As we consider Philippians one more time this morning before Transfiguration Sunday and the Lenten Season, we are considering this inseparable link between the Christian and his Lord. Not only do we share in the sufferings of Messiah, we also share in the resurrection life now. Richard Gaffin once wrote that “The Christian life in its entirety is to be subsumed under the category of Resurrection.” If we are to worship in spirit and in truth on this Lord’s Day we need to be renewed in resurrection garments that only a Resurrection Lord can provide.
For Paul, we taste of the life to come now. The final verdict has been declared now unto us. And only sin keeps us from tasting of this resurrection hope as we should.
What resurrection life does for us is provide the boldness we need to confess and to joyfully rise to receive forgiveness from Jesus Christ. This forgiveness is not granted by dead first century criminal, but a cosmic Lord of history. So we can say that “humans are saved by being united to the resurrected Messiah, and the result is that what is true of the true human is becoming true of others as well.”[1] The “category of resurrection” is not an ethereal description; it’s the place you live even now as you prepare your hearts for worship.
We are imitators by nature. God made us this way. We are, after all, image-bearers. To copy is human. We know this in a very profound way when we become parents. Children very early on begin to reflect our temperament and repeat our most cherished lines ( a frightening idea at times).