Chapter 3: Through Death to Resurrection
Chapter 3
Through Death to Resurrection
If this book were being set to music, this would be the moment for trumpets. We have been considering the importance of giving due weight to the negatives of the Christian life: rejected, slain. But now we turn to the positive, without which the other two can never represent a true, balanced spirituality: raised.
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
“I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
After the rejection of self, after the death to self, there is, and there continues to be, a resurrection.
The transfiguration of Christ expresses all this vividly. It was a prefiguration of Christ’s resurrection, a time of glory. “As he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering” (Luke 9:29), or, as Matthew records it, “His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Matthew 17:2).
Now let me emphasize: these things happened in history. This is important, especially today, when religious things are constantly being pushed away into a nonhistoric realm of an “other.” But here, in the account of the Transfiguration, we have an emphasis on time and space. Luke, for example, records that “on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met him” (9:37). Christ and the disciples at a certain point in time went up the mountain, and at another point they came down. As they went up the hillside, they did not move into a nonspatial philosophical or religious “other.” They were still connected in space with the foot of the mountain, and down there in the plain the normal activities of life were going on.
The same thing is true in the realm of time. Had they been wearing watches, the watches would not have stopped as they ascended the mountain and restarted as they came down again. Time was still going on, and when they came down, time had passed—it was the next day. History is made up of time and space: it is its warp and woof. And here on the Mount of Transfiguration true history took place, rooted in normal space and normal time. The glorification of Jesus was not in the world of the philosophical “other,” or “upper-story,” but in the hard realities of space and time, and the transfiguration demonstrates the hard reality of the words Jesus himself spoke as they came down from the hill: “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day” (9:22). There it is: rejected, slain, raised in history.
When we come to the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion, we find the same emphasis. He asked the disciples whom he met on the Emmaus road, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26). He asked the question on a certain day in the calendar, at a certain hour of the day, on a certain road on the map, rooting the event in space-time history. And he did this with all of his resurrection appearances. He “stood in the midst of them,” in their normal, everyday life. In their fear they tried to push him off into another realm—“They were terrified . . . and supposed that they had seen a spirit”—but Jesus would not allow this. “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:37, 39). And then he took a piece of broiled fish and honeycomb, and “did eat before them” (v. 43), and he showed them his wounds, the marks of his death.
It was the same body, raised and glorified; not in some far-off place, but there, in space, time, and history.
In John 20 there is the same kind of an emphasis; it is not just an incidental repetition, but the center of the whole thing.
Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and said unto them, Peace be unto you. (John 20:19)
Christ’s body is changed, he can suddenly come through the locked doors, but that does not make any difference in that of which we are speaking. While it is true that he can come through the locked door, it is still the same body.
But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again [that is, a full week] his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. (John 20:24-28)
Let us notice that it is the same body. The locked doors do not shut him out, and he can appear in the midst, but that makes no difference. It is a body that can be touched and handled. In John 21:9 the emphasis is upon the eating: “As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.”
Here we have the body of Jesus Christ in an external space-time world. The reality of the resurrection is not something to push off into a strange dimension. It is meaningful in our normal dimension.
To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible [space-time] proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)
For forty days—not just a wisp, as it were—but for forty days, infallible proof was given.
Neither let us draw back from the great act of the Ascension: “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). This is the thing that, above every other, modern man cannot accept. The neoorthodox theologian may speak of a physical resurrection at times, but he will never speak of a physical ascension. When you come to material like John Robinson’s book Honest to God, this is the place where the battle is pitched. And it is the proper place to pitch it, because here is a resurrected body that can eat, that can go up into heaven, and that can disappear into the cloud. We must remember at this point that Christ has been appearing and disappearing for forty days. The supernatural is not in one direction, as it were; he is here—he was here, rather—and then appeared again. Now something else is given to us that is real; again there is an emphasis on history, that the resurrected body of Jesus Christ did ascend into the clouds. It was at an hour of the day, on a day of the calendar. There was a moment when his feet left the Mount of Olives. Let us not draw back from this point. People who think that they can draw back from the physical ascension of Jesus and still maintain Christianity cannot be consistent in the rest of their position.
However, the space-timeness does not end there. Later in the book of Acts, we have Christ meeting Paul: “And as he journeyed [that is, Saul—later Paul], he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: and he fell to the earth” (9:3-4). Notice here the connection with what we have already seen in the descriptive phrases that are connected with the Mount of Transfiguration:
Light shone round about him, and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. (9:3-9)
He had been made blind by the glory-light. Where? On the road to Damascus. So definitely is the space-situation fixed. And the time could be told. There was an hour of the day when this took place.
The same thing is repeated in Acts 22:6: “And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damasus about noon, [there is a space-element, the road to Damascus; there is a time-element, very close to noon] suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.” And the eleventh verse: “And when I could not see for the glory of that light, [that is why he was blinded: it was not just some mystical thing, but the sheer glory of the light which made him blind for a time] being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus.”
In chapter 26 the story is repeated again, with a very significant addition: “At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun” (verse 13). Here is the first addition: it was at midday; nevertheless, at the brightest hour of the Near Eastern sun, here was a brighter light, a light of the glorified Christ, “shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue . . .” (verse 14, emphasis added).
This is one of the most significant things in the Word of God in the midst of twentieth-century discussion. Here is a declaration that you have space, time, history, and rational communication. The rational communication comes not through some mystical experience of Paul, but in the midst of space and time, the glorified Christ, the raised Christ, spoke to him in terms of the Hebrew language. At noon, on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared—the glorified Christ in history—speaking in a normal language, using normal words and normal grammar, to a man named Saul. With this, there is a complete denial of the twentieth-century projection of these things into a religiously “other” world. Here we are in the realm of space, time, history, normal communication, and normal language.
But again, it does not stop here. Later, many years later, there was another man, named John. He was on the isle of Patmos. And the first chapter of the book of Revelation tells us that he sees Jesus again. And by “again,” I mean after Paul had seen him. I am not saying this is the only other appearance—for example, Stephen also saw him—but here are two clear steps some time after the Ascension. After the Ascension, the glorified Christ was seen in space and in time on the Damascus road by Saul. After the Ascension, the glorified Christ was seen on the isle of Patmos—again, a spatial identification. The isle of Patmos is still there. Actually, there is not only a spatial identification: there is time, too. It was the Lord’s Day.
And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire. (Revelation 1:12-14)
John is describing here what he actually saw. This is not strange, or incongruous, any more than it was when, after his resurrection, Christ’s eating was spoken of in normal terms.
And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (Revelation 1:15-18)
We are not told in what language he spoke, but it was human speech, of the same nature as that which Saul heard on the Damascus road. More than that, in this chapter, there is a careful delineation between what is actual description and what is to be understood as figures of speech.
Even this is not the end. The Bible tells us of the future coming of Jesus to the earth, and describes this visible coming in terms that have to do with space and time and history. This is future to us still, but it is nevertheless space-timeness:
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. (Revelation 19:11-16)
Again there is a spaceness here, because we are told the place: Armageddon, that is, the mountain of Megiddo (Revelation 16:16). The place where he later comes and touches the earth is spoken of in the Old Testament: it is the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4). At each point it is the same. The glory and wonder of Christ are not pushed off into a world that is “other” than our own. In each of these cases, intriguingly enough, there is identification of space, identification of time. There is a real, historic death of Jesus Christ. There is a real, historic Resurrection. And there is a real, historic future glorification that is meaningful in terms of space, time, and history: our own space, time, and history.
The Bible says that the day will come when both saved and unsaved men will look upon the glorified Christ. They will see him. Every man will see him, not as a religious idea, but glorified, in a real space-time situation. But these passages not only say that he will be so, but that he is so now. The glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ is not pushed off only into a future moment when he shall be seen by all men. It is not pushed off into that great moment when he shall come in glory and we are told every knee shall bow. He is glorified now. The Ascension was not a disappearance into a nothingness, into the world of mere religious ideas. Between his ascension from the Mount of Olives, and his appearance on the Damascus road he did not cease to be. And again there was not a great void into which he disappeared from the time of his appearance on the Damascus road until John saw him on the isle of Patmos. This is Jesus as he is now. He is so glorified, at this present moment.
As we contemplate these things, several things must immediately come before us. First of all, as we consider Jesus speaking in the Hebrew tongue on the Damascus road, and appearing to John and speaking to him on the isle of Patmos, we have here clear proof of a historic resurrection of Jesus Christ. But there is much more than this. This physical resurrection is the proof of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, proof that the work is really done, that nothing need be added to his glorious substitutionary work for our justification.
But even this does not exhaust the matter. We are told in the Word of God, by the apostle Paul, that in Christ’s resurrection we see the promise, the firstfruits, of our own coming physical resurrection. What we see him to be after his resurrection, Paul insists, we shall be. When I consider the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not merely in the world of religious ideas or ideals, but in the world of space and time and reality, I have the promise from the hand of God himself that I will be so raised from death. This body is so much of myself, in the total personality—the whole man—and it will not be left behind in the salvation that is brought forth through Jesus Christ. His death on the cross is of such a nature that the whole man will be redeemed. In one specific day, the Christian’s body will be raised from death, like Christ’s risen body, glorified.
But there is more even than this. The reality, the space-timeness of the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ means something to us also today: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). Paul is not talking about some far-off time, he is talking about the redeemed in the present circumstances.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. (Romans 6:1-12)
Let us carefully notice some points here. First, Christ died in history. That is the point we have been making. He died in space, time, and history. If you had been there that day, you could have taken your hand and rubbed it across the rough wood of the cross of Jesus Christ—you could have gotten a splinter in your hand from the cross.
Second, Christ rose in history, and we have made a strong point of this, too. Christ rose and he was glorified, in history.
This is the exact opposite of the liberal theology, which speaks of the kerygma, that we make Jesus the Christ when we preach him. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a total denial of the wonder of the teaching of the Bible. We do not make Jesus the Christ when we preach him. Jesus is the Christ, whether we preach him or not. Men may not know the wonder of the gospel if we do not preach it, but our failure to preach cannot change the fact of the person or the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. On this present day he is raised, he is glorified. If no one preached Jesus Christ today, and no one thought once even of the word “God,” it would make no difference whatsoever to the fact that Jesus is the Christ. He rose in history, he is glorified now. And this word of his resurrection, of his present glory, has meaning in our present space-time world.
Third, we died with Christ when we accepted him as Savior. If I have accepted Christ as Savior, this is now a past thing in history. The individual Christian’s salvation is rooted in two space-time historic points. The first is the finished work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, and the second is the point of time when, by the grace of God, the individual accepted Jesus Christ as Savior. Here are two space-time points upon which our salvation rests. And if I have accepted Jesus as my Savior in the past, then Paul can speak concerning me: “Therefore being justified [in the past] by faith, we have [in the present] peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). This is clearly the thrust of the whole statement, from the tenses of the Greek text.
In Romans 6:2, this is connected in this way: “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead [that is, died] to sin, live any longer therein?”
The verb “died” is in the aorist tense. When we accepted Christ as our Savior, in God’s sight we died with Christ. “Therefore we are [that is, were] buried with him by baptism into death” (Romans 6:4). That refers to the time when we accepted Jesus as our Savior. “Knowing this, that our old man is [that is, was] crucified with him” (6:6). So here we have the third historic point. Christ died in history; Christ rose in history; we died with Christ when we accepted him as Savior. This, too, is a historic thing. It is something that happened (past tense) at a point of history.
The fourth point is that we will be raised by him as he was raised. And this will be a point of future history. The clock keeps going. And when the Christian is raised from death, the great trumpet sounds, the word is spoken and every Christian comes forth from the grave at the command of Jesus Christ; the clock on the wall will not stop, it will still turn. The clock is almost ready to strike three as I write this. It is conceivable that Jesus will come before five past. If such is the case, the clock on the wall will not stop turning. At ten past, the clock will still run on. This is the biblical picture. The future resurrection, with this present body, and our future changing will take place in a twinkling of an eye: in history, in space-time, true history.
For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. (Romans 6:5)
This truly refers to his resurrection, but “resurrection” is the emphasized thought. In the Greek, the “his” is left out; the emphasis is upon resurrection. “We shall be [future] in the likeness of resurrection.”
Now if we died with Christ we believe we shall also live with him. (Romans 6:8)
This is the future tense. We died with Christ when we accepted him as Savior in history. We will be raised physically or changed in the twinkling of an eye in a moment of history.
But that is not all. There is more here, a fifth point. These great truths are to be brought down into the area of present Christian life and true spirituality. The Bible says that in the present life we are, in practice, to live by faith as though we are dead now.
For in that he died, he died unto sin once for all: but in that he liveth he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon [this is an act of faith] ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. (Romans 6:10-11)
As Jesus died in history, and once for all was dead to sin, so now we are called in faith to count ourselves dead, in practice, at this present moment of history; not in some far-off world of religious ideas, but in reality, at this moment on the clock. By faith we are to live now as though we have already died.
But even that is not all. If it were, it would include only the two words “rejected” and “slain.” But the words are rejected, slain, and raised: raised, not just as an idea of future physical resurrection, though that will be real and future to every Christian, but as a present thing. So the sixth point is that we are to live by faith now, in the present history, as though we had been raised already from death. That is the message of the Christian life. That is the basic consideration we are discussing.
Therefore we are [were] buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
Paul is not speaking here of the future millennium or eternity; that is a different thing altogether. It is now: We “should [may] walk in newness of life. . . . Knowing this, that our old man is [was] crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:6). How? By faith: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11).
When? Right now! This is the basic consideration of the Christian life. First, Christ died in history. Second, Christ rose in history. Third, we died with Christ in history, when we accepted him as our Savior. Fourth, we will be raised in history, when he comes again. Fifth, we are to live by faith now as though we were now dead, already have died. And sixth, we are to live now by faith as though we have now already been raised from the dead.
Now what does this mean in practice, so that it will not be just words going over our heads? First of all, it certainly means this: that in our thoughts and lives now we are to live as though we had already died, been to heaven, and come back again as risen.
Remember, at least one man has gone there and come back. Paul speaks of such a man in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. I think it was Paul himself, but whether it was Paul or another, certainly there was such a man.
Paul writes, “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one was caught up to the third heaven.” Paul is saying that this man went to heaven; he was caught up in the third heaven. The third heaven is used here in the sense of the presence of God. It does not necessarily mean far off, but the presence of God. The point is that this man was caught up into heaven, and then he came back.
Can’t you imagine this man as he came back from heaven? He had seen it as a propositional truth, as a brute fact. He had been there, and looked at it, and then had come back. Would anything ever have looked the same to him again? It is as though he had died. It is as though he had been raised from the dead. Just as the Mount of Transfiguration gives us a different perspective when we are in the perspective of the kingdom of God, how different this man’s perspective would have been all his life. The constant pressure to conform to the world about us, the social pressure and every other kind of pressure of our day—surely it would have been broken. How could he conform to this, which is so marred, so broken, so caught up in revolution against God, so disgusting? How could he, in comparison with what he had seen? What would the praise of the world be worth when one had stood in the presence of God? The wealth of the world, what would it look like beside the treasures of heaven? Man longs for power. But what is earthly power after one has seen the reality of heaven and the power of God? All things would look different. Surely all of this is involved in the statement that we are to live by faith now, as though we had already died, and already been raised from the dead.
But Romans 6 does not leave it here, as though we are merely projecting our imaginations. There is more to it than this. “For in that he died, he died unto sin once for all; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God” (Romans 6:10). Jesus Christ lives indeed in the presence of the Father. This is where we are called to live. We are to be dead in this present life! Dead both to good and bad, in order to be alive to the presence of God. Yes, even to good. We are to be dead—not unconscious, not locked away in some darkness, but alive to God in communion with him, in communication with him. Our call to faith in this present life is that we should live as though dead to all things that we might be alive to God.
This is what it means now, as I wrote earlier, to love God enough to be contented, to love him enough in the present world to say thank you in all the ebb and flow of life. When I am dead both to good and bad, I have my face turned towards God. And this is the place in which, by faith at the present moment of history, I am to be. When I am there, what am I? I am then the creature in the presence of the Creator, acknowledging that he is my Creator, and I am only a creature, nothing more. It is as though I am already in the grave and already before the face of God.
But one more note needs to be sounded. We must not stop here! When through faith I am dead to all, and am face-to-face with God, then I am ready by faith to come back into this present world, as though I have already been raised from the dead. It is as though I anticipate that day when I will come back. I will be in that number, as will all who have accepted Jesus as Savior, when the heavens open and we come back, following Jesus Christ in our resurrected, glorified bodies. And so now I am ready to come back as though back from the grave, as though the resurrection had already taken place, and step back into this present historic, space-time world. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, [that is where I stopped before, but it does not stop there] but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11).
Neither yield [here is the faith] ye your members [that is, in the present world]as instruments [weapons, arms, tools] of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive [right now] from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:13)
So what is the Christian calling, on the basis of all this? It is a calling, moment by moment, to be dead to all things, that we might be alive to God at this moment.
We must notice, however, that this is not a sheer passivity. Often, it seems to me, Christians have missed the whole point here by relating this merely to some sort of passivity. But that would be simply a nonbiblical mysticism, not much more than the pagan Stoic concept of Marcus Aurelius. That would be merely a resignation, the French word accepter. It is like the beast in the field that cannot move. But it is not this way in the Scriptures. I am still a man, made in the image of God. “Yield ye your members,” commands Paul—yield (Romans 6:13). It is not a state of passivity. You cannot bring forth the fruit, as we shall see later, but nevertheless you are not a figure of stone. God deals with you in the circle in which he made you, man in his own image.
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey [but you do the yielding], his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine [teaching; there is a content involved here, not a mere existential experience] which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. (Romans 6:16-19)
Feel the force of the “activeness” in the midst of the passivity. “Yield yourselves”: every man must be a creature. He can be nothing else but a creature in this life or in the life to come. Even in hell, men will still be creatures, because that is what we are. Only one is self-sufficient in himself, and he is God. But now as Christians we are introduced to the great reality: our calling is to be creatures in this high, tremendous, and glorious way, not because we must be, but by choice.
Marcus Aurelius, the pagan, knew only a resignation. That is no more than being a creature because you must be a creature. Carl Gustav Jung knew a giving-in, a mere submission to the things that roll over us from the collective unconsciousness of our race, or from that which is without. But this is mere resignation, whereas the scriptural teaching is not mere resignation. I am a creature, it is true, but I have a calling to be the creature glorified. I must be the creature, but I do not have to be the creature like the clod in the field, the cabbage that is rotting in the field as the snows melt. I am called to be a creature by choice, on the basis of Christ’s finished work, by faith: the creature glorified.
Now I am ready for the war. Now there can be spirituality of a biblical sort. Now there can be a Christian life. Rejected, slain, raised: now we are ready to be used. But not only ready to be used in this present space-time world, but ready to enjoy it as the creature, ready to enjoy it in the light of its createdness by God and my own finiteness, and ready to enjoy it, yet seeing it as it is since the Fall. Justification is once for all. At one moment my guilt is declared gone forever, but this is not once for all. This is a moment-by- moment thing—a moment-by-moment being dead to all else and alive to God, a moment-by-moment stepping back by faith into the present world as though we had been raised from the dead. Here is the real positive, after the proper negative.