Tag Archives: Resurrection

Left for Dead, He Left Death in the Dust

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Left for dead. His enemies secured it; the Romans ensured it. Laid in the dust of a stone-cold tomb. Left for dead. The Truth buried. The power of love tossed aside after being stabbed in the back and pierced in the side by the love of power.

The Truth trampled; the Savior silenced and sealed in a stone-cold tomb. Love was left for dead by those who could not bear to hear the Truth. Love was left for dead, but the Lord of Love who had died would rise by the power of the Spirit, the love between the Father and the Son.

On the third day, the Lord of Love left death in the dust of a stone-cold tomb. The Lord of Love, left that stone-cold tomb ablaze with the love of God and love for those who had abandoned him and denied him; for those who had betrayed him and falsely accused him and shouted “crucify him;” the ones for whom he had prayed, “Father, forgive them!”

The Love that was left for dead; the Truth that was buried, left sin and evil and death in the dust of a stone-cold tomb as he burst forth with new creation life charged by the heat of divine love.

It’s in the hope found in a stone-cold, empty tomb that stone-cold hearts are strangely warmed and set ablaze with the love of the crucified Savior and the life of the risen Lord, Jesus, the Christ.

Love was left for dead, but the Lord of Love left sin and death in the dust when he left that stone-cold tomb. But rest assured beloved, that same Savior who left that tomb promised that he would never leave us or forsake us. For in His own glorious resurrection, by faith, we find in his empty tomb, the assurance of our own.

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 KJV

The Inheritance of the Saints in Glory

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In a little less than 10 years as a pastor, I’ve officiated and/or participated in a few dozen funeral services. This can be one of the most daunting duties of pastoral ministry, but also one of the greatest honors and privileges. Just this past Thursday I led the funeral service for an 88 year old saint of the church. A few days before that I sat by his hospital bed and helped him follow the Good Shepherd’s lead as he exited this realm to enter into the realm of glory in the presence of God. I also helped prepare his family as best I could by the grace of God for his transition from this world into the inheritance that awaits all of God’s people.

All of us who die before Jesus comes again will have to cross that threshold. It can be a scary proposition, something we’d rather not think about, but it is one of life’s most certain certainties. For those who trust in Jesus and love him, it is not something to dread even though we will still be in awe of the mystery of it all. For believers it’s a moment when we’ll see face to face the one whom we’ve loved and committed our lives to even though, with the exception the earliest followers of Jesus, we have never seen him face to face. It will be one glorious occasion for sure!

It will also be a moment when we’ll receive a fuller glimpse and experience of the inheritance that Saint Peter tells us is being kept for us in heaven (1 Peter 1:4).

Followers of Jesus have much to look forward to. This is our hope, the inheritance of an earth once corrupted by sin fully healed by its grand reunion with heaven. Our ultimate inheritance is a new heaven and earth that we’ll enjoy after the resurrection of the body. But in the mean time, in the in-between time, at death we consciously enter into what is being kept for us in heaven awaiting to be revealed on earth in the last time when Jesus comes again. light from heaven

Jesus taught that his followers should lay up for themselves treasures in heaven (Matt 6:19-21), but make no mistake, these are treasures for God’s people to ultimately enjoy after the resurrection of the body on earth. After all, Jesus did say, echoing Psalm 37:11, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (ESV). As believers our hope is an inheritance to be enjoyed in a renewed world, a new heaven and earth, where there is no more sorrow, because there will be no more sin. It is a place where the presence and glory of God will dwell fully among God’s people forever (Rev. 7:15-17; Rev. 21:1-8). The Lord’s prayer will have been answered in its totality as God’s will alone is done on earth as it is in heaven. Glory!!

Saint Peter tells us this inheritance that awaits us is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” (1 Peter 1:4).

Several years ago my wife made a special dinner and said she had a wonderful surprise to share with me afterwards. Once we finished eating she handed me an envelope. From it I pulled out what was the title of our 2002 Toyota Camry. The last payment had been made. We were now the proud outright owners of a used car, with about a 140,000 miles on the odometer! As good of a car as it was, it definitely had an expiration date. After an accident a few years ago (in which no one was hurt thankfully) it was deemed a total loss. Today it is probably rusting away in a junkyard somewhere.

The inheritance that Peter spoke of, the same inheritance that Jesus spoke of, has no expiration date. It is completely secure in a place where, Jesus said, neither moth nor rust can corrupt it. It is the only treasure, when it comes right down to it, that really matters at all (Matt 6:19-24). And it’s not something that we earn or pay for ourselves; it has been bought and paid for, not with gold, silver, or precious jewels, but with the precious blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. It is a gift only to be received by faith.

But, contrary to popular belief and a lot of wishful thinking, it is not for everyone. It is only for those who truly believe and trust Jesus enough to entrust him with their entire lives. By God’s grace and mercy, through faith we receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the new birth whereby God gives us a new heart and a renewed spirt and fills us with his very own Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us, is our “guarantee” or “down-payment” “of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” In Romans 8:16-17, Saint Paul there, also tells us that it is the Spirit that gives us the assurance that we are children of God and also “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” Forgiveness and the new birth are both gifts of God’s grace, and they come together. You can’t receive one without the other, although some seem to want the forgiveness without the transformation of life entailed by the new birth.

Nevertheless, it is the new birth, Peter tells us, that brings us into “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, …” (1 Peter 1:3-4). And it is faith tested by the fire of trials in this fallen world that secures our share in that incorruptible, eternal inheritance (1 Peter 1:6-7; see also the last part of Romans 8:17). Our life in this world is the testing ground for the ultimate holy ground in the New Heaven and Earth.

So we all need to be prepared to die. When we are, then we’ll be truly prepared to live. In his grace God allows us to enjoy a portion and a foretaste of our greater inheritance to come now. “O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his Spirit, washed in his blood” (from “Blessed Assurance” by Fanny Crosby, 1873). Glory! Glory! Glory! Glory to God! Glory to the Lamb!

How awesome it must be when our work on earth is done to enter into God’s presence in heaven where our full inheritance is kept like the unfathomable precious treasure it is! How even more awesome it will be when we all get to enjoy it together on earth with all the saints in glory! When we all together get to see the one in whom we believe face to face! Come, Lord Jesus!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV

Becoming a New Creation for the New Creation

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Easter is about much more than confirmation of an afterlife, although that would be a significant implication. Nevertheless, Easter, specifically here referring to the main event of Easter, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, is the firstfruits of a much larger harvest to come, the general resurrection of the dead (see 1 Corinthians 15), and along with it the renewal and rebirth of the creation itself (see Romans 8). The consummation of this new creation is described in Revelation 21 and 22; the story of it’s beginning is found in the stories of Easter.

Jesus was raised from the dead on the first day of the week. That’s the first hint that his resurrection was about new creation. There are other hints as well, but the first day of the week is symbolic of the first day of creation, and in the case of Jesus’ resurrection it is the first day of the new creation. Another clue is that the body in which Jesus was resurrected was not the same as it was before he was raised from the dead. His resurrected body was no longer perishable or mortal; it was, and still is imperishable and immortal.

The body, still physical, flesh and bone, as the gospel accounts make clear (see especially Luke 24:36-43), with which Jesus was raised had been transformed from the one which was previously subject to death and decay, to one that no longer could die. His glorious resurrected body in which he appeared to his disciples on the first Easter was like the body that all believers will receive after the general resurrection when Christ comes again. This promised new body is specifically designed for the New Creation, which will also still be a physical reality. In Philippians 3:21 we find the promise of the new body when Paul there says Jesus, at his second coming, “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (ESV). 1 John says something very similar.

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”                      1 John 3:1-3 ESV

In this passage from 1 John we get a strong hint about the connection between the resurrected Jesus and the life of believers before the general resurrection of all believers. The promise that we shall be like him when he appears, our ultimate hope, enables us to share in the purity that Jesus presently enjoys in his resurrected human form. According to John this purity sets us at odds with the world, the present age which John says is governed by sinful desire and pride, but is passing away (1 John 2:15-17). In the life of a true believer there is a dramatic change that takes place, and it’s not just a matter of following a different set of rules or principles that will enable us to have our best life now in the world. Instead it is a miracle that takes us out of the fallen world and takes the desires and ways of the fallen world out of us.

When someone believes a change of status and a change of being takes place. Faith moves a person from the status of being justly condemned as a sinner, to being declared righteous before God because of Christ. This also involves new birth, what John calls becoming children of God (John 1:12-13). There is a change in status, but also a change of being, from children of the devil, who live according to desires corrupted by sin,  to children of God, who receive the new heart and the new spirit promised to come under the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:26-27). Through faith in Christ we receive forgiveness and the Holy Spirit, which begins the work of healing our hearts and renewing our spirits by giving us desires to please God rather than ourselves.

The Holy Spirit is just a down payment on a much greater inheritance (See Ephesians 1:13-14), but  make no mistake, he is a wonderful foretaste of glory divine. The new birth brings us out of one realm and brings us into another, the kingdom of God (see John 3). The change of being that takes place puts us at odds with the world because we are no longer of the world. As children of God, we become citizens of a new world, the new heaven and the new earth, and the new Jerusalem, which Revelation describes as eventually coming down from heaven to earth. But our citizenship in it doesn’t begin then, it begins the moment we believe. Children of God are children of the Jerusalem above, which will eventually come to earth (see Galatians 4:26, and context of course).

Back in Philippians, Paul conveys this idea by contrasting those who live to satisfy sinful earthly desires with those whose “citizenship is in heaven” (3:20). Our citizenship is present tense, although the fully consummated benefits of that citizenship we still await as we anticipate the return of Christ and the transformation of our bodies to be like his, the hope that we’re reminded of in the very next verse (v. 21). It is at that point that our spiritual citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem will become a physical reality as the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven to earth in a renewed and reborn creation. But in the meantime, or the in-between-time, if you will, we live as citizens of the kingdom of God in a fallen and fading world subjected to bondage and decay because of sin, humanity’s rebellion against the Creator.

So Jesus’ resurrection could be considered the first act of new creation, but the new birth of believers is also an act of new creation. Interestingly, after his resurrection, when Jesus meets with his disciples behind closed doors in Jerusalem, after extending peace to them and showing his nail-scarred hands and spear-scarred side, John says “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit'” (John 20:22). I believe this was an intentional sign-act echoing Genesis 2:7, where God breathes life into the first man. Here Jesus breathes new life, new covenant life, yeah, new creation life into his disciples in anticipation of their receiving the fullness of the promised Holy Spirit.

In 2 Corinthians where Paul is extolling the glory of new covenant ministry he alludes to Genesis 1:3 to explain what takes place in conversion. He says, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (4:6). This is another hint that this is about new creation which becomes all the clearer when we get to 2 Corinthians 5:17 which says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (compare Galatians 6:15). This new creation life in the fading-but-not-yet-gone fallen world is described in verse 15 as no longer living for self, but for the one who died for our sake and was raised from the dead. By faith we enter into what has been called the “already-but-not-yet” reality of the kingdom of God, the new creation, and the new Jerusalem, meaning it started with the first advent of Jesus, but it’s fullness is yet to be realized at the second advent of Christ. Salvation is about becoming a new creation in Christ who will be fully prepared for the New Creation wherein there is only righteousness and no more sin, wherein there are only saints and no sinners.

In the meantime in the in-between-time, however, we are called and equipped by the word of God and the Spirit of God to become channels through which the ongoing work of new creation continues. In John, before Jesus breaths on the disciples, he commissions them saying, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (20:21). He commissions them to proclaim forgiveness of sins and undoubtedly the new birth that goes along with it to bring others into the kingdom of God. The Gospel of Matthew puts it this way: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:19-20). Dare I say, in other words, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). What else would we expect from the one who “creates in himself one new man” out of formerly separated Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:11-22) to be restored into “the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

And, of course, the new human race began with the God-man, whom Saint Paul, in the midst of his teaching on the resurrection of the body, calls the last Adam (hint, hint). The first Adam, he says, referring to Genesis 2:7, “became a living soul”; the last, Jesus, he says, became a “life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45). But, make no mistake, the later no more means that Jesus after the resurrection was just a spirit without a physical body than the former means the first Adam was just a soul (or that you or I now for that matter) without a physical body. In resurrection the essence of human life is no longer the natural and mortal soul of corruptible man infected with the disease of sin passed on to all from the first Adam; rather resurrected bodies will be sustained and maintained forever by the eternal Spirit of the Living God, which is passed on by the last Adam, the God-man, Jesus Christ, to all who believe and thus are saved (see also Roman 5).

To be saved is to be delivered “from the present evil age” as Paul says in Galatians 1:4, to be “delivered … from the domain of darkness and transferred … to the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son” as he says in Colossians 1:13-14. Peter describes it as “having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:4), which John describes as having “passed from death to life” (1 John 3:14; also Jesus’ statement in John 5:24). But we are not saved and ushered into the kingdom for our own sake only, but also for the sake of others, so that God may use us to call others “out of the darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). But we can’t call others out of the darkness unless we ourselves are children of the light who are walking in the light (see Ephesians 5 :8-14; 1 John 1:7), else we are just blind and deceived leaders of the blind and deceived both headed for the eternal pit.

Nonetheless, as part of the New Creation inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus we are to live accordingly, no longer as citizens of the world according to the spirit of this age, but as citizens of heaven according to the Spirit of God (see Romans 8), and as ambassadors (see 2 Corinthians 5 again) of our heavenly home in the fallen world, which should now be foreign to us and we foreign to it.

We enter into the New Creation the same way Christ did, by dying and being raised with him. Easter Butterflies on Cross

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 6:3-11

This sets the pattern for entrance into and life under the new covenant and the new creation, which is its ultimate goal. The call of Christ is a call to die to sin and a sinful world, so that we may truly begin to live and walk in newness of life. The pattern of Christian life in the world before Christ returns or calls us home to be with him in heaven is to continue the process of putting off the old and putting on the new until the “body of sin is brought to nothing.” We do this by the power of the Spirit (see Romans 8:13) in hope and joyful anticipation of the resurrection of our bodies when the entire creation itself will be set free and reborn. It is only within this framework that we can begin to make sense of Christian vocation, including morality and ethics.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” 

Romans 8:18-25

 

 

From the Ashes …

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We begin in the mud of ashes, a journey in the dark shadow of the cross, knowing it’s a shadow cast by the glorious light of the resurrection. Why begin Lent with ashes?ashes_6329cnp

In the Bible ashes, often paired with sackcloth, a coarse and uncomfortable material, symbolize repentance, humility, and/or mourning in the aftermath of disaster or impending potential doom. Upon encountering God after seriously questioning God’s justice in the midst of his own great suffering, Job repents in dust and ashes. The king of Nineveh, with Jonah’s reluctant pronouncement of looming judgment, fasted in sackcloth and repented in ashes. Ashes remind Christians of some of the first words of our Savior’s preaching, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Ashes also remind us of the righteous judgment of God that stands against us because of sin, as well as its penalty, which is death. The penalty for rebellion against God’s law, is “you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Although physical death is included, the worst of it is spiritual death, being cut off from God, the source of life and blessing.

Accepting the black mark of ashes on our forehead at the beginning of lent symbolizes our acceptance of the righteous judgment of God against us as sinners. It is to confess, as did Daniel on behalf of Israel as he sought God’s face through prayer and fasting in sackcloth and ashes, that we were and are wrong to break God’s commandments and that God’s judgment against us is right and just (see Daniel 9:3-19).

Nevertheless, the mark of the ashes in the sign of the cross reminds us of God’s mercy because His only Son, the perfectly holy and righteous One, took the penalty that we deserved and “bore our sins in his own body” (1 Peter 2:24) with the result that we who were spiritually dead in sin received new life through forgiveness by the canceling of the debts and just legal decrees that stood against us, which “he set aside nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-15).

The mark of ashes also reminds us of our need to take up our cross daily, to die to sin, to “put to death” any lingering attachments to the old age, the fallen world that is passing away, and any remaining corrupt desires and habits of our old selves before we were born anew into the kingdom of God (Colossians 3:1-17). We engage in this discipline of lent, not to be saved, but because we are saved; and because we are saved, we know we are being saved daily as we grow into “the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

The ashes remind us that “in the midst of life we are in death.” The sign of the cross reminds us that “our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 124:8). It is He who sent his very own Son to die for us so that we could live for Him.

In Christ we can live as those who are prepared to die, to die daily to sin, and, therefore to die in hope at our appointed day to stand before the judge of all the earth (Hebrews 9:27). We die in the black shadow of the cross but also in the light of the resurrection. When we are prepared to die; truly we are prepared to live, knowing that the one who formed us from the carbon dust of creation to begin with will from the ashes and dust of death raise us to new life, daily, and on the last day. Are you prepared to die?

This lent with my cross, I also plan to take up more often my pen and laptop to write, at least weekly to be specific. This won’t be an easy commitment for me, a husband and father of five and an only child of an elderly mother, and a pastor with all of the unexpected that comes along with the normal routine. Writing for me sometimes, perhaps most of the time, also comes with great difficulty, partly because of ADD, and partly because of anxiety about how it will be received. The later is not only because of how it will be received by human readers, but also by God.

For more than one reason I write with fear and trembling. I write and speak knowing that it is more important to please God than people, yet I do so with the desire to inform and see lives transformed through the Word of God as it is conveyed through this very fragile, and sometimes empty-headed, vessel. My prayer is that my increased productivity with the keyboard will be honoring to God and a blessing in some way to His people.

May this season of Lent be a period of accelerated growth for the elect and God’s kingdom.