Resurrection is the crucial element and key to the gospel and Christian faith. The hope of our salvation rests on the fact of resurrection. If Christ had not risen from the dead then we are still dead in our sins. It’s His resurrection that authenticates and validates our faith. Resurrection is not just connected to our salvation and faith, but it is also the reason for something bigger: restoration.
Throughout the Old Testament, since the fall, the promise of restoration echoes in many ways and many lives. Whenever the nation of Israel failed to obey His laws and precepts, God always decreed judgments. Yet His punishment was woven together with the promise of restoration.
Resurrection heralded the ultimate and complete restoration, though there is still a final consumation in the end of the ages,when He comes to claim His own. Let us see what all were restored at resurrection.
Restoration of Authority
In Genesis 1-3, we see that Adam and Eve were given the authority and rulership over all of creation. They were the delegates and potentates to exercise His power and Kingdom on earth. Using this authority, they were to maintain the harmony and smooth functioning of this world. However, when they sinned, they gave this power and authority to the devil, and were brought under the domination of sin, sickness, and death.
When Jesus rose from the dead, He destroyed all the works of the devil and set us free from the bondage of sin and death. On the cross, He divested and disarmed the authorities and powers of darkness. Resurrection nullified the effects of sin, set us free from captivity, and restored power to us through Christ. He raised us to be seated with Him in the heavenly places, positioning us far above every principality and power of darkness.
In Revelation 3:7, we see Jesus as the One Who has the keys to open and shut. Keys denote authority, and then He restored it to the church through the Great Commission (Matt 28:18). Authority lost in the first Garden was restored when Jesus rose from the garden tomb!
Restoration of Being
When Adam and Eve sinned, the image of God they were created in became skewed and distorted by nature of sin. Progressively, as sin multiplied in the human nature, its effects amplified exponentially until every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5). The depravity of mankind grew exponentially, and even when judgements were visited upon the human race, time and again, we didn’t change. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (Jeremiah 7:9). So, everything that emanated from that was evil thoughts – murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander (Matthew 15:19).
Man stopped being a spiritual being and became a carnal being, ruled by lusts and controlled by fleshy appetites. We lost the essence of our being, of what we were created to be, and degenerated into wickedness. The beauty of our being became lost in the nature of sinful being. Resurrection reset us in the original design, and restored our being to fullness.
When we repent and turn to Christ, identifying with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection through the waters of baptismIn Gen, we put on Christ. Our core being has now the nature of Christ, and after that, it is a matter of walking in it. We now have the capacity and sensitivity for holiness rather than for sensuality and sin. This is the greatest restoration, and its the gift of grace!
Restoration of Calling
Adam and Eve were created to be the family of God, His people who reflected His image, and administered the earth as His representatives of His Kingdom. When they sinned, they not only lost their authority and their being, but also to reflect Him Who was Spirit in human form, and His visible representation on earth. The consequences, impact, and effects of sin were far-reaching and unimaginable. It did not end with them but continued for generations, causing the whole human race to be lesser than what God intended them to be, until Jesus came. He came as the second Adam and restored all that was lost by the first Adam at His resurrection.
Hosea prophesied, “I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’ and they will say, ‘You are my God.’” This was fulfilled when Christ rose from the dead, and was seated on the right hand of the Father, ever there to plead for us. Not only that, as the Son of Man, He reflected the express image and was the exact, visible representation of God’s nature, character, and essence (Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3), and became the firstborn among all creation.
Apostle Paul writes that we are now called to be His holy people (Romans 1:7), His Ambassadors entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:17-20), Kings and Priests unto our God (Revelation 1:6), and above all, to be His chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (I Peter 2:9).
Above all, we are the witnesses of His grace, and people through whom His manifold wisdom will be showcased to principalities and powers in heavenly places, the apple of His eye, and His treasured possession. The greatest thing about this calling is that it is beyond and above whatever we do or our position in life is. Our earthly role makes sense only when it is viewed within the framework of His calling and His perspective. This is why none of us have to do anything to earn it or deserve it, for it is His loving grace that gives us that dignity!
Restoration of a Future
Christ’s resurrection made sure that our future was not death or judgement or hopelessness but eternity with Him, living in peace and harmony. We who were hell-bound are no longer on that downward plunge to the abyss or fearsome darkness but on the road of salvation that leads to endless life and joy. John Bunyan’s famous book, Pilgrim’s Progress, portrays it well, as a journey away from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City in the land of Beulah. When Jesus died and rose again, He changed our destiny and our destination, giving us hope that was not confined to this world but extended into eternity with Him. Resurrection ensured that our life did not end with death but continued on beyond it to unending and unearned bliss.
Apostle Peter writes, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. This living hope is what makes life bearable and worthwhile here, knowing that we have a future that is free of all the negatives and negativities we face here today.
Nothing destroys one and makes life more difficult than a lack or loss of a future, since when the future is considered lost, life loses structure and meaning, leading to despair and depression. Our future is not murky or misty or undefined, but redefined and refined to fit us all and for us all, with no one exempt from it. In the Garden, we lost our future but in the empty garden tomb, we gained it, in fullness and in completeness, because of the One Who loved us enough to die for us!
Restoration of Identity
Sin made us slaves but grace made us sons through the resurrection of Christ, as it says in Hebrews 2:8-12, and that identity shift happened with resurrection. In Ephesians 4:8 declares that Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, And gave gifts unto men. We have been adopted into His family, and so, we are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since we are his children, God has made us also heirs (Galatians 4:7).
There is nothing shameful in us nor anything to be ashamed of. We have been made holy, restored inwardly to His image, and living on earth as His family. The world may brand us as failures, outcasts, marginalized, unworthy, but in Him were have a restoration of our identity.
Resurrection turned the tables on all classifications and categorizations, and bracketed as His children by adoption. We are not nameless or clueless but accepted in the beloved, called and set apart by His Name.We are not orphans nor are we abandoned. We are the apple if His eye, and the object if His love!
Restoration of Relationship
The most important aspect of resurrection is that it restored our relationship with God. Sin had separated us from Him, and drawn a veil between us. Resurrection opened the way to His presence, so that we could walk boldly into the Holy of Holies and call Him Abba, Father. When Jesus died, the veil in the temple at Jerusalem tore from top to bottom, to show that God had Himself removed the barrier that hindered us from meeting Him.
In Hebrews 4:15, we are asked to come boldly to come to the throne of grace to receive help in times of need. Hebrews 10:19-22 tells us: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
God found and made way for us to have access to Him, anywhere anytime, for any and every reason. He urges to come to Him as His people, His family, and His beloved. We can go into His Presence confidently and with conviction that He will always accept us.
Resurrection also paved the way for reconciliation between man and man. We were estranged from one another, fighting against one another, always suspicious, motivated and fueled by the nature of sin working in us. Enmity, not relationship or friendship, became the hallmark of human nature. When Jesus rose from yhe dead, He broke down every dividing wall and every kind of division that existed within the human race. He nullified all that would segregate us, and formed us into one Body, one community, and one people in Him.
Ephesians 2:14-16 declares, For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He then entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation, to mediate between God and man, and man and man. We stand in the gap to be peacemakers, thus being the true children of God in perverse generation.
May we, in this time of remembering and celebrating His death, burial, and sacrifices, understand the greatness of His resurrection and live as witnesses to it!
MULLINGSPICE 