Resurrection Life - The Final Frontier

By Carol Wollaston

Some interesting images may come to mind when we think of resurrection life.  Perhaps they involve Easter and empty crosses and tombs.  We may think of our own mortality.  If we believe in Him we may contemplate that after death comes resurrection life.  We may be pre-occupied with the thought that resurrection life has to do with the return of Christ and our endless life with Him.  However, this is really only a part of the story. 

Jesus said of Himself, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.  Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.’  Then He asked His hearers, ‘Do you believe this?’  He asks us the same question today. Whether or not we join Him in eternal life hinges on our answer.  We need to know what we believe concerning resurrection life.

One thing is certain – resurrection life can only come after a death has occurred!  When we look at Christ we see this very much in evidence.

Does this mean that we can only live in the  risen life of God after death?  Surely there must be something more for Christians?  Surely their lives can exhibit the power of God’s life in them every day.  If not, we all would simply make death-bed confessions of faith and say, ‘Beam me up, Lord’! 

No, our hope as Christians is that the power of God’s endless life that raised Christ from the dead, will change us progressively.  It will multiply in us over the years of our Christian walk.  Resurrection life is a promise from God in which we can live each day.  This means that our self-centredness dies to make way for the life of Christ.  The apostle Paul said, ‘If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection … For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him’.  Rom 6:5.  Sin, mentioned here, is simply living a life of one’s own making with oneself at the centre, rather than God. 

Eternal life is the power that raised Christ from the dead.  When this is alive in us, the bondage of past dysfunctions die with Christ.  Resurrection life is flowing.  That is why Paul could say, ‘God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power’.  1 Cor 6:14.  Christ Himself said, ‘I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly’.  In his letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul said that God’s promise is of ‘the life that now is and of that which is to come’.  1 Tim 4:8.  Clearly this is far more than just a life reserved for the here-after.

The apostle John wrote, ‘This is the promise that He has promised us – eternal life’. 1 Jn 2:25.  So, what is the motivation behind this ‘promise of God’?  And what is the motivation on our part to believe and receive this 'promise’ and thus find the joy of resurrection life each day?  Jesus said that God loved the world so much that ‘He sent His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not die but have everlasting life’.  Jn 3:16.  Clearly, love is what motivates God to supply His resurrection power when we surrender control to Him, and thus die to self-centredness.  Love must also be our motivation.  ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ 1 Jn 4:19. It is the motivation of love that enables us to put Him first in our lives, surrendering all that we are, and have, to Him.

This mutual love is what we take from this life on earth to the life in heaven and beyond.  Without it we have nothing to be resurrected for or with.  Eternal life with God is living in a fellowship with others that flows from His life and His love.

Can we say, ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.’  Gal 2:20.  If so, then resurrection life is already working in us.