Gifted with Resurrection

Naturally enough, the big resurrection that has all of us shouting is that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Because He lives, we have a solid hope that one day we too will be raised from death to live eternally with Him. But don’t stop there. Many things go down towards death: hopes die, relationships die, careers die, loved ones die, dreams die. Our need for “resurrections” is life-long!

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.” John 11:25

All scripture citations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.

The Possibility of Endless Resurrections

What does “resurrection” mean to you? Usually, it means that of Jesus being raised from the dead or our own future resurrection to heaven after death. These are incredible, heavenly gifts. Had Jesus stayed dead two unspeakable horrors would have befallen us:

1) We would have been carried to hell by our sins—there would be no atonement.[1]

2) We would never be able to know and love the Lord—there could be no new life through faith in Him.[2]

Can any of us fathom how utterly empty our universe would be—even if we could be spared hell—if Jesus were not here to fill it? One day, one Everlasting Day, He will fill our lives, not just with good things, but with Himself. We will see Him and know Him even as He now knows us.[3] He is already the Source of unceasing delight to countless throngs of angels and innumerable believers who have gone before us.[4] His resurrection not only gives us a life in heaven, but it gives us Him in heaven—and that is by far the greater gift!

Resurrection Is Also for this Life

Even so, the gift of resurrection doesn't end there! So many relationships, events and things in life have a way of going downhill. Even our physics tells us that the universe itself is winding down towards death—Entropy rules. No, it doesn't—Resurrection rules! Jesus is Lord of the Resurrection—He says that He is resurrection.[5]

By His death He descended into death. Now that He has been raised by God, Jesus stands ready to raise anyone and anything that is attached to Him by faith.[6] Is your marriage going down towards death? Jesus can raise it. Is your business going down towards bankruptcy? Jesus can raise it. Have your hopes and dreams gone into the tank? Jesus can raise them. There is nothing that He cannot raise from the dead!

We Follow Him into Resurrected Life

So bold is He about His abilities that He calls us to willingly go down into death by embracing our crosses in life. This is the famous “dying to self” which is so hard to master, but which every new disciple (follower of Jesus) has to begin learning.[7] The promise behind it is that if we learn to say “no” to ourselves and “take up” our cross (the thing that is “killing” us), we will follow Jesus into a resurrected life like His.[8] There is clearly a mystery here as great as the promise, but it is one we need to grasp. C.S. Lewis wrote this about it:

The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.
          C. S. Lewis: Mere Christianity

The truth is that we who now live by faith have been united by God's Spirit to the "indestructible life" of Jesus.[9]  Nothing that is truly His can ever be held by death—much less be destroyed by it. Death has no power over those of us who are now "in Christ." What gets raised to life may be nothing like what went down into death, but it WILL be worth the pain of the passage. Take heart, dear believer: Resurrection is always in our future.

Next "Free Gift" to Open

Gifted with Revelation  You are trapped in a dark room and can't find the door. You can't think of a way out. You can't grope for and find the way out. You are getting increasingly worried and desperate. Then some kind Person turns on the lights for you. Now you can see your way around. You can even see the One who took pity on you and enlightened you. What a revelation!

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Resurrection Scriptures

And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" Luke 24:33-34

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26

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 6:5-11

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. 2 Corinthians 4:8-12

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

According to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Ephesians 1:19-20

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ...  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:8, 10-11

Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. Colossians 2:12-14

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that  through death he might  destroy  the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who  through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Hebrews 2:14-15

This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. Hebrews 7:15-16

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 1 Peter 1:20-21

Endnotes