48. Resurrected

Meditations in 1 Peter : 48: Resurrected & Reigning

1 Pet 3:21,22 It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand–with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him

I have to acknowledge here the danger of examining verses all alone for meditation purposes, because whatever else we do in meditation, we need to see the meaning of the verse as the writer originally intended it, and it is probable that the verse will be part of a larger or longer flow of thinking. Thus when we come to these verses above, the ‘It’ that they start with refers to baptism that Peter has just been thinking about.

So how does baptism save you “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ”? We dealt with the ‘save’ bit in the previous meditation, suggesting it referred to the ongoing process of salvation in the remainder of our lives on this earth, and specifically how it helped our consciences, or our sense of being at peace before God because of what Jesus has done.

Ah! Now we can see how this fits. If Peter is saying that our conscience, or our thinking and feeling in respect of our position before God, is determined by our knowledge of what Jesus has done for us on the Cross, it should not only include his death but also his resurrection and his ascension, and that is what Peter goes on to refer to.  Why is the resurrection so important? Well, suppose Jesus had simply died and that was it, all his disciples and subsequent followers might be left wondering about the whole thing. Was he really who he said he was? Admittedly he had performed wonderful miracles but was that all he was, a great miracle worker? How about his various claims to be dying to take our sins? How can we know the truth of those claims?  We know they are true, because of the resurrection.

The apostle Paul declared about Jesus that he, “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 1:4), i.e. by the power that raised him from the dead he was shown to be the Son of God he had said he was. Earlier in this letter Peter had said that he had given us “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Pet 1:3). Yes, we now have a hope for the future (a strong assurance) because Jesus rose from the dead and proved who he was and proved that there more after death. So the fact of the resurrection adds to our knowledge and that in turn strengthens our conscience or our conviction about the Gospel and about our standing before God.

But there is more because that wasn’t the end of the story because the apostles were not only witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, but also to his ascension: “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” (Acts 1:9). “While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.” (Lk 24:51) “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.” (Mk 16:19) Now these are the three historical accounts of Jesus ascension but the New Testament has many other further references: “his mighty strength”, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 1:19,20   see also Acts 5:31, Rom 8:34, Col. 3:1, Heb 1:3, 8:1, 10:12, 12:2 etc.)

What all these verses tell us is that Jesus is seated at the Father’s right hand and there he is reigning. Indeed the apostle Paul tells us that “he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” (1 Cor 15:25) Now Peter has told us in today’s verse that Jesus today is next to the Father “with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.” Thus today he is already over all spiritual authorities and therefore they only have the freedom to act that he gives it to them. These powers therefore do not constitute Jesus ‘enemies’ because they are already subject to him. A careful study of Scripture indicates that God uses Satan and the demonic powers. He has absolute control over them and they operate only by concession according to how it fits in with His purposes. The only parts of creation that are not under His total call are human beings for he has given us free will and He allows us that freedom so that we may make a free choice to follow Him or not. There will come a time when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” (Phil 2:10,11) but until that time that is not so.

Today our confidence and our assurance is not only in the facts of Jesus death for our sins, but is also in the fact of his resurrection confirming and validating his prior claims to be the son of God and the one who died for our sins, AND also the fact that Jesus is ruling at the Father’s right hand with all spiritual authorities under his control. There is so much more one could say about this, but we’ll leave it for now with that. That should be sufficient to encourage and reassure us and provide much fuel for us to worship Him.