David Levin - Class 5: Resurrection as a Metaphor of Moral Development (Sunday School)

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Are you ready, Bob? This is Saanich Peninsula Ecclesia Study Day, February 2017. The topic is Five Facets of Resurrection. The speaker is Brother David Levin. This is his fifth class, titled Resurrection as a Metaphor of Moral Development.

2. 0:30

   In the brief passage that Duncan read, how many times do you think there were references to death? Were you counting? A lot. It was about 20. About 20 times Paul wrote dead, died, death, dead, mortal, crucified, something like that. Now, next question is, how many of those instances were necessary for Paul to make the point that he's trying to make about becoming a different kind of person, walking in newness of life?

3. 1:30

   And the answer is zero. You don't have to talk about life and death to say, don't sin anymore. Be a righteous person. So why does he consistently, and we'll see it here in Ephesians and Colossians, talk about moral development as a matter of life and death? Again, this is another use of the, I call the fifth facet of resurrection.

4. 2:08

   Now it's applied to moral development. Living a righteous or spiritual life in Jesus becomes an act of bringing life out of death. So I want you to remember three words that I'm going to, that this short Sunday school class is going to cover or be about. Three themes. One is the word gratuitous.

5. 2:45

   The second is identity. And the third is surprise. I mean, that's the word. It's not like I'm going to surprise you at the end with the third word. The word is surprise. So we're going to see one that using life out of death itself is what I will call a gratuitous metaphor. Number two, we're going to see that what we're really after, the reason why it is there is because it has to do with identity, not just behavior.

6. 3:22

   And then we're going to find a interesting twist when we get to Romans 7, the second part of the reading, where if you're not careful while you're reading, you're going to miss something really, really, really important. Really important. Like, really important. Like, so. Very unique. Yes, it is. A very unique passage. Okay.

7. 3:54

   So let's go back to Romans 6. Start of Romans 6. And I will talk a few minutes to address what I mean by gratuitous. Does anybody know what the word gratuitous means? It's like unnecessary, just something added in unnecessarily in this context. The gratuitous use of the metaphor of resurrection. So look at Romans 6.

8. 4:31

   What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? That is, you'd already been talking about that many people have been justified by grace in Romans 6. That by one man died, by many man became alive. And Jesus' sacrifice covered all our sins. So does it make sense now?

9. 4:59

   Well, if Jesus' sacrifice covered our sins, let's keep sinning so we get more grace. So Paul is going to say, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm getting at at all. He says, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means, sir. I think that King James says, God forbid.

10. 5:21

    And then he says, how can we who died to sin still live in it? And this is what I mean, while to make the point, he didn't have to say, died to sin. He could have said, how can we who have stopped sinning? Or we become part of Christ. We're not sinners anymore.

11. 5:49

    We live spiritually. But he takes it to an extreme metaphor by saying, no, it's not just you stop sinning. You have died to sin. It's not just you don't sin, or you shouldn't sin, or we don't like to sin, or it's not good to sin. It's you have died to sin. So there's a very strong way of making the point.

12. 6:16

    And he goes on to illustrate that by saying, when you're baptized, it's not just a proclamation that you want to lead a righteous life, a spiritual life. It's your symbolic identification with the death of Jesus by being buried in baptism and then coming out of the water and being raised to newness of life.

13. 6:41

    So our baptism is a symbolic death and resurrection. And that is the strength to which Paul is exhorting us to lead a spiritual life. You're dead to sin. He incorporates that to make a strong point where I said it's really not necessary. Where he could just say, you belong to Jesus, so you live like a Christian.

14. 7:16

    So stop sinning and live this way. But consistently when he has those moral exhortations, he goes way beyond that saying, no, no, no. This is a matter of life and death. You have died to sin.

15. 7:32

    And he continues in that vein. Now, let's look at a couple other passages here. Colossians chapter 2. Get back to that one. In Colossians 2.

16. 8:14

    And let's read from 11 through 14. Okay. Colossians 2, 11 through 14. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

17. 8:50

    And you, who were dead in the dead. To lead a new life in the dead. To lead a new life in Christ is emphasized by saying, in verse 12, very similar to what we read in Romans, buried in baptism, raised with him through faith in the working of God, raised him from the dead.

18. 9:41

    And he said, you were dead in the dead. And he said, you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. God made alive, forgiving our trespasses. Again, he could have said, stop sinning, live righteously. You were a sinner and now you're forgiven. But it's not just you were a sinner. You were dead in sins.

19. 10:12

    As you read this, and it's a many similar past New Testament, what I want you to become aware of is to notice that this word, what I call gratuitous, is that Paul is adding a level of emphasis that's not necessary to make the theological point. Or the exhortation, but it is necessary to make it at the level that we need to know, which is it's not just enough to stop sinning.

20. 10:49

    It's to reckon ourselves as people who have died and come to life again. This takes us to the second of those words, which I call identity. So go back to Matthew 16 here.

21. 11:15

    And I will explain what I mean by that. And we're going to read the passage about Matthew 16, verse 24 through 28, the very last paragraph of Matthew 16. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

22. 11:55

    For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

23. 12:12

    Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. What does Jesus tell the disciples to deny?

24. 12:27

    Just deny yourself. Not to deny yourself of something. Or it says, don't stop this, but deny yourself. In other words, this is a matter of your identity, of who you are. And it's about life and death again. It's about losing your life so you can find it. It's another way of using the metaphor of resurrection.

25. 12:54

    It's a very strong way of saying, don't do this anymore. Do this. It's more than that. It's saying, it's not only you don't live like this, it's you are not that person anymore. You're dead and you are raised. This is a different identity. You are a different person. It's a much bigger idea than just stop living like this and live like this.

26. 13:26

    It's how to identify ourselves. We say, I am a disciple of Christ. That's who I am. It's my identity. You think about yourself. We have different identities. Matt, may I use you for, I don't know a thing about you except your name is Matt. What do you do for a living? I'm an electrician.

27. 13:55

    I'm an electrician. Thank you. You walked into that trap perfectly. So what did I, that's great. Thanks. I asked Matt what he did. He didn't answer my question, did he? He told me who he is. He didn't say, well, I wire things and I make lights come on and I keep people, you know, I put wires together and I weld and I make connections.

28. 14:26

    That's what you do, right? It's what you do. Hopefully. But I do this demonstration a lot. And I say, you know, what do you do for a living? People tell me who they are. I am an electrician. Because you are an electrician, therefore you do certain behaviors. You work with wires and switches and lights.

29. 14:49

    You do commercial or residential or? Yeah, okay. So there's a difference in what we do and who we are. Identities are very strong. Identities are a big part of our life. You identify, I am this kind of person because I am this kind of person. Therefore, I do certain types of behaviors. I use this concept quite a bit in my work as a therapist.

30. 15:22

    People are looking for behavior change, but it's not just their behavior change. It has to be their self-concept. Because I am this kind of person, therefore I do these behaviors. So we talk about higher level, strong changes. And that's what identity is all about. And that's why Paul and Jesus used the metaphor of life and death.

31. 15:46

    Because it's more than just stop doing something. That's behavior. Stop doing this and do this. It's no, die. Change your identity. Get rid of that whole person. And be reborn with another identity. So the power of Jesus' physical resurrection is used as a metaphor to how we change and order our moral development.

32. 16:13

    Let's look and see how this works. One more place. Go back to Romans. I want you to notice something about how Romans works. It's quite a sequence of thought here. Big picture. But pay attention to what is not present. What's missing from the text. In Romans 5, Romans 6, Romans 7, Romans 8.

33. 16:54

    9-11 he gets off into a, it's like a whole big parenthesis about God's national purpose. And then in 12 he comes back to God's personal purpose. But all the exhortation in Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8 is about dying. Coming back to life. Being walking in newness of life. Not being this person.

34. 17:17

    Being this person. Being spiritual creatures. But there's something completely missing from everything that Paul says there. Which is, there's not a single word in all of Romans 5 through 8 where he says, walk in newness of life.

35. 17:41

    Walk in Christ. Put to this, that. Become a new person. Walk by the Spirit. There's not a single word of what that means. There's not one specific exhortation in there. He doesn't say to be humble or kind or give to charity. It's completely missing. That four chapters of high-powered exhortation without one saying, well, what does it mean?

36. 18:09

    How do I do that? Then you get finally to Romans chapter 12. In 12, 13, and 14. And there's all those specifics are in there. About generosity and esteeming others better than yourself. And patience. And all the Christian virtues come in Romans 12 through 14. But they're completely absent in 5 through 8.

37. 18:31

    And the point is, this big idea of identity is first. You have to identify ourselves as we are disciples of Christ. We are children of God. We are, this is who I am. And because this is who I am, therefore, I have these Christian virtues. So when we get to 12, 13, and 14, now Paul's already set out the groundwork.

38. 18:59

    Because you're this kind of person, this is how you should live. And here's three really good chapters of all kinds of advice on virtue.

39. 19:13

    So that's identity in a nutshell. Second word. Third and last concept. Surprise! With the last bit of my voice that's left, I'm going to show you something so shocking, so amazing, so startling, about what it means to die and become alive again. You're going to slap your collective foreheads and say, wow, how come I never saw that before?

40. 19:46

    It's in Romans 7. It's also in Colossians 2. We're going to look at it there also. But go back to Romans 7. And I'm going to have Duncan re-read that passage. 1 through 4? Let's read.

41. 20:09

    Yes. Okay. Romans 7, verse 1 through 4. Or do you not know, brothers, for I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.

42. 20:33

    Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

43. 20:59

    So you write it again. You say, okay, what's the big deal here? It looks pretty straightforward. Well, here's what's going on. Paul put in a little twist here. It's just like, no, that's not what you, not quite what you think he said. You have to read this really carefully.

44. 21:24

    He's been telling us in Romans 6 about dying, that you have to die to the flesh. The flesh has to die so the spiritual life can live. But there's another part of this that he talks about in Romans 7. and what you think he's talking about is that we are, he talks about the law.

45. 21:58

    He starts off by changing it to the law. And what you think he's talking about is, okay, Paul is also saying that as long as we are under the law, we were not in Christ, which was true that the law was there and then Jesus died and the law was gone. But that's not what he's saying.

46. 22:24

    He's saying in verse 4, the end of verse 4, actually, no, it's the first part of verse 4, likewise, my brethren, you have died to what? To the law. You have died to the law. It's not talking about the law of Moses is no longer operative and you're under grace. He's saying in addition to dying to sin, you have to die to self-justification.

47. 23:05

    The human proclivity and tendency to think that we can do something to make ourselves good enough for Christ to be justified by our way. Say, yes, I go to, you know, the standard things. I read the Bible every day and I give my tithes and I'm good enough. I have done something. Paul is saying, no, you have to die to that kind of thinking.

48. 23:30

    You have to die to any notion that you think you can do anything that makes you good enough for God. Die to the law. Die to the whole concept of justification by works. Die to any notion that any type of righteous life that you do, he said, yes, you have to live righteously.

49. 23:56

    you have to live spiritually, but you also have to die to any thought that because of that, God owes you something that you have made yourself good enough for God. No, you're still saved by grace. You do righteous things because you have been saved, not in order to be saved. Dying to the law.

50. 24:22

    And you miss that unless you read Romans 7, 4 very carefully. But it's also in Colossians 2. So if you missed it in Romans, it's really more explicit in Colossians. So let's go back there again. Now, we read the first few verses there in 11, 12, 13 about dying to the flesh. And Paul makes the point that in verse 13, that you who were dead in trespasses and in the circumcision of your flesh, God made alive, having forgiven, okay, canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands.

51. 25:22

    This he set aside to Jesus, nailing it to the cross. When Jesus was crucified, the law was crucified also. It was nailed to the cross. The law died. Not that it was ever effective, but the whole Mosaic system, that was ended. Jesus was resurrected in three days, but the law stayed dead. The law is gone.

52. 25:53

    It was Jesus crucified. The law. That's what he's saying there. So both ways of looking at spirituality come are, therefore, you live righteously, but you live by grace, not by law. So go down to verse 20 to 20, the end of the last four verses that Colossians 2, 20 to the end. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

53. 26:33

    Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used, according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

54. 26:57

    Okay. And there's that phrase again in verse 20, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirit, that is the Paul's phrase for the system of Mosaic worship justification by works. You die to the flesh, that is, we no longer fulfill the desires of our natural human nature, and also we die to, if when we become spiritual, we die to any notion that our good life, that that is the basis upon which God gives us salvation, that we have earned it, that we've done things, yes, you do those things, but not to earn salvation, to show our thanks and gratefulness to God, so we die both to the flesh and to the idea that the spiritual life we do live is the way that God owes us something, that's why he says die to all these ideas of following laws, don't taste this, I'm holy, I never eat ham, and all these things, you know, I'm the right guy, I keep all the holidays, and I show up on time, every time, I'm good, God owes me something, Paul says, now, die, die to that, it's not the way grace works.

55. 28:30

    So those are three ways, summing up again, in which we see resurrection as the basis of moral development. Paul is telling us, Jesus tells us, we die to the flesh. It's not just a matter of not sinning, it's a matter of creating a new identity in Christ, and that identity is one that loves God and serves God, not in order to be saved, because we've also died to the concept of law or justification by works, we've died to that, and we live to God as his children, his grateful disciples, his loving people.

56. 29:20

    paddle