The power of resurrection

[AI translation] I have just read from Scripture a complex, carefully expanded phrase, or even just a part of it, which the apostle Paul often uses in his letters. Let me now try to say the same thing in a simpler, shorter way: Behold the grace of God, how exceedingly great is His power for us who believe: behold, He has shown the working of His almighty power in the resurrection of Christ! He piles words upon words, with great abundance and richness of expression, and still he stammers, because the miracle he wants to speak of is inexpressible! According to the original text, he uses four different words, all of which mean roughly the same thing: power, force, energy, effect. That is how he wants to express the extraordinary greatness of God's omnipotence, which is summed up in this single word: resurrection! It is the divine power of the reality of the resurrection that the apostle wants to write about and that the sermon wants to speak to us about today.This overwhelming power and might of God was first manifested in the resurrection of Christ. To resurrect Jesus from the dead: this then really required the mighty power of God. If this word 'dead' could be amplified - if one could say of a dead person that he was deader than others - then we should say that Jesus was the deadest of all! Let us remember that He was already sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He knelt in the dust, burdened with our sins. Then the thorns, which were pressed on his head like a crown, split his forehead so open that his blood ran down his face. Then came the terrible flogging. Blow after blow fell on his bare back, literally skinning his skin so that his back and shoulders became one great open wound. And only then came the horrific crucifixion, where his hands and feet were driven through with nails. How could these wounds have continued to tear when his whole body was hanging on these nails! And what blood there was left in him was spilled by the spear of the Roman soldier, which had gone through his heart! Bleeding profusely, Jesus' body was laid in the tomb. And all this was compounded by the curse, the damnation that he had taken upon himself and carried with him to the grave! Jesus' death was a total death! Death in body and soul: the death of damnation! And behold, on the dawn of the third day, he rises from the dead! From this death! And not as weak and fallen as one who only drags himself with great difficulty, but appearing before his disciples in full strength and glory, more than once! How is this possible?! Well, by the very overflowing work of the power of His might, of which Paul speaks here! This is what the apostle is talking about. It is precisely this that he marvels at. As if he were saying: do you know how great God is? Can you imagine what God is capable of?! Do you understand this word, the meaning of this word, that God is all-powerful? Look: He has shown in Christ the majesty of the majesty of the power of His might. He showed it by raising Him from the dead!
Now, let us not think of Christ's resurrection as the way in which we are accustomed to remember a past event or happening, for with His resurrection something is not finished - say, the great divine work of redemption - but something new, something different, something great, something mighty, something glorious, has just begun, which I cannot express more briefly than as the reality of the resurrection. And now let us try to understand it as the Bible understands it: the New Testament uses the word resurrection to mean not only the resurrection of Jesus from the grave and from death - that first Easter event - but also the renewal of the lives of believers in Him and the resurrection of their bodies on the last day! And this is not three different resurrections, but one great miraculous event in which believers participate and which fills them with inexpressible joy. It is a mighty, great work of God, begun and made manifest in the resurrection of Christ in the flesh, and ever since it has continued in the renewal of human lives by faith, and will be completed in the resurrection of the dead! So the resurrection of Jesus is not a solitary, isolated act of God's salvation, but an act in which we are involved, so that the same power is now at work first in raising us from sin, and then in raising our bodies from the dead at Christ's return! And this reality of the resurrection was not only understood in this way by the first Christians, but was also lived! When they rejoiced that Jesus could not be held by death, they also proved in their own lives that the resurrection was a real power of God! It was an energy, an effect that was really at work in them (Col 1,29; Phil 4,13; Eph 3,20) The people we read about in the book of Acts lived in a world that bore all the marks of the destructive power of sin and death. And yet they believed that Jesus had triumphed over these powers and forces, and they had experienced in their own lives that the word of God really does have the power to deliver someone from the power of these destructive forces! Wherever sin and death have triumphed in such a way that others have been terrified, such as in the Philippian prison, they have seen the radiance of the invincible power of Jesus Christ! Where others surrendered to their cruel fate with helpless despair - for example, in the circus arena - the followers of Christ stood as those who knew the great mystery of the resurrection and therefore knew that the future, the most blessed future, was theirs! This is what it means to live the power of the reality of the resurrection in practice!
This is why the Apostle Paul says in the Word we read: the majestic greatness of God's power, which he has shown in the resurrection of Christ, is for us - that is, for us - and is still at work in us who believe! We are given here a very serious teaching on faith. For us, faith very often just means believing something. For example, believing in Christ's death, believing in his resurrection, believing that for all these things God gives us forgiveness of sins and eternal life as a gift of grace. We have narrowed down the function of faith very much: to the acceptance of precious divine salvation. Yes: faith is also this, the acceptance of what God has done for us in Jesus. But it is more than that: it is the continued and unceasing acceptance of what God does for us! Acceptance of the continuing divine energy, a constant sharing in the power of the resurrection!
But the problem is that we do not believe this. We use our faith at best to accept with it the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life. That is why, even after our conversion, we are then such whiners, such stumblers, such defeated again and again. That is why we are so hesitant, not knowing what to do in certain situations as a child of God, or if we do know, then unable to do it! In short, that is why we are powerless! We are miserable people without divine power! But it does not have to be this way, because we believe in a Christ who has already risen! We are allowed by faith to draw from this overflowing divine power, to draw from it, to live with it! We have this power. I don't want to say that it is available to us, but in any case it is precisely this power, this resurrection energy, that God wants to give us, precisely this power that God wants to strengthen us with!
We read in the Easter story that the women wanted to embalm the body of Christ, but they did not know how to get to it because the mouth of the tomb was covered with a large stone, which they did not have the power to roll away. Oh, who will roll the stone from the tomb? And lo, when they got there, the stone was already rolled away! God intervened with the work of His mighty power! It is a symbol of the story. The believer often wonders in this way when the difficulties, problems and tasks of life loom up before him: alas, how will I get through them, or who will roll this dreadful obstacle out of my way? And when he gets there, he is amazed to see that the stone is already rolled away. Someone has gone before me and cleared the way!
Oh, that in the midst of all the difficulties of our lives God would enlighten the eyes of our understanding, that we might see and believe the majesty of His power to surround and direct our lives! Can't you obey God, can't you live a Christian life, can't you overcome sin within yourself, can't you suffer with patience, can't you love your enemies? Of course not! Me neither! But even so, just start down that narrow road, and as you go along - and then you will find that an invisible, powerful Helper is walking ahead of you, smoothing your path. Don't be reluctant, don't be discouraged if you are blocked by a stone that you could never move: keep going and by the time you get there, God will have rolled it out of your way! This is the work of His mighty power, "which He showed in Christ when He raised Him from the dead" (Eph 1:20). But if you rely on the overflowing power of His might, there is always victory for you in Christ! Yes, we need to pray as Paul did for the Ephesians, that the Lord will enlighten the eyes of our understanding, that we may see the majestic greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the work of the might of His might which He has shown in Christ when He raised Him from the dead!
Amen
Date: 13 April 1952 Easter.