- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
“Raised on the Third Day” (1 Corinthians 15 v4).
By John Davis.
This is the most astounding statement ever made about anybody in the history of the world. Someone dead and buried, yet physically, literally, historically resurrected from that condition. What must be the cosmic implications of this incredible fact? He was raised, “according to the Scriptures”, the Old Testament. This was no mere resuscitation or temporary recovery like Lazarus, who subsequently died! Peter interprets this event by saying, “it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him - Christ” (Acts 2 v24). That is not surprising for if God became Man, then it is no wonder that He would be able to deal with our greatest problem, death! Also, why would He have come? Have we a greater problem than sin and its result which is death?
Peter states that David, hundreds of years before the event, “seeing what was ahead, spoke of the resurrection of the Christ”. The fact is that Christianity stands or falls with the resurrection - it is either the greatest miracle or the greatest delusion which history records.
What we need to ask is - how does the resurrection of Christ, two thousand years ago, impinge on our lives? It has importance in at least three areas:
1. Our Perception of God. What is harder to believe than the resurrection is that the Godhead has been changed since Christ’s Ascension into heaven. Our humanity has been taken up into the Godhead! Paul speaks of Christ in heaven as our present mediator (1 Timothy 2 v5), “There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus". This does not imply that Christ is not God, but that He is representing us in His perfect humanity, the same type of humanity we will have after our resurrection. This also implies that Christ’s physical resurrection validates our humanity, for it was not an after-thought as far as God was concerned. He planned for our humanity to be eternal, even before the fall. This throws out the Gnostic idea that material, the physical, is evil. It rejects the concept that the soul is pure and is imprisoned in the body. It gives far greater value and importance to the physical body than we can possibly imagine, our bodies are the very dwelling place of God by His Holy Spirit.
The nature of the resurrection body is different from our present state but there is a direct link between our present physical body, which is mortal, and the body we receive at the resurrection, which will be physical but immortal. We have therefore our “Great High Priest, who has gone through the heavens who is able to sympathise with our present weaknesses because He was tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4 v14). Christ did not enter a man made sanctuary, He entered “heaven itself now to appear for us in God’s presence”. Our perception of God is now that He is on our side, we have an Advocate, one who represents our cause, because He knows where we are coming from.
It has been explained in this way, ‘Christ stands in God’s presence representing us, exhibiting, as it were, in His own person what He guarantees we shall be. He is the warranty to God that, all unworthy as we are, we may become worthy of union and communion with Him, if only we draw near through such a mediator’ (James Denney - ‘Studies in Theology’). How marvellous that God Himself takes up our humanity and incorporates it into His deity! How worthy He is of our worship and praise. Christ’s intercession means that one who knows our case, who has access to God and who is willing and worthy to be our surety, gives us His hand to lead us into the Father’s presence. He appears for us before God, compassionate, sin-destroying, prevailing, Christ the Intercessor is Christ the Redeemer actually carrying out in glory that work of love of which we have seen the foundations laid on earth. It is this figure of Christ in which, more than in any other, He seems to have thrilled and subdued the souls of the early Christians and bound them irrevocably to Himself.
2. Our Position in Christ. We need to consider, not only where He is, but where we are “in Him”. One of the most important aspects of Christ’s work is its application into our lives as believers. We know He was crucified for us, but Paul states quite clearly “I am crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2 v20). This cannot be taken literally, Paul was not physically crucified with Christ, but the meaning of crucifixion, death to ones own will, for even Christ said “not my will but thine be done” in relation to the Cross. Christ had to make a deliberate choice to reject His own will and accept the will of the Father, so we identify with Christ in rejecting our own will, our own preference and our own inclination to please self. What does personal crucifixion mean? It simply means as Paul stated, “I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15 v31), I die to my own choices. I am no longer attracted to the world because “the world has been crucified to me and I to the world” (Galatians 6 v14). But the point is not only to emphasise the death of Christ and our identification in that, but the resurrection of Christ and our identification with that event also. Paul again states that “He died for all, that those who live, should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5 v15).
Time and again the writers of the New Testament identify the “new life in Christ” with Christ’s resurrection from the dead, being made alive in Christ, so that “just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6 v1-16). As He was raised from the dead and now sits in “the heavenlies”, so we have also been raised from spiritual death and now sit “with Christ”. Paul states clearly, “and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2 v6-7).
It is as we meditate on this incredible truth, as we reflect on our place in Him, that we ourselves are changed, not by looking morbidly inward but triumphantly upward! “Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts (affections) on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God . . . Put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature . . .” (Colossians 3 v1-5). The mystery of our transformation into His likeness is directly linked to our looking up to ponder and wonder at who He is! “And we who with unveiled faces all contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3 v18).
3. Our Prospects in Eternity. The implication of the resurrection in terms of our future state is wonderful. It “passes knowledge”, human words cannot grasp the wonder of it all. It is going to take all eternity for us to grasp what has happened to us. Paul points out that we have been raised up with Christ, but so often we forget the reason, “in order that in the ages to come He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2 v7).
The fact of Christ’s physical resurrection is firstly the guarantee of our physical resurrection, for He is called “the first fruits” of those who will be raised. There is no doctrine of disembodied spirits in the New Testament. We await the adoption of sons, “the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8 v23-24). We know that "when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is”. It is this hope which is instrumental in our own transformation, for “everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as He is pure” (1 John 3 v1-3). There also seems to be a direct relationship between how we behave and what we do with our bodies now, and what the nature of the resurrection body will be. This seems to be hinted at again and again in the Epistles. May the significance of His resurrection, and our identification with Him become a transforming experience in our lives to His glory, for our blessing and the blessing of others.
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