We tend to think of the resurrection in terms of the future—something we’ll experience after our death as time-space history as we know it comes to an end. Because we place the resurrection in the future, we—like the apostle Paul in Romans 8:22-25—link it to hope. We live with the forward-look of faith we call hope.
Paul, however, also spoke of the resurrection as a reality we, as the followers of Jesus, experience in the present—here, now, today. We find this line of thinking in Romans 6:1-14.
In this section of his letter to the churches of Rome, Paul wrote that—in our baptism—we were united with Christ Jesus in his death, burial, and resurrection. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). Not only did our baptism mark us as the followers of Jesus, it portrayed what we experienced spiritually when we opened our lives to the grace of God and chose to live as a follower of Jesus.
In choosing to live as a follower of Jesus, we died to a sin-oriented way of living (Romans 6:2). “Our old self” was crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6). This old self was enslaved to a self-centered, self-focused, self-reliant, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit (Romans 6:6). This egocentric spirit unconsciously dominated our thinking and drove our decisions. It shaped our lives. We were “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6; 7:14-23).
In his death and resurrection, Jesus broke the power of sin and death. He set us free from its enslaving power. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that . . . we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6). When we opened our lives to God in Christ Jesus, we died to this egocentric, self-centered, self-focused, self-reliant, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit. We were set free from its controlling power.
That’s where resurrection in the here and now comes into play. Having died with Christ, “we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Whenever we walk in newness of life, we experience the resurrection in the here and now.
The newness of life of which Paul spoke is a life oriented toward God rather than to sin. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). It is a life given to learning and living the ways of God Jesus taught—what Paul called righteousness. “Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).
Our experience of this newness of life is the
result of the Spirit’s work in our lives, transforming us into the likeness of
Christ. Through the transforming work of the Spirit, the old self-centered,
self-focused, self-reliant, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit is being put to death
while the self-giving, servant spirit of Christ is being engrained in its place.
The Spirit empowers us to love as Jesus loved, to love those whom Jesus loved. The
Spirit empowers us to live the kind of life Jesus lived—what is for us “newness
of life.” The Spirit empowers us to live in the reality of the resurrection—here,
now, today.
