. He was willing to submit to death, though personally undeserving of such for He was “without sin” (Heb. 4:15; II Cor. 5:21), so that representatively He might substitutionally assume the death consequences of mankind’s sin, and allow His divine life to overcome the “power of death” and make His life available to humanity again.
It makes a difference how we interpret the death of Jesus. Was God the Father an offended deity demanding that a penalty of death be paid for sin before He would forgive mankind? A popular view of the crucifixion seems to cast God as an angry, bloodthirsty, death-dealing God who poured out His punitive wrath and judgment upon His own Son, Jesus, because “somebody’s gotta pay!” Jesus, the Son of God, is often portrayed, on the other hand, as a loving and forgiving side of God who was willing to express divine grace in order to redeem man instead of demanding justice and judgment. What does such a perspective do to God? It divides and divorces the intents of the Father and the Son. It severs the Trinity asunder. The Father is against us; the Son is for us. The Son is acting as our legal advocate attempting to convince the Father, the Judge, to let us off the hook. What a tragic mangling of the oneness of the Triune God.
On the contrary, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit had a unified intent to restore humanity to the divine intent. God was wholly for us in His divine love and grace, and was desirous that death, and “the one having the power of death” (Heb. 2:14) be defeated by assuming death undeservedly via the Son’s assumption of mortal humanity. The restoration of God’s life to man required the assumption of death for man. God’s affirmative “Yes” to man’s redemption and restoration, required the “No” to the death invasion of sin. Via the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, God said “No” to the misuse and abuse of humanity by the diabolic death-dealing antithesis to the living God, “the god of this age” (II Cor. 4:4). God would no longer tolerate the “one having the power of death” (Heb. 2:14) to hold man hostage (II Tim. 2:26).
The death of Jesus on the cross was the undoing of the Adamic downfall as Jesus voluntarily accepted the death consequences of humanity’s sin. “Obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8), Jesus was “made sin” (II Cor. 5:21) on our behalf. He was personally sinless, however, and “it was impossible for Him to be held in death’s power” (Acts 2:24), by the usurping death-agent, “the one having the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14).
From the cross, Jesus exclaimed, “Tetelestai – It is Finished!” He knew that in the death He was dying, He would “accomplish what the Father had sent Him to do” (Jn. 17:4) as a mortal man. He knew that He would “finish” the death captivation of man by the death-dealing destroyer (I Cor. 10:10) of man. He knew that His assumption of death would inevitably allow for the rising forth of divine resurrection life made available to all men for their restoration.
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was God’s “Yes” to the restoration of His divine life in humanity. If our theology does not go beyond redemption in the death of Jesus on the cross, to the restoration of God’s life in humanity by the resurrection, then it ceases to be Christian theology. God’s “final answer” was not the cross. God’s final answer was (and is) the resurrection! In the resurrection of Jesus divine life overcame death, God overcame Satan (I Jn. 3:8; Heb. 2:14). That was historically enacted on that third day when Jesus arose from the dead and exited the tomb, but it was for the purpose of resurrection being personally and spiritually enacted in those receptive to Christ by faith.
It is a sad indictment of contemporary Christian religion to observe how the resurrection is regarded and taught in the churches today. It has become but a token recollection in the annual church calendar.
There will be many sermons in the pulpits of the churches across the world today that adduce a list of apologetic arguments as proofs that the resurrection of Jesus really took place as the gospel writers record. They will be attempting to prove that the physical resurrection of Jesus was indeed an historical miracle that attests to the supernatural power and ability of God. They will be building scaffolding around the doctrine of the historical resurrection of Jesus, apparently concerned that this tenet of their faith might crumble and fall if they cannot convince people that God is capable of accomplishing such an historical miracle, and that it really did occur as an historical event. When the primary objective of popular preaching is to attest to the possibility and accuracy of the historical miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, it tends to have a boomerang effect on the preaching of the gospel. If the historical resurrection needs to be propped up with all this scaffolding of support as the preachers engage in apologetic defensiveness, then what kind of an impotent God do they believe in? If we believe in a sovereign and omnipotent God, then we can accept the miracle of the resurrection as an historical “given.”
Many other Easter messages will be approaching the resurrection of Jesus as a theological argument to verify and prove the deity of Jesus Christ. They seek to explain that the historical miracle of the resurrection lends credence to the Christian claim that Jesus was really God in the flesh. Why do Christians spend so much time and energy trying to apologetically defend the basic tenets of their faith? If God is a God of miracles, as He is, and Jesus is the divine Son of God, as He is, then why don’t Christians begin to build a practicum of application that pertains to the practical ramifications of Christ’s resurrection in contemporary life? If it doesn’t apply to our daily lives, then Christianity is just an historical society for the remembrance of the events of Jesus’ life, or a theological society to contend about the varied explanations of His life. Let’s get on with life!
Still avoiding the present implications of resurrection life, another theological argument based on the resurrection of Jesus is to use the historical miracle of the resurrection as verification for the expectation of the future resurrection of Christians after death. This was, of course, Paul’s argument in that great “resurrection chapter” of I Corinthians 15, but a more comprehensive study reveals that the over-all emphasis on resurrection in Paul’s epistles is not just to connect the past resurrection of Jesus in history to the future resurrection of bodies in heaven. Paul’s primary concern was to demonstrate how the historical resurrection of Jesus served as the triumphant presentation of life out of death, the victory of divine life over diabolic death.
The need of the hour in Christian preaching and teaching is to proclaim the resurrection as a living reality wherein the living Lord Jesus is presently indwelling Christians and living out His resurrection life in Christian behavior. Though Christianity has historical foundations and theological explanations, the vital dynamic that validates Christianity is that Jesus Christ is alive today by the Spirit to indwell the spirits of receptive individuals who will allow Him to live out His life and character in their behavior.
In declaring the purpose of His coming, Jesus said, “I came to give My life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45). He came to die and to allow His death to take the death consequences for all men, releasing them from the grasp of the death-dealing devil. He also said, “I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). He knew that His death would result in resurrection, life out of death, for the sin-source and death-dealer would not be able to capture Him, the Sinless One. His resurrection would allow God’s life to become operative in mankind again as each individual with freedom of choice was willing to receive such life.
The power to bestow and restore God’s life to sinful and fallen mankind was given to Jesus upon His resurrection. Paul explains, “He was declared the Son of God with power (the power to convey life out of death) by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). “Christ is the power of God” (I Cor. 1:24) for the re-lifing, the spiritual regeneration of humanity.
In that great resurrection chapter of I Corinthians 15, Paul wrote, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving spirit” (I Cor. 15:45). The first representative man, Adam, became a living soul when God breathed into him the breath of lives (Gen. 2:7), the spiritual life of Father, Son and Holy by which he could have functioned as God intended by deriving God’s life. But he made the death choice rather than the life choice. Jesus, on the other hand, is the other representative man who came to restore God’s life to man. He is called the “Last Adam,” the Eschatos Man, the last in a sequence of two alternatives. Earlier in the same chapter, Paul wrote, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22). All men are united representatively and spiritually with either Adam or Christ, in either spiritual death or spiritual life. The “last Adam,” Jesus Christ, who came as God-man to die on our behalf, became (by His resurrection and ascension and Pentecostal outpouring) the “life-giving Spirit” to give God’s life to the spirits of receptive persons. To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Now the Lord (Jesus) is the Spirit” (II Cor. 3:17), and “the Spirit gives life” (II Cor. 3:6). The risen and living Lord Jesus now functions as the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) restoring spiritual life to those seeking, desiring, and willing to receive it.
This spiritual life that the Spirit of Christ makes available to mankind is not a detached package of “eternal life” that is but a “benefit” of believing in Jesus. The life that the living Lord Jesus makes available to mankind is Himself. “I AM the resurrection and the life” (Rom. 11:25), Jesus said to Martha, identifying Himself with the I AM of God (Exod. 3:14). “I AM the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6), Jesus explained to His disciples. Jesus is the modality (way), the reality (truth), and the vitality (life) of God Himself. The need of fallen mankind is the restoration of the presence of God’s life in their spirit to energize their behavior in soul and body. The Spirit of Christ is that life. Life is a Person. “I AM the life” (Jn. 14:6), Jesus said. Divine life, spiritual life, eternal life, resurrection life are all the life of the risen and living Lord Jesus. The Apostle John explained, “He that has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (I Jn. 5:12).
How does man partake of the life that is the resurrected Jesus? The apostle Peter indicated that we are “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet. 1:3). The resurrection of Jesus was the prerequisite to the restoration of divine life in man. Using the metaphor of birth for the initiation of life, Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (Jn. 3:7). “Unless one is born from above” (Jn. 3:3), receiving the spiritual life that is God’s life, an individual will not be restored to God’s intent, for God so designed man that it requires the presence of God’s life in man for man to be man as God intended man to be. While still speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus made that most familiar statement, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). To believe is more than just mental assent or affirmation to historical or theological data. To believe is to receive. John wrote, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12,13). There are no proprietary procedures for an individual’s reception of the life that is Jesus. It doesn’t have to happen in a church by walking an aisle, or raising one’s hand, or repeating a “statement of faith.” It doesn’t have to happen by consenting to “four spiritual laws” and praying a “prayer of faith.” An individual simply has to get real with God and desire the life that only God can give.
Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (Jn. 5:24). The one who believes and receives the Spirit of Christ has “passed out of death into life” (I Jn. 3:14). When one becomes a Christian in this way, he participates in a spiritual re-enactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus. To the Roman Christians, Paul explained, “Do you not know that all who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” (Rom. 6:3). “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5), “in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rom. 6:8). “So consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). The person that we were, the “old man,” “has been crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6:6) and “laid aside” (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9), and the Christian is now a “new man” (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), a “new creature” in Christ (II Cor. 5:17), “raised up with Christ” (Col. 3:1), raised up to newness of life by His resurrection life. To the Colossians, Paul wrote, “You were raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead… He made you alive together with Him” (Col. 2:12,13). The divine life that we receive as Christians is His resurrection life. “Christ is our life” (Col. 3:4).
The Christian life is the Christ life dwelling within us and operating through us. “Christ lives in me,” Paul exclaimed, “and the life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). “Do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (II Cor. 13:5), Paul asked the Corinthian Christians. “For me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), Paul explained to the Philippians. The power of God that raised Jesus from the dead is the living power that is now working in us (Eph. 1:18-21), Paul revealed in his prayer for the Christians of Ephesus. Christianity is Christ – living His resurrection life in us.
If the only explanation for me, and the life that I live, is not the living Lord Jesus, then I’m not being Christian. If I’m not different because Jesus is alive in me and living through me (not weird-different or sensational-different, but character-different), then what good is all this resurrection-talk? If the resurrection life of the Spirit of Christ is not lived out in us, validating the living reality of the resurrection, then let the Christian historians dabble with their archaeological data; let the Christian theologians argue about their religious explanations; let the Christian preachers and their parishioners “play church;” for it is all an exercise in futility. If the resurrection doesn’t become living reality in our lives, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of every week of every year, then Jesus died and rose again in vain (cf. I Cor. 15:14). The historical miracle of the resurrection and the theological explanations of the resurrection are meaningless if the living reality of the resurrection life of Jesus does not affect our living and our dying.
Christianity is not just another ideological option that one can stack up against other ideas, and by human reasoning “take it or leave it.” Christianity is not an epistemological belief-system – a “believe-right” religion. Christianity is not a morality system of right and wrong – a “do-right” religion. Christianity is Christ. Christ is life. The option that human creatures have because of Jesus Christ is life or death. Divine life is available in Him, but the choice is ours. As choosing creatures, we can passively choose by our non-choice (i.e. rejection) of Jesus to participate in the only other alternative, the present and everlasting consequences of death. Remember, God is not the punitive, death-dealing God that has determined to judge people and send them to hell. God doesn’t send anyone to hell, but He does respect mankind enough as the choosing creature that He created him to be, to allow an individual to choose the perpetuity of identification with “the one having the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14). “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all might come to repentance” (II Pet. 3:9) and life in Christ Jesus.
What do you think of that statement?
As a take-off from the contemporary television program, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” where each contestant must verify, “That’s my final answer,” I found the statement cute and catchy. Theologically, I found the statement inaccurate and misleading.
If the cross is God’s final answer, then what are we doing here today? Is Easter an irrelevancy?
If the death of Jesus on the execution instrument of a cross is the final answer, then Jesus is just a martyr figure that Christians rally around to persuade others to join their cause -– in this case, their religion.
Martin Luther King is such a martyr figure for the blacks in America, allowing them to emphasize their cause of victimization in the history and policies of America.
Che Guevera is such a martyr figure for the Hispanics, serving as a focal point to emphasize their oppression at the hands of others.
Sayyid Qutb is such a martyr figure for the Muslims, serving as a springboard for radical Islamic terrorism to combat Western civilization. Maybe Saddam Hussein will become a martyr figure for some Arabs in the years to come.
But is that all that Jesus is for Christians?
If the cross is an end in itself, i.e. “God’s final answer,” then all the gruesome execution of Jesus can do is create a martyr figure that allows people to focus on the death of this individual in order to perpetuate a particular ideology. Granted, that is how much of the Christian religion operates in our day, but is that what Christianity was intended to be?
What happened on the cross, the death of Jesus, represents a remedial action. A remedial action is action taken to remedy a problem of deficiency. Many students, for example, are required to take remedial math or remedial English courses in order to qualify for college level courses. The remedial courses remedy and correct the problem of these students’ deficient understanding of the subjects. The problem that needed to be remedied for the human race was a deficiency that disqualified mankind from being man as God intended, and thus from participating in the course of life as God intended man to live.
Original man (represented by Adam and Eve) was given the choice of life and death in the garden. The life choice was to receive from the “tree of life” which represented the derivation of God’s life operative in man. The death choice was to partake of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” concerning which God had said, “In the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Was that a threat by a God who would take punitive action if His intents were violated? Or was that simply a statement of inevitable fact, indicating that the rejection of the power of God’s life would be to open themselves up to the only alternative of “the one having the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14) functioning in them?
The original sin of the original couple (who represented all humanity) allowed death to reign (Rom. 5:17) in the human race. The resultant deficiency of divine life in mankind (fallen man is “devoid of the Spirit” – Jude 19) disqualified humanity from being man as God intended. That is why remedial action was necessitated – so that man could enroll again in the course of life!
The Son of God, who was incarnated as the man, Jesus, was willing to enroll in the remedial course of death on man’s behalf – as an alternative representative man for humanity. He was willing to submit to death, though personally undeserving of such for He was “without sin” (Heb. 4:15; II Cor. 5:21), so that representatively He might substitutionally assume the death consequences of mankind’s sin, and allow His divine life to overcome the “power of death” and make His life available to humanity again.
It makes a difference how we interpret the death of Jesus. Was God the Father an offended deity demanding that a penalty of death be paid for sin before He would forgive mankind? A popular view of the crucifixion seems to cast God as an angry, bloodthirsty, death-dealing God who poured out His punitive wrath and judgment upon His own Son, Jesus, because “somebody’s gotta pay!” Jesus, the Son of God, is often portrayed, on the other hand, as a loving and forgiving side of God who was willing to express divine grace in order to redeem man instead of demanding justice and judgment. What does such a perspective do to God? It divides and divorces the intents of the Father and the Son. It severs the Trinity asunder. The Father is against us; the Son is for us. The Son is acting as our legal advocate attempting to convince the Father, the Judge, to let us off the hook. What a tragic mangling of the oneness of the Triune God.
On the contrary, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit had a unified intent to restore humanity to the divine intent. God was wholly for us in His divine love and grace, and was desirous that death, and “the one having the power of death” (Heb. 2:14) be defeated by assuming death undeservedly via the Son’s assumption of mortal humanity. The restoration of God’s life to man required the assumption of death for man. God’s affirmative “Yes” to man’s redemption and restoration, required the “No” to the death invasion of sin. Via the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross, God said “No” to the misuse and abuse of humanity by the diabolic death-dealing antithesis to the living God, “the god of this age” (II Cor. 4:4). God would no longer tolerate the “one having the power of death” (Heb. 2:14) to hold man hostage (II Tim. 2:26).
The death of Jesus on the cross was the undoing of the Adamic downfall as Jesus voluntarily accepted the death consequences of humanity’s sin. “Obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8), Jesus was “made sin” (II Cor. 5:21) on our behalf. He was personally sinless, however, and “it was impossible for Him to be held in death’s power” (Acts 2:24), by the usurping death-agent, “the one having the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14).
From the cross, Jesus exclaimed, “Tetelestai – It is Finished!” He knew that in the death He was dying, He would “accomplish what the Father had sent Him to do” (Jn. 17:4) as a mortal man. He knew that He would “finish” the death captivation of man by the death-dealing destroyer (I Cor. 10:10) of man. He knew that His assumption of death would inevitably allow for the rising forth of divine resurrection life made available to all men for their restoration.
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was God’s “Yes” to the restoration of His divine life in humanity. If our theology does not go beyond redemption in the death of Jesus on the cross, to the restoration of God’s life in humanity by the resurrection, then it ceases to be Christian theology. God’s “final answer” was not the cross. God’s final answer was (and is) the resurrection! In the resurrection of Jesus divine life overcame death, God overcame Satan (I Jn. 3:8; Heb. 2:14). That was historically enacted on that third day when Jesus arose from the dead and exited the tomb, but it was for the purpose of resurrection being personally and spiritually enacted in those receptive to Christ by faith.
It is a sad indictment of contemporary Christian religion to observe how the resurrection is regarded and taught in the churches today. It has become but a token recollection in the annual church calendar.
There will be many sermons in the pulpits of the churches across the world today that adduce a list of apologetic arguments as proofs that the resurrection of Jesus really took place as the gospel writers record. They will be attempting to prove that the physical resurrection of Jesus was indeed an historical miracle that attests to the supernatural power and ability of God. They will be building scaffolding around the doctrine of the historical resurrection of Jesus, apparently concerned that this tenet of their faith might crumble and fall if they cannot convince people that God is capable of accomplishing such an historical miracle, and that it really did occur as an historical event. When the primary objective of popular preaching is to attest to the possibility and accuracy of the historical miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, it tends to have a boomerang effect on the preaching of the gospel. If the historical resurrection needs to be propped up with all this scaffolding of support as the preachers engage in apologetic defensiveness, then what kind of an impotent God do they believe in? If we believe in a sovereign and omnipotent God, then we can accept the miracle of the resurrection as an historical “given.”
Many other Easter messages will be approaching the resurrection of Jesus as a theological argument to verify and prove the deity of Jesus Christ. They seek to explain that the historical miracle of the resurrection lends credence to the Christian claim that Jesus was really God in the flesh. Why do Christians spend so much time and energy trying to apologetically defend the basic tenets of their faith? If God is a God of miracles, as He is, and Jesus is the divine Son of God, as He is, then why don’t Christians begin to build a practicum of application that pertains to the practical ramifications of Christ’s resurrection in contemporary life? If it doesn’t apply to our daily lives, then Christianity is just an historical society for the remembrance of the events of Jesus’ life, or a theological society to contend about the varied explanations of His life. Let’s get on with life!
Still avoiding the present implications of resurrection life, another theological argument based on the resurrection of Jesus is to use the historical miracle of the resurrection as verification for the expectation of the future resurrection of Christians after death. This was, of course, Paul’s argument in that great “resurrection chapter” of I Corinthians 15, but a more comprehensive study reveals that the over-all emphasis on resurrection in Paul’s epistles is not just to connect the past resurrection of Jesus in history to the future resurrection of bodies in heaven. Paul’s primary concern was to demonstrate how the historical resurrection of Jesus served as the triumphant presentation of life out of death, the victory of divine life over diabolic death.
The need of the hour in Christian preaching and teaching is to proclaim the resurrection as a living reality wherein the living Lord Jesus is presently indwelling Christians and living out His resurrection life in Christian behavior. Though Christianity has historical foundations and theological explanations, the vital dynamic that validates Christianity is that Jesus Christ is alive today by the Spirit to indwell the spirits of receptive individuals who will allow Him to live out His life and character in their behavior.
In declaring the purpose of His coming, Jesus said, “I came to give My life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; Mk. 10:45). He came to die and to allow His death to take the death consequences for all men, releasing them from the grasp of the death-dealing devil. He also said, “I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). He knew that His death would result in resurrection, life out of death, for the sin-source and death-dealer would not be able to capture Him, the Sinless One. His resurrection would allow God’s life to become operative in mankind again as each individual with freedom of choice was willing to receive such life.
The power to bestow and restore God’s life to sinful and fallen mankind was given to Jesus upon His resurrection. Paul explains, “He was declared the Son of God with power (the power to convey life out of death) by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). “Christ is the power of God” (I Cor. 1:24) for the re-lifing, the spiritual regeneration of humanity.
In that great resurrection chapter of I Corinthians 15, Paul wrote, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving spirit” (I Cor. 15:45). The first representative man, Adam, became a living soul when God breathed into him the breath of lives (Gen. 2:7), the spiritual life of Father, Son and Holy by which he could have functioned as God intended by deriving God’s life. But he made the death choice rather than the life choice. Jesus, on the other hand, is the other representative man who came to restore God’s life to man. He is called the “Last Adam,” the Eschatos Man, the last in a sequence of two alternatives. Earlier in the same chapter, Paul wrote, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22). All men are united representatively and spiritually with either Adam or Christ, in either spiritual death or spiritual life. The “last Adam,” Jesus Christ, who came as God-man to die on our behalf, became (by His resurrection and ascension and Pentecostal outpouring) the “life-giving Spirit” to give God’s life to the spirits of receptive persons. To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Now the Lord (Jesus) is the Spirit” (II Cor. 3:17), and “the Spirit gives life” (II Cor. 3:6). The risen and living Lord Jesus now functions as the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) restoring spiritual life to those seeking, desiring, and willing to receive it.
This spiritual life that the Spirit of Christ makes available to mankind is not a detached package of “eternal life” that is but a “benefit” of believing in Jesus. The life that the living Lord Jesus makes available to mankind is Himself. “I AM the resurrection and the life” (Rom. 11:25), Jesus said to Martha, identifying Himself with the I AM of God (Exod. 3:14). “I AM the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6), Jesus explained to His disciples. Jesus is the modality (way), the reality (truth), and the vitality (life) of God Himself. The need of fallen mankind is the restoration of the presence of God’s life in their spirit to energize their behavior in soul and body. The Spirit of Christ is that life. Life is a Person. “I AM the life” (Jn. 14:6), Jesus said. Divine life, spiritual life, eternal life, resurrection life are all the life of the risen and living Lord Jesus. The Apostle John explained, “He that has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (I Jn. 5:12).
How does man partake of the life that is the resurrected Jesus? The apostle Peter indicated that we are “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Pet. 1:3). The resurrection of Jesus was the prerequisite to the restoration of divine life in man. Using the metaphor of birth for the initiation of life, Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again” (Jn. 3:7). “Unless one is born from above” (Jn. 3:3), receiving the spiritual life that is God’s life, an individual will not be restored to God’s intent, for God so designed man that it requires the presence of God’s life in man for man to be man as God intended man to be. While still speaking to Nicodemus, Jesus made that most familiar statement, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:16). To believe is more than just mental assent or affirmation to historical or theological data. To believe is to receive. John wrote, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12,13). There are no proprietary procedures for an individual’s reception of the life that is Jesus. It doesn’t have to happen in a church by walking an aisle, or raising one’s hand, or repeating a “statement of faith.” It doesn’t have to happen by consenting to “four spiritual laws” and praying a “prayer of faith.” An individual simply has to get real with God and desire the life that only God can give.
Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (Jn. 5:24). The one who believes and receives the Spirit of Christ has “passed out of death into life” (I Jn. 3:14). When one becomes a Christian in this way, he participates in a spiritual re-enactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus. To the Roman Christians, Paul explained, “Do you not know that all who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” (Rom. 6:3). “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5), “in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rom. 6:8). “So consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). The person that we were, the “old man,” “has been crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6:6) and “laid aside” (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9), and the Christian is now a “new man” (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), a “new creature” in Christ (II Cor. 5:17), “raised up with Christ” (Col. 3:1), raised up to newness of life by His resurrection life. To the Colossians, Paul wrote, “You were raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead… He made you alive together with Him” (Col. 2:12,13). The divine life that we receive as Christians is His resurrection life. “Christ is our life” (Col. 3:4).
The Christian life is the Christ life dwelling within us and operating through us. “Christ lives in me,” Paul exclaimed, “and the life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). “Do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (II Cor. 13:5), Paul asked the Corinthian Christians. “For me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), Paul explained to the Philippians. The power of God that raised Jesus from the dead is the living power that is now working in us (Eph. 1:18-21), Paul revealed in his prayer for the Christians of Ephesus. Christianity is Christ – living His resurrection life in us.
If the only explanation for me, and the life that I live, is not the living Lord Jesus, then I’m not being Christian. If I’m not different because Jesus is alive in me and living through me (not weird-different or sensational-different, but character-different), then what good is all this resurrection-talk? If the resurrection life of the Spirit of Christ is not lived out in us, validating the living reality of the resurrection, then let the Christian historians dabble with their archaeological data; let the Christian theologians argue about their religious explanations; let the Christian preachers and their parishioners “play church;” for it is all an exercise in futility. If the resurrection doesn’t become living reality in our lives, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of every week of every year, then Jesus died and rose again in vain (cf. I Cor. 15:14). The historical miracle of the resurrection and the theological explanations of the resurrection are meaningless if the living reality of the resurrection life of Jesus does not affect our living and our dying.
Christianity is not just another ideological option that one can stack up against other ideas, and by human reasoning “take it or leave it.” Christianity is not an epistemological belief-system – a “believe-right” religion. Christianity is not a morality system of right and wrong – a “do-right” religion. Christianity is Christ. Christ is life. The option that human creatures have because of Jesus Christ is life or death. Divine life is available in Him, but the choice is ours. As choosing creatures, we can passively choose by our non-choice (i.e. rejection) of Jesus to participate in the only other alternative, the present and everlasting consequences of death. Remember, God is not the punitive, death-dealing God that has determined to judge people and send them to hell. God doesn’t send anyone to hell, but He does respect mankind enough as the choosing creature that He created him to be, to allow an individual to choose the perpetuity of identification with “the one having the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14). “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all might come to repentance” (II Pet. 3:9) and life in Christ Jesus.
Resurrection
The gospel is the message of the resurrection. The Gospel IS resurrection. Christianity is the expression of the resurrection. Christianity IS resurrection. Someone might say: "But Christianity is Christ!" That is true, but Jesus Christ said, "I AM the Resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). Jesus Christ is the content, the essence of resurrection-life. Jesus never said, "I AM the Cross", but He did say, "I AM the resurrection". The resurrection is the expression of the dynamic of all that Jesus IS. In fact, the resurrection is the reality of all that Christianity IS. The vital understanding of everything that is Christian is in the resurrection. Resurrection-life is the focal point of all Christian teaching the starting point from which everything must be appraised, evaluated and interpreted EVERYTHING! Everything prior in time, time itself, and everything that follows chronologically, logically and theologically can only correctly be understood in light of the resurrection; all human history, all human thought.
Many have expressed this centrality of Christian teaching in the resurrection:
"One's whole theology is determined by one's view of the resurrection."1All of history, and especially Biblical history, must be interpreted by the resurrection. Those who preceeded the resurrection were who they were, and did what they did, because of what was, Who was, to happen in the resurrection.
"All Christian doctrines do nothing more or less than manifest some facet of the basic affirmation of the resurrection.2
"Justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification, as applied to believers, are derived from the significance of the resurrection.3
"The resurrection is the first and last and dominating element in the Christian consciousness of the New Testament."4
"All New Testament facts have to be broached from the key position of the resurrection. Paul's thinking in all his utterances rotates around one unifying centre, and that centre is the raising of Christ from the dead."5
"The raising of Christ is THE act of God, whose significance is not to be compared with any event before or after. It is the primal datum of theology, from which there can be no abstracting, and the normative presupposition for every valid dogmatic judgment and for the meaningful construction of a Christian theology. Thus the resurrection of Jesus becomes the Archimedean point for theology. All theological statements are oriented in one way or another toward this focal point. There is no Christian knowledge of God which does not acquire its ultimate fullness and depth from a revelation of God in the Risen One."6
But the resurrection is so totally different from any other historical fact, that it cannot be considered by the same guidelines or criteria of circumstantial evidence. It is beyond historical categories. All else must be considered in the light of, in the context of, the resurrection. If the resurrection of Jesus were just another historical miracle, then Christianity is but a dead religion! In the resurrection God breaks into history; eternity breaks into time; God re-creates humanity; God establishes the social order He intended.
Christianity IS resurrection. At Easter time we do not just celebrate another event in history even if it be regarded as the greatest event in history. Resurrection is not just an historical event; it is an on-going dynamic of the life of God in Jesus Christ. We do not just assent to the historicity or theological accuracy of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; we encounter resurrection. We encounter and have personal relationship with the One who is "the resurrection and the life." (John 11:25). One cannot count themselves a "Christian" unless they have encountered, received, and are participating in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.
In order to demonstrate that resurrection is that which constitutes all of that which is called "Christian", I want to consider several categories, both chronological and theological, that can only be properly understood by the reality of the resurrection:
(1) CREATION. To attempt to understand creation God's bringing into being of the world apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, may cause one to arrive at Shakespeare's conclusion: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players...; "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Creation has no direction apart from the resurrection. To view creation apart from resurrection is to arrive at either evolutionary hodge-podge or at the rigid formulas of "creationism," and both are just as meaningless. Man as mere potentiality is not an exalted view of his createdness.
Creation is invested with meaning only when we look back at it from the perspective of resurrection. Jesus Christ was active in creation as Creator (John 1:3: Col. 1:16); as the indwelling presence of the Divine character that was to be visibly expressed, i.e. imaged, in man (Gen. 1:26,27). The initial Genesis creation "set the stage" for the "new creation" brought into being in Jesus Christ (Gal. 6:16). By the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have the fulfillment of creation, the re-creation of a new functional humanity (Eph. 2:15), wherein the "image" is restored so that the Divine character might be expressed in righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24).
A Christian understanding of creation must take into account the resurrection.
(2) FALL OF MAN. If the Fall of man is taken as the starting point of one's theological understanding, then righting the wrong of sin becomes the end-objective. If our theology begins in Genesis chapter 3, then it will conclude at the cross, and be nothing more than a "Mr. Fix-It Theology."
Only when we consider the Fall of man from the perspective of the resurrection, do we understand the active energizing of death by the devil (Heb. 2:14), the extent to which the unregenerate are "slaves of sin" (John 8:34), and the radical spiritual exchange of conversion when men turn from the dominion of satan to God (Acts 26:18).
The Fall of man can only be understood from a Christian point of view by looking backwards from the resurrection and the restoration of life therein.
(3) ISRAEL. Apart from the resurrection we might conclude with Ogden Nash, "How odd of God, to choose the Jews." The Jewish people, the nation of Israel; they were not faithful and obedient. They were selfish, idolatrous, nationalistic and racist. If they are to be regarded, unconditionally, as "God's chosen people", then God might well be represented as a racist God, a God who is a "respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34).
Looking back at Israel in the Old Testament from a resurrection perspective, we understand that they were a "picture-people" intended to illustrate what God was to do in the resurrection in raising up a people for His own possession, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (I Peter 2:9). The physical Israel of the Old Testament represented a people "set apart" to function as intended, but they failed to thus function because of unbelief and disobedience (Heb. 3:16-4:6). By the resurrection of Jesus all Christians become the "Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16; Rom. 9:6); people "set apart" to function as intended; people who can collectively be called "Israel" because we have fought with God, surrendered to God and been conquered by God, spiritually.
The resurrection gives us an eternal perspective of who the people of Israel really are.
(4) PROPHETS. If the prophets of the Old Testament are considered apart from the resurrection of Jesus, they might indeed appear to be "blowing in the wind," as Bob Dylan sang. Apart from the spiritual implications of the resurrection they would be rambling rabble-rousers, mere doomsday sayers; and much of what they said would not have come true --- they would be false-prophets!
Much of what the prophets said requires the resurrection to make any sense. The prophets of the Old Testament saw glimpses, both of the resurrection itself (Acts 2:31) and the many implications thereof: that He would be king on the throne of David (Ezekiel 37:24,25; Luke 1:32,33), that He would be a light to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47,48), etc.
The prophets of the Old Testament cannot be properly understood except from a resurrection perspective.
(5) INCARNATION. To attempt to contemplate the incarnation of Jesus Christ apart from the resurrection will simply boggle the human mind. Discussion of hypostatic union and kenotic theories are but "dead ends" if the incarnation does not lead to something more than an unexplainable historical phenomena of One who is inexplicably both God and man in one person. The apologist's alternatives of regarding the historical Jesus as either a "liar" or a "lunatic" would be the only logical choices.
The resurrection invests the incarnation with a fullness of meaning that points to the incarnation of God in all mankind. "God was in Christ" (II Cor. 5:19), and by the resurrected-life of Jesus can dwell in every man. "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14) in Jesus, and God wants to be manifested in the flesh of all Christians (II Cor. 4:11). Jesus was "Emmanuel" (Matt. 1:23), and God intended to be with and in everyone who would receive the resurrection dynamic of Christ by faith.
The incarnation becomes a prototype of deity functioning within humanity when viewed through its universal fulfillment in the resurrection.
(6) LIFE OF JESUS. From an historical perspective that fails to account for the resurrection, the life of Jesus here on earth was but an incomparable ideal and an impossible example. If Jesus lived the life that He lived simply because He was God, deity, something that no mortal man can be, then His matchless moral example simply condemns us all the more.
By the resurrection we come to appreciate the dynamic that made the life of Jesus what it was. He lived by the Life of Another - He let God be God in Him for every moment in time for thirty-three years. "I do nothing of My own initiative," He said, "The Father abiding in Me does His works" (John 14:10). Even His miracles were but what God did through Him (Acts 2:22). Thus He modeled the life of a man, normal humanity, a man who let God be God in a man, man as God intended. By resurrection He makes that same dynamic of life available to Christians.
The behavioral expression of the life of Jesus here on earth is only encouraging to us today because of the resurrection. The life lived once in Christ can be lived in us.
(7) CRUCIFIXION. The emphasis on the Cross has often been allowed to usurp the centrality of the resurrection in Christian teaching. To divorce the cross from the resurrection is to develop a "gospel of gore", a bloody religion that is ghastly and grotesque. The death emphasis of the cross leads to masochistic forms of flagellation, be they physical or psychological ("death to self"). To consider the Cross apart from the resurrection is the springboard for innumerable theories of the atonement, but it creates a most negative and sin-conscious religion. In fact the detachment of the crucifixion from the resurrection diminishes the vicarious and sacrificial elements of the Lamb slain for the sins of the world.
The crucifixion of Christ on the cross of Calvary is not an end in itself. It was but a remedial action, to remedy the problem of the death consequences of man's sin. The problems of sin and death and satan's dominion were remedied at the cross. God then made His Life available to mankind by the resurrection. On the cross, Jesus exclaimed, "It is Finished!" (John 19:30); He saw ahead to the completed work of God in the resurrection. Whenever Paul refers to "the word of the cross" (I Cor. 1:18; Gal. 6:14), and preaching "Christ crucified" (I Cor. 2:2), He always does so from the perspective of the "finished work" of the resurrection.
The crucifixion postulates but a popular martyr-hero unless it is invested with meaning by the resurrection, wherein the crucifixion becomes God's "No" to death and sin, and the resurrection becomes God's "Yes" to Life for all mankind.
(8) PENTECOST. Apart from the full import of the resurrection, the Pentecost experience recorded in Acts chapter two becomes but an initiation demonstration at the commencement of the church. Many mistakenly look back to Pentecost as the necessary expression of ecstatic utterances and glossalalia that is to be indicative of all genuine Christian experience. Pentecost becomes the event when God distributed His gifts, trophies and "power-toys."
Only by an understanding of the resurrection can Pentecost be properly understood as the out-pouring of the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus. The Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9) was made available to indwell all mankind who would receive Him by faith. The risen Lord Jesus in spiritual form came to empower Christian people (Rom. 1:4; Eph. 1:19,20) at Pentecost. This is what accounts for the impact of the early church on the world around it: they lived like they did, and did what they did, by the resurrection-power of the Spirit of Christ within them.
Pentecost must be viewed as a demonstration of the availability of resurrection.
(9) SECOND COMING. The Second Coming of Jesus to earth is so often interpreted apart from the resurrection implications. By the resurrection, Jesus was raised to reign on the spiritual throne of David over the spiritual kingdom of God. Many deny these resurrection realities and believe that Jesus will come again to establish a physical kingdom, having failed to become a priest-king the first time He came. They have sacrificed the resurrection to crass materialistic, nationalistic and racial expectations.
When viewed in the light of the resurrection, the second coming of Jesus becomes the glorious consummation of God's spiritual kingdom. Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus.
(10) END OF TIME. The end of time when considered apart from the resurrection, will indeed be meaningless and purposeless. That is why "nihilism" has become such a prominent idea -- the philosophy of "nothingness" -- that nothing makes sense, it all amounts to nothing. Others look to the end of time as but the opportunity to break the cycle of meaningless life, to get "off the wheel" and to be obliterated into the nothingness of Nirvana. Such viewpoints are devoid of the hope that is in the resurrection alone.
From the perspective of Christ's resurrection, the end of time is the consummation of time when Christians glory in the eternality of the new heaven and the new earth, and the unhindered enjoyment of the eternal life that is ours already in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Now let us consider the resurrection implications in various theological categories:
(1) REDEMPTION. To consider the redemption of God in Jesus Christ apart from the resurrection is to sell it short of the price paid. Redemption means to "buy back" with the payment of a price. It was the terminology of the slave market in Biblical times. But to be bought out of slavery with a ransom payment, is not enough if we are not emancipated, set free, liberated. Redemption without resurrection is to be "bought with a price" (I Cor. 6:20) -- the ransom price of Christ's death on the cross -- but to disregard the emancipation.
It is by the resurrection that we are "set free, so as not to be subject again to a yoke of slavery" (Gal. 5:1). The resurrection establishes the glorious objective of redemption. We are bought with a price in order to be all that God intended man to be; redeemed for God's use and expression of His glorious character in functional humanity.
The resurrection invests redemption with the full content of its purchase price.
(2) REGENERATION. There is so much talk about being "born again" in religious circles today, but much of it is bankrupt because it does not incorporate the resurrection. For some, being "born again" is a renaissance of one's thinking, a re-orientation of one's life, or a subjective experience of heart-felt rejuvenation. Apart from the resurrection, regeneration is as absurd a concept as it was to Nicodemus in John chapter three, where Jesus' mention of "born again" conjured up mental images of an obstetric return to the womb of his mother.
The resurrection is the reality that invests regeneration with meaning. Jesus was raised from the dead, life out of death, in order that we might be "raised to newness of life" (Rom. 6:4) in Christ Jesus. Jesus IS the resurrection and the life (John 11:25) with which (Whom) we are re-lifed spiritually in regeneration. (John 14:6; Col. 3:4). Regeneration is not facilitated by the cross, but rather by the resurrection. I Peter 1:3 - "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."
Regeneration is a re-genesis, bringing man into being again spiritually, rebreathing into man the "breath of life" (Genesis 2:7). Thus we become a new creature in Christ (II Cor 5:17), a "new man" (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10) with the image of God restored in man. Regeneration is the resurrection-life of Jesus brought into being in the Christian.
(3) JUSTIFICATION. "Justification" is a Biblical word that has been much confused and misunderstood by Christians because it has been defined apart from the resurrection. The popular explanation is that God, the heavenly Judge sits in His heavenly courtroom, and when a person believes in His Son, Jesus Christ, the Judge bangs down His gavel, saying, "Declared righteous!" Thus justification becomes a legal acquittal, a word of pardon, the non-imputation of sin, "just-as-if-I'd" never sinned. But the declaration is regarded as a legal fiction which is on the heavenly accounting books, having no practical effect in terms of behavioral righteousness in one's life today.
The resurrection invests justification with practical implications for Christian behavior today. The Risen One is the Righteous One - Jesus Christ. Paul indicates in Romans 4:25 that Jesus "was raised for our justification." The resurrection-life of Jesus that comes to dwell in us when the Spirit of Christ is in our spirit (Rom. 8:16), is righteous-life. We are "made righteous" (Rom. 5:19); we become the "righteousness of God in Christ" (II Cor 5:21); Christ Jesus becomes to us righteousness (I Cor. 1:30). The righteous character of the Righteous God is actualized in us by the resurrection-life of Jesus.
Justification requires the living content of resurrection in order to be properly understood.
(4) SALVATION. Salvation has been trivialized by its separation from the resurrection in contemporary evangelical theology. Salvation separated from the resurrection is conceived of as but a rescue from the results of sin or a "fire insurance policy" from the effects of hell. Likewise, salvation apart from the resurrection dynamic is regarded as but a commodity of "eternal life" which one can "possess" by reason of one's attestation of the historicity and doctrine of Jesus Christ; a spiritual benefit dispensed by a benefactor. Salvation apart from resurrection is merely preventative or beneficient.
Only when salvation is understood in the on-going continuity of the resurrection-life of Jesus Christ, only then does salvation remain connected with the work of the eternal Savior. Salvation does "make safe" from the dysfunctional humanity enslaved to sin, but Christians are saved unto the functional humanity of the Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ living through us. We are "saved by His life" (Rom. 5:10), as the resurrection-life of Jesus, the "saving life of Christ" is operative in our behavior.
The resurrection gives salvation a positive vitality, which is far more than escapism.
(5) GRACE. Because resurrection has been absent from evangelical conceptions of grace, the grace of God has been relegated to merely "redemptive grace" (God's Redemption At Christ's Expense) or the threshold factor of "saving grace." When grace is thus interpreted as static event or experience, it is then dispensed with for any practical purpose, and gives way to law, legalism and the performance of self-effort. The Christian life is regarded by many Christians as a life of performance, commitment and involvement.
The Grace-life of Christianity can only be understood in the context of the resurrection. The free-flow of God's activity is made operative in Christian lives by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Christian life is the resurrection-grace-life. Paul says, "I am who I am by the grace of God" (I Cor. 15:10). The Christian life is all of grace or it is not Christian life.
(6) FAITH. Faith, apart from resurrection becomes but mental assent to a belief system, or dogmatic assertions of the veracity of propositional truth from the Book. Worse yet, faith may be regarded as superstitious expectations which are no more than "faith in faith."
Biblical faith can only be understood and exercised in the context of resurrection-grace. Faith is the response of reliance on the resurrection dynamic of God in Christ. Faith is our receptivity to His resurrection activity.
(7) SANCTIFICATION. Sanctification, apart from resurrection, will inevitably be conceived in terms of externals. It may be the externals of attire and possessions, avoiding what appears "worldly" and utilizing the out-dated which appears more "spiritual." Sanctification is sometimes regarded as the impossible ideal of a perfect life to be lived by imitating the life of Jesus Christ. Sanctification is most often conceived of as behavior governed by morality and ethics, the codification of behavior into rules and regulations, techniques and formulas, how-tos; the legalistic conformity to which is regarded as holiness.
Sanctification can only be understood and experienced by the resurrection-life of Jesus. It is the process of allowing the holy character of God to be lived out in our behavior as the Risen Lord Jesus lives out His life through us. It is the "life of Jesus manifested in our mortal bodies" (II Cor 4:10). Sanctification is resurrection-living!
(8) HOLY SPIRIT. Considerations of the Holy Spirit apart from the resurrection either "box" Him into a theological box as "the third person of the Godhead," or set Him up as a spiritual "stimulant", a power-force, that is available as a super-spiritual experience, subsequent to receiving Jesus Christ in regeneration.
The Holy Spirit cannot be properly understood in the life of the Christian apart from the resurrection. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Risen Lord Jesus. Paul writes in II Cor. 3:17, "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The Holy Spirit is present in the spirit of every genuine Christian (Rom. 8:16), to express the resurrection-life of Jesus Christ in character and activity.
(9) CHURCH. Apart from the resurrection-dynamic of Jesus Christ, the Church becomes a mere historical or theological society for further discussion of the same. Sometimes it becomes a fellowship of like-minded believers, gathering for subjective "worship" experiences. When the church becomes a social organization or religious institution it binds people up in the absolutism, authoritarianism and activism of religion.
Only on the basis of the resurrection does the Church become the collective Body of the life of the Risen Lord Jesus. The church is intended to be the collective expression and interactions of those "called-out" to function in resurrection-life; Jesus Christ living in resurrection community, the inaugurated kingdom of God, the fulfillment of the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16; Rom. 9:6).
(10) ESCHATOLOGY. When the resurrection-dynamic of Jesus Christ is misunderstood, then the consideration of "last things" often degenerates into mere speculative "futurism," with their voluminous linear time-lines and charts. On the other hand it may become a campaign of social reform to create a "new world order."
When Christians understand the resurrection, then the consideration of "last things", i.e. eschatology, is not "utopianism." By the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has established the "last things", the "last days". Jesus Christ is the "first and the last", the "alpha and the omega", the Creator and the End. All that God has designed for man is inaugurated and realized in Jesus Christ, and that by the resurrection.
Christianity IS resurrection, the resurrection dynamic and Life of Jesus Christ operative in everything. The resurrection is not just an historical or theological fact to be believed; He is a living Person to be received by faith, moment by moment in every situation of our existence. Jesus said, "I AM the Resurrection and the Life" (John 11:25), and the implications of that are beyond the abilities of human contemplation.
Christianity IS Resurrection, because Jesus IS Resurrection and Life. Oh, that those who call themselves "Christians" today might understand what it meant for Jesus to be raised from the dead on that first Easter morning. It was Eternity intersecting into time with "eternal life." It was God re-creating humanity and society. It was God interpreting all of history. It was God in Christ bringing Life to a world dead in sin.
Christianity IS Resurrection. Have you received resurrection? Are you enjoying resurrection?
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