From Puritan Thomas Goodwin [Works, 5:292 (print|electronic)]:
…faith is to look at once with one eye to heaven, to Christ there as risen, ascended, interceding, so to look down with another eye to that Christ as once crucified and hanging on the cross, as made sin and a curse.
How does your heart respond to good theology?
In his introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation, C.S. Lewis wrote, “I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”
I agree. And in the days before Easter I’m setting aside some time to focus on one of the many implications of Christ’s resurrection: how the resurrection marks the dawning of the new creation.
The resurrection makes it possible for the believer to be a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). But the resurrection of Christ is also inaugurates something much broader—the re-creation of the universe. At least this is the conclusion of a number of theologians. As one author puts it, “with the resurrection itself a shock wave has gone through the entire cosmos: the new creation has been born.” Of course we await the return of Christ for the coming of the new heaven and the new earth. But the resurrection marks the beginning—the dawn—of this new creation.
As I prepare my heart for the Savior’s resurrection, I want to study this shock wave that reverberates through the cosmos. And to help I’ve compiled this PDF, a collection of quotes that I plan to study alongside my open Bible. My notes and quotes follow this rough outline:
1. Christ as the “Firstborn” and “Firstfruits” in Colossians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15
2. In 1 Corinthians 15:35–49
3. In the two Adams of 1 Corinthians 15:20–23 and 42–49
4. In Ephesians 1:15–23
5. In Colossians 1:15–20
6. In Revelation 3:14
7. In Revelation 21
8. In the practice of the Lord’s Day
9. Summary Quotes
With a pipe in my teeth and a pencil in my hand, this is the tough bit of theology that I will meditate on over the next two weeks. As I do, I pray that my heart will sing unbidden for the Savior, whose return will bring the new heaven and the new earth—a new creation that was inaugurated on Easter Sunday.
Download the document here (PDF).
Sam Allberry in Lifted: Experiencing the Resurrected Life (IVP, 2010), pages 111–112:
“‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ [1 Pet 1:3]. In the resurrection of Jesus this hope has begun to be realized. Its scope includes not just our bodies, but the whole of this world. Jesus anticipated this in his miracles, both in healing the sick and in putting nature around him right. The one who raised the dead also calmed the storm. These are miracles that point ahead, a foretaste of what the new creation and redeemed humanity will be like. In his teaching, so with the events of his life: we look back to Jesus to look forward to our destiny. In his resurrection we are reborn into a new hope, and it lives and breathes with this unshakable certainty: God began the resurrection project, and he will surely finish it.”
Bavinck writes a good summary on how the Savior’s humiliation and exaltation are inseparable. In Reformed Dogmatics (3:433-434) he writes that the Reformers believed “the entire state of exaltation from the resurrection to his coming again for judgment is a reward for the work that he accomplished as the Servant of the Lord in the days of his humiliation. And, given the teaching of Scripture, no other answer is possible. For over and over it presents the state of humiliation as the way and the means by which alone Christ can attain his exaltation (Isa. 53:12-13; Matt. 23:12; Luke 24:26; John 10:17; 17:4-5; Phil. 2:9; Heb. 2:10; 12:2). … Because Christ humbled himself so deeply, therefore God has so highly exalted him.”
“We cannot but hate death,
even when we have ceased to fear it,
and know that for us its sting has been extracted.
We hate it,
and thrust it from us;
loathing its advances,
and waging daily war with it—
seeking by every appliance of skill to overcome it and ward off its stroke.
We hate it because of its
shadow,
and its coldness,
and its silence.
We hate it as the great robber
of our loves and joys,
who gives nothing but takes everything.
It cuts so many ties;
it rends so many hearts;
it silences so many voices;
it thins so many firesides;
it comes with its dark veil,
its screen of ice,
between friend and friend,
between soul and soul,
between parent and child,
between husband and wife,
between sister and brother.
Of human sympathies it has none;
it concerns not itself about our joys or sorrows;
it spares no dear one,
and restores no lost one;
it is pitiless and dumb;
it is as powerful as it is inexorable,
striking down the weak,
and wrestling with the strong
till they succumb and fall. …
Its history is one of evil,
not of good;
of wrong,
and sadness,
and terror;
of breaking down,
not of building up;
of scattering,
not of gathering;
of darkness,
not of light;
of disease,
and pain,
and tossings to and fro,
not of health and brightness. …
Death has been the sword of law for ages;
but when it has done its work on earth,
God takes this sword,
red with the blood of millions,
snaps it in pieces before the universe,
and casts its fragments into the flame. …
We preach Jesus and the resurrection;
Jesus the resurrection and the life;
Jesus our life.
We bring glad tidings concerning this risen One,
and that finished work of which resurrection is the seal;
glad tidings concerning God’s free love in connection with this risen One.
The knowledge of this risen One is
forgiveness,
and life,
and glory.
Oh then, what is there in our dying world like this to impart consolation and gladness?
We shall not die,
but live.
Eternity is a life,
and not a death;
a life with Christ,
and a life in Christ.
For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne
shall lead us to the living fountains of waters,
and God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes.”
—Horatius Bonar, Light and Truth: Bible Thoughts and Themes (Dust & Ashes, 2002), 5:229—236.
I used this modified cliché in a sermon delivered years ago on a college campus. My text for the message was 1 Corinthians 15, a chapter that shines with clarity on the significance of the resurrection of our Savior.
Even the most superficial reading of this chapter will convince us of one important fact—the resurrection is the historical hinge on which every eternal truth of the Christian faith either stands or falls.
Did Jesus rise from the dead? To this question there are no half-answers. Either Christ was physically raised from the dead or he was not physically raised from the dead. Another way to say it is that we as Christians carry all our eggs in one basket.
If Christ has not been raised, we are in serious trouble. Paul could not be clearer of this in 1 Corinthians 15:14-19.
– If Christ has not been raised, the preaching of the gospel is vain, powerless, and even blasphemous.
– If Christ has not been raised, the Apostolic writings of the New Testament are meaningless.
– If Christ has not been raised, our faith is worthless.
– If Christ has not been raised, we remain dead and hopelessly entangled in our sinfulness.
– If Christ has not been raised, death wins, and we become mulch.
As Charles Spurgeon said:
“If Christ be not risen, then is may preaching vain, and your faith is also vain, and you are yet in your sins, … all our visions of heaven are blasted and withered; the brightness of our hope is quenched for ever; that rock on which our trust is built, turns out to be nothing better than mere sand if the divinity of Christ be not proved. All the joy and consolation we ever had in this world, in our belief that his blood was sufficient to atone for sin, has been but a dream of fancy and a ‘figment of idle brains;’ all the communion we have ever had with him has been but an illusion and a trance, and all the hopes we have of beholding his face in glory, and of being satisfied when we awake in his likeness, are but the foulest delusions that ever cheated the hopes of man.” (sermon 258)
But what if Christ has been raised?
– If Christ has been raised, the preaching of the gospel is glorious, powerful, and provides us with an accurate, reliable, and trustworthy revelation of God.
– If Christ has been raised, the Apostolic writings of the New Testament are accurate, precious, and filled with eternal truth.
– If Christ has been raised, our personal faith is of priceless valuable.
– If Christ has been raised, we are free from sin and filled with eternal hope.
– If Christ has been raised, death has been defeated, and we await eternal life in the presence of our resurrected Savior!
This is why I love celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. We are forced to reckon with the weightiest question in the universe in a simple, matter of fact, yes/no conclusion. The resurrection is no matter of personal opinion or a matter of religious preference. Our faith is not some platitude severed from history offered to those who want a subjective psychological wholeness. The very foundation and validity of the faith is a matter of historical accuracy. Either the miracle of Christ’s resurrection didn’t happen and we are all fools, or the resurrection of Christ was accomplished and we possess freedom from sin and victory over death.
There rushes into our hearts at some time in our lives the realization that all our eternal hopes and comforts hinge on the reality of the resurrection of our Savior. We discover that all our eggs are in one basket.
Pastor: “Allelujah! Christ is risen!”
Congregation: “He is risen indeed! Allelujah!”
Tony Reinke 