The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the keystone doctrine of the Church and of The Salvation Army. Without it, every other doctrine collapses. Our preaching is useless; our faith is vain and our witness is to be pitied (1 Cor. 15:14,19).There are many things about which Christians can legitimately disagree, but about the Resurrection, there must be unanimity. I was stunned when a highly respected church leader I knew wrote from his position of influence: “I believe in the resurrection of the spirit, but not the resurrection of the body.” Paul writing to Timothy, says, “Guard what has been trusted to your care” (1 Tim 6:20). The doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is a birthright of the church, which we must preach and teach to people everywhere, unflinchingly, without compromise.

Abraham, who lived two thousand years before Christ, was first to learn that the true and living God (as opposed to the hundreds of popular gods of his day) was able to bring life out of death. He learned this lesson on the way to Mount Moriah, where God tested him in a way that staggers our imagination. How could God, on one hand, make a promise that Abraham’s seed would produce a great nation, and at the same time demand that his promised first-born become a burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice? Abraham must have wondered if it was possible that God could demand the death of Isaac and also demonstrate the ability to raise him from the dead.

“Stay here with the donkey, while I and the lad go over there. We will
worship and then we will come back to you” (Gen. 22:5). These were the words of the patriarch to the servants who had accompanied him along that fateful pilgrimage. I wonder if the servants picked up on the plural of the pronoun. He did not say “I will return” (since the boy would be dead). He said, “We will return - the lad and I will return.” Here is insight into the development of Abraham’s resurrection faith. The mystery of how this possibility grew in his mind will never be known by us, but this is enough - Abraham made a calculation that if he followed the law of obedience to Yahweh, redemption would come through the miracle of resurrection power.

Had Abraham balked at the enormity of the command, we would never have read his name in holy scriptures. He became a towering spiritual giant and gained an honoured place in the gallery of faith heroes (Hebrews 11) for no other reason than that he chose to obey God, even when he could not have fully understood. Malcolm Muggeridge wrote: “I have a longing, past conveying to say, during such time as remains me in this world, to use whatever gifts of persuasion I may have to induce others, that they must at all cost hold to that reality; lash themselves to it, as in the old days, sailers would lash themselves to the mast when storms blew and the seas were rough. For indeed, without doubt, storms and rough seas lie ahead.” Abraham was wise enough to tie himself to the immutable promises of God.

Abraham opened the door of faith to all his spiritual descendants by resting his hope in a God who would be known as the God of the Resurrection. Abraham’s substitute ram on Mount Moriah, pointed forward to Mount Calvary where God faced the demands of His own divine justice and did not stay his hand, “but gave him {Jesus} up for us all” (Rom.8:32). Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God slain for the salvation of the whole world.

Saul of Tarsus, some 25 years after Christ’s death, looked to Abraham as his great hero. In his gospel masterpiece, the epistle to the Romans, he wrote: “The God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not, as though they were. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations” (Romans 4:18,20).

Saul pursued early Christians, hunting them down, putting them into
prison, and killing them. On the way to Damascus to continue his
persecutions, however, he had a transforming confrontation. Jesus met him, knocked him to the ground and blinded him. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” The revelation that the Jesus whom he hated, was alive, powerful and making a personal claim on him transformed Saul the murderer into Paul the missionary. Later, the Lord drove him out into the Arabian desert for thee years, and then for fourteen years at home in Tarsus. Paul had time to ponder long and hard what the the Resurrection meant to his life. “Brothers, children of Abraham, . . . it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognise Jesus. . . they asked Pilate to have him executed. . . but God raised him from the dead ” (Acts. 13:26ff).

We who carry Christ’s torch in the world, can look back with unspeakable gratitude to both Abraham and Paul for passing on to us this flame of truth: the rich treasures of the mystery of the risen Christ. Everyone who truly believes in Jesus - dead, buried and resurrected - may live in the triumphant hope of our own resurrection from the dead, with a new body, in a new world, to live with Him forever.

by Lt-Colonel David Hammond