In light of the recent hoorah on the supposed tomb of Christ being discovered in Israel, it is good to consider how intimately the resurrection of Christ is connected to the outworking of God’s grace in our lives. We’ve arrived at the end of our “quoted review” of The Great Work of the Gospel: How We Experience God’s Grace, and we wrap up with a quote that points us to the purpose of tomorrow’s celebration and the very heart of living faith…the resurrection from the dead of the God-man Jesus Christ:
The resurrection also sharply defines what it must mean to have faith in Christ. Because Christ has been raised from the dead, we are not putting our faith in merely a historical event but in a living, death-conquering, and reigning Savior. Our faith is based on something in the past, but it is placed in One who is very much alive today. Notice how the apostle Paul speaks of faith in terms of a living Christ: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Paul is living by faith in the living Christ. And he prays that this would be our normative Christian experience: “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16-17)
The Great Work of the Gospel, p. 102
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