If you ever want the gospel in a
nutshell, Paul, in the first 8 or so verses of 1 Cor 15, gives us a great recap
of the central points of Jesus’ mission.
Becoming a Christian is about understanding the identity of Jesus as the
Son of God; understanding His mission, why He came, what He came to do and understanding
the response that requires of us if we believe it all. These three elements don’t make sense without
each other.
Jesus died for our sins,
fact. The Scriptures predicted it,
fact. But for me the real kicker, the
proof of the whole gospel is Jesus’ resurrection, that’s where we irrefutably
know Jesus is the Son of God, that’s what validates the whole thing and
requires a response from me.
As Christians we often focus our
attention solely on the death of Christ — how as He died, He took our sin, so
we needn’t die any longer, the ransom is paid.
We sometimes forget that whilst Jesus’ death took away the need for our
death, it’s His resurrection where things really start hotting up. Jesus’ death and coming back to life
guarantees our resurrection too!
Boom! We die in confidence, because
it’s merely like being planted as a seed for a far greater tree to grow.
It’s like a physical enacting of
what happens spiritually when we become a Christian, when we metamorphose from
sinner into saint: as the old, sinful, Adam-like body dies, so the new,
unimaginably better, righteous and Christ-like body is born.
Here’s the bit that challenges
me most: you and I may be stuck with a sinful Adam-like body for now, but our
sinful spirit has already been transformed into a saintly Christ-like spirit,
the question is: has anyone noticed? I
need to start living fully in the reality that Sin is beaten, do you?