Reflection on God's Word

PUTTING EASTER BACK INTO THE GOSPEL

by Tim Thomas

March 28, 2005

Ephesian 1:19-23

I've heard a lot of different presentations of the Gospel message, the Good News of Jesus the Messiah, and they all seem to focus on the cross. It is a "Good Friday" Gospel being preached. But the message proclaimed by the apostles seems to be a different one. The message is one that puts at least as much emphasis on Jesus being raised from the dead as on Jesus dying on the cross. Just take a look at some of the verses dealing with the resurrection (2 Tim 2:8-9; 1 Thes 4:14; 1 Cor 6:14, 15:12-21; 2 Cor 4:14; 1 Pet 1:3; Rev 1:4-5). These verses tell us that Jesus's resurrection was proof that God had the power to back up His promises, and that He will raise us from the dead, too. The resurrection is the "Easter" Gospel.

I have to be honest with you, I struggle with understanding the full significance of Jesus being raised from the dead. Perhaps this is because I have been so conditioned by the message which tells us that Jesus had to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, so that by faith in Him, we would receive eternal life. There's nothing false about this message, but I'm wondering if we're missing something very significant by not emphasizing -- and not grasping -- the significance of Jesus rising from the dead. Perhaps our worldview is so different than that of first century believers that what was a significant issue for them -- that Jesus rising from the dead was an answer to -- is no long a significant issue for us. But I suspect the deficiency is in us -- that we haven't sufficiently grasped the significance of His resurrection, and what that means for providing hope in our lives. The Good Friday Gospel tells us that we have forgiveness of sins through Jesus's death. The Easter Gospel tells us that no matter how bad things get on earth, we will get to spend eternity in a place filled with joy. If your life is filled with hardship and pain, that is good news. There is a bumper sticker that proclaims, "This world is not my home." Our problem in receiving the Easter Gospel is that we act like the world is our home, and our life on earth is all there ever will be.

The passage we want to look at today is one of the more difficult passages in the Bible to grasp at any depth. You can tell a difficult passage when you start reading commentaries that normally present a simple interpretation, and instead you see a very long section covering the many different interpretations commentators over the centuries have made.

As this passage begins, we see that great power was exerted in raising Jesus from the dead. It is difficult for humans to tell how much power God exerts in doing the various things He does. I have considered the power it must have taken to create the universe, both in its breadth and in its complexity, and am in awe. But the Apostle Paul chooses to focus on the power that it took to raise Jesus from the dead. Since we do not comprehend the details of what it takes to create the universe or resurrect the dead, we cannot weigh the relative difficulty of each -- both are beyond our powers.

Here is another difficult question: was it more difficult to raise Jesus from the dead, or Lazarus? Why should the Gospel not focus on Jesus's power to raise Lazarus from the dead -- or any of the others that Jesus or the apostles raised from the dead? Part of the answer is that all the others came back to life, but then eventually died again. Jesus, on the other hand, came back to life, then ascended visibly into heaven without dying. Another part of the answer is that the others were "normal" once they came back to life. While there were some normal things about Jesus when he rose again -- you could touch him, he could talk to people, and he could eat -- there were some unusual things about him, such as being able to appear suddenly in a room (at least twice he appeared to the disciples who were locked inside a room in John 20), or to disappear while people were looking at him (see the Emmaus story in Luke 24). Finally, we might suggest that while the prayers of people together with the power of God were responsible for raising Lazarus and the others from the dead, no one claimed to have raised Jesus from the dead. This was credited to God alone.

Paul's point is that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him in heaven will also raise us from the dead and bring us to our heavenly home. That is to say, it is a sure thing that we will be with Jesus in heaven one day. As mentioned in the comments on the preceding set of verses, Paul was praying that the believers in Ephesus would understand the great power God has available to exert on our behalf, with the resurrection being a significant example of that power, but not by any means the only use of His power for us.

Paul goes on to emphasize Jesus's current standing. He is at God's right hand -- the place of honor and authority -- and the power and authority he now possesses is above all other powers and authorities in the earthly or spiritual realms. God the Father has delegated to God the Son, Jesus, all the authority He possessed, which is authority over everything imaginable.

Furthermore, God has appointed Jesus as head of the Church. If He has authority over everything else, then of course He should be head of the Church. But the reason for the special emphasis on being head of the Church is the difference in relationship. We have a vital and intimate relationship with Jesus. While Jesus has authority over everything, we do not see everything in willing and complete submission to Jesus. After all, Satan and his forces still are in operation, and there are many people who have not submitted to Jesus's authority.

Jesus and the Church are so intertwined that the relationship is described as the relationship of the head and its body. They are joined together and are one. It is also true that the body is an expression of the head. We think thoughts, but express them by putting them into action through our bodies. So it is with Christ and the Church. We are Jesus's "fullness" -- that is to say, we believers in some very real sense "complete" Jesus. It is not that Jesus is somehow defective, it is just that we are His expression of Himself. The character and heart of Jesus is revealed in us, the Church. At times this is really hard to accept, given some of the unholy things believers do, sometimes in God's name. But the good and right and holy things that we do, those are the things which reveal His fullness in us.

Perhaps another aspect of how the Church completes Jesus is in the sense of a wife completing the husband. This is not meant to say that a man or woman cannot be complete when they are unmarried, because I do believe that many are called to singleness, and that they are complete in Christ. I do mean, however, that all of us have weaknesses, and that our spouses often are suited to fill in the areas in which we are weak. In Revelation 21, we see that at the proper time, we will become the Bride of Christ, signifying a permanent, intimate union with our Lord.

At the end of verse 23, we are told that Jesus "fills all in all". This seems to say that God is everywhere and in everything. There is no place anyone can go to hide from Him or get away from Him. While Jesus fills everything, which would necessarily include the Church, it is the Church which is His fullness. This is saying that while He is in everything, and therefore to some extent everything expresses something about Jesus, it is the Church which is His complete and most revealing expression.