Monthly Archives: January 2010

The Ministry of Magic is in charge of Hogwarz

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Students were evacuated from Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School in the Chollas View neighborhood Friday afternoon after an 11-year-old student brought a personal science project that he had been making at home to school, authorities said.

Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, said the student had been making the device in his home garage. A vice principal saw the student showing it to other students at school about 11:40 a.m. Friday and was concerned that it might be harmful, and San Diego police were notified.

The school, which has about 440 students in grades 6 to 8 and emphasizes technology skills, was initially put on lockdown while authorities responded.

Luque said the project was made of an empty half-liter Gatorade bottle with some wires and other electrical components attached. There was no substance inside.

When police and the Metro Arson Strike Team responded, they also found electrical components in the student’s backpack, Luque said. After talking to the student, it was decided about 1 p.m. to evacuate the school as a precaution while the item was examined. Students were escorted to a nearby playing field, and parents were called and told they could come pick up their children.

A MAST robot took pictures of the device and X-rays were evaluated. About 3 p.m., the device was determined to be harmless, Luque said.

Luque said the project was intended to be a type of motion-detector device.

Both the student and his parents were “very cooperative” with authorities, Luque said. He said fire officials also went to the student’s home and checked the garage to make sure items there were neither harmful nor explosive.

“There was nothing hazardous at the house,” Luque said.

The student will not be prosecuted, but authorities were recommending that he and his parents get counseling, the spokesman said. The student violated school policies, but there was no criminal intent, Luque said.

“There will be no (criminal) charges whatsoever,” Luque said.

Police and fire officials also will not seek to recover costs associated with responding to the incident, the spokesman said.

Luque said both the student and his parents were extremely upset.

“He was very shaken by the whole situation, as were his parents,” Luque said.

The school is located on Carolina Lane near Hilltop Drive.

Adjacent Gompers Charter Middle School was not affected during the incident, police Sgt. Ray Battrick said.

Millennial Middle School opened in fall 2008. It is part of the San Diego Unified School District.

via Science project prompts SD school evacuation – SignOnSanDiego.com. Hat Tip: Boing Boing

Comments:

  • Thomas Edison would have been jailed long before he invented anything. As a creative force in the world, American culture is dead. Genius will only be defined as deviancy outside the darlings of Liberalism. Fear is being nurtured and promoted and it will choke out creativity.
  • The fact this happened in a magnet school with “Tech” in its name is another fulfilled Orwell prophecy: the name denotes the opposite of what it will actually promote.
  • Notice how every civil tax-feeder took this bizarre suspicion with grave seriousness; you can’t blame this on one idiotic decision-maker.  How can anyone think that an empty container can explode?
  • Note that the story reports on the decision not to file false charges against the victims of harassment, and to not charge them for their ill-treatment, without any sign of how ludicrous it would be to do so.  We live at the mercy of our bureaucratic masters and any time they don’t destroy us, we must see them as magnanimous.
  • There is no fix for the United States.  If people are such idiotic cowards on such a wide scale, there is no way to craft a regulation that will dictate sanity.  The only thing one can do is “be the change one wants to see in the world” and try to teach people disciplines of rationality when they are open to our influence.  I don’t see any quick exit from the coming night.

How does his life save us from wrath?

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From Romans 5:

9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

N. T. Wright admits the two-stage structure of Paul’s argument here, but then refers back to propitiation in Romans 3 to explain how we are saved from wrath.  This essentially destroys the “much more” in Paul’s argument.  Schreiner refers to the intercession of Christ mentioned in Romans 8.

Romans 8, however, mentions many things, and the distance between the mention of intercession and this passage leaves me unconvinced that Paul can only be thinking of the intercession.

(Sidenote: Many times the way I hear Protestants describe justification leaves me wondering if the fact of Christ’s ongoing intercession is a challenge rather than a blessing–much as I remember seminary students wondering why Christ needs to continue to forgive us.)

The promise that God will “much more” save us from wrath by the new life of Christ is followed immediately by a promise of abounding grace that outstrips the condemnation that results from Adam, and then a description of how the new life of Christ empower our new obedience (Romans 6).  This abounding and new obedience stands in stark contrast to the description of how the world is going to Hell in a handbasket (Romans 1.18-3.20).  God has responded to sin in the nations by giving over the nations to more sin.  This downward spiral has now been reversed.  Now that Jesus has shed his blood as a propitiation for sin, God can, through the new life of Christ, bring the nations to new obedience.  The world movement from wrath to wrath has been replaced with an even more powerful dynamic from obedience to holiness.

Go to Haiti and tell me about the “two kingdoms”

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I hate admitting it when David Brooks is right, but he is right about Haiti and the impossibility of institutional solutions.

Haiti needs the Great Commission.  Somehow they have been allowed to have a voodoo dystopia.  It needs to end.  And it is going to take the real Great Commission.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Of course, we need it in the financial industry too. And everywhere else.

Israel was not a huge object lesson

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(What follows is basically a repeat of this post–which is true of many of my posts on Romans)

Peter asks, “Why didn’t the Son come in the flesh just outside Eden?”

I’m not happy with Peter’s answer. I suspect that it would have been true had Adam not sinned. Then, I think, the incarnation would have been the climax of the first creation, the wedding feast after the long courtship.

But sin puts us more in a Samson situation, where the husband marries the bride before he can welcome her into a new home. He has to live elsewhere and only visit from time to time until the inheritance is ready.

In other words, to redeem us from sin, what was supposed to happen at the beginning of history was brought back to near the beginning of history (yes we are still near the beginning of history). The paltry few millennia were only inserted because they were necessary.

Why were they necessary. God needed to increase sin in order to condemn it.

Paul writes, “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.” The prevailing interpretation is that God needed to teach us what sin is, so he gave us the law to define it.

But even though knowledge as in awareness is part of how the law-sin dynamic works (Romans 7) that is now how we should interpret what Paul means. His point is not that we simply learned about sin, but that sin itself grew and spread through the Law. Knowledge here means direct experience like the way Adam knew Eve.

Why did God need sin to grow?

God does not arbitrarily choose the Day of Judgment (though we can never really know when the time is right). There has to be an objective reason for him to say “This is the right time” (c.f. Romans 5.6). He sent the Flood when time ran out. He refused to judge the Canaanites in Abraham’s day because they had not reached that point yet, but did judge Sodom and Gomorrah because they had.

Israel was dealt with patiently, judged, and then restored by grace (Judges to Kingdom, Kingdom to Empire). Each time they were restored they fell harder. “Now the law came in to increase the trespass.” Why? Just to be God’s flannelgraph about sin and judgment? I don’t think so.

The point was that God needed the “right time” or else he could not set forth Christ as a propitiation of his wrath. But because he sent Jesus at the right time, at the time of wrath, he was able to condemn sin in the flesh of Jesus (Romans 8.3).

Jesus couldn’t have been sent at any time and to any place or incarnated in any other culture.  If the Son of God had become Malaysian and drowned in a storm that would not have made any sense or had any significance in propitiating the wrath of God.  The history of Israel with the Law was all a necessary condition.

The history of the world from Eden to Bethlehem wasn’t flannelgraph or foreplay–it was the preparation for a Judgment Day in which the Son would be there to take the verdict on Himself.

Paragraphs in Romans

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Someone some day needs to investigate the psycho-sociological ramifications of cultures without paragraph breaks.  But in the meantime, here are some from the ESV for Romans 1:

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

But here is a counter offer:

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.

I want you to know, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

This second structure has the advantage, I think, of preventing us from forgetting that this is a letter written to the Romans rather than a piece of theology with an personal address tacked on the front of it.  It also makes us more open to considering the possibility that “the wrath of God” is not all human history in abstract, but rather the place in history that Paul and his readers have reached and which the Gospel is meant to deal with.

So is there prayer in LOTR or not?

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YouTube – J.R.R. Tolkien reads …. ‘Elbereth Gilthoniel’.

It has always surprised me how “secular” Middle-earth is, but I think I said in my book (which I’m in the middle of revising) that there is no prayer in the story.  I’m not the only one to make that observation, but this song keeps bothering me.  Does it count as an exception to the rule?

(Has anyone else ever wondered if Stephen R. Donaldson’s first Thomas Covenant trilogy was an attempt to wrestle with questions about providence that LOTR raises?)

The problems that start with Romans 1.18ff

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I mean the problems for interpreters of the book:

  1. 1.18ff is referring only to pagans and what they do with the “light of nature” or “general revelation.”
  2. Those who are “without law” are completely ignorant of all commandments; they have never heard them.
  3. The “work of the Law” written on the heart must only refer to the nag of suppressed conscience against general revelation.
  4. The statement that God “will render to each one according to his works” must be divorced from every covenantal context in which such a statement is used. This can only be hypothetical works righteousness.
  5. The Gentiles who become regarded as circumcised are entirely hypothetical of a sinless person.  Paul does not believe that any Gentile has ever or will ever come to be regarded this way.  Why he even brings up the possibility, when all he really wants to say is that no Israelite ever continues to be regarded as circumcised, is left something of a mystery.

Some of these ideas are improbable.  Others are impossible.

Romans 2.26

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“So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?”

Ruth did this and she was grafted into Israel to become an ancestor to Jesus.

Though it was pre-law (but post-circumcision), Tamar kept the precepts of some sort and was declared more righteous than a patriach of Israel.  Rahab did it and was ingrafted while Achan was cut off.

Uriah the Hittite is in this class, though his faith in David was misplaced.  Thankfully, one greater than David is faithful and will raise him from the dead.

Namaan did this while the king of Israel assumed that Syria was trying to start a fight.

This is not a hypothetical situation.

Notes on the “scary stuff” in Romans 9

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From Romans 9:

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea…

Ultimately, there is great mystery and terror in contemplating the infinity and power of God.  The fact that he knows and plans all things, the fact that he “works all things according to the counsel of his will,” cannot be escaped.  Trying to solve the problems this seems to bring by making the ultimate plan to be what falls together from the conglomeration of human choices, simply transfers mystery and terror from God to “reality,” “the universe,” or some other title for the metaphysical crap shoot that results when we make ultimate reality impersonal rather than personal.

However, many of the problems that are perceived to follow from this passage do not actually do so.  I think the issues that are raised against the “calvinism” of this passage usually relate either to the nature of human beings or to God’s character.  Paul says little that helps us with the issue of human nature except in quoting God that, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” This implies that all people are in need of mercy and are not relating to God as free agents.  Even though God’s plan predates their ability to do anything good or bad, these are fallen beings and God’s decision about whom to show mercy is the prerogative of a king dealing with treasonous subjects.  God has not caused evil in this image, but is dealing with evil in different ways, all of which are just.

Which brings us to how this passage affects our perception of God’s character.

God is not as glorified by meting out wrath and punishment as he is by bestowing grace and reconciliation and blessing.  Contra Van Til, there is no “equal ultimacy” here.  The reason for “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” is stated: “in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles”

But wait.  Doesn’t the text say that God wanted “to show his wrath and to make known his power”?  So he wants both justice and mercy and we are back to equal ultimacy.

But Paul doesn’t say that he punished the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.  He says that he endured them with patience.  How did enduring them with patience “show his wrath and make known his power”?  Paul has just quoted about Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

This is about Jesus and the cross.

What is Romans constantly saying is now to be proclaimed in all the earth?  The Gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Egypt was struck with plagues (including darkness) as a result of Pharaoh’s sin.  What happened as a result of Israel’s sin?  Jesus was cursed and even plunged into darkness.  Pharaoh and Egypt’s firstborn sons were killed, but in Israel Jesus the firstborn was killed.

Paul goes on in his argument in Romans 9 to write about how Israel has

stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

The sin was rejecting and killing Jesus, which precisely showed God’s wrath and–in the wake of the resurrection, the Great Commission, and Pentecost–made God’s power known.

Whatever we can and should properly infer about God’s plan in relation to those who persist in unbelief from Romans 9, we have to realize that Paul does not know that the “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” are necessarily going to persist in it.  Having stated that God “has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills,” he goes on to argue in chapters 10 and 11 for a grand strategy in softening them up, concluding that only “a partial hardening has come upon Israel.”

And here again we see the problem of “equal ultimacy” in which numbers don’t matter as long as God saves some sinners and damns the rest to his own glory.  Paul doesn’t want us to think that way.  “Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!” “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”

And then, in the conclusion of this great argument that spans from chapter 9-11, we find that salvation is to spread to all:

For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Of course, we know from Paul and elsewhere in Scripture that not every individual has been or will be saved from the ultimate wrath of God.  In trying to figure out how this relates to God’s sovereignty, it makes sense to look at Romans 9.  But we need to realize that Paul is still continuing his argument that grace is to abound all the more than sin ever did.

Postscript:

The description “prepared for destruction” does not need to be interpreted as an absolute prophecy but as a statement about what will happen if they continue–if they remain hardened rather than only partially.  For example, Romans 2: “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

Are these vessels prepared for destruction or vessels that might later be softened?

Resurrection Means Royalty & Rule: An Easter Sermon

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Acts 13:

26 “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. 27 For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. 28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. 32 And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, 33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,

“‘You are my Son,

today I have begotten you.’

34 And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,

“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’

35 Therefore he says also in another psalm,

“‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’

36 For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, 37 but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. 38 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything 39 from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. 40 Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:

41 “‘Look, you scoffers,

be astounded and perish;

for I am doing a work in your days,

a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’”

A great deal could be said about this passage, but I won’t be saying it.  If I was preaching through Acts I would want to expound on each paragraph here.  But on this Easter Sunday I am preaching a topical sermon rather than so much an expositional sermon—the topic, obviously, being the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.

But while we won’t look at every detail of this passage this morning, please notice the prevailing theme in this declaration that Jesus has been raised from the dead.  Notice that Paul does not talk about any general promise of the resurrection, but singles out promises made to and through King David.

Briefly put, resurrection here and elsewhere is a act by which one is declared or made a king.  It is a coronation, an installation to office.  And it is not for himself alone that Jesus was raised, but for all those connected to him.  Remember Paul’s prayer for the Church in Ephesians that they would come to know

what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

When we who believe confess that Jesus is Lord we are saying something about not just Jesus, but about ourselves as well.  As I have said before, the confession that “Jesus is Lord” is something like saying, “My daddy owns this place,” or “My father just got elected President.”  But to say it right we need a more traditional picture.  To say Jesus is Lord is to say, “my older brother is the king and I am royalty.”

“Jesus is Lord,” is appealed to as the basic statement of faith in a couple of Paul’s letter.  But those aren’t just words.  Believers are supposed to believe something when they say them.  Paul gives us not only words but the meaning in Romans 10.9: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

When you confess that Jesus is Lord, you are referring to a royal office to which he attained by the resurrection of the dead.

1. VINDICATION & AUTHORITY.

And that means both vindication and authority.  Justification and the power of judgment are both included in the new status God gives us through our union with Christ by faith alone.  Daniel saw a vision of one like the Son of Man given a throne and an angel interpreted that the saints, after being persecuted, would be given a verdict in their favor.  Now that is translated in our Bibles as given a favorable verdict.  Being delivered from oppressors and given dominion was God’s declaration over his people—“Not Guilty.”  This promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ who suffered the ultimate persecution and curse and was publicly shown to be in the right by his resurrection.

But Daniel’s vision also shows that the verdict is embodied in a new kingdom.  And this is even included in the words describing the justification of the saints.  The Aramaic states that the saints will be “given judgment.”  It could be taken to mean not only that they would be declared righteous, but that they themselves would be given the power of judgment.  In fact, in Revelation 20 that vision is referred to again when the saints are said to be given rule over the earth.  That is what we have in Christ’s resurrection—righteousness and royal reign.  We here today, farmers and mothers and teachers and students and children and others all rule in Christ.

Think about what a complete vindication this is for us.  Adam and Eve were put over creation.  They were, if you will, placed at the top of the world (There were four world-rivers that came from the Garden of Eden and water runs downhill).  They were not yet as powerful as they could be.  They were to take dominion over creation.  Yet they never fulfilled their royal charter.  Instead of trusting God to deliver to them all good things at their proper time, they believed that God was holding them down and sided with the Serpent’s slanders against God.

As a result of their disobedience, these heirs to the throne of the world became slaves rather than king and queen.  They became slaves to creation and had to work by sweat in order to get their food.  They became slaves to sin and from that point it became natural for them to sin.  Finally, they became slaves to death and ultimate judgment, destined for eternal punishment rather than for royalty.

And now all that is reversed.  The sentence of condemnation has been overturned because there is now no condemnation in Jesus Christ, the second Adam.  Thus Paul contrasts Adam and Christ in this way—Romans 5.17: If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. You would expect Paul to say that once death reigned so now life reigns.  But that is not what he says.  Rather, he states that once death reigned and now we reign.

Our vindication is not simply some prisoner being released from his cell to pursue a life of no concern to the court.  Our justification, due to God’s gracious sending of his Son and his faithful work, is more like a law student who was put in prison but then released and given a place on the Supreme Court.

2. Sanctification

Now what does it mean that we, normal human beings to all appearances, have been given a royal office in Christ.  Well first of all it means we are no longer slaves to sin.  And it establishes us in a mandate that, just as Adam and Eve were to subdue creation, so we are to subdue sin in the parts of our selves where it resides.

That is why the Gospel not only promises life in Christ but it also makes demands on us.  In fact, our status as Christians means that the Bible can severely reprove us and challenge us to live holy lives.  When an emperor sets up a king over a territory, that king has much freedom and authority, but he is supposed to obey the one who gave him that authority.  In fact, because he acts as the emperor’s representative, it is a terrible thing for him to act in a wicked way.

Thus our authority in the resurrected Christ gives us power for and demands of us holy living.  Paul after saying in Romans five that now we reign in life rather than death reigning in sin, tells us in Romans 6 that we must use this authority to live lives pleasing to God.    He writes, “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.”  And he goes on:  “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

So Christ’s resurrection mean that we, who are united to Christ by faith, can live new lives to God.  And that’s exactly what Paul goes on to command Christians to do.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.  Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Easter is our declaration of independence from sin.  We have, in Christ, been brought into a new creation.  And just as Adam and Eve were told to take dominion in the first creation, so we are told to use the new authority we have in Christ by his resurrection.

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

3. CORPORATE WORSHIP & PRAYER.

But our resurrection authority which we have in Christ means more than simply the power of a holy life on the part of each one of us.  It means that together we have access to God’s very throne.  Indeed we are God’s councilors who have access to his throne room.  We have this because Jesus offered himself up to the Father and the Father received him publicly by raising him from the dead.

Thus, those of us who have been raised with Christ have access to his very throne in public worship.  And in prayer we have the king’s ear.

The resurrection was an act of worship.  Think of the sacrificial system.  The sacrificial animal is slain and its blood is displayed to God on the altar.  That was Jesus on Good Friday.  He was killed and his blood poured out on the ground for our sins.  But then the animal is transformed and goes up to God, if you will, as smoke.  That is the resurrection and ascension of Jesus in a cloud.  That’s why, in Revelation 4 and 5, we see a vision from the perspective of heaven in which Jesus suddenly appears before the throne as a Lamb that had been slain.

So just as the saints under the Old Covenant had worshiped God through that process of slaying an animal and offering it up to God, so Jesus climactically fulfills such worship with his own ultimate act of worship, offering his very self to God.  The resurrection is God’s acceptance of Christ and we see as a result, in Revelation 5, that the saints are renewed in worship together.  They sing a new song.  Because we are united to Christ we are accepted in him.  And these saints, incidentally, are described as wearing crowns.  They have throne room access because they are royalty.

Thus we can worship God with boldness because we have an advocate raised for us to God’s presence.  We can be Royal council members because we have been raised in Christ.

4. PRIVILEGE THAT MUST NOT BE REJECTED.

All of this must be received by faith.  We did not see Jesus raised.  We have to believe God’s Word.  We have not yet been raised from the dead.  We must trust in God’s gospel promises.  We walk by faith and not by sight.

And that means that we must be careful to respond to the what we have heard.  If we believe our eyes rather than our ears we might think God’s vindication is not worth having, that holy living is not really possible, and that corporate worship is only as important as the good feelings that result from it.

But none of that is true.  Rather, the Easter story is true.  God really did raise Jesus from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection proves and makes possible the fact that all things will work together to good for those who love God.  We are kings

I recently heard of a missionary pastor in a pagan land whose church shared the Gospel with a young woman.  Now she is in a bind.  She may lose her husband and children because he has embraced the good news that God sent His Son to die for our sins and be raised for our justification.  Loyalty to Christ will cost her more than any of us have ever had to suffer.

How can she be faithful to Christ in those circumstances?  Because she really believes that God has provided blessing for her that are more than she could ever ask or think.  Because she really believes that God raised Jesus her Lord from the dead.

God has given His Son up for us and has exalted us in him.  In Christ we have resurrection.  In Christ we are raised as kings.  In Christ we have justification.  In Christ we have sanctification.  In Christ we have access to His presence.  Everyday we need to learn a little bit more how much we should value what God has given to us.  Everyday we need to live in a manner that is appropriate for those who have been raised in Christ.