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Tuesday, September 16, 2014

ARTICLE 3: THE RESURRECTION

Article III - Of the Resurrection of Christ
Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day.

Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?--- Paul (Acts 26: 8)

Seriously.  Why?

Christians believe in God existing infinitely without beginning or end, in God creating everything from nothing, in God enabling salvation for all people in all times through the events of a single torturous day, in God knowing everything and being everywhere all at the same time.

But some of those same “Christians” think the Resurrection is too much to be taken literally.

So God can create a body and give it life, but He couldn’t put His life back into a body He’d already created?

Really? 

Even though He’d done that kind of thing before?

You see, Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t the first.

When a Zarephathan widow’s son died, the prophet Elijah brought the child back to life (1 Kings 17:17-24).   Elijah’s protégé, Elisha, resurrected a Shunamite woman’s son when he died from an apparent brain aneurism (2 Kings 4:20-37).  In 2 Kings 13:21 a dead man revived when he was dropped on the bones in Elisha’s tomb.

During the 3 ½ years of His public ministry Jesus personally resurrected at least 3 dead people, including one who’d been dead and buried for 4 days. (Luke 7:11-16; Mark 5:35-43; John 11:1-44)

Well before that first Easter weekend, God had well established a record of physical resurrections.

Yet, In 1 Corinthian 15: 20, Paul called Jesus the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  Colossians 1: 8 calls Him the firstborn from among the dead.

Not ”first” because resurrection had never happened before, but first because it had never happened like this.

Jesus’ resurrection, The Resurrection, was unique and precedent setting.

No one prayed over Jesus’ lifeless body.  No one touched His corpse, took His hand, or breathed onto His face.  No one dropped Him onto the bones of a prophet.  No.  His followers sealed Him in an empty, unused tomb and left.

Jesus got up from death all by Himself.

… I lay down My life that I may take it again.  No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. (John 10: 17, 18)

When He carried our sins on the cross and the rest of the Trinity had to look away. 

Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15: 33, 34)

Jesus carried our sins to His grave---- and left them there. 

Having dealt with sin, Jesus proceeded to kick Death’s butt.

 “O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15: 55-57)

The oneness of the Trinity remained and Jesus rose in the fullness of glory.

I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. (Revelations 1: 18)

Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t metaphorical or “spiritual.”  He really came back in His real body.  This point is so important that Jesus went out of His physicality to the disciples.

In Luke 24: 36-43, Jesus appeared (like Bam!) to the disciples while they were hiding out from the Jews.   But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.

Jesus wanted them to know that He wasn’t just a spirit of Himself, He was really, really Him.

So, He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”
When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.
But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, “Have you any food here?”
 So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.

Before Jesus, all of the people who had come back from the dead later died again.

But Jesus ?  Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. (Romans 6: 9)

So, if we are by faith joined to Jesus Christ, then we get to participate in the same unique resurrection process.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. (Romans 6: 8)

Peter called Jesus the Author of life (Acts 3: 15).  By His death and resurrection, Jesus wrote us into His-story.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11: 25)

Like Jesus, our ultimate resurrection will not simply be a rising of the soul; it will be a resurrection of the body.

Our corrupt forms will be raised in incorruption.

Our dishonorable forms will be resurrected as glorious.

Our weak flesh will rise in power.

This made-for-death natural body will be a made-for-eternity, spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15: 42-44)

The eaaarrrrly Sunday mo’nin’ testimony of the empty tomb is where our hope and faith begin. 

This is why with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all (Acts 4: 33)

Jesus really, literally, physically died on the cross.  3 days and 3 nights later, Jesus really, literally, physically rose from the dead.  The 2nd person of the Trinity, the Word of God, re-entered the mummy-wrapped body lying in another man’s tomb.  (Matthew 27: 57-60)

Approximately 33 years earlier, God formed an earthly body in Mary’s womb and made Himself the life in that body.  On Easter, God redeemed the earthly body He had worn those 3+ decades and walked the world again.  This time, though the body was perfect, like the original form made for Adam. 

Resurrected Jesus was the same Jesus who had walked and talked and eaten with his mother and siblings and disciples.    But, like Adam in Genesis 1 & 2, Jesus’ post-Resurrection body was without any taint of original sin or corruption.  As Adam and Eve could once walk safely in the direct, unfiltered presence of God (Genesis 3: 8), so now Jesus ascended bodily into the throneroom of Heaven.

And because He arose, if we have faith in Him, one day, we will, too.

Now that I think about it, that IS pretty incredible. Better yet, it’s pretty AWESOME!

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.com )

Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

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