UNITED WITH CHRIST
Truths of Good Friday
and Easter must be
internalised in our
personal experience
THE rhythm of Christian
worship has a pattern. It is shaped after the life and ministry
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The church year closely follows the life of Jesus - His birth,
death, resurrection, ascension, His divine rule, and His second
coming. We therefore have Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Good
Friday, Easter, and so on, as major events in the annual worship
pattern of the Church.
What is true in our worship is also true in our creeds. In the
Apostles' Creed, we declare our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ,
God's only Son, "who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born
of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
dead, and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended
into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."
This part forms the bulk of the Creed, again demonstrating that
like the worship of the Church, the beliefs of the Church are
deeply rooted in the Person and life of Jesus.
We should not be surprised by all this if we have been reading
our Bibles carefully. In his first epistle to the Corinthians,
the apostle Paul wrote, "Now I want to remind you of the
gospel I preached to you …By this gospel you are saved …
" (1 Cor. 15:1-2). Paul then goes on to state in rich concentrated
form the Gospel that he preached: "For what I received I
passed to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he
was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that
he appeared to Peter and the Twelve." (1 Cor. 15:3-5).
This then was the essence of the Gospel that was recorded in Scripture,
preached from the beginning, and which has been guarded by the
Church since.
The question to ask is "What significance has this in our
personal lives today?" Especially as we observe and celebrate
Good Friday and Easter at this time of the year.
The answer from Scripture is that it has to do with the very heart
of our Christian lives. In his great epistle to the Romans, the
apostle Paul asked, "Or don't you know that all of us who
were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in
order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Rom. 6:3-4).
Paul makes it crystal clear that we need to make the death and
resurrection of Jesus more than items of intellectual beliefs
- that we need to make these truths key aspects of our own personal
experience. Baptism helps us to come into personal contact with
the death and resurrection of our Lord in a deep and profound
way, in a transforming and life-changing way.
True Christian
experience must be
based on a union with Christ
Mysteriously in baptism, which symbolises our new birth in Jesus,
we become identified and connected with Jesus, so much so that
the major events of His life give birth to similar eternally life-changing
events in each of our own lives. Paul explains that to have an
experience of the salvation that Jesus brings to us is to be united
with Him through baptism.
Note what he says: "If we have been united with him in his
death, we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection."
(Rom. 6:5).
To observe Good Friday and Easter as annual services held in the
Church is not enough. The truths of these key Christian festivals
must be internalised and appropriated in our own personal experience.
Otherwise we would be like the people of the last days described
in the Bible, whose religious lives will be grossly distorted,
"having a form of godliness, but denying its power".
(2 Tim. 3:5).
The key is to move from rite and ritual to relationship. As long
as the life of Christ (including His death and resurrection) remains
outside us, we have not truly experienced the power of the Gospel;
we have not really experienced the salvation that the Gospel of
Christ has promised. In order for us to experience the power of
the Gospel, the life of Christ must come into us. He must live
in us. We must become deeply united with Him in a life-giving
relationship.
This is the reason
why Paul wrote that in baptism (through which we are initiated
into God's family), we are united with Christ. His blood cleanses
us from our sins, and His life becomes our life. In another part
of the New Testament, what is probably the earliest part, Paul
wrote, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer
live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live
by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for
me." (Gal. 2:20).
We must note carefully what Scripture says so clearly. True Christian
experience begins with an acknowledgement that Christ died for
us. This must be a personal acknowledgment filled with personal
repentance and faith. True Christian experience then must be based
on a union with Christ, which has to be evidenced by a growing
relationship with Jesus.
It would mean that we walk with Jesus by denying ourselves and
carrying our cross. It means being "crucified with Christ".
It means the death of self and the flesh, and the burial of the
old sinful self. It would mean that we rise with new life through
the resurrection power of Jesus. It means that we no longer let
sin reign in us and be our master (Rom. 6:12, 14). It means that,
offering ourselves fully to God, we will become "slaves to
righteousness". (Rom. 6:13, 18). It means that the life of
Christ takes root in the soil of our hearts and that Jesus begins
to live in us. His life becomes our life.
John Wesley describes this union with Christ when he wrote, "God
loves you; therefore love and obey him. Christ died for you; therefore
die to sin. Christ is risen; therefore rise in the image of God.
Christ liveth ever more; therefore live to God till you live with
him in glory … This is the scriptural way, the Methodist
way, the true way." But how much have we experienced this
personally?
Have Christians become so used to the things of God that they
have become numbed in their souls? Do they touch the holy things
of God without allowing themselves to be touched by God? Are they
like the workers in an art gallery who carry and move about priceless
works of art, without appreciating their true value and beauty?
Is it not possible that Christians may become so used to Good
Friday and Easter as Christian rituals without being touched by
the mysterious power of these biblical events, without deeply
encountering the Lord of Good Friday and Easter? There are many
Christians walking about near the cross of Christ who have yet
to understand what it means to be crucified with Christ. These
are the ones who are so full of themselves - clear evidence that
they do not truly know the Christian experience.
As A. W. Tozer wrote, "In every Christian's heart there is
a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till
he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross he remains
on the throne."
And there are so many Christians who walk near the empty tomb
of Christ who have not experienced the life-changing resurrection
power that bursts forth with new life in us, when we are united
with Christ. They wonder why they do not have such power. They
must know that there is no Easter without Good Friday - in their
own personal lives.
Dear brother, sister, are you united with Christ? Does He live
in you? Have you shared His death and resurrection? As long as
Christ lives only outside you, it is a lost cause for you. He
must live inside you. For "He who has the Son has life, he
who does not have the Son of God does not have life." (1
Jn. 5:12). May you have the joy of seeing Jesus live in you. And
may others too have the joy of seeing the same.
QUOTE:
CHRISTIANS NUMBED IN THEIR SOULS?
'Have Christians become so used to the things of God that they
have become numbed in their souls? Do they touch the holy things
of God without allowing themselves to be touched by God? Are they
like the workers in an art gallery who carry and move about priceless
works of art, without appreciating their true value and beauty?
… There are many Christians walking about near the cross
of Christ who have yet to understand what it means to be crucified
with Christ. These are the ones who are so full of themselves
- clear evidence that they do not truly know the Christian experience.
QUOTE:
'There is no Easter
without Good Friday'