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The Resurrection in Gospel Proclamation
by Ken Schurb

"Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel," exclaimed the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 9:16). We can understand why. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16), the vehicle by which our Savior brought life and immortality to light (2 Tim. 1:10). No wonder we emphasize the need to make the Gospel Vivid in preaching and teaching. In so doing, we should constantly compare our Gospel presentations with those in Scripture. Upon observation and reflection, I have grown impressed with a contrast in balance between contemporary Gospel proclamation (including my own) and that of the New Testament, Often in sermons, lessons, or evangelism presentations, we place great emphasis on the atoning death of Christ, and rightly so. But what about His resurrection? Frequently I have found myself adding a mere sentence or so to affirm that our Lord rose on the third day. In effect, I have sometimes treated the resurrection like a theological stepchild. On those occasions it appears as an afterthought, or something I include simply out of a sense of duty (lest anyone brand me a practicing Biblical critic!). Yet a mere glance at Acts or the epistles will show the monumental significance which Jesus' resurrection held for the inspired spokesmen of God.

The purpose of this essay is to help us bring a renewed emphasis on the resurrection to our proclamation while maintaining that the Christian message is a theology of the cross as opposed to a theology of glory. Our thesis is that we can dwell on the resurrection in a number of theologically rich and fruitful ways, and that each of these will complement a particular atonement-theme. In what follows the reader will not only find exposition of the resurrection in various respects, but also several examples of how its blessings have been proclaimed.

Recently the sainted Gerhard Aho and Robert KoIb have pointed out the wisdom of setting forth Law and Gospel as correlatives, so that the particular problem exposed by the Law is answered by a corresponding facet of the Gospel. In Aho's examples, "When the Law accuses us of sin, the Gospel is to affirm our victory. When the Law demands obedience, the Gospel is to promise power?"1 The claim of the present article is that within our presentation of the Gospel we can also correlate the ways in which we describe our Savior's resurrection with our depictions of His death. When we do this the resurrection will not come across as a fifth wheel. Nor will it strike the hearer or reader as a "generic" element of the Gospel which does not particularly fit the specific Law/Gospel theme we are presenting. Rather, the resurrection will take its rightful place as an integral part of the Good News.

Resurrection and Vicarious Satisfaction

We start, paradoxically, with a topic in which the effects of the cross and of the resurrection must be distinguished and not mixed together. Yet even where we have to observe such a distinction there ought not be a separation, and we should give due stress to the resurrection as we spread the Gospel. The subject is Christ's satisfying God's wrath in our place (as our Vicar, or Substitute), and the resurrection is not part of it.

"The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). Luther noted that "if we are to be redeemed from death, we must at the same time-indeed, before that time-be freed from sin and God's wrath, since death came upon us because of it.. .[the] Lord must restore us to a condition of eternal righteousness and innocence."2 Put differently, Christ's atonement preceded His resurrection substantively as well as temporally, that is, in reality as well as in time. Thus, the two are not the same. Jesus liberated us from sin and wrath by His sacrifice, taking our place under the Law and absorbing God's just punishment for our sin (Matt. 20:28; Heb. 10:11-14; 1 John 2:1). Only then did God bring forth the miracle of life in the resurrection. Thus, while "Christ is said in the Scriptures to have suffered and died both on our behalf and in our place," it remains true that "He was not resurrected in our place, but only on our behalf." 3 The theologians of Lutheran orthodoxy, for example, consistently upheld this distinction for two reasons, First, they wanted clearly to assert the completed character of Calvary's sacrifice. Once Jesus said "It is finished," it really was finished; the resurrection does not constitute another part of the atonement. Second, the seventeenth-century Lutherans were determined to affirm that Christians too will rise at the Last Day, since Christ is not-strictly speaking-our Substitute in the resurrection. Of course, these Gospel truths are precious to us too.

In our zeal to maintain them, however, we should not fall into the trap of neglecting the resurrection. For there is a way in which it relates to the vicarious satisfaction: it forms a "manifestation or confirmation, because the resurrection of Christ is evident testimony that satisfaction was fully made for our sins and perfect righteousness (was) brought up."4 Further, the resurrection does not constitute a dry, ancient, dull testimony, albeit to something terribly important. It gives something besides information. As C. F. W. Walther put it, "What the Son had given to the Father on Calvary, the Father now in the garden of the tomb gave to the world."5 In the resurrection, the treasures of Christ's atoning work are bestowed on all people. The resurrection stands out as God's absolution, based on the vicarious satisfaction, which He now powerfully proclaims to the world.6

Another quote from Walther, to show how this message can be set forth:
In the resurrection we hear that God was not satisfied merely to send his Son into the world and let him become man for us. Yes, it was not enough to give his own Son into death for us. No, when his Son had finished everything which be had to do and suffer in order to earn grace, life, and blessedness for us, God, humanly speaking, because of burning love to us sinners, could not wait for us to come and beg him for his grace in Christ. No, scarcely had his Son finished everything, then he hurried to give to all men the grace merited through the resurrection of his Son, to acquit them all from their sins, and before heaven and earth publicly, really, and solemnly declare them redeemed, reconciled, clean, guiltless arid righteous in Christ.7
In short, when the Law is proclaimed in terms of punishment for sinners, the cross can be set forth as Christ satisfying God's wrath against us, and the resurrection correspondingly depicted as God the Father approving His work and giving the resulting blessings to humankind.

Resurrection and Victory

This theme seems perhaps the easiest one to sketch, for in the resurrection Christ obviously wins over His enemies. But again we do not wish to put asunder what God has joined together. If the task in the previous section of this essay was not to forget the resurrection in a discussion of the atonement, we now face somewhat the converse challenge: not to lose sight of Christ's vicarious satisfaction as we consider His victory. In this we can learn from Luther, who skillfully wove the vicarious satisfaction and victorious Christ (Christus Victor) themes together. He wrote, for example, that Christ "took sin, death, and hell upon Himself and submitted Himself But nothing could subdue Him, for He was too strong; He rose from the dead, was completely victorious, and subjected everything to Himself. And He did all this in order that you might be free from it and lord over it."8

Even as he wrote about Christ the Victor over the demonic forces and death, Luther was never one to ignore the Savior's vicarious satisfaction. God's wrath against man as a sinner looms as his fundamental problem. Without it none of our other enemies would be of any ultimate significance. But when Christ frees us from God's wrath "there follows the other freedom, by which we are made safe and free through Christ from the Law, from sin, death, the power of the devil, hell, etc. For just as the wrath of God cannot terrify us-since Christ has set us free from it-so the Law, sin, etc. cannot accuse and condemn us."9 Luther thus echoed the Bible's theocentric view: sinful man's problem is finally with the just God Himself. Once that problem is solved, God takes man's side and protects him from everything else.

Luther is worth quoting at length yet again as an exemplar of working with the vicarious satisfaction and Christus Victor themes at the same time:
...there is help in the fact that the Man Jesus Christ has come and borne our sin and death, which we had justly deserved, and that He now steps forth in our behalf, confronts the Law, sin, and death, and says: "I am of the same flesh and blood; these are my brothers and sisters. What they did I did; and I paid for it. Law, if you want to condemn them, condemn Me. Sin, if you want to bite and kill them, bite Me. Death, if you want to consume and devour, devour Me." But thereby they failed to accomplish what they intended to do. For through the very event by which they expected to exterminate Him and to win the victory, He emerged again and said to the Law, sin, and death: "Do you not know that I am your Lord and God? What right do you have to accuse and to slay your Lord? Therefore you shall do this no more; but, rather, I will accuse and condemn you and dispatch you so thoroughly that you will henceforth have no claim on anyone who believes in Me. For what I did, I did for their sake."10
When the Law is proclaimed in terms of defeat, the cross can be set forth as Christ assuming our defeat, and the resurrection correspondingly depicted as His turning the table on His enemies as our Champion.

Resurrection and Justification

Justification is God's judicial act in which He imputes our sin to Christ and His righteousness to us. The resurrection plays a vital role in this connection, for "As God punished our sins in Christ which were imposed or imputed to Him as our Guarantor, thus by raising Him from the dead He thereby absolved Him from our sins which were imputed to Him, and accordingly He also absolved us in Him... 1 Cor 15:17; 2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 2:5; Col. 2:12-13; Phil. 3:8-10; 1 Pet. 1:3."11 St. Paul wrote of the Lord that He was "justified in spirit" (1 Tim. 3:16) and also that He was "handed over for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Rom. 4:25).12

We have already been introduced to this aspect of the resurrection's importance, but we do well to linger over it a bit longer. Because God raised Christ from the dead He has not thrown poor sinners, hungry for grace and salvation, back on human speculations about the outcome of the vicarious satisfaction. That was a sacrifice made by God to God and thus shrouded in mystery. Rather, we can rejoice in salvation as God proclaimed it to the world in the external act of the resurrection. From the viewpoint of sinners needing assurance the words of R. C. H. Lenski are completely understandable: "as long as Christ, our Surety, is not released, it is certain that our debt is not paid, we are still liable, no matter how much we trust in some supposed payment or in some release without payment."13

In an Easter sermon, Walther illustrated this point by telling a contrived story of rebellious subjects who send a representative to negotiate with their king:
If they should hear that their deputy was thrown into chains, they would become frightened and conclude that the same late awaits also them. But if they would hear later, that their representative was again freed, yes, if they saw the man himself, laden with gifts from the king, accompanied with royal honor, returning on a royal horse, entering the city with the trumpets' blast and songs of peace, what must the citizens conclude?... So it is in regard to Christ and his resurrection. As all men's representative he entered into his suffering and death in order to obtain grace for us who by our sins has [sic] rebelled against the King of all kings. And what happened?... on the third day suddenly we see Christ free again, laden with gifts from the King of kings, and accompanied by the angels he returns in great glory. What must we conclude? That the King of all kings has pardoned us, and that he wants to show in our Substitute that he is graciously disposed toward us.14
As for the other side of justification-God imputing the righteousness of Christ to us-the resurrection must be considered once again. "If Christ would have remained in death, He would not be able to apply righteousness to us... Rom. 5:10, 8:34."15 But since Jesus does live, His righteousness-His obedience to God's Law-is by no means an abstraction or lifeless treasury of merits. Instead, it is His personal possession, which He gives to us. Perpetually the living Christ intercedes for us (Heb. 7:25, 9:24; 1 John 2:1).

The sainted Dr. Harry Huth used to tell his students at Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, "When I appear before the judgment-throne of Christ, I'll be wearing a perfect robe of righteousness-not mine, but His. It's the righteousness of His work which He has given to me? So if He says, "Harry, that's not good enough. You have to go to hell," I'll respond, "Then You have to come right along with me? Day by day, Dr. Huth was aware that his Savior lived to keep imputing this righteousness to him. Because of the resurrection, Luther could characterize the sentiments of David thus: "though I am assailed by sin and God's wrath, which make my heart heavy and troubled, I shall not on that account be forced into despair. He [my Lord] sits up there also for the purpose of preventing sin, or anything whatever, from damning me or pushing me into hell."16

When the Law is proclaimed in terms of our unrighteousness, the cross can be set forth as Christ having had the sin of the world imputed or charged to Him, and the resurrection correspondingly depicted as God the Father absolving the Substitute and all for whom He substituted, Further, the active obedience of Christ to God's Law is constantly applied, charged, or imputed to us by none other than the risen and living Savior Himself.

Resurrection and Forgiveness

The topic was broached above, when we saw Christ's resurrection as an absolution from the sin imputed to Him. In this section we underscore that in Christ our sins are completely and truly forgiven. The whole idea of forgiveness as a "sending away" (the root meaning of the word in Greek) suggests this. And the resurrection confirms it, for God does not glorify sin. When he raised Christ, who bore our sin, He was not glorifying it because Christ had taken it away (John 1:29). Neither will God glorify sin in raising us at the Last Day, for then the old man of the Christian will be completely put aside.

Thomas F. Torrance sees in Matthew 9:1-8 a helpful lesson. When Christ told the paralyzed man that his sins were forgiven, they really were forgiven. The reality brought about by Jesus' Word paralleled the later reality of the man getting up and walking at His command.17 God gives us a Word of forgiveness in the Gospel. It brings about reality: "And you who were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your heart, He [God] made alive together with Him [Christ] by having forgiven us all our trespasses, by having canceled the handwriting which was standing against us with its regulations; this He set aside, by nailing it to the cross" (Col. 2:13-14). Our sin is canceled, set aside, nailed to the cross. By doing all these things God has made us alive with Jesus. The fact that we are alive with Him "through faith produced by God, who raised Him from the dead" (v. 12) shows that all these things have in fact been done. Our forgiveness is real.

On account of Christ the Old Testament spoke truly of God's forgiving acts: removing transgressions as far as east from west (Ps. 103:12), taking scarlet sins and making them white as snow (Is. 1:18), blotting out transgressions and not remembering sins (Is. 43:25), sweeping away transgressions like a cloud (Is. 44:22), treading iniquities tinder foot and casting sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:18-20). In our resurrection, of which Christ's resurrection was the firstfruits, the true holiness of God's forgiven and holy people will finally be unveiled: "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as He is" (1 John 3:2).

Luther, concerned about the havoc with which guilt fills the conscience, advised people not to "allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or... look at it in our heart" for in that case "it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and (see it) overcome by his resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified."18 The reality of our forgiveness, as attested by the resurrection, will supply us confidence before God and a basis on which to forgive others.

When the Law is proclaimed in terms of our guilt, the cross can be set forth as Christ having truly borne our guilt, and the resurrection correspondingly depicted as God the Father really forgiving us for His sake.

Resurrection and Reconciliation

We need only pause a moment to realize how the resurrection fits into the picture of reconciliation. What good would it do to be reconciled with a dead God? "Atonement without resurrection would not be reconciliation, and without reconciliation, atonement had not reached its proper end with the Father, in peace."19 This fact struck Paul as so self-evident that he argued not about it, but from it: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life" (Rom. 5:10). In other words, Paul spoke of two interventions by God. The first, while we were His enemies, cost Him the death of His Son, "The second costs nothing, but follows naturally from the share which we have in His life."20 Or as Paul put it later in Romans, "For this reason Christ died and became alive again to be the Lord of both the dead and the living" (14:9; see also Col. 1:20-22; Heb. 4:14-16).

One of the best contemporary examples of presenting the connection between resurrection arid reconciliation is the Lutheran Television program, "Easter Is." In this animated children's special, the little boy Benji is upset because his dog Waldo has gotten lost, and just a few days before Easter. As things turn out, Waldo turns up on Easter. He loved Benji so much be couldn't stay away. So it is with Christ; He loved us so much that He could not stay away in death.

When the Law is proclaimed in terms of alienation and separation, the cross can be set forth as Christ acting as Mediator to bring God and man together, and the resurrection correspondingly depicted as Christ Himself wanting to share with us the peace He brought about by His work.

Resurrection and Life

Life, not death, is the rule for a sinless man. So it was also for the sinless Christ, who assumed our sin and laid down His life willingly. Because of His obedient decision to carry out the Father's plan and serve as our Substitute. He had to die. But since He completely made satisfaction for the sins He bore, they were no longer a factor and He had to live, in the nature of the case, Christ's resurrection had to follow His atonement. When sin is removed, life can reappear. Perhaps this is the point behind the incident recounted in Matthew 27:52-53 when, upon the death of Christ, the tombs were opened and many bodies of the sleeping saints were raised. When Christ died, there was no reason why they could not live.

Hence, Paul wrote of a 'justification unto life" in Romans 5:18. In the next chapter he went on, "we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again, death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died to sin once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God" (Rom. 6:9-10). And we cannot forget 1 Corinthians 15:56: "The sting of death [is] sin, the power of sin (is] the law." Once Christ has made satisfaction for sin and obeyed the Law, He rendered death powerless, sinless.

But there remains yet another connection between resurrection and life in Christ's case. Not only is life the rule for a sinless Man; it is of the essence of God.
For life is proper to God as the Living One, as not only the one who has life originally in Himself (John 5:26), who lives eternally and who has immortality (1 Tim 6:16), but above all as the one who can make alive and kill. Since He makes alive through His Spirit, the Spirit too, can be called the One who makes alive. Thus God is the Lord of life and death, as He is the Judge of the quick and the dead.21
Is it more than an oddity that the idea of a "living God" or "God of the living" is sometimes associated with the resurrection? Peter called Jesus the "Son of the living God" and Jesus then went on to speak of His death and resurrection (Matt. 16:16, 21). Christ answered the Sadducees' trap question on the resurrection by affirming that God is the God of the living (Matt. 22:23-33). Matthew recounted in the trial-before--Caiaphas scene a misconstrued resurrection prediction (26:61), a reference to God as living (26:63) and an apocalyptic appearing of the exalted Son of Man (26:64). Or note Christ's own words in Revelation, "I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive forevermore" (Rev. 1:17-18). Jesus the Savior had to live because He is God.

Perhaps the most famous old instance of Gospel-proclamation based on this awareness is the patristic "fishhook" illustration, which dates back at least as far as Cyprian, and was also quite popular in the East. In this analogy the human nature of Christ is compared to a worm used as bait, concealing a hook (the divine nature). The devil, like a strong fish, sees what appears to be a helpless worm dangling before him and determines to make short work of this worm. But it turned out that there was more to Christ than met the eye: He was God as well as Man, and the devil could not keep Him down. He was going to live. "Because life was immortal, it emerged victorious when it had been conquered, conquering and killing death in turn."22

When the Law is proclaimed in terms of death, the cross can be set forth as Christ succumbing to it for us, and the resurrection correspondingly depicted as Christ Himself; both as the Sinless One and as the God-Man, living again as He must.

Summary

We have identified several Gospel-aspects of Christ's resurrection:

1. The resurrection confirms that Christ made a full and acceptable sacrifice to God as our Substitute.

2. The resurrection assures us that the devil, sin, and death can have no power over us, since they have no power over Christ, who bore them for us but triumphed.

3. The resurrection constituted God's absolving His Son from our, sins which were imputed to Him, and thus God's absolution on us.

4. The resurrection means that Jesus lives to impute the righteousness of His obedience to us.

5. The resurrection underscores the reality of the forgiveness which Christ won for us in the atonement.

6. The resurrection enables us to have a continuing fellowship with the Christ who made our Peace.

7. The resurrection is God's gift of life resurfacing now that Jesus has paid for the guilt of sin in the atonement.

8. The resurrection assures us that the God-Man, our Mediator, lives as He must.
Of course, these eight points could be rearranged, perhaps analyzed into still more affirmations. Or some of them could be combined, for they do overlap conceptually. This should come as no surprise, for it strikingly confirms the fundamental unity of Biblical resurrection theology. And as we have seen, the theological genius of Luther stands out not in that he dissected the various themes (much as we have to present them in this essay!), but rather precisely when he correlated them, using one to reinforce the other. In Luther's eminently preachable theology, the Good News kept getting better and better as the Reformer set forth one of its aspects after, upon, and connected with another and still another. Hence, we Lutheran preachers have all the less reason to hurry past Christ's resurrection as we proclaim the Gospel; there is too much to celebrate!23


Notes

1. Gerhard Aho, "Law and Gospel in Preaching," Concordia Theological Quarterly 45 (January-April 1981): 2. Also see Robert Kolb, Speaking the Gospel Today: A Theology for Evangelism (St. Louis; Concordia, 1984), pp. 83-97 (especially the chart on p. 97).

2. Luther's Works, Am. ed., vol. 13, p. 240.

3. John Quenstedt, Theologia Didactico-Polemica (Leipzig: Thomas Fritsch, 1715), p. 543.

4. Calov, describing Gerhard's position, quoted in John William Baier, Compendium Theologiac Positivae, rev, and ed. C. F. W. Walther, vol. 3 (St. Louis: Concordia, 1869), pp. 94-95.

5. C. F. W. Walther quoted in Tom Hardt, "Justification and Easter: A Study in Subjective and Objective Justification in Lutheran Theology," in A Lively Legacy: Essays in Honor of Robert Preus, ed. Kurt E. Marquart, John R. Stephenson, and Bjarne W. Teigen (Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary, 1985), p. 62.

6. Hardt, Justification and Easter. This paper is highly instructive on this matter. It is important to give due recognition to both the death and resurrection of Christ; "This [emphasis on the resurrection] does not at all imply that Paul compromises the absolute necessity and intrinsic efficacy of Christ's death (as an atonement). It does mean, however, that he does not confuse the ransom price, no matter how sublime and precious, with what is secured by its payment. To Paul's way of thinking, as long as Christ remains dead, Satan and sin are triumphant." (Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., The Centrality of the Resurrection: A Study in Paul's Soteriology [Grand Gapids: Baker, 1978], p. 116).

7.C. F. W. Walther, Old Standard Gospels, trans. Donald E. Heck, part 1 (n.p., n.d.), p. 150.

8. Luther's Works, Am. ed., vol. 30, p. 13.

9. lbid., vol. 27, p. 4.

10. Ibid., vol. 28, pp. 210f. Robert Schultz ("'Justification' in the 16th and the 20th Centuries," The Cresset 20 [October 1957]: 6-13), drawing on the work of Werner Elert, has pointed out that the background for this sort of Luther-quote was the "commonly accepted rule of law that anyone who falsely accused and caused the arrest, conviction, or punishment of an innocent man was himself liable with his person and with his property. He must atone for the wrong which has been done. Christ was such an unjustly accused man. And He calls the law to account. He, who was falsely put to death, now requires the death of the false accuser, the Law. The crucifixion of Christ thus results in His resurrection and in the Law's being executed. Here the battle motif is presented within a forensic concept" (Schultz, p. 11, reflecting Werner Elert, "Deutschrechtliche Zuege in Luthers Rechtfertigungslehre," Zeitschrift fir systematische Theologie 12 [1934/35], pp. 22-35.

11. Calov, recounting Gerhard's position, in Baier-Walther, vol. 3, pp. 94-95.

12. For a discussion of whether the dia clauses in Romans 4:25 should be taken prospectively or retrospectively, see R. E. Wehrwein, "Romans 4:25," The Journal of Theology 21 (September 1961): 18-37. Beyond grammar, Gottlob Schrenk made an interesting observation about Romans 4:25: "The death and resurrection of Christ are closely related for Paul. The Crucified is what He is only because He is also the Resurrected. Hence Paul can say that we are justified by the death of Jesus, but also that He was raised for our justification. The form of the statement corresponds to the synthetic parallelism of the matter" (Robert Schrenk, "Dikee, ktl." Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, S. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 2 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 19761, p. 224), Richard Gaffim extends the point: "...Jesus' resurrection is his justification. His resurrection is his justification as the last Adam, the justification of the 'firstfruits.' This and nothing less is the bond between the resurrection and our justification" (Gaffin, p. 123).

13. Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of Paul's First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1937), p. 656.

14. Walther, Old Standard Gospels, p. 149.

15. CaIov quoted in Baier-Walther, vol. 3, pp. 94-95.

16. Luther's Works, Am, ed., vol. 13, p. 242. As we have seen above, if justification means we are acquitted before God, it also means that our enemies are condemned. Luther never tired of pointing this out: "This is the masterful way in which death and sin are conquered; not by forcibly destroying them in a moment so they are never again felt, but by first taking their power and authority and condemning them with an authoritative judgment to destruction. Now even though they continue to rage and make themselves felt before they are completely destroyed, it makes no difference; for judgment has been passed upon them: they have neither power nor authority but shall and must soon cease and come to their end" (quoted in Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Robert C. Schultz [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966], p. 215, note 64).

17. Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), pp. 62-63. Torrance's approach is not without its problems, though. His redaction-critical analysis of Matthew 9:1-8 notes that in this text Jesus used the word egeiro, a "resurrection term." From this fact Torrance concludes that forgiveness reached full reality on the healing and work of God on the whole man. Such an idea is only tenable if the general principle is carefully framed in an eschatological setting-or else sick Christians will wonder why God has not fully forgiven them. Further, Torrance is so concerned to assert effective justification that be at points runs the risk of mixing our works into the article of justification. For instance, he says we can see justification (via the resurrection) as "a creative event in which our regeneration or renewal is already included in it" (p. 63).

18. Luther's Works, Am. ed., vol. 42, p. 12.

19.Torrence, p. 67.

20. William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary; on the Epistle to the Romans, 5th ed., International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh; T & T Clark, 1902), p. 119.

21. Rudolf Bultmann et al. "Zaoo, ktl." Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gehard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964). p. 862.

22. Luther's Works, Am. ed., vol. 26. p. 281.

23. Note that we have only scratched the surface in this essay. For example, only in passing have we noted that Christ's resurrection leads to our resurrection; or that God has packed the power of the resurrection into His Gospel as it comes to us (1 Pet. 1:3 and 23); or that often in the Scriptures the resurrection is not singled out as a discrete event, but rather the picture of salvation is painted with wider strokes of humiliation/exaltation (e.g., Phil. 2).






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