RISEN

The resurrection of Jesus is foundational to the Christian faith, and yet, oftentimes, we only give it real thought around the Easter season.

But the resurrection of Jesus is so important that Paul writes, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). And later he says, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (verse 19). The resurrection is not only a future event for believers. Those who believe in Christ have already been raised to life with him. Paul writes, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). Christians are people who have already been raised with Christ. Gaffin explains, “Believers will never be more resurrected than they already are. God has done a work in each believer, a work of nothing less than resurrection proportions, that will not be undone” (By Faith, Not by Sight, 76). The resurrection is an already but not-yet reality for the Christian because of our union with Christ. Jesus’s resurrection means that those who have faith in him have been raised from the dead because they are in Christ, and yet we still await the full experience of the resurrection to come (Romans 8:22–23).