Our common pastoral problem

Christ's resurrection & our relationship with God

Welcome to the next installment in a series of posts on Jesus’ resurrection. Last month, I had the privilege of delivering a session on the topic at the South West Men’s Convention. With Stephen Charnock as our guide, myself and a group of guys dug deep into what Christ’s resurrection means for our understanding of what God is like, what our relationship with him is like, and what our life is like now and in the future.

Charnock is most famous for his reflections on God's attributes. So it was perhaps most appropriate that we started off by considering what Jesus’ resurrection shows us about God’s character. We thought together about what the events of that first Easter Sunday show us about God’s power, and how that helps us when we are tempted to get overwhelmed by things today. (If you missed my post on that, you can find it here.)

But, as well as the doctrine of God, Charnock wrote on a whole range of other theological topics. In fact, rather appropriately for this time of year, he even wrote an essay entitled ‘A Discourse on the Fifth of November’. But Charnock’s longest piece of writing was entitled ‘God the Author of Reconciliation’, and it was in this essay that Charnock gave his fullest description of Jesus' resurrection. 

Trinitarian technicalities

Charnock started off by talking about how the various members of the Trinity were involved in the resurrection. He wrote about how the resurrection was the work of the Spirit. He also described how it was also the work of the Son. But, on reviewing the biblical evidence, Charnock came to the conviction that Christ’s resurrection was particularly the work of God the Father. And whilst this might seem to you a bit like theological nitpicking, for Charnock this was really important because it had important implications for what he understood Christ’s resurrection to have achieved. And not the least of these was the satisfaction of the Father’s judgement for our sin in Christ’s death upon the cross. 

Charnock explained that it was most appropriate that the Father be the principal member of the Trinity at work in Jesus’ resurrection because

As he received his commission from his Father, so it was most regular he should receive his discharge from the same hand, because he had been faithful to him that appointed him. The Father was the creditor, he had covenanted with his Father to suffer and give him satisfaction; the Father then was the most proper judge whether the articles were performed or no, whether the satisfaction was valid and the debt paid. . . The judge only can free from prison; and when the law, where any is imprisoned, is satisfied, he is in justice bound to order the discharge, and pronounce in open court the acquittal of the prisoner. 3:436-7

The reason why the Father was principally involved in Jesus’ resurrection was because Jesus’ resurrection showed that in his death for our sin Jesus had satisfied the divine wrath of the Father. 

Pastoral problem

Next month, I will have been working as a pastor for five years. And, as I have spent time supporting the believers in our church, probably the most common issue I come across relates to what Charnock is talking about here. Yes, for some people, the thing that they really need to grasp is the depth of their sin. But probably more often than not, the people I spend time with have a fairly good idea of their sinfulness. They have a fairly good idea of their flaws and their failings. That’s certainly been true of me as I have responded to my son’s tantrums on the way to school in recent months. You know, just getting so impatient. So angry. So harsh. (For the back story see my previous post.) Recently, I’ve had a fairly good sense of the power of my sin. And the devil has been doing his best to remind me of it too. The thing that I’ve had a harder time knowing, I mean really knowing in the depths of my heart, is that in Christ I have been justified. That in Christ I am righteous in the sight of God.

I suspect that I am not that unusual, and nor are the other people in my church. So let me share with you something helpful that Charnock wrote about this.

Charnock referred to Romans 4:24-25, which I think evangelicals can have a hard time understanding because in it Paul says that Christ was delivered over to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification. But we often think that our justification was only to do with Christ’s death. What did Christ’s resurrection have to do with it? Well, after quoting those verses, Charnock wrote

Though [Jesus’] death was the foundation of his merit, yet his resurrection is the foundation of the application of that merit to all his seed. At this door comes in our justification. As God, in delivering him up to undergo the curse of the law, delivered us in him, and looked upon believers as suffering in him the punishment due to sin, so in raising him he virtually raised them in him, and fundamentally comprehended them in that discharge.

I realise that it might seem quite nuanced, but what Charnock is saying is really important: like in his death Christ took the punishment for our sin, wiping our record clean, in his resurrection Christ has given that new record to us. 

Divine results day

If we were to try and think of an illustration of this, we might think of exam results day. You may know some young people who got results this summer. I hope they did well. But here’s the thing, even if they did really well, they didn’t know that they had done really well until results day. The exams had already been taken. The papers had even been marked. But they didn’t know whether or not they had passed, and nor did you until results day. Until their record was handed to them. Until their grades were published for them to see. And, not only that, but that their place at college, or sixth form, or university was now guaranteed.

It’s not a perfect illustration. But when Jesus rose from the dead that first Easter Sunday, it was kind of like our divine results day. It showed us as God’s people that the saving work Jesus had done on the cross had been applied to our record. And, not only that, but that our future with God was now guaranteed. 

No doubt many year 11 and 13 students were opening and reopening their exam results in the subsequent days to check that, yes, they had really got what they got and that, yes, they were really going to college, or sixth form, or wherever else. Well, like that we can keep looking back to Jesus’ resurrection to remind ourselves that, yup, we really are righteous in God’s sight, that, yup, our record really has been wiped clean and that, yup, we are really going to enjoy an eternity with him.

It was to that end that, Charnock says, Jesus ‘was raised up by God to be a standing foundation of and encouragement to our faith, to believe the promises of God, and grow up into hope of the enjoyment of them’.

Join me again next week as we think about what Christ’s resurrection means for our life now and in the future.