On the cross Yeshua (Jesus) conquered death and made His life available to us. He said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).1 Christ’s resurrection introduced life for our mortal bodies now—not just for some future event when the dead are raised (Romans 8:11; 2 Corinthians 5:4–5). Church has taught us to embrace death as the highest achievement and that after we suffer through this life, we die and go to heaven to get our reward. That is backwards! We know there is resurrection life for those who die, but God wants us to reach into life right now (John 11:26).
Yeshua has already defeated death because He was resurrected, so there is something available for us to grow into now. You may ask, “Are you telling me I shouldn’t die?” Exactly. I do not think we should die. I could point to many things we have not appropriated yet that are part of our salvation. But the reality of our Christian experience is that we are growing in the grace and the knowledge of Christ our Lord. So His divine life is something we are maturing into; as we behold Him, we are changed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). Our English word from the Greek here is metamorphosis, meaning “a complete change in structure or substance.” Metamorphosis is something a caterpillar does when it becomes a butterfly. We are transforming out of death into life (1 John 3:14).
On a daily basis, our vision should be toward life. I have not seen resurrection life yet, but I see it in the Bible and that is my plumb line. When Joshua, Caleb, and Moses walked in the wilderness for forty years, they were still strong and full of health. Caleb was eighty-five years old when he said, “I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now” (Joshua 14:11). Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died, but “his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated” (Deuteronomy 34:7). They had life in their mortal bodies even at that time. If you say, “Well, I think we’re still going to die,” then believe that God will take you in health and strength. God took Moses, and later he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration in a glorified body with Christ and the Father. These people had a life in them that I think we are missing.
By the Word of God, Yeshua was resurrected, ended death, and brought His life to us. Yeshua died once for all, so we can consider ourselves to be alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:8–11). In baptism, we are lowered into the likeness of His death. If we are baptized into Yeshua’s death, then we are raised into His resurrection life. These things are in the Bible; yet satan says, “It’s heresy to believe that.” Okay, but we believe in the virgin birth. We believe that Christ died and was resurrected. We believe Yeshua walked on water, cast out devils, healed the sick, and raised the dead. We believe that His dying on the cross took away our sin. Plausible? Absolutely not. How in the world does a man dying on a cross remove your sin and reconcile you to the Father? You believe all these things, right? What is less plausible about resurrection life than any of these other elements in our Christian faith? Believe to be transformed into Yeshua’s image and walk into His life!
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1 All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).