29 – 30 Mar 2024
We are aware that as believers today, we are living ‘between the times’, that is – it is ‘already’ and ‘not yet’. We know that the victory is won, but the battle is not over. Eternal life is promised, but we still get sick and die. The cruelty and suffering in this world remain undiminished and unchanged, perhaps they are even becoming worse. In our own lives, we struggle to live holy lives; for all our preaching and teaching, nothing much seems to change in the lives of the people we minister to, and perhaps even in our own lives.
Jesus is raised from the dead, but we still remain the people of ‘Good Friday’ and ‘Holy Saturday’ (the day before the resurrection); our ministry is such that joy is replaced by weariness, doxology and praise is missing.
There needs to be a resurrection of ministry from one ‘coloured’ by the mood of ‘Good Friday’ and ‘Holy Saturday’ to one cast in terms of the resurrection. We know that apart from Jesus’ continuing ministry the church has no ministry whatsoever. But because Jesus has a resurrected ministry, we have a ministry that is entirely oriented around his living ministry.
Somehow, the church observes the ‘resurrection’ of the Lord Jesus with much joy and yet, the eschatological clock appears to have stopped after that. We vaguely talk about his resurrection and ascension after that, but somehow, the implications of these do not come to us sharply, and in an embracing manner.
The awareness of the victory of God in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus seems ‘faint’ and ‘vague’ for believers and the church today as contrasted with the impact in the early church.
The focus in this awareness is always on Jesus, and therefore on what his life and ministry in the resurrected and ascended Lord mean for us.
The resurrection of Jesus means the actuality of his ministry in a new way; it means the advent of a new ministry for him. This new ministry is no different in content or goal from his earthly ministry – it is different in kind because he is now present to us in the Holy Spirit. As resurrected in his humanity, there are now no spatial or temporal limits to constrain him, and there is now no death in his future. The church’s ministry is now from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit; and the goal of the church’s ministry is to the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.
Christian ministry and faith are now the direct consequences of what happened to Jesus, as God the Holy Spirit joins us to him to share in his life. and therefore also in his ministry. Joy and hope, therefore mark Christian identity because Jesus the Christ is risen, reigns and will come again, and we, in union with him, share now in his life. As the resurrected Lord, Jesus never ceases to be fully human. As such, he, our high priest, ever lives to be the mediator between the Father and us, bringing God to us and us to God, all in the power of the Holy Spirit. From within the Father-Son relationship, Jesus reveals God in terms of the personal relations of the Godhead, and he does so as God; and this he does by letting us share the internal relations within God. Jesus reveals what is his alone to share his being as God and his communion with the Father. We are enfolded, as it were, into the communion of love which is the holy Trinity!
The doctrine of union with Christ is central to Christian faith and ministry, It refers to the work of the Holy Spirit by which we share or participate in the resurrected life of Jesus. Everything in faith and ministry flows from this, from sharing in the joy and hope of the Easter Lord. By the Spirit who brings us into union with the resurrected Jesus, we share in the Lord’s knowledge of the Father, and we also share in our Lord’s ministry given from the Father. Everything for faith and ministry is cast rigorously into a trinitarian frame of reference.
The ascension means that Jesus has a continuing ministry; he presents us to the Father, he intercedes for us, and he sends us the Holy Spirit to join us to his own life and ministry to the glory of the Father, for the sake of the world.
The resurrection and ascension of Jesus is the assurance that Jesus not only stood in for us while he lived, but that he stands in for us still, today and tomorrow and forever, offering us – who we are and what we do – in himself to the Father, our lives, our worship and our ministries, as well as our prayers, are given to the Father ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’. In our union with the resurrected Jesus we are brought to share in his communion or fellowship with the Father. In union with the resurrected Jesus, our humanity is now set within the Father-Son relationship in the power of the Holy Spirit (Note the Trinity again).
As the resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus is alive and reigns in power for us and for all – this has direct consequences for our lives and ministry because he is a living and acting Lord! In the Holy Spirit, he is still connected with us and he is present.
A true following of Jesus can never be left at the purely personal level; it must involve God’s plan for the renewal of all of humanity, and through this renewed human race nothing less than the liberation and transformation of the whole created order.
To follow Jesus is to enlist in something that has consequences for the whole universe and the whole human race; and, as the same time, this huge picture can only make sense, and can only be entered into through our own lives changed individually and as we, one at a time, get involved in God’s church. It does not mean that we will be liberated from all our lesser concerns as we find the source, joy and meaning of our lives in God and his cosmic plan in Jesus Christ. And this plan in Jesus, decided before the creation of the world, in one sense began in the INCARNATION, fulfilled in the MISSION of the Son at the cross, vindicated in the RESURRECTION and glorified in the ASCENSION.
The significance of the resurrection of Jesus’ life and ministry is the glory of God and our future in glory: not just raised to eternal life – we are also forgiven and raised for glory, for the delight of God and for communion with God. The ground of Christian hope lies in who was resurrected, for as truly God, Jesus took our deadliness into the life of the Triune God, and in his resurrection brought new life out of that deadliness and gave it a future.
In the meantime, we are to experience this world from the dual perspective of being “in Him” and from the world that is to come. This world is fraught with decay and death. But Jesus has, through the cross and resurrection, changed and healed all that. We will see the fullness of that at the end of time, but we can experience that coming reality, in part, right in the midst of our own present experiences of loss, sickness and suffering. The fully human life God desires for the redeemed is found even in terrible darkness by discovering Jesus in the middle of our sufferings. In him we find a peace about the present and a confidence about the ultimate future.
The ministry of Jesus continues through us by the Spirit to reach the world and to bring about salvation and transformation, in the midst of a broken and decaying creation. It is from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit and the goal is to the Father, though the Son, in the Spirit. It is never about us – it is about Him, and because it is about Him and through Him, it would surely be accomplished!! We are invited to join in, in HIs life, in His ministry, in His communion and fellowship in the TRINITY, to His HONOUR and GLORY!!!
Our ministries are not redemptive; only the ministry of Jesus is redemptive.
We hold out Jesus because we know he lives. We speak of him trusting that in the freedom of his love and by the grace and agency of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives himself to his people. In our ministry we place our trust in a living and acting Lord, present through the agency of the Holy Spirit. In the ascended Lord, who is still truly the God-man, a living Spirit, who has authority over the whole universe, who is present with us, and who ministers through us, hence we need not fear or lose heart. As the high priest who ever intercedes for us and is always our advocate, Jesus continues to minister to us in our life and ministry. This is his resurrected ministry – we can always have confidence that his will would always come to pass.
In Luke 24, we read of the risen Christ meeting two individuals on the road to Emmaus. They were discussing some things when Jesus asked them what they were discussing.
They stood still and downcast and answered, “About Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place” (vv.17-21).
“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (vs27).
“Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he disappeared from their sight” (vs31).
In this passage, we see that the two individuals were still lamenting about the death and crucifixion of the Lord; they were downcast and felt that their hope that Jesus would deliver Israel was dashed. In that sense, they were still affected by the mood of ‘Good Friday’ and ‘Holy Saturday’ when in front of them was the resurrected Lord himself.
The Lord is risen! He has ascended to the right hand of the Father today. Unfortunately, we can agree with this intellectually but our response is still based on the understanding and feeling that reflect that Jesus is still dead and in the grave.
The apostle Paul wanted the believers to understand this clearly:
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Col. 3:1-3). This is the focus for our life as believers; this is the basis for our ministry and service.
Personally, Paul shared: “I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11). It is interesting to note that Paul was saying that he wants to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and yet he coupled this desire with the desire to participate in Christ’s sufferings. Somehow, Paul realised that ‘resurrection’ must come after the ‘cross’; it is not contradictory. It is in line with the understanding that “weakness gives rise to strength” (when our weakness causes us to depend wholly on Christ); that ‘death leads to life’ (the seed must die to germinate and become a fruitful plant); that “suffering leads to glory” just as Christ was greatly exalted after his death and suffering for mankind.
The resurrected life and ministry of the Lord come to us through the Spirit and while we are in the “not yet”, and in our pilgrimage on earth, the power of the resurrection of the Lord comes to us often through sharing in his suffering. It is in the pain, the moulding by God’s Spirit, that we concurrently experience the power of his resurrection, and come to know him more intimately. Our willingness to deny ourselves, to take up the cross and to follow him, the Lord, would bring us through the road of suffering to the power and glory of his resurrection.
For faith, life is opened to a future characterised by the promise of God contained in the life and ministry of the resurrected Jesus, a promise out of the past that created a horizon of openness for the future. We await the coming fulfillment with hope – the advent of God, a final redemption in the future, a life beyond the grave and a fulfillment of history beyond death.
The loss of hope is when we turn away from the resurrected Jesus, when we believe in effect that Jesus is simply dead.
But no! Jesus is alive; he has resurrected; he has ascended!! This brings much praise, joy and hope, not only for the future, but also in the midst of our ministry, arising from his ministry through us in the Holy Spirit, in the context of a broken world which desperately needs the Lord Jesus, and in a context of churchlife which is unfortunately often centered on human planning, human methods, human achievements, which has lost significantly the realisation that Jesus is still ministering today!!
The resurrected Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Nothing is now outside the sweep of Jesus’ resurrected and ascended life and ministry. Nothing is beyond him. All creation now is within his saving and sustaining purview, from the dark vastness of interstellar space to the statistical probabilities postulated by quantum physics to the life of a new born baby. He is the creator and redeemer Logos, the cohering source of rationality, the ground of meaning, the personal set of truth, the human actuality of divine love.
We need to bring all these into the perspective of ministry. To put this in pastoral terms, the contrast is between ministry focused on ourselves – missional timidity and ecclesiastical maintenance that protects and preserves what we have, with a vague though uncertain hope for continued life – or ministry that bursts forth in creative, overflowing desire to tell the world, “Jesus is risen!”
It is the difference between ministry without power, because everything is left for us to do, leaving us anxious and exhausted, and ministry filled with joy and hope because the Lord not only lives but also reigns and acts in power for us.
The Spirit is not only God himself, present with us in fulfillment of his promises, but he is also an empowering presence – empowering us not only for gifts of building up the body as we worship in his presence, but also for ministry and service in the world, and especially in the midst of witnesses of all kinds. The grace of Christ is sufficient for us in the midst of suffering, conforming us to Christ’s death even as we know the power of his resurrection – and all of this because we are the heirs of God through the new covenant as the result of God’s unfailing love, demonstrated by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and realised by the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
(B)
In my sharing on Jesus’ resurrected ministry, I referred to Philippians 3:10-14, where apostle Paul expressed his heart’s desire – “I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead”.
I mentioned also that it is interesting to see how Paul coupled the desire to know Christ and the power of his resurrection with the desire to participate in Christ’s sufferings and also how he realised that somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead is connected with becoming like Christ in his death.
But we must not miss the fact that this expression of Paul’s desire and also invariably the desire of all serious Christians ‘follows’ from Philippians 2:5-11:-
“In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. Notice that this covers the INCARNATION, the life of Christ on earth, his death and crucifixion, his RESURRECTION and ASCENSION, – what we are studying in the Gospel of Luke currently.
But at issue here in Philip. 2:5-11 is the need for believers to have the same mindset regarding the gospel, and to live with one another in the kind of humility that puts the needs and interests of each other ahead of one’s own. Christians are urged to have the same mindset as Christ, who as God, demonstrated God’s true character by pouring himself out and taking the form of a slave, and who as man humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on the cross.
But the apostle Paul further urged the believers to imitate him, whose own story finds its focal point in “knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” which is further clarified as simultaneously knowing the power of his resurrection, as he also participates in Christ’s suffering, so as to be conformed to Christ’s likeness in his death. Paul was in fact encouraging the believers to imitate his cruciform lifestyle, as his own life was an imitation of Christ’s pouring himself out for the sake of others, even to the point of death on the cross. But the presence of this cruciform lifestyle among Christians in the church in fact contributes to the church’s witness to the world; in the early church, the unbelievers even expressed surprise as they observed the lifestyle of Christians, expressing even “look at how they love one another”. As believers suffered terribly in the days under the Roman empire and testified powerfully to the gospel, even unto death, some even expressed this about Christians, “These people know how to die”
We have not entered into the full meaning of these texts until we are ready to follow Christ so fully that we can tell those whom we have been given to teach that they should mark our lives, and the lives of those who walk as we do, and thus follow our example. We are not talking about being perfect, of course, but about having a mindset like Christ’s, so that through the power of his resurrection our lives are lived so as to be in conformity to his death. When we have so set our own minds, and behave accordingly, and urge others to follow us in this way, then we might have something truly to say to our broken and fallen world. It follows that if our life and ministry is along the line of having the same mindset as our Lord Jesus, then the Resurrected Ministry and Life of Christ can flow to us by the Spirit to impact the broken and fallen world effectively. But if we depend on our own abilities and intellectual achievements to minister, and if we allow the world’s methodology and principles to guide us in God’s work, then we have failed to do His work in His ways and by His Spirit – and we cannot expect the ministry to have lasting and powerful impacts in God’s kingdom.
As Christians, we must understand God in a Trinitarian way. God’s covenant love, so full of compassion and grace, has found its singularly concrete historical expression in the death and resurrection of Christ, expressed powerfully in Romans 5:1-5. In Christ God himself became present “to reconcile the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:20) and that this “love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Through the gift of His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living God, God himself has now become present in the new creation as an abiding, empowering presence. Our union with Christ through the Spirit brings us into the presence of the Father, and hence into the glorious communion of the Three Persons of the Godhead, – into the very glorious fellowship of the Triune God!!
KC Quek
The key is to be found in one’s overall stance toward Scripture, from beginning to end – it means to come to the text with an absolute conviction that it is God’s word; that here God speaks and we listen. Our concern is to come to the text to hear from God. Such a stance includes a conviction that the text has been inspired by the Holy Spirit; for only with such a conviction will one expect the same Holy Spirit to help us in the twofold task of being good interpreters and good listeners of the Scriptural text.
The reasons we must learn to be good interpreters and do good exegesis is precisely because we are passionate to hear and obey. This means that we must also be passionate to get it right regarding the meaning of the text – not that God is waiting for our exegesis before he can speak to the church, but because if the text is going to lead us to genuinely biblical spirituality, we must have the text right so as to have our spirituality conform to the intent of thel text.
True spirituality is not simply inward devotion but worship that evidences itself in obedience and the same kind of God-likeness we have seen in Christ himself.