There is a resurrection body…how will it be raised?

Last week’s post described what kind of resurrection body we will have when the resurrection happens.  This post answers the question of how.  How will God’s people in Christ Jesus be given a physical but glorified body? Answer: By the grace and power of God.  See 1 Corinthians 15:51-57.

In this Scripture we are taught first that, resurrection, like the forgiveness of sins is of God’s free gift.  We can see this grace from the time when God clothed Adam and Eve with coats of skin, and when God kept them from the tree of life by a flaming sword.  God did not want them to live forever in their sinful flesh, but he would cloth them with his grace through the sacrifice of Son.  This included a new body.  For this reason none of God’s people cremated themselves, like the pagans did.  Their bodies were always buried in faith.  They believed creation would one day be renewed.  The grace of resurrection is full pinnacle of this promise!  Notice grace in this passage.  (v.38a, 45b, 47b, 49b).

Secondly Scriptures teaches that this resurrection happens by the power of God! (v.51-57) Presently we are made of corruptible decaying material; but one day by God’s power who through the victory of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, will transform us into non-corruptible, un-decaying material and we become people who will never again feel the sting of death. 

Jesus Christ overcame death’s power and sting because he grappled with the power of sin, which God’s law exposed time and time again.  That is, Jesus fulfilled all the law even the law that says, “The soul that sins, shall die.”  However, because he was God, this law could not condemn him.  He took the law’s condemnation away from us by taking our sins on him, and the death we deserved, and defeated them at the cross and resurrection.  By the power of God’s gospel comes the resurrection of our bodies.

Very few think long and hard about life after death.  But the church should call people to do so.  All the dead will rise, but not all will rise to a life worthy to be called life.  Sinners outside Jesus Christ will spend eternity in the lake of fire with a body that will never die.  But God is his great love has given sinners the gift of Christ to save us from the wrath of God.  (1 Thess 5:9-10).  Today is the day of salvation.

The Spirit concludes his teaching here with v.58.  Because Jesus did rise from the dead, all who are in him, risen with him in union with him by faith have their sins are forgiven and will received a glorified body like his.  Therefore, Christians can serve the Lord with steadfastness, immovability, and abundance.

Here I quote John Piper.  He preached this many years ago. “‘Steadfast’ means steady as you move forward. Keep on going and don’t let up. Don’t be given to fits and starts. Put your hand on the plough and don’t take it off till your work is done. Steady movement forward till your work is done.

‘Immovable’ means don’t get knocked over by sudden blows. Keep your balance. Stand strong and unshaken when the rains come down and the floods come up and the winds blow and beat against your house. Be like a boulder that can’t get washed away. Be like a tree that can’t get blown down.

‘Abounding in the work of the Lord’ means do lots of it. ‘Abound in’ means ‘overflow with.’ Fill your days with things that count for Christ. Pray and dream and plan and then work, work, work while it is day.”

There is a resurrection…so what will our body be like? (Description #1)

It’s been a long time since my last blog entry.  I’ve been busy obviously; and with busyness come tiredness.  I’ve been tired too.  But thanks be to God Almighty that through the gospel of Jesus Christ I, and all the Lord’s people will receive a resurrection body like Christ’s resurrection body.

Of course many people don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, let alone the resurrection on Christ.  However, as we have seen in past blogs, the Scripture in 1 Corinthians 15 makes it clear that if there is no resurrection then: 1) Christ is not raised and we are still in sin (v.12-13),  2) there is no point in believing in Jesus Christ (v.14-17) , 3) our loved ones who have died have perished permanently (v.18-23), 4) the world would not be sorted out and put right (v.24-28), and 5) the Christian life would not have any meaning (v.29-34).  If there is no resurrection then Christianity is blank.  However, it is not blank!  In fact Christ has been raised, and at his coming all his people will be raised too as he proclaimed in v.12-34. 

Well, these same people who denied the resurrection of the dead antagonistically asked two questions. (v.35). Thankfully, Paul for their benefit, and ours, was led by the Spirit to answer these questions in v.36 – 57.  We will deal with the first question in this blog.

Question:

What kind of body will God’s people come with at the second coming       of Christ? 

Answer:

The Resurrection body.  (v.36-50). Well, what will this resurrection body be like?  Here are Paul’s three descriptions of the resurrection body.

One.  The resurrection body comes from our normal physical body; death cannot prevent this from happening (v.36-38).  Paul shows this with the illustration of the seed.  In seeds we see that death is not the end of new life!  Instead, out of death new life springs forth.  These Corinthians experienced this when they sowed.   In a few months millions of corns seeds will go into the ground…there they will rot, but from them will come new corn.  Our body is a seed so to speak.  Death will not thwart God’s purposes of new-life in us.  God gives it a new body as he has chosen (v.37).  In God’s great day…in his spring time all in Christ will raise from the ground!

Two. The resurrection body is different from the body we have today (v.39-41).  The point is pretty simple.  We are all used to different kinds of material. From rubber, to ice, to a star; from the fish, to the Moose, to the pork they are all different.  So it is between our body now and our future resurrection body.  They are different!  But to what degree?  Not in kind…our resurrection body will still be our body…but the difference will be in glory! (v.41-42a). 

Three.  The resurrection body is a body, but glorified body (v.42-50).  A tulip bulb is sown in ugliness, but it comes to life in beauty.  So with our bodies.  Our present body is subject to decay….the resurrection body is imperishable.  Our present body is in dishonour (sin affects our bodies)…the resurrection body will be raised in glory.  No shame, no blindness, no ailments.  Our present body is weak.  We become emotionally and physically tired.  But the resurrection body is raised in God’s peace and health.  Our present body is physical, but the resurrection body is spiritual.  (v.44). 

OK, let’s talk about this last point a little.  What does it mean that our body is a spiritual body?   I need to alert us at this point to a heresy.  Yes, there are heresies!  It is the tenant that the resurrection body is not a physical body.  And they get in from v.44. They think Paul is saying the R is not a physical body, but some other spiritual thing; maybe from un-invented material called mushmug!

But this is exactly what Paul is not saying.  Here God’s word contrasts how the body lives in one existence and then in another.  Our present body is made alive by the normal life which all humans share – the soul.  Paul uses the Greek word for soul here.  We all depend on the soul for our bodies to live.  But the body we will be given in the resurrection will be made alive by God’s own Spirit.  It will be a Spirit-made-alive body.  Paul says in a simpler way in Rom 8:10-11.

             

Paul shows this in v.45-49, and v.51-53 with the Adam and Christ comparison.  Adam whose body was made of dust had to come first, and so our bodies of dust have to come before the resurrection body.  Adam passed on the soul to all mankind, so our bodies have to be made alive by soul before the resurrection body.  But then God gave us Christ.  He is from heaven, who is the full image of God, who makes his people of heaven because he gives us the Spirit who makes our body’s alive in the resurrection. (v.45-49). 

Conclusion:           

So the resurrection body will be different from our present body, but it will be a body!  It will be like Jesus’ body (Phil 3:20-21).  Think of the resurrection as something like a person taking off one set of clothes and putting on another, exchanging an old suit for a new tuxedo; or, even think of the body itself changing its clothes - taking off the old garments of this life (weakness, sinful desires, decay) - and putting on the new set of clothes (power, purity, and immortality and the perpetual filling of the Spirit).  We won’t be tired anymore.

If there is no resurrection…then what? (Point #5)

You might recall that old Latin hymn The Strife Is O’er, the Battle Done. It’s about the resurrection. Once you sing it you realize that if there was no resurrection the Christian life would have no meaning. The second line reads,


The pow’rs of death have done their worst,
but Christ their legions hath dispersed:
let shouts of holy joy out-burst.
Alleluia.

If there was no resurrection then death is not dispersed and there is no joy in the world.

Paul in 1 Cor 15:12-34 gives us the “if there is no resurrection then…” argument. In this entry we look at v.29-34. Notice the word “otherwise” in v.29. Paul still wants us to imagine, “Just think if the resurrection was not true?” He gives two answers.

Answer one: Christian funeral practices make no sense if we don’t have the resurrection to look forward too (v.29). This verse has been foggy to the church for a long time. There is no other mention of it in the OT or NT. So what does it mean? Definitely, it something this church did, and it is clear what they did…some people were baptized on behalf of the dead.

There are two possible meanings. First, some believers had died without being baptized, so others were baptized on their behalf. Secondly, it could refer to an unbeliever(s), who after the death of relative or friend who was a Christian; decided to become a Christian so he could be with his loved one in the resurrection.

We don’t know the exact meaning, but the point is understandable. Christian funerals and what we say at them, and the hope given makes no sense if there is no resurrection! Yes, heaven is a hope for us…but not the final hope. It’s not even mentioned in this chapter. Resurrection is what Christians look forward to. In the new Creation we will be with our loved ones.

Answer two: Suffering for Jesus Christ, and even being martyred for him makes no sense if there is no resurrection (v.30-33). Paul is speaking of the dangers he went through. He lived in danger very often. He died daily to his needs. He even endured physical abuse.

Why endure hostility and risk your life for the sake of the gospel if Christ is not risen? There is no gain, because God has gained nothing if there is no resurrection! If there is no resurrection we suffer for the gospel’s sake for nothing. If there is no resurrection, “Give up on Jesus, and then live it up for tomorrow we die.”

But as Paul intimates, this is completely deceptive, and we are commanded to not believe the lie that there is no resurrection, and watch out for those who deny it. Notice v.33. Quoting a phrase from Menander, Paul applies it to the church. He says in essence, “Bad company, like those who deny the resurrection of the dead, will only have a corrupting influence on the godliness God has worked in you! People want to seek the good life, so they don’t want to suffer.”

But Christian’s have a different mind-set. Realizing the glorious resurrection of the dead is yet to come, we are willing to give our lives for others for the sake of Christ. Yes, death is still alien, and we know its pain, but in Christ we don’t fear it…so we can give ourselves for the gospel. A Christian can risk his or her life because; his or her life is not at risk. Life after life after death ahead!

If there is no resurrection…then what? (Point #4)

I read a funny comic strip a few weeks ago. Two people with suit and tie, and tote bag were going door to door proselytizing Jehovah Witness style. They were at a door and the owner was looking at the pamphlet. He says, “This is blank!” The two guys respond, “We’re atheists.”


Some in the Corinthian church believed and promoted the error that there is no resurrection of the dead! So from v.12-34, to show exactly how wrong this error is, Paul uses the, “If it is not true, then…, argument. If there is not resurrection of the dead then Christianity is blank like that pamphlet; it is nothing and there is no God.

Well, from v.24 to 28, Paul shows that if there is no resurrection then the world will not be sorted out and put right. The resurrection of Jesus was the time when God took this messed up world and put it back to order! Notice how the Bible explains this.

Point One: One human messed up the world, one human will put it right. The first Adam brought death to man & God’s creation. In passages like Romans 8, Gen 3, and also Job we learn creation is subjected to frustration and groans under the curse of sin. But here Paul’s focus is on the death Adam brought onto man. By his rebellion against God he sullied our world with death through sin. Notice v.20a, & v.22a. Paul said the same thing in Rom 5.

Adam’s sin brought us spiritual death. Separation from God’s person, his will, and his good purpose for us. Adam’s sin brought physical death too. Now we have to face what hurts us the most; life being taken away from us. This all came to us through Adam’s sin.

But there was another man! The last Adam, he gets us out of this mess. Notice v.21b, v.22b, v.45, and Rom 5:15,18-19. God gave the job to put sinners right to this man! Through him, God, as it were to the problem by the scruff of the neck and set sinners right again! How?

Jesus took death upon him on our behalf and went to battle with it on our behalf – and won! This means as our sin & death was imputed to him, so now his life is imputed to us also…so we are guaranteed to have a resurrection like his. This is why Paul says, Christ is the firstfruits!. This means Jesus is the pioneer to go into resurrection territory where no man has ever gone before – and he takes his children along! Notice v.22-23. All who belong to Christ shall be made alive! First, it was Christ; one day it will be all who belong to him. Of course, this “putting the world & sinners right” has only started it is not finished yet. Be completed at Christ’s 2nd coming - but it has started. This brings me to point two.

Point Two: Through the resurrection of Christ God the Father becomes King of the world (v.24-28). These verses describe God’s final putting-the-world-perfectly right. It describes the work of Jesus, the role of God the Father, and how this world will function forever. It’s about the coming Kingdom of God!

The Jews believed that God’s kingdom would come; but they did not agree on how it would come. Well, the church now knew! Jesus brought the kingdom and by his life, death & especially here, the resurrection! The surprise in God’s plan was that before God’s people would rise at the end of history, one person would first be raised in the middle of history. And this meant God’s order for saving the world was in two phases!

Phase one: The resurrected Jesus is now reigning. (v.25, 26, 27.)

Phase two: God the Father will be all in all (v.24,27-28). Christ victory (phase one) is guaranteed (v.25, 27a). This is why phase two will come. At the last day, the Son of God will, in the final putting-the-world-right, place all things under the order of the Father…that God may be all in all. Is Jesus less than the Father, or the Spirit? No! They are co-equal. The Father is the one from whom all things come, the Son and Spirit are the ones through whom all things come (1 Cor 8:6). There is order in God.

As God Almighty puts the world in its proper order; part of that order, which has been the order eternally in God, is that Jesus will be forever the Father’s true Son…doing all things that please him, handing all things over to him, and always being in subjection to him as God the Son. So in phase two God the Father will reign eternally, and God the Son will be the obedient Son eternally, and God the Spirit will bind them together eternally, and so God will be all in all!

One man messed things up, but another man came to put things right. Death is being reversed, being undone, losing its corrupting power; and this means sin is being conquered! That’s good news! And what’s more at the 2nd coming the living Lord will give all things to the Father and God’s final redemption and justice will happen. But if there is no resurrection…?

If there is no resurrection…then what? (Point #3)

My study on the resurrection from 1 Corinthians 15 continues after a two week pause. Not that I have not been thinking about the resurrection, I have. It’s just that I have been busy, but busy in a world where the resurrection has happened. That is encouraging.

By the way, before I go to my point today let me point out that Fyodor Dostoevsky’s masterpiece of a novel, The Brothers Karamazov ends with the good news of the resurrection. The speech at the stone given to the boys of the Russian village by Alyosha concludes with Alyosha’s affirmation, “Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!” “Ah, how splendid it will be!” shouted one of the boys. It the midst of all the sin and injustice in the novel, Dostoevsky gives the answer of God…resurrection.

Anyway, to our study. We are looking at 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 where Paul asserts the certainty of the resurrection by showing the absurdity of everything if there was not resurrection. We have covered his first two points. If the dead are not raised then Christ is not raised and therefore we are still in sin. And two, if the dead are not raised then our loved ones who have died have perished permanently.

Here is Paul’s third point. If the dead are not raised then there is no point in believing in Jesus (v.19). If there is no resurrection Paul was misrepresenting God. Ministers do the same if they preach the resurrection. There is no point in preaching Jesus if Jesus is still dead. But also, for us, there in no point in believing in him. If all he was a good guru, a good teacher, and even a great miracle worker, but stayed dead when the Romans killed him…our faith is empty and our religion really is a crutch…and people should feel sorry for us. If the dead are not raised and Jesus is not raised then Albert Schweitzer was right.

As N.T. Wright put it… “If there is no resurrection, what’s the point of being a Christian in the first place? Hated, reviled, persecuted, struggling with sin – if this is all there, surely it would be better to throw in the towel, to admit that another philosophy of life can make life easier.” If Jesus did not rise from the dead but still has our sins, if he is the Son of God but stayed dead and did not destroy sin and death, if his atoning death was not sufficient and all we have to believe in is a Messiah who died we have not hope at all! There is no point in this!

But…v.20, “Christ has in fact been raised from the dead.” Robert Chandlish: “Therefore, we as well as those who have fallen asleep in Jesus have a hope that neither death nor sin can touch. Christian’s who fall asleep before the great day of resurrection are alive and forgiven now. We also, believing, are not in our sins.”

If there is no resurrection…then what? (Point #2)

This blog entry continues the study on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. The last entry covered verses 12 to 17, where the point is made that if there is no resurrection of the dead then Christ is not raised and we are yet in our sins. Thanks be to God the dead do rise as we see in Jesus; so there is the truth of the gospel in our world.

Today we look at verse 18 and 19. If the dead do not rise then, “those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (ESV). In other words if the dead are not raised then our loved ones who have died in the Lord have perished permanently.

The word “perish” describing what happened to the loved ones means “destroyed,” “abolished.” What he means is they are annihilated, and will never have life again!

If the dead are not raised then they are still in their sins, they have no hope of life after life after death, and there is no future for them of any kind…they perish along with the rest of mankind! To deny the resurrection of the dead is to deny our past (Christ died for our sins), deny our present (we live in him), and it is to deny our whole future.

If the resurrection were not true we would suffer miserably at losing a loved one. But because there is the hope of the resurrection when we are about to lose a Christian loved one we, like Robert Rayburn said, “can take his or her hand, and in the midst of that heartbreak and that desolation and through the tears of love, we smile, we really smile, inside as well as out, and say with absolute conviction, ‘We shall meet again in heaven and the resurrection’ And, then later, when the pain of the separation is still felt, we say to ourselves: It is only till the resurrection.”

But hearing the news that Jesus Christ did not rise and we will not raise either. Surely, that would make us the most pitiable of men and women.

If there is no resurrection...then what? (Point #1)

Imagine a world where there is no forgiveness from God! This is the kind of world our world would be if there is no resurrection of the dead. If there is not resurrection of the dead, then Jesus did not raise, and we are still without forgiveness from God.

Scripture makes this point in 1 Corinthians 15:12-17.

To deny the resurrection of the dead is to deny the resurrection of the one who makes any and all resurrections possible…Jesus Christ. Notice the horror to sinners if Christ was not raised from the dead. If Christ is not raised we are in our sins still. But why? Three reasons…

Reason one.
If Christ is not raised we are still in our sins because Christ is still in your sins. Remember on the cross he became sin for us who knew no sin. There on the cross Jesus was in your sins as Robert Chandlish said. “They were on him, about him, before him; they were his. He owned them and felt them to be his.” Remember Psalm 40:12, “For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.” He himself bore our sins on the tree. He made his soul an offering for our sin.

Also, he was in your sins when he was buried. But did Jesus not say “It is finished…the sacrifice for sin is finished!” Yes, but there was that Saturday when Jesus’ body was still suffering the result of sin…death…separation of soul and body. Oh his soul went immediately into paradise into the Father’s presence for at death he said, “Into your hand’s I commend my Spirit.” The bitter cup was over. Yet, there was his body. It was cared for, perfumed, and it was no longer shamed; it even went into a new tomb. But still the separation was there. In a very true sense the body of Jesus in the tomb was still bearing the doom of our sin. Yet it was God’s will to redeem body and soul…but if he is not raised!?

This is my point here. Faith unites us to Christ Jesus. By faith we are one with him so that whatever his condition is, that is our condition too. Well, if Christ did not rise from the dead but is still in our sins, so we too are still in our sins. If we believe in a dead Christ we are not forgiven!

Reason two.
If Christ is not raised we are still in our sins because death’s power has not been broken. If Jesus has been raised, death’s power and fear over us has been broken. (1 Cor 15:26). This death has always come because of sin. Well, if this death has been destroyed, that means sin has been defeated too! If Christ did rise from the dead, God’s will to destroy sin by his Son has been accomplished! However, if he wasn’t raised from the dead, he wasn’t God’s Son, he wasn’t God, and death’s power and sin is not defeated.

Reason three.
If Christ is not raised we are still in our sins because then we are not justified. Read Romans 4:23-25. Jesus was raised so that we may be put right with God. The Lord’s resurrection, after his death on the cross, completed our redemption and vindicated Christ’s work of satisfying the wrath of God for our sin. The resurrection guaranteed that the benefits of the cross would be available. J. Murray: “If Jesus had not risen to life again, it could only have been because his sacrifice was not accepted, the price he paid was not sufficient, and we, therefore, remained in our sins!” When Jesus died for our sins, a full and sufficient payment was made for our forgiveness and justification. It was a perfect work!

Well, to leave Jesus in the grave would have been unjust, since he had so fully paid for our sin. So God raised him from the dead to vindicate the perfection of Christ and his atonement, and then in his grace God gave us Christ’s righteousness. But if Christ was not raised from the dead, it’s because it was not good enough and we are still in our sins.

Pretty horrible, hu? If there is no physical bodily resurrection there is no Christianity. But I don’t leave you on this note. 1 Corinthians 15:20 says, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.”

A study of 1 Corinthians 15. Resurrection a historical event.

1 Corinthians 15 has been occupying my mind for 4 weeks.  I just finished preaching through it at our church.  The more our faith and understanding grips the truth and gigantic blessing of the resurrection, the more hope and holiness permeates our lives.  John Calvin wrote in his Institutes, 3.10.5, “Let us consider this settled, that no one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection.”

For the next 4 or 5 posts I will give some thoughts on the resurrection from 1 Corinthians 15.

We start with some thoughts on the message of v.1 to v.11. The resurrection is a historical event. Jesus really did come into the world and we really did see his glory. Angels really did announce his coming on one particular night outside of the Judean village of Bethlehem. Wise men really did come from the East, Herod, really did try to kill the Christ child, his parents really did have to flee to Egypt, there really is an empty tomb, Jesus really did rise from the dead according to the Scriptures, and the resurrected Jesus was really seen by over 500 witnesses. All these these things happened by God’s will in God’s world!


The preaching of this gospel that Christ died and is risen again from the dead calls people to faith and repentance, and brings them to faith and repentance. God’s work in history saves sinners. R. Rayburn wrote, “What changes people's lives today, what sets men and women free from sin and guilt, what delivers them from the falsehoods that otherwise capture and oppress the human mind and heart, is not an idea, but a person, a person who was born, who lived, who died, who rose again, who ascended to heaven before the very eyes of his enemies and his friends and followers. We do not ask people to believe an idea, but to confess and trust and love a person, a person whose deeds are recorded in history.”

John Updike in his poem On the Resurrection has this stanza,
Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
The church has not fallen.

A missionary in Turkey attempt top bring the truth of the resurrection of Christ to Muslims. He said: "I am traveling, and have reached a place where the road branches off in two ways; I look for a guide, and find two men: one dead, and the other alive. Which of the two must I ask for direction, the dead or the living?" "Oh, the living," cried the people. "Then," said the missionary, "why send me to Mohammed, who is dead, instead of to Christ, who is alive!

Jesus broke its jaw

Without the resurrection of Jesus, life would be cruel because sin and death would reign. More to the point, without the resurrection of Jesus we would still be in our sin and life with all its cruelty would repeatedly, crushingly hit against us like a wrecking ball hits a doomed building.
Dostoevsky brings this point out poignantly in, The Idiot. One of the characters, the sick and depressed Ippolit gives a sort of suicide speech at Myshkin’s birthday party. He called it An Essential Explanation. In it he describes a painting he had seen of Jesus just after he had been taken down from the cross. He is puzzled because the painting is so brutally honest, and it makes him reflect on death. Most paintings, he says, “Strive to preserve that beauty (the beauty of Jesus), even in His most terrible agonies.” But it was not so in this one. Ippolit says this about the painting.

“It’s true it’s the face of a man only just taken from the cross – that is to say, still bearing traces of warmth and life. Nothing is rigid in it yet, so that there’s still a look of suffering in the face of the dead man, as though he were still feeling it. Yet the face has not been spared in the least. It is simply nature, and the corpse of a man, whoever he might be, must really look like that after such suffering. I know that the Christian Church laid it down, even in the early ages, that Christ’s suffering was not symbolical but actual and that his body was therefore fully and completely subject to the laws of nature on the cross. In the picture the face is fearfully crushed by blows, swollen, covered with fearful, swollen and blood-stained bruises, the eyes are open and squinting: the great wide-open whites of the eyes glitter with a sort of deathly, glassy light.”

From this entry we see Dostoevsky held a strong incarnational theology. Jesus was God and really man. He suffered for men as a man in cruelty, all the cruelty of violence and death – in our place. However, would this cruelty remain embedded in that face? How could hope and life come from a pulverized human being? Ipploit goes on…

“But, strange to say as one looks at this corpse of a tortured man, a peculiar and curious question arises: if just such a corpse (and it must have been just like that) was seen by all His disciples, by those who were to become his chief apostles, by the women that followed him and stood by the cross, by all who believed in Him and worshipped Him, how could they believe that that martyr would rise again? The question instinctively arises: if death is so awful and the laws of nature so mighty, how can they be overcome? How can they be overcome when even He did not conquer them, He who vanquished nature in His lifetime, who exclaimed, ‘Maiden, arise!’ and the maiden arose – ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ and the dead man came forth? Looking at such a picture, one conceives of nature in the shape of an immense, merciless, dumb beast, or more correctly, much more correctly, speaking, though it sounds strange, in the form of a huge machine of the most modern construction which, dull and insensible, has aimlessly clutched, crushed and swallowed up a great priceless Being, a Being worth all nature and its laws, worth the whole earth, which was created perhaps solely for the sake of the advent of that Being.”

Ipploit went on to say that "the disciples must have experienced the most terrible anguish and consternation on that evening, which had crushed all their hopes, and almost their convictions.” Another came to Ipploit’s mind, “And of the Teacher could have seen Himself on the eve of the crucifixion, would He have gone up to the cross and have died as he did? That question too rises involuntarily, as one looks at the picture.” I have felt this way when looking at Matthias Grunwald’s, The Crucifixion.

Dostoevsky forces the reader to look at the power of sin and death in many places in his novels, but this is to get us to look at Jesus and remind us that he overcame death. The reader asserts in his mind, “Yes, Jesus suffered, but he did not stay dead!” Even in what I have quoted above the reader is reminded of the resurrection. Yes, death, and the sin which caused it is an immense, merciless, dumb beast crushing, crushing, crushing. But it tried to crush Jesus into oblivion but Jesus broke its jaw! He conquered it with the young girl and Lazarus, and it was finally conquered, when on the third day he rose from the dead.

Hope is not now shattered into pieces. Jesus understood the great suffering he was to endure and prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done.” The word of forgiveness was even uttered from bruised and bloody lips, perhaps with teeth knocked out. Jesus had the hope of the resurrection. Life is not an immense, merciless, dumb beast crushing itself out. God never intended it for that so he sent his Son and killed death in and through him.

The resurrected Jesus is the hope for people crushed by sin. All who are in him by faith were crushed with him in his death, only to be raised again with him unto everlasting life. Bless God for the gospel.