Theme: Jesus, the resurrection and the life
Text: Ezek.: 37:1-14; Rom. 8:6-11; Jn. 11:17-24
God is love and He is always demonstrating His great love for us. The Word of God is all about His love. He loved us even we were separated from Him due to sin. He kept us out of the Garden of Eden out of love. We may not immediately see that His action was driven by love but if He had not done so man would have also eaten from the tree of life and would then live eternally in his sinful state without any possibility of redemption. God loved us and made our redemption possible by keeping us away from the tree of life. At the right time God redeemed us and gave us eternal life through Jesus, the resurrection and the life.
Sinful man needs a resurrection. He died spiritually when he disobeyed God. At his creation God breathed His life into man and he became like God. He had the image and likeness of God. He also had power of choice. His wrong choice led to spiritual death, a separation from God, the source of his life. Spiritual death was immediate and ultimately led to physical death. God loved man and it was not His will for any to die. He demonstrated His love by giving man the opportunity to be resurrected to a new spiritual life before his physical death. Without this new resurrected spiritual life man would be condemned to eternal death. Eternal death is separation from God forever.
God loved us so much that even when we were separated from Him He went to great lengths to restore us. The Scriptures graphically portrayed this in Ezekiel when God led the prophet to prophesy over the dry bones and they came to life. This prophecy was about bringing life out of death. It was literally fulfilled in the history of Israel when after 2000 years of persecution in exile they once more became a nation. No one believed this would ever be possible but God does the impossible. The Jews scattered all over the world with those who survived the horrors of Nazi Germany, became a nation and revived the Hebrew language that had been lost for 2000 years. The Jews were literally dead. 6 million died in the gas chambers of concentration camps. Ezekiel’s prophecy was fulfilled on May 15, 1948 when Israel emerged from the Second World War to become a nation with Hebrew as their language. The nation has since become a great army and has won many wars. After the 6 day war in 1967 Israel conquered the part of Jerusalem under Arab control and the West Bank and declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. God is life and the giver of life and can bring life out of death. No matter what is dead in us and no matter what is happening to us, God can bring life out of death.
The resurrection ushers us into eternal life. It is a free gift but Christ paid a great price to make it available to us. Christ bore the full judgement of God by His suffering and death to pay the penalty for sin as the Scriptures declare, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Christ took our sin and gave us His righteousness. Christ shed His blood for our justification. We become just as if we had never sinned because God has chosen not to remember our sin anymore because Christ bore the judgement that resulted from sin. The sacrifice of Christ justifies and sanctifies us. We are made holy and set apart to God and given access to His presence. Therefore we can confidently “draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need”. (Heb. 4:16)
Jesus has paid the price for sin and belief in Him makes us a new creation. Many people do not believe in Christ because they have never seen His glory or fail to see it. When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick He did not immediately go to him. He waited till Lazarus died. The Scriptures tell us that it was because He loved Lazarus and his sisters. He wanted them to see the glory of God which was far more valuable than the death of Lazarus. When Jesus came to Bethany Mary and Martha and the mourners doubted His love. When He raised Lazarus from the dead, they saw His glory and understood His love. Lazarus was raised to physical life and would die again but when Christ raises us from the dead we have spiritual life. Our spirit is made perfect so that the Holy Spirit can live in us. His presence is our assurance that every part of our being will be resurrected. Christ has paid a great price for our salvation. It is a price no man is capable of paying and salvation is given as a gift to those who believe in Him.
Our resurrection with Christ makes demands on us. We are to give the Holy Spirit priority over our lives. He empowers us to renew our minds that whatever we do are in accordance with the Word of God. The Holy Spirit living in us is the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. He will also give life to our mortal bodies and is the guarantee that we have eternal life. The resurrected life demands trust and dependence on the Holy Spirit. He enables us to “Trust in the LORD with all our heart, and not to lean on our own understanding”. (Pr. 3:5) Trusting in the Lord believes God and rejects everything contrary to the Word of God. The resurrected life is a life of faith and the just shall live by faith. It believes and acts on the truth of God’s Word. It believes we have the righteousness of Christ and eternal life which is to “know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.” (John 17:3)
By grace are we saved through faith and have access to all the blessings of the New Covenant. These blessings should keep us from sin but if we do sin, and this is bound to happen, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin”. (1 John 1:7) When we sin while walking in the light of Christ we do not step into darkness but are cleansed by His blood in the light and remain in His light. We do not stop walking in the light as many have made us to believe; the blood of Christ cleanses us from sin while we remain in the light. This is the grace of God. Christ is able to resurrect every dead aspect of our lives. He wants us to glorify Him through our lives as we live His abundant life.
Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life. He demonstrated His power over death when Lazarus heard His voice and rose from the dead. It has been noted that without the name of Lazarus being mentioned all the dead would have risen and come out of their graves. The raising of Lazarus from the dead pictured a greater resurrection, the resurrection of Christ and our own resurrection. Lazarus would die again but Jesus and those who are His would live forever. A popular Hymn describes what a blessing the resurrection of Christ is for all believers. Because He lives we can face tomorrow. Because He lives all fear is gone. Because He holds the future life is worth living. Christ took our life and gave us His life because of His great love for us. Let our lives praise and glorify His Holy Name, Amen!
