We need to continue the fellowship from the last chapter to see what it is to know the power of Christ’s resurrection. We need to spend some time to look at the outline. But before we look into the outline, I would like to add a few words.
Whether from the point of view of the believers’ experience or God’s economy, the knowledge of the power of Christ’s resurrection is the peak in the New Testament. We all know that in God’s economy, God is a processed God. In the Old Testament, although God had created the heavens, the earth, mankind, and everything, He Himself had not yet passed through any process. Just as He was the self-existing, ever-existing, and unique Jehovah God in eternity past, He was still the same after creation, without any change.
However, in the New Testament, He began to pass through many processes. The first one was incarnation; the second was human living; the third was an all-inclusive death. Through this death, on the negative side, He nullified sin and death, destroyed Satan, judged the world, and also terminated the old creation. On the positive side, He released the life of God. Then He entered into another process, that is, resurrection. Following that, He also went into another process, that is, ascension. In ascension, first, He was appointed as the Lord, the Christ, the Head, and the Savior. Moreover, He obtained honor and glory and was crowned and enthroned to have all authority in heaven and on earth. He also received the Spirit from the Father. At the same time, He gave all the saved ones as gifts to His Body, the church. In this long process from incarnation to His perfecting of the gifts to give to His church, the peak was His entering into resurrection.
Although the enthronement in ascension appears to be higher than resurrection, according to the experience of life, the peak is resurrection because it was in resurrection that Christ was fully completed. Although He was the Triune God before His incarnation, there was no human element within Him. Neither had He passed through human living or the all-inclusive death. From the point of view of the Triune God Himself, He is complete; but from the point of view of the process, He was not yet complete. It was after His resurrection that all these processes were completed: incarnation to take on humanity, passing through human living, and the all-inclusive death. Now, this Triune God has divinity as well as humanity. He also has a human living, an all-inclusive death, and a resurrection. After that, His ascension, enthronement, and rulership did not add any more elements to Him. Therefore, in the process that the Triune God has passed through, resurrection is the peak. Not only so, in the New Testament, resurrection is not merely a matter, but also a Person, that is, the Triune God. He is God as well as man. He does not only live a human living; with Him there is also death and resurrection.