A Resurrection Meditation

        Every Lord’s day, and every day the Lord has made, should be a rejoicing in him as our resurrected Lord. To grasp the significance of his resurrection we must understand what his sinless life accomplished when he came to earth as a human being in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3). We must also take into account that he carries out his mission in the world as the perfect God/man, who shares both our nature, and the divine nature without any mixture of the two natures, in one person. This sinless life lived out as a man before God as our representative means that all the righteousness that we need to stand before God is found in Christ’s perfect obedience.

That he was resurrected assumes not only that he lived as a man, but that he also died. And his death was also for us. He did not just die, but he was delivered up for us as Paul says, “Who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25). Our problem is our trespasses. It is our sins that make us guilty before God and defiled in our hearts so that anything we do good or bad (in human terms) is stained by our sin. God punished this sin which separated us from him, by judging his own Son in our place on the cross. God's justice was satisfied, so that everyone that he calls to himself and who places their faith in Christ alone, may stand before him without condemnation (Rom 8:1), but also, eternally loved and accepted through Christ (Rom 8:38-39).

If he lived in our place, and died in our place, he was also resurrected in our place. In the words of Rom 4:25, he was “raised for our justification.” This is God affirming the person and work of his Son whom the world had rejected and condemned. But it is also God affirming and confirming all who trust in him as being raised together with him — free from sin, death, and condemnation and alive to God in joyful fellowship with him through Christ. We are called to live in participation with the risen Christ as spiritually resurrected people looking forward to the day of our bodily resurrection which has been guaranteed by Christ’s bodily resurrection. That’s why every Lord’s day, and every day the Lord has made should be a rejoicing in him as our resurrected Lord!