While the Roman soldiers were killing Him, His resurrection was going on. While a grain of wheat is dying under the earth, the life inside is growing. On the one hand, the grain dies outwardly. On the other hand, the inner life of the grain rises inwardly. Two things are going on simultaneously in two directions. Death is taking place in the shell of the grain and life is growing within the shell. At the same time a grain of wheat is dying, resurrection is taking place. First Peter 3:18 is a crucial verse in the New Testament unveiling to us what was happening when Christ was dying on the cross. When He was dying in the flesh on the cross, at the same time He was rising up in His spirit. This rising up was the beginning of His resurrection. His resurrection did not take place suddenly early in the morning on the third day after His death. It began when He was on the cross, when He was under the killing.
When Jesus as the grain of wheat was dying outwardly on the cross, inwardly He was rising up! The killing was carried out by the Roman soldiers, and the rising up was carried out by the Triune God. Two things were going on at the same time. All the people standing by, viewing the crucifixion, saw the soldiers killing Jesus outwardly, but they did not have the inner sight to see that while the Roman soldiers were killing Him outwardly, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit were inwardly making His spirit to rise up. While a team of Roman soldiers was killing Him, another team, a team of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, was rising up from within Him. This was the beginning of the resurrection.
In the previous chapter we saw the Son’s death in His humanity with His divinity. In this chapter we are seeing His resurrection in His divinity with His humanity. He resurrected first in His spirit, and to be in His spirit means to be in His divinity. Then He resurrected in His body with His humanity. He resurrected first in His spirit in His divinity and then in His body with His humanity.
Romans 1:3-4 says, “Concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, and was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead.” Notice that in these two verses “according to” is used twice. Verse 3 talks about Christ as the seed of David according to the flesh, while verse 4 talks about Him as the Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness. According to the flesh, He was the Son of Man out of the seed of David, a descendant of David. This is His human nature, His humanity. However, according to the Spirit of holiness, He was the Son of God. This is His divine nature, His divinity. In the flesh He was the Son of Man. In the Spirit He was the Son of God. His humanity is in His flesh, and His divinity, the Spirit, as His divine essence, is in His spirit. In His flesh was man, and in His spirit were the Father, the Son and the Spirit, the Triune God.
The subject in Romans 1:3-4 is the Son of God, Jesus Christ; these verses tell us that this One is constituted with two natures—humanity and divinity. One nature is according to flesh, and the other nature is according to the Spirit. The Spirit of holiness is in contrast with the flesh in verse 3. As the flesh in verse 3 refers to the human essence of Christ, so the Spirit in this verse does not refer to the Holy Spirit of God but to the divine essence of Christ, which is “the fullness of the Godhead” (Col. 2:9). This divine essence of Christ, being God the Spirit Himself (John 4:24) is of holiness, full of the nature and quality of being holy.
We must realize that when Christ was dying on the cross, He was dying as both the Son of Man and the Son of God. This wonderful Person was both the Son of Man and the Son of God. In His flesh He was the Son of Man. In His spirit with the Spirit He was the Son of God. He had two natures with two essences—the human and the divine. On the cross the Man Jesus was dying. And at the same time the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, was dying. The Son of Man was the Man Jesus, and the Son of God was the embodiment of the Triune God. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily (Col. 2:9). If we say that the Son of God was dying on the cross, this implies that the entire God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, was dying on the cross. Remember that Christ has these two parts: the flesh and His spirit with the Spirit, humanity and divinity. According to the flesh He was out of the seed of David, the Son of Man. According to the Spirit who was in His spirit, He was the Son of God. The Spirit in Romans 1:4 is related to the spirit in 1 Peter 3:18. Christ had a body which was His flesh, and Christ had a spirit with the Spirit as His divine essence, which was the divine part of His being. His flesh was His human part with His human essence, and His spirit had the Spirit as His divine part with His divine essence.
First Peter 3:18 shows us that while Jesus was being killed on the cross, the Triune God as His divine essence was rising up in His spirit. This happened before His body was resurrected. In this way His resurrection was going on until the morning of the third day when His entire body was resurrected (1 Cor. 15:4). By this time the inward moving of His resurrection by the Triune God was manifested. This was His designation in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead (Rom. 1:4). His resurrection began from His spirit and was accomplished in His body. While He was being killed on the cross, His resurrection began in His spirit. His resurrection was a process that lasted for about three days, beginning from the time when He was being killed on the cross and fully accomplished at the time of His body’s resurrection. When His body was resurrected, He was fully designated and manifested to be the Son of God.
There was no need for Christ to be designated as the Son of Man because when people saw Him they immediately recognized that He was a man. However, there was a need for Him to be designated the Son of God because the Son of God was concealed in Him as the Son of Man. His divinity was concealed in His humanity. People could easily recognize His humanity, but not His divinity. This concealed divinity needed to be designated, and made manifest by the resurrection. His resurrection was a designation, a making manifest. When Christ was resurrected, even in His body He was designated or manifested to be the Son of God.
When I was young I used to think that when the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross the Father was sitting in the heavens and the Spirit was standing by waiting for some orders. Then when He was killed He was taken down from the cross and buried. Eventually, He was raised from among the dead on the third day. This concept, however, is not according to the revelation of the Scriptures. While Jesus was being killed on the cross, the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, was making His spirit alive and strengthened. When His body was buried in the earth, His spirit went to proclaim God’s victory over His enemy to the spirits in prison. Eventually this resurrection saturated His body and “invaded” His body to raise it up. Then His resurrection was completed. By this He was fully designated the Son of God in power according to the divine Spirit out of the resurrection of the dead. Hallelujah! This was the procedure, the process, of the Son’s resurrection in His divinity with His humanity.