Denver Seminary

WHAT IS YET TO COME The church has always included the future return of Christ within its field of vision. At its best, it has done so without denying or "escaping" the present. Christians firmly believe—and hope— that there is more of God's redemptive work, in and through Jesus Christ, yet to come. 5 The final words of the next-to-last verse of the Bible are "Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20). Most often, we use the word hope to express desire or longing—something we want to come to pass. In the Christian tradition, hope is something more. To be sure, it includes a posture of desire or longing, but it speaks of desire and longing accompanied by deep confidence—indeed certainty—that that which is desired will come to pass. The late New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd notes, "The Christian hope, for Paul, is not a theory or a speculation; it was a certain fact which in turn rested upon another event in history—the resurrection of Jesus from the dead." 6 The apostle Peter also gives voice to this certain hope when he writes of God the Father, "In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade" (1 Pet. 1:3–4). Whatever hope Christians have is grounded in—stands or falls with—the resurrection to life of Jesus Christ. As Paul writes, "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Cor. 15:14). And Jesus was raised not simply to life, but to a unique and all-important kind of life: eternal life. As Ladd observes, "Jesus' resurrection was … the emergence within history of the life of the world to come." 7 Jesus was not restored to life only to eventually die again. He was raised to a unique quality of life, eternal life. That is the only reason Christians can, and should, say, "Come, Lord Jesus." Furthermore, it is important to note that eternal life includes physical, bodily life. Indeed, this often is an emphasis in the Christian proclamation of the Resurrection. Jesus was raised bodily from the grave. If the word resurrection is to have any meaning at all when we speak of the incarnated and bodily crucified Christ, it must mean that He was bodily raised from the tomb, and thus to eternal life. OUR LIVES TODAY Having looked back to what came before the resurrection of Christ and forward to what— and Who—is yet to come, perhaps the best way for us to connect these chapters of the Grand Narrative to Christ's resurrection and to our lives today is simply to ask, "How would our thinking and our lives be different if Jesus had not been raised from the dead?" Imagine Good Friday without Easter Sunday. Imagine only the Friday on which Jesus died, without the Sunday on which He was raised. If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then the effects of the Fall are still binding upon us and we are, and will forever be, dead in our trespasses and sins. If Christ has not been raised from the dead, we have no basis for an assured hope of eternal life. If Christ has not been raised from the dead, we do not have today a High Priest who intercedes for us (Heb. 4:14–16) or a King who will come to complete His rule and reign (Mark 14:62). However, there is good news: Jesus the Christ is, in fact, risen from the dead. He lives today and will come again. Because He is risen, we can be freed from the effects of the Fall, freed from death, freed into life in both spirit and body. And that life into which we are freed is eternal life—life with the Father, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. The Resurrection is at the heart of the hope-filled, redemptive power of the gospel, both today and into the future. 8 ENGAGE 9 W. David Buschart, PhD PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND HISTORICAL STUDIES Dr. W. David Buschart joined the faculty of Denver Seminary in 1998 and serves as associate dean, professor of theology and historical studies, and chairperson of the theology department. He is the author of Theology as Retrieval: Receiving the Past, Renewing the Church and Exploring Protestant Traditions: An Invitation to Theological Hospitality. marekuliasz/iStock 5 While there have been, and continue to be, many and varied understandings as to precisely when and how Christ will return, orthodox Christianity has always affirmed a God-ordained future. 6 George Eldon Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 150. 7 Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, 12, emphasis original. 8 The mission of Denver Seminary is to prepare men and women to engage the needs of the world with the redemptive power of the gospel and the life-changing truth of Scripture.

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