THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE
"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:25, 26). Jesus spoke these words to Martha before He raised her brother Lazarus from the dead. His words reveal two profound truths: that Jesus is the resurrection, and that He also is the life. These two truths are very closely related, and are easily confused as the same thing. They are both products of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus, and are both dependent on faith in order to be effective, but in application they are quite different. The one can be described as passing from death to a new life, while the other could be described as staying alive.
Jesus says of resurrection, "...he that believeth in
Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Faith in Jesus is the means by which we
achieve resurrection. Nothing we can do
ourselves is potent enough to restore life once we are dead. Only Christ has that power because He is the Resurrection.
Of "life" Jesus says, "...whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." Faith is also the means by which we sustain our life in Christ. Again, nothing we can do ourselves is
sufficient to maintain the new life we receive in Christ. Only He
has that power because He is the
Life.
There is a spiritual death, and there is a physical
death. Jesus was using the occasion of
Lazarus' physical death to illustrate the power of His [Jesus’] life over both
the physical and the spiritual
man. Each of us who have been born again
and baptized into Christ has already experienced the spiritual side of
resurrection. St. Paul spoke of this
when he said, "And you hath He quickened [made
alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins... But God, who is rich in mercy, for
His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened [given life to] us
together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together,
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:1,4-6). Every human is in need of this spiritual
awakening, or resurrection, because death has passed upon all of us because of
Adam and Eve's sin. When death passed on
them it passed on everyone who was born after them. Christ, however, has broken that chain of sin
and death by the sacrifice of Himself once and for all. "For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1
Corinthians 15:22).
This new birth - this resurrection - marks the
beginning of our spiritual journey, but it is not the entire journey
itself. For that we need the life of Christ. There are many who have experienced the new
birth but have not gone on to experience the life of Jesus Christ in their day
to day walk. They soon return to the
sins and trespasses that were the product of spiritual death before they came
to know the Lord. This life that is in
Christ, however, is like a spring of living water that ministers divine life
and power to those who drink of it continually.
Jesus said, “If any man thirst,
let him come unto Me, and drink. He that
believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water” (John 7:37, 38).
Paul said,
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the
faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with
thanksgiving" Colossians 2:6, 7). St.
Paul desired above everything else to really know Jesus in his daily walk, and
to see the power of Christ's resurrection and life played out continually in
him as he chose to lay down his selfish and pride-filled life. This he discovered to be a life-long
undertaking as the Lord revealed more and more of His perfect nature to
Paul. We have been called to no
less. The battle will not be won as a
result of our strong wills or glorious intentions, but by faith in the finished
work of Christ. Outside of faith we
cannot please Him.
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