Word of Salvation – Vol.27 No.14 – January 1982
Resurrection Power
Sermon by Rev. P. Tuit on 2Corinthians 5:17
Scripture Reading: Luke 24:1-12; 2Cor. 5:14-21
Congregation of Jesus Christ, we live in a world today where we find many power structures. Here think of the military might of the U.S. or Russia or the emerging power of the Islamic nations. Besides military power we also know of economic power. The oil states in the Middle East wield a power in the world which is way out of proportion with their size, population and military power. Furthermore, in recent years many nations have been confronted with the power of terrorism which is so difficult to handle and control. From all sides and aspects therefore, we are confronted with power and power structures.
Faced with these powers many people have given up hope for the world, because they do not see how these power structures can be changed for the good of mankind.
The apostle Paul in his day also knew about power. And he spoke of these power structures often in his epistles. Paul knew the power of political and military might. In His day the Roman Empire pretty much controlled the known world of that time. The Emperor in Rome wielded tremendous power over his vast empire and its inhabitants. What he decreed had to happen even when it meant the dislocation of many families as we see in the case of Joseph and Mary who had to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
Paul at times would make good use of the proper exercise of the power of Rome. More than once for the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ did he appeal to his Roman Citizenship. However, the power of Rome did finally cause him to be imprisoned and as tradition tells us he was beheaded.
But, Paul knew also of other kinds of power. Many times did he write in his epistles of the power of sin. For Paul this was a tremendous and fearsome power to which every living creature was subject. And for Paul this was something not learned from catechism or theology books. Paul knew what damage sin had done in his own life. At one time he even called himself the chief of sinners, and he cried out wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death? The Apostle Paul also knew the awesome power of death, a power that continues to fill men with fear and from which no man could escape.
Yes, Paul knew what power was all about in a negative sense. He had in our eyes every reason to be pessimistic. He had every reason to give up on the world, yes even on life itself. Yet when we read his epistles we find that Paul was far from being a pessimist, far from being down-hearted about things. To the contrary, his epistles portray a tremendous optimism.
The reason for this optimism is, congregation, that Paul knew of another power. Paul knew about a power that dismantled and put to shame all other powers. Paul knew about a power much greater than the power of the Roman Emperor and his great military might. Yes, the Power that Paul knew was even greater than the power of sin and death. This power Paul called ‘resurrection power’ which flew forth from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This power was so great that it caused something completely new to come into the world.
Congregation, this aspect of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the power it released in the world is perhaps not too dominant in our thinking. We can perhaps even say that this aspect of Biblical teaching has not received the attention it should have had. We don’t think of the resurrection of Christ in such radical terms. Yet the Apostle Paul because of Christ’s resurrection could write, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation the old has passed away, the new has come.” And at another place, “So, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
According to the Bible the resurrection of Christ is much more than a beautiful story of what happened that first Easter morning in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. We perhaps have a tendency to look upon Christ’s resurrection as something that affects Christ more than us except that it has some meaning for our own resurrection. However, in contrast to this the Scriptures point out that the victory of that first Easter morning does not only effect Jesus Christ, but it also affects the life of the church and the work of God’s kingdom here on earth.
In this connection we see how the Scriptures, in a beautiful way, tie in the importance of the cross of Christ with that of His resurrection. According to the Scriptures, the resurrection is a glorious ‘Amen’ which echoed through the whole world, upon the work of Christ on the cross, so that the saving affects are still felt today. The resurrection of Christ releases the saving power of the atoning work of Christ and causes it to be effective in the world.
Scripture makes it clear that just as the church was intimately involved in the death of Christ, so she was intimately involved in the resurrection of Christ. Listen to what is written in Romans 6:
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death. We were buried therefore, with Him by baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For He who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.”
We learn here therefore, that the death and resurrection of Christ has a lot to do with the way the church views herself in her relation to God but also in relation to the powers of this world. The death and resurrection of Christ teaches the church that though in the world she is not anymore of the world. As Paul writes in 2Corinthians 5: “If anyone is in Christ He is a new creation the old has passed away, the new has come.” The church does not belong anymore to the old world order. Rather the church through her union with Christ belongs already to the new age, the new world to come.
We find this terminology of the old and new age more often in the Bible. The old world or age according to the Bible is the world of sin, the world that is in opposition to Christ, the world where the Word of Christ is not honoured and obeyed. The death and resurrection of Christ however, caused a new element to come into this old world of sin and rebellion. A new creation entered the old creation. The life of the world to come has already made its inroads into the present age.
A Christian therefore lives no longer in the old age, but he belongs already to the world to come which began when Christ rose triumphantly from the grave. A Christian in a sense has dual citizenship. As a creature he belongs to the present world, but as a Christian he is a member of the kingdom of heaven and his citizenship is in heaven. He is affected by the new order of things which Christ brought into this old world.
This of course is of great importance for how the Christian must view himself. And because of the death and resurrection of Christ the Christian is alive, alive to God and dead to sin. The Christian is a new person, a new creation, one who will inherit the kingdom of God. Just think about this for a moment. And just look around you for a moment. You see people whom you have known perhaps for 25 years or more. You may even think, “I always see the same old faces in the Reformed Church of [____] – nothing new”. But now the message of Easter is that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ all these same old people you see around you. are new people. They are new in Christ; they are a new creation and belong already to the perfect world to come. Yes, in Christ you yourself are a new person; you are dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.
Interestingly enough, congregation, it seems that when we talk about the church, the last thing we think of is that in Christ she is alive; that she is something wonderfully new. This perhaps comes because we have failed to listen to Scriptures when it points us to the victory for the church in the Easter message. We all have heard enough that we are saved from the guilt of sin and the condemnation of the law. But the Easter message tells us just as loudly and clearly that we are also delivered from the power of sin and from the power of death. The Easter message tells us that amidst all the power structures of this present world we have the greatest power – we are on the winning team – we have and will have the victory. Paul as it were shouts it from the rooftops in Romans 8:28. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, because no earthly power, not presidents, not ideologies not even death and Satan can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Easter therefore does not deal with Easter bunnies and Easter eggs but with the victory of the Church in Jesus Christ. However we must view this victory in the proper way, congregation. This victory the church has only by virtue of her union with Christ. The church has not always seen this clearly. And the history of the church shows us the dangers of a wrongly directed triumphant attitude on part of the church. It then usually happened that the church began to see herself victorious apart from Jesus Christ. Instead of Christ being her victory the church saw her victory in her own good life in her activity, yes, even in her confessions. No, the church is victorious only in Christ – and in Him alone. This is why the Scriptures on the one hand point the church to her victory on the other hand declare if there is need for any boasting let it be in the Lord.
The church now is called to live out what she is in principle already in Jesus Christ. The new life which she has by virtue of her union with Christ must come to open manifestation. And this new life is expressed in basically two things. That is, to love God above all and our neighbour and ourselves. How this is to be done is a question which the church, listening to the Scriptures must wrestle again and again with each generation.
As she lives this new life the church must always focus her eyes upon Jesus – saying with the Apostle Paul – that I may know Christ and the power of His resurrection. Only by looking at Jesus will the church be able to experience that tremendous resurrection power which the Lord released into the world. Only by expecting everything from Jesus Christ and Him alone will the church be able to serve Christ in the world.
If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away, the new has come. This saving, liberating truth Christ accomplished for us when He died and when He rose again. And with the saving benefits of His death and resurrection He continues to strengthen His church until she fully knows Him and the power of His resurrection.
Amen.