In our previous installments in this series, we have explored our culture’s discomfort with death, noting it as God’s judgment on sin, yet also observing that Scripture offers a wonderfully tender perspective. We discussed how believers, by God’s grace, escape the second death, which Christ endured in their place. As Lord of life and death, holding the keys to Death and Hades (Rev 1:18), Christ ensures believers need not fear death. We also considered the blessings God has for his saints, both body and soul: how immediately upon a believer’s death his soul is with Christ, made perfect in holiness, free from sin, delighting in the presence of God in glory; and that his body is kept securely, resting in the grave as in his bed, awaiting that future day of resurrection at Christ’s return.
In today’s article, we want to begin to think about the resurrection of Christ and what it portends for the future resurrection of our own bodies. We will take this in two parts (and, thus, in at least two articles) as we consider the implications and importance of Christ’s resurrection for us right now and what his resurrection means for us upon his return at the great day of judgment.
In my estimation, we can never make too much of Christ’s resurrection. Without ceding ground to the excesses of the so-called church calendar or liturgical calendar, I daresay that we could afford to make much more of the resurrection than we do. Yes, I know, Christians gather on the first day of the week, Sunday or the Lord’s Day, that day on which our Lord sprang forth victoriously from the grave and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Tim 1:10). But, as I have told my congregation before, we could afford to emphasize the resurrection perhaps more robustly than we tend to do. Without needing to abandon commitments to lectio continua preaching through books of the Bible, nor needing to squirrel away thought on the resurrection to one mere Lord’s Day in mid-Spring, I would venture that the average church could afford to make a much bigger deal of the resurrection than we presently do. I wonder if every Lord’s Day it would not hurt to announce, “He is Risen!” like many churches customarily do on Resurrection Sunday.
I say this not because of any kind of liturgical sentimentalism, but because the resurrection of Jesus Christ changes everything, and it is a doctrine that is jam-packed with glorious comforts and assurances to the believing heart. Let us consider some of those marvelous comforts and assurances in today’s article.
Resurrection: The What
Before delving headlong into why the resurrection is of such immense comfort to believers, let us briefly rehearse what the doctrine of the resurrection is and what we are to believe concerning it.
In 1 Corinthians 15:1–11, the apostle Paul lays out several straightforward claims about the resurrection.
The Resurrection Is Essential to the Gospel Itself
In 1 Corinthians 15:1–2, Paul makes it clear that the resurrection is part of the gospel and, therefore, necessary for salvation. We can all think of those doctrines which, while important, are not absolutely essential to one’s salvation. One’s salvation does not hinge upon, for instance, his eschatological position: Is he an amillennialist or a postmillennialist? One’s salvation does not hinge on what he believes to be the proper mode of baptism: Is he dead-set on full immersion, or is sprinkling/pouring/affusion a manner by which baptism is rightly administered (WCF 28.3)? These are things that surely all reasonable Christians would agree are not matters where one’s position would keep him out of heaven if he answered a certain way. When it comes to the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ, however, this matter, for the apostle, is non-negotiable. For Paul, there is no gospel, no good news, without a bodily resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, he writes:
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
The gospel which Paul preached, wherein he delivered matters of first importance, included the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ—an article of faith that is necessary for our salvation. No resurrection, no salvation, no Christianity.
The Resurrection Is a Doctrine That We Should Gladly Receive
In verses 3 and 4, Paul says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (emphasis mine).
The apostle Paul is saying that he is not the originator of this idea of the resurrection, but that it is a teaching and truth he received (when he was converted, as a matter of first-level importance!) and then passed on to the Corinthian Christians as something they should receive—that is, accept and embrace—as well. Thus, by extension, we ought to receive this same teaching as the Corinthians, as it is delivered to us in the pages of Holy Scripture.
Recall, from whom did the apostle Paul receive the gospel? He received it from the risen Lord Jesus himself, when he appeared to Paul on the Damascus Road (Acts 9). In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is stressing that the doctrine of the resurrection is not something that he made up, nor did he arbitrarily assign its first-tier ranking of theological importance. Rather, this teaching was something he received directly from the risen Lord Jesus. Thus, we should gladly receive, embrace, and affirm this wonderful truth as well.
The Resurrection Is an Historical Event
Paul goes out of his way to point out that the resurrection is profusely attested as an historical event. He names people who had personally seen the resurrected Christ, many of whom were known to the church at Corinth.
Paul says in verses 5–9:
And that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
If I might paraphrase Paul here, he is saying, “Corinthians, most of these five hundred people that Christ appeared to are still alive right now. If you doubt the veracity of what I am saying, you can go and ask them!” He name-drops Peter and James because the Corinthian Christians would have been aware of these men, and he concludes by referencing his own encounter with the risen Lord on that day on the road to Damascus. Paul is telling them that the resurrection is not some hoax dreamed up and spread about by a handful of crazies, but something widely witnessed and attested to by over five-hundred people who could be interrogated on the matter that very day if the Corinthians so desired. The resurrection was an historic event, with abundant attestation.
The Resurrection Is an Apostolic Doctrine
Over in Ephesians 2:19–20, Paul describes the church as the “household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” By this he means, in part, that the body of teaching handed down from the apostles and prophets informs and shapes the Christian faith. The teaching of the apostles, or “apostolic doctrine,” has always been the essential body of Christian teaching.
As far as Paul is concerned, a truly Christian church follows the teachings of the apostles, and in verse 11, contrasting himself with the other apostles and regarding this received-message-of-first-importance, he writes, “Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”
Paul is saying that all the apostles, including himself (“the least of the apostles”), proclaimed, inculcated, and insisted on the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as an essential component of the gospel of grace.
Thus, the doctrine of the resurrection rightly belongs to the body of apostolic teaching and is essential to the historic core of the Christian faith that has always been taught, has always been believed, and must be believed to this day.
Resurrection: The Why
But then, we must think not only what regarding the resurrection—the content of what it means—but we want to reflect on why it is so important and why it is so marvelously comforting.
The Resurrection Testifies to the Truthfulness of Christ’s Person and Work
In other words, the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrates and verifies that Jesus was who he said he was (the Son of God, savior of sinners, and God incarnate) and that his life and death accomplished what he set out to accomplish: the redemption of his people. The resurrection validates the claims that the Lord Jesus made about himself and his work.
Jesus Christ made such truth-claims explicitly. Perhaps the most famous example is in Matthew 16:13–17:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
Peter professes that Jesus is the Christ, God’s Anointed, the Son of the living God, and Jesus tells him that he is exactly right, and that this insight was disclosed to him not by worldly or fleshly means, but by God himself.
So, the disciples recognize and receive the claim that Jesus makes, but then God provides a supernatural imprimatur further endorsing that Jesus is who he said he was. Recall what the apostle Paul writes in Romans 1:4, “[who] was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Jesus Christ was publicly declared and vindicated as the Son of God by virtue of his glorious, bodily resurrection on the third day. The resurrection is proof that Jesus is who he said he was.
Peter further underscores this in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2. In one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture, Peter says in Acts 2:24, “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.”
Is that not absolutely breathtaking? Death could not hold him because it had no right to hold him! Death had no legitimate claim upon Jesus because he was and is the Lord and author of life. He had fully accomplished all that he had been sent to do. The justice of God had been satisfied, Christ had fully paid and atoned for all our sins, there was no punishment left to mete out to God’s people, the price of sin had been paid, the sin-wrought debt of God’s people cancelled, and so the claim of death upon Christ was now vain and void! It no longer had any right to keep Christ in its chains and had no other choice but to yield Christ’s body back to the realm of life. So he burst forth from the grave on that third day, bringing life and immortality to light (2 Tim 1:10). The work was done and the Father was satisfied. And so the resurrection gives God’s people all over the world assurance and confidence that their salvation is secure and that they are ever and always safe in him.
The Resurrection Ensures Our Justification
Perhaps the most important verse in the New Testament that connects Christ’s resurrection to our justification is Romans 4:25: “[Jesus] who was delivered over because of our transgressions, was raised because of our justification.” The apostle is telling us that our justification—our being declared right with God—is something that the resurrection has done.
I get the impression that oftentimes Christians will assume that the death of Christ on the cross was what was necessary for our forgiveness and redemption. And while the atoning death of Christ is certainly indispensable, it should not be understood apart from or without consideration of the resurrection of Christ. As Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. has argued persuasively, we would do well to almost always refer to the matter as the “death-and-resurrection-of-Christ,” emphasizing that it was a singular, unified redemptive-historical event.1 Consider this marvelous excerpt from Gaffin:
As long as [Christ] remained in a state of death, the righteous character of his work, the efficacy of his obedience unto death remained in question, in fact, was implicitly denied. Consequently, the eradication of death in his resurrection is nothing less than the removal of the verdict of condemnation and effective affirmation of his (adamic) righteousness. His resurrected state is the reward and seal which testifies perpetually to his perfect obedience . . . according to Romans 4:25 . . . our transgressions are associated with his death . . . our justification is associated with his resurrection. . . . His resurrection is his justification as the last Adam, the justification of the “firstfruits.” This and nothing less is the bond between his resurrection and our justification.2
The resurrection is essential and indispensable to our redemption. The resurrection is part and parcel of the gospel. It gives assurance to us that Christ’s work is complete, and that redemption is accomplished.
There is more for us to consider regarding why the resurrection of Jesus Christ brings such immense comfort and hope to believers. We will consider those matters in more detail when we return next time to our ongoing series on the Christian’s comfort, even in death.
Notes
- Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (P&R Publishing, 1987), 11ff.
- Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, 121–23.
©Sean Morris. All Rights Reserved.
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Sean Morris
Sean was educated at Grove City College, Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS), Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). He earned his PhD from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, and serves as a minister at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, TN. He also serves as the Academic Dean of the Blue Ridge Institute for Theological Education and has published numerous theological and devotional articles. Sean lives in Oak Ridge with his wife, Sarah, and their children.
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