Because He Lives

 

“Because I live, you will live also,” John 14:19. This is a promise from the lips of Jesus Himself. The resurrection was God’s assurance to His children that what He promised, He would perform. It is the promise God made to the Jewish patriarchs, Acts 26:6. The promise—witnessed in the Law and Prophets—was this: “that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles,” Acts 26:23.

The Old Testament saints waited until the resurrection so that in all things our Lord would have the preeminence. He rose, and took with Him the believers waiting in Abraham’s Bosom, and opened the door to Heaven and the Father’s presence, where our Lord now sits at the right hand of God, waiting until His enemies are made His footstool.

 

There were many opponents to orthodox Christianity in the late first and second centuries. Not the least of which was Cerinthus (50-100 AD, roughly), a Gnostic teacher that promoted a human Jesus who received the Christ anointment at his baptism, which left him at the crucifixion to die a martyr’s death. Several ancient church fathers attribute the notion that the Apostle John wrote his gospel in defense of the Christian faith, specifically to counter the heresy of Cerinthus’ doctrine. Likewise the Ebionites taught a very similar doctrine of a merely human Jesus, born of Joseph and Mary, chosen to be Messiah because of his flawless walk in the Mosaic Law. He died to bring Israel to repentance and make them zealous for the Law. It is likewise thought these Ebionites had a conflict with the Apostle Paul, and he had them in mind when he wrote the epistle to the Galatians, again countering their heretical errors.

 

After them came Marcion, a disciple of Justin Martyr that apostatized and continued in Cerinthus’ footsteps, teaching bastardized “Christian” Gnosticism. The list is legion, and they all have one thing in common: they reject the deity and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins. As a result the purpose of the resurrection is also lost, since God raised Christ from the dead to evidence that our Lord triumphed over sin and death, and through faith in Him we will live also, as John recorded above. The resurrection is such a vital, core issue to the Christian faith that Paul devoted the whole of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to its defense. Of God’s ability and power, Paul states, “Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?” Acts 26:8.

 

The celebration of Easter, which I already addressed last year in Easter’s rabbit Hole part One and Two , is purportedly to honor the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The resurrection is a major theme in the Christian faith. One might say it is our hope, that as Jesus our Lord walked in newness of life after He rose, so too will those whose faith rests in Him. We will leave behind this brief, uncertain, sin-filled life and be perfected in the Bible’s highest sense of the word. We shall, at last, be like Him, for we will see Him as He is, 1 John 4:3.

 

Paul testified concerning the resurrection that, “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive,” 1 Corinthians 15:22, 23. Adam was the representative head of humanity collectively. When he chose to rebel with Eve, he died spiritually, and set the clock ticking for the ultimate demise of physical reality. Sin separated Adam from God, resulting in physical death as the inevitable fulfillment of the punishment. When physical death occurs the soul of man would go into conscious torment, eternally separated from his Creator. Paul declared that there would be a resurrection, not just of the just, but also of the unjust who would stand before Jesus as Judge on the last day since the Father committed all judgment to Him, Acts 24:15, John 5:22, 27. In Daniel we read, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt,” Daniel 12:2. Jesus explained, “for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation,” John 5:28, 29.

 

When Paul speaks about a resurrection of all, he seems to employ the broadest strokes in terms of descriptors. By man came death. Jesus, who is God, became a Man and suffered death to become the representative head in place of Adam, who forfeit his position through transgression. In Adam we all die. We share Adam’s likeness, being begotten in His image, Genesis 5:3, 1 Corinthians 15:49. This means that we inherit Adam’s nature. We are sinners by birth and choice. Christ, the new Head, offers eternal life for those begotten in His image. The resurrection represents newness of life, without sin’s presence as we stand before God perfected, having made our choice to serve the Lord rather than worship at the altar of self. The notion that all will experience a resurrection is difficult to ignore, but it must be said that the unsaved will experience what Daniel wrote as rising to,  “everlasting contempt,” and Jesus referred to as, “the resurrection of condemnation.” A synonymous passage may be found at the end of Matthew chapter 25, when our Lord said, “and these (the unsaved, the goats) will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous (the saved, the sheep) into eternal life,” Matthew 25:46.

 

It is not possible to teach annihilation of the soul, or soul sleep, from the Bible without Scripture twisting euphemisms, such as the word “sleep,” in reference to physical death. The body, void of spiritual life, appears to be sleeping, and when buried, sleeps in the dust of the earth, as Daniel described. But Jesus contrasts the duration of our salvation with the punishment of the lost. They endure forever, and only by being conscious of that state may we actually experience it and find bliss or suffer the punishment inflicted.

 

1 Corinthians 15:48 assures us that if we only bear the image of Adam until death, we inherit the judgment upon sin. Likewise, if we place our faith in Christ, we will shed the image of dust Adam clothes us with to put on the image of the Heavenly Man, that we may be where He is. Our hope is that, through death or Rapture, we will leave behind this mortality and enter into our Lord’s presence, that we may be with Him, which the Apostle Paul called, “far better,” Philippians 1:23. The promise to the fathers, which we have inherited through Jesus Christ, since He suffered and rose to assume the Headship of humanity that Adam lost, is our hope. The resurrection from the dead, and the glories that await us in eternity, when the present heavens and earth are destroyed and a kingdom of righteousness reigns in its place, is our home. God is making for Himself a people fit for Heaven; men and women that want to be with Him, and choose by the preaching of the gospel to do so, Romans 10:17. Moved by love, knowing that He loved us more and first, we surrender and believe, and are justified, sanctified, and glorified. God became a Man, suffered death on our behalf, and rose from the grave. Paul worded it this way: “[Jesus] was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification,” Romans 4:25. Through Him who conquered sin and death we too may experience eternal life. The risen Christ can die no more. “Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him,” Romans 6:9. He died to sin, once for all to save us; in His resurrection life He lives to God, Romans 6:10. This is an indication of our place and service to God when we too, enter into that company of just men made perfect, Hebrews 12:23.

 

This Easter, give glory to God for His goodness, and His generous Spirit, sending His Son to redeem us, and to bring us to Himself. Christ is risen, as the Scripture says, Mark 16:6. We have a living God, a resurrected Man at the Father’s right hand. He is our Advocate. He is the true God, not the farcical caricatures the Ebionites or Cerinthus portrayed, nor their modern counterparts such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses espouse. Their God cannot save, because that was never his intent while on the cross, according to their own teachings. The resurrection is a touchstone in the church, a beautiful, remarkable event of extraordinary acclaim. Praise the God that raises the dead, and through the blood of Christ makes us worthy of Heaven, may we all, who belong to Him, worship in spirit and truth!