Continuing from yesterday…

We are told in the Word of God, by the apostle Paul, that in Christ’s resurrection we see the promise, the first-fruits, of our own coming physical resurrection. What we see him to be after his resurrection, Paul insists, we shall be. When I consider the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not merely in the world of religious ideas or ideals, but in the world of space and time and reality, I have the promise from the hand of God himself that I will be so raised from death. This body is so much of myself, in the total personality—the whole man—and it will not be left behind in the salvation that is brought forth through Jesus Christ. His death on the cross is of such a nature that the whole man will be redeemed. In one specific day, the Christian’s body will be raised from death, like Christ’s risen body, glorified. But there is more even than this. The reality, the space-timeness of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ means something to us also today: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). Paul is not talking about some far-off time, he is talking about the redeemed in the present circumstances. 

Dead to Sin, Alive to God

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.  For one who has died has been set free from sin.  Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions  (Romans 6: 1-12 ESV)

(We will make 5 points here from our observation of Romans 6:1-12…Two re Jesus Christ….Three re you and me) 

First, Christ died in history. That is the point we have been making. He died in space, time, and history. If you had been there that day, you could have taken your hand and rubbed it across the rough wood of the cross of Jesus Christ—you could have gotten a splinter in your hand from the cross. Second, Christ rose in history, and we have made a strong point of this, too. Christ rose and he was glorified, in history.   

This is the exact opposite of the liberal theology, which speaks of the kerygma, that we make Jesus the Christ when we preach him. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a total denial of the wonder of the teaching of the Bible. We do not make Jesus the Christ when we preach him. Jesus is the Christ, whether we preach him or not. Men may not know the wonder of the gospel if we do not preach it, but our failure to preach cannot change the fact of the person or the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. On this present day he is raised, he is glorified. If no one preached Jesus Christ today, and no one thought once even of the word “God,” it would make no difference whatsoever to the fact that Jesus is the Christ. He rose in history, he is glorified now. And this word of his resurrection, of his present glory, has meaning in our present space-time world.  (Pts 3-5 tomorrow 🙂)

Thoughts developed or used directly from the work of Schaeffer, Francis. True Spirituality . Tyndale House Publishers, Inc