What Is So Important About the Resurrection?

                There is an expression I have heard in the movies, going after a target “with extreme prejudice”.  It basically means kill them as intensely as possible.  We get a hint of that from Jesus in our passage from Sunday.  He was pretty clear when he talked about “…those who are considered worthy of a place…in the resurrection…” that the Sadducees had some work to do.  The Resurrection is the promise of an afterlife, of an eternal life, of a place of perfect love and fulfillment as Children of God.  To summarize what the Bible has to say about this, consider the Catechism lesson from this past Sunday:

Q. 37. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?

A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory¹; and their bodies, being still united to Christ², do rest in their graves till the resurrection³.

Q. 38. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the 

resurrection?

A. At the resurrection, believers, being raised up in glory¹, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the Day of Judgment², and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God³ to all eternity⁴.

                Jesus is going to die so that he will rise again.  In his resurrection, these promises will be accomplished.  That task is almost upon him and it looks like he is feeling its weight.  Remember, our best explanation of Jesus is fully God and fully human.  He felt everything, was tempted in every way that a human is tempted.  This includes a desire NOT to end his life this way.

                This is the power of the Book of Confessions, of the Westminster Catechism.  What does the Bible have to tell us about the Resurrection?  Here it is in capsule form.  Where do they get it?  Do we trust the ‘scholars’?  They used the same book we do.  Here are the footnotes:

Q. 37.

1. Luke 23:43; Luke 16:23;

Phil. 1:23; II Cor. 5:6–8.

2. I Thess. 4:14.

3. Rom. 8:23; I Thess. 4:14.

Q. 38.

1. I Cor. 15:42, 43.

2. Matt. 25:33, 34; Matt. 10:32.

3. Ps. 16:11; I Cor. 2:9.

4. I Thess. 4:17. See preceding

context.

                The Resurrection provides us hope in this world and the next.  The Resurrection is the culmination of the Ministry of Christ among us.  The tension of being a Christian is a delightful one.  There is the question of living and loving in Jesus here, and in the hereafter.  Let us thank the Lord for all that Jesus has done for us, in his life and death, and resurrection.

Pastor Peter