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April 27 – LD 17, Day 5: Jesus Arose to Make Us Spiritually Alive
Saturday the 27th of April
in Heidelberg Catechism Meditations
Romans 6:4, “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.”
When the catechism asked what the profit of Christ’s resurrection is for us, they mention three things which are profitable. Now we focus on the second one, “we are also by His power raised up to a new life.”
There is an assumption here which is not flattering for us. That is, without Jesus we are spiritually dead. If we are going to become spiritually alive, Jesus had to rise from the dead and make us alive.
We have followed the reasoning of the catechism, which is opening up to us the reasoning of the Bible. If we are to be happy as Christians, we have to know the reality of our sinfulness. This has been explained to us as God’s judgment upon us because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve. He said, “The day thou eatest thereof (the fruit of the tree), thou shalt surely die.” From this sentence of death no human being can escape. There is only one way out of the prison of death. Jesus came to join us in this prison and made payment for our sins. God accepted His death as our substitute. But, we need more than that to make us happy. We need to be delivered from the experience of sin, we need to stop sinning and in holiness enjoy fellowship with God.
Jesus accomplished this by His resurrection from the dead.
He must needs die, but death must not consume Him. He must overcome death. The resurrection placed Him on the other side of death, and from the vantage point of victor, He comes by His Word and Spirit to make us spiritually alive. Quoted above, “…Like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
What a blessing this is for us. Sin makes life miserable, holiness makes us free. In the new life of Christ we live and die happily.
This life is not perfect nor sinless, no; rather it is the beginning of perfection.
As such it is also the beginning of heaven.
May God help us to understand the importance of Christ’s resurrection for us.
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