"CHRIST’S RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD IMPLIES THAT WE MAY LIVE BEFORE GOD FOREVER."

45. Q. How does Christ's resurrection benefit us?
A. First, by His resurrection He has overcome death, so that He could make us share in the righteousness which He had obtained for us by His death.[1] Second, by His power we too are raised up to a new life.[2] Third, Christ's resurrection is to us a sure pledge of our glorious resurrection.[3]
[1] Rom. 4:25; I Cor. 15:16-20; I Pet. 1:3-5. [2] Rom. 6:5-11; Eph. 2:4-6; Col. 3:1-4. [3] Rom. 8:11; I Cor. 15:12-23; Phil. 3:20, 21.

Scripture Reading:
I Corinthians 15:1-23
Ephesians 2:1-10

Singing:  (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 116;1,2,3
Psalm 115:8
Hymn 28:2,3
Psalm 30:1,2,7
Psalm 16:5 & Hymn 51:2,4,8

Beloved Congregation of the Lord!

Sunday by Sunday we confess with the church of all ages that the Christ who was crucified, dead and buried arose on the third day.

Resurrection. From our own experience we know well that death is permanent; never has anyone buried in Fremantle Cemetery again walked the streets of Fremantle, and we don’t expect to meet the deceased on the street either. Our experiences dictate it: the dead remain dead. So we are not surprised that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is widely denied….

Yet there is, brothers & sisters, that word from the apostle Paul to the Corinthians. Says Paul in I Cor 15: "for I delivered to you first of all that which I also received." And what was it that Paul considered to be so important? This: "that Christ died for sins..., that He was buried, that He rose again on the third day" (vs 3f). So, not just Christ’s death and burial are of utmost importance; of equal importance with the death and the burial is Christ’s resurrection from the dead. As the apostle explains somewhat later: "If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!" (vs 17).

We wonder: why can Paul be so categorical about the need for that resurrection? In Lord’s Day 17 we confess the answer to be that Christ’s resurrection guarantees our own eternal life with God.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

1. We are made righteous before God
2. We are raised to a new life
3. We are pledged a glorious resurrection

We remember on Easter Sunday that a grave was opened, and the dead person in that grave resurrected. To understand the meaning of that resurrection of so long ago, we must identify first who arose.

The one who arose, we know, was Jesus Christ, the Son of Cod. He had lived a number of years on earth, had preached the gospel of redemption, and though He had initially been welcomed by the people He was later rejected and crucified.

Crucified He was. Scripture tells us that a hanged man is accursed of God (Dt 21:23). Jesus Christ, in other words, Son of God though He was, was cursed by God. With Lord’s Day 15 we confessed why; He was cursed because He took on Himself the sins of His people. And sin is something God hates, is something God will not tolerate. Sin He became, and that is why God poured out His wrath on Jesus. For three hours there was total darkness, and that darkness meant that God had deserted Jesus, it meant that Jesus was alone without God, was rejected by God. At the end of those three hours He cried out that His work was finished, and then He gave up His spirit, died. He died because "the justice and truth of God required that satisfaction for our sins could be made in no other way than by the death of the Son of God." He died, and was subsequently buried.

This, my brothers and sisters, is the man whose grave was empty Easter Sunday! That man, whom God had crucified on Good Friday, arose on Easter Sunday. That same man, whom God had rejected on Good Friday, was raised on Easter Sunday. He who cried that all was finished and then breathed His last, is the man who vacated His tomb on the third day.

How come He vacated His grave? Scripture gives two answers, and both need our attention this afternoon. Scripture says of Jesus on the one hand that "God raised Him up" (Acts 2:24), and on the other hand that "Jesus arose" (I Cor 15:4). You catch the difference; in the first instance Jesus is passive, is acted upon, is raised. In the second Jesus is active, does something, arises. Both emphases need our attention.

First, then, Scripture says that "God raised Him up." The significance? This: on Easter Sunday the very same God who had earlier cursed Jesus of Nazareth now raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. On Easter Sunday the same God who had deserted His Son because that Son had become all sin now raised this same Son from the dead. Why did God do that? Why this public change in God’s approach to Jesus? That, brothers and sisters, was because the entire world should know that God had lifted the curse He publicly laid on Jesus three days earlier! It was so that all the world might know beyond a doubt that God was satisfied with the work Christ had performed on Calvary, was satisfied with the sacrifice Christ had made for sin.

We know well that an offer to pay $20,000 for a car doesn’t make the car your’s until the salesman has accepted the offer. "It is finished," cried the Son after undergoing the three hours of darkness, but on Good Friday heaven there was from heaven no reply as to whether God considered the payment sufficient. That public reply of acceptance did not come until the third day. Then God sent angels to earth to role back the stone from the sepulchre, caused the earth to quake, tombs to open and many of the recently dead to walk about the streets of Jerusalem. And all of that was to direct attention to the empty tomb; it was to say: God in heaven has raised Jesus Christ from the dead. "God raised Him up" as sure evidence that God accepted the sacrifice Christ offered to Him on the cross. By His act of raising Jesus God says in the hearing of all the world: "well done, good and faithful servant."

But, my brothers and sisters, if God was pleased with Christ’s work so that He raised Jesus from the dead, then it follows that God no longer saw Jesus as covered with the sins of the human race. The very Jesus whom God condemned on Good Friday is now acceptable to God, innocent of sin; God now sees Christ as righteous in His eyes. That’s why Christ can stand before God again, and God receive Him. It’s a point I’ll come back to shortly.

First, though, I need to draw out that Scripture tells us more than that God raised Christ. We’re also told in so many words that Christ "arose" (I Cor 15:4), that is, that He Himself acted, left the grave, picked up His life again. So it’s not only so that God the Father acted on Jesus Christ and raised Him; it’s also that God the Son acted upon Himself and so arose. What that means? That means, brothers and sisters, that Jesus Christ –though dead!- had power over death, power to escape death, power to make Himself alive again. So His rising is proof of His majesty, His strength.

But of what importance was it that Jesus demonstrate His power? This: He showed that He actually had the power to forgive sins. For what is easier, for Christ to say that one’s sins are forgiven, or for Christ to pick Himself up from the dead and walk? Jesus sovereignly arose from the dead, and that’s to say that He escaped the clutches of Death, better, He defeated the prince of Death, Satan. That’s what His rising was a demonstration of. And because He defeated Satan was His rising from the dead also a judgment over Satan; here was evidence that Satan was bound, trussed up, broken. And if Satan is broken, then Christ can freely take from the slaves of Satan and make them again children of God. And He can present them to the Father, and say to the Father that these are the ones God has given to Him, the ones for whom He died, the ones for whom there is forgiveness of sins. They are presented to the Father, not as persons dead in sin, but as those who have no sin; Christ died for them. And because they have no sin anymore for Christ’s sake are they justified with Christ before the throne of God. They are not blackened by sin; they are instead washed clean by the blood of the resurrected Christ so that they can stand freely, without fear of condemnation, before God. Christ has overcome death, and the glorious result is that those whom God has given to Christ are made to share in the righteousness which Christ has earned for Himself by His death.

We realize, beloved: it’s rich, to be placed by Christ before the throne of God and have God declare you righteous with Christ. Rich indeed. But who receives this wealth? Who is made righteous before God?

In our Catechism we confess that it’s "us", that is, the believer. Who benefit from Christ’s resurrection? You and I, brothers and sisters, in so far as we believe what God has told us in His Word. Through faith the believer may say: "whatever Christ is before God, I also am." Through faith the believer says: Christ is acceptable before God (that’s proven by the fact that God raised Him from the dead) and so for Christ’s sake I too am acceptable to God. Christ obtained righteousness, and that righteousness is also given to me, for what is Christ’s is mine; I share in Christ, I am made one with Christ. So I, personally, can stand before that throne of God’s Judgment, and I need not be afraid!

Then it’s true: the resurrection of any person from the grave may make no sense to us. Yet, congregation, we are compelled to believe it, lest we fail to share in Christ’s righteousness - and so find ourselves condemned before God. God raised Christ, and that’s our salvation. Christ rose, and that’s our salvation too. To deny that resurrection is to deny salvation. As Paul says: "if Christ has not been raised" - and we may add; if you maintain that Christ has not been raised- "your faith is futile and you are still in your sins" (I Cor 15:17), still unrighteous before God, dead in sin. For God is God of the living, not of the dead!

How marvellous, beloved, is the wealth the Lord gives to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the riches go farther than the fact that we are made righteous before God through His resurrection. There’s also the fact that we are raised to a new life: second point.

The Bible tells us, congregation, that the believer is raised to a new life in two senses. For the believer has already been raised to a new life, and he also will be raised to a new life.

That the believer will be raised to a new life is something we understand. That’s a reference to the last day, to the time when the dead shall rise from their graves and - in the words of LD 22- the flesh shall be reunited with the soul and made like Christ’s glorious body. More on that latter.

What, however, is meant by that other concept, that the believer has already been raised to a new life?

We are to recall, brothers and sisters, that every person, as a result of the fall into sin, has become dead in sin. Though we all had life with God in the beginning (for there was communion with God in Paradise), that life with God ended at the fall when we deserted God in favour of serving Satan. That life with God ended, and as such we died, became dead in sin. As we read from Eph 2: we "were dead through the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air" (vss 1f). Dead we were, and that implied a conduct, a manner of living. "Among [these] we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind" (vs 3).

But, Paul continues, "God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ..., and raised us up [with Christ]" (vss 4f). And with that Paul means that God has taken His child from Satan’s power, given him forgiveness of sins, made him righteous, and adopted him to be His own child. So, the communion with God is restored; that person has life again.

The apostle says the same thing in Romans 6. Paul says that when Christ died, the Christian died also. That is, when Christ died on the cross, the Christian died with Him, died to sin, became dead-with-respect-to-sin. Then Paul continues: "if we have been united together [with Christ] in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom 6:5). Says Paul: those two go together. When God through Christ causes someone to "die to sin", to become dead-with-respect-to-sin, then God does not leave that person dead. But God sees to it that the person who has died with Christ to sin is also raised with Christ to a new life. So, if having died to sin is a fixed reality for every Christian (and it is!), so is the fact that every Christian has been resurrected to a new life. Anyone who shares in the benefits Christ obtained on the cross is no longer the person he once was - dead in sin; rather, he has become what he was not - alive to God. God, after all, is God not of the dead but of the living. So, if God is indeed your God, then you are no longer dead; you have been made alive again. That’s Paul’s argument in Rom 6, and that’s what we confess in the second part of Lord’s Day 17 with these words, "by [Christ’s] power we too are raised up to a new life."

But if being dead in sin implied a lifestyle, brothers and sisters, so does being raised with Christ imply a lifestyle. Rom 6: "our old man was crucified with Him" (ie, was put to death with Christ), "that the body of sin might be done away with, and that we should no longer be slave of sin" (vs 6). Those are the realities that lead Paul to tell the Ephesians that they are to lead a life worthy of the calling to which they were called. And that means in practice that the Ephesians are to act in a fashion consistent with their identity; because they have died to sin and been raised with Christ to a new life, they are also to be what they have now become in Christ. How is it that they shall be what they have become? Paul gives the answer: by imitating God, as beloved children (Eph 5:1).

That means for us, congregation, the same thing as it meant for the Ephesians. If we have indeed been raised to a new life with Christ, then we cannot act as children of Satan; we must instead act as children of God. And that does not mean that the Christian simply refrains from doing what Satan likes; it means instead that the Christian makes a point of imitating God. For he has been raised to a new life. And being raised to a new life implies having been made a child of God, not just on paper but also in heart. And just as much as a natural child cannot help but resemble his parents in actions and looks, so also the sinner who has been raised to a new life and made a child of God cannot help but resemble his Parent in heaven. For as the father is, so is the son.

How does the Father in heaven act? The Scripture is full of that. God is holy, righteous, gracious, merciful, etc, etc. The Christian must be the same. And he can be that only by obeying the law which God has given to us. For that law is the guide that tells us what God is like. So Scripture tells us that by what a person does, one can tell whether he is indeed a child of God or not; by his manner of life one can discern whether that person has been raised to a new life.

We need it fixed in our minds, beloved. Being dead to sin is a basic fact for the child of God; it’s not wishful thinking. That counts also for the concept of being raised to a new life. That too is not wishful thinking; it’s reality. You have been raised to a new life – if indeed you are in Jesus Christ. But if that’s reality, beloved, if you are a new creature, if in faith you share in the righteousness which Christ earned on the cross, then - says the Lord- then you cannot help but demonstrate that reality. Just as much as Jesus Christ, once raised, could not stay in the grave, so also the child of God, once raised to a new life, cannot remain in the grave of sin. If being dead in sin implies that we’ll act dead in sin, then being raised to a new life implies that we will act raised to a new life.

So, brothers and sisters, if we do not act as the Father in heaven does, then it is to be questioned whether we really are raised to a new life, adopted to be children of God, righteous through Jesus’ blood. The proof of one’s identity as a new creation, as being made alive in Jesus Christ, lies in the actions.

Shortly Easter shall be upon us. With reason the police shall be out, watching for transgression of the speed limit, watching for transgression of the alcohol limit too. Will you act different than the world around us? Or shall you, like those still dead in sin, obey the urges of the flesh? The young people will be invited to a Congress. Those of you who go: will your conduct show that you are raised to a new life, or that you are still dead in your sins? Will you give yourselves to the outings on the beaches, with their alcohol and drugs, or will you keep yourself clear of works of darkness? Imprint it on your minds, brothers and sisters, older and younger alike: to celebrate Easter according to the fashion of the world means that you are not touched by what Easter is; you are still dead in sin, not raised with Christ. Here we all need to do self-examination: do my actions give proof that I’ve been raised with Christ to a new life, or not? Where those actions do not give that proof, there is need for repentance. And the repentance that is required involves not just a breaking with sin, but an embracing in faith of the fact that Christ arose from the dead – so that God declared righteous both Christ Himself and all who belong to Christ.

The riches God has prepared for us in the resurrection of Christ from the dead are enormous. We’re made righteous before God. We’re also raised to a new life ourselves, today already. Rich indeed! Yet it’s richer still: we’re also pledge a glorious resurrection ourselves – third point.

The believer, the child of God united by faith to Jesus Christ, has been raised to a new life, and invariably gives evidence in this life of his resurrection in Christ. Yet, to his shame and pain, the Christian’s renewed life remains far short of God’s holy standard. So the Christian cries daily with Paul, "wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

Here, dear congregation of Jesus Christ, is another rich promise of your resurrected Saviour! For the Lord has promised that those today raised from deadness in sin to a new life before God, will tomorrow be perfected. Today children of God imitate God so poorly; tomorrow there shall be no sin, the imitation shall be just as God desires it.

Lord’s Day 17 speaks of "our glorious resurrection". That phrase does not mean that simply our bodies will come out of the grave as Christ left His tomb. No, "our glorious resurrection" implies that the total person shall be completely renewed. Here too, the resurrected Christ is the example. When Christ left the tomb, He did not continue His life as He used to lead it before He died. He was a changed person, recognizable, yes, but not restricted by walls and space; glorified He was, then already. And so it will be with the child of God; we shall be glorified, altered. How exactly it shall be we do not know.

And, beloved, we don’t have to know either. What we do know is this: with this body, the one that now has desires against God, I shall praise God perfectly. On that day the struggle to be what God has made us to be shall be over; perfectly we’ll carry out God’s will for us. See there the marvellous depth of the promised "glorious resurrection." We’ll be completely renewed, raised to a new life in the fullest sense of the word. Talk about rich!

No, congregation, to speak of a resurrection from the dead makes no sense to our limited and sinful minds. But I believe that Christ rose, in triumph, and that’s my life – today and forever!

My God is God of the living, not of the dead. Amen.