This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
—Acts 2:32 (cf. 2:24, 3:15)
This is an important truth: “This Jesus God raised.” It’s important for the obvious reason that there is no gospel without the resurrection, but it’s also important because it demonstrates the impossibility of any degree of synergy between God and man in salvation.
It’s a lesson we learn from Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, and from the resurrection of Lazarus: neither the bones nor Lazarus could give themselves life. Only the divine command could make “these bones live.” But nowhere is that truth demonstrated more absolutely than in the simple phrase “This Jesus God raised.”
Think about it: God raised him. Jesus didn’t rise by his own power. He laid there, in Dickensian terms, “dead as a doornail,” until God raised him. How, then, can any of us think we cooperated in any way with our own spiritual resurrection when not even Jesus, the God-man, could raise himself from the dead?
TrackBack URL: http://www.thirstytheologian.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2413
Share this post:
Buffer
Posted in: Acts
Link · 1 Comments · 0 TrackBacks
← Previous · Home · Next →
1 Comments:
#1 || 13·02·09··14:15 || Jonathan
But doesn't Jesus Himself say, in John 10:17-18, that He lays down His life that He might take it up again? It seems to me that these can be reconciled by the fact that Jesus did all of His works by His Father's authority, and by the unity of the Trinity. The Father raised Him up, but Jesus also raised Himself. I'm a Calvinist, but I don't think that verse serves as proof of it.