Last Resurrection Sunday I ended with a quote from N. T. Wright which stated we were meant to be people of the resurrection. I think that phrase of his hints at what I mean by the resurrection empowered life. It is no accident that Protestant crosses tend to be empty for, like the tomb, the cross of Christ is indeed empty. I have already spoken about how it is clear that God intends us to fill our minds with images of Jesus in His resurrection glory, and that doing so is a major factor in our transformation.

What is perhaps even more staggering than the fact that we are to gaze on the resurrected Christ is that the Bible is clear that we Christians have already benefited directly from the resurrection of Jesus. Earlier this week I blogged about Romans 6, which states we have been raised with Jesus. It is not only in Romans that we find this astonishing idea.

In Ephesians 2, when the Apostle Paul introduces the good news, the striking thing is that he doesn’t even mention Jesus’ death, but moves instead to our own resurrection “together with Christ.” As is commonly the case in Paul, Jesus’ resurrection here presupposes His death. Similarly, when he speaks about Jesus death, he often doesn’t feel the need to state that He has also risen from the dead. Thus, the death and resurrection of Jesus to Paul go together and are inseparable since either one can be used as shorthand for both. This passage is striking as it shows us very clearly how we come to experience the reality in our own lives that Jesus was “delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (Romans 4:25)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:1-7)

Thus, becoming a Christian is very literally a revival. We have been resuscitated spiritually. Where once we were separated from God and “dead” to Him, now we are alive to Him. This will reach its fulfillment in the ages to come, but as we shall see as we look further into this, we are benefiting already from this. The Christian is spiritually alive already, and to use a phrase I have often heard growing up “we are not under the circumstances, we are over the circumstances” as we have been raised with Him and seated in heavenly places.

A very similar passage occurs in Colossians 2 which, incidentally, links the whole concept much more explicitly to a very penal substitutionary view of the atonement, and parallels Romans 6, as well as Ephesians 2. It is truly striking that Paul can speak of our record of debt being nailed to the cross — that is penal substitution at its most clear, but once again we see that the biblical perspective of the atonement is entwined, not merely with the death of Jesus, but also with His resurrection.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:11-14)