The Resurrection and the Kingdom

Mar 30, 2010 by Kevin

This is part six in a series called “What Every Christian Needs to Know about the Kingdom.”

If the crucifixion of the Messiah was a huge surprise, his resurrection was an even bigger one. Despite the hints he gave his followers during his ministry, once Jesus was in the grave, no one seems to have expected him to return from it. With the benefit of hindsight, however, we can see that it had to happen this way. Here are just a few of the ways the resurrection plays a key role in the kingdom of God.

1. The resurrection was a powerful vindication of Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah. The crucifixion was a denial of the gospel that the kingdom of God was at hand, first by the Jewish religious elite and then by the Roman empire. By putting Jesus to death, Israel and Rome collaborated in denying that he was the Messiah, the king who would make everything right again in a world that is marred by sin and rebellion. By raising Jesus from the dead, God emphatically reversed the decision of both the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman empire. They condemned him to death; God raised him to life again.

2. The resurrection was a decisive victory against the forces of evil. We like to talk quietly in our modern world about invisible spiritual forces and powers. But it does not take a great deal of imagination or faith to believe that in this world there are evil powers at work that twist and deceive, corrupt and destroy the best and worst intentions of humanity. All the powers of the evil spiritual realm were arrayed against Jesus on the cross; the resurrection was his victory over every force for evil in the world. They attacked him with everything they had, and he submitted to their onslaught. But then he rose victorious from the grave, demonstrating that all their power together was and is insufficient to defeat the king.

3. The resurrection was a preview of events to come. By the time of Jesus, the Jewish people had developed a doctrine of resurrection. This can be seen in some of the intertestamental literature, such as the books of Maccabees. Those who were faithful to God were to be raised to life again at the end of time, so they could experience eternal life in the kingdom of the Messiah. This is why Paul describes Jesus’ resurrection as the “firstfruits” of the kingdom (1 Cor. 15:20). Jesus was the first to experience what every member of the kingdom will one day experience—resurrection to eternal life in a redeemed, physical body.

As with the cross, there is much more that can be said regarding the resurrection. By no means am I claiming to exhaust its meaning with these few words. Yet we must not say less than I have said above. The bodily resurrection of Jesus, as a historical event, was God’s proclamation that Jesus was the chosen one to redeem and restore humanity from its sin and to establish God’s reign and rule over the entire world.

Next, we turn our attention to how we can live out the resurrection in our lives—how we can live now as if the kingdom were already come in its fullness.