Resurrection can be divided into two categories. One kind is resurrection by the wondrous power of God. It is not a resurrection caused by the life of God. The other kind is resurrection through the life of God becoming one’s organic power. According to the revelation of the Bible, all the dead ones, whether saved or not, will be resurrected in the future. In principle, the dead believers will resurrect before the millennium at the coming of the Lord Jesus; all the dead unbelievers will resurrect after the millennium. John 5:28-29 says, “For an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth: those who have done the good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done the evil to the resurrection of judgment.” This means that one group of people—the resurrected unbelievers—will be judged at the great white throne, and their entire spirit, soul, and body will be thrown together into the lake of fire; the other group of people—the resurrected believers—will enjoy the eternal life.
In this message, we are not talking about the first kind of resurrection, which is resurrection without God’s life; we are talking about the second kind of resurrection, the resurrection with God coming into us as life. This is like what the Lord said in John 12:24 concerning one grain of wheat which fell into the earth and died to bring forth many grains. It did not resurrect through any outward power but through the inward life, which enabled it to grow out of death and to bear many grains in resurrection. Today we all have the Lord’s life which went through death and resurrection, and we all have become His many grains. The Lord’s life brings in two kinds of elements, the death element and the resurrection element. They supply us within day by day. By this we experience His death and resurrection.
Before chapter one of Genesis, God was merely God; He was God in eternity. However, after passing through Genesis 1 and 2, this God in eternity became the God in creation. At the beginning of the four Gospels, He became the God in the flesh. After more than thirty years of human living, He went to the cross and died. Then He entered into resurrection, and became the God of the resurrection from the dead. Therefore we can say that our God is the eternal God. He created everything, became flesh, passed through death, and entered into resurrection. Today He is the God of the resurrection from the dead.
Many Christians have understood this matter of death and resurrection as something which only happened to the Lord Jesus as a man. They did not see that when the Man Jesus died, God did not leave Him; rather He was in Him and was with Him all the time. It was only during the short moment when He was on the cross bearing our sins that God temporarily left Him (Matt. 27:46). According to the revelation of the Bible, the Lord Jesus was the embodiment of God. Within Him was God. Moreover, God never left Him. He once said that He was not alone because the Father was with Him (John 16:32). Not only so, the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—coexist and coinhere from eternity to eternity. Therefore, when the Son passed through death and entered into resurrection, the Father and the Spirit also passed through death and entered into resurrection together. In other words, it was the Triune God who passed through death and resurrected. As long as we have this God, we have also the God of creation, the God of incarnation, and the God of the resurrection from the dead.
John 11 shows us that this God of resurrection is Himself resurrection. He did not have to wait until He resurrected from the dead to be resurrection; He was resurrection even before He resurrected from the dead. When Martha and Mary were mourning for their brother Lazarus who had been dead for four days, Jesus came to their village. Martha went to greet Him and complained to Him saying, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother shall rise again.” Martha said, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection” (vv. 17-25). This means that with the Lord, time is not a problem. When it is early, the Lord is resurrection; when it is late, the Lord is still resurrection. When Lazarus was alive, the Lord was resurrection; when Lazarus was dead, the Lord was even the more resurrection.
This is not all. When the Lord spoke this word, He Himself had not yet passed through death and resurrection. This means before the Lord was resurrected, He was resurrection already. In other words, the Lord Jesus was able to resurrect because He was resurrection. If He were not resurrection, He could never have resurrected. But because He was resurrection, and was so even before He resurrected from the dead, He could not be held by death (Acts 2:24).
I would like you to remember one thing; today the God whom we believers have received is not only a mighty God, or a holy, righteous, and glorious God, as most Christians preach. Today the God in whom we have believed, whom we have received, and whom we have obtained is even the more the God of resurrection.