Some people like to take things apart out of curiosity, others out of an alleged desire to repair them. Like the man who volunteered to fix his dad’s wristwatch. After an intricate, multi-hour process, he disassembled and reassembled it, then returned it to his dad. “Oh, you can have these, too,” he said, handing over a few tiny metallic slivers and wheels. “I found out what was wrong with the watch. It had too many parts in it.”
I suppose it’s normal for students of the Bible to take theology apart and study it, too.
As long as they put it all back together properly.
The work of Christ, in particular, invites close inspection. The deeper into it you dig, the more worshipful praise you ought to feel. At times you get lost in the wonder of it all, quickly put it all back together, and promise yourself to return later, when you’ve got more time.
The nature of stripping things down in such a way, requires, temporarily, a kind of forced academic separation. You’re looking at a bloody cross as one component, and an empty tomb as another. Each has sub-menus, implications, and importances. Each has attached verses.
The separation of the two, though, is illusory. They go together.
The cross of Christ could only result in His rising again! This seemed to be Jesus’ attitude in Luke 24:26 , where He said, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” “Suffer and enter” seems so casual a connection, so organic, that we hardly notice it when reading.
Even when the cross alone is mentioned, we intuitively understand resurrection is meant as well. Paul told the Corinthians he was determined to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified. Apparently, he had singled out the cross as the killing antithesis of sinful human wisdom. The emphasis was exactly what those wayward believers needed.
But before the letter was over, the apostle revealed that, in his mind, the cross was never a self-contained, lone object. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). Then, he launches into the subject of resurrection as a truth of cosmic proportions.
We will gather one evening this week to remember with bread and wine, the Lord’s death. It’s the lower room of a coffee shop, where we’ll sing a few soul-stirring hymns, share some testimonies, and thank the Lord. But I can’t help but keep an expectant eye on Sunday.
I know what happened. So do you.
Where Friday is, Sunday is always close behind.
