Christ is risen for us

We believe this to be a historical fact. He rose to give us LIFE. We will live a LIFE without end. The dead will be raised. Christ was the first to rise, we will follow.

The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a ci-y of command, with the archangels call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thess. 4:16,17).

This is our sure hope: the fulfilment of this promise of God eternal LIFE. While I w rite these words, this promise is still future. The Lord has not come yet. Questions come to our minds: "Does the historical resurrection of our Lord only have future significance for our future LIFE with the Lord?"; "What about the present?"; "The NOW!"; "Is Jesus not risen to give us LIFE today?" Yes, He is! Jesus Himself has placed His resurrection squarely in the present by saying:

I say to you, he who hears My words and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life; has passed from death to life" (John 5: 24).

Believing is something we do in the present. So in our human, earthly existence we move by faith from darkness to Light, from death to LIFE.

In the garden of Eden we broke our fellowship with God - we lost LIFE. This broken fellowship with God (and fellowman) is restored in Christ. The Apostle Paul puts it this way-

"God is to be trusted, the GOD who called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord" (I Cor. I : 9).

Fellowship with Jesus, the Living Christ, gives LIFE to the believer. This fellowship is not just an individualistic, independent relationship between Jesus and the believer. Not at all! It is fellowship with the risen Lord in His Body - "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body.." (I Cor. 12 :13), and we are members one of another" (Eph. 4 : 25). The meaning and content and power of the resurrection LIFE of Christ come to fruition in the fellowship of brotherly love. The fullest potential of the LIFE of Christ can be enjoyed only when 'brothers dwell in unity'. Let us be reminded, fellowship with the Lord is not possible when fellowship with brothers is disturbed (I John 4 : 20). (Is it not a great disadvantage to God's people that the mighty, powerful river of LIFE with its marvelous potentials, has been diverted into all sorts of smaller rivers, weak, feeble streams?).

The LIFE of the risen Christ can only then be enjoyed when people ". . . join with us in the fellowship that we have with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" (I John 1 :3). Christians are nourished in the LIFE of Christ in the fellowship of God's people through sharing the love "poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit . . " ('Rom. 5:5). Love is the ultimate test of LIFE in Christ. Listen to the words of the apostle John:

We know that we have passed out of death into LIFE, because we love the brethren (I John 3 : 14).

Sola Fide?

Concepts like LIFE in Christ, fellowship, sharing, yes even love are often strange concepts to many of us with a Calvinistic tradition. , -They sound other worldly. Are they strange because they received not much emphasis in our teachings? We have not been taught to be Christians in these terms. We were to live an independent, individualistic life of FAITH.

Sola Fide is the Reformation slogan: i.e. faith in Jesus Christ gives us salvation not dead works. Agreed! Praise the Lord for the rediscovery of this fundamental biblical truth. However, have we emphasized faith at the cost of Love?; did we emphasize the need for personal faith without paying much attention to genuine Christian fellowship?; did we promote the Church as a religious institution or a social or cultural club of various stripes and colours, instead of nourishing to LIFE a supportive fellowship in which Christians "encourage one another and build one another up. ."? (1 Thess. 5 :11).

Does it not seem that through the years the Reformation churches arrived at the same point where the Roman Catholics arrived many years ago, namely, our congregations have become passive, listening audiences (the people seem to be satisfied with this arrangement) rather than being active fellowships of living, loving, sharing members of Christ's Body?

Sola fide. Very meaningful when rightly understood in its proper context. I have some doubts that through the years we always even maintained a right understanding of these terms.

First of all, faith, it seems, has come to mean for certain people sola (intellectual) knowledge. Correct rational knowledge of the Truth revealed in scripture.

(Sometimes it seems that it has developed into a mixture of faith and reason).

There seems to be a good reason for this development. The Heidelberg Catechism defines faith as being a 'certain knowledge' and 'a wholehearted trust', which the Holy Spirit creates in me. It seems, that our fathers for many years applied the Holy Spirit only to 'a wholehearted trust' and not to 'a certain knowledge'. As rational beings we hardly needed the creative power of the Holy Spirit to give us right knowledge of the truth.

Secondly, it seems that through the years we have not heeded the Word of God as we find it written in I Cor. 13:

I may have ALL knowledge and understand ALL secrets; I may have ALL faith . . . but if I have not love, I am nothing.

"Knowledge and faith are not enough to turn a man into a Christian. He must have love."(1) Also "the only norm, by which a Christian must be measured, is and remains love." (2) If a Christian has no love, he has nothing and is nothing. He has nothing to share, to give away. In this context is it not interesting to note that we speak about the 'heroes of faith' and not the 'heroes of love'?; we sing about the 'Faith of our Fathers' and not the love of our Fathers? Were our fathers aiming at love? (I Cor. 14 : 1).

A weakness in our congregations seems to be that we as members are not able to live a meaningful life of fellowship in which we share the LIFE of the risen Christ. We seem to be distant to each other. The LIFE of Christ seems to be hid behind the closed doors of our hearts and minds. Is this so because of a certain theological emphasis that we have been exposed to?

In our day, many people find ,church' meaningless. Could this be so because they have not learned to be actively involved in sharing in a living fellowship of God's people? 'Faith alone' can be wrongly understood. What about 'faith, hope, and love and the greatest of these is love.'

A Reformation needed?

Do we need a reformation in the Church? Let me put it this way: We need to be actively engaged to complete the reformation of the Body of Christ. It would be detrimental for the Church to think that the reformation of the Church was completed in the 16th century. We need to press on to make perfection our own (Phil. 3 :12). Our congregations need to be transformed into genuine Christian fellowships alive with the LIFE of Christ......... the church cannot be the Church without a company of men and women with drastically changed purposes and directions, deeply motivated to be a servant people devoted to their Lord."(3) Drastic changes in us personally need to take place to change congregations from 'passive audiences' into active, living fellowships of people alive in Christ and serving each other.

Shephen Neill in his bo ok Christian Holiness makes this statement: "Life is change. Every day !he Church is challenged to respond to a new environment; the message that yesterday was quick and tingling may today be cold and dead. This, in principle, need cause no anxiety to the Church, since the true life of the Church is a living Spirit, whose concern it is to bring about daily renewal of that Body in which He dwells."(4)

It seems to me that Bishop Neill is telling us that the Lord calls us to speak to the particular needs of His people TODAY! During the Reformation the need was sola fide. A crying need today is supportive nourishing fellowships. You see, today Satan's attack is directed at the perseverance and endurance of Christians (Matt. 24: 9-14). No child of God is able to endure in today’s world if he is not faithfully supported and encouraged by the other members of God's family.

The Lord calls us to meet the challenges of today together. For the Lord, and for us with Him, every day is a new 'today'. Every day anew He calls out to His people, 'Today, when you hear His voice . . .' (Heb. 4 : 7). The Lord calls us today to respond to a new environment. An environment in which every thing is breaking down and drifting apart.

Christians have the task to be builders: Build up individuals, build up marriages; build up families. This building needs to be done in the context of the Body of Christ. That is where is found the Rock to build on - Christ; the cement to unite - love; the food' to nourish - the Word of God; the power for renewal - the LIFE of the risen Christ.

The LIFE of Christ a present reality

Sometimes I get the impression that many people seem to think that to be a Christian today, a person needs to have some sort of faith in the historical Jesus of yesterday - faith that He was born ' suffered, died, rose from the grave and ascended.

It is true we do believe in this Jesus, Son of God. But somehow, for many Christians, there seems to be an empty,,meaningless span of time between this historical Jesus and our present existence. They do not see a bridge between the LIFE of year 1 (one) and their life in the year 1974. Faith in the historical Jesus seems to take the. form of 'memory'. They remember Christ. The risen Christ does not seem to be a present reality. At least they do not seem to be aware of it. Consequently their present life seems to be so dreary, lonely, sad and hard. The Christian life is dull - LIFEless.

Yes, we do believe in the historicity of Jesus Christ. We will not "detach the life of the Church from its anchor in history, from the unalterable reality of the thing that actually happened in Jesus Christ".

We most certainly remember Christ. "But this memory does not stand alone. Jesus is not remembered only; He is also real and present to us as the Spirit ... The Spirit of God . . . is the Spirit which is remembered to have been in Jesus and in whose presence Jesus himself is present with us still. This is the meaning of the resurrection of Christ."(6) The Holy Spirit makes the resurrection of the Son of God in the year 1 a present reality for the believer in 1974.

There is a close relationship between the resurrection of our Lard and the Holy Spirit. "In Paul, the relationship between the Spirit and the risen Christ is so close that it is sometimes hard to know what the theological distinction is to be drawn between them. To be a Christian is to have died and risen again with Christ; equally it is to have received the Spirit, and one who has not the Spirit of Christ is none of His . . ." The apostle ". . . affirms that we no longer know Christ according to the flesh; we know Him as a present reality, whom we ourselves encounter (ontmoeten), and not simply as one of whom the tradition of the elders has spoken . . . The one whom we encounter through the testimony of the Spirit is the One who was crucified and no one else; but we could not encounter Him as a living reality today, if the Spirit had not been sent as the final and crowning messianic gift."(7)

'The new has come'

The new LIFE that. Christ received is shared with the believer through the Holy Spirit. Thus the

Bible speaks about things that are NEW.

- new covenant (Luke 22:20)
- new nature (Col. 3: 1 0)
- anew creation (2 Cor. 5:17 Gal. 6:15)
- new commandment (1 John 2:8)
- new and living way (Heb. 10:20)
- new life in the Spirit (Rom. 7:6)

'Behold, the new has come'! Yes, it has. Believe it! Rejoice in it! The Lord entered time through the Spirit. The Lord is amongst us. He is in His Body and its members. His resurrection LIFE flows in us and through us in the person of the Spirit. "The Spirit we know as members of the Christian community, the Spirit which we receive as the love of God, we also experience as the Spirit of Christ, the actual presence among us, with us and within us, of the Lord Jesus himself."(8)

LIFE is fellowship

The LIFE of Christ needs to be noticed, felt, experienced in the congregation. This will happen when it is concretely expressed in LOVE. The LIFE becomes primarily visible in Love of one another. (Read 1 John.) At a time of history when love grows cold around us, it must grow warmer in the fellowship of God's people. Love will be a drawing force; an irresistable pull for many. Besides, in the fertile soil of love our faith will grow strong, and our hope will be confirmed.

Christian fellowship will be meaningful, when the 'image' and 'likeness' of Christ are present in the members and in the group as a whole. When the 'image' and 'likeness' of Christ appear on the surface of our 'new nature', we will be able to 'make love our aim' (I Cor. 14:1) and the 'whole Body will build itself up in love' (Eph. 4:16). And because He really lives His life in us, we too can 'walk even as He walked' (1 John 2:6), and 'do as He has done' (John 13: 15), 'love as He loved' (Eph. 5:2,

John 13:34), 'forgive as He forgave' (Col. 3:13), 'have this mind, which was also in Jesus Christ' kphil. 2:5), and therefore we are able to follow the example He has left us (1 Peter 2:21), 'lay down our lives for the brethren as He did' 1 (John 3 : 16).(9) In the church and in the world we need to be 'imitators of God' (Eph. 5:1).

This is the reason why Jesus, the Son of God, rose from the dead: His resurrection has made it possible for God to release the power of His Kingdom and cause it to enter this world, to create a new fellowship of believers that will witness to His love and grace, and glorify His Name.

"Salvation for the apostle John is LIFE. It is a LIFE of fellowship - with God who gives it, with Christ who mediates it, with the brethren who share it." (10)

NOTES