I’m inspired by this. I’m energized by this. Our hope is built on this: After the blood flowed and the body of Jesus was laid in that tomb…
…after the verdict was pronounced over his body — “Death!”…
…after the stone was rolled over the entrance and the guards were posted…
…Jesus — in his body — tore down the door of hell, walked through it to the other side. Jesus kicked down the ultimate barrier that stood between humanity and eternity. Death no longer has any sting.
Because of Jesus.
For us, this is an unfathomable gift. This changes everything. Because he was raised to life after death, I can have life after death. Jesus now holds that power. Because he has conquered the one thing all humans most fear, we can live fearlessly even in the face of death itself. What a profoundly relevant truth! If I have no fear of death, then what can I accomplish in this life? If I’m not afraid of death, then what has power over me?
Jesus has all the power!
This is the big message of the Bible. There is power in the name of Jesus and in no other name. When Peter, the disciple of Jesus, finally and fully internalizes this truth and preaches his first sermon, this is his bottom-line point: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah (Acts 2:36). Peter makes it plain that the one his enemies crucified not only lives but lives in power. Carries power. Jesus, having conquered his own crucifixion, now lives as both Messiah and Lord, both savior and sanctifier.
Jesus, who we believe to be the Son of God, gave up His place as God to become human and lived a sinless human life. He was and is all God, all human, fulfilling hundreds of prophecies written hundreds of years before he came. Because he’d lived this sinless life, he became what they called in the Old Testament system of sacrifices a spotless lamb. Jesus gave himself to this. He allowed a group of men who were against everything he stood for to arrest him. They accused him of blasphemy because he claimed to be God.
This Jesus, whom you crucified …
This Jesus has become both savior and sanctifier. This Jesus now has power to conquer everything in us that breeds death. Sanctification is about allowing the Holy Spirit to lead as he flows through us, sending us toward life — toward perfect love, perfect joy, perfect peace. We believe Christian perfection (or entire sanctification) is the trajectory of authentic discipleship. John Wesley claimed full sanctification as the unique contribution of Methodism to the Body of Christ, that we were given to this call, to raise up a people dedicated to taking faith to the radical edge. Kevin Watson goes so far as to say that if we are not teaching and preaching the doctrine of entire sanctification, we are taking up a needless division in the Body of Christ.
Entire sanctification is our answer to a God who has entirely conquered death. If Jesus has power over death, then I by taking Jesus as Lord now have power over all my unholy desires, all my broken parts, all of my fallen nature. I have power to place all of it in submission to the Lordship of Jesus, expecting his perfection to reign in me. Perfection is a radical expectation and yet we are called to this by the very cravings of God. Be perfect, Jesus says, like your Father is (Mt. 5:48). And how is our Father perfect? In the ways he loves. In the ways he gives. In the ways he keeps his heart open.
This is where holiness begins. It begins in the heart. Whether you are in the midst of vocational ministry or just trying to follow Jesus in your work as a banker, I cannot stress enough the importance of setting the trajectory of your life and work toward Christian perfection. Whether you reach that high and lofty goal or not is not the point. I’m not even concerned with whether you think it is possible. What matters is where you are headed.
I can promise you this: Jesus is Lord over death. In your response to life, in the practice of your faith, in the framing of your hopes and plans, are you headed toward death, or toward life?
