I had written about Judas and his descent into despair and suicide after his betrayal of Jesus and about Peter’s response to the same sense of failure and betrayal. When one rejects condemnation from the enemy, embraces the convicting work of the Holy Spirit and feels godly sorrow and repentance, the outcome is dramatically different after moral and spiritual failure resulting from fear, doubt, disobedience, deception, or any other cause. During that same week I reflected of the difference between the two men’s responses, the Lord put a big question mark in the forefront of my mind as I sat in church and we recited the Apostle’s Creed in unison:
THE APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord:
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;*
the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic** church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
What struck me that day as I listened to the words and that again caught my eye was this:
Peter had evidenced presence of and awareness of the Holy Spirit’s work in himself at Caesarea Philippi in the conversation between the disciples and Jesus about the revelation of the identity of Christ.
So, when the Apostles’ Creed begins its final list of faith affirmations, it begins with the Holy Spirit. Then moves to the unity of believers as Christ’s church, then to communion of the saints who are the gathered believers and that communion is indicative of our lives in common with God and one another in the church.
Only then is forgiveness of sins referenced…. We are not required to get cleaned up and live into sinless lives before entering into the church fellowship with other believers, who are all called saints. We are invited into communion of the church by belief in Christ which, as Peter learned at Caesarea Philippi, only happens by the work of the Spirit in us. It is as we live in community with one another that the Holy Spirit advances the work of instruction, illumination, conviction, invitation, repentance, confession, and reconciliation with God and one another through forgiveness. The Holy Spirit may have been long at work and we may have been long in fellowship with other believers before we are aware of this unfolding process and begin to feel and respond to the pruning and refining process that brings the godly grief that leads to true repentance, confession, and forgiveness and reconciliation with God and one another.
It is then that the resurrection of the body and life everlasting are listed in the Apostles’ Creed and are accomplished in the list’s order. Christ’s resurrection was a solitary specific point in time that initiated the larger resurrection of all believers who would be received into everlasting life. Scripture says that graves opened on the day of Christ’s crucifixion and some were seen as being resurrected then… soon to be followed by the evidence of Christ’s own resurrection. And, of course, Lazarus had already been raised from the dead the week before by Jesus. Does this all seem a little out of order to you… that graves are opened even before the third day resurrection of Christ? Was not the Roman soldier at the cross who suddenly had his eyes, ears, heart, and mind opened by the Holy Spirit to the reality of Christ’s lordship the first spirit resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit upon him? If a foreign Gentile soldier could have been transformed by the cross, how many more who watched and heard could have been transformed in that moment, as well. Were those bodily resurrections of Lazarus and others from the graves on that Good Friday before Jesus’ own resurrection the physical manifestation of what the Spirit was initiating in believers’ hearts, as well? Just over the horizon, at the dawn of the second day after Jesus’ crucifixion, the church was already being birthed in hearts and the capacity to arise to transcendent and abundant life was being prepared. Then with the appearance of the resurrected Christ at the second dawn, in the third day, we watch as the disciples, including the shamed Peter and the skeptical Thomas are brought into the resurrection reality and they themselves enter into the here and now promise of eternal life with Christ already sealed by the Holy Spirit.
And THIS was the AHA….. the forgiveness of sins is placed after the Holy Spirit’s initiation of one into faith (which is entirely God’s act of justification by grace through faith). That imputed act of justification is God’s gracious act of forgiveness for the state of SIN of all humanity that was accomplished through Christ’s death. After that act one becomes part of the Body of Christ (His church) and after beginning to live in the kingdom’s new reality of the Holy Spirit’s imparted sanctification in cthe gathered Body of Christ, the capacity for transcendent life is born, the reality of having been resurrected from the death of our own sin-filled lives by the ongoing acts of God’s forgiveness of sins (little “s” plural) that continues as part of the refining and pruning process.
The physical resurrection of Lazarus and others from the graves observed at Christ’s death and resurrection were a foreshadowing of our own physical resurrections that will come with the coming of the New Heaven and New Earth. But the spiritual resurrections of defeated and despairing disciples and others who witnessed Christ’s death signaled a Holy Spirit move that foreshadowed the broad scale grant of power and permanent abiding of the Holy Spirit with mankind in the world as a seal of the promise of future eternal life beyond this realm. What was revealed and demonstrated in the physical realm is being fulfilled and worked to completion in the spiritual realm all around us.
I had seen this quote offered by an acquaintance:
“Holiness does not mean sinlessness, but rather fulfilling one’s calling by resisting the great sin of despair in the face of evil and one’s own sinfulness.” ~ Bulgakov
So then, may holiness obtained by grace through faith in Jesus Christ be understood to be sustained by persevering in faith and continuing with others in the community of faith, even when having failed in godliness in the moment or in a present task, as Peter did? And as Judas did? Judas isolated and didn’t persevere among others and experience conviction, repentance and godly sorrow. Could Judas have persevered unto forgiveness and reconciliation if he hadn’t given in to despair and suicide?
Jesus’ call to love our enemies and to forgive as we ourselves have been forgiven, as well as His restoration of Peter, suggests that even Judas was not beyond the hope of spiritual resurrection if he had persevered in communion with the Spirit and the saints. Does the possibility of such reconciling forgiveness after one’s moral and spiritual failure that comes from trusting in the grace and goodness of God abuse justice and the mercy of God? Or does it fulfill Christ’s purpose about which He said, “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners.” (Luke 5:32)
Furthermore, what does this say about the role of the community of faith in the kingdom of God to admonish and encourage one another?