No Resurrection? No life!
No Resurrection? No life!
Col.1:18
Why Christ must rise from the dead.
I. He is the Head of the Body.
Κεφαλη
Head is associated with life-(thus some forms of capitol punishment). Take the head away & the body ceases
Example: Marriage in Eph.5:23
Without the bodily resurrection of Christ there is no head to this living body. And, Paul could not say as he does in Gal.2:20 that he is alive in Christ.
II. He is the beginning .
Αρχη Principalities in verse 16
A. Not only used to designate time, but position.
B. Other uses of αρχη in relation to Christ.
1. Of Christ and the resurrection. 1 Cor.15:20,23
2. Of Christ as the Author of life. Acts 3:14
3. Of Christ & salvation. Heb.2:10
4. Of Christ as the pioneer of faith. Heb.12:2
There are more especially those in Revelation that say He is the beginning and the end. Notice though, that all are given in the present tense, not the past.
III. He is the First Born from the dead.
Πρωτοτοκος
A. Not merely in time.
B. Denotes place and rank.
We see it’s use in the LXX as far back as Genesis 4:4 where it says that Abel brought of the “firstlings” of his flock.
It can be thus said, that Jesus is the first in order and the only one acceptable to this rank of a new humanity that is made up of regenerated beings who will be fashioned with a new resurrected body for the completion of the new creation of God.
If He is not the firstborn of the physically dead, then He is not the firstborn from the dead. For, there can be no new creation in the spiritual sense only. That would be an abstract creation which God does not deal with in scripture, only the concrete. For we are not said to be abstractly dead, but very dead.
In short, if the Lord Jesus Christ did not rise bodily, then as Paul says you are yet in your sins, and this book is completely false.
