Oneness with Christ means to be identified with Christ, identified with him in crucifixion. But we must go on to be identified with him in resurrection as well, for beyond the cross is resurrection and the manifestation of his presence.
~A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me? Why are you so far from saving Me, from the words of My groaning? O My God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest…. Posterity shall serve Him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn, that He has done it.
~ The beginning and the end of Psalm 22
The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for Me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the LORD who gives Me counsel; in the night also My heart instructs me. I have set the LORD always before Me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore My heart is glad, and My whole being rejoices; My flesh also dwells secure. For You will not abandon My soul to Sheol, or let your Holy One see corruption. You make known to Me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
~ The second half of Psalm 16
We know the end of it. Jesus won the last battle over the last great enemy of fallen humanity. How about this? Jesus crushed death’s head. Or, more bluntly Jesus kicked death’s ass. There is, beloved, no other way to really put it.
And this is very Good News.
Jesus’ resurrection is an historical truth. It is a truth which validates that the death He died for us was effective to it’s purpose as payment for that sin which pays the wages of death. He consumed and conquered our death-debt through His complete work on the cross, His burial, and His resurrection.
Glory to God! Oh man, does this kind of truth set us free.
How did it happen?
i don’t mean “how” did G_d do it? Or, by what mechanism did G_d perform the impossible? i mean “how did things play out” during the resurrection?
More Very Good News follows.
We know, dear reader, that this same Jesus whom we crucified, committed His Spirit into the hands of the only One who could hold it. His Father, Who for a moment, TURNED HIS VERY BACK ON HIS OWN SON FOR ALL OF US. The Father then accepted the brutal sacrifice of His perfect ever-Son. And in that following moment took responsibility to assure that Jesus’ Spirit was fully protected throughout the mission He undertook over the next three days. Meanwhile the body and soul of this same Jesus lay growing and grown cold in the tomb of a rich man outside the walls of Jerusalem.
Upon completion of Jesus’ Spiritual mission to preach to the spirits in prison and to take back the keys of death and Hades – this same Jesus set a course to reunite with His body and soul on the path back to a new and glorified resurrection body.
However, this was not some simple reanimation of a corpse. This was the giving of Life – bought through His death – to the first human of many many many millions to follow. It was not just a newly reanimated life separate and distinct in the universe that would bask in the glow of the glory of G_d. It was a Life that would be lived like a human was ever designed to live: A Life, on a path full of joy, in the very near Presence of the Creator. This became possible, because the great divider – sin – was no longer the wedge it once was.
Sin and death was beaten. Intimate communion with G_d was (is) now possible for a human being, through what the first True Man did. Jesus proved this by resurrecting as a glorified, sinless, everlasting Man. This, as opposed to simply reanimating into human form.
Just coming back to life would have proven death beaten! Just coming back to life would prove that we had a hope for a future after we died – that someday we could go and be with G_d. But, this new creation Jesus modeled fully (and imparts on us spiritually) shows that we can Live in joyful, peaceful communion with our Creator NOW.
Are we catching this friends? We are one with Christ. Christ is One with the Father. We have oneness with the very G_d of the universe. This is not just some theological construct. We are fully in Him – and He fully in us.
Oh my!
Yeah.
The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.
~C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
