The film Jesus Revolution portrays the spiritual awakening of the 1960s and the way that one young man, Greg Laurie, was swept up, saved by grace, and called by God to be a Christian pastor and evangelist.
Baptisms anchor the film, and the most pivotal is the baptism of Laurie (Joel Courtney). The depiction of Laurie’s baptism is a moving reminder of what we believe about death, burial, and resurrection. Though he is clutched firmly in the pastoral grip of Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), Laurie falls freely beneath the water, his old life symbolically dying, arms outstretched and eyes closed. He sinks, seconds pass, the old life is finally buried, and then he rises above the waves to live his new life in Christ.
Death, burial, and resurrection!
Do we really get it?
Confusion about the death and resurrection of Christ abounds. Is it a metaphor? Magic? A miracle?
And it seems this time of year the events of Easter are invoked for every cause imaginable, including gun control and political posturing.
Tennessee State Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled from the House last Friday due to their participation in gun control protests on the House floor. They compared themselves to Jesus and the criminals who were crucified on Good Friday.
Then, on Monday, the Metro Nashville Council voted to reinstate Jones, and Pearson will likely follow. The politicians and the news media proclaimed their reinstatement a “resurrection miracle,” like the resurrection of Jesus himself, they said.
No. It’s not like that
We can understand politicians getting it wrong. They got it wrong back then (Matt. 28:11-15), and they usually get it wrong now.
Christians, on the other hand, need to get this right. Christians worldwide celebrate Easter because everything else we believe hinges on that one, definitive truth. Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead (John 20:19-29)!
But how does that impact us? When we turn our attention to the biblical teaching of our own resurrection, we get a little fuzzy. We tend to teach, preach, and talk about our resurrection as an out-there-somewhere-event to look forward to.
But what about now? How does “resurrection” impact you, the Christian, right now?
Resurrection life is now
True, a future bodily resurrection is certain. It’s the culmination of human history. Christians will receive a resurrection to eternal life, and non-Christians to judgement (Acts 24:15, John 5:24-29).
But when that future resurrection is our only focus, we risk missing the Bible’s most significant teaching about eternal life.
To put it another way, eternal life is resurrection life. One and the same.
Resurrection looks like this
In Romans 6, for the benefit of Christians, Paul connects the imagery of baptism to this critical truth. Baptism serves as a living symbol of what God has done for you and in you. In God’s plan, Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection are one event, tied together by the eternal finality of both.
In the same way, your crucifixion with Christ and your resurrection with Christ are one event. By faith, as surely as you were crucified with Christ, you now live in Him (Gal. 2:20).
But what does Paul mean? And why does it matter to you?
Celebrate the fact of your resurrection
Just as the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact of history, so is yours. The two go together. Here’s how it works.
- You die to the old life
Resurrection requires death. So, when you trusted Christ and His death to pay for your sin (Rom. 6:23), by faith you accepted that your old life was gone (Rom. 6:6) and you were reborn in Him (John 3:3).
Paul calls this being “united with Him.” He says, “For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom. 6:5).
In this context “if” doesn’t refer to something questionable, but it reminds us of an accepted fact. You could change it to “since we have been united with him.”
By faith, you joined with Him in His death. So, Paul says, you “certainly” also joined with Him in His resurrection. “Certainly” refers to a reasonable conclusion. If one thing is true, it only follows that the other thing is true. If your old self died with Christ, your new self rose with Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).
- You live a new life
Now, don’t miss this. Your new life is “in Christ” (1 Cor. 1:30, 2 Cor. 5:17, Rom. 8:1). It is because of Christ. Prior to your surrender to Christ, you had no life (Eph. 2:1). If you are a Christian, the only reason you have life at all is because you are united to Him by faith.
He is your life (John 14:6).
And it should show. Your life should be different, starting with how you think. Paul writes, “So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11).
“Consider yourselves” Paul says. “Consider” translates a word that means to press your mind down upon something, or give it your full focus and concentration.
So, when you think of your new condition in Christ, think of yourself as “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Your old life is crucified, but you are now alive in Christ. If you think of yourself as the way you were, you’ll act like that. But if you think of yourself as living in a resurrection life in Christ, new habits and behaviors will take shape.
Don’t think of yourself as still in the old life. Think of yourself as a new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). And then start living that way. After all, how you think always dictates how you behave.
It should show
So, your new life should show. As Paul instructs, refuse to “let sin reign in your mortal body” or “offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness.” Instead, as someone who is now “alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness” (6:12-13).
Your new way of thinking should produce new decisions. If that old self is dead, how could you possibly live like you did when you were that person? Don’t “offer yourself” to the old life. Instead, surrender to serve God in your new life.
One more thing
The book Jesus Revolution served as the fuel for the movie. In the book, Laurie reports that as soon as he had been changed by Christ, he lost his desire to use drugs or “smoke dope.” No one had to wag a finger at him or explain it to him.
And, he says, it baffled him that some Christians thought they could sustain the old habits and still follow Christ.
That, he knew, doesn’t make any sense. How could it? That old life was gone, dead and buried with Christ. Now, he was living his new life Christ! He was different and he knew it.
How about you?
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
2 Cor. 5:17