Ephesians 1:19, 20 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,… According to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead. The resurrection of Christ was at once an illustration and a pledge of our resurrection, spiritually and physically, with himself. It seems a strange thing to find an exercise of purely physical power compared with an exercise of purely spiritual power. The strangeness disappears when we consider the place of the Resurrection in the scheme of Christian doctrine. The fact of Christ's resurrection is to us both doctrine and life - "the very pillar and ground" of Christianity. I. IT IS THE CONSTITUTIVE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, HISTORICALLY AND MORALLY. Strauss admits that "Christianity in the form in which Paul, in which all the apostles understand it, as it is presupposed in the confessions of all Christian Churches, falls with the resurrection of Jesus." In this fundamental fact we have the concurrent witness of the apostles, of Paul in his gospel and his life, of the Gospels, of Jesus himself, of the belief of the disciples, of the attitude of Jewish enemies, of the founding of the Church among Jews and Gentiles. If the Resurrection is denied, Vinet's remark becomes true: "A new history is manufactured for us in the interest of a new theology." II. IT HAS GREAT THEOLOGICAL VALVE; FOR IT IS THE SEAL AND CROWN OF CHRIST'S REDEEMING SACRIFICE. "He was raised again for our justification" (Romans 4:25). If he was not raised, we are yet in our sins. III. HIS RESURRECTION SUPPLIES THE IMAGE AND THE GROUND OF OUR RENEWAL INTO HIS FELLOWSHIP. (Romans 6:1-13; Colossians 2:10-13; Colossians 3:1-10; Galatians 2:20.) Jesus himself expressively blends together the historical and the moral constituents of our faith in the sublime sentence, "I am the Resurrection, and the Life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:25). It is not simply that resurrection is the truest description of the living personal experience of the believer from day to day, but by virtue of his oneness with Christ he is "quickened together with Christ, and raised up together with him, and made to sit together with him in heavenly places" (Ephesians 2:5). Jesus' extinction of the penalty of sin, his breaking the seal of death, his recovery for man of the power of the Holy Spirit, all attested by the Resurrection, reveal it to us at the same time as a source of moral light and power. This is "the power of the Resurrection" that the apostle prays for (Philippians 3:10). IV. THE RESURRECTION IS THE PLEDGE TO US OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY, AND HIS RESURRECTION-BODY THE TYPE OF THE FUTURE GLORIFIED MAN. (Philippians 3:21.) The apostle says, "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:11). Thus, first and last, the resurrection of Christ is more than a mere illustration of the power of God "to usward who believe;" it is a pledge of the continuance and consummation of all that is involved in the redemption of Christ. - T.C. Parallel Verses KJV: And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, |
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