The POWER of His Resurrection 

“That I may know Him, and the POWER of His resurrection.”— Phil 3:10.

I have been meditating on what Paul calls “the POWER of His resurrection” and I came across something that Spurgeon wrote on that topic, and took some notes on it, that I want to share with you.

Remember Paul was what you’d call “the cream of the crop” as far as the Jewish law was concerned, and he had deliberately set aside his own personal credentials and his own righteousness that he’d worked so hard to attain as a Jewish Pharisee, and he said, “But what things (credentials) were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things” (Phil:3:7). He said, there’s only one thing that counts to me now, “that I may know Jesus and the POWER of His resurrection”.

Just think about this for a minute, everywhere Paul went, he butted against the religious Jews and their mosaic law, which was the main religion of the day. Not only he butted against their “law-filled” doctrines, but his main mission was to convince them to move on and realize that the old law was now over. Can you just imagine the challenge? No wonder he got persecuted and even stoned just about everywhere he went.

If ever you feel frustrated in trying to convince people that Jesus is more than church attendance, you can encourage yourself in the challenges that Paul faced. Not only he had to convince the Jews, but the gentiles as well, that from hereon, it was all by faith alone in the resurrection-power of Christ. –This Nazarene man who went everywhere doing good, who had been killed (by the Jews) and now LIVES again.

And because Paul was so convinced and empowered with conviction, so compelled by his love for Christ, he went on to change the world’s greatest religious authorities to faith alone in “the POWER of Jesus’ resurrection”. That power that brings the TRUE meaning to life and that brings the POWER of Christ to all who believe. He said, “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” (1Cor 15:14). That’s how important that one point of the message was. –there’s POWER in Christ’s resurrection!

He even said that the apostles would have been found false witnesses, “Because,” he says, “we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.” “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” (1Cor 15:17)

The resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of faith. If you take the resurrection away, the whole thing is degraded to nothing but a philosophy and a religion and what Paul calls a “cunningly devised fable”. Jesus’ life would have been simply a perfect example of conduct, but it could not have become our righteousness if his burial had been the end of all. It was essential for the confirmation of his life-teaching, that he should be RAISED from the dead. He conquered death!

The power of His resurrection is an infallible proof of the authority, power, and glory of Jesus, as the Son of God. This proof had such POWER about it to the minds of the early apostles that they preached it with outstanding boldness to the point of martyrdom.

Jesus said, “I AM the RESURRECTION and the LIFE, he who believes in Me shall never die.” (Jn 11:25, 26).

Christ has an ongoing life in us, and He makes His life flow into every part of his spiritual body, according to His own Word, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” We possess as believers, that same life which is in Christ, for we are His body of which He is the Head.

The power of His resurrection gives us the ability to be in the world, but not of the world. We can live independent from the world’s system, renewed, transformed and translated into His glorious light, scarcely touched by the world. THAT POWER of His resurrection gives us the identity of another world–the kingdom of God.

When we believe in Jesus, we receive a new life, powered by His resurrection, and we rise to a higher state. Our spiritual life has the DNA of Christ, we are “re-fashioned” after the image of God. We are re-empowered as Vice Roy on earth.. The old life remains, but becomes to us a kind of death: the new life which God gives is the TRUE life, which connects us to the divine and the eternal.

Just think about this— the risen Christ is able to give us an entirely NEW LIFE. By the POWER of his resurrection, He brought God’s spirit back into man, and men are raised from their death of sin, to an eternal life of righteousness. The righteousness in which we are accepted is finished and complete, and therefore we find rest in Him.

The resurrection POWER of Christ is the operating system that powers all who hear and believe His Words. The same as the sun in the springtime brings warmth and life to the frozen ground, and reboots, quickens and produces life through its light beams, the resurrection of Christ quickens us into new life and brings a springtime of hope to those who believe.

This is the power with which the missionary goes forth to sow; this is the power in which the witnesser continues to scatter the seed. This is the power that compelled the apostle Paul to change the world and energizes us to shine a light that comes from within.

Death, brought through Adam’s rebellion, has no more dominion over us because of Jesus’ victory over death; and as we have been raised in the likeness of His resurrection, so are we raised into a life which is eternal. “We shall never thirst again, but the water which Jesus gives us shall be in us a well of living water springing up into everlasting life”. (Jn 4:14)

The power of the resurrection is the power of the Holy Ghost restored to man; it is the energy of the incorruptible seed of God, the life-giving power of the Word of God.

Back to Paul, in his day, to be a believer was a costly matter. Imprisonment was the lightest of their trials: stripes and tortures of every kind were their portion. “Christians to the lions!” was the cry heard in the amphitheatre; and nothing pleased the people better than to see believers smeared with pitch from head to toe, and set on fire.

Today, there are many technical Christians, who know the clichés of godliness, but know not the power thereof. There are ritualistic Christians, who shine the outward of Christianity, but know not the POWER given to man through His resurrection. We have many moral religionists, but they deny the power of the gospel. We have conventional, regulated religiosity that doesn’t manifest the power of the resurrection. They’re not enthusiasts, fanatics, nor even compelled, much less propelled. Such Christianity goes by the name of Christ, yet it is dead. They have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.

The truth of the gospel has a force in it, a power: — a redemption power! Don’t just gaze at the power of God’s Word, but eat of it till you feel its power. Let it nourish and energize your whole being. There has to be a propelling joy and a force that compels us to tell.

He is risen. He’s alive. He’s the Victor. “ALL power is given onto Him, in heaven and on earth”. That POWER of the resurrection is what gives us the POWER to heal, to cast out demons, to enforce the VICTORY of Christ on earth as it is in heaven, and to destroy the works of the devil. That POWER is what energizes believers to be the LIGHT of the world.

That POWER is the aura of light that you can SEE in the eyes of those who truly believe. That POWER is what gives us power to become sons of God. (Jn 1:12)

Live out the POWER.