Why the Resurrection? Day Eight/Reason Eight

So that We Would Be Born Again to a Reasonable Hope

By His death, Christ secured the promises of the New Covenant for His people. On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus said to His disciples of the wine cup that came to be known as the Communion cup, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27). The covenant of which Christ spoke was that which was prophesied in Jeremiah 31, where God said, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel… I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (vv. 31-34). He also speaks of this New Covenant in Ezekiel 36 by saying, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (vv. 25-27).

The promise of the New Covenant is that God will regenerate the hearts of His people so that they will act in faithfulness toward Him. In other words, God will give them new life—He will cause them to be born again, for one must be born again by the Holy Spirit, or else he/she “cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 5-8).

This new life, however, would be of no value if it did not have any genuine and significant benefits. Such, however, is not the case. As Peter tells us, God deserves praise for regenerating our hearts because this regeneration gives us a true hope. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, emphasis added).

Peter describes this hope as “living” because it is given to us “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Christ is living, and so the hope we have is in the One who is living, and so the hope itself is living—it is genuine, dynamic, and certain. This hope would not be living, however, if Christ were not alive.

But Jesus Christ is alive, and so the hope we have is living. Christ’s death brings us two types of hope: one now and one for the future resurrection.

The first hope is that the power of sin is, and will ultimately be, defeated in us. The Apostle Paul tells us, “If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:5-7).

We have been freed from the condemnation of sin (cf. Romans 8:1-4), since we are justified in Christ. We have also been freed from the power of sin controlling our nature and our will. We are now able to consider ourselves dead to sin and its control over our desires (Romans 6:11-19). We are thus “freed from sin” and now “slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). When Christ returns, we will be entirely sanctified at His return, putting a complete end to all sin still in our flesh (cf. Romans 8:29-30).

The second hope is in our inheritance. We have been born again “to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:4-5). Those who have been born again are guaranteed eternal life. Our reward is to know God, now and forever (John 17:3).

Thus, on the basis of Christ’s resurrection, we have the hope of knowing God and of being freed from sin. We will be made complete; for we will be made to be as He is, bearing His image (cf. Romans 8:29-32, 1 Corinthians 15:49, 53-54). “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” for raising Christ from the dead, and securing our hope.