New life isn’t somewhere else.
A call to worship.
This call to worship1 proclaims that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not some isolated miracle that assures us of a future hope. It is the decisive beginning of the new creation in which we have already been gathered up, made alive, and renewed in union with the risen and ascended Lord.
Christ does not rise as a private individual but as the firstfruits, the firstborn, and the representative head of a new humanity. It is participatory. His resurrection is the objective ground and living source of ours.
We should not see salvation simply as pardon from sin, but as re-creation in Christ. It is a real transition from death to life, from the fallen course of Adamic existence to the Spirit-formed life of the age to come.
Christian obedience and holiness do not manufacture our resurrection life; they flow from it. That’s why the Apostle Paul uses language like being made alive, raised, seated, renewed, strengthened, and conformed.
Because God has bound us to Christ in the power of the Spirit, the future resurrection has already entered the present, and the church worships, suffers, and lives from a reality that has irrevocably begun in Jesus Christ.
Themes
New creation • Assurance • Made alive • Raised with Christ • Conformity to Christ • New humanity • Re-Creation • Good works • Obedience • Union with Christ • Resurrected life • Christ the firstborn
When will we be resurrected? It has already begun.
Scripture reading
Ephesians 2:1–10 2 Corinthians 4:16 Ephesians 3:16 1 Corinthians 15:20 Colossians 1:18 Romans 8:29
As we travels about with Paul, through the Book of Acts, we keep experiencing him preaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It seems that in modern times, the predominant preoccupation has been to emphasize the sacrificial and atoning death of Christ, and, as such, the resurrection is often eclipsed. But Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection are, of course, inseparable.
This call to worship invites us to see Christ’s resurrection not only as something that happened to Him, but as the beginning of the new life God has already given us in Him. Because Jesus is risen, the future has already begun, and we are being remade from the inside out.
Here are several passages about resurrection from across Paul’s letters.
You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus… We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. According to the riches of His glory, may He grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being. Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. Those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
Prayer
Brilliantly wise, richly merciful, graciously kind, and unconditionally loving Father in heaven, in Christ’s resurrection, You have placed an unbreakable bond between Him and us. In His resurrection, You have decreed and promised and guaranteed our resurrection. Because You have raised Jesus, You will raise us. And although this is true, it isn’t true in the sense that because You have raised Jesus — because of this isolated miracle from the past — we now have some evidence that You can also raise us sometime in the future. No. His resurrection is the beginning of all our resurrections, just like first fruits are the beginning of all that is harvested. In His resurrection, You have already begun fulfilling the promise that is our resurrection. When will we be resurrected? It has already begun. The age to come has already begun. The new creation has already dawned. The future has already started. And in this new creation, You have predestined us to be conformed to the image of Your resurrected Son. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man Adam, we now bear the image of the Heavenly Man, Jesus Christ. This is not a future truth — or some future reality. It is true now. You have already made us alive together with Christ, and You have already raised us up with Him, and You have already seated us with Him. We were once dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked. But, then, You, Father, who is rich in mercy, because of Your great love, made us alive, and brought us into union with Christ Himself and into union with His resurrection. And You have made us your workmanship. You have re-created us in Christ Jesus for good works, which You prepared beforehand, that we should instead walk in them. We once walked according to the course of this world. And we now walk according to a course You have prepared for us. How has this transition happened? You have made us alive with Christ by union with Him in his resurrection. And you have united us with Him as He right now is — resurrected and ascended. This is why our lives are alive with obedience. This is why we are filled with dynamic holy living, because You have radically changed us. We are resurrected and alive in Christ. We do not despair! Even if our outer self is undergoing decay and is perishing, our inner self is marked by resurrected life and is being renewed day by day by day. We are in Christ. You have united us to Him. So at the core of our inner being, in the deepest recesses of who we are — our inner self — we will never be more resurrected than we already are. In the name of Jesus Christ, the firstborn from the dead, together with Whom we have been made alive, together with Whom we have been raised up, together with Whom we have been seated in the heavenly places, Amen.
A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on November 5, 2023.