Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Resurrections before the Cross”. A good study on the title’s investigation. There were resurrections before the cross. Some would maintain that all resurrections must be purchased by the death, resurrection and life of Christ. As if Christ purchased His right to forgive us and raise us from the dead. With this reasoning, those who died prior to Christ’s resurrection, died believing the promissory death of Christ before the fact of it. This concept seems a little “off” to me. As if Christ’s death was some legal thing that the Father accepted even before the actual event. Hmmmm???? Strange interpretation, to me. That does insult to the very plain statement by Paul, that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself…” (2 Corinthians 5:19). God the Father did not need the Son to die in order to forgive us nor to be reconciled to us (we needed to be reconciled to Him). As EGW so wisely states in Steps to Christ; “(Christ’s) great sacrifice was not made in order to create in the Father's heart a love for man, not to make Him willing to save. No, no! ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son.’ John 3:16. The Father loves us, not because of the great propitiation, but He provided the propitiation because He loves us. Christ was the medium through which He could pour out His infinite love upon a fallen world. ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.’ 2 Corinthians 5:19. God suffered with His Son.” (Steps to Christ pg. 13). So how best to interpret OT faith and any before-crucifixion resurrections?
The purpose of the cross was never to be a means by which the Father was changed from unforgiving to forgiving; from retributive justice to merciful loving; from critical Judge to uncritical Father. God is forgiving, merciful, loving and our uncritical Father. He did not need His Son to die in order to make Him thus. The Son did not die to change the Father but to change you and me. The cross shows us the Father so that we would change our minds about Him and turn away from our self-destructive path; and turn toward our loving, forgiving Father and Home. “All heaven suffered in Christ's agony; but that suffering did not begin or end with His manifestation in humanity. The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God” (Education pg. 263). The cross demonstrates to us the Father, the Son, and all of heaven. Their love for sinners, the pain of sin… carried by all since the “fall”.
This explains the very possibility of resurrection and even faith before the cross. The cross is a demonstration of God. A demonstration that could’ve been seen in the OT… and it was seen… by a few. The very model of faith in the NT is Abraham, an OT patriarch. He did not have faith in the plan of salvation (so-called). He had faith in His Father. He saw God as He is. “Abraham learned of God the greatest lesson ever given to mortal. His prayer that he might see Christ before he should die was answered. He saw Christ; he saw all that mortal can see, and live. By making an entire surrender, he was able to understand the vision of Christ, which had been given him. He was shown that in giving His only-begotten Son to save sinners from eternal ruin, God was making a greater and more wonderful sacrifice than ever man could make.” (Desire of Ages pg.469).
Abraham saw God… as He is… like Christ. And if one in the OT saw God as He is, any could’ve seen God as He is… and some did. Hence the faith to resurrect the dead. Faith in God as He is… like Christ. A love and restoration from sin that is visibly seen in the restoration from death. Praise God for revealing Himself in the Son, that we may become the very children He created us to be. Death cannot hold us, because sin cannot hold us. Death is the natural consequence of sin… “sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (James 1:15). Resurrection is assured, even as freedom from sin is assured... if we will.
With brotherly love,
Jim