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Death + Burial +
Resurrection = Christ-life
It is very hard to imagine how the Father would put Christ in believers and make the believers acceptable to Himself by the Christ that is in them (1 Cor. 1:30). Religion has imagined all sorts of ideas and doctrines about the acceptability of the believer to the Father. Some say it is their church membership that makes believers acceptable, some say it is their water baptism that makes them acceptable, some say they have the only truth to make you acceptable, while others say it is their Spirit baptism that makes the believer acceptable. On and on go the ideas of religion as to what makes us acceptable to the Father. I suppose the Father knew this would happen, so He makes it clear in the Word that Christ in the believer is the believer’s only hope of acceptance (Col. 1:27). All of these other ideas have some merit in them, but none of them, or all of them put together, would make anyone acceptable to the Father. In the Scriptures neither salvation nor the daily walk of the believer can ever be contingent on anything man does. If it was, then Christ died in vain. Now, if the Father is not going to use anything we do to make us acceptable to Him, then on what does He base our salvation and Christian life? When we analyze Paul’s Epistles, we see that, to Paul, the fullness of the time has been entered upon and the new creation has dawned with the advent of Christ. It is clear at once that we must have a total vision of the whole redemptive plan of God as it is in Christ. How sad that multitudes of the Father’s children are denied the redemptive knowledge that they are in Christ. We must always remember that the new creation life introduced by Paul does not begin only at a specific point in Christ’s life on earth or at His exaltation. Rather, we must begin with Paul’s words in Ephesians 1:4, where the believer is chosen to be in Christ before the foundation of the world was laid. Then we move all the way to where the "fullness of the time" takes effect with the sending of God’s Son, "…made of a woman, made under the law" (Gal. 4:4). In 1 Tim. 3:16, "the great mystery of godliness" finds its expression, and begins with the words: "God was manifested in the flesh." This does not alter the fact that it can be said of Paul’s gospel that salvation has its starting point and center in the death and resurrection of Christ.
Paul’s Prime Mission It is of the greatest importance to see the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection, which are the center of Paul’s message, as an inseparable unity. We should particularly keep in view how the significance of Christ’s resurrection is determined by that of His death, and vice-versa. The special character of His death determines the eschatological significance of Christ’s resurrection. For Paul, Christ’s death is determined primarily by its connection with the power and guilt of sin. It would be gross error to even assume that there is or would be one iota of sin or guilt not dealt with at the cross. Furthermore, it would be worse yet to leave to the believer the responsibility of dealing with his own sins, of the spirit or of the body. It is characteristic of this emphasis that again and again Paul relates Christ’s death to the cross and can therefore qualify the whole of his gospel as "the preaching of the cross" (1 Cor. 1:17-18; Gal. 3:1). Remember that Paul is the only one who declares salvation is totally bought for the sinner at the cross.
Enemies of the Cross Paul mentions the resurrection as the great central redemptive fact (Rom. 1:4; 2 Cor. 4:13-14). Salvation comes to believers through "…the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:8b-9). He further says that it is faith itself by which man is justified. "…if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Rom. 4:24b). This is only to be understood adequately if the specific significance of Christ’s death, as it is developed by the Apostle in a great variety of ways, is never for an instant detached from this eschatological gospel of the resurrection. In Christ at the cross we all die and are dead to sin, and in His resurrection we all have eternal life, which is His life and we can live Him daily. On the other hand, it is to be maintained no less vigorously that in Paul’s proclamation the resurrection of Christ in fact means the breakthrough in the issue of a new life in Christ. It means that the benefits of the believer dying in Christ cannot be separated from the resurrection. This all-embracing significance of the resurrection of Christ is in Paul likewise not only the fruit of his profound theological reflection, but above all of divine revelation. As he himself expressed it, when it pleased God to reveal His Son in him (Gal. 1:15-16), that was first and foremost the evidence for him that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and had died and whom he himself had persecuted, was the means by which the Father would birth His own sons and by which they could be redeemed. And it was this certainty, entirely foreign and even offensive to Jewish thinking and the Israel Church of that day, which determined his insight into the redemptive-historical significance of Christ’s death and resurrection in a decisive manner. Because Jesus was the Christ, His resurrection is not, as previous raisings of the dead, an isolated occurrence. But because salvation was promised in Him¾ along with a new creation life¾ there comes a decisive transition from the old to the new world (2 Cor. 5:17).
Firstborn – Firstfruits – the Beginning In connection with the name "Firstborn" one is not to think here merely of an order of birth. To be sure, this name also indicates the relationship to others that in Romans 8:29 are called "many brethren." As the firstborn among those many, however, Christ not only occupies a special place and dignity, but He also goes before them, He opens up the way for them, He joins their future to His own by the "in Christ" truth . While in Romans 8:29 the thought is of the glorification that is still to be expected. In Colossians 1:18 this position as firstborn is related specifically to the resurrection, and this pronouncement is amplified still further with the words "who is the beginning." We have to understand both qualifications in close relationship with each other, and must see in the words "the beginning" the significance of Christ’s resurrection as well. Our word "beginning" is no adequate translation, for what is intended is not merely that Christ was the first or formed a beginning in terms of chronological order. He was rather the pioneer, the inaugurator, who opened the way and all of this was before the foundation of the world. With Him the great resurrection became the full reality of the human "in Christ". And very similar is the meaning of "firstborn from the dead," He ushers in the new world of the resurrection. He has brought life and immortality to light (2 Tim. 1:10). In a somewhat different way, the same idea is given expression that Christ is the "first fruits" of those who have fallen asleep. Here the picture of the harvest is in the background. The first fruits are not only its beginning, but also its representation. In the first fruits, the whole harvest becomes visible. Therefore, Christ is the "first fruits of them that slept." In Him the resurrection of the dead dawns, and His resurrection represents the commencement of the new life "in Christ." His resurrection is our resurrection even as His death is our death to sin and the old man life. As perfect as His death, burial and resurrection were, so perfect is our standing in Christ, with victory over sin and death. We too are a part of the firstborn and first fruits. The Father based our position in Christ on the finished work of the cross and the resurrection. It is a world where there will be re-birthed humans with a new life compatible to these words, "Firstborn," and "First fruits." Again, we see another thing. Nowhere is this more clearly voiced than in the passages in which Christ is set over against Adam. Paul speaks of Adam as "the first man," and of Christ as "the last Adam," the "second man." (1 Cor. 15:45, 47). The expression "the last Adam" is again highly typical of the eschatological character of Paul’s preaching: Christ is thereby designated as the Inaugurator of the new humanity. The offsprings of the Father will be no different to Him than Jesus was. In addition, it is once more Christ’s resurrection from the dead that has made Him this last Adam: "For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:21-22). "And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.... The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven…And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Cor. l5:45, 47, 49). The
Christ-life in the New Humanity In summary we can say, therefore, that Paul’s understanding of the great salvation that has been revealed in Christ is ultimately determined by Christ’s death and resurrection. It is in them that the present age has lost its power and hold on the children of Adam and the new life in Christ has come. For this reason, too, the entire unfolding of the salvation that has come with Christ again and again harks back to His death and resurrection. All the facets in which this salvation appears and all the names by which it is described are ultimately nothing other than the unfolding of what this all-important breakthrough of life in death contains within itself, showing the plan of God in this present world. Here all lines come together, and from hence the whole Pauline proclamation of redemption can be described in its unity and coherence. Paul’s preaching, so we have seen, is "eschatology," because it is the preaching of the fulfilling redemptive work of God in Christ. For it is in Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection that the mystery of the redemptive plan of God has manifested itself in its true character, where the new creation has come to being. We claim the believer is perfectly dead to sin, as dead as Christ was dead to sin on the cross. If there is still sin abounding that is not conquered on the cross, whether in any believer or anywhere in the world, then He died in vain and we still are not delivered from sin or the devil. Likewise, our new life in Christ is just as perfect as His resurrection. If Christ be not raised from the dead, then have we all believed in vain. The plan of God is not contingent on man’s works or words. Paul has made it perfectly clear in his Epistles, in many different words and ways, that believers are delivered from sin, all sin and death, as greatly as was Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. If any believer commits sin or believes that he has sin in his body, let him go to the cross and celebrate a change in his mind. For it is in the believer’s mind that doubt and fear reside. Only believe, for salvation is complete and you are chosen to be in Him. |
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Christ-life Fellowship litzman@christ-life.org 214-391-0488
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