Posted on 04/20/2017 8:01:57 AM PDT by Salvation
Did Christ have to rise? No, God could have chosen other methods to show us His justice and love. However, for many reasons it was fitting that Jesus should rise bodily and present Himself to His disciples and other believers.
St. Thomas Aquinas presents us with five reasons that the resurrection was fitting. Let’s examine his teaching. St. Thomas’ writing is presented bold, black italics, while my inferior comments appear in plain red text. The teaching is drawn from the Summa Theologiae III, Q. 53, Art. 1.
It behooved Christ to rise again, for five reasons.
First of all; for the commendation of Divine Justice, to which it belongs to exalt them who humble themselves for God’s sake, according to Luke 1:52: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.” Consequently, because Christ humbled Himself even to the death of the Cross, from love and obedience to God, it behooved Him to be uplifted by God to a glorious resurrection; hence it is said in His Person (Psalm 138:2): “Thou hast known,” i.e. approved, “my sitting down,” i.e. My humiliation and Passion, “and my rising up,” i.e. My glorification in the resurrection; as the gloss expounds.
God has put His justice in our hearts and it is something for which every human being ultimately longs. While the object of our sense of justice may sometimes be wrong (for some perceive the details of justice wrongly, seeing a grievance where there is none or failing to see injustice where it exists), the longing for justice is hard-wired in our soul.
That acts of murder, theft, violence, injustice to the poor and innocent, and so forth might go unaddressed offends against our deepest sensibilities. God, who put this sense of justice in us—a metaphysical concept that seems wholly lacking in animals—confirms His own justice in Jesus rising from the dead.
Although God’s justice may at times seem delayed, it will come. In the final judgement, all will be set right; hidden deeds and crimes will be disclosed and prosecuted and the truth of God will stand forth vindicated.
This should both console and sober us. For if God’s justice tarries, it is only so as to give us time to repent. There is a day of final justice appointed for this world. Christ’s resurrection proves the world wrong (Jn 16:8-9) and vindicates God’s truth. It sets before us God’s justice so that we understand that nothing unavenged will ultimately remain.
Secondly, for our instruction in the faith, since our belief in Christ’s Godhead is confirmed by His rising again, because, according to 2 Corinthians 13:4, “although He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God.” And therefore it is written (1 Corinthians 15:14): “If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and our faith is also vain”: and (Psalm 29:10): “What profit is there in my blood?” that is, in the shedding of My blood, “while I go down,” as by various degrees of evils, “into corruption”? As though He were to answer: “None. ‘For if I do not at once rise again but My body be corrupted, I shall preach to no one, I shall gain no one,’” as the gloss expounds.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the most fundamental of Christian dogmas. If this be not true, then let’s just call the rest of the whole thing off! However, since Christ is raised from the dead, all of what He taught is confirmed and worthy of our faith. He who said I AM the truth (i.e., I am truth itself and all that I have spoken to you is thereby true) has this confirmed by His resurrection. The truth of the resurrection confirms His divinity and the veracity of everything else He proclaimed and announced. Thus the resurrection is fitting for instruction in all the truths of faith.
Thirdly, for the raising of our hope, since through seeing Christ, who is our head, rise again, we hope that we likewise shall rise again. Hence it is written (1 Corinthians 15:12): “Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how do some among you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead?” And (Job 19:25-27): “I know,” that is with certainty of faith, “that my Redeemer,” i.e., Christ, “liveth,” having risen from the dead; “and” therefore “in the last day I shall rise out of the earth … this my hope is laid up in my bosom.”
Hope is the confident expectation of God’s help in attaining eternal life with Him. What can give greater confidence than to see Christ, who was so brutally struck down, stand victorious over sin and death? Whatever we endure in this life of our own crosses, we can confidently expect to stand victorious over them as well. We shall have the victory in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Indeed, even now, we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28).
Fourthly, to set in order the lives of the faithful: according to Romans 6:4: “As Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life”: and further on; “Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more; so do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive to God.”
In His resurrection, Jesus shows not only His divinity, but also a transformed humanity. While in His sinlessness prior to the resurrection He already showed forth a life free from disorder, in His resurrected humanity He shows this even more gloriously. He manifests qualities such as agility, subtlety, and clarity. (I have written more about that here.)
Some of these last qualities will be known by us only when our bodies rise, perfected and glorified. Even now, though, the Lord, by the grace of His passion, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us a new life—a life transformed and increasingly free from sin, sorrow, regret, anger, greed, lust, and all forms of negativity. To be a new creation in Christ is to be more confident, serene, joyful, virtuous, and chaste. It is to live a life that is orderly and properly directed to our noble and glorious end: life with God forever.
Jesus, in his resurrection, manifests this capacity for us to walk in newness of life.
Fifthly, in order to complete the work of our salvation: because, just as for this reason did He endure evil things in dying that He might deliver us from evil, so was He glorified in rising again in order to advance us towards good things; according to Romans 4:25: “He was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification.”
Thus it is one thing to be forgiven of our sins, but God does more by healing us increasingly of sin’s effects. The chief effect of sin was our alienation from the Father, but in Jesus, man returned to God. To be justified is to be in a right relationship with the Father, and that relationship, like all relationships, changes us. In Jesus, risen from the dead, we are restored to the Father and rightly called sons of God because we are made members of the risen and glorified Body of Christ, who is the Son of God. In our risen and ascended Christ and as members of His Body, we sit at the Father’s right in glory, provided that we do not sever our relationship with Christ by serious sin.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
to be the “yeast” for our salvation.
Paul Harvey's version of The Man and the Birds explained well why God came in the flesh as Jesus.
"God could have chosen" seems a meaningless understatement offered by a finite human attempting to apprehend an infinite God.
If you wish to amuse God, tell him of your plans.
If God is your copilot, change seats!
Free breakfast for early birds at Denny’s?
I don’t think his dad gave him a choice in the matter.
Yeast?
It’s a joke folks. Relax.
If God were my co-pilot it was God's choice. Changing seats would also be God's choice.
If you'd like to amuse God tell him where to sit.
If you have completely turned your life over to Jesus Christ, then God is your pilot. If you think that you are the pilot and God is merely there to take over in hard times and tough scrapes, then you have made the decision to put yourself first and God second.
All of this is encapsulated in the saying: “If God is your copilot, change seats.”
Because he had NO SIN, death and the grave had no claim on HIM. Death is a result of Sin. He took our place and suffered for our sin.
1.The Lord is risen indeed!
Then justice asks no more;
Mercy and truth are now agreed,
Which stood opposed before.
2.The Lord is risen indeed!
Then all His works performed;
The captive Surety now is freed,
And death, our foe, disarmed.
3.The Lord is risen indeed!
He lives to die no more;
He lives, His people’s cause to plead,
Whose curse and shame He bore.
4.The Lord is risen indeed!
And hell has lost its prey;
And with Him all the ransomed seed
Shall reign in endless day.
I would say Number ONE, To prove He was God!
I am a born again Christian bound only by the New Testament covenant and not subject to sayings, expressions, labels, or rules made up by organized religions for their own purposes.
Jesus is not my pilot or co-pilot; Jesus is my Savior and quite frankly he can sit any damn place he chooses.
About that “bound only by the New Testament covenant” thing, when Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, Jude talked about the “Scriptures”, what “New Testament” books were they talking about?
Luke 24:27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.
You might want to spend some time with those “Scriptures” that Jesus was talking about. If you want a non-denominational guide, I would suggest Charlie Garrett, at The Superior Word.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC41M8ZcIBLvEH_O3O6qMUAg
The other option was to stay dead.
And where would we be?
Msgr Pope has some good stuff but this question is just meaningless.
The why isn’t as important as the did.
Hmm. Here's a few.
Cause hell was boring.
He didn't like the climate.
There was nothing better to do.
He felt like it.
Why not?
To be the first fruit?
That’s the best answer yet.
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37)
For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but to do the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of all those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day. For it is My Father’s will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:38-40)
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. (John 10:28)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (I Peter 1:3-5)
Maybe to show us the way in which He will return?
“This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen Him going into heaven.” Acts 1:11 NABRE
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