Resurrection Life

In John's Gospel (5.19-28 and 11.25, 26), Jesus makes a connection between the general Resurrection that shall occur at His second coming and the specific resurrection that occurs when He calls life into the spiritually dead. I started to think more about this tonight. Since Christ makes the connection it follows that there should also be a connection between that life to come and the eternal life we have now, that is, in some sense, we have a resurrection life right now. We have a token of the eschatological life. Of course, this doesn't mean that we are free from sinning and sickness, but something is different; it must be. I think I'm starting see what Riley has been after for sometime now. I'm not sure of all the implications yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing what those might be.

Further, Christ makes an emphatic point about His sovereignty in the bring about life. Since Christ makes this connection for us, espcially in relation to His resurrection of Lazarus, there is a connection between His calling forth of the physically dead and his calling forth the spiritually dead. The latter is just as efficatious as the former. When Christ speaks of that time that is now here "when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (5.25b) he means that his power to effect that resurrection is no less powerful and efficatious than that hour that "is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out..." (5.28-29a). Thus, His raising of Lazarus is no less a picture of spiritual resurrection than the coming physical resurrection. When He speaks life into a dead sinner, that sinner is brought to life. The dead are surely raised.