Resurrection’s Children

Resurrection’s Children

Read: Luke 20:34-38

“They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”

Luke 20:36

“Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the Resurrection.”

—Watchman Nee

IN WORD God’s people are given a marvelous name in this passage. We are a lot of things in Scripture, including sinners, children of wrath, sheep without a shepherd, blind, lost, and idolatrous. But none of that matters when someone meets Christ. We are in a new category of creation. We are “children of the resurrection.”

All of a sudden, because of our encounter with Christ, everything is different. Our defining characteristic is no longer our past, with all of its rebellion and ignorance. It isn’t the infection Adam and Eve passed to every succeeding generation. It isn’t the idols we think we need for fulfillment. And it isn’t a destiny of death. No, we are defined by something altogether different and far above our sinful world. Resurrection. It’s not just a gift. It’s who we are.

Jesus came to do “Genesis” all over again. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We may feel like children of Adam and Eve, but we are not. We are children of God, and God is the author of resurrection, the fountain of life. We are fundamentally different from the fallen world, and we are fundamentally different from our old selves.

IN DEED This means that when we’re kicking ourselves for past failures, we need only look at the resurrection of Jesus and know that we are new children. When all the world surrounds us with its pettiness, bitterness, and rage, we can live in a transcendent way, with our hope and all of our values fixed firmly above the mess. When we are sitting at the deathbed of a loved one, or even lying in our own, we can remember the empty grave and know that no child of the resurrection is contained by it.

Children of the resurrection can stand out for their vitality, their hope, their faith, their way of life and love. We are members of a new creation. Remember that when you encounter the old one.