In this lesson we will continue to see Jesus Christ as the center of the New Testament, from His resurrection to His eternity future.
The Lord Jesus died and was buried for three days. Then very early on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath, He resurrected. At that time there was a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord descended out of heaven and came and rolled away the stone which was against the entrance to the tomb (Matt. 28:1-2). Christ’s resurrection is crucial to the accomplishment of God’s divine economy. Its significance is profound and its contents extensive. In this lesson we can give only a brief account as follows:
First Peter 3:18 unveils what happened when the Lord Jesus died on the cross. The second half of the verse says that He was “put to death in flesh, but made alive in spirit.” The crucifixion put Christ to death only in His flesh, not in His spirit. His spirit did not die at the cross when His flesh did; His spirit rather became more active with the power of God’s life, so that in this empowered spirit He went to Tartarus, the deep pit, to the fallen and imprisoned angels to proclaim God’s victory through His incarnation in Christ and Christ’s death in the flesh over Satan’s scheme to derange the divine plan (1 Pet. 3:19 and notes). While the Lord Jesus was being put to death in the flesh, because His spirit became active by the empowering of God’s life, He was resurrecting at the same time. When the Roman soldiers outwardly were executing the death penalty on Jesus, the Triune God—the Father, Son, and Spirit—was also doing the work of resurrection in Him. This is the beginning of the resurrection of Christ. Then, His divine power of resurrection set His soul free from Hades and enabled His body to leave the tomb; hence, His whole being— spirit, soul, and body—was resurrected (Acts 2:31-32). His resurrection began with His spirit, passed through His soul, and consummated in His body.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus was an exceedingly great accomplishment of His eternal redemption. The main achievements may be divided into seven items:
First, Christ’s resurrection was God’s vindication and approval of Him and His work. The Jews who persecuted Him said that the words He spoke and the things He did were a blasphemy to God and that He was liable to death (John 5:16-18; Matt. 26:64-66). They therefore killed Him on the cross. God, however, raised Him from the dead (Acts 3:15). This was God’s vindication and approval, not only before the Jews but also before the whole universe, of Him and His work. Hence, He was also “raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25). This was a great accomplishment of His resurrection.
Second, Christ’s resurrection was a sign of His universal success. Without resurrection, all that He had achieved before His resurrection would be nullified with His death. However, He had authority to lay down His life, and He had authority to take it again (John 10:18). Thus, His rising up from among the dead is a sign indicating that what He had done prior to His death was successful and that it has an eternal efficacy in His resurrection.
Third, Christ’s resurrection was also His victory over death, including Satan, Hades, and the grave (Acts 2:24, 31; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 1:18). On the cross He tasted death on behalf of everything (Heb. 2:9), nullified death (2 Tim. 1:10), and destroyed and cast out Satan (John 12:31). Without resurrection, however, He could not show His victory over death (including Hades and the grave) and Satan.
Fourth, Christ’s resurrection was His glorification. Through His resurrection, His divinity was released from the shell of His humanity which concealed His glory, enabling Him with His humanity to enter into the divine glory (Luke 24:26; 1 Cor. 15:43); hence, God glorified Him in resurrection (Acts 3:13, 15a).
Fifth, in His resurrection Christ was made the life-giving Spirit. He was God who is the Spirit (John 1:1; 4:24), incarnated (John 1:14), taking the form of human flesh (Phil. 2:6-7; Rom. 8:3). Through His death and resurrection He was transfigured to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), that He might impart God’s life to His believers (John 3:15).
Sixth, in His resurrection Christ was born as the firstborn Son of God. He was the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18); then He was incarnated and was born to be the Son of Man (John 1:14), bringing God into man that divinity might be mingled with humanity. In resurrection He was begotten in His humanity to be the Son of God, that is, the firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29), bringing man into God that humanity might be mingled with divinity. In His flesh He was altogether a man; He was the Son of Man. His humanity needed to be begotten as the Son of God through death and resurrection that He might be the firstborn Son of God among many brothers. In His divinity He became flesh to be born as the Son of Man; in His humanity He entered into resurrection to be begotten as the firstborn Son of God. This is the twofold result of His two births in time.
Seventh, in His resurrection Christ caused His believers to be regenerated. Christ’s resurrection was the germination of the new creation, and in this new creation God regenerated us (1 Pet. 1:3) that we might become the many sons of God (Heb. 2:10) to be God’s new creation in resurrection, which is also the newborn child mentioned by the Lord in John 16:21. The many sons of God regenerated through Christ’s resurrection are the many grains as His propagation, produced by Him as the grain of wheat that fell into the earth and died (John 12:24), and made into one bread to be His Body (1 Cor. 10:17), His church (Eph. 1:22-23). He, the Firstborn from among the dead and the Firstborn of God among many brothers, became in resurrection the Head of the Body, the church (Col. 1:18).