I've often wondered as I read Philippians 3:10-11, why the "power of the resurrection" precedes being conformed to His death. I know I've written some insights about it sometime before, probably in my personal journal. I couldn't find anything in my blog archives. I've been considering the resurrection the last few days. I was talking with my daughter about the challenges to our faith and the problem of evil in the world. And I remembered a friend of mine. He was one of my coworkers years ago at a drug treatment center where we were both counselors. He had told me he had once been very active in church, but had rejected that and became an atheist. We were talking about it one day, and he said the one thing that kept him from totally, unreservedly denying the existence of God was the resurrection of Jesus. He said, "I can't get away from that. I can't deny the resurrection. There's just too much evidence for it. And if the resurrection happened, I can't totally deny the existence of God."
Those words have come back to me many times over the years. Sometimes in my own struggles, when circumstances demanded so much attention I began to lose sight of the eternal, I would find myself wondering if my faith was empty and unfounded; if God really did hear my prayers; if He really cared. Then I'd think of the resurrection and remember Mike's words. And working backwards from the reality of the resurrection, I'd be reassured.
As things go wrong, when we're hurt by others, when we experience any type of loss, ideally, our grip on the material, temporal world is shaken by our suffering and we are reminded to embrace the greater reality of the eternal. Righteousness is ours by faith in Jesus and provided by God on the basis of faith (Philippians 3:9), and we come to know Him better and more intimately.
We see the power of the resurrection. We see it, and we know it. The resurrection is the key. It sets Christianity apart from all other religions. No other religion has a deity who chose to come to earth and take on humanity out of love for mankind, with the express purpose of providing cleansing, forgiveness, mercy and fellowship. There are other religions that have a dying god, but without exception, they died because of the cruelty of some other god and/or because of their own misdeeds, and almost without exception, tied to the coming of winter. Other religions have a god who rises from the dead. But that "resurrection" is tied to the seasonal "rebirth" of life in the Springtime - foundational to a worship of creation and repeated from year to year. Only Jesus died once and for all time - innocent of all sin Himself, but taking on the sins of mankind, proclaiming, "It is finished (fulfilled, completed)" - and rose once and for all - all for the benefit of others - so that all men might be able to enter into fellowship with the living God.
The apostles and approximately 500 others witnessed Him alive after His resurrection. They weren't a ragtag bunch of militant revolutionaries pursuing a cause after the death of their leader. They saw Him alive from the dead and saw Him ascend into heaven. They knew from personal, sensory, scientifically undeniable observation that He was who He had claimed to be and had done what He had promised to do. He had conquered death that they might have eternal life. He was the living mercy seat where man could meet God. The problem they faced was not whether or not they believed this. It was undeniable reality. The problem they faced was that they could not deny it, even when threatened with torture and death. And every one of the apostles and many others were executed because they could not and would not deny what they had seen with their own eyes.
The cross of Jesus was the turning point of history, but only because He overcame death and rose to life again. If there was no "life side" of the cross, it would be meaningless. Had it ended with the cross, "Christianity" would have been just a footnote in history. His followers would have scattered. If His promise of conquering the grave was a lie, it all would have died. There would have been no empowering by the Holy Spirit. If there were no resurrection of Christ, then Christianity would be just another empty religion with no power and no future hope, all based on a lie. If there is a God, without the resurrection, Christianity would be a lie about God Himself, claiming He did something He did not do. Or, there simply is no God at all. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:13-19, we are living and dying for a lie, and deserve to be pitied.
But, the resurrection did happen. Christ is our redeemer. He is our eternal mercy seat where we may abide in the presence of the living God and experience His love, grace, mercy, and fellowship. Jesus is the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ.
The sufferings of this life serve to bring us into fellowship with Him. They can teach us that eternal reality supersedes temporal reality. They can teach us to let go of "stuff" and to embrace our Heavenly, eternal Lord. They facilitate our learning to die to self and take up our cross to follow Him - being conformed to His death. The power of His resurrection is the power that makes the cross efficacious in our lives. Paul had the order correct:
That I may know Him,
and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings
being conformed to His death
that I might attain to the resurrection from the dead.
