RESURRECTION. 

 

The true theology is that man was not made to die in 70 years or so – nor in 1000. There was no death in Eden. Death came by sin. The plan of God was resurrection power, so that Adam would live until glorified and transformed, as Jesus was in  the tomb. The fall distorted the image of God in man.  God said ‘let us make man in our own image’ and the fall interrupted His purpose.  But it is resumed in Christ. Which is why Paul, said we believers are “predestined to  be transformed into His image”.

Resurrection is a mystery. If Mary had been in the tomb she would never have seen what happened. It is the prime example that God’s ways are hid, unobservable. Things that are. We wake up to what God does but don’t remember it happening. He brings things to be from nothing.  It is the Law of Heaven that we cannot watch it or even know it is being done until it is there.

Nobody saw Jesus rise from  the dead or leave the tomb.  His name is Jaweh Shammah –‘ the Lord is there.’ 

    He never arrives, (or is always arriving) but is there. “Where two or three are gathered there I AM.”  – not ‘will be.’

  John 8.58 “Before  Abraham was, I am”. Not ‘I was.’  (Greek  ‘ ego eimi’ –present active indicative).

   Revelation 1:4 (Greek actual) “The one being, and was and is to come’. The verb ‘to be’ is changed and the infinitive of the verb ‘come’ is substituted because God is not going to be something – He is it now. 

His works bear the stamp of their creator. What was not, is. 

Isaiah 45.15. “Truly  you are a God that hides Himself.”  Yet  the chapter describes His creative power and works., The process  - His ways - are unknown to us,  hidden.  His re-appearance from the tomb is as mysterious as His creation of new species, which evolution fails to explain.  They emerge from nothing.  Jesus did not need the stone moved to get out of the tomb, but only to demonstrate He had gone.

After Christ’s resurrection He appeared only to believers.  Unbelief alters the conditions of observance. Jesus did not reveal Himself to Caiaphas and other of His enemies.  It would be as if a chance was lost to shake these men.  But that was not how things are.  God doesn’t oblige us with hard evidence to convince us. He said to the man in Hades “Though one rose  from  the dead they would not believe”.  His way is hidden from us.   

Believe and see, not see and believe, but not ‘see and not believe’.  That is a law of heaven.  God has no sense of the dramatic like us because He cannot be surprised. He does not produce spectaculars.  He is not a God of sensations and never performs wonders to impress. What we think about Him doesn’t matter. Healings take place beyond our working out how. New species arise mysteriously.

 

 Nothing in history, legend or myth exists comparable to the resurrection of Christ.  It had no antecedents but will have repeats only when we are raised through Him. He is resurrection, the ‘first fruits of them that slept.’

 

Perhaps the best known account relating to the return of the dead is the  myth of  Pluto, lord of the dead, with his terrible dog Cerberus carrying off Eurydice killed by a serpent on her wedding night. She entered the infernal regions to go either to Elysium or Tartaros.  But Orpheus’ music so charmed King Pluto that he let her leave following Orpheus, but he must not turn to see if she was following him. He did turn at the very end of the journey and she was snatched back into Hades.  

 

There have been risings from the dead, as Lazarus, the man of Nain, Jarius daughter, and so on but these people died again – they were not raised transformed and  living by their own authority and power of immortality as was Jesus.

 

There are hints in the OT of the resurrection. In fact in Luke 24.26 Jesus Himself told Cleopas and another disciple (John?) that the prophets had said he would have to suffer and be glorified.  Beginning at  Moses and all the prophets he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”  Scriptures that may seem to have no relevance to Christ did have. Everything written in the OT related to Christ which explains some of the odd OT quotations used by Matthew about Jesus.  The eyes of Jesus look behind every line, like a man looking through an eastern lattice.

 

Although the OT was written before Christ, with no revelation of any rising from the dead, yet there are phrases that anticipate it.  The best known would be Job 19.23-27.   Others -    Psalm 23. “ In the valley of death I shall fear no evil  …  for I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. “  Psalm 68 promises things too great to be purely earthly.  Psalm 49.15. “ God will redeem my life . You hold my by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel and afterwards you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you?”     Isaiah 53:11.” Though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days. After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied”. In the imprecatory psalms the end of  the wicked often contrasted with the future of the righteous – there was an inner conviction evident that for the godly death was not  the end.

 

But  of course in the NT the light is brilliant.  2 Tim 1.10 “ Christ Jesus has destroyed death  and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.”

 

The Resurrection of Christ was not a private or local event. Nor did its importance relate only to those who believed it. This was a supreme change. Saying I believe in  the resurrection was no mere shibboleth.  At the heart of the universe on Easter morning in a cold tomb something happened that established a new pattern in creation. Believed or not, this was a fact of existence, the opening of the fountain of life not only in this world but in the heavens and the cosmos. Life – eternal life – was a gift to mankind – it was there – here “That which we have  heard, which we have seen, and our hands  have touched – the word of life.” Life wipes out death like light wipes out darkness.  It cannot be categorized as miracle.

 

Miracles are earthly events, but this was something that happened in God.  He positioned himself in all His infinite greatness accessible at the disposal of men and women to link their lives with His and live by the power of indestructible, imperishable immortality.  The explosion of life in the tomb has rippled and radiated ever since globally wherever there was were any with the receptor of faith. That is why we in Christ – as personalities or souls can never perish. What is alive does not corrupt. 

 

Ephesians 1. “I pray that the eyes of your heart  may be enlightened in order that you may know the incomparable great power TOWARD us (Greek)  who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength which he exerted when  he raised him from the dead.”   This is an almost forgotten passage. Christians try to generate power by piety, prayer, fasting, effort and sweat.  God objects to sweat.  Paul states that they need only that the eyes of their heart be opened to the fact of available resurrection life and power and then live life by reliance on it. The power lines are there. Just plug in.  “There’s life in the life of Jesus if you live in it day by day”.

 

The resurrection is the very substance of Christianity. The Gospel is its proclamation, Christianity is ‘not in word only but in power.’  Scholarship is no substitute, but neither is ignorance.  Counselling running along with psychology is a very uncertain and is not Christian counselling.  Counselling by Christians should be by the prophetic resurrection power of the Holy Spirit. The common belief today is that Jesus rose in spirit form. That is simply not resurrection at all.