Although the disciples of Jesus saw Jesus physically crucified, they had no idea that they were being “crucified with Christ”. When he was laid to rest in the tomb, they had no idea that they were being “buried with him” (as water baptism by immersion symbolizes). Nor did those who saw him during the 40 days that followed his resurrection have any idea they were “risen together with him” from spiritual death into spiritual life.
When they saw Jesus ascend into a cloud, it did not occur to them that they were ascending with him, in the sense that his position at the right hand of God would represent their new and exalted status in him. But then, how could they have? It would be years before the Apostle Paul’s reveal these spiritual truths from the narratives of the Gospels.
The disciples had witnessed these events, but it would be the apostle Paul who would unfold their relevance in his letters to churches. The Gospels reveal Jesus as the promised Messiah and record in detail his amazing teachings and striking miracles. But it is Paul’s Epistles that make the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection relevant to the everyday lives of Christians.
When reading Paul’s epistles, we are filled with wonder at the perfect plan and purpose of God, which inspire us to love God our Father and Jesus our Lord above everyone and everything else in life. No wonder Paul’s letters have so many doxologies: outbursts of glory to God.!
The historic, detailed, accurate gospel narratives inspire personal devotion, but the epistles open to us an entirely new and different dimension.
It is not my intention to over spiritualize the life of Jesus. I am not interested in the ethereal Christ of the Gnostics or the spiritualized analogies of Origen. Jesus was a real, flesh and blood human being. The Son of God was also the Son of Man. It is easy for us to focus on the Jesus of the Gospels — the Saviour presented during the annual cycles of ecclesiastical remembrance. But revelation is required if we are to see our Lord’s accomplishments down through church history and their relevance to us today. Only God’s Spirit can open our eyes to the reality of the Apostle Paul’s writings, ina in so doing lift our hearts heavenward.
But while the apostle has his head in the clouds, so to speak, he also has his feet on the ground: his revelations of who, what and where we are in Christ are practical. The opening chapters of Ephesians and Colossians are heady but their following chapters show us how high spiritual truths can work in earthly situations.
Things such as the love of husbands for wives, the submission (respect) of wives for husbands, and the needed obedience of children to parents. Paul goes so far as to write how that husbands ought to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it”! How’s that for ‘a match made in heaven’ that has a practical down-to-earth application!
Facebook has endless posts that appeal to us on the psychological level. How we can be more positive, more loving, more successful. It also has countless posts of New Testament texts that are superior because of their spirituality. But personal revelation is what’s needed – one-on-one revelation by the Holy Spirit about the revelations God gave to Paul and which he shared in his epistles. It’s not a question of Jesus or Paul but the relevance of the Apostle’s revelations to the Gospel narratives.
“He that is with you shall be in you.” Meaning that Jesus who was with them would dwell in them by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Jesus often spoke of himself in the Third Person.) It is the Spirit of God in our lives that makes all the difference! It was the element in Peter’s life that turned him from Simon the reed into Peter the rock.
Many Christians immerse themselves in deeply devotional books written by those who were notable for their prayer lives. Others wish they were more like the action-man Peter than the thinking-man John.
The life of Jesus that was cut off by crucifixion and buried from sight in a tomb, was raised up three days later, and, on the day of Pentecost descended into in the lives of his apostles through the Spirit of God. The Spirit then led them “into all truth” — and our Lord’s life continues today through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Many people follow Jesus religiously, much as the disciples of Jesus did (as we read in the Gospels). They do their best to live out the truths of The Sermon on the Mount, and try hard to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. They are baptized in water by full immersion.
However, those who are not also baptized in the Holy Spirit stop short of living the life of Jesus as did those who received the Holy Spirit and then went out and did the same works that Jesus did. (He had told them that they would do so.) A Christianity without power would be an admirable ideal that had within it no corresponding ability to change the world.
Thank God for the Gospels, which show us how to walk in the footsteps of Jesus; and for the Acts of the Apostles, which shows us how to walk in his shoes; and for the Epistles, which reveal how Jesus walks in our shoes!