Raised with Christ 6
Chapter Nine: Raised for our Justification
This is an excellent chapter in Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything. As Adrian Warnock says, “Christians are usually more comfortable with the idea that it is the cross that justifies. However, it is our union with Christ’s obedient life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection that saves us.”
Our author observes that the Apostle Paul makes a distinction between the role of Jesus’ death and of His resurrection in our salvation. But critically, they are both necessary for God’s transformation of a sin infected cosmos.
I like Adrian quote of ‘preacher Bill Johnson’: “the cross was for our old life and the resurrection for our new life.” The chapter focusses on Rom 4:25
25 [Jesus] was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Adrian identifies the following links between Jesus’ resurrection and our justification. Jesus was:
- raised to give us a future resurrection
- raised to prompt faith in us
- raised for His own justification
- justified so we can be justified
- raised so He can apply justification to us
Our author rightly states, “it is union with Jesus Himself, the One who died and was raised, that saves us.”
I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter. It seems that often the link between Jesus’ resurrection and justification takes a back seat, and the critically important doctrine of union with Christ gets weigh too little airplay.
If you’d like to pursue the subject of chapter nine at a deeper level, I warmly recommend Michael Bird’s The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification and the New Perspective (see chapter 3).
