3 WAYS CHRIST’S RESURRECTION CHANGES YOU by Andrew Menkis for Core Christianity
The accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are more than inspiring stories. They recount a historical event of life-altering magnitude. Jesus died and came back to life. The resurrection proves Jesus was sinless, for if he had sinned, death would have the right to hold him. It proves he is divine, for who but the creator of life has power over death? Truly human and truly divine, Christ is able to take on and die for the sins of humankind and to give sinners his righteousness in exchange for their unrighteousness. Because of who Christ is, the resurrection is an event, unlike any other in history, which has the power to fundamentally change us because it gives a new identity, purpose, and hope.
The Resurrection Gives You a New Identity
Chances are that you’ve been asked you if you are “born again,” but it’s probably unlikely that anyone has asked, “Are you resurrected?” This second question might seem kind of odd to ask someone, yet the Bible uses both the metaphor of rebirth and Christ’s resurrection as ways to describe the start of the Christian life.
Before we come to know Christ, the Bible describes us as spiritual corpses (Ephesians 2:1-2). The Bible does not diagnose humanity with a spiritual sickness; it pronounces us dead. We are totally cut off from relationship with God. The reason for our separation from God is not merely because of what we have done in sinning but because of who we are. Paul writes that we are “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). It is our sinful nature, not only the sins we commit, that render us guilty before God. In other words, our identity apart from Christ is sinner, spiritual corpse, object of God’s wrath. What we need is not a way to fix ourselves or a spiritual “medicine” to take. We need a miracle. We need a spiritual resurrection.
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The Gospel is such amazing news because it tells us that God has made a way for our identity to be completely changed and renewed. Paul puts it this way: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). When we put our faith in Christ, believing he died for our sins and rose from the grave, the Holy Spirit unites us to Jesus. We are connected with him in such a way that Paul can say that our sins have been nailed to the cross with him and the old man has died along with Jesus (Colossians 3:3). In like manner, we are united to Christ in his resurrection and we have been raised with him (Colossians 3:1). Our spiritual resurrection gives us a new identity. We are a new creation, a new man or woman with a new life, children of God, born again. With this new identity our lives are given purpose.
