The Power of the Resurrection

Yesterday I was sharing what the Lord revealed to me about his strength in the midst of my weakness. This has been a very practical and important lesson in my life - something I haven't "arrived" at (as if it is some kind of destination), but rather something I'm learning to walk in (this is, after all, a "journey" with the Lord).

The thing that the Lord has been impressing on me over the last few days, even weeks, has been Philippians 3:10:

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death..."

The Amplified Bible brings its meaning out in even more detail:

"[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death..."

You'll note that there are three elements to Paul's driving desire:

1. To know Christ


2. To know the power of his resurrection


3. To know the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings

As a family, we've long had a clear understanding of the power of the finished work of the Cross (if you get the chance, read my dad's article on "No Other Gospel"). I've personally been driven by the same desire to "know Christ", but what I'm beginning to realise more and more is that Paul's desire to "know Christ" was actually on the two following levels - in the power of his resurrection and in the fellowship of his sufferings. In other words, knowing Christ is not some abstract intellectual exercise, but rather it is in the power of his resurrection and in the fellowship of his sufferings that we get to know him!

Looking back over my life, I believe I've discovered the last element. I know what it means to share in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings - and I'm not talking about what I'm going through right now. The ordeals of cancer are a form of suffering, in which Christ has identified with me (see "The Fellowship of His Sufferings", but I have also willingly embraced the fellowship of his sufferings - this is, after all, what taking the Gospel into the world is all about.

But what I'm gaining a greater revelation in, at the moment, is what it means to know Christ "in the power of his resurrection." I believe the two go hand in hand - you can't embrace the power of the resurrection without embracing the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, but also, equally, it is unbalanced to share in Christ's sufferings without experiencing the equivalent power of his resurrection in your life!

In "The Resurrection and the Life", I shared on the revelation of Jesus as the one who has not just conquered death, but is the very incarnation of that resurrection power (see John 11:25).

In Romans 6:5, Paul wrote:

"If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection."

Although Paul is talking specifically about the future resurrection of the body (the final outworking of God's grace in our lives), the context also supports the point that there is a resurrection power to be experienced here and now too. After all, this is what the Gospel is all about - not just some future experience, but a here-and-now experience in Christ! It's as if, through Christ, we reach into the future by faith and take a hold of the totality of God's work, which culminates in the physical resurrection of our mortal bodies, and apply it today! For just as in Revelation 21:5, God in the end introduces a "new heavens and a new earth" with the proclamation, "I am making everything new!", even now we are a "new creation" in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). Just as at the return of Christ, God declares, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God" (Revelation 21:3), so even now this is our personal experience (see 2 Corinthians 6:16-18). We embrace all the future blessings of the New Covenant and appropriate them today by faith.

So here I am, very aware of my own mortality, yet knowing that in the future "the Lord Jesus Christ...by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Philippians 3:20-21). I do not find it coincidental, however, that Paul's expectant faith expressed in Philippians 3:20-21 comes on the heels of his declared desire to "know...the power of [Christ's] resurrection" in his own life in the here and now! In other words, as always, Paul's theology was not simply believing in some future event, but appropriating that future reality by faith today.

We see this also in Romans 8:11, where Paul embraces both the future and present aspects of Christ's resurrection power in one verse:

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."

The Message re-phrases Paul's meaning beautifully:

"It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!"

God is the "alive-and-present God" and by his very nature, he is not a God of the past, or even a God of the future, but a God of the here-and-now (note Matthew 22:31-32). As Paul points out, if the same Spirit who raised Jesus from death (in the past) now lives in me, and if this same Spirit will (in the future) transform my body to be like Christ's own glorified body, how can I not experience that resurrection power working in my mortal body right now?

This is what the Lord has been challenging me about. It's so easy, under circumstances such as I'm going through right now, to be in a passive mode - asking God for his help, praying for healing, looking to him for his daily grace. But I'm being challenged that there is a proactive element to my walk with the Lord. After all, faith by its very nature is active, not passive. And here's the challenge - if indeed I have the Spirit of God living in me - the Spirit of the one who is "the resurrection and the life" - how should I then live? What should my response be?

I don't yet know fully where the Lord is taking me with this, but one thing I know is this: The Lord is challenging me to take very specific steps of faith. And so this is what I'm beginning to do. Rather than look inward, I'm looking outward. I'm already sharing my faith more with others than probably at any other time in my life. I'm going to pray for others, pray for the sick, whatever the opportunities the Lord will give me. I want to experience the fullness of Christ's resurrection power in my own mortal life, and in order to do so, I'm going to put into practice what I know to be true - God is far bigger than my physical condition (1 John 4:4), and his resurrection power is more than able to drive me beyond my current limitations.

In closing, I'd like to revisit the verse I shared yesterday, which has become even more real for me today. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 says:

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

And as The Amplified Bible phrases that last verse:

"So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak [in human strength], then am I [truly] strong (able, powerful [in divine strength])."