Resurrection and freedom. 1Co 1:26-29; Heb 10:4-7; Luk 24:44-49; 18:31-34; Joh 2:19-22; Col 1:26-27; 3:1-4.

Title: Resurrection and freedom. 1CO 1:26-29; HEB 10:4-7; LUK 24:44-49; 18:31-34; JOH 2:19-22; COL 1:26-27; 3:1-4.

 

 

Does a man have a right to own another man as a slave or are all men born inherently with the right of freedom amongst men, bestowed by the Creator, and so only a slave of the Creator?

 

Our founding fathers debated this very question.

 

While still under British rule slavery was legal in all the colonies of America. After independence was put for and won in the war of independence the founders sought out ways to abolish slavery. The colonies were now states that had their own individual state constitutions and some states abolished slavery and others continued it.

 

Thomas Jefferson hoped that the way of the states was preparing for emancipation. After independence there are many things that are put into practice to restrict slavery. As the governor of VA Jefferson attempted to make slavery illegal in the state, but couldn't get the majority and the law wasn't passed. Jefferson is instrumental in passing the NW ordinance 1787 which makes slavery in the new NW territory illegal. He outlaws slave trade with Africa in 1808.

 

Leaders in the southern states from 1830 understood themselves to break with the founding fathers in the idea that slavery was good. John Calhoun, a senator from South Carolina, spoke that slavery is good for the master and slave. Slavery is a positive good because it is a good thing for the superior race to rule the inferior race. He thought the DOI to be immoral when it states that all men are created equal.

 

The south increasingly pushed legislation to preserve slavery in the territories. The north pushed back and the Civil Was ensued.

 

But the desire for slavery didn't disappear after the Civil War. Progressivism was born out of Europe and came to America with the desire to enslave man to the government. This is a more subtle slavery for the common good or the good of the society. They acknowledged that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were good for that time, but the founders could have never envisioned the changes of society and the constitution and the form of government has to change with the times. It was no longer important to protect individual rights at all cost but to protect the good of the society as a whole, even to the exclusion of individual rights.

 

Their founders and prominent leaders thought the DOI to be flawed in the way that individual rights were not permanent, but that the society took precedence and the individual was secondary.

 

Frank Goodnow, 1916, first president of the American Political Science Association and president of John Hopkins U.

 

The rights he possesses are, it is believed, conferred upon him, not by his Creator, but rather by the society to which he belongs. What they are is to be determined by the legislative authority in view of the needs of that society. Social expediency, rather than natural right, is thus to determine the sphere of individual freedom of action. [Frank Goodnow, 1916]

 

Should the smart rule the dumb? Should the strong and noble rule the weak and common?

 

1CO 1:26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;

 

1CO 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,

 

1CO 1:28 and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are,

 

1CO 1:29 that no man should boast before God.

 

How did God plan on making this a reality?

What  has been common throughout all of human history is that satan has attempted to enslave man unto himself and his will in many different ways. All mankind are born slaves of death and sin, but that does not mean that they are to be slaves of the devil, that they must choose for themselves. Man became independent and so a slave to his fallen state and the wrath that must come upon that, but Christ our sacrifice stood in our place and received our just recompense and in resurrection He displayed the freedom that He alone earned for anyone who would believe in Him.

 

JOH 8:36

"If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

 

Christ by resurrection became what in Himself He had not been before - the federal head of  a wholly new order of beings who take their primary divine objective as set forth in the NT.

 

The relations between God and man could not be the same after these events had transpired as they were before.

 

The OT saint was forgiven, but only as God was able to deal with sin on the ground of the future death of Christ.

 

Sins forgiven or covered, as in the OT, is not tantamount to sins being taken away.

 

HEB 10:4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

 

HEB 10:5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,

 

"Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired,

But a body Thou hast prepared for Me;

 

HEB 10:6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast taken no pleasure.

 

HEB 10:7 "Then I said, 'Behold, I have come

 (In the roll of the book it is written of Me)

To do Thy will, O God.'"

 

To ignore the doctrinal impact of the resurrection of Christ, as covenant theologians do, is to believe a uniform covenant from the beginning of human history to the end and that would ignore a brand new creation with its headship in the resurrected Christ.

 

The advent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost constitutes a transformation as vital and far reaching as any could be.

 

By joining each believer to the resurrected Christ, the Spirit is forming a wholly new thing unforeseen in past ages - a new humanity, a new creation, the realization of a wholly new divine purpose.

 

The resurrection of Christ is, when seen in its true Biblical setting, properly recognized as the very ground of all the purpose of this age and the basis upon which the new positions and possessions of those in Christ are made to rest.

 

In resurrection He embodies all that looked forward to Him in the OT.

 

LUK 24:44 Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." 

 

LUK 24:45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

 

LUK 24:46 and He said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day;

 

LUK 24:47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

 

LUK 24:48 "You are witnesses of these things.

 

LUK 24:49 "And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

 

Unbelieving men have contended it is unreasonable to suppose that with so many direct declarations regarding His own resurrection the disciples could have been to utterly unprepared for it as they were. However, it should be remembered that up to the time of His death and rising again, a resurrection, being quite supernatural, was not easily expected or even understood; but above and beyond this, it is evident that, for important reasons not difficult to recognize, the ability to grasp what Christ said of both His death and resurrection was really withheld from the disciples understanding, though specifically and repeatedly announced. They believed in the kingdom program, and rightly so, for they were called to preach the kingdom of God had come in Christ and to their minds, focused solely on an earthly kingdom and not a heavenly one, His death would have ended that hope.

 

The offer of an earthly kingdom, its rejection, the death and resurrection of the King, a new unforeseen age with a new divine purpose, and the return of the King to fulfill all His promises all would have seemed quite complex to those who had to pass through the actual outworking of the death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ. Much divine wisdom would have been needed in introducing to devout men the greatest transition the world has ever experienced, namely, and one from Judaism to Christianity.

 

They eventually came to understand that wisdom. Sadly, many Christians alive today have no idea that the life of resurrection has been graciously given to them.

 

LUK 18:31 And He took the twelve aside and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished.

 

LUK 18:32 "For He will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon,

 

LUK 18:33 and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again. " 

 

LUK 18:34 And they understood none of these things, and this saying was hidden from them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said.

 

JOH 2:19 "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 

 

JOH 2:20 The Jews therefore said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?"

 

JOH 2:21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body.

 

JOH 2:22 When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had spoken.

 

To attempt to describe the resurrection in terms of earthly illustration is futile. A hatching egg, a budding tulip from a dry bulb, or a chrysalis breaking through a cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly are all inadequate since all of them contain life before and after. This is not a resuscitation or a mere transformation. There was no life in Christ's tomb. There is not greater distinction than that which obtains between life and death. There is nothing in nature capable of representing a true resurrection from death.

 

There was no life in Christ's tomb. Christ went down in despotic death and came up with inexhaustible life.

 

There is the glory of the preincarnate Christ on the one hand and that of the resurrected Christ on the other hand. His resurrection was more than a reversal of death, as in resuscitation in those risen would die again, but we have in the resurrected Christ a being that had never existed before.

 

The resurrected Christ is a new order of being that had never existed before. He instantly became perfect and glorified humanity fitting for heaven and completely free from all earthly things.

 

The humanity of Christ--His body, soul, and spirit--instantly became that which had been anticipated throughout all eternity, namely, perfect humanity glorified and exalted to the point that it was not only fitting for heaven, but fitting as well to be an integral part of the glorified God/Man forever. No more changes are needed.

 

Certainly the incarnate Christ was the first of His kind in which God and Man came together in one person forever. For the first time in human history God indwelt a person. But during the incarnation Christ was a slave to certain things outside of His voluntary slavery to the will of the Father. As with all humanity He needed food and water, even though having a stamina without these things that is unmatched even remotely. He could be bruised, cut, and killed. He could experience temptation, agony, pain, pressure, etc. He could even experience spiritual death and the judgment of sin upon Him. He could experience separation from His Father as in, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" But when Christ walked out of the tomb in resurrection body, the first and so far, only One, He was no longer subject to these things. Never again would He thirst or hunger. Never again would He be bruised and battered or judged. Christ walked right out of that tomb directly in the same arena that was full of His enemies, and He would walk free as a resurrected Man that could not be touched. If He wanted to He could have walked right into the midst of the Sanhedrin and laughed as they again tried to hit Him, slap Him, spit on Him, punch Him, or pull out His facial hair. Their fists would have passed right through Him. He could have walked into the Praetorium and felt not a tickle if a Roman soldier again tried to scourge Him. The whip made of many chords would have passed right through Him. He could have gone anywhere and been completely invulnerable.  

 

And, in the love, grace, and mercy of God, as only He could do, this resurrection life was offered to all men.

 

Every Christian has been born from above and received the divine nature when he believed. As such our hope changed from us to Him.

 

COL 1:26 the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints,

 

COL 1:27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

 

JOH 10:10-11

I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

 

1JO 5:11-12

God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

 

The life which is thus imparted is the life of Christ in resurrection and not the pre-resurrection life of Christ. It is on this ground that the Christian is contemplated, as he is in the NT, as already raised from the dead.

 

COL 3:1 If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

 

COL 3:2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

 

COL 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

 

COL 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

 

The believer is now blessed with all the values of co-crucifixion, co-death, co-burial, and co-resurrection with Christ.

 

These great realities are his as completely as they were Christ's, since Christ wrought them as a Substitute for the one who believes. In the most actual sense the child of God has been raised up and seated with Christ in heavenly spheres.

 

EPH 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

 

EPH 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus,

 

The resurrection of Christ is the source of power for the CA believer.

 

MAT 28:18

 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

 

The angels thus know before we appear what each believer will be like, having seen Christ who is to the hosts of heaven a preliminary demonstration of the glorious estate that awaits those who are Christ's. He is thus the firstfruits.

 

 

1CO 15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.

 

1CO 15:21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.

 

1CO 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

 

1CO 15:23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming

 

Angels know the estate which will characterize each individual who comprises that unnumbered company which, having received their resurrection bodies, will dwell in the spacious vaults of heaven. They look at Christ now, the only One in resurrection body and know that heaven will be filled with them that are His in the same fashion of body as He now possesses.

 

The angels thus know before we appear what each believer will be like, having seen Christ who is to the hosts of heaven a preliminary demonstration of the glorious estate that awaits those who are Christ's. He is thus the firstfruits.

 

Don't let your heart lose these truths. Don't stop listening to the word of God so that in time, God the Holy Spirit will bring its certainty to you through faith.

 

Often in the Scriptures does the Spirit of God bring to one's attention the certainty of all things which God hath purposed, and happy indeed is the one who, by divine illumination, enters into the heart-understanding of these things.

 

Only our ignorance and unbelief can prevent this realization and indescribable happiness. The greatest earthly power seen in the world up to that time had set a seal upon the tomb and guarded it by pains of death but they could not stop what was about to burst forth upon the world in divine life.

 

None can lose the pains of death other than God in Christ.

 

ACT 2:24

And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

 

Christ is the first and only one of all earth dwellers thus far to put on immortality.