In fact, to understand the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you need to understand that it is the means and the only means by which people may enter eternal heaven and escape eternal hell. In the bottom line, that’s what the resurrection means. It is the means by which people enter heaven and escape hell. Any definition or discussion of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that doesn’t deal with that issue misses the point.
Exchanging Living Death for Dying Life, John MacArthur
This is a post born of frustration. I have hinted at this frustration in the past, and when I came across this sermon by MacArthur several months ago I was able to see clearly the reason for this frustration.
The opening quote presents why I have grown to be frustrated with the way the resurrection and salvation are preached in many Protestant circles. MacArthur says it plainly: escape eternal hell and enter eternal heaven. Of course, it is that but it is so much more than that.
The tone of the sermon is typical of this genre: sin, fallenness, nothing you can do, wrath, punishment, mercy, etc. Again, good as far as it goes, but incomplete – and, frankly, depressing.
The Bible says that people apart from Jesus Christ are alienated from the life of God.
This is the theme that could be greatly expanded, but isn’t. I get being alienated. But what does it mean to avoid being alienated to the life of God and instead be joined to the life of God? How does that work? How should I live? Might such an outlook change something in how I view the resurrection and salvation?
Yes, we are to avoid sin…
Sin is the word hamartia. It literally means “to shoot something and miss it.” To fail to hit the target is what it means. What is God’s target? “Be ye holy as I am holy,” God said. Jesus said, “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” God’s standard is perfection, and nobody hits it.
Of course, no one hits it. But are we told this by Jesus just to bring on depression, or to scare us into faith? What a pathetic salvation. Jesus said for us to be perfect. This is what we are to be, and this is what the Resurrection offers. It is to go from corruption to incorruption: healed in every way.
Man has a severe problem. He is dead, and he is completely incapable of hitting God’s target, therefore, satisfying God, and he’s lost his way. He’s wandering around in a state of death, utterly insensitive to God, unable to respond to a divine stimulus, falling far short of what God requires and lost as lost can be.
Here again, a negative message. It is true enough, but what a shallow, unfulfilling picture it presents of the resurrection. Avoiding death is great. But what about living life the way God intended for me to live it?.............
.....As a reminder:
Ephesians 2: 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Yes. This is the passage always cited: we can do nothing of our works; it is all grace through faith. Again, true as far as it goes. But I almost never hear verse 10 in such settings (and did not in MacArthur’s sermon):
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
It is through these good works that we participate in our salvation, that we find the complete meaning of the resurrection and our salvation. These good works, prepared for me by God beforehand, demonstrate my faithfulness (an active faith, faith in action) – which God has granted by grace.
The resurrection opens the door to my divinization, or theosis – entering into the Trinity, a truly adopted son of God. This is much more meaningful than escaping eternal death and entering eternal heaven.
Epilogue
I find that there is much confusion on this issue because many protestants conflate justification with salvation, as if justification is the end of the story. It isn’t. In Protestant language, justification is merely entering the narrow gate. It is still a long and narrow and arduous path to salvation thereafter.
