Why Was Jesus Raised from the Dead?

The Resurrection

When Jesus was on earth, he raised four people from the dead: the widows’ son (Luke 7:15), the 12-year-old daughter of Jarius (Mark 5:42), Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha (John 11:44), and Himself. John 10:18 mentions how Jesus said, “No one takes if from me, but I lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” This charge Jesus says, He has received from His Father. What is interesting though about the resurrection of Christ is that the entire Trinity had a part to play in this monumental event. God the Father is said in Scripture to have raised Jesus from the dead and so is the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:32; Rom. 6:4; 8:11).

 So, what is so important about this historical event? Well, commentator Gary Habermas (2003) once said, “Jesus’ resurrection is an actual example of our eternal life. It is the only miracle that, by its very nature, indicates the reality of the afterlife” (p. 163). Due to Jesus being the first fruit of one who was bodily raised from the dead in a glorified state, we as believers in Jesus have this same hope to go and be with Him where He also is (John 14:1-3). Listen to Jesus’ words in John 14:1-3.

 Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

These are very comforting words by our Lord, but why else was Jesus raised from the dead? Theologian Michael Bird (2013) gives us several reasons:

1. The resurrection of Christ reveals to the fullest extent, Christ’s identity and marks the beginning of the future age (Bird, 2013). The Jews in the Old Testament and in Jesus’s time already had a theology of the resurrection (Dan 12:1-2; John 11:24). Jesus now not only begins a new age with the New Covenant which has no temple buildings, priests, and continual sacrifices; since He fulfills all of these things (Grudem, 2004; Heb. 7:27; 9:12, 26; 10:1-2; 10-14). But Christ also confirms with His resurrection that He truly is God as the ultimate sign (Matt. 12:38-40). Bird (2013) highlights this point:

What most Jews hoped God would do for Israel at the end of history, God had done for Jesus in the middle of history, namely, to raise him from the dead. This was the sign that Jesus had been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18), was vindicated from false accusations (1 Tim. 3:16), was marked out as God’s Son (Rom. 1:4), was designated the heir of all things (Heb. 1:2), and was installed as Messiah and Lord (Acts 2:36). God’s covenant with creation and Israel must now be interpreted in light of the fact that the resurrection designated Jesus as the Son of God. (p. 440)

Wayne Grudem (2004) also states:

Jesus fulfilled all the expectations that were prefigured, not only in the Old Testament sacrifices, but also in the lives and actions of the priests who offered them: He was both the sacrifice and the priest who offered the sacrifice. (p. 626)

Jesus in His resurrection proclaimed His identity, fulfilled the types and shadows of the priesthood, and inaugurated the new age. 

2. The resurrection of Christ initiated the beginning of the new creation (Bird, 2013). Jesus was raised to begin the process of restoration and renewal in which God originally stated back in the Garden during the fall (Gen. 3:15). God has been working all throughout history to restore humankind back to their original state which was very good (Gen. 1:31). Wright (2008) says it best, “What creation needs is neither abandonment nor evolution but rather redemption and renewal; and this is both promised and guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead” (p. 107). Jesus is the first fruits of this new creation (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23; Col. 1:15, 18; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 1:5).

3. The resurrection of Christ needed to happen so that Jesus could send the Holy Spirit. Many times, in scripture, Jesus continually told the disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit to remind them, to bring them power, to teach them, to testify about Him, and also that the Spirit would be in them (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26). Since Jesus rose again, He would now be able to ascend to Heaven and then send the comforter.

4. The resurrection of Christ was needed to fulfill prophecy. Jesus predicted His death and resurrection in many different places in the Gospels (Luke 9:21; 24:46; Matt. 20:18). Jesus also mentions how this act will be the ultimate sign like that of Jonah (Matt. 12:38-40).

5. The resurrection of Christ is the objective grounds for salvation (Bird, 2013). Paul says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). In 1 Corinthians 15:17, Paul again says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” At the cross, Jesus took the penalty for our sins and through the resurrection Jesus secured our justification (Bird, 2013). In the resurrection, Christ broke the power of sin, the bondage of sin, and the penalty of sin, and imputed His righteousness into our own lives. Our salvation is based solely on the work that He accomplished, and by Christ rising from the dead, God confirmed this securement.

Now there are also other reasons why but I think these five summarize the point. To close, listen to what Michael Bird (2013) says about all of these points:

Jesus is risen; therefore, God’s new world has begun. Jesus is risen; therefore, the tyrants and dictators of the world should tremble and quiver—because God has exalted Jesus and every knee will bow before him. Jesus is risen; therefore, Israel has been restored and the plan for the nation is fulfilled in him. Jesus is risen; therefore, death has been defeated. Jesus is risen; therefore, creation groans in anticipation of its renewal. Jesus is risen; therefore, we will be raised also to live in God’s new world. Jesus is risen; therefore, go and make disciples in his name. The resurrection means that God’s new world has broken into our own world, and we are heirs and ambassadors of the king that is coming. (p. 447)

References

Bird, M. F. (2013). Evangelical theology: A Biblical and systematic introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Habermas, G. (2003). The risen Jesus and future hope. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Grudem, W. A. (2004). Systematic theology: An introduction to Biblical doctrine. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House.

N. T. Wright. (2008). Surprised by hope. New York: HarperOne.

Racism and Slavery in the Bible

Racism and Salvery

Racism has always been an issue in this world ever since the fall. The pride of people’s hearts stirs up in them and for some reason, they think they are better than others. Slavery has been a pitiful thorn in our society, which goes back thousands of years. One clear example we see people who are oppressed is in Egypt. The Egyptian ruler of the time oppressed the people of God (Israelites) into forced slavery to build their empire (Ex 1:8-13). Some people today who call themselves Christians say that the Bible advocates slavery and use verses like Genesis 9:18-27 to prove their case (Newbell, 2013). What a poor interpretation of the text! In context, this is where Noah curses the Canaanite people (descendants from Ham) for exposing Noah’s nakedness. The text reads,

Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.

This is the first text in Scripture where a man pronounces a curse instead of God. The previous curse we see in Scripture is when God curses Cain (Gen. 4:11). The curse that Noah proclaims though is to a nation and not a person. The curse was given due to the wickedness and the pagan practices that the Canaanites would indulge themselves in. Matthews (1996), makes the point,

There are no grounds in our passage for an ethnic reading of the “curse” as some have done, supposing that some peoples are inferior to others. Here Genesis looks only to the social and religious life of Israel’s ancient rival Canaan, whose immorality defiled their land and threatened Israel’s religious fidelity (cf. Lev 18:28; Josh 23). It was not an issue of ethnicity but of the wicked practices that characterized Canaanite culture. The biblical revelation made it clear that if Israel took up the customs of the Canaanites, they too would suffer expulsion. It is transparent from Genesis 1–11, especially the Table of Nations (10:1–32), that all peoples are of the same parentage (i.e., Noah) and thus are related by ancestry. This we find at the outset by creation’s imago Dei, which is reaffirmed in God’s covenant with Noah and his sons, including Ham (9:1, 5–6). The blessing that befalls all peoples is carried forward by the Abrahamic promises, which counter the old curses by the blessing received by all peoples in any era who acknowledge the Lord. “Any attempt to grade the branches of mankind by an appeal to 25–27 is therefore a re-erecting of what God has demolished” (cf. Col 3:11; Gal 2:18; 3:28). (p. 423)

The curse was fitting for the descendants of Ham because the greatest of all of Israel’s enemies would derive from Ham: Egypt, Philistia, Assyria, and Babylon (Gen 10:6–13; Sproul, 2005). Anyone who reads the Bible should quickly understand that the Bible is descriptive of slavery but it never is prescriptive in regards to slavery. We see God opposed to the very idea of slavery when He sends Moses to free His people from the oppression of slavery when they are bound in Egypt (Ex. 3:7-12). Later on, in Israel’s history, they are once again subjects of slavery and God delivers them out of the hands of the Babylonians (Isa. 45:1). Furthermore, the Bible actually puts slave traders in the category or murderers, sexual immorality, and people who strike their mothers and fathers which are obviously gross sins (1 Tim. 1:10). We also know from history that people who were under the reading of God’s word lived a life in opposition of forced slavery and eventually led to the eradication of slavery in their countries (Grudem, 2018). William Wilberforce of England, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr who were all devout Christians seeking to destroy the common practice of forced slavery in their times (Grudem, 2018). Grudem (2018), makes a fantastic point that not only were Christians influential in abolishing slavery, but they were also responsible for getting rid of other gross sins,

Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for the outlawing of infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); the abolition of the brutal battles to the death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); the ending of the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); the institution of prison reforms, such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); the discontinuation of the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians, as well as among the Aztec and Mayan Indians; the outlawing of pedophilia; the granting of property rights and other protections to women;the banning of polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); the prohibition of the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); the end of the painful and crippling practice of binding young women’s feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public schools in Germany (in the 16th century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries. During the history of the church, Christians have had a decisive influence in opposing and often abolishing slavery in the Roman Empire, in Ireland, and in most of Europe (though Schmidt frankly notes that a minority of “erring” Christian teachers have supported slavery in various centuries). In England, William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, led the successful effort to abolish the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British Empire by 1840. (pp. 475-476)

A very crucial point to understand with the ancient idea of slavery and how it was historically practiced was due to large amounts of debt people accrued, a crime made against another party, or in other cases, it was because of war (McQuilkin & Copan, 2014). People would voluntarily submit themselves in servanthood to pay off their debts or to pay for their crimes to a family they wronged (McQuilkin & Copan, 2014). The people who were servants were treated as ordinary people instead of the mere thought of property since they were made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27; Ex. 21:20-27; Job 31:13-15).

Despite the wickedness that people have in their hearts to pervert the image of God in which God created us in, God always finds a way to paint a picture of beauty inside evil. God takes a word like slavery, and then He uses that imagery to show us that slavery has all the features of our redemption built in it. As slaves, the children of God are chosen (1 Peter 1:1; 2:9; Eph. 1:4), they are bought (1 Cor. 6:20, 7:23), the Master owns them (1 Cor. 6:19; Rom. 14;7-9; Titus 2:14), and are subject to the masters will and control over us (Acts 5:29, Rom. 6:16-19, Phil. 4:19). Believers will ultimately be called to account (Rom. 14:12); evaluated (2 Cor. 5:10), and either chastened or rewarded by Him (1 Cor. 3:14; Heb. 12:5-11).

What a beautiful and wonderful God He is to make all things good (Rom. 8:28).

References

Grudem, W. (2018). Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Biblical Moral Reasoning. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Mathews, K. A. (1996). Genesis 1-11:26(Vol. 1A). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

McQuilkin, R., & Copan, P. (2014). An introduction to Biblical ethics: Walking in the way of wisdom (Third ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 

Newbell, T. (2013). Beyond color blind: Why race still matters. Retrieved from http://christandpopculture.com/beyond-colorblind-why-race-still-matters/

Schmidt, A. J. (2004). How Christianity Changed the World. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Sproul, R. C. (Ed.). (2005). The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version. Orlando, FL; Lake Mary, FL: Ligonier Ministries.

What is Original Sin?

Original Sin 

When the word sin gets thrown around, it is usually helpful to discuss what this actually means. Once this definition is laid out, then one can properly define what original sin means. When it comes to the word sin, theologians have come up with a fancy word to study this and it is called hamartiology (Bird, 2013). Sin can be described as the act that broke humankind’s relationship with God (Bird, 2013). Many words throughout the Old Testament and New Testament describe the nature of sin: lawlessness (Gk. anomia; willful violation of God’s law), transgression (Gk. parabasis; crossing over a boundary), rebellion (Gk. apeithes; deliberate rejection), perversion (Gk. diastrepho; bent or twisted), and missing the mark (Gk. harmatia; Bird, 2013; Grudem, 2004). Sin is the despising of God, an attempt to dethrone God, the worship of self, and “is the evil that emerges in the absence of good” (Bird, 2013, p. 670). McQuilkin and Copan (2014) summarize sin this way, 

Sin is a departure from the character and will of God—a deviation from the way things ought to be. Shalom (“peace”) in the Old Testament represents life that is well-ordered, whole, flourishing, and right with God and others. By contrast, sin is anti-shalom. (p. 158)

When it comes to the doctrine of original sin or the peccatum originale, this describes more of the outcome or inheritance people suffer today due to the original rebellion against God done in the Garden during the beginning of humanity (Gen 3; Berkhof, 1938; Diffey, 2015; Hodge, 1997). Due to the craftiness, deceit, pollution, and misrepresentation of God’s Word, Satan was able to convince Eve to disobey the very Words of God which in turn caused Adam to fall into sin and disobey God (Gill, 1839; Grudem, 2004). It is due to the fall that pain, thorns, suffering, evil, man’s inhumanity, decay, and even death were introduced to humankind (Berkhof, 1938; Diffey, 2015; Genesis 2:17 & Romans 6:23). Diffey (2015) notes, 

Paul stated that sin and death entered the world through Adam’s sin, and because of this, as well as the sins each person commits, everyone is a transgressor, sinful by nature, and under the just judgment of a holy God.” (para. 9; Berkhof, 1938; Romans 5:12-15, 18-21) 

Original sin thereby is a miserable condition that the human race is born in to by default due to the original fall of humanity (“Grand Canyon University, 2019; McQuilkin & Copan, 2014). It is an inherited guilt that every human suffers from in which people are naturally inclined to evil (Heb. 3:12), they are deceitful, desperately sick (Jer. 17:9), and totally depraved (Berkhof, 1938; Bird, 2013; Gill, 1839; Hodge, 1997). What is interesting about original sin is that theologians actually debate this! G.K Chesterton (1959) has famously said, “certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proven” (p. 53).

Hodge (1997) accurately labels why it is called original sin: 

(1.) Because it is truly of the nature of sin. (2.) Because it flows from our first parents as the origin of our race. (3.) Because it is the origin of all other sins; and (4.) Because it is in its nature distinguished from actual sins. (Vol. 2, p. 227)

Therefore, original sin by nature bends humanity towards sinful acts due to the inheritance of Adam’s sin. Humanities hearts are deceitful and beyond cure (Jer. 17:9), they only think of evil continually (Ge. 6:5; Heb. 3:12), they are filled with a desire for wrong (Ecc. 8:11), and they do not desire or seek after God (Rom. 3:11). Original sin makes people slaves to sin (John 8:34; Rom. 6:16-20). This is precisely why Jesus says, “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander” (Matt. 15:19). It is these sins and many others that are directly related to original sin.

References

Berkhof, L. (1938). Systematic theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co.

Bird, M. F. (2013). Evangelical theology: A Biblical and systematic introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Chesterton, G. (1959). Orthodoxy: One man's journey to sound belief. San Luis Obispo, CA: The Parable Group.

Diffey, D. (2015). Departure from wisdom. In A. DiVincenzo (Ed.), The beginning of wisdom: An introduction to Christian thought and life. Retrieved from http://lc.gcumedia.com/cwv101/the-beginning-of-wisdom-an-introduction-to-christian-thought-and-life/v2.1/#/chapter/4

Gill, J. (1839). A complete body of doctrinal and practical divinity: Or a system of evangelical truths, deduced from the sacred Scriptures(New Edition, Vol. I & II). London: Tegg & Company.

Grand Canyon University. (2019). HTH-330 topic 2 overview: Moral formation in a fallen world[HTML Document]. Retrieved from http://lc.gcu.edu/

Grudem, W. A. (2004). Systematic theology: An introduction to Biblical doctrine. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House.

Hodge, C. (1997). Systematic theology. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

McQuilkin, R., & Copan, P. (2014). An introduction to Biblical ethics: Walking in the way of wisdom (Third ed.). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.