April 11, 2004

THE RESURRECTION

Acts 26:23

   The word "resurrection" is not in the Old Testament, but the truth is throughout. There was no need for resurrection until Adam had sinned and brought himself under the curse of death. God said the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head, yet His heel would be bruised in the process (Gen 3:15). From these words spoken in judgment upon the serpent, Adam could see that the woman's seed would be the One to bring life out of death. He accordingly named her, "Eve," for she was to be "the mother of all living" (Gen. 3:20). She was to be not only the matriarch of the human race, but from her would come the promised Seed Who would bring life out of death. This is the Bible's first glimpse of the hope resurrection.

   Abraham and Sarah believed that God could and would bring life, the promised Seed, out of their dead bodies (Rom. 4:19). Abraham believed that God would bring life out of death even if he slew Isaac in sacrifice, from "whence...he received him in a figure" (Heb. 11:19).

   Resurrection is of two kinds. Those raised in the Lord's earthly ministry and even the ones whose graves were opened upon His resurrection had a "physical resurrection," and yet died again. But the Lord's resurrection followed by His ascension to glory show resurrection in its heavenly and eternal glory. "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Cor. 15:44). Christ now "lives in the power of an endless life" (Heb. 7:16). He "dies no more; death has no...power over Him," and "He lives unto God" ( Rom. 6:9,10).

   Christ's resurrection is to effect our lives, for "like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been...in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. 4,5). "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept...even so in Christ shall all be made alive [in resurrection]" (1 Cor. 15:20,22). "Remember Jesus Christ of the seed of David, risen from the dead according to my gospel" (2 Tim. 2:8).

Ivan L. Burgener