August 26

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. — John 11:25 BSB

How can someone who is dead believe? They can, or else our Lord would not have said so. Let me explain. This person is alive, having been quickened by the Spirit of God, yet they still feel dead—dead in law, dead in conscience, dead in helplessness. This is the deep mystery: though dead in these ways, God the Holy Spirit has planted within them a seed of living faith. By this faith, they cry out, sigh, and hunger and thirst for righteousness. By this faith, though it may feel weak and insignificant to them, they look to and believe in the Son of God. They may not even realize they have faith, for it seems so small to them. Yet, they bear all the fruits, marks, and evidences of true faith.

Take Jonah as an example. Was he not full of faith even as he sank to the depths of the sea in the belly of the whale? When the waves closed over him, when he was lost in the vast deep, even there he said, “I will look again toward Your holy temple.” Despite his desperate circumstances, he had faith, and it was that faith that saved him, justified him, and ultimately delivered him, allowing him to proclaim, “Salvation is of the Lord.”

Consider Hezekiah, bedridden in sickness. Did he not have faith when he turned his face to the wall and prayed, “O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me”? Or think of David, weeping as he ascended Mount Olivet barefoot, in mourning over Absalom’s rebellion. Did he not pray in faith when he cried, “O Lord, I pray, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness”? In all these examples, despite their dire situations, their faith endured, and by that faith, they called upon God. They looked to Him and were enlightened, and they were not put to shame.

This is the connection between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the experience of the seemingly dead soul. When Christ died, He bore the sins of this dead soul in His body on the cross, atoning for them and putting them away. When Christ rose from the dead, this soul rose with Him, as a member of His mystical body. When Christ ascended into heaven, this soul ascended with Him. And when Christ sat down at the right hand of the Father, this soul was mystically seated with Him in heavenly places. Therefore, because Jesus is the resurrection, and because this soul has a saving interest in Him, “he that believes in Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”