Intrinsically Christianity is an Easter religion. The resurrection of Christ is like a fire at the heart of the Gospel. The theme blazes through the reports, letters, and sermons of the New Testament. The Resurrection motivated the swift, hard thrust of the early Church. Behind its puissant evangelism stood the unchanging conviction that Jesus had overcome death and is eternally alive.
Nor did the primitive Church rest its case in historicity; Jesus’ resurrection presaged the future resurrection of believers. Yet the Resurrection was confined to neither the past nor the future. Its present-tense impact on the Church was terrific.
The New Testament reporters did not see Christ as having attained “immortality,” as the Greeks thought of it; he had returned from the grave wearing the wounds he had gotten at Calvary. The modern divine who said that Jesus’ body lies in some nameless Syrian tomb while his great spirit goes marching on would, according to Paul, make Christianity a miserable institution (1 Cor. 15:19). Moreover, Paul contends, if Christ rests in a “nameless tomb” preaching is a futile business; faith is meaningless; living believers are yet in their sins, and dead believers are all lost. Paul states flatly, if not grimly: no resurrection of Christ, no redemption for man. At this point, however, Paul rings a clear trumpet: Christ is not dead, he is alive! Redemption is a reality—because Christ did death in and left the grave empty.
Emphatically Paul links a man’s personal salvation to the Resurrection. Phillips’ translation of the Apostle’s word gives us an impressive message: “If you openly admit by your own mouth that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and if you believe in your own heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9, 10).
Paul binds the very deity of Christ to the Resurrection (Rom. 1:4). Justification, that startling doctrine which upsets our moral accountancy, is possible, if we can believe Paul, because Christ outwitted death (Rom. 4:25). Such an essential sacrament as baptism is invalid, if we can believe Peter, unless Christ rose from the grave (1 Pet. 3:21). The doctrine of regeneration depends upon Christ’s being raised: “… God … in his mercy gave us a new birth into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3, NEB).
Deathblow To Legalism
The Resurrection puts the believer in a new position before the Law. Easter is the deathblow to legalism. A man is married to a woman, says Paul; the man dies. So the woman is free to marry again. Scarcely would we expect a woman to remain wedded to a dead man! “So you, my friends, have died to the law by becoming identified with the body of Christ, and accordingly you have found another husband in Him who rose from the dead …” (Rom. 7:4, NEB). This argument is given also in the Colossian letter. Christ has been raised from the dead; believers are forgiven, have been made alive through Him. The decree that stood against them is spiked to the Cross. Now, says Paul, allow no man to take you to task by legalistic dictations; do not follow human injunctions and orders. If one be raised with Christ let him reach for the things of Christ; no earthly rulebook can compete with the Gospel of a risen Redeemer (Col. 2:12–23; 3:1).
Here we touch another relationship between the Resurrection and Christian behavior: Jesus’ triumph over the sepulcher does not leave unaffected the believer’s ethics and conduct. “… 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 planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom. 6:4, 5).
New Spiritual Power
However, the Resurrection affords more than an ethical dynamic; it gives a spiritual force to the individual. Paul puts a price tag on all he has given up for Christ—rubbish! And what does Paul seek? He is aware of a strange power outflowing from the fact of Jesus’ rising from the grave; this he wanted—“the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10). This “power” was not just a mystical something; it was a terrific reality, associated with Christ’s sundering of the grave-bonds. This force reached into a man’s life-cells and nerve-strings (Rom. 8:11). The open tomb was like a silent shout of God, emphasizing the availability of this power for the believer. “I pray that your inward eyes may be illumined, so that you may know what is the hope to which he calls you, what the wealth and glory of the share he offers you among the people of his heritage, and how vast the resources of his power open to us who trust in him. They are measured by his strength and the might which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead …” (Eph. 1:18–20, NEB).
It would seem, too, that Paul linked the Resurrection to stewardship, as it involves not only our time and talents, but also our treasure. He delivers his immortal piece on the Resurrection to the Corinthians—then urges his readers to get busy helping the needy: “Now concerning the collection.…” (Perhaps ministers might discover more money for missions after an address on the Resurrection!) Does it appear incongruous, Paul’s moving from a risen Lord to an offering plate? The Resurrection should affect a believer’s pocketbook! An open grave, an open purse—is this so strange?
It is interesting to observe how Paul brings the Resurrection to bear on a man’s personal difficulties and problems. Over against man’s oldest and deepest grief, the loss of a loved one, the Apostle sets the fact of Christ’s conquest of death. “… Sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” (1 Thess. 4:13, 14).
The Sound Of Trumpets
Jesus predicted his overthrow of the tomb; the Gospels report it vividly. But after that the Resurrection becomes a thundering message in the New Testament. Easter is like the bright ring of a thousand trumpets. One wonders where the modern Church lost so much of that massive music. For the impact made by the Resurrection on the primitive Church was not meant to be lessened by time. We stand today in need of a renewal of the Resurrection theme—rather, we need to repossess the dynamic that the Resurrection-fact affords.
What joyful impetus might be given to the Church in our time through its receiving “the power of the resurrection”! Should the modern Church feel that dynamic as the first believers felt it, we would need argue little whether Christ quit the grave! Should we have the joy, the faith, the invincible thrust of that young Church, men would know we do not serve a dead Christ. The hope of a future resurrection for believers is prophesied by men who demonstrate the resurrection of Christ in their lives here and now.
An Easter Christian is not one who attends church on a particular Lord’s Day to celebrate the Resurrection. Rather he carries Easter about in his daily life. The man who truly believes that his Christ arose from the dead cannot keep Easter out of his personality! The doctrines of justification and regeneration burn neonlike in those who are witnesses to Christ’s being raised. Resurrection Christians also outlive legalism. Ethics, spirituality, good stewardship, missions—these belong to those who have looked in on the everlasting aliveness of Christ. And against all grief and despair glow the invincible joy and hope felt by men in whose lives bums the force of the Resurrection.
If there is anything in the universe that will make men equal to the challenge of this hour in history, it is the same conviction that gripped the early Christians: Christ is not dead, he is alive; and over him death has no dominion! An Easter Christian is not satisfied with celebrating Easter once a year, or even 52 times a year; he must have 365 Easters every twelve months! Every day is Easter with him. He is a witness to death’s Vanquisher. His life is a part of the Resurrection story.
END
WE QUOTE:
RELIGION AND SOCIETY—As far as long term solutions are concerned, it is obvious that religion can only contribute to the greater wholesomeness of the social fabric and the individual personalities who are members of it, if firstly it lies within the field of vision of those members and secondly when it is capable of embracing the individuals sufficiently to have an influence on their patterns of behavior. This means, in other words, that the Churches must fight the inevitable struggle of maintaining (and preferably enhancing) their institutional position in society. It also means that the Churches must attempt to regain or maintain their power over the implementation of the norms which they think an individual ought to have. It is no use referring the problem children of our society to Churches which are in no way whatsoever redeeming groups, where there is no close cohesion, where the norms are not binding and where the entire life of the individual does not find a meaningful focus. Both for the survival of the Church in a rapidly changing world and also for the needs of the confused individual, a religious institution which has an independent goal and which has an all around system of norms can be positively functional. Every human being likes to feel the warmth of a group which has a clear goal and which helps him to gain a unified perspective of his individual problems and experiences. In order to fill this need the Churches ought to be theologically distinctive and make it clear that their heritage is not determined by short term adaptation, but by long term acceptance of what God has done in His self-revelation for the redemption of a world which is constantly attempting to create its own gods.—DR. J. J. MOL in a lecture on “Religion and Social Problems” at the annual meeting of the Christchurch Presbyterian Social Service Association, New Zealand.
