That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection,

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.—Philippians 3:10

What concerns us most to be assured of…is whether we have experimentally known the power of His resurrection, that is, whether or not we have received the Holy Ghost and by His powerful operations on our hearts have been raised from the death of sin to a life of righteousness and true holiness.

It was this the great apostle was chiefly desirous to know. He was satisfied [that] the resurrection of Christ’s body would avail him nothing unless he experienced the power of it in raising his dead soul.

Another, and that a chief end of our blessed Lord’s rising from the dead, was to enter heaven as our representative and to send down the Holy Ghost to apply to our hearts that redemption He had finished on the cross, by working an entire change in them. Without this, Christ would have died in vain. For it would have done us no service to have had His outward righteousness imputed to us, unless we had an inward inherent righteousness wrought in us. Because—being altogether conceived and born in sin and consequently unfit to hold communion with an infinitely pure and holy God—we cannot possibly be made [fit] to see or enjoy Him until a thorough renovation⁷¹ has passed upon our hearts.

Without this, we leave out the Holy Ghost in the great work of our redemption. But as we were made by the joint concurrence and consultation of the blessed Trinity, and as we were baptized in Their name, so must all of Them concur in our salvation: as the Father made and the Son redeemed, so must the Holy Ghost sanctify and seal us, or otherwise we have believed in vain.

This, then, is what the apostle means by “the power of Christ’s resurrection,” and this is what we are as much concerned experimentally to know, as that He rose at all.

Without this, though we may be moralists, though we may be civilized, good-natured people, yet we are not Christians. For he is not a true Christian who is only one outwardly; nor have we therefore a right because we daily profess to believe that Christ rose again the third day from the dead. But he is a true Christian who is one inwardly. We can only be styled true believers when we not only profess to believe, but have felt the power of our blessed Lord’s rising from the dead by being quickened and raised by His Spirit—when dead in trespasses and sins—to a thorough newness both of heart and life.

The devils themselves cannot but believe the doctrine of the resurrection and tremble; yet they continue devils because the benefits of this resurrection have not been applied to them, nor have they received a renovating power from it to change and put off their diabolical⁷² nature. So, unless we not only profess to know, but also feel that Christ is risen indeed by being born again from above, we shall be as far from the kingdom of God as they: our faith will be as ineffectual⁷³ as the faith of devils.

Nothing has done more harm to the Christian world, nothing has rendered the cross of Christ of less effect, than a vain supposition⁷⁴ that religion is something [external to] us…As Christ was born of the Virgin’s womb, so He must be formed spiritually in our hearts. As He died for sin, so must we die to sin. And as He rose again from the dead, so must we also rise to a divine life…

It is true, as for the outward work of our redemption, it was a transient⁷⁵ act and was certainly finished on the cross. But the application of that redemption to our hearts is a work that will continue always, even unto the end of the world. So long as there is an elect man breathing on the earth, who is naturally engendered⁷⁶ of the offspring of the first Adam, so long must the quickening spirit—purchased by the resurrection of the second Adam, that Lord from heaven—be breathing upon his soul. For though we may exist by Christ, yet we cannot be said to exist in Him until we are united to Him by one Spirit and enter into a new state of things, as certainly as He entered into a new state of things after that He rose from the dead.

We may throng and crowd about Christ and call Him, “Lord, Lord,” when we come to worship before His footstool; but we have not effectually touched Him until, by a living faith in His resurrection, we perceive a divine virtue coming out of Him to renew and purify our souls.

How greatly, then, do they err who rest in a bare historical faith of our Savior’s resurrection and look only for external proofs to evidence it? [Even if] we, the most learned disputers of this world, could speak of the certainty of this fact with the tongue of men and angels, without this inward testimony of it in our hearts—though we might convince others—we should never be saved by it ourselves. For we are but dead men; we are like so many carcasses wrapped up in grave clothes until that same Jesus Who called Lazarus from his tomb—and at Whose own resurrection many that slept arose (Mat 27:51-52)—doth raise us also by His [life-giving] Spirit from our natural death, in which we have so long lain, to a holy and heavenly life.

We might think ourselves happy if we had seen the holy Jesus after He was risen from the dead and our hands had handled that Lord of life. But happier are they who have not seen Him, yet having felt the power of His resurrection, believe in Him. For many saw our divine Master who were not saved by Him. But whosoever has thus felt the power of His resurrection has the earnest of his inheritance in his heart; he has passed from death to life and shall never fall into final condemnation.

I am very sensible that this is foolishness to the natural man, as were many such like truths to our Lord’s own disciples (when only weak in faith) before He rose again. But when these natural men, like [the disciples], have fully felt the power of His resurrection, they will then own that this doctrine is from God and say with the Samaritans, “Now we believe, not because of thy saying” (Joh 4:42), for we ourselves have experienced it in our hearts.

And, O that all unbelievers, all letter-learned masters of Israel—who now look upon the doctrine of the power of Christ’s resurrection (our new birth) as an idle tale and condemn the preachers of it as enthusiasts⁷⁷ and madmen—did but feel the power of it in their souls, they would no longer ask how this thing could be. But they would be convinced of it, as much as Thomas was, when he saw the Lord’s Christ; and like him, when Jesus bid him reach out his hands and thrust them into His side, in a holy confession they would cry out, “My Lord and my God” (Joh 20:28)!

But how shall an unbeliever, how shall the formal Christian come thus to “know Christ, and the power of his resurrection”? God, Who cannot lie, has told us, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (Joh 11:25). Again, says the apostle, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).

This, this is the way—walk in it! Believe, and you shall live in Christ, and Christ in you. You shall be one with Christ, and Christ one with you. But without this, your outward goodness and professions will avail you nothing.

But then, by this faith we are not to understand a dead, speculative⁷⁸ faith…but a living principle wrought in the heart by the powerful operations of the Holy Ghost, a faith that will enable us to overcome the world and forsake all the [world’s] affection for Jesus Christ. For thus speaks our blessed Master: “Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luk 14:33).

And so the apostle…says, “Being made conformable to his death,” thereby implying that we cannot know the power of Christ’s resurrection unless we are made conformable to Him in His death.

If we can reconcile light and darkness, heaven and hell, then we may hope to know the power of Christ’s resurrection without dying to ourselves and the world. But until we can do this, we might as well expect that Christ will have concord with Belial (2Co 6:15). For there is such a contrariety⁷⁹ between the spirit of this world and the Spirit of Jesus Christ that he who will be at friendship with the one must be at enmity with the other: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Mat 6:24).

This may, indeed, seem a hard saying; and many, with the young man in the gospel, may be tempted to go away sorrowful. But wherefore should this offend them? For what is “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1Jo 2:16), but vanity and vexation⁸⁰ of spirit?

God is love; therefore, could our own wills or the world have made us happy, He never would have sent His own dear Son Jesus Christ to die and rise again to deliver us from the power of them. But because they only torment and cannot satisfy, God bids us to renounce them…O the depth of the riches and excellency of Christianity! Well might the great St. Paul count all things but dung and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of it. Well might he desire so ardently to know Jesus and the power of His resurrection! For even on this side of eternity, it raises us above the world and makes us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Well might that glorious company of worthies, recorded in the Holy Scriptures, supported with a deep sense of their heavenly calling, despise the pleasures and profits of this life and wander about in sheepskins and goatskins, in dens and caves of the earth, being destitute, afflicted, tormented (see Heb 11).

And O that we were all likeminded! That we felt the power of Christ’s resurrection as they did! [We would] then count all things as dung and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord (Phi 3:8)! [We would] then recover our primitive dignity, trample the earth under our feet, and with our souls be continually gasping after God.

And what hinders but we may be thus minded? Is Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, altered from what He was? No, He is “the same yesterday, to day, and for ever” (Heb 13:8). And though He is exalted to the right hand of God, yet He is not ashamed to call us brethren. The power of His resurrection is as great now as formerly, and the Holy Spirit—assured to us by His resurrection—as ready and able to quicken us who are dead in trespasses and sins as any saint that ever lived. Let us but cry, and that instantly, to Him that is mighty and able to save! Let us, in sincerity and truth, without secretly keeping back the least part, renounce ourselves and the world! Then we shall be Christians indeed. And though the world may cast us out and separate from our company, yet Jesus Christ will walk with and abide in us. And at the general resurrection of the last day, when the voice of the archangel and trump of God shall bid the sea and the graves to give up their dead and all nations shall appear before Him, then will He confess us before His Father and the holy angels; and we shall receive that invitation that He shall then pronounce to all who love and fear Him: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mat 25:34).