Christian Life in Light of the Resurrection
Seeing Our Being Raised in Justification and Applying It to Our World Today
Good Morning,
Building off last week’s discussion on disappointment I want to spend some time today further exploring what the example of Job can teach us for our prayer and worship help. My desire is that we would focus on how we can learn from Job’s telling in Job 14 of the reality of death and the finality of the grave; particularly in how despite this universal truth Job witnesses to us that there is hope for the believer in the way we rest in the tomb until the last day’s Resurrection.
Let’s read it together:
“Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and fades away; He flees like a shadow and does not continue . . . But man dies and is laid away; Indeed he breathes his last and where is he? As water disappears from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dries up, so man lies down and does not rise. Till the heavens are no more,
they will not awake nor be roused from their sleep. Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes.” – Job 14:1-2, 10-14
The future bodily resurrection can have some questions around it, especially when we get into discussions about the nature of that body. We aren’t going to deal directly with that. For our purpose this morning I want to first of all affirm that there shall be a bodily resurrection and that this future event is prophesied to us by Job. This godsend then informs how Job speaks to himself in order to encourage his own heart and then informs the unhelpful counselors, and us, that our true hope in a day of trouble is the assurance born of the promise of God to eternal life.
Often times we can struggle to see how these big doctrines like the resurrection can be applied to our weekly life, outside of just being generally thankful for their existence. It is part of the reason why we’ve been engaged in the morning sermon series in 2025 on returning to the bedrock foundations of our faith and seeing how they then apply to our current life. If we think about the future as not really the future it is a helpful way for us to remember that since God is not bound by time, but has made all these vows from before the creating of the world then we truly have in our heart today first fruits of what we will then have in a complete way in the fullness of time.
Going back to our Westminster Shorter Catechism there is a helpful way to start to think about how what Job says above about the resurrection can be used to continue our conversation on this:
Q. 37. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection
This question comes at the end of a thread of Q/A’s that descend from our justification by faith alone in the finished work of Christ, demonstrated by God in our Savior’s own resurrection from the dead on the third day. Notice how in the WSC question there is statement that the union we have with the risen Christ continues in the physical grave itself. It is not something we gain, but what we already have. A passage like Romans 6:4 illustrates for us what that means. Paul writes, “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” This joyful exultation by the Apostle gives meat to what the catechism is saying. As we come to experience this in our salvation and as the oath we will witness next Sunday when a daughter of the Lord is baptized at Bethany what we will hear testified to us is that there is in the new birth a true new birth in that just as we are born of the flesh in our natural birth, we are born of the spirit in our spiritual birth and the blessings of the resurrection of Christ is then ours in that new birth. Or as Paul notes in 2 Cor. 4:10, “Always carrying about in [our] body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”
I realize that’s some heady and heavy stuff. However, it is good for our souls to be stretched a little bit. The Apostle encouraged the Corinthians to eat meat for it makes a healthy and strong body, which is really the point in our being fed by Christ, in His resurrection. Remember that is the instruction Jesus gives to Peter right before His ascension. Feed the sheep. Feed them with the good stuff and show them the bountiful pastures so that they benefit from the rich grass of the land fortified with the dew of heaven. It is vital that we take seriously our need to seek to be discipled by the Scriptures, and be planted and nurtured by the river flowing with God’s Word.
Here we see one of the reasons why God in His grace has provided the Sabbath Day for us to take time not only in celebrating the birth and resurrection of our Redeemer, but use this means of His grace in the teaching ministry of the church found in Sabbath School, morning and evening worship, and the spiritual conversations we have with fellow believers as we break bread as one body together. Imagine how much deeper we could go on questions around the work of Christ if we spent as much time on it as we do on the trivialities and recreations of life?
In closing, there is a purpose in this day of rest, for as Job notes, “. . . Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past.” The peace born of the grave is one of the ironies of the Christian life. As the world does everything that it can to try and stay alive the believer is truly at peace (in a way unbelievers never will be) in the fact that not only have we already died, but we are already raised from the grave and are experiencing the new life that we have alone in Christ.
Here is another word:
https://www.reformationscotland.org/2024/08/15/experiencing-the-power-of-the-resurrection-today/
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church