The work of Christ 10 / Resurrection and the Church

 

For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.’

 

(Acts 17:31)

 

Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped round Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.).

 

(John 20:6-9)

 

 

If you were to read theology from across the years, you would soon notice a strange phenomenon.  There is a huge amount of space and time given to the reflecting on Jesus’ death, but remarkably little given to any consideration of His resurrection (and still less to His Ascension, which will be the subject of this term’s Deep Church).  By way of illustration: John Flavel’s 17th century classic, The Fountain of Life, devotes 240 pp to exploring the death of Christ, and a mere 14 to His resurrection.  The mighty Heidelberg Catechism gives 11 Questions and Answers, spread over 3 Lord’s Days to the death of Christ, and has only one short paragraph asking about the resurrection (Q:45, LD 17).  More recent works are more balanced, but generally because less time is given to the death, rather than more to the resurrection, of Jesus (Grudem deals with the Atonement in 40pp, and the resurrection in 7pp in his popular Systematic Theology).  Our own JCL series spends broadly 7 studies on the cross; 3 on the resurrection (and an evening on the Ascension).

 

One scholar, commenting on the imbalance in the Heidelberg Catechism laments, ‘this brevity is a weakness … the brief discussion that dismisses the resurrection of Christ from the dead is disproportionate to the great significance Scripture attaches to this glorious wonder, and the central place given to it in the economy of Christ’ (The Triple Knowledge, 2:3-4).  Without the resurrection, the cross remains  a defeat, our  faith is in vain and there is no way  out of death  (I Cor.15:17-19), which explains the Apostles’ focus on it in their preaching (Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15, 26; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 34 etc.).  The Resurrection was not Jesus returning to us (as e.g. Lazarus, Jn.11:43), but it was His advancing through death to His exaltation and His glorification.  In His Resurrection He has burst through into New Creation life, no longer overshadowed by the possibility of death.  He has entered a qualitatively different mode of being, no longer the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom.8:3).  Only in His resurrection does Jesus become fully and truly the heavenly Man (I Cor.15:49).  His glorified humanity finally fit for His place at the right hand of Majesty.  In a way it is rather strange that when we envisage Jesus, we tend to do so in His earthly, pre-resurrection state.  This is no longer what Jesus is.  He is the firstborn from the dead, so that in all things He might have the supremacy’ (Col.1:18, I Cor.15:20).  He is risen indeed, Hallelujah! 

 

Here in the Resurrection of Christ the wisdom of God is finally resolved, His sovereignty demonstrated (I Pet.1:11), and His power is awesomely displayed (Eph.1:20).  In raising His Son from the dead, the Father has removed the offense of the cross; proved His Messiahship; proclaimed His magnificence to the world; rewarded His obedience (Phil.2:8-9); endorsed His Mediatorial work; instigated a New Creation, of which Christ’s physical body is the first sample and specimen.  His enemies are defeated and are being put ‘under His feet’ (I Cor.15:25-27); death no longer has dominion over Him (or us, Jn.11:25-26, I Cor.15:56; II Tim.1:10); God’s justice has been satisfied; the resurrection future of the Church and the New Creation is guaranteed (I Cor.15:23); His promises and claims are vindicated; and Christ is shown to be the foundation and fulfilment of all reality. In sum, He ‘was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead’ (Rom.1:4). 

 

For these and a host of other reasons, our belief about the resurrection of Jesus is considered as ‘of first importance’ (I Cor.15:3-7).  It is Creedal, one of the borders of our faith.  We may not understand the physics or biology of the New Creation, but neither can we retreat into scepticism.  We may not understand how bodies of martyrs, maimed and tortured, or of saints long since decomposed can be resurrected to glory.  We may not understand what happened in the tomb in which Jesus’ body was laid, but we do know that when the angel rolled away, it was to show us that tomb was empty, and that God had rolled away all reproach.  And so with the faithful through the ages we worship and proclaim: ‘By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also’ (I Cor.6:14).

Questions

 

How does Christ’s death and resurrection redeem my experience of death?  How would you use this to comfort someone who was grieving?

 

Could you still be a Christian if you didn’t believe in the historical, physical resurrection of Jesus?

 

How would you go about convincing a sceptic of the resurrection of Jesus?

 

 

Read Luke 24:1-49

 

Why do you think angels declare the resurrection first, rather than Jesus?

 

Why do you think Jesus only appears to those who were already His disciples?  Would it have been more effective to appear to those who had been sceptical of His claims, and dismissive of His message?

 

What is good, and what is inadequate / defective about the disciples’ account of Jesus (vv.19-24)? 

 

Read Jesus’ response to the disciples in v.25.  Do you think he is frustrated?  Should they (Could they?)  have had a better understanding of the Scriptures?   How do you think He explained from ‘Moses and all the prophets’ what the Scriptures taught about Him (see also vv.44-45)?

 

What is significant about Jesus ‘breaking bread’ that allows the disciples to recognise who Jesus is (v.30-31)?  Why does He disappear as soon as they recognise Him?

 

Do you think the commission of vv.46-48 were for the original apostles only, or for the whole Church?  What is v.49 referring to?  Is there any contemporary equivalent we should anticipate?

 

 

Memory Passage:

 

I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.  I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Phil.3:8-11

 

For further reflection:

 

We often think of the resurrection in terms of what it means with reference to the history of Jesus’ death.  In these studies we have tried to balance that with a focus on what it means for the future.  Bavink poignantly wrote, ‘the pangs of death are the labour pains of the New Creation’ (3:438).  But despite our tendency to think of the Resurrection in terms of what it achieved for us, or indeed the creation, it is first and foremost the joyous realisation of the majesty of Christ.  It is the first step in reversing the humiliation and concealing of Jesus, and in advancing to His exaltation and coronation. We struggle to picture Jesus as He is now (resurrected and glorified, e.g. Rev.1:12-18) because He is so different from what we are - though not from what we shall become (I Cor.15:42-44 & 53-54).  His Resurrection body is suited to Life in the glory-saturated atmosphere of heaven.  It is appropriate to His state and status, seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (Heb.1:3).  It was part of the joy set before Him that enabled Him to endure the cross (Heb.12:2). 

 

But in the final analysis it is artificial to separate His exaltation from the act of New Creation and the future of the Church.  His exaltation is not merely His returning to the state He previously enjoyed (It is that, but it is more, Jn.17:5).  He was immortal before His incarnation, but now, through the resurrection of His humanity He has immortalised creation.  The whole point of His earthly life and ministry has been not to claim for Himself a status He did not have previously, but to elevate us to share that status with Him (Heb.2:9-11).