Although it is said by many modern preachers that our redemption was accomplished by Jesus’ death on the cross, the apostle Paul would have disagreed. He wrote:
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins (1 Cor. 15:17).
Obviously, Jesus’ resurrection was an essential component of redemption. Had He not been resurrected, our faith would be “worthless,” and we would all still be “in our sins.”
Note Paul’s choice of words to describe our tragic state if Christ had not been raised. We would “still be in our sins.” Did he mean that if Christ had not been resurrected, the penalty for our sins would not have been paid? No, that was accomplished by Jesus’ death (1 Cor. 15:3; Col. 1:20; 2:14; 1 Pet. 2:24).
Did Paul mean that if Christ had not been resurrected, forgiveness of our sins would not be possible”? No, again, the penalty Jesus paid by His death for our sins made our forgiveness possible.
So what did he mean?
What if Paul had written, “If Christ had not been resurrected, we would still be in our houses”? How would we interpret that? I suspect we’d take it at face value. It would mean that a result of Christ’s resurrection, we are no longer in our houses.
So why don’t we just take what he actually did write at face value? If Christ had not been raised, we would still be “in our sins.” That can only mean we would still be practicing, or living in, sin.
Clearly, Christ’s resurrection had something to do with the freedom believers have from sin and with their practicing righteousness. Jesus hinted at that very thing just prior to His death and resurrection:
After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also (John 14:19).
Although it was not crystal clear in that single sentence, it is safe to conclude that Jesus’ resurrection would result in the resurrection of His followers. And that idea is further developed in Jesus’ revelation to His followers found in the New Testament epistles. There we repeatedly learn that those who believe in Jesus become united with Him in His death and resurrection, something symbolized at every believer’s baptism. Going under the water represents our death and burial, and coming out represents our cleansing and resurrection (which is why baptism by sprinkling is a poor substitute for immersion).
But there is more. Believers also become one spirit with Christ (1 Cor. 6:17), as He comes to live within them by His Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16), so that they can say along with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). Who has plumbed the depths of that amazing truth?
Our identification with Christ’s resurrection goes beyond our hope of the future resurrection of our physical bodies. Our born-again spirits have already been resurrected. Here is a wonderful passage from Paul that makes that clear:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin (Rom. 6:1-7, emphasis added).
Believers in Christ are united with Him “in the likeness of His resurrection,” so they no longer are slaves to sin. They, of course, still have the capacity to sin, as God has not removed their free wills. But they are no longer captive to sin. They are no longer “in their sins” (to mention the phrase we first considered from 1 Corinthians 15:17).
And there is still more to all of this that is beyond that scope of this short teaching. We have not only been raised from the dead in Christ, but we have been “seated…with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). For the full picture, you will need to read every New Testament reference that contains the words “in Christ,” “in Him,” “in the Beloved,” “through Christ,” “through Him” and so on. It’s all good!
In any case, I hope you can see how silly it is to reduce Christ’s redemptive work to His death on the cross (as significant as that was) or reduce salvation to little more than forgiveness of sins. And I hope you can also see how degrading (even heretical) it is to reduce Christ’s redemptive work to little more than a license to sin (as it is portrayed in so many “Christian” circles).
Allow me to close by returning to 1 Corinthians 15:17, which says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” Hopefully, all of Paul’s ancient and modern readers have reacted by thinking, “Well, I am no longer ‘in my sins,’ so that is proof that Christ has been resurrected! Because he lives, so do I!”
Born-again people are the proof of Christ’s resurrection. He’s alive in them, and it shows!
