God the Son His Resurrection

four chapters on the Bible, the Word of God, Inspired of God, Subject and Purpose, and Divine Revelation. Then we have a section on one chapter on the Trinity, and then a chapter on God the Father, seven on God the Son, and six on God the Holy Spirit.

And then after that, it kind of breaks into maybe more, it focuses in on more specific areas like dispensation, covenants, payment for the penalty of sin, for the power of sin. So it addresses other aspects of that. And someone asked me early on, how come this division, does God the Father get left out here? He only gets one chapter, and God the Son gets seven, and God the Spirit gets three. I mean three, I mean six.

And that, I think, kind of goes back to when you go back to look at the purpose of Scripture. The purpose of Scripture and the focus of Scripture is on the Lord Jesus. So you'd expect, and the Holy Spirit was given for that very purpose, to spotlight So all of God's plans are wrapped up in His Son. So it's not unusual that you expect, if you go through and look at a systematic way of looking at Scripture, that you're going to come out with most of what's being said about His Son. And God the Father is intimately involved in that, because they're one.

There's a homework assignment for folks for next week. And actually, if you have a chance, read the chapter. It's good to read it. I mean, maybe you only hear one or two parts of it, It's good to kind of get a feel for where we're going. You may wonder why I'm doing this two weeks in a row. There was a power struggle. Hal was going on vacation last week and he said, well, let's do it so that you take two weeks and then he'll take two weeks, so you get him for two weeks after this. Those would be the good two weeks from my perspective. Okay.

And then we have questions that you, there's like maybe 10 or 15 questions at the end of each chapter. And we tried to choose some questions that are kind of fit the, you know, the focus of the chapter. And one additional thing is that, you know, there's way more information. My daughter always uses this term, everything is way this. This is way too important or way too this or way too that. So I find my, I'm using that word more and more for my daughter. There's way too much material to cover in each chapter.

As you'll notice. So we try to pick out the focus of the chapter. And I feel that today we have God, the Son, and His Resurrection. For 45 minutes or 50 minutes, we're way under doing it. I mean, any one of the verses that we'll say this morning, we could spend weeks and months and years on. But we'll try to just show you the general focus of where we're going here. So let's look at this little picture.

And this is sort of a timeline, if you will, the seven chapters that talk about the Lord Jesus, starting with his pre-existence. There's a chapter on pre-existence, and we looked at that, you know, three weeks ago, four weeks ago now, talking about how in eternity past, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit were in this wonderful fellowship together, And John 1, 1 talks about that time period. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then it goes on to talk about creation.

We talked about creation a little bit, and we talked about his pre-incarnate appearances as a man. And if you think about it, he's the person of the Godhead that has taken physical form. And then we came on in and looked at his incarnation for a week, where God became a man. He walked among us. He was truly God and truly man.

And then last week we looked at his substitutionary death. And there's just, you know, and what you're going to find, it's just, and I found too, as I started looking at the aspects of Christ's death and burial and resurrection, and you're putting it, well, this week I'm going to look at his substitutionary death. You can't look at his death without seeing his burial or his resurrection.

So you'll find that we'll kind of cover things maybe more than once. We'll look at them from a little bit different perspective. And last week, just to maybe review just a little bit here. We looked last week at four reasons for the death of Christ on the cross. The fact that his death assures us of God's love. His death is a redemption or ransom to a holy God for sinners.

There's a Greek word, agorazo, I think it is, to buy out, to buy out of the marketplace. And so we looked at that quite a bit, all these Greek words. And that's, you know, I have listened to that for many years and studied it and it's just, you know, it's incredible, the pictures that you get, the pictures you have of the sinner being bought out or taken out. no longer for sale in the marketplace of this world. It's incredible.

And then we looked at the Lord Jesus as our substitute bearing our sins. And then lastly, we looked at the judgment or condemnation of the sin nature. We looked at that a little bit. Like I said, there's a lot in each of these chapters. So this morning we're on God the Son, His resurrection. And I have, there's three questions. I couldn't get the, a little bit of chartsmanship here.

I couldn't get the question marks and all these, I kept pulling the box, I couldn't get the question, so I didn't put question marks for all those three questions, but they're questions. The questions that we're going to think about this morning are why?

Why is the resurrection so significant? What are the reasons for the resurrection? And what are the proofs that it happened? So maybe, you know, without looking at the notes or anything, cover your notes, What strikes you about the significance of the Resurrection? What comes to your mind when you think about the significance of the Resurrection? Actually, where I'm headed here is that in terms of your faith, the significance of the Resurrection probably has many aspects, but in terms of your faith, what makes it so significant? Okay. Okay. That's good. That's good. Other thoughts on that? Okay. All right. That's good. Excellent. Excellent. Well, when he gets the gold star. And sometimes, you know what it is, you have a question, a direction you want and, you know, that's a pretty broad question, the significance. I mean, there are many levels of significance.

Everything would be a lie. Exactly, exactly. In fact, we're going to see in the next chart, we're going to talk about this, that there's an argument that Paul presents in terms of the significance of the resurrection. And if it's not true, then everything that we, our faith, our ministry, everything is futile. We're kidding ourselves. And that's really important. The next question is the reasons for the resurrection. Can you think just of a What comes to your mind for reasons? Why did Christ have to die? What was the reason for the resurrection? Or reasons? Did I have plural there? Is that plural good? I have Bonnie check me here. She made mistakes. Being an engineer, spelling is not my forte. That's why I have spell checks. Yes, I agree. Yes, excellent. Okay.

We were... our death and burial and resurrection, we rose with Christ. And that has tremendous significance in how we live our Christian life and how we view our Christian life. And we're no longer, you know, we're looking from a totally different perspective. We're looking from a heavenly perspective because we're seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Other things for reasons? We're going to go through. And the book had seven, and actually we added even an eighth. We're not going to cover all those eight, Go ahead. I'm sorry.

For me, if you look for a reason why somebody has to die for somebody else to live, that there's, I mean, all of life is, I mean, if you forget all of the Christian faith, that there's only one way to live, and this is for something else having to die.

It's almost like a mathematical equation. There's no life. I mean, you can't eat phosphorus or chlorine, just breathe chlorine. I mean, there's nothing you can inhale or eat which will sustain life. Something has to essentially be killed, whether it's a plant or an animal, for you to stay alive in the physical realm. And that, for me, is essentially the only obvious and visible proof that even in the spiritual realm, somebody has to die in order to gain life. Okay. Okay. I've never heard anybody say that. From an engineering point of view, it's very significant. Good. Okay. Give me something which would speak against that. I don't know. I can't. OK. How about other reasons?

And then lastly, what we're going to cover, and very briefly, I'm not sure how much time we're going to have, are the proofs of the resurrection. And the one that comes to mind is the empty tomb. I mean, he's no longer there. And actually, we're not going to The book talks about that. We're not going to directly talk about that.

What I have more is a list of eyewitness accounts, if you will. So those are the three questions that we're going to talk about this morning. So let's look at the significance of the Resurrection. Could I have someone volunteer to read 1 Corinthians? Let's see, before we go here, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This is where we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at the significance.

I'd like somebody to volunteer to read 12 through 19 Now, if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that He has bereaved Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact His dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If we have hope and strife in this life and the next, we are all meant to be saved. Okay. So there's a, you know, that's a really, there's some neat arguments in that. And I looked at that and I saw three arguments, three lines of reasoning that Paul's going through in this passage. And I tried to, I put two down in kind of a semi, for the engineering folks here, like a flow. A flow diagram.

My wife says, Roger, don't don't draw me a diagram. Don't draw me any pictures. Just tell me. Well, I drew some pictures. I apologize. OK, so we're going to look at argument number one here. And I did my I can do this good. Okay, so the question is, in the first part of verse 12 it says, well actually the first part of verse 12 basically, the assumption in verse 12 is that Christ is being preached and proclaimed. That's kind of the assumption.

And then someone comes along and says, oh hey, I'm a scientist here, I've been to MIT, I've been here, There's no such thing as a resurrection. It can't possibly happen. It's an impossibility. You guys are all wrong. There's no such thing as a resurrection of the dead. You can't raise people from the dead. That's an impossibility.

So Paul starts down this line of argument. He says, well, if you ascribe to that argument, then then here's kind of the flow of logic, or the flow of, if you believe that, here's where you're going to go. So it starts off in argument number one, it says, assuming no resurrection, then, if resurrection's impossible, if that's the premise, then Christ has not been raised. He was a man, he was here, he hasn't not been raised. If he hasn't been raised, then our preaching is futile, and your faith is futile. So you come to two conclusions, Paul argues, if you go down a line of logic.

If you ascribe to what some people are saying, there's no such thing as the resurrection of the dead, then Christ obviously could not have been raised. I mean, this argument doesn't seem to be considering the fact that he's God. I mean, from their perspective, Some were saying out there, I think verse 12 says, now if Christ is preached, like I was saying, he's being preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how does some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? So, that's a pretty amazing statement. It says if you've got this line of argument, your preaching is futile and your faith is futile. There has to be a resurrection of the dead.

I think actually that's where our brother was going there too with the fact that someone has to die to give us life. So that's argument number one. Now what I did, there's actually an argument number two, and I kind of skipped over that one. Let me just tell you argument number two.

It talks about the fact that given the same line of reasoning that your witnessing is false. you're testifying to something that didn't occur. If there's no such thing as resurrection of the dead, as a person proclaiming the gospel, you're testifying that, you're saying that's true. He says you're making, that's a lie, because you're attributing something that did not happen. It really did not happen, and you say it did happen. That's argument number two. Argument number three, is somewhat similar.

Once again, assuming Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you're still in your sins, then those who've fallen asleep in Christ have perished, because they've fallen asleep with the expectation that they're going to be raised, so they perish, they're not going to be raised. And then at the end, and it didn't exactly flow, it looked like it could have been a separate line of argument.

Assuming that there's no resurrection, the people that have hoped in Christ, if you've hoped in that, and it's not really true, your hope has been worthless. It's been a worthless hope. And that's even worse. If you've hoped in something that is false, then he says, of all men, you're most miserable and most to be pitied. You've hoped in something that had was not really true. I mean, isn't that sad when you come across people that maybe are putting their faith and trust in materialism or whatever it is and as believers we know it's false.

So I thought this was really, you know, going through these three lines of argument, really, you know, the resurrection is foundational or the cornerstone of our faith. Without that, you know, And how the bottom line is, so you say, well, what's, you know, you go through all this argument. Then in verse 20, he kind of changes gears and he has but. He says, but now Christ has been risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. So after kind of showing you, if you assume this line of argument, where are you going to end up? He says, but the bottom line is, that Christ has been risen from the dead.

So, any thoughts or questions on this? And this is how I try to kind of go through and sort it out. I mean, maybe that's, hopefully that's been helpful. Because I found as I read through there, you know, you kind of get confused. You kind of, you know, you say, well, what's his intent here? Where's he trying to go? And so this helped me kind of lay it out.

I don't know. It's obvious, Roger, that God is logical, and he must be an engineer as well. The Texan would say, ride on. Ride on. OK. All right. Yes, go ahead. What was the reason again that you left out argument number two? Well, I just... Space? Space, yes. Well, actually, what I was trying to do... That's probably a poor argument, right? Poor reason.

I was looking at... I said, you know, I see a common thread between the first part of the verse, those verses, and the last part. So, in reality, I studied the first and last part more, and I was able to draw those pictures. The middle part, I looked at and I said, I don't quite see the picture, I don't quite see the flow. Rather than go out on a limb, I said, I'm not going to draw the middle part, I'm just going to talk to it.

It's like anything else when we look at scripture. You should be able to see from scripture what you believe. If you can't see it from there, then God's very, here's what you were believing, faith in the facts. It's not faith in faith, it's faith in the facts, in God's word.

So I could see what his argument was in the first and last part. The middle part, I was a little bit fuzzy about, so I said, well, maybe I won't put it down there. I'm not going to afford another flimsy. It wouldn't have broke the bag, but I didn't. Plus, you know, whatever. OK. All right. Any one of you who has not yet read the book, The Modern Accountant by Josh McDowell, should do so. It is really on this point. Very, very strong. And he was a kind of a sarcastic and nasty unbeliever. He tried to grind Christians into the ground.

Okay. Or you can have ten of your copies if you so desire. They don't cost you a nickel. You have to take the passport. Okay. The second question is, what are the reasons for the resurrection? And actually, I basically have five on this page. The author has seven. And you can, you know, what I try to do is look at the ones that occurred to me as being kind of the They're all important. It's important to see every aspect. But some just seem to be more critical, if you will. The first one is that Christ arose because of who he is. Basically because he's God. Can God die? That's one of the questions you have to ask. Can God die?

The second one is Christ arose to be the giver of resurrection life. And the life that he has for us is a life that is his life. And we're going to see some similarities in some of these topics here. Number three is that Christ arose to fulfill God's eternal purpose. We talked about that back earlier on in the study. And looking at God's eternal purpose from eternity past, where God the Father and God the Son looking at Hebrews 13, made an agreement that the son would agree to die on the cross and the father agreed to raise him up on the third day.

So looking at God's eternal purpose, how does that fit in with the resurrection? Basically, that is the fulfillment of the resurrection. And then the last two, Christ arose that he might become the source of resurrection power. And Christ arose to be the first fruits of the resurrection.

He's the first one of a new race of men. Men that have a glorified body. So we'll see that. So those are the five. So let's look at the first one here. Actually, let's do this. Too much here at the same time. Can I have someone, again, someone to volunteer to read Acts chapter 2 and verse 24 for us? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Okay.

In this verse, it talks about that God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death. since it was impossible for him to be held in his power. So we see from this verse that God the Father raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death.

And it talks about this idea of being impossible for him to be held in his power. And I looked at some other renderings of that. And one rendering has it's impossible to continue to be controlled or retained by its power. Another had to It's impossible to be mastered by its power. God the Son, it was impossible for him to be held in death's grip, basically. Okay, and what kind of goes along with that is the second verse.

Let's look. Could someone volunteer to read that, Romans chapter 1? Let's see. Why don't we go back a little bit. Could you just go back, maybe read one through four? Marilyn, that'd be great. Paul, in service of Christ Jesus, calls to be an apostle in the heart of the gospel of God, the gospel he promised before him, through his prophet and the Holy Spirit, regarding his son, who, as to his human nature, was an infant of David, and who, through the spirit of holiness, was prepared with the power and the Son of God, by the resurrection from the dead, for Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you.

So, you know, this verse is talking about that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus really declared that he was the Son of God. And I kind of spent some time looking at that word declared, and if any of you, I know my son Mark has done a little bit of surveying, and that word declared has the idea, almost like a surveying term, it's that you'll go out to a situation and you'll mark out or you'll mark the boundaries. a left boundary to a right boundary. So you'll plot out the territory, if you will. So it says that actually the Lord Jesus was marked out to be the Son of God by the Resurrection. That put God's focus and mark on the Lord Jesus, that He was the One. He was the One that was that was his son, and it was with power.

And the idea of power here, and we're going to see this in a couple of different verses as we look through here, this word power is this Greek word called dunamis, and it's the idea that, I think it comes from the word dynamite, is that right? Like dynamite, and it's the idea that God, it looks like a prefix in this word, Duna, D-U-N-A, and that prefix is like that God is capable.

He is capable of performing what He says. He has the inherent power to do that. He is stating something that He has. He has the power to raise Jesus Christ from the dead. He not only declared Him, but He has the power to raise Him, to accomplish the fact. capable power, something that can act according to his will.

So that's sort of the verses that, and there are other ones that the author has as well, I believe, that the resurrection proved that he was the son of God, that he was marked out or declared that, and it was impossible for him to be held by its power. So those are the two aspects of Now let's look at the next point. Christ arose to be the giver of resurrection life.

If someone were to ask you, before we look at these verses, if someone were to ask you what... The Bible talks a lot about life. And this aspect is going to talk about a life that is termed resurrection life. What comes to mind when... If someone were to ask you, what's resurrection life all about in terms of a Christian? What would you say? Is there something that would jump out that you would... Would you share with that person if they asked you what resurrection life was?

Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Excellent. Okay. Good. Good. Hey, excellent. Right. That's good. Good. You guys, that's great. That's great. That's really good. Okay. We're going to cover a lot of those points. Okay. Okay, could someone read Romans? I want to read even more than just that verse. I think just verse 4 will be fine. Could someone volunteer to read? Okay, thanks Josiah. Okay, good. Thank you.

So, this verse says that you were made to die to the law. So, I think it was pointed out that resurrection life, that we're dead to the law. And dead here, you know, it's always good to keep in mind that, may I just ask this? I know that you guys know it really well. What does death mean? Separation, right? So it means that we've been separated from the law. We've been separated from the law. And it's through the body of Christ. And I like the middle part of that verse.

It says that you might be joined to another. And, you know, I looked at that and it's kind of the idea of... And some actually have rendered it married to another. If you think about it, you were... You were joined to Adam. You were in union with Adam. And now that's been broken and you now have been joined to him or joined to Christ. You've been married to another. And now there's this relationship, this union between you and Christ. And part of that aspect is that to him who is racist, that you might bear fruit to God. And this fruit is not your fruit, it's his fruit. The fruit that a believer has is not... If you go back and you think about...

Can someone quote to me John 15.5? Does anybody know 15.5 from memory? Where he talks about the... Thank you, thank you. Bind the branches, yeah. And it kind of goes along with this.

I mean, if we're married or in this union, we're joined to Christ, how much can you do apart from the Savior? Somebody remember John, he said, basically, apart from me, you can do nothing. There's nothing we can do. The Christian life is not, well, You, quote, meet the Savior, and then, now that I've met Him, I go off and do my thing. No. There's this relationship, this union that you have with the Savior, and based upon that relationship, you can bear fruit. You can live the life, His life, and we're going to see that in many of these passages here. It's His life, not our life. Okay. How about Colossians? Does someone volunteer to read Colossians chapter one? One through, I'm sorry, Colossians, thank you. Colossians chapter three, not looking at where I, one through four. Yeah, Bonnie?

If then you have been raised up with Christ, teaching the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ from God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Okay, good, thank you. So, this starts out The first verse says, if then you have been raised up with Christ. So is Paul in doubt about that? Good, good, okay. And actually, some would render it sense and actually others would say in view of the fact, in view of the fact that you've been raised up with Christ, given that, and this is another, in view of the fact you've been raised up with Christ, It says, keep seeking the things above for Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on the earth.

For you have died in your life is hidden with Christ in God. And that's really a really tremendous passage. For you have died. You've died to the old, to your old relationship with Adam. and you're alive, and your life is not your own life, it's now hidden.

And I like when Hal gives a description of the word hidden. I haven't really studied it enough, but it's the idea of covered up. You've been covered up. And personally, that picture... In the Old Testament, there are talks about... It gives some pictures of underneath everlasting arms. It gives a kind of physical picture of God being above you, beside you, he walks with you, underneath you, all these pictures. But when it gets to the New Testament, it just goes one level beyond that, that your life is hidden or covered up in Christ. I mean, that's just so much, to me, that's such a more significant statement. And to see yourself in this relationship with the Savior that is so intimate, that you're hidden or covered up with Christ in God.

Go ahead, Bonnie. Sure. Okay. Good. Good. Thank you. That's great. That's great. Now, I think, you know, personally, when times when you feel... Good. That's good. That's good. You know, there are times when you say, is this all for real this whole life? I mean, life is crazy. Is this, you know, this is, you know, 9-11, whatever it might be. World War II. I mean, is this life? What's going on here?

And there are verses like this. Your life is hidden with Christ and God. That's an incredible statement. And God wants us to see that close relationship that we have. Now, many times we don't feel that way. We don't feel that hidden with Christ and God. But that's something that He says is true and we're to believe it. And then He goes on to say that He just doesn't stop there. He says when Christ who is our life is revealed, then you will be revealed with Him in glory. So Christ is our very life. And I just can't help but...

Can someone quote for me Galatians 2.20? Good. That's great. Well, thanks. You guys are really brave. That's great. That's neat. No, I think that's just, you know, he's our life, you know.

It's not I, but Christ. And it's not even, you know, I think we have to be careful. It's not even, tonight you'll see the pictures of the footsteps in the sand, you know, and that's interesting, but it's so much better than that. It's so much better than, you know, The Lord and I together, that picture is not, I believe, scripturally correct.

We're in Him, we're in union with Him. It's not God and I together will accomplish this. It's that I'm in God and I'm in fellowship with Him and in union with Him. And that's the way I'm to live my life, in that relation. And there is an aspect of friendship, I don't want to belittle that, but it's so much more intense, so much deeper than that. And it talks about you'll be revealed with Him in glory. The true person that you are right now, we're in this body and we have the old man, we have the sinful nature, and we do things that we don't want to do. Like Paul said, there's that struggle. We don't want to do it. We know we should, but we do it.

But there'll come a time when we'll be revealed with Him in glory. All right, so that's aspects Christ arose because of who He is and Christ arose to be the giver of resurrection life. Okay, the third aspect here is that Christ arose to fulfill God's eternal purpose. And there are four aspects that we kind of had talked about in the past about God declaring His glory, to reveal His glory, to share His glory, and to be glorified.

And, you know, I was thinking about, and actually I didn't do it, you know, it's one of these things that you think about as you go through these studies, you think, boy, if I only had another, I told Hal, we were talking yesterday on the phone, I said, if I only had another you know, hour, day, whatever, it's always more time you want to have. Vani and I have this thing we always talk about, no matter what it is we're preparing for, there's always, well, if I just had one more day, I could look into that aspect. So, you know, you could probably go through here and look, and maybe you can think off the top of your head if you can, you can share it, I don't, it'd be great.

You know, each of those aspects, to declare His glory, I think the resurrection, each of those are in view. But to my mind, sharing His glory kind of is the spotlight, seems to be the one that just really... because by His resurrection we are now joined to Him, we're joined to another, we're in union with Him, we have this wonderful relationship. So that one seems to be... to share His glory is in view, but obviously to be glorified, God was... God is glorified by the resurrection, it proved that He was God. So all those are in view, I think. So the next couple of verses here are statements kind of are more focused in on his purpose to share his glory. The Lord's resurrection is proof that our sins are forgiven and that we are justified by faith.

Could someone read Romans Chapter 4 here for us, Romans 4, 22 to 25. Thank you. So this passage, if you go back and look in the context, is talking about Abraham. But then it kind of changes and starts talking about the believer, talking about that. And I try to kind of paraphrase what I thought the verse was saying.

Our faith has been reckoned as righteousness. As we put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, that's been reckoned to us as righteousness. That's one observation from that passage. The second observation is that it says Christ was put to death because of our transgressions. And then the third statement is that Christ was raised to secure our justification. He secured it. That was his stamp of approval. I'm not quite sure how to say that. Let's go on to the last point here. I have our identification or union with Christ. Maybe was might be a better word.

Was required. for God to share His glory with us. I guess where I'm kind of heading with this is that we weren't, and this has been really kind of great, Mike Doyle's been going through Ephesians on Tuesday, the Tuesday men's Bible study, and as you go through there, you look at that and you see this relationship that God desires to have with man, and it has to be on His level, it has to be if you were on the same plane. It can't be a sinful man with God, in a sense. God really can't communicate that way.

There is some communication, but by being identified with Christ, by coming into a union with Christ, we now are able to have this fellowship or relationship with our Savior. And it talks about, in Ephesians, we won't have to turn to it, but it says that He made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

We've been made alive. We now have this new life. We've been raised up and we're now seated with him in heavenly places. His desire is that we see life from this heavenly perspective. We no longer see it from this perspective here on earth. We see it from our heavenly position.

He talks about, and a good part of Ephesians there, this wonderful relationship. in heavenly places, how we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. He talks about all these different aspects from a heavenly perspective. And, you know, it's just this wonderful intimacy again and relationship that he desires to have with us, but it's viewed from a heavenly perspective. And then in Colossians chapter 2, It talks about that we have been buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised up with him through faith. So again, this theme we see over and over again where we've come into this wonderful union. It talks about baptism. We've been baptized or immersed into Christ. Immersed into the person of Christ. And that happened through faith. That was an operation of faith.

And God really couldn't share His glory with us unless we had this new relationship, we had this new life. And it's Christ's life. Then He could communicate that. Then there could be this fellowship between us. But without that, we were still in our sins. So our identification was required, our union with Christ was required for God to share His glory with us. Like I said, there's a lot more that could be done in a lot of these areas.

Christ rose to be the source of resurrection power. And actually, we're going to go back to Ephesians here again. May I just kind of, in the interest of time here, we just kind of... Ephesians 119 talks about what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. And this word power again is this word dunamis. It's this dynamite power. It's this inherent power that only God has.

And then, and it was toward us who believe, which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him up from the dead. And then in Romans 6, 4, as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. And in this passage, it talks about this that Christ being raised up from the dead was to give us this newness of life, and actually newness is... and I don't totally understand this, is a noun in this case? It's a new source of life, and the source is Christ's life.

So we have a... and actually newness, in the Bible there's several words for new. There's a word kainos, new in quality, and there's... another one that's new in time. And this is the one new in quality. We have a new quality life. It's not like the old life. It's not like our old life from Adam. It's our new life in Christ.

Yes. Well, I think, okay, now with the word glory, you know, sometimes this is, I don't know, someone else has a different thought. My thought here is that this That's really who he is. He's able. That's his inherent, it's his essence. In this case, sometimes glory is used in the sense of God's essence, and other times it's used in terms of maybe like the Shekinah glory. In that sense, there's actually a physical sense, so there's two senses. I think, or maybe there's more. In this one, I think it's talking about that's who he is. I mean, that's his inherent, his essence. That's who God is. Sure.

Okay, and let's get this last one here, the bell's already rung. Okay, and the last one, and this is a neat one, and I'd like to, this is the one I wish I had a bit more time on, about this wonderful being the firstfruits. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. So it talks about him being the firstfruits, he's a first of a new The new man, he's the first of that kind, he's the prototype.

It could be rendered in some cases. And it talks about those who have fallen asleep in Christ. And it talks about those who are at his coming. And actually you can go through there, and I haven't really done it, but you can look at some of the... These are the believers who have fallen asleep, and now have been raptured, and then you look... I haven't really put that together, but there's a picture you can draw. Someone has like a parade, and I haven't studied enough to really be able to speak to it. But there's some neat pictures in that passage.

And then Philippians 3.21, He will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory. Okay. And just quickly here, let me just show you the last. This is a little homework assignment you can go through and look at this. But I was just kind of looking at this, kind of taking it in.

There are 17 appearances after the resurrection. for the Ascension, somewhere after the Ascension. But you kind of go through here and you look at these. And I was kind of amazed how many times the disciples showed up. The disciples showed up in number 4. There were just 2 there on the road to Emmaus. Then the 10 disciples without Thomas. Then the 11. Then 7 disciples. Then there was a group of 500. And then James, the Lord's brother. And I try to get the location.

Actually, the book has all these in here. Actually, with more references too. And then the last chart here has the remaining seven, remaining eight, the disciples again, and then Paul has, there are four appearances to Paul, and then Stephen, and then the Apostle John. So it's just kind of interesting to go through that and look at that and kind of take that in. Seventeen different appearances by our Savior.

Like I said, the proof that comes to my mind is the empty tomb. But I thought this was good in terms of just looking at the whole picture and looking at the fact of who Christ appeared to, all these different people he appeared to. Any last questions before we close?

Go ahead, Josiah. I've got one. What are the reasons for the resurrection? under Christ the Rose, still God, and the Son of Purpose. Okay. And we have at some point, His resurrection is proof that our sins are forgiven, and we are justified by faith. Under that, it says Christ raised us to our justification. And is it true? I've heard people read or heard somebody say that Christ's resurrection is like proof that the Father was That's correct.

I know that's correct. I might. I know. I'm not sure that, you know, actually I noticed in here maybe that I made a statement. I didn't have maybe enough backup for some of these statements. And, you know, I mean, I think he is obviously pleased. Prove that he was pleased. Yeah. OK. I think that's what I've heard. And I agree with you. I think that's true as well.

You'd like to see a verse, maybe, that spoke to that? And that's a good point. I mean, I know when I was, you know, I think it's important to, you know, I don't know, does someone have a verse for that? For the fact that, I can't think of one, let's see, the fact that he was pleased, okay, say, repeat your question one more time, so I make sure I have it. Is it true that the resurrection is proof of the Father's satisfaction?

I think I've heard it stated that way, Hebrews 13.20. Okay, good point. You're going to go back to the eternal covenant. What Hal's pointing out is that's his plan, since there was an agreement between the Father and the Son, the eternity passed.

Now, personally, it's hard to see it from Hebrews 13.20. You have to look at that and study other passages. That's me personally. I'm sure other folks can...

Hebrew 1320 says, Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus Christ our Lord, equips you with every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen. So this talks about this eternal covenant between the Father and the Son. And it talks about Him that He brought up the shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant. You need to go back and study the eternal covenant a little bit too. That's what you need to do. And that's where this verse doesn't give you all the information. That's what I'm trying to point out. Absolutely. Right.

Well, that was his plan. You know, you could use this kind of, that was his plan from an eternity past. If God planned that, then when that comes to pass, I mean, by, you know, he would be pleased with that. But, but I like to say, I've heard people will say that kind of, you know, he's pleased. And what you're saying is, you know, Kind of stating that out more. Go ahead. Right. OK, that's good. That's good.

Well, actually, I think that that actually in the book he talks about, I'm not sure we covered. I said we've skipped some sections. I think that's actually. There's a section. Maybe we should go ahead and close. But anyway, let me see if I can find that and when we get back together again we can talk about that some more. It's getting kind of late here. Actually, there are snacks downstairs too.

That was a good question. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this time, Father. We thank you for your word. We thank you for all that you are. Lord, thank you for this wonderful new relationship we have based upon your son and what he did on Calvary Father. We thank you for that. In Christ's name, Amen.