First Quarter 2004 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"The Gospel Of John"

Insights to Lesson 13
The Power of the Resurrection
March 20-26, 2004

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

The title of the lesson this week is “The Power of the Resurrection,” and the passages of Scripture are the last two chapters of the gospel of John, chapters 20 and 21. These chapters have some beautiful encounters between Jesus and Mary, and Jesus and the disciples. These encounters will be looked at in the context of the lesson title.

Paul, in Philippians 3:10, says “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection . . . ” In 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4 Paul says, the gospel is “. . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” So the resurrection is part of the gospel that “is the power of God to Salvation.”
The 1888 messengers presented to us the truth from Scripture that Christ is the Saviour of every man. E. J. Waggoner, in his book The Glad Tidings, pp. 13, 14, says, “Do you mean to teach universal salvation? someone may say. We mean to teach just what the Word of God teaches—that ‘the grace of God hath appeared, bringing Salvation to all men.’ Titus 2:11, RV.” He continues, “God has wrought out salvation for every man, and has given it to him, . . . The judgment will reveal the fact that full salvation was given to every man and that the lost have deliberately thrown away their birthright possession.”

In this “Insight” we will see that the resurrection is the proof of our justification. Let’s examine this.

Paul makes it clear as he expounds the gospel in Romans 3:19-5:21 that part of humanities’ problem was/is a legal one which in part needed a legal solution. Romans 3:19 declares that the law speaks to those who are under the law and that all the world has become guilty before God. He goes on in vs. 20 to remind us that by the deeds of the law no flesh can possibly be justified. The violation of the law brings condemnation and that condemnation brings death. So all the world has a problem.
Paul continues with the solution in verses 21-24 and I will translate this to be most consistent with the Greek: “But now the righteousness of God apart from Law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the Righteousness of God which is through the faith of Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.” This text is not talking about our faith, because our faith can never reveal the Righteousness of God. Rather the text is speaking of Christ’s faith, which includes His coming to earth and taking upon Himself fallen sinful flesh that needed redeeming, living a life of complete obedience, and yielding His will to the Father’s will, dying the equivalent of the second death for all mankind and rising again the third day. This faith of Jesus Christ was to all and on all who believe, and was necessary because as Paul goes on in Romans 3:23, 24, “for all have sinned and all are deprived of the divine splendour” (NEB).

What these verses say is that the faith of Jesus, as described above, established a legal justification for all of humanity. In verse 24 Paul says all have been justified freely by His grace. This lavish gift demands a response in the truest sense of the word. In Romans 4 Paul not only deals with this gift, but presents it alongside a response of faith. In Romans 4:4, 5 he repeats a legal justification for all and a response of faith in those who believe. “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted as righteousness.”

But where is the resurrection in all of this? The power of the resurrection is connected with this legal justification we have been speaking of and in fact the resurrection of Christ is the ultimate proof that justification has been accomplished. Let’s look at chapter 4, verse 25: “who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.” Romans 4:25 has been understood by many to mean that Christ was raised up in order to justify us. But this cannot be since in Romans 6:7 it says, “for he that hath died is justified from sin” (ASV). Based on this text then justification comes through death. There is a Greek preposition in Romans 4:25, dia, translated here as “for” or “because of.” It is used here in the accusative case and means, “it’s the reason why something happens, results, or exists. It is always used retrospectively, never prospectively. So this text should read, “He was raised up not in order to justify us because His death did that but He was raised up as proof of or evidence of our justification. So, in Romans chapters 3 and 4 Paul has declared a legal, corporate justification for all men and now he says here’s the proof! Christ was raised up as evidence of the justification of all men. There is the power in the resurrection.

Now for some practical applications from our passage for today. In Jesus’ encounter with Mary, he told her not to touch Him because He had not yet gone back to the Father. Prior to His death He had declared to His Father, “I have finished the work that You gave Me to do.” Ellen G. White in The Desire of Ages, p.790, says, “Jesus refused to receive the homage of His people until He had the assurance that His sacrifice was accepted by the Father. He ascended to the Heavenly courts, and from God Himself heard the assurance that His atonement for the sins of men had been ample, that through His blood all might gain eternal life.”

God raised Him up as evidence of our justification. This justification for all men was at great cost to Himself. When Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich,” he was not speaking of a temporary poverty. Texts such as Revelation 14:14-16, Matthew 24:36, Acts 1:7, and Mark 13:32 tell us that he has forever given up certain of the attributes that He had before time began and has forever bound Himself to humanity. So in John 20:17 Jesus is truly able to say, “. . . go to My brethren and say to them, I am ascending to My Father and your Father and to My God and your God.” Paul tells us in Hebrews 2:11, “For He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for this reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” He is Immanuel God with us.

And finally, Christ’s encounter with Peter. Christ had already forgiven Peter before Peter knew he needed forgiveness (see Luke 22:31-34; cf. Romans 5:6, 8, 10). Now we see Peter a broken man, ashamed before the Lord because of his nakedness (John 21:7; cf. Revelation 3:18), humbled by his unreliable works. Seeing the sinfulness of his own heart before a faithful, loving Saviour, he repents (vs. 17), and we realize that it is only “the goodness of God that leads us to repentance” (Romans 2:4).

May God grant us hearts of flesh to appreciate Him, and to respond with every fiber of our beings to this most powerful good news. Amen.

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