Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - The Finish Line
Christ’s bodily resurrection anchors history, crowns Him Heir of Creation, empowers everyday holiness through an exchanged life, and fixes a coming day of judgment.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas. Here's a hint of what's to come.
SPEAKER_02:In a matter of months, almost, you know, it's just strange irony. In a matter of months after that final May Day celebration, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. It's almost saying like that's, you know, it's just a picture of like, hey, the end could come. But in the ashes of the end, Christ will rule forever.
SPEAKER_00:The fact of Christ's resurrection means more than just eternal life for you and I. It should impact every aspect of our daily life. Now you may be thinking, how is that possible? And why does it matter? Well, when we consider the fact of Christ's resurrection and all that it entails, our future state, God's promises to us, don't you think we should be striving to live more godly, in greater obedience, with greater faith, with higher trust and confidence? Shouldn't we be studying the nature and the character of this God and the universe he's created, endeavoring to understand more and to live a life more pleasing to him? You see, simple faith in Christ is all that it requires for salvation. And yet, that simple faith in Christ is also what inspires us to love him more and to learn more about him.
SPEAKER_02:So the question that we're going to ask today as we've gone through the background of the Old Testament of the resurrection, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, of course, the scriptures are very clear on the physical, bodily, literal resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, that now we want to look more at the significance of the resurrection. What I mean by this is what does the resurrection of Christ in the first century mean for the history of the world? And I want to break that down into about four points and explore uh the significance of it. So, to do this, uh I'll just make some points. The first point that we want to make is that we are technically living in the last days. A lot of Christians think that uh the last days is something still to come, or they think um that, well, now we're living in them. You know, people before us weren't living in them, but now we are, because we're seeing you know certain things happen and so forth. But they've been we've been living in the last days since the first century. So Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, and then I want to explore what this actually really means. Significance of it. Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. Hebrews, of course, is being taught during the Sunday school hour, so um, those of you who've been there the last couple weeks have heard this verse a couple times. Uh chapter 1, verse 1, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers, that would be the Jewish people, fathers of which are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the prophets in the Old Testament, right, in many portions and in many ways, that is, by vision, by dreams, by direct revelation. In these last days, there's the phrase, in these last days in the eschaton, has spoken to us in his son, that is the first coming, right? The first coming of the Messiah. And this is technically referred to as these the last these last days. So the first uh coming was technically the uh last beginning of the last days. The one whom he appointed, it says heir of all things, which is will be one of our truths, that now the heir of the world is apparent in the resurrected Christ, through whom also he made the world. So the Son is the agent through which God created everything, and he is, that is the Son, is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature. In other words, if you've seen Jesus, you've seen the Father, right? Which is what Jesus says. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Why do you say, show us the Father? If you've seen me, this is it. I'm the full exact representation of the deity of God, God Himself, and He upholds all things by the word of His power. So this is the idea that from the moment of Christ and His resurrection, we are now living in the last days. Now, this has significant repercussions. What it basically means is that when you have the resurrected Christ, he is the first piece of the new heavens and new earth. And somehow this first piece of the new heavens and new earth, which is still to come, right, has been peeled off from what we would think, Revelation 21 and 22, the new heavens and new earth, and placed in history in the first century. If you saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his resurrection body, what were you seeing? You were seeing the first piece of the new heavens and the new earth. It's already in a place. In a sense, if if history is like a race, and we're in that race, he's already crossed the finish line, hasn't he? So this is part of the significance of what the resurrection means. And it indicates, of course, that if he's already crossed the finish line, then the future is fixed. The future is certain. Uh technically, today, um, they have Passover, you know, a couple days ago, a few days ago in the Jewish calendar. Today is the um commemoration of the fulfillment of the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the resurrection. This is really the day in all churches across the world that we're going to be studying the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01:Because this is the day that we would remember that the first fruit of the resurrection came into being.
SPEAKER_02:Remember, the Jews would bring a loaf, you know, they'd bring a loaf loaf or whatever they'd do the sheaf, and this was all for the feast of firstfruits, and that was all fulfilled in Christ's resurrection as a fulfillment of unleavened bread. And if the first fruits were brought to the priests as a goodwill offering and thanksgiving to God, then of course that was an indication that there's more to follow. So if Christ has already finished, crossed the finish line, guess what? There's more of us to come who are going to cross that finish line. And so his appearance in the first century means that the goal of history, which is the ultimate establishment of the new heavens and new earth, is absolutely certain. And our resurrection unto Christ like Christlieness as the fulfillment of the first fruit, you know, the more to come is most certain as well. Turn to first John chapter 3, turn to the right, a few pages.
SPEAKER_01:1 John chapter 3. To see this. 1 John 3 verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_02:See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us that we would be called children of God, and such we are. For this reason, the world does not know us because it did not know him. If it doesn't know the Father, right, if the world doesn't know the Father, then the world doesn't know the children of the Father, is the logic there. Verse 2, beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. In other words, we don't know the full future of what we will be like. We talked last week about the resurrection body, and we said, well, it's like this, and it's like that, and it's not like this, and it's not like that. But it's it, and we we know only a little bit, right? So we have but a shadow. It's not appeared as yet in totality what we will be. But we do know this. We know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. So while there are some unknown, we do have the known of the one who's already crossed the finish line and experienced resurrection, and that when we see him, we will be in resurrection bodies like his. So this is, of course, exciting. And you know then that your future destiny is secure because he's already secured it. He's already finished. And it's just a matter of time before we also finish that race and we receive our resurrection body. So, of course, at the rapture, that's the moment, and it happens instantaneously, right? As we'll talk about later. It's in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, you know, at the last trunk. Okay, boom. I mean, it's a moment of time that can't be split in half. I mean, in calculus, technically, you know, you have limits and you can do the limit, you know, and you can always divide a section of time into another section of time. Always divide it by half, right? But uh the point of this word in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, was to say a bit of time that can't be uh cut in half. It's so so quick. The idea that if you blink your eyebrows, you'll miss it. I don't know if you've missed something like that, but um it can happen maybe with some events, and this is one of them. In a moment, we'll just be transformed and be in our resurrection bodies. At that point, we will have crossed the finished line. So the ultimate goal of history has already been assured to us in the resurrection appearances of Christ in history. Now I've got a quote here, and this comes from George Eldon Ladd, and he uh to summarize this whole idea that we're living in the last days and everything is ready. Jesus' resurrection, he says, is not an isolated event. What does he mean by that before we press forward? He means that it sits inside the framework of a totality of events and doctrines that are in the Bible. It's not an isolated event. As we'll talk about a little bit probably next week, uh for unbelievers, the idea of the resurrection is considered or explained away as simply a chance phenomenon. I mean, if chance is the ultimate thing behind the universe and not a person, you know, Christianity says that no, the ultimate thing behind reality is a person who has designed this universe. But in in paganism, what's behind everything? Chance, this eternal abyss of chance, that anything can happen. So their chief explanation or way to explain away the resurrection is to say it's just a it's just a chance occurrence of history. Um so but what Ladd is saying here is it's not an isolated event. It falls inside the framework of a total picture of what God has been doing from creation through the fall, the flood, the Noahic covenant, the call of Abraham. And we looked at this, right? We pointed back and said, look, I mean, the resurrection is simply implied by the fact that God made us in his image. I mean, is he going to allow that image to just totally be destroyed and to not have any kind of resurrection form? It doesn't fit. So there's a total framework of events inside of which the resurrection must be seen. Events like a resurrection or a virgin birth can only be interpreted inside a bigger picture if they're to be rightly understood. So he's saying it's not an isolated event. It falls within the grand scheme of God's framework. So he says it's not an isolated event that gives to men the warm confidence and hope of a future resurrection. It is the beginning of the eschatological resurrection itself. I mean, he's the first, right? He's the first of those still in the future, eschatological, to be raised. He says, if we may use crude terms to describe sublime realities, we might say that a piece of the eschatological resurrection has been split off and planted in the midst of history. I mean, what were you seeing if you saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his resurrection body, right? And he made a number of appearances, right, appearing to them over a period of 40 days. What you were seeing was the first portion or piece of the new world that is to come. That is what you were seeing. So he says the first act of the drama of the last day has taken place before the day of the Lord. That's the period of his judgment. So that's a very interesting first result, historical significance of the resurrection of Christ. We live in the last days, and in uh, in effect, there's nothing standing between us and us crossing the finish line as well. That's why the New Testament is just portrayed. Paul is portraying, for example, in Thessalonians, first and second Thessalonians, if you want a book, I'll give you a book. But he's portraying that those of us who are alive and remain will be caught up to the Lord, and so we shall ever be with him. Right? Comfort one another with these words. How could he write that if he didn't expect that it could come in his life? We who are alive and remain. Who is we? For all intents, it includes Paul, right? He understood we're living in the last days, and that, hey, at any moment we could cross that finish line, and then we will see him as he is, for we shall be like him. We will be raised. So that's the first consequence. We live in the last days, and we are ready to finish across the finish line as he has. The second big point is the resurrected Christ, or the heir apparent, is now uh raised. In other words, the the one who's the heir of all creation. Let's turn to Colossians 1:15. To whom does this current cosmos belong? Who is the heir of it all?
SPEAKER_01:Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossus, Goddy, popcorn. It's a way to remember the order that those look. Colossians 1.15, which sounds a lot like Hebrews 1 in certain respects, Colossians 1.15. He, speaking of his beloved son, from verse 13.
SPEAKER_02:He in verse 15 is the image of the invisible God. He's the icon. Okay, that's where the word we get icon from. The image, the icon of the invisible God. In other words, if the invisible God could make himself visible, what would he look like? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. And he is the firstborn of all creation. Now, this is the phrase, one of the phrases that the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons like to use to say that Jesus was a creation. Well, it says, Well, see, it's firstborn. So he's the first thing that God created, and then Jesus created everything else. It's like, well, what about the next verse? Does that have any bearing on whether he was created or not? It says, For by him all things were created. Well, did he create himself then? Is that what you're saying? You can't create yourself out of nothing if you don't exist. So it's very obvious that firstborn of all creation doesn't mean that he was the first thing created. This word, who was the firstborn in the Old Testament? If you were the firstborn in a family in the Old Testament, in a Jewish family, what does that mean? You're the heir. And that's what this phrase means. Firstborn means the one who's the heir, the heir of what? The heir of all creation. And then it did it describes the reason why. The reason why he's the heir of all creation is because he created it. It's his. It belongs to him. He says, uh, things on earth, visible and invisible, things in the heavens, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. He's before all things. So he's before everything. And in him all things consist or hold together, are maintained, sustained, right? He is also the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning. He's the and there it is, the firstborn from the dead. There it is again. Indication of the first fruit concept. He's the first individual who is ever raised from the dead. There have been people before him who had been resuscitated, like Lazarus. But as far as Lazarus had to die again because he came back in a mortal body. But the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was raised, he put on his mortality, put on immortality. The perishable put on imperishability. So he's the firstborn from the dead. And so that we are told here in verse 18, he will himself will come to have first rank, first place or rank in everything. Who is the one who has the first rank in the new creation to come? The new heavens and new earth? Well, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the heir of all things. So this is a repercussion of the resurrection. Okay? Let's also look over at Ephesians 1 because we're so close. Just turn back. Remember, God he's popcorn a couple books back. Ephesians 1, 20 to 21. See, when he rose, then there was 40 days of appearances and so forth. And then we have the ascension, right? And his exaltation to the right hand of the Father. Well, when he ascended, and you see the picture in Acts 1, right? He's there with his disciples, he's teaching them. They're saying, Is it this time you're going to restore the kingdom? And he says, No, it's not for you to know the times and the epochs that the Father has set by his own authority, but you wait in Jerusalem, and the Holy Spirit will come and baptize you and so forth, and you shall be my witnesses, right? Then he just begins to lift up off the earth. Right? And they're watching, so it's evidently not super fast. They're able to watch him ascend, and then he disappears into a cloud. Right? That's the ascension. Now you say, Well, where did he go after that? There are a few passages, Hebrews 4, which tell us where he was, even though he was out of sight at that point, that he passed through the heavens. And and a lot of people just, yeah, yeah, he went through the he went through space and all this, and he went that's not really what it's talking about. Um, yes, yes, but not really. There's more to the picture. Um there's a specific abode or dwelling for spirit being, right? And that abode is what we call the second heaven. The third heaven is where the father is, the first heaven is the atmosphere around the earth where the birds and stuff die. But in that second heaven, that's the dwelling place or abode of angelic being. And it's saying that he passed through their dwelling place. And now where was he going? Where was he going? Well, he was going to the third heaven to sit down at the right hand of the Father, right? Well, if he passed through the second heaven where the angelic beings dwell, now he's seated where far above them. Far above them. This is part of his heirship of all creation. He's taking that position, and you see it here in chapter one of Ephesians, verse 20. Well, let's look at he's in the middle of a prayer here. We'll come back to this in a minute, but verse 20, which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead. So here's the resurrection and seated him at his right hand in the heavenlies. Far now here it is, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. Now, those four power words there, the rule, authority, power, and dominion, all four words are power words. Okay, authority word, strength word. Now he's been seated far above all of them. And those four terms are specifically classifying various angels of various ranks. And it's saying that he's far above all of them. I think Hebrews makes the same argument, right? I mean, in a sense, he's better than the angels. Why? Well, he's above all of them. He passed through the heavenly chapter 4. So he's seated far above all of them. And then he says, and every name that is named, that's down here on earth. Not only in this age, but also in the one to come. In other words, he's always and forever over everything, from the moment of his ascension, when he passed through these heavens, the heavenly. And of course, Philippians chapter 2, so we'll turn over to the next book, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. Philippians chapter 2, in the great Kenosis passage, where he deprecated himself, he humbled himself even to the point of death on a cross, right? And verse 9 says, For this reason also, God highly exalted him and bestowed upon him the name which is above what name? Every name in the universe, so that at the name of Jesus, that's the name, every knee will bow. Of those who are in heaven, see the angelic beings, those on earth, and those under the earth fallen. And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Every one in the entire cosmos who's ever been, ever will be, angelic human, right? Will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So the heir apparent, now that he's raised, is apparent. He is the one to whom the universe belongs. He's the heir of it all, and he holds first rank in everything. So that is a wonderful significance of the resurrection of Christ. The third significance is relating directly to us in our lives now, and that is it's the base, his resurrection is the basis for us living the resurrection life. I think I mentioned this a couple weeks ago in passing. Um living the resurrection life or the exchange life of Christ. That is Christ living in you. There's you being in Christ. Okay, all believers are in Christ. The moment you believe, you're taken out of Adam, you're placed in Christ. You are in Christ. But there's also Christ in you, Colossians 1:27. Christ in you. That's different. That's the opposite relationship. It's not saying you're in Christ, it's saying Christ is in you. Not all believers have Christ in you, because this is a specific phrase that relates to development of the Christian life. You're walking with God, okay? You're walking by the Spirit. And what happens? There's a specific life that is produced through you that is not sourced in you. It's sourced in the resurrection life of Christ that is now coming through you. That's why let's turn to Galatians 2.20.
SPEAKER_01:Further, we're saying in the G E P C books here. Right?
SPEAKER_02:Galatians 2, verse 20. You know, someone used to call this, Tony Bo used to call this a money verse, right?
SPEAKER_01:Galatians 2.20. So Galatians 2.20.
SPEAKER_02:Paul Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. Now that happens the moment you believe in him. You know, your old person is now dead, okay? Just as Christ was crucified on the cross. So we died with him, right? It's no longer now it's no longer I who live. So in the Christian life, he says it's no longer I who live. He said, Well, wait a minute, who living then? What are you saying? If it's not you, Paul, who is it? Well, he's about to tell us. Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, this mortal flesh, he says, I live by how? By faith. This is only one way to please God. Hebrews 11 6, without faith, it's impossible to please God. How does God want us to live? Always, everywhere, every moment, by faith. He doesn't want us to live by sight, he wants to live by faith. So Paul says, Now, the life I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Okay, so this is the this is the exchange life. It's when we live by faith. Guess what? Christ lives in us, and his life is poured out through us. And Galatians 5 tells us what that looks like. It's also referred to as the fruit of the Spirit, right? Love, then joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, and so forth. That is the life of Christ, the resurrection life of Christ flowing through us as we live by faith, which would be as we walk by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01:Let's turn over to Romans 6 also. Romans chapter 6. Also dealing with our sanctification, our spiritual life.
SPEAKER_02:But it's basing it all on the Messiah's resurrection. It's basing it all on that. So he asks a question in verse 6 or verse 1, what shall we say then? Drawing a conclusion, some may draw from chapter 5. Are we to continue in sin so grace may increase? May it never be. You know, I mean, because we're justified and have this perfect status before God, does that mean we should go on sinning? Does that make his grace even more apparent? No, he says, that's not the law, that's not a good logical conclusion. Here's the logical conclusion. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? If we died to the mastery of the sin nature, which we experience as unbelievers, now we're believers. We're dead to that. Should we live that way anymore? Well, no, we shouldn't live under the mastery of the sin nature. We're no longer slave to it. That's his point. He says, or do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ? He's talking about a spirit baptism here. This isn't a wet baptism. This is a dry baptism. The moment you believe in Christ, you are spirit baptized, right? You're placed in Christ. And he says, Don't you know that all of us who've been spirit baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death?
SPEAKER_01:It's as if you were co-crucified, right?
SPEAKER_02:As other passages discuss. The moment you believe in Christ, you were crucified. You were identified with Christ in his death, so your Adamic person is dead, right? But that's not the end of the story. Therefore, verse 4, we have been buried with him through baptism into death. Old man is dead, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, now we get to the resurrection, right? As Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Because if we've been united with him in the likeness of his death, guess what? Certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, our old person was crucified, our body is so our body of sin might be done away. Why? So we would no longer be slaves to sin. You're not under its master. For he who has died is freed from sin. That's from the power of the sin nature in this context. But see this resurrection in verse 4? I mean, Christ was resurrected. We know that physically, literally, bodily. But somehow, the moment we believed in Christ, not only were we crucified with Christ, right? But we were raised a spiritual resurrection, which we what we called regeneration, the doctrine of regeneration, so that we may live a new life. Here and now. The same life that Paul's talking about in Galatians 2 when he says, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith. So our responsibility is not to go on sinning, but to live by faith, right? And as we do, this new regenerate life that we have, Christ pours his life through us to produce a new life.
SPEAKER_01:New life. So it's not automatic, right? We have to live by faith.
SPEAKER_02:That's what Paul's getting. He'll get in chapter 8. He'll say, hey, look, you can't do this on your own. He says, the thing I don't want to do is the thing exactly the thing I do. But he comes to the end of his rope and he finally says, Thank God for the Holy Spirit. He explains then how we live by the Spirit, and he how Christ's resurrection life is produced through us. So we have this new life that's available to us to live.
SPEAKER_01:Colossians 2. Go back to Colossians area. Now, this life that he's talking about, the resurrection life of Christ through you, is a supernatural.
SPEAKER_02:It's supernatural. We can't produce it any more than we can produce our resurrection, can we? But it is what is produced through us as we live by faith. So Colossians chapter 2, verse 12. It sounds a lot like Romans 6, doesn't it? Verse 12. Having been buried with him in baptism, same as Romans 6, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God, the one who raised him from the dead. See, you've been spiritually raised up with Christ through faith the moment you had faith, the moment you believed, right? Verse 13, when you were dead in your transgressions in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you what? He made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our transgressions, canceled out the decree of decrees of debt against us, which was hostile to us. And he's taken it all out of the way. He nailed it to the cross and he disarmed the rulers and the authorities. It's the angelic powers, right? He made a public display and so forth and so on. But the point is that you have a new way of living open to you. And it is a supernatural way of living. It's not anything that we can produce naturally, it's a supernatural thing. So if all you're ever seeing in your life is just natural results, you have a good idea where that's coming from, don't you? It's coming from you. I mean, why do we need prayer in our spiritual life? I mean, Paul prays throughout the letters that he writes. That's one of the reasons I start, you know, picking up the phone and saying, hey, I'm praying for you, people. Or I'm praying this for you. Why did I start doing that? Well, because Paul's telling people he's praying for them all the time. Doesn't that encourage you? Somebody's actually thinking about you. I can't text you if I don't have your phone. But I could email you, you know, but um, but I have people that I regularly tell that I'm praying for. Because Paul tells people that. And the other reason we're praying is prayer is by by its nature showing dependence on God. Because all six, there's six Greek words for prayer. Six. Others, I teo, some others. If you look every one of these words up in a lexicon, in a Greek lexicon, it's so interesting. Every single one of them has one thing at the center of it. It'll always be that's what you request. The fundamental part of prayer is that we're asking God for prayer.
SPEAKER_01:If you're asking, that means you can't supply it. You're asking Him to supply it. It's a dependence. Prayer is all about dependence.
SPEAKER_02:And what why why if I could produce it, why would I need to pray about it? The whole point is I want to see something supernatural. I want to see something beyond what I can produce in this world. One of the reasons this year dedicated the theme is to prayer, right? At the O'Camp Bible Church. Prayer. Why? Because we want to see supernatural results in our life, in our church body. We don't just want to see natural, do you? That's probably what's going on in a lot of churches. What do they do? They market for, you know, what do you want? What do you want to see? What do you want us to do on stage? What kind of show do you want us to put on? What kind of programs do you want us to have? It's not about any of that. It's really what we really all want to see is God do something great in our lives and in our church body's life. But if we're going to see that, we've got to come to Him by prayer. Because He's the only one we're we're admitting, you're the only one that can produce something supernatural in my life. You're the only one that can produce something supernatural in our local church's life. And this is really the only things that we're interested in. Supernatural. What we call the fruit of the spirit. That's a super those are supernatural things. Uh can I love my enemy? Love is the first and key to all the fruit of the spirit, right?
SPEAKER_01:Fruit of the spirit is love. How do we love our enemy? I don't I don't love my enemy. I hate my enemy. I want to kill my enemy. I want to talk bad about my enemy.
SPEAKER_02:I don't like them. Guy at work, he's a jerk. That's great. But we're supposed to love them. How how can we love people that are jerks to us? Only by the power of God are we able to do that. Supernatural uh production. So, but that comes by living this exchange life. Okay, this is a new way of living, and it's there to produce humanly impossible results, and that's that's what we're after. So, but this is available to us now. Um Philippians 3. I think this is such an important point and and not stressed enough, so taking a little time to look at it. Here's Paul, Philippians 3, 8 through 11. These verses I wrestle with a lot this chapter, because this is the Apostle Paul saying these things. But look at what he says in verse 8. More than that, he says, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. You're gonna say, I thought you already knew him. I mean, you're a believer, right? Well, yet we know he's a believer. He must not be talking about knowing him in that sense. He must be talking about something more. And he is. He's talking about knowing experientially the power of the resurrected Christ in his life. Well, let's go on. Knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. He says that there's nothing that's more valuable than this. The one he says, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, his whole family, right? His whole resume as a Pharisee, and so forth. He lost all that. He says, I count them but rubbish, scuba on. We won't talk about what that is, but if you look up Scubilon, it's interesting. So that I may gain Christ. You say, What?
SPEAKER_01:I thought you already had Christ.
SPEAKER_02:Aren't you a believer? Well, yeah, he's a believer, but there's something still lacking, even as a believer, in Paul's life. And he's explained to us what it is. He says, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, something which he's hoping to be discovered in this condition, and of course he will. But that I may know him, there it is again, know him and the what?
SPEAKER_01:The power of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_02:What does he mean? He wants to see it operative in his own life. He wants to see the same power that God the Father used to raise the Son from the dead in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea manifested in his own life. He wants to experience that. Because everything else is just natural production. But he realizes that if this same power is toward us that the Father exercised in the resurrection of Christ, then we will see something of that same magnitude in our own personal lives.
SPEAKER_01:That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, Paul wants to suffer as Christ suffered. Being conformed to his death, not that he had a death wish, but he was willing to go that far, right? In order that I may attain to the, and here's a unique word used the resurrection used nowhere else in the Bible. But something that he wants to attain to, the out-resurrection, ex honest, the out-resurrection from the dead, which is a lot of discussion about what this is that he wants to attain to. But I personally think because of the later context here, like in verse 14, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call. What's that? The upward call. Well, when are you going to be called upward? At the rapture. And that's what he's that's what he's looking forward to, this attaining to the resurrection. He wants to live to the rapture. And he just wants to be ripped off this earth and transformed into his resurrection body. That's what he's trying to attain to. Is that a supernatural event? Your body being putting on immortality in a moment in a twinkling of an eye? Sure. And he's wanting to live up until that point and to attain to it in that sense. So he wants to live fully, this exchange life, the resurrection life, and experience it more and more in his own personal life and attain to the rapture.
SPEAKER_01:Isn't there a crown for those who love his appearance? Yeah, there is. Alright, the fourth point and the last point we'll look at is the scary one. Now, uh res a few words of preface about this. There's one book in the world that is the most dangerous book. What is it? The Bible. Bring it up in any conversation with other people. Very quickly, all of a sudden, there's this odd feeling in the conversation. People intuitively know and are threatened by the Bible. Why is that? Well, one of the chief reasons is because of the resurrection. I mean the resurrection is the last word in history. And there's somebody who's already been raised. What this means, what does this ultimately mean? There's been a resurrection. What did we say the first lesson on resurrection?
SPEAKER_02:We said, no other religion in the world did their founder rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_01:Muhammad didn't rise from the dead, he's dead. He's dead. Joseph Smith didn't come back from the dead. He's dead. Moses didn't come back from the dead. He's dead. Only Jesus Christ ever rose from the dead. No founders of any other so-called religion ever rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_02:This uh as uh as George Vlad said in this first sentence, Jesus' resurrection is not an isolated event that gives to men the warm confidence and hope of a future resurrection. Why does he say it doesn't give to men the warm confidence and hope of a future resurrection? Because they're afraid.
SPEAKER_01:The resurrection signals that we're gonna be held accountable for our act. Accountability.
SPEAKER_02:Accountability. That is the number one fear of people in the world. That one day they will actually be judged and held accountable for what they've done.
SPEAKER_01:Everybody today likes to claim victims. I'm just a victim.
SPEAKER_02:That is the most that is the number one sense that we get from the outside world. That everybody's just a victim. I'm a victim, I'm a victim. This is the exact opposite idea. It's the idea that no, you're not a victim, but you're personally responsible for what you've done. And you will stand before the judge. So the resurrection is a very fearful thing for the world. And that's one of the reasons they're very reticent to have discussions about the Bible. Because the Bible is a book about ultimate responsibility and judgment. So this last point, the fourth point, is that the resurrection fixes a day of judgment for the world. Let's turn to Acts 17.
SPEAKER_01:Acts 17. Paul's address on Mars Hill. In Athens.
SPEAKER_02:And he was preaching to them in chapter 17, Jesus in the resurrection. They said, Hey, hey, come stand before the Areopagus, this official group that evaluates all the philosophical and religious teachings in Athens. Tell us more about this teaching which you are proclaiming. As he does, he comes to what turned out to be the end of his address in verse 30, where Paul says, Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, that's times before Christ, right? The time of darkness, people didn't see clearly. He says, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent. Everyone should have a change of mind. God is declaring that now. Why? Well, because we live in the last days. That's why. Because time's running out. There's no guarantee for tomorrow. None.
SPEAKER_01:You have no guarantee. I have no guarantee. But it's okay, right? Because we're what? We're believers.
SPEAKER_02:We're not worried. Now, the world a little bit worried, but here he is, he's saying, he's he's uh declaring to men everywhere on the planet that they should repent. Have a change of mind, obviously, about the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because he has fixed a day. That's this whole point, right? The resurrection is now established that there's a fixed day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man who he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by what? Raising him from the dead. I mean, have you cont I mean, do you contemplate the resurrection? I mean, do you sometimes just sit there and think about it? Like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01:A dead body. Bones, muscles, organs, hair, eyes, ears, teeth, dead. I mean, what happens if stuff dies? Nobody wants to think about that. But on the third day, that body was supernaturally, miraculously transformed into an immortal body. Just like that. And this is that's kind of radical. That's the way we're viewing history.
SPEAKER_02:That something truly radical has transpired. And so now you've got obviously this individual who is judge of the world, and the day is fixed. Let's look at this this diagram that I showed many, many eons ago in connection with the fall. Okay, we have creation, Genesis 1 and 2, the falls in chapter 3. We obviously have the creator at the top, he's always good. Okay, no beginning or no end. Those little infinity symbols, right? So God has always been good, he's nothing but good, right? And he has no what happened.
SPEAKER_01:What do you want me to do? I don't know what to do. I can't change anything. Restart what? Well, let's try this. There, good.
SPEAKER_02:See the creator there, good, infinitely on either end. Okay, then he creates something. And you've got at creation, everything's very good. Remember, God's looked at all he'd made, and behold, it was very what? Good. No sin, no suffering, no pain, no death, no crying, no tears, nothing. Everything's very good. Then we have the fall of Adam and Eve, and at that point, evil is introduced into this sphere, into this realm. At that point, you've got a mixture, right, of good and evil. And that's where we live. We live in a mixture today of good and evil. But see, a day is coming, and that's what Acts 17, 31 is saying. He has fixed a day in which he will judge the world. Judgment, you see, judgment on the chart. That's what is that? That's the separation of good and evil. That's when those who believed will be separated out from those who have not believed. And see, that's the scary thought for unbelief. I mean, they this is what the world does with the with our ideas and with the Christian God. They say, well, if God is so loving and he's so powerful, then why hasn't he removed evil?
SPEAKER_01:Right? This is one of the this is probably the main charge against Christianity from non-Christians. Well, he's going to. He's going to. But do they like this idea of how he does it? No. They don't like this idea.
SPEAKER_02:But he will do this. Just right now, he's just exercising patience. 2 Peter 3:9, he's patient, giving men opportunity to repent, to have a change of mind about their course, right? But he is definitely going to judge. But see, that's the thing. That's the end. Okay? Once you're in the resurrection, it's everything is fixed. You can't change your position, okay? And that's a very scary thought. So the Bible and the resurrection, these are not ideas that people who are out there in the world are very fond of because it fixes your position forever, and that's a very scary place to be. And of course, what's Paul's point? Hey, get right with God now. Don't wait because once you wait, it's it's over. Now I'm gonna read a couple quotes and wrap things up, but these are helpful quotes. So both of these come from John Pilke.
SPEAKER_01:I'm trying to change this slide again.
SPEAKER_02:John Pilke, who wrote an interesting book on Table of Nations in Genesis 10, but contains a lot of information. He says the resurrection sheds eternal light on the heroic dimension of human existence. Now I'm gonna walk through this because he's a difficult writer. Brilliant mind. What does he mean, this heroic dimension of human existence? That every one of us knows there's something great about human beings. Every one of us, even unbelievers, they know there's something amazing about human beings. I mean, as great as sheep art, you can't have a relationship with one like you can any other human. There's just something great about humans, even though they get under your skin. There's something heroic about it. There's something special. He says this goes back in history. He says the connection between the grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids and Egyptian beliefs about resurrection is quite apparent. What did they do? What did they find when they went into the resurrect the Egyptian tombs? What'd they find? Wheaties. You know? A box of Wheaties. Uh food down there. That's the point, right? Like, well, what in the world are they putting food down in there for? They didn't just make hieroglyphs of food. They put food in there. Why would you do that? Because they believed in what? The idea of an afterlife, some kind of resurrection where they're actually going to eat those Wheaties. And you say, that's so strange. No, it's not strange at all. What was it saying about Egyptian culture? That they knew about this heroic dimension of humanity, and we weren't just going to return to dust. There's something more. They knew that. They were giving tacit recognition to that. He says, Men have also known, through the subjective power of the human spirit, that they are destined for one kind of immortality or another. I mean, always through humanity. There have been the vast majority of humanity thinking there's got to be more than this. It's not like we just return to dust and that's the end of us. There's some eternal dimension to us, something that will go on. Those who doubt the resurrection are to be pitied because they have allowed the elegiac, this is what I say is difficult, writer. If you know that word, I didn't know this word. I had to look those words up. The elegiac spirit of mortality to take possession of their souls. What does this mean? Okay, people who doubt the resurrection, in other words, they don't have that as a sure doctrine in their soul. They're to be pitied, he says, because they have allowed the elegiac spirit of mortality to take possession of their souls. This elegiac spirit is this kind of idea of eternal youth. It's this idea that I want to stay young. I want to stay young. I'm going to do whatever I can to make myself stay young. Behind that idea that we're doing and taking steps to keep ourselves young is the idea that there's no resurrection. Because if there is a resurrection, it's not that we want to put off our appearance, but it's just this. In the end, does it really matter?
SPEAKER_01:In the end, ultimately, we're going to get a resurrection body. So, yeah, you're going to be hot stuff. I mean, there you go. Great.
SPEAKER_02:Doubt of the resurrection, and this is probably one of the most famous things you could ever think about. Doubt of the resurrection is the intellectual correlative of simple depression. And modern materialist skeptics have sunk below the level of the Noahic pagan. Remember the world of Noah? If you read chapter 6 of Genesis, it was all men's thoughts continually were evil. Continually. Can you imagine a world where people, all they are, it's all evil? You're living 900 years. Just think how much evil you could dream up. I mean, you think it's bad living 70, 80, 90 years, and how much stuff you can dream up. Just imagine tenfold all the evil you could come up with. That world was wickedness. And God destroyed it right by a flood. It was so wicked. And he's saying, in our modern world, it sunk below that. And this Tao of the resurrection, he says, it's basically like intellectual suicide. You're on your way toward intellectual suicide. It's just a path to depression.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, if there's nothing more, who cares? Who cares? Who cares? And that that's where we are.
SPEAKER_02:Now, uh, here's another quote, and this is from the same guy, but interesting. Now, y'all know C. S. Lewis. Okay, that's who he's talking about here, Lewis's. Lewis's apologetic approach, grounded in reason. So uh C. S. Lewis basically used an approach of apologetics and you know, discussing with unbelievers based on reason. Grounding on reason, human reason. He says it's not it's not well adapted to those parts of the world where apostasy has advanced so far that anarchy reigns. In other words, where societies are turning toward chaos and confusion, right? Because who has time for reason when it's just confusion and chaos? Those arguments don't mean anything anymore. We just want to eat, right? Get out of my way. Freud's dark power of the id. This is the idea that sex is underneath everything. Oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_01:This didn't work again, so I'm gonna change.
unknown:Sorry.
SPEAKER_01:Uh oh, no, wrong one again. I'm sorry. This just isn't working that way, right? I don't want you to be able to see that quote. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Lewis's apologetic approach, grounded in reasons, not well adapted to those parts of the world where apostasy has advanced so far that anarchy reigns. Freud's dark power of the id, which is the idea that sexual urge is basically underneath everything, um buys for immediate social supremacy. Uh, he would even say babies have sexual urges, they just don't know it. I don't know what it means. That's Freud, right? In a nutshell. Confrontation with such satanic power. In other words, this is a bad situation that he's describing the world as going into when reason really doesn't matter. And you can't argue and discuss with people on the basis of reason anymore. So he says, in that kind of context in the world, you need a different approach to apologetics. And he says, such was the specialty of Charles Williams. He was a British writer who you can look into. But he's presenting everything as hey, the end of the world is coming. You got to get it right with God. It's like this is it. I mean, we don't have time to mess around. Okay. The final form of apologetics is supernaturalistic. Apocalyptic, meaning in time. Isn't any of these themes in our culture like apocalypticism? Like, is this the end of the world? World War III is coming. I mean, this stuff is in our culture. They don't know what's going on, but we do. And he says this is the form of apologetic we have to address now. Supernaturalistic, apocalyptic, and judgmental in tone, right? It threatens the enemies of Christianity with the consequences of unrepentant death. I mean, if you die and you have not got a right with God, that's it. You are forever fixed. You can never cross over. Once the separation of good and evil is taking place, it's not coming back together. You can't switch sides. Requiring them to choose heaven or hell today and experience one or the other tomorrow. That is how urgent it is. That was how urgent it was for Paul in verse 31. He has fixed a day in which you would judge the world with righteousness. You know, get right with God now. Although most apostates are infuriated by the threats of judgment, and sure they are, they don't like you talking this way. He says the human conscience remains open to this very elemental sort of conviction. Why?
SPEAKER_01:Because they intuitively do know. They do know that this day is coming. They sense it. So they are open to it.
SPEAKER_02:And I'm encouraging us to use it in this hour, of life. I mean, Charles Williams was written writing, you know, 50, 75 years ago, 75 years ago. So we're very much there. This quote goes on. In Christian apologetics, wait, did this change?
SPEAKER_01:No, it didn't change. At least I'm remembering. Oh, no, that's the wrong side.
SPEAKER_02:In Christian apologetics, the greatest of all doctrines is the resurrection of the dead. An idea so powerful that it, rather than sex, holds the key to the mystery of human existence. Why did he write that? Because every pagan religion, every pagan idea has always put sex at the center of it. Somehow sex holds this mysterious power of procreation. You know, like we can create this whole world. And that's why it's always been central. Or we have sex so we can communicate to the gods that we want more fertility because ultimately we want more money, more power, more control. So sex has held this position in paganism forever, but the resurrection totally eclipses all that.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, who needs sex when resurrection is it takes all that euphoria and bottles it up times a million?
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's not sex is just a temporary ecstasy. The resurrection is permanent, it's always there. You you you you're always enjoying it, you're always happy. Okay. Resurrection annihilate uh um, okay, wherever it is clearly conceived as a metaphysical reality. What does he mean by that? What's metaphysics? Metaphysics is behind what we see. Like there's more, there's another world. It's the real world, it's the really real thing. And he says, everywhere that idea is conceived as something real, resurrection annihilates every premise and every conclusion of the Marxists, the Freudians, and the Darwinian schools of thought. Well, that's basically every school of thought that's out there governing the world thinking right now. And he says it annihilates it, it erases the premise of Marxism by positing a version of humanity independent of the natural food chain. What did Marxism say? We generate food and material goods to bring about happiness, to bring about a utopian universe. It's all materialistic and it's all about being happy, getting stuff, and being well fed.
SPEAKER_01:Does the world think that? That's all they think. If we get this stuff, we'll be happy.
SPEAKER_02:The resurrection totally annihilates that premise. Because in the resurrection, do you need food to eat?
SPEAKER_01:Do you need a Lamborghini to be happy? No. In fact, that stuff is like garbage in the resurrection. It's like garbage.
SPEAKER_02:It cancels the premise of Freudianism by furnishing a degree of vitality so absolute that temporary sexual euphoria loses all meaning. It's nothing. Sex is nothing compared to the resurrection. What a joke, is what he's saying. And it destroys the whole point of evolution by this is a great point, by bringing mankind to absolute physical perfection in an instant of transformation. How long do you think it's going to take to get the resurrection body? Is this like going through billions of years of evolution?
SPEAKER_01:Or is it in a moment in the twinkling of an eye? Do you see how the resurrection is so powerful? It's breathtake. It is awesome. And at the end of history, because the first has been resurrected, it's already happened. So guess what? It's going to happen again. In the world, 2 Peter 3 is falling asleep. And they're drunk behind the wheel.
SPEAKER_02:And it's not a good end. And that's why Toki said, This is the time in history for supernaturalistic, catastrophic, super uh you know, uh miraculous type of apologetic. You have to confront people with reality. That, hey, you're not guaranteed another day, you need to get right with God. They may not like the message, but it inherently they do understand there's something more than just this life, and we're not just gonna turn into ashes, and that's just gonna be it. And that's scary though, because that means that we're gonna go on and we've got to meet someone. Now, there was something that happened in May Day of 1990 in the Soviet Union, just months before it crashed. I wanted to bring this up just because this is an interesting kind of picture of what it really looks like. Okay, with all the political powers in the world and so forth, are the countries and nations that think they're going to be the top dog, and that they'll have this last word in history or whatever. Um, this gives an interesting picture. You know, they used to have these when you had the so before the collapse of the Soviet Union and all that, but uh, where they'd been out in front of the Kremlin, you'd have all the cabinet members sitting up there, and the Red Army would come by, they'd have their big missiles and all this, these marches. And some of this would be televised, and you could see. It was, but uh Charles Colson wrote this. You know, Chuck Colson, the guy who back in Watergate, all that stuff. Um, it was May Day, 1990. He writes this in his book called The Body. The place, Moscow's Red Square. As the throng passed directly in front of Mikhail Gorbachev, standing in his place of honor, the priest hoisted their heavy burden. Now, there's so a group of priests in this entourage. The priests hoisted their heavy burden toward the sky. It's the cross. It's a murder, it emerges from the crowd. As it did, the figure of Jesus Christ obscured the giant poster faces of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. So they've got these giant posters of them, but here comes these priests, they're holding up this cross with Christ. And it's just, it's, it's, it's enormous.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And then they began to shout, the priest, Mikhail Sergeyevitch, one of the priests shouted.
SPEAKER_02:His deep voice cleaving the clamor of the protesters and piercing straight toward the angry Soviet leader. Mikhail Sergevich, Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_01:Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_02:Now, just this this event is this event, but this event is what I'm what I'm showing you is to show you the significance and purpose of the resurrection in history. Who has the final word?
SPEAKER_01:The resurrected Christ. That's what these priests were saying. You political leaders sitting up there, you do not have the final word in history. Lennon, Mark, Engels, do not have the final word in history. You, Gorbachev, do not have the final word in history. Who? Jesus Christ. He's risen. How are you gonna stop that? In a matter of months, almost you know, it's just strange irony.
SPEAKER_02:In a matter of months after that final May Day celebration, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. It's almost saying like that's you know, it's just a picture of like, hey, the end could come.
SPEAKER_01:But in the ashes of the end, Christ will rule forever. So see the significance of the resurrection. And he's already crossed the finish. You're gonna cross the finish. And before we do, what do we need to live by?
SPEAKER_02:We need to live that resurrection life of Christ. The life that's by faith.
SPEAKER_01:The supernatural life. Where we're going to him pray for prayer in prayer for everything. There's nothing too small.
SPEAKER_02:God doesn't care about it.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spoke and Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.