Bowling Green Covenant Church

“If you are then raised up with Christ, reach out for the highest gifts of Heaven, where Christ reigns in power. Be concerned with the heavenly things, not with the things of earth. For, as far as this world is concerned, you are already dead, and your true life is a hidden one in God, through Christ…Consider yourself dead to worldly contacts…”—Colossians 3.1-3, 5 [J.B. Phillips’ Paraphrase]

Ed. Note: I need to begin with a correction. In last week’s edition I wrote:

“The evidence for the resurrection comes from eyewitness accounts, first by the three women who went to Jesus’ tomb on the first day of the week. Under OT law women were considered to be unreliable as witnesses,” (italics added).

I should have said “under Jewish law.” There is no reference in the OT regarding the unreliability of a woman’s testimony. The law referred to is found in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, IV.8.15, “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex…” I apologize for the error.

Now let us “reach out for the highest gifts of Heaven, where Christ reigns in power.”

The power of the resurrection is such that by confessing faith in Jesus, we not only part ways with the way we used to live—we become dead to the way we used to think. Most, if not all, behavior begins with a thought. There is a saying: orthodoxy leads to orthopraxy. Translated this means right belief leads to right behavior. Right belief is a necessary consequence of the resurrection. Every believer must be of a sound mind theologically and doctrinally. When we are raised to new life through faith in Christ, we are also raised to a new of thinking about the life we now live by faith in Christ. Right belief starts the moment we concern ourselves with “the heavenly things, not the things of earth.”

Before we confessed faith in Christ, we were spiritually dead and unconcerned with anything having to do with the heavenly things. If there were any “heavenly things” that did concern us, they were tainted by the faulty concept of what “religious” people did to prove they were religious. However, the instant we confessed in Christ we experienced a reversal. Once made alive in Jesus, we died to the values and worldview of the prevailing culture. Once in Christ our delight became the meditation on and the practice of the truth.

Such authentic living takes hard work, discipline, humility, honesty and grace unlimited. Yet as God provides opportunities for us to reach out for the highest gifts of Heaven and to be concerned with the heavenly things we can, in fact, learn how to do these things. It starts by learning how to think and act like Christ. The more we learn to think rightly, the more we will behave rightly. We do not need to do right in order to be raised up with Christ. We need to do right because we are raised up with Christ.

True life is to know Jesus Christ. True life is to know the power of His resurrection and how it transforms how we think and live. True life is to follow Christ—to do what He says and to go where He leads. True life is to be deaf to the Sirens and attentive to the Spirit. True life is to be concerned with the heavenly things, not with the things of earth. True life is to be hidden in God through faith in Christ.

To be hidden in God does not mean that we hide from this world. On the contrary, we are called to confront it with truth. We are called to dare it to believe in the power of grace that comes to us through the life-changing power of Christ’s resurrection.

You think about that.

MM

“And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God…for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

—1 Corinthians 15.14-17 [ESV]

Before we let pass the remembrance and celebration of Christ’s resurrection we would do well to reflect on the profit that accrues to us as the result of His rising from the dead.

Question and answer 45 of the Heidelberg Catechism addresses that very matter:

“What does the resurrection of Christ profit us?

“First, by his resurrection he has overcome death, that he might make us partakers of that righteousness which he had purchased for us by his death; secondly, we are also by his power raised up to a new life; and lastly, the resurrection of Christ is a sure pledge of our blessed resurrection.”—The Heidelberg Catechism, Question 45

It is worth noting that belief in the resurrection is neither adherence to myth nor legend. We believe that when the creed says, “on the third day He rose again,” it is asserting historical fact not religious fiction. Some attempt to separate the Jesus of history from the Jesus of faith, but to make that severance is to make our faith futile and destroy the foundation of our salvation. If the Christ of history is not the Christ of faith, we are fools. Worse yet we are sinful fools with no hope of forgiveness ever.

The evidence for the resurrection comes from eyewitness accounts, first by the three women who went to Jesus’ tomb on the first day of the week. Under OT law women were considered to be unreliable as witnesses. Next, we have the testimony of the apostles. The apostle Paul writes that in addition to appearing to the apostles, Jesus also appeared to some 500 of the brothers at one time, (1 Cor. 15.6). To these Luke adds that Jesus was with His followers for forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1.3). Finally, there is this: no body has ever been produced. The truth is (and permit me to be cheeky) more people have seen Jesus after His resurrection than have seen Elvis!

The resurrection is what makes the gospel the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Unless Jesus is risen we cannot partake of His righteousness. If Jesus is still dead it means God rejected His death on the cross as the once for all sacrifice for our sins. Unless Jesus is risen we cannot be born again by grace through faith in Him. Unless Jesus is risen we are prisoners of a finite world, captives to a limited existence that ends when we exhale our last breath. Unless Jesus is risen death has the final word.

But Christ is risen. He is alive. Our faith is not futile. Our hope is not empty. And life has meaning—the pursuit of the One who gives meaning to everything we experience. It is on the cross that the Jesus of faith—the Son of God, and the Jesus of history—the Son of Man intersect as He dies as the once for all sacrifice for our salvation. Three days later He emerged from the tomb to declare His victory over death—and His vindication by God.

This Jesus who was crucified God made both Lord and Christ.

You think about that.

MM

“So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it.”—Luke 24.9-11 [NLT]

When Forbes magazine celebrated its 75th anniversary, it published a special issue focused on the theme “Why Do We Feel So Bad When We Have It So Good?” The editors invited authors, philosophers, psychologists and poets to write an essay in response to that challenging theme. One contributor was Peggy Noonan, a former CBS News correspondent and speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. The premise of her essay was simple: our culture has forgotten that we live between two worlds. She wrote,

“Our ancestors believed in two worlds, and understood this to be the solitary, poor, brutish and short one. We are the first generation of man that actually expected to find happiness here on earth, and our search for it has caused much unhappiness. The reason: if you do not believe in another, higher world, if you believe only in the flat material world around you and if you believe that this is your only chance at happiness—if that is what you believe, then you are not disappointed when the world does not give you a good measure of its riches. You are despairing.”[i]

The women who went to Jesus’ tomb believed in two worlds. Whether or not their disappointment had fermented to despair is uncertain. Certainly they were sad. Through bitter tears they watched Jesus die. With grief-filled hearts they watched Him be buried. Jesus was dead. Their hearts were broken by the disappointment of His crucifixion. Had they abandoned hope?

Hope is a fragile thing if we do not believe in two worlds. In fact hope is pointless if not fixed on something reliable. The women and the apostles fixed their hope for happiness on Jesus. They hoped He would be the Messiah who would rescue Israel. That hope died when Jesus died. But had they not heard when He said, “It is finished”? Such is the power of disappointment that it deafens us to what can give us hope. And hope is found in what Jesus said. The women understood “It is finished” to mean the hope of Israel is dead. However, by saying “It is finished,” Jesus meant something far different. “It is finished” is the declaration of triumph. It is the mournful prelude to an even greater overture, “He is risen!”

If the death of Jesus introduces the possibility that we live in two worlds, then His resurrection is the proof. Let those who scoff believe the resurrection to be nonsense. For all their scorn they have failed to answer a simple question: where is the body?

There has been no body produced because we live between two worlds. The resurrection of Jesus gives us hope beyond this life. The resurrection fortifies our hope in the reality of an eternity we see now only through a glass darkly.

Hope is the courage God gives us to believe that we can endure and overcome whatever life throws up at us. The source of this courage is the Lord Jesus Christ, Savior, Messiah, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

We believe in two worlds. We do not believe our happiness comes from what this world has to offer. Our hope for happiness comes by grace through faith in the One who left the real world to wear our flesh to die on the cross and forever redeem our “solitary, poor, brutish and short one.” You think about that and proclaim with all joy and boldness, He is risen!

MM