At the end of his long chapter on Christ’s resurrection and second coming in I Corinthians 15, Paul declares: “therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your work in the Lord is not in vain.” For most of us, though, the resurrection seems like little more than the epilogue to the story of the cross. What’s the connection between Christ’s resurrection and our work? How does the resurrection affect “our work?” What does it mean for us today to declare, as churches around the world will on Easter Sunday, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”?
Christ Has Died
At the cross, God-the-Son “made himself nothing,” became a “servant,” and obeyed the Father all the way to dying an excruciating death on the cross (Phi 2:6-8). The cross means that we are no longer estranged from God, but have been reconciled to the Father “by Christ’s physical body through death” so that we, though our sins condemn us, might appear before God as “holy in his sight” (Col 1:22). The cross means that sin itself has been crucified so that we no longer are slaves to sin (Rom 6:6). Jesus became our sin (2 Cor 5:21), bearing “our sins in his body on the cross” (1 Pet 2:24).
But the meaning of the cross goes even out beyond our individual reconciliation with God. Through the cross, God has reconciled himself to the whole world, and given us the mission of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-19). All of the evil powers and principalities and every system of injustice has been “disarmed!” Jesus “made a public spectacle of [the powers and authorities], triumphing over them by the cross” (Col 2:15). The cross of Christ “destroys the Devil’s work” (1 Jn 3:8).
Though the Bible makes clear that Adam’s sin brought all of creation into sin and decay, releasing the power of the Devil into every corner of the cosmos, at the Cross Jesus has shattered the Enemy, has paid the price for our treason, has unmasked the injustice and oppression of a world which would crucify its own Creator, and reconciled the Triune God to the whole world.
Christ Is Risen
On the third day, the Father took the mangled, tortured, broken body of His Son and raised it up to new life. The point of the story isn’t that Jesus’ soul went to be with God, but rather that the broken body of Jesus was remade into something glorious and altogether new. Not only does Jesus pay for our sins at the cross, but he empowers us for new, resurrection life at Easter. As Paul writes, if Christ has not been raised, then we are still dead in our sins. But He has been raised! And that makes all the difference.
Scholars point out that in John, the Risen Jesus meets Mary in a garden on the first day of a new week; after dealing with all of the sin that had corrupted the old creation, at the resurrection Jesus becomes the “new Adam” on the first day of a new creation week. And so we know that we too, along with the whole creation, will be resurrected one day with Him. As Paul writes, “Christ has indeed been raised, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.” Moreover, Romans 8 tells us that the entire creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed at the resurrection so that the creation might share in the glory of God’s children! What happens to Jesus will happen to us . . . and to the entire created world.
Christ Will Come Again
In Acts, the disciples watched as Jesus ascended into heaven. Suddenly, two angels appear and ask them: “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” And so, along with the resurrection, the ascension reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Risen King who promises to return to us again in glory. Sin has been beaten, and a new day has dawned at Easter, and we wait faithfully for our King to come and complete the work in fullness.
What It Means For Us
Everything has changed! At the cross, Jesus unmasked, disarmed, and destroyed all the sin and death that hides in our hearts and that breaks out in violence, poverty, disease, and injustice. At the resurrection, Jesus has started a “new creation” project that begins in human hearts and pours out and overflows into a New Heaven and a New Earth. And just as our resurrected, vindicated Lord returned to the Father He will one day come again to reign as King over all Creation.
The reason Paul wraps up his teaching on the resurrection by declaring that our works are not in vain is that the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are the Father’s grand YES to the world, His gracious promise that we will be resurrected like Christ, and His invitation to participate in the resurrection of the whole world. Without this YES, this promise to redeem all things along with the “first-fruits” of Christ’s own resurrection, jobs make no difference. Neighborhoods make no difference. Rocks, trees, birds, cities, careers, and homes make no difference. But Jesus Christ has become one of us, has suffered our death, and permanently secured our resurrection life in His resurrected world. Our lives in this world matter. The work we do anticipates the sure redemption of all things, and it is not in vain. Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again! And we’re called to live lives in the kingdom, for the King, by the power of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and who will raise us and the entire cosmos into new life when Jesus comes again in glory.
Michael Rhodes
michael@advancememphis.org
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