The Easter Lord

Jesus rose that first Easter Sunday not only to save sinners but to bring the world and its history under his authority.

Apr 07, 2023

“This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God ….”

Acts 2:32–33a

Dear friends and supporters:

This Sunday we celebrate our Lord’s Resurrection. It’s imperative to know that, according to Peter’s great Pentecostal sermon, our Lord rose not just to prove his deity (true enough; see Rom. 1:4) and to justify sinners (also true: Rom. 4:25), but, in addition, to begin the final phase of his exaltation to the Father’s right hand, enthroned as King of the cosmos.

God had promised King David ruling descendants on the Jewish throne (1 Sam. 7:12f.). So you might assume a Davidic line of kings was to rule only over the Jews, and only physically in Jerusalem.

But the only infallible commentary on the OT is the NT. At Pentecost the Spirit-inspired Peter was an infallible OT interpreter. God showed him that when he promised David a king on his throne and from his very loins, that King was Jesus Christ, ruling not just over ancient Israel, but over the entire cosmos. Jesus Christ is the presently ruling cosmic King, and that kingdom won’t end until our Lord turns that kingdom over to His (and our) Father after his Second Coming and at the vestibule to eternity (1 Cor. 15:23–24).

This means we cannot celebrate Easter’s risen Lord without also celebrating Easter’s ruling Lord.

The Sovereignty of Jesus Christ

This unbreakable link between our Lord’s resurrection and rule explains other truths. We sometimes (rightly) speak of the sovereignty of God. But it’s equally correct (and necessary) to speak of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The Father has entrusted all cosmic rule to his Son, who rules by the earthly presence of the Spirit (Jn. 14:16–26). This is trinitarian sovereignty, with our Lord right at the heart.

“The Annihilation of All that Terrifies”

The Easter Lord’s sovereign rule creates a momentous benefit for believers beyond salvation in the afterlife; his cosmic rule today means they have no reason ever to worry.

Jesus rose that first Easter Sunday not only to save sinners but to bring the world and its history under his authority. Good Friday leads to Great Sunday, and Great Sunday undergirds the Great Commission.

G. C. Berkouwer writes of the “indissoluble connection between [Jesus’] resurrection, ascension and sessio [session, meaning present rule at the Father’s right hand]…. All the New Testament joy converges in this one glorious prospect as the annihilation of all that terrifies.”1

No saint need ever be terrified of any prospect — pain, torment, loss, loneliness, death. The Easter Lord is the cosmic Ruler who “annihilate[es] … all that terrifies” his people. Nothing stands outside his providence and control. Nothing can thwart his care for his people. We are eternally secure in the Easter Lord.

Lord of the Great Commission

But this sovereign rule transcends the individual saint. It puts the Sovereign’s force behind the Great Commission: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” (Mt. 28:18–19a).

The OT again and again depicts God as sovereign Lord of the nations. This is one the great themes of the prophets. The nations are under his sway and control. He raises up a nation for his purposes and tears down another.

As a result of Jesus’ resurrection, the Father has vested that nation-wielding sovereignty in his Son. The nations are a “drop in the bucket” (Is. 40:15) not just for the Father, but also for the Son:

Ask of Me [the Father], and I will give You [the Son]
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession. (Acts 2:8)

Behind all events of history, war and peace, wealth and poverty, life and death, sits the sovereign Son, the Easter Lord, ruling, accomplishing his irresistible will. And the inheritance of all the nations of the earth is the gift of his (and our) Father.

God’s Final Temple and World Gospel Dominion

This Great Commission was God’s plan all along, and Easter its very historical foundation. Jesus declared to the Jews, “Destroy this [Jewish] temple, and in three days I will raise it up…. He was speaking of the temple of His body” (Jn. 2:19, 21). Later Jesus tempered his disciples’ enthusiasm for the Jerusalem temple by predicting not one stone of it would be left unturned (Mt. 23:1–2). This permanent devastation of the temple happened during the Romans’ destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70 (Mt. 24:3–35). That temple was destroyed finally and forever.

This prediction alarmed Jesus’ disciples. They asked, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Mt. 24:3). As I pointed out last week on “A Victorious Pre-Parousia Eschatology,” they thought they were asking Jesus one question, when they were actually asking two questions.2 They assumed the destruction of the temple signaled the end of the world. To these disciples, how could the world go on if the very localized presence of God among the Jewish temple were destroyed? The temple would be gone, and history must come to an end.

In his answer, Jesus was essentially implying that the temple had to be destroyed for the gospel-saturated world to go on. The two great ancient persecutors of the true Faith, apostate Judaism and imperial Rome, both colluding in murdering our Lord himself, had to be vanquished before the Great Commission could be fulfilled. This is what the book of Revelation is all about.3 Apostate Judaism and pagan Rome had to be crushed for the gospel to go to the ends of earth.

To Jesus’ disciples, the old covenant gospel commission was concentrated among the Jews and their temple. That temple had to be swept away to make way for the success of the new temple, the temple of our Lord’s body resurrected after three days, ascended and ruling from heaven. The destruction of the temple broke the ethnic Jewish bounds of the gospel and paved the way for the worldwide Great Commission.

So Easter commemorates the new temple, Jesus’ imperishable body, replacing the temporary old covenant temple and the entire system of rites and ceremonies that pointed to and were fulfilled in our Lord. This means Easter was the formal break with the old covenant order that was finalized in history about 40 years later with Jerusalem’s destruction.

The Easter Lord is the final and only Lord.

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Conclusion

This (and every) Easter, let us remember the indissolubility of our Lord’s resurrection, ascension, and rule. His bodily resurrection, which guarantees ours (1 Cor. 15:20–22), isn’t an end in itself. Isaiah predicted, “He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, [i]n Him the Gentiles shall hope” (Rom. 15:12).

He rose to rule the cosmos and in ruling save his people and extend his gospel kingdom and accomplish all of his Father’s good purposes in the earth.

Yours for the Easter Lord,

Founder & President, Center for Cultural Leadership

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G. C. Berkouwer, The Work of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 224–226.

J. Marcellus Kik, An Eschatology of Victory (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971), 89.

Greg L. Bahnsen, Victory in Jesus (Texarkana, Arkansas: Covenant Media Press, 1999), 1–17.