Lord’s Resurrection Day I
Secondly, the resurrection proves that the Lord Christ is indeed God, (2) which in turn confirms that the work of Christ on the cross was a payment for sin that truly saves all who rightly believe. (3)
Thirdly, the resurrection makes certain that we have closed with Christ do wear the righteousness of Christ, (4) and thus no longer remain in our sin, (5) since we too have been raised with Christ. (6)
Fourthly, now being clothed in the righteousness of Christ the resurrection power of God working within us (7) promises (8) and enables (9) us to live lives increasingly consistent with the righteousness given to us in Christ.
Fifthly, the resurrection of our Lord Christ is a certain promise that we who have embraced Christ will also resurrect in a like manner and so not remain captive to the grave. (10)
Finally, the resurrection proves that grace restores nature as in the resurrection we remain joined to our gender (11), our nation (12), our bodies with all their earthly scars (13) and capacities (14).
(1) = John 2:19, Hebrews 6:18
Breaking the above down,
2.) Q — Since then the resurrection is true what certainties do we who rightly believe receive from this doctrine of Christ?
A. — First, that God by the resurrection has again confirmed that He does not speak without keeping His Word. (1)
John 2:19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
Matthew 12:40 because just as Jonah was in the stomach of the sea creature for three days and three nights,[b] so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.
We are living in a time of an epistemological crisis. People insist that the only authoritative word is their own authoritative Word. This is seen in the way that everything is being reduced to being a “social construct.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ proves again that there is an objective Word as found in Scripture and that God’s Word is reliable. The Lord Christ spoke of His coming Resurrection and His spoken Word was and remains true.
Because the Resurrection confirms that God keeps His Word we who believe God’s Word have a sure and certain foundation. We do not live by a word of flux but by a stable always true Word. The Resurrection of Christ confirms this.
Secondly, the resurrection proves that the Lord Christ is indeed God, (2)
Romans 1:4 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
Now Jesus’ own enemies understood that Jesus’ claims to be God’s Son was a claim to deity and desired to stone Jesus for what they considered blasphemy.
John 10: 31 Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?
There are those today who want to insist that Jesus was a good man. The Muslims for example will concede that Jesus was a Prophet but they deny His Deity. The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives people today no choice. Either they hold Him as very God of very God and so honor Him or else they deny His Resurrection and Deity and so show their contempt of Him whatever they may say.
The resurrection confirms the Deity of Jesus Christ. He was and is very God of very God. The resurrection was God’s declaration of the deity of His Son who was eternally begotten.
This means fallen man is obligated to own Christ and worship Him as God. Where fallen man fails to worship Christ as God fallen man calls upon Himself God’s wrath.
And this proof of Christ’s deity in turn confirms that the work of Christ on the cross was a payment for sin that truly saves all who rightly believe. (3)
I Cor. 15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
The Resurrection confirms for us that the Cross was really about what the Scripture teaches it was about. If there had been no Resurrection there would have been no reason to believe that the Cross was really a payment for sin. There would be no reason to believe that the Cross was a divine transaction where the Son pays for the sin of the Church while at the same time the Church is reckoned with His righteousness. Without the Resurrection, Jesus is just at best a Jewish man unjustly dying on a tree-like so many others crucified. Without the Resurrection, we remain in our sin and are of all men to be pitied.
The resurrection then is the ability of all believers everywhere to say “I know that my sins are forgiven and I no longer have to fear the judgment of God because my judgment fell on Jesus Christ as my substitute.” The Resurrection proves that.
Thirdly, the resurrection makes certain that we who have closed with Christ do wear the righteousness of Christ, (4) and thus no longer remain in our sin, (5) since we too have been raised with Christ. (6)
Romans 4:25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Again, Christ was raised to life for our Justification.
Here we see the tightest possible connection between our righteousness and Christ’s resurrection. Christ’s resurrection was and is our Justification … our acceptability before the Father. Christ’s resurrection guarantees that when the Father considers us He considers us as being clothed with Christ’s obedience. Because of the death and resurrection of Christ, I no longer have to fear God’s wrath against sin. Without the resurrection, there is no peace to be had in life.
Further, we have to see that in Christ’s Resurrection we were objectively justified. Christ in His death and Resurrection justified His people. Now, to be sure the Holy Spirit would have to subjectively apply that justification in space and time but the Son in His Redemptive work of the Cross and His Resurrection set apart His people as the Justified ones. Our objective Justification is found in the Resurrection.
Scripture even goes so far as to say that the Church has risen with Christ (Col. 3:1). This is St. Paul’s way of saying that because of the work of Christ in bringing in the new creation (Kingdom) it can be said that right now we are living the resurrection life. The Resurrection of Christ was and is our Resurrection. We are Resurrected people of the age to come living in this present wicked age. This could be true apart from the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Fourthly, now being clothed in the righteousness of Christ the resurrection power of God working within us (7) promises (8) and enables (9) us to live lives increasingly consistent with the righteousness given to us in Christ.
Scripture teaches that the same power that raised Christ is now working in the people of God speaking of,
Ephesians 1:19 his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,
That resurrection power is unto the end of conforming us ever increasingly to Christ.
Romans 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
This new life that Paul is talking about here is the resurrected life. We are new men in the Resurrected Christ and so we live ever increasingly the resurrected life.
Romans 6:10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
As life goes on we continue to die to who we were in Adam and we increasingly live to who we are in the Resurrected Christ. Being Christ’s Resurrection people we are ever zealous for good works and make it our goal to please our great Liege Lord Jesus Christ.
Fifthly, the resurrection of our Lord Christ is a certain promise that we who have embraced Christ will also resurrect in a like manner and so not remain captive to the grave. (10)
I Cor. 15:20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.
The undertaker doesn’t get the final word.
We are in a culture that is obsessed with the fear of death. That is part of what the ChiCom Virus panic is all about. People are freaking out about the prospects of dying.
The Christian however, because of Christ’s resurrection knows that the end is not the end.
Christ was the firstfruits. In the OT economy, the first fruits were promissory of the fruits that were to follow. Christ’s physical and corporeal resurrection is promissory of our future bodily physical resurrection. There is life after life.
Only the Christian has this hope. All other men can only look forward to eternal death. All other men who do not have Christ attend funerals as those who are just waiting their turn.
The Christian doesn’t want to die but when he stares at death he knows His redeemer liveth and that in the end, his Redeemer will stand on the earth. The believer in Christ knows that after his skin has been destroyed, yet in his flesh, he will see God. Because of Christ the believer
Goes not to death, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, We approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
The unbeliever knows that the opposite is true for him.
Because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the believer knows that he knows that he will be “gathered to his fathers,” where the circle will finally be unbroken — and all this because of the Redemptive work of His great High King and Priest, Jesus Christ.
Finally, the resurrection proves that grace restores nature as in the resurrection we remain joined to our gender (11), our nation (12), our bodies with all their earthly scars (13) and capacities (14).
After the Resurrection Jesus remained male, He remained as one who was from the tribe of Judah, He remained scarred, and He ate breakfast with His disciples. The Resurrection did not destroy nature but rather restored and enhanced nature. There is continuity between who we were in this life and who we shall be in the life to come in our glorified and resurrected bodies. Of course, there will also be a discontinuity between who we are now and who we shall be in the Resurrection.
Like Jesus, the firstfruits of our Resurrection, we shall remain joined to our Gender. Heaven will not negate us of our maleness or femaleness. We shall remain joined to our Nationality and ethnicity. Those passages cited in Revelation distinctly insist that it is the nations as nations who occupy the New Jerusalem. There will be people present from every tribe, tongue, and Nation but as members of their tribes, tongues, and Nations. The Resurrection does not strip God’s people of whom God made them by way of creation.
This idea that finds such currency in the contemporary Church in the West that somehow conversion strips us of who we are creationally is a lie from the pit. Not only does conversion does not gnosticize us but neither does Resurrection turn us into Gnostic beings.
Finally, as Jesus said “For I tell you that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes,” we understand that even our glorified bodies will have the capacity to eat, and drink, and be merry. Our natural capacities will not be destroyed.
So, we see that the truth of the Resurrection is entwined with many other stout Christian truths both confirming and sustaining those truths.
Christ is Risen.
(1) = John 2:19, Hebrews 6:18
(2) = Romans 1:4
(3) = I Corinthians 15:17
(4) = Romans 4:25
(5) = I Corinthians 15:17
(6) = Colossian 3:1
(7) = Ephesians 1:19-20
(8) = Romans 6:4
(9) = Romans 6;10-11
(10) = I Corinthians 15:20-21
(11) = John 20:26-27
(12) = Revelation 21:24, 26, 22:2
(13) = John 20:26-27
(14)= Luke 24:43
