The Resurrection of the World

Easter Sunday 2024

Introduction

Two thousand years ago, a man who had been wickedly betrayed by the religious authorities, and murderously crucified by the Roman civil authorities, did the unthinkable by rising from the dead. Not only did this undo their wicked plan, it overthrew the wickedness underneath all wicked plans. This was God’s plan from the beginning, and the Lord Jesus knew that this was the plan from the beginning.

And so when Jesus took His life up again, He was taking up absolute dominion. A man who dies and comes back to life again in history is the absolute Lord of that history. And this has enormous ramifications. 

The Text

“But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Romans 8:11; cf. Phil. 3:21).

“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:18-23).

Summary of the Text

Not only did Jesus take up His life again, but He did this in the power of the Spirit. The Spirit raised up Jesus from the dead (Rom. 8:11). Paul’s point here is that the Spirit who accomplished this extraordinary thing is the same Spirit who dwells within each Christian. The Spirit who did this great work once indwells the believer now, and that indwelling is itself a promise and commitment. That Spirit will quicken “your mortal bodies.” So the focal point of the promise is the body which is indwelt, not some other body. Note that the Spirit is going to do something to the mortal bodies of these Roman believers. The reference is to the bodies that they had then, but which are now dead and clean gone. The Spirit is going to raise those mortal bodies. It does not say He will give them different bodies up in Heaven. It is not just that the Spirit is given as an earnest payment. This vile body (Phil. 3:21) is the counter upon which the earnest payment is laid down. This body is where the promise is made.  

And then, just a few verses down from this, Paul teaches us to compare our present state with our future state. Take all our current trials, afflictions, suffering, and woes, and they are not even worth comparing to the glory that is coming, a glory that will be revealed in us (v. 18). So this present time is being compared to a future time. All creation has an earnest expectation that it is longing for, and that longing is for the manifestation of the sons of God (v. 19). What does that mean? It refers to the general resurrection of the dead, at the end of history.

This created order was subjected to vanity, not because that was greatly desired by the creation itself, but rather because of God’s mysterious reasons—He is the one who bound up the creation “to vanity” so that this created order would learn to long in hope (v. 20). When the sons of God are manifested fully at their final adoption (e.g. the general resurrection), then the creation itself will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God (v. 21). This creation is pregnant with resurrection, and groans and travails in its labor (v. 22). She groans and travails in pain [synodino, birth pangs], longing for the delivery of a new order. There are three that groan all together—the Spirit does (v. 26), the creation does (v. 22), and we who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan (v. 23). All of these groans are teleological—they are aimed at one thing, which is our final adoption in the resurrection. We groan toward that final adoption (Eph. 1:5), which is to say, the redemption of our bodies (v. 23).

Hyper-Partial Preterism?

Now you have been taught by us that many of the prophecies in the Bible that are popularly assigned to the end of the world are actually prophecies about the end of Jerusalem and the Judaic aeon, a fulfillment which happened in 70 A.D. This is quite true regarding many such prophecies (e.g. Matt. 24:29), but there are some who have fallen into the trap of thinking that “if one’s good, then two’s better.” They consequently move all biblical prophecies into that category, a position which is variously called hyper-preterism, or full preterism. The perspective we teach is called partial preterism, although I must confess that I was recently called a hyper-partial preterist, which is what might be called an oxymoronic and meaningless taunt.

Now the full preterist position does not just alter the timing of a few things, but rather alters the entire architecture of biblical faith, to such an extent that it has to be called a different faith altogether. For example: physical death is not a result of the fall, Christ’s bodily resurrection was the only one that will ever happen (the sole exception), sin remains an eternal feature of time, history has no telos point, we don’t go forward, but rather when we die we just go “upstairs,” and many other heretical distinctives. These are two completely distinct systems of thought, which is why full preterism is to be rejected as heretical.

But the systems are so different that this actually needs to be acknowledged in both directions—the rejection ought to be mutual. If full preterism were correct, virtually all of orthodox theology would need to be written off. The only reason they don’t do this is because that would be off-putting to potential recruits, and they really need to fish in orthodox waters (Acts 20:29-31).

All the glorious promises of Romans 8 that we just considered would have to be considered as having been fulfilled in the first century. To which we should say . . . this is it? The glory that has been revealed in us in the here and now of this mundane world has overwhelmed all the afflictions of God’s people prior to that time? This is the glory that Paul was talking about? Somehow it makes me think of that old Gahan Wilson cartoon . . .

The Hope of This World

Faithful Jews knew that there was going to be a resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The Pharisees held to this belief, while the Sadducees denied it (Acts 23:8). Martha was a good representative of this faith, as when she confessed to the Lord that she knew that Lazarus was going to be raised eventually, at the last day (John 11:24). This is the basic structure of faith—this decrepit world is nevertheless pregnant with glory, and the day of delivery will eventually come. God in His mercy determined to give us a foretaste of this final glory by raising up Christ, the first fruits of that final consummation, and to do this in the middle of human history. This testifies to us that what happened to Him will also happen to us, and what will happen to us will consequently happen to the entire created order. The Spirit has been given to us, and He was given to us as an earnest payment (1 Cor. 1:22; 5:5). “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:14). The redemption of the purchased possession is the general resurrection of the dead. And an earnest payment is something that the purchaser forfeits if the purchase doesn’t go through. God promises us everything, He commits everything, including Himself.

So as we commemorate the resurrection hope of Easter, doing so to the end of the world, one of the corollaries is that there will be an end of the world.