Why the Resurrection Matters

Once in awhile, it's good to go back to basics, back to the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. Once in a while, I'll include something like this on the blog. Here is a key "basic": The reason for the resurrection. This comes from an essay by Brian G. Hedges.

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The resurrection of Jesus (alongside his crucifixion) is the central historical event in the Christian faith. Without the resurrection there would be no Christianity. “If Christ has not been raised,” wrote St. Paul, “then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

I am a Christian because I believe in the resurrection. I am convinced that after dying a violent death on a Roman cross on a Friday afternoon in 30 A.D., Jesus of Nazareth came back to life and emerged from the tomb on Sunday morning.

This is not easy to believe. But if it is true, it is the most pivotal event in human history. Much has been written in defense of Jesus’ resurrection, the most thorough and convincing book being N. T. Wright’s massive 800-page volume, The Resurrection of the Son of God.[1] If you haven’t done so, I hope you’ll weigh the evidence for yourself.

What is unquestionable is that the first generation of Jesus’ followers did believe he had risen, and were convinced that everything had changed as a result.

Consider just three of the ways the New Testament highlights the significance of the resurrection.

1. Jesus’ resurrection means that his sacrificial death on the cross was sufficient, and therefore our sins can be forgiven.
 
Paul emphasizes this in 1 Corinthians 15, reminding us that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (vv. 3-4). Then, in verse 17, he argues that “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

In other words, Paul saw a direct connection between the resurrection of Jesus and the sufficiency of his death to atone for our sins. When Jesus rose again on the third day, it was the public announcement that God was fully satisfied with the sacrificial death of his Son.  In his resurrection, Jesus was vindicated (1 Timothy 3:16).  But in his vindication, we are vindicated too. That’s why Paul says in Romans 4 that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25).[2]

2. Jesus’ resurrection means that death is defeated once and for all.

As Peter proclaimed on the Day of Pentecost, “God raised [Jesus] from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (Acts 2:24). Death lost its grip on Jesus!
But the resurrection means that Jesus not only defeated death for himself, but that he defeated it for us. He died and rose as a new representative for humanity, as the Second Adam. “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,” writes Paul, “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). His resurrection guarantees ours.

Perhaps no one has said this more eloquently than C. S. Lewis. In his 1947 book Miracles, Lewis wrote:

“The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the ‘first fruits,’ the ‘pioneer of life.’ He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has been opened.”[3]

This is both personal and powerfully hope giving to me. I have terrible eyesight, because of a degenerative eye disorder called karetoconus. I have a child with Type 1 diabetes, who takes at least four insulin shots a day. And my mom, at only 64 years old has advanced Alzheimer’s and hasn’t recognized me for several years. But the resurrection of Jesus means that someday I will have 20/20 vision, and my son will never need another shot again, and that Mom will know me once more.

3. Jesus’ resurrection means that the material world matters.
 
Lest there be any misunderstanding, when the apostles said that Jesus rose again, they meant that his physical body came back to life. The risen Jesus wasn’t a phantom or ghost, but a breakfast-eating, flesh-and-bone, human being (see Luke 24:36-43 and John 21:10-14).

As the Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist John Updike once said,

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.[4]

 Though we wait for the full consummation of new creation, the Scriptures also teach that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is already working within us (Ephesians 1:19-20). The resurrection, you see, not only assures of God’s forgiveness and comforts us in suffering as we anticipate the final reversal of death, disease, and decay; it also motivates and empowers us to push back the tide of suffering and evil in the present world, through word and deed, in mercy and in justice, all in Jesus’ name.

[Essay by Brian G. Hedges from Christianity.com]

Galatians 5:19-25

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do[e] such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Spring Cleaning

Ephesians 3:16 - 17a: "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith..."

D.A. Carson offers some commentary to really help us understand Paul's message:

When Christ by His Spirit takes up residence within us, he finds the moral equivalent of mounds of trash, black and silver wallpaper, and a leaking roof. He sets about turning this residence into a place appropriate for him, a home in which he is comfortable. There will be a lot of cleaning to do, quite a few repairs, and some much-needed expansion. But his aim is clear: he wants to take up residence in our hearts, as we exercise faith in him...

Make no mistake: when Christ first moves into our lives, he finds us in very bad repair. It takes a great deal of power to change us; and that is why Paul prays for power. He asks that God may so strengthen us by his power in our inner being that Christ may genuinely take up his residence with us, transforming us into a house that pervasively reflect his own character.

Tomorrow Never Knows

I was looking for something to blog about this morning and spotted a book I had read years ago - The Beatles, the Bible, and Bodega Bay. The book is as quirky as the title. It's written by the former US manager of the Beatle's Apple Records, Ken Mansfield. Mansfield was - and even after the Beatles - a giant in the recording industry, associated with artists, such as the Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, James Taylor, Waylon Jennings, Glenn Campbell, and scores of others. In addition to his business relationship with the Beatles, he also became their friend: he was there when they performed their last live concert on the roof of Apple Records corporate headquarters in 1969.

In the 1980's, after many personal and spiritual struggles, he became a believer. In the late 1990's he was diagnosed with an incurable type of bone cancer; he wrote this book as a memoir of that time and his time with the Beatles. He was supposed to be dead by now, but he's alive and well at 81 years old. CBN interviewed him here.

Anyway, I picked up the book this morning looking for inspiration. I was thinking I would find something in the "Bible" part of the book, but instead I found a short story about John Lennon. It struck me because it reminded me that we never know when someone will be taken from us. We shouldn't take life for granted. We should value the precious time we have with one another. Mansfield recalls:

In 1976, I unexpectedly ran into John at Ringo's house in Beverly Hills. I had just finished producing Waylon Jennings' new album Are You Ready for the Country? for RCA Records, Nashville. Ringo, who was a big fan of Waylon's, had called and asked for an early listen. When I walked into the living room at Ringo's house, I was surprised to see John slouched moodily on the couch. Knowing what I know now, he must have really liked me that day because he had never been meaner. He was in L.A. for his last recording session for almost four years, playing piano on his composition "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Ringo's Atlantic album Rotogravure. No doubt he had dropped in to relax and be alone with his old friend and bandmate. I had unwittingly been cast as an intruder by Ringo's invitation that day. Anyway, I needed a lyric change approval from at least three of the Beatles on a female version of "Hey Jude" - which we retitled "Hey Dude" - that I had cut with Jessie Colter ("I'm not Lisa") for Capital Records.

I had bribed Ringo for his signature with a private, exclusive playback of Waylon's album.

I bribed Paul by sending him a pair of sunglasses from Rodeo Drive that he had seen in a fashion magazine.

I took advantage of John's mood and bribed him by leaving Ringo's house.

I never say him again.

Enjoy the people in your life.

When Life is Not Happy

God doesn't prescribe a happy life. Depression is a form of suffering that can't be reduced to one universal cause. This means that family and friends can't rush in armed with THE answer. Instead, they must be willing to postpone swearing allegiance to a particular theory, and take time to know the depressed person and work together with him or her. What we do know is that depression is painful, and, if you have never experienced it, hard to understand. Like most forms of suffering, it feels private and isolating.

It is common for spiritually mature men and women who feel depressed to think that they are doing something wrong. After all, Scripture is filled with words of joy and happy hearts. When they aren't feeling happy, they feel that they must be missing something or that God is punishing them until they learn some hidden lesson. On earth, however, God doesn't prescribe a happy life. He doesn't legislate emotions. Look as some of the Psalms. They are written by people of great faith, yet they run the emotional gamut. This one even ends with "darkness is my closest friend" (Psalm 88:18). When your emotions feel muted and always low, when you are unable to experience the highs and lows you once did, the important question is, "Where do you turn - or, to whom do you turn?"

- by Edward Welch, from Heart of the Matter

Making Peace and Creating Evil

Years ago I picked up a used book (not sure where)by Joseph Brennan entitled Foundations of Moral Obligation. As you may have guessed from my long series on science and atheism, the problem of moral obligation is of great interest to me. I once wrote a 40-page paper on the topic.

I started re-reading the book last week, and just began the chapter, "Job and the Problem of Evil." Heavy stuff. From here, my mind bounced to one of the more challenging passages in the Bible, Isaiah 45:7: "Forming light, and creating darkness; Making peace, and creating evil; I Jehovah do all these things" (translation by John Calvin). Others translate evil as "calamity" (NASB), "disaster" (NIV), and the King James reflects Calvin's translation. Does God create disaster, calamity...evil? Where does evil come from? This has been one of the great philosophical and theological challenges of all time. I won't be able to address that fully here, but I wanted to share Calvin's view of the passage. I think he gets it right.

By the words "light" and "darkness" he [Isaiah] describes metaphorically not only peace and war, but adverse and prosperous events of any kind; and he extends the word peace according to the custom of Hebrew writers, to all success and prosperity. This is made abundantly clear by the contrast; for he contrasts "peace" not only with war, but with adverse events of every sort. Fanatics torture this word evil, as if God were the author of evil, that is, of sin; but it is very obvious how ridiculously they abuse this passage of the Prophet. This is sufficiently explained by the contrast, the parts of which must agree with each other; for he contrasts "peace" with "evil," that is, with afflictions, wars, and other adverse occurrences. If he contrasted "righteousness" with "evil," there would be some plausibility in their reasonings, but this is a manifest contrast of things that are opposite to each other. Consequently, we ought not to reject the ordinary distinction, that God is the author of the "evil" of punishment, but not of the "evil" of guilt.

But the Sophists are wrong in their exposition; for while they acknowledge that famine, barrenness, war, pestilence, and other scourges, come from God, they deny that God is the author of calamities, when they befall us through the agency of men. This is false and altogether contrary to the present doctrine; for the Lord raises up wicked men to chastise us by their hand, as is evident from various passages of Scripture (1 Kings 11:14, 23). The Lord does not indeed inspire them with malice, but he uses it for the purpose of chastising us, and exercises the office of a judge, in the same manner as he made use of the malice of Pharaoh and others, in order to punish his people (Exodus 1:11, 2:23). We ought therefore to hold this doctrine, that God alone is the author of all events; that is, that adverse and prosperous events are sent by him, even though he makes use of the agency of men, that none may attribute it to fortune, or to any other cause.

This topic has particular relevance on this day: September 11.

As I read through the chapter on Job and the problem of evil, I may share some additional thoughts.

America's Original Sin

The following is an excerpt from an article by Janie Cheaney in World Magazine. The title of the article is, "The Only Way Forward: The Solution is Spiritual if the Goal is Peace and Fellowship." Resentment, revenge, envy, and craving justice is a dead end.

Racism, rooted in the African slave trade, is said to be "America's original sin." An original sin is the primary fault from which every other fault stems. For that, we should look to the misapplication of American freedom, which translated into expanded opportunities to exploit as well as to succeed. Exploitation is not essentially racist. It is egoistic and acquisitive, and no one is exempt. America's original sin is actually the Original Sin. Racism is an effect, not a cause.

What to do? Proposed solutions are mostly about money. But the problem is spiritual not material, and so is the solution: forgiveness.

Is forgiveness fair? No, but Someone who was owed a much greater debt showed us that forgiveness is the only way out of the bondage of sin, "For freedom Christ has set us free." To forgive centuries of wrong, traces of which persist to this day, means to lay it down and walk away. The history still stings, but the farther you walk the less you feel it, especially when walking toward the light.

What do we want - fellowship, or alienation? Peace or warfare? Our Father desired peace and fellowship with us enough to pay dearly for it. Guilt must be borne, and the one to bear it was His own Son. He considered the gain worth the price. God willing, may my brothers and sisters, so long out of Africa, make that reckoning. I can never compensate them, but Christ can.

Keeping Pride in Check

Pride is exalting yourself to a position you don't deserve. It's thinking to highly of yourself. It's making yourself more valuable, more competent, more intelligent, more sassy, more fun, more whatever. You stand on a pedestal looking down your nose at everyone else.

If you know God, there is no room for pride. A relationship with our sovereign and good God, and a trust in His Son, puts our pride in check (James 4:5-6). Rather than seeing ourselves as big and seeing everyone else (including God) as small, we have our perception rearranged so that everything takes on its proper size. God becomes big in our lives, and we become minuscule. Our pride withers as we stand before the awesome majesty of a holy and merciful God. We are no longer the center of our universe - Christ is, and we bow down to Him. (Deepak Reju - Tabletalk)