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The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an essential tenet of our Christian faith. It’s only by the redeeming death of our Savior and His resurrection that we are justified before God and eternally saved.
Romans 4:25 makes this clear:
“Who [Jesus] was delivered for our offenses and was raised for our justification.”
But in addition to this, did you know that the Bible speaks of three wonderful things that happened when Jesus was resurrected from the dead?
In this post, we’ll read verses and helpful notes in the New Testament Recovery Version that reveal these three things. We hope this will give us a broader view of and deeper appreciation for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Most of us can recount exactly when we received the Lord Jesus and were born again, or regenerated.
While it’s true that each of us was regenerated on a particular date, 1 Peter 1:3 says something extraordinary:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
This verse tells us that when Jesus was resurrected, we were all regenerated! This is hard for our minds to comprehend, but according to the Word of God, it’s a remarkable fact. The eternal God isn’t bound by time. According to the divine viewpoint, Peter, Paul, and all of Christ’s believers throughout the centuries, including us, were regenerated at the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Note 4 on this verse in the Recovery Version explains what regeneration is:
“Regeneration, like redemption and justification, is an aspect of God’s full salvation. Redemption and justification solve our problem with God and reconcile us to God; regeneration enlivens us with God’s life, bringing us into a relationship of life, an organic union, with God. Hence, regeneration issues and results in a living hope. Such regeneration is accomplished through the resurrection of Christ from the dead.”
Romans 4:25 tells us Jesus’ being raised from the dead was for us to be objectively justified before God. But 1 Peter 1:3 reveals more. Through Jesus’ resurrection, we were also inwardly regenerated with the life of God. Since we were enlivened with God’s own life, we now share His life and have a relationship of life with Him. This is what God originally planned for us.
[[Free Study Bible]]
Many people are familiar with John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.”
God manifested His great love for fallen sinners by giving His only begotten Son. God didn’t spare His beloved Son but sent Him into this world to die for us so that all who believe into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.
The only begotten Son of God was and is divine. But when He was incarnated to be the man Jesus, He took on human nature. He was divine and human at the same time, God yet man: a God-man. This is the One who died on the cross for us.
Then speaking of Christ’s resurrection, Acts 13:33 says:
“That God has fully fulfilled this promise to us their children in raising up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son; this day have I begotten You.’”
Since Christ was God’s only begotten Son already, even before resurrection, why does this verse say that on the day of resurrection He was begotten of God?
Note 1 on this verse in the New Testament Recovery Version helps us understand:
“Resurrection was a birth to the man Jesus. He was begotten by God in His resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). He was the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18; 3:16). After incarnation, through resurrection He was begotten by God in His humanity to be God’s firstborn Son.”
The words incarnation and humanity here are key. Christ, who is divine from eternity to eternity, became a man, died as a man, and was raised as a man. Through resurrection, He was begotten in His humanity as God’s firstborn Son.
For Christ to be the firstborn Son of God implies the existence of many other sons. That’s us! We, of course, were born possessing the human life. Through being born again, we obtained the divine life and are now sons of God. Christ is the firstborn Son with divinity and humanity, and we’re His many brothers.
John 20:17 tells us what Jesus said to Mary the Magdalene on the morning of His resurrection:
“Jesus said to her, Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brothers and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.”
Now let’s read the note on brothers in this verse:
“Previously, the most intimate term the Lord had used in reference to His disciples was ‘friends’ (15:14-15). But after His resurrection He began to call them ‘brothers,’ for through His resurrection His disciples were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3) with the divine life, which had been released by His life-imparting death, as indicated in 12:24. He was the one grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died and grew up to bring forth many grains for the producing of the one bread, which is His Body (1 Cor. 10:17). He was the Father’s only Son, the Father’s individual expression. Through His death and resurrection the Father’s only Begotten became the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). His many brothers are the many sons of God and are the church (Heb. 2:10-12), a corporate expression of God the Father in the Son. This is God’s ultimate intention. The many brothers are the propagation of the Father’s life and the multiplication of the Son in the divine life. Hence, in the Lord’s resurrection God’s eternal purpose is fulfilled.”
The Lord in resurrection was made God’s firstborn Son and we became the many sons of God, His many brothers!
First Corinthians 15:45 says:
“So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul’; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.”
The last Adam in this verse refers to Jesus Christ.
Note 1 on this verse in the Recovery Version sheds tremendous light on the matter of Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. The first part says:
“Through creation Adam became a living soul with a soulish body. Through resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit with a spiritual body. Adam as a living soul is natural; Christ as a life-giving Spirit is resurrected. First, in incarnation He became flesh for redemption (John 1:14, 29); then, in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit for the imparting of life (John 10:10b). Through incarnation He had a soulish body, as Adam had; through resurrection He has a spiritual body. His soulish body has become a spiritual one through resurrection. Now He is a life-giving Spirit in resurrection, with a spiritual body, ready to be received by His believers.”
John 1:14, 1:29, and 10:10b are all referenced in this note, and they say respectively:
“And the Word [Christ] became flesh and tabernacled among us.”“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”“I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.”
The eternal God became a man of flesh and blood named Jesus Christ to die for us as the Lamb of God. In resurrection, Christ became the life-giving Spirit so He could impart the divine life into us, even abundantly.
When Jesus was living on earth, it was wonderful to be near Him physically. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and spoke words of life no one had ever heard before. But those who followed Him were still separate from Him. He couldn’t enter into them. But in resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit so He could enter into all His believers.
Today anyone, anywhere who repents and believes in Him as the Savior can receive Him into their spirit, the innermost part of their being.
Now let’s focus on the last part of the note from 1 Corinthians 15:45:
“When we believe into Him, He enters our spirit, and we are joined to Him as the life-giving Spirit. Hence, we become one spirit with Him (6:17). Our spirit is made alive and is resurrected with Him. Eventually, our present soulish body will become a spiritual body in resurrection, just like His (vv. 52-54; Phil. 3:21).”
First Corinthians 6:17, referenced in the note, says:
“But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”
When we believed in the Lord, our regenerated human spirit and the Spirit were joined together as one spirit. No relationship could be more personal or intimate than this. He as the life-giving Spirit now dwells in our spirit and continues to give life to us when we contact Him by praying and calling on His name.
Christ’s resurrection is truly wonderful! We were regenerated with the life of God; He became the firstborn Son of God and we the many sons of God; and He became the life-giving Spirit who now dwells in our spirit.
Praise the Lord for the resurrection of Jesus Christ! May our eyes be opened to see what happened in His resurrection, and may our hearts and mouths be opened to thank and praise Him!
The subject of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is profound. We could only touch on these three wonderful things that happened in His resurrection in a very brief way here. If you live in the United States, we encourage you to order a free New Testament Recovery Version here so you can read all the notes on the verses we mentioned.
When it comes to the Bible, we Christians would all agree that it’s very important to read it regularly.
But if our Bible reading has become a tedious chore, it may be because we didn’t know we can taste and enjoy God in the Bible.
Throughout history, God’s people have experienced enjoying Him in His Word. When we learn to taste God in His Word, our time spent with the Bible isn’t a duty; it’s a delight.
In this post, we’ll explore how we can taste and enjoy God in His Word.
We all know we have to eat to live. But this doesn’t mean we just endure it as a chore we have to get through; most of us look forward to eating. When we eat, we’re not just chewing and swallowing food; we’re also tasting it. That’s why eating can be so enjoyable.
The Bible is not like any other book; it’s actually our spiritual food. Like physical food, we need to take it in every day. And we can look forward to our time in the Word as an opportunity to enjoy and taste God.
[[Free Study Bible]]
What is it like to enjoy God in His Word?
The writer of Psalm 119 says in verse 103:
“How sweet are Your words to my taste! Sweeter than honey to my mouth!”
This psalmist and others in the Old Testament experienced a sweet taste in their hearts when they read the Word of God. Surely they discovered and experienced how enjoyable God’s Word is.
But it’s not just the words in the Bible that taste good. It’s God Himself in His Word that we taste.
We see this in 1 Peter 2:2-3, where the Word and the Lord are put together:
“As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
We take in the guileless milk of the word, and in that milk, we taste that the Lord is good.
Note 1 on tasted in the New Testament Recovery Version explains:
“The Lord can be tasted, and His taste is pleasant and good. If we have tasted Him, we will long for the nourishing milk in His word.”
The taste of the Lord in His Word is pleasant and good. Once we’ve tasted Him, it causes us to long to taste even more of Him.
Second Timothy 3:16 says:
“All Scripture is God-breathed.”
The words of the Scripture are God’s very breath, issuing from His breathing out. Since they come out of God’s very being, they carry the flavor of God.
We need to keep this crucial fact in mind when we come to the Bible, approaching it in the right way so we can enjoy and taste God in it. Otherwise, we may miss Him altogether.
Let’s say a friend of yours invites you to attend his wedding reception. When you arrive, you see a wonderful feast with an impressive number of appealing dishes. But instead of eating them, you study them. Rather than tasting and savoring the rich food, you learn as much information about it as possible. You find out the ingredients, calorie amounts, nutritional value, method of preparation, and so on.
But you never take one bite.
Later, when another friend asks you about the dinner, you relate all the information you gathered about the food. But if your friend asks, “Yes, but how did it taste? Was it good?” you can’t answer because you didn’t taste a single thing.
The problem wasn’t the food. All the other guests who ate the food found everything delicious. The problem was your approach and intention when you went to the dinner.
This example may seem a little ridiculous, and the problem is obvious. But it illustrates how we may not taste God because of our approach and intention when we come to the Bible.
Maybe in the past we’ve approached the Bible as if it were a textbook to analyze and learn as much information as we can about God. We may have acquired some objective knowledge about Him, but we probably didn’t taste very much of the Lord’s goodness or sweetness.
Or maybe we’ve approached the Bible as a handbook or a guide for how we should live. We search it for the “rules” that we need to obey and the good things we should do. But if we come to the Bible intending to learn how to behave or improve ourselves, we miss the food in God’s Word.
We certainly must spend time to study, understand, and know the Bible. But we can’t stop there. If we focus merely on knowing about the Lord in an objective way, we’ll miss out on experiencing Him subjectively by tasting Him in His Word.
And actually, the way we’re truly changed from within and even spontaneously transformed into the image of Christ is by eating and enjoying God in His Word.
God is unsearchably rich in who He is. He is love, light, holiness, righteousness, peace, endurance, faithfulness, and so much more. And He wants us to enjoy all that He is. The Bible gives us a way to taste and experience God as a rich feast.
But in order to taste and enjoy Him, it’s critical that we know how to eat the Word of God as our spiritual food. We discuss this in another post, How to Eat the Word of God. With proper eating comes tasting. As we eat the words in the Bible, we’ll enjoy the pleasant and good taste of God.
Then the words of Jeremiah 15:16 will be our testimony:
“Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word became to me the gladness and joy of my heart.”
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
In 2 Timothy 2:22 the apostle Paul gave this strong command:
“But flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
This word is as urgently needed today as it was when it was written nearly two thousand years ago. In order to have a proper Christian life, we need to take this word to heart.
In this post, we’ll discuss what this verse means and how it applies to us with the help of other verses and notes in the New Testament Recovery Version.
Without exception, everyone is subject to lust’s passionate urges and desires. This is because the entire human race was included in Adam’s fall away from God. God had created man with a pure body, but because of the fall, that body became the evil flesh, full of sinful lusts. No one needs to be taught or trained to have lusts; they arise from the fallen flesh of every human being.
We can readily observe the increasingly pervasive immorality in all areas of society. This is the result of people gratifying their lusts in every kind of way.
Even after we’re saved, we’re not immune to the danger of the lusts of our flesh.
When we were saved, we were born of the Spirit of God in our spirit, the deepest part of our being. But though our spirit was regenerated, our body remains the sinful flesh. So we can never be free from the peril that lust presents while we live in our earthly bodies.
Many verses in the New Testament show that no matter how spiritual believers may be, we still possess the sinful flesh.
For instance, Galatians 5:16 says:
“But I say, Walk by the Spirit and you shall by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
Paul wrote this to believers in Galatia. This shows us that we still have the fallen flesh with its lusts even after we’re saved, which explains why we sin.
And Timothy was already saved when Paul admonished him to flee youthful lusts. So we can see that lusts are still a problem for believers, and we can’t afford to overlook or ignore this word.
[[Free Study Bible]]
The sinful lusts within us are incited by the world. The world is a system devised by Satan that has only one aim: to draw us away from God and damage us.
This evil world system is clearly defined in 1 John 2:16:
“Because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.”
This is the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life.
The world is increasingly persistent with its endless stream of sinful and unclean things we can view and participate in. And modern technology makes it easy to gratify our lust by just a quick tap on our phone or a click on our computer. Diverse attractions of the world designed to stir our sinful lusts tempt us all day. Perhaps more than ever before in human history, we have to recognize the danger of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, Paul wrote to the new believers in Thessalonica:
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God.”
God created us as vessels to contain and express Him. For this, He wants us to be sanctified to live a holy life. But Satan wants to damage us—spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically—through our indulging in the lusts of our flesh.
Now let’s read note 2 in verse 3 on fornication:
“At Paul’s time, in both Corinth and Thessalonica sensuality and immorality were rife in the pagan religions and even were fostered by pagan worship. Man was made to express God (Gen. 1:26). Concerning this purpose, nothing ruins man more than fornication. This prevents man from being holy, separated unto God, and contaminates man to the uttermost in fulfilling God’s holy purpose. Hence, the apostle strongly charged the newly converted Gentile believers to be sanctified unto God, to abstain from fornication, the most gross sin in the eyes of God, that they might avoid its damage and contamination.”
This note also describes life in the twenty-first century: sensuality and immorality are rife. But in the midst of this environment, God wants us to be sanctified, to live a life of holiness. This is why we must abstain from fornication.
No matter how much we love the Lord Jesus, how long we’ve been saved, or how many experiences of Christ we’ve had, lusts are still a constant peril to us. So how can we avoid the damage and contamination that comes from indulging in lusts?
Let’s read 2 Timothy 2:22 again:
“But flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
Paul told Timothy to flee!
To flee means to escape, or to run away from a place or situation of danger. For instance, if a fire starts near you, you don’t hang around or saunter slowly away. You flee! Youthful lusts are certainly like a raging fire that we must run away from.
Notice Paul didn’t say to resist lusts or to defeat lusts with strong faith. No, Paul used the verb flee. We must take decisive action. This is how we’re to handle lusts.
In Romans 13:14, Paul gives us another clear and definite word:
“Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.”
Note 2 on provision in the Recovery Version explains what this means:
“Or, arrangement. This word has the same root as the Greek word for take forethought in 12:17. To take forethought includes the meaning to provide. To make no provision for the flesh is to not take any forethought for the flesh or provide the flesh with anything that will support it and make it convenient for it to fulfill its lusts.”
The words make no provision are unambiguous, allowing no gray area. We shouldn’t supply our flesh with any opportunity or environment that makes it convenient to fulfill its lusts. This is very practical.
For example, we shouldn’t deliberately go to a place where we know people participate in sinful, immoral activities. To be in such a place provides the opportunity for our flesh to fulfill its lusts; sin will be the result.
If we somehow didn’t know that sinful activities would occur in a particular place we’re in, we should leave as soon as we realize it. We shouldn’t linger there, confident that we won’t be affected and that nothing bad will happen. We need to take away any opportunity for our flesh.
We can’t be indifferent, passive, or self-confident; we must be active to flee the lusts of the flesh.
In 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul didn’t just tell us to “flee youthful lusts” without any idea of where to go. He went on to say, “Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace.”
To pursue means to seek, search out, follow, or run after—another definite, active word.
On one hand, we must flee something terrible: youthful lusts. On the other hand, we must pursue something wonderful: righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Of course, this isn’t referring to our own righteousness; Paul is referring to the attributes of Christ Himself. While we flee, we also seek, search out, follow, and run after Christ as all these virtues for our living.
Note 2 on 2 Timothy 2:22 in the Recovery Version explains these virtues in our experience:
“Righteousness is toward oneself, faith is toward God, and love is toward others; peace is the issue of these three virtues.”
So when we pursue Christ, we experience Christ as our righteousness, faith, and love in our relationship with God and with others. As we experience Christ as all these virtues, we have Christ as our real peace within.
Fleeing lusts and pursuing Christ shouldn’t be occasional events with us; they should be our daily experience.
How can we have a daily life of fleeing lusts and pursuing Christ? In the second half of the verse, Paul gave a practical way to flee and pursue: “with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
It’s impossible to flee and pursue all by ourselves. We’re no match for Satan, his world system, and our fallen flesh. But notice that Paul urged Timothy to flee and pursue with those, meaning, with other believers.
Why is this so important? We’re all influenced by the kind of people we’re with. If we choose to be with people who draw us away from God, we’ll easily succumb to lusts. Instead, we should choose to be with fellow believers who are fleeing the damaging lusts of the flesh and pursuing righteousness, faith, love, and peace.
So in addition to developing our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, we need to find some spiritual companions we can pray, read the Bible, and fellowship with.
Paul also included the words, “those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
In addition to spending time with companions, calling on the name of the Lord also strengthens us to flee lusts and to pursue Christ.
It’s an inescapable fact that we believers still have our fallen flesh with its lusts, and that increasing temptations and shameless immorality are everywhere we turn. But it’s also a fact that we have Christ living in us, and we have other believers we can flee lusts and pursue Christ with. By pursuing Christ, our vessels can be sanctified and filled with Him as our righteousness, faith, love, and peace.
If you live in the US, we encourage you to order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here to read all of the notes and verses we mentioned in this post.
