The Spiritual Meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection

in christianity •  6 years ago  (edited)

Explanation: This is letter written to one of my friends, who was writing a message on the distinction between Jesus' resurrection and Lazarus. I wrote this letter to tell him that there are not only physical death and resurrection but also spiritual death and resurrection we, Christians, all have to experience day by day.

Dear Brother M

I enjoyed reading your article.
I agree with you and am edified freshly by your pointing out that Jesus' resurrection is more excellent than Lazarus' resurrection because the first is the final victory over death, the latter just being temporary, thus making Jesus entitled to be called the Firstborn of the dead.
I think you successfully solved one puzzling problem in the Bible.

Let me just add some suggestions to this matter.

Let us go back to the episode of Jesus' raising Lazarus from the dead.
What is interesting to me here is that even before Jesus raised Lazarus, he identified himself with Resurrection, saying He is the Resurrection and the Life.
To me, this is very significant because it was before he himself went through crucifixion and resurrection.
How could he say that he was the resurrection itself even before his crucifixion? Isn't this illogical? Should not death precede resurrection?

I think the only way to solve this is to see resurrection not as an one-time event, but as a continuous and ever-lasting process.
Resurrection, I think, by its definition, subsumes the concept of Crucifixion. Resurrection is always the resurrection from the death, thus nullifying and overcoming it.
Resurrection is not just pure life or will to power, which many philosophers like Nietzsche tend to celebrate. Resurrection is the life overcoming death, being processed by death.

However, here, we need to talk about two kinds of death Christ went through.

First, I think there is weak death we all passively experience and don't want to go through. This death comes in the form of disease, suffering and many other weaknesses. This death is the result of man's sin, as the Scripture says, "Through one man's sin, death spreads to all mankind (Romans)", including even Jesus crucified on the cross.

However, there is another positive death which Jesus himself longed to experience and did experience everyday, and we Christians should aspire to experience this death. This second death is spiritual death which manifests itself in the absolute self-denial of carnal self, which strives to be independent from God and tries to be God.
Christ experienced both deaths. However, in Christ, two deaths are paradoxically related.

Christ of course experienced the first death when he died on the cross, bleeding like any normal human being in pain. Paul says Christ died in weakness yet lives by the power of God (2 Cor 13:4). He did die in weakness and suffered the pain shared by all sinful human beings to redeem them, for it was fit for Him to be perfected through these sufferings.
However, while he was experiencing the first death as the culmination of his earthly ministry, even though there would be another glorious culmination in the form of resurrection, he was also exercising his godly will everyday to experience the second positive self, the crucifixion of his independent will.

He, as the second person of the Trinity, was God himself and could do many supernatural things if he wanted. However, he did not use his powers aimlessly for himself. He was completely subject to his Father's will, completely surrendering his will to positive death so that His Father's will would be accomplished through him, which is the resurrection in principle.

The Son did not do his own works but what the Father was already doing. The Son did not speak his own words, except what the Father wanted Him to deliver. Even before he was about to go through the weak death, the first death, he again exercised himself to accept the second death, saying "Not My will, but Thine." So The Son was allowing the Father to express his divine life freely through the Son's obedient humanity. He was dying spiritually so that the Father would express his Life freely, which is resurrection.

Resurrection means the manifestation of God's indestructible life. Even before his crucifixion, Christ was dying everyday to allow God's divine life to express itself gloriously, which is a form of Resurrection. So even before his death, he was dying. And even before his resurrection, he was being resurrected everyday. I think the Son did this from Eternity to Eternity. As the Word of God and the Second Person of the Trinity, he must have obeyed His Father absolutely, denying his own will to express Father freely.

So the Son has been always dying to resurrect and has been experiencing resurrection from Eternity to Eternity. I think this is the more fundamental reason why he is called Resurrection, qualifying himself to be also called the firstborn of the dead.

In the Son, the second death, the positive death has pre-eminence over the first death, the negative death. Because He first denied himself, thus dying the spiritual death, he could accept the weak and physical death joyfully.

But has he been able to die the positive death by his pure self-will? I don't think so. The Son relied on Father's grace every moment of eternity to be strengthened enough to deny himself. We need grace to truly deny ourselves and I think Christ also needs Father's grace to deny himself. If He does not rely on Father's grace to deny himself, His self-denial will be too self-willed. Christ thus must have always been relying Father's divine life to die and thus to resurrect from eternity to eternity.

Christ is the Resurrection, itself, because he has been always dying to be resurrected, expressing Father's divine life, which is also identifiable with resurrection because it is life which cannot be defeated by death. The Son has been going from resurrection to resurrection throughout the eternity.

I believe Paul understood this mystery. He says in Philippians, "10 to know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,

11 if any way I arrive at the resurrection from among [the] dead."

10 τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ καὶ [a]κοινωνίαν παθημάτων αὐτοῦ, [b]συμμορφιζόμενος τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ,11 εἴ πως καταντήσω εἰς τὴν ἐξανάστασιν(extra-resurrection, literally, not a regular resurrection) [c]τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν.

Like Jesus, he did not experience the weak death first in the form of suffering. Paradoxically, he experienced the power of his Resurrection(ἀναστάσεως) first to empower himself to partake in the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, which also allows him to experience a higher-resurrection called, ἐξανάστασιν(extra-resurrection). Paul, being filled with the grace of Jesus, was going from resurrection to resurrection. He was empowered by the power of resurrection and was able to accept the death and got into a higher and more sublime form of resurrection.

Sorry for being so repetitive.
However, I had to do so to deliver subtle nuances of my thought.

My ideas are not unique, for I have been studying the theology of Witness Lee, a unknown Christian writer, who is my spiritual Father.

I hope my reply to stimulate a more excellent discussion about the subject matter.

Good bye.

O Lord, Thou art the Resurrection and Life. Strengthen us with your Life so that we might die to enter into a higher and more glorious life.

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