One of the central arguments of the book is that we Christians often spend a lot of time talking, singing and preaching about the death of Christ, without carrying on to talk, sing and preach about the vindication which followed. He demonstrates from the Bible how the two concepts of ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’ go together, and notes how much more air time ‘resurrection’ gets in New Testament preaching than ‘death’.

As such, this is a really timely reminder (in fact there seem to be a spate of such books – Sam Allberry’s Lifted: Experiencing the Resurrection Life being another example).

via Raised with Christ (a mini-review) – TheVirtualWord.

I REMEMBER TRYING TO explain grace to a room full of children. Without warning, I took a large chocolate bar and gave it to the child who had been misbehaving the most all morning. The look of sur- prise and pleasure on the child’s face told me he understood that this was far from what he deserved. A chorus of howls from the other children of “That’s totally not fair!” told me they had grasped it too. “Exactly,” I said. “That’s grace!” In response to this the boy immediately began to behave well and continued to do so for the rest of the morning.
When we appreciate the grace that we have received and understand the inward change that has happened to us, it will affect every aspect of our lives. Christians will find their drinking habits, their sex life, their relationships, and their attitudes toward work and authority trans- formed. In short, every aspect of their behavior will begin to change. We are not passive in this process but work to become what we already are. We have been changed by an encounter with Jesus who is not the long-dead subject of a historical biography but is very much alive today.  (Page 145)

Our biggest problem is that we do not see Jesus as he is. If we could desire him, treasure him, delight in him, be satisfied in him, cherish him, savor him, value him, revere him, esteem and admire him as much as he deserves, we would want to follow him as our Lord in every area of our life, and sin would instantly lose its appeal. One of the most important ways for us to deal with sin in our lives is to get a clear picture of Jesus in our minds and hearts. Jesus shares every attribute with God and is therefore not to be messed around with, argued with, or treated with contempt. It is as we contemplate Jesus and his resurrection that we will be changed. (Page 149)

Jesus met with people when they were alone, with a small handful of people, in a group of twelve or more, and in an assembly of hundreds. He met them in a formal gathering, over a meal, in a home, in secluded countryside, at work, and in the middle of a busy city.

Jesus can still meet people today in all these situations. Although he no longer meets us face-to-face, the reality of his presence remains through his Spirit and the Bible (see John 14–16). Jesus can meet us in every situation we face, just like the disciples. Throughout the rest of church history he has continued to meet with his people, sometimes by surprise, but always to keep his promises: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them,” and “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (page 41)

The following quote from Raised With Christ was shared on Crosspointe’s blog and surely is something worth getting excited about this Easter!

Jesus was so full of merit that not only did he have enough righteousness to cancel out our sin and enough that he deserved to be raised from the dead, but he still had abundantly more credit remaining in his account. As a result, our justification consists not just of a canceling of our debt, but also of an imputing to us of the righteousness of Christ. It is not only “just as if I’d never sinned,” but also, “just as if I’d already completed a perfect life.” Jesus doesn’t merely give us a clean slate and then sit back and watch whether we will mess it up again. .

via The CrossPointe: Why We Love the Resurrection : : 3.

Many more people throughout history have begun radical, continued social movements. But one significant difference each time is this: none of their founders are still with them. The Church, God’s called and chosen people here on earth, is utterly unique for many reasons. Notably, it is the “only organisation in the world that exists solely for the benefit of its non-members” (Archbishop William Temple). And, more importantly, its – our – founder Jesus Christ is still with us. Always. To the end of the age.

via Notes on a Scandal: Beacon Touchpaper #20: “Jesus, our LIVING founder”.

The greatest proof that Jesus lives today is that He continues to change lives. The course of my life was changed by Jesus. I never intended on doing with my life what I am presently doing. This is true of all who follow Christ. . .

In my upcoming blogs, I want to explore how we experience the resurrection power of Jesus in our lives today. Often today, people can feel they’ve lost this experience of God. In his book, “Raised With Christ,” Adrian Warnock quotes Francis Schaeffer:

“Some Christians seem to think that when they are born again, they become a self-contained unit like a storage battery. From that time on they have to go on their own pep and their own power until they die. But this is wrong. After we are justified, one for all through faith in Christ, we are to live in supernatural communion with the Lord every moment; we are to be like lights plugged into an electric socket. The Bible makes it plain that our joy and spiritual power depend on a continuing relation to God.”
from John Lanferman: Resurrection and life.

As a doctor, preacher, prolific blogger and father of five quite how he found time to write a book is a miracle all of its own. The first section of the book gives a very helpful overview of the evidence for the resurrection and everything in the book is steeped in Scripture. The second half explores the implications of the risen Jesus and covers justification, prayer, the new birth, mission and the end times. This work includes so many references to all the people I enjoy reading-notably Piper, Edwards and Lloyd-Jones . . .

Read more at Cookiesdays: Raised with Christ.

Salvation is not merely a case of believing in something that happened thousands of years ago.  We are not saved by a belief.  We are saved by union with a person.  We cannot separate the propitiatory work of Christ from Christ himself.  We are saved not only by believing the fact that Christ died for our sins, but by union with the crucified and risen, exalted Savior.  Only through union with a living Savior who has in him the virtue of his atoning death do justification, forgiveness, and all the blessings of redemption become ours.  “In him, we have redemption through his blood.” (Ephesians 1:7).”

Extract quoted at Resurrection People- Day 1 « The Grace Showcase.

• Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross edited by Nancy Guthrie
• Raised with Christ by Adrian Warnock
• Scandalous: The Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus by D. A. Carson
• Death By Love by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
• Doctrine (particularly chpt 8 & 9) by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears
• Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper
• In My Place Condemned He Stood by Packer, Dever, and Duncan
• The Heart of the Cross by Ryken and Boice
• Precious Blood edited by Richard Phillips
• The Passion of Christ and the Purpose of Life by Adrian Rogers

via Crossway.blog » Suggested Easter Reads from Crossway.

Pop over to Forgiven Geek – Confessions of a geek saved by grace for a personal web cam interview with Adrian.

Christianity.com are running an extract:

Although we talk about the death of Jesus often, for some reason we have tended to only mention the resurrection at Easter time. Christians sometimes even say Jesus died to save us without mentioning that he also rose for our salvation. It’s time to redress the balance a bit and talk more about Jesus’ death and resurrection.

For Christians all over the world, every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday. We meet each week, among other things, in order to celebrate the glorious, wondrous fact that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection really did change everything. It changed the cross from a tragedy into a triumph, and it changed the Roman Empire into a Christian state. This was the most powerful divine event in the history of creation, and it ushered in a new age of the Holy Spirit’s activity and power in saving and transforming lives.

When considering if Christianity is true, it all boils down to whether Jesus rose from the dead.

More at  The Empty Cross, The Empty Tomb – Easter – Christianity.com.

The following is an extract from “I Must Never Again Let the Resurrection Become Something I Assume” – An Interview with Adrian Warnock on Blogging Theologically:

I think I am still painfully aware that I do not experience the same power that raised Christ from the dead as much as I should. Many Christians who have gone before have had a strong sense of personally knowing the risen Jesus. As Paul put it, I long “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.” When I am most confident of the resurrection, I am most sure of my own salvation and future resurrection, most full of hope, most joyful, and most aware of Christ’s power in me. I know now that I must never again let the resurrection become something I assume.

The eagle-eyed will have noticed a new link appearing in the sidebar here and on Adrian’s blog. Longtrain audio have recorded the preface and chapter two and made it available (with Crossway’s permission) for free download. Why not have a listen this Easter?

Raised with Christ is what the publishers like to call a ‘mid-level’ book: neither introductory nor full-blown academic. If you are familiar with Adrian’s blog his writing style in RWC will be of no surprise to you – accessible and thought-provoking. Adrian writes not as the expert but fellow-traveller. This is not a book that requires a dictionary in one hand and flask of coffee in the other. Yet it doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the importance of the resurrection.

In the opening sections Adrian surveys some of the factors that might account for our neglect of the resurrection in recent years, takes us through the events surrounding it and provides something of a historical apologetic for belief in the resurrection today. All this is helpful and of interest, but the real value of the book is in the chapters that follow, and which unpack the book’s subtitle – Why the resurrection changes everything. These cover implications of the resurrection for Christian living, revival, prayer, Bible-reading, mission and the physical world . . .

The absence of much literature on this issue means that many will pounce on this book – and so they should. (I’m on my second reading already.) It is an excellent book on a much-neglected subject.

We Christians need to learn again to be Easter people, and Adrian has done us all a great service in producing this book.

via Shibboleth.

The book is saturated with Scripture which is a joy – barely a page goes by without us being pointed to some truth from the Bible. Dave Bish notes Adrian’s fondness for quoting Martin Lloyd Jones, and to this I would add Spurgeon and John Piper. But they are all Godly preachers worth hearing from and help us to see that this isn’t some novel doctrine he is presenting . . .

The second half of the book seeks to work out some of the implications of the resurrection in our life as believers. I was delighted to be encouraged to reflect on what this ‘looks like’ in the Christian life, and challenged about how little of this ‘resurrection power’ I seem to experience day by day . . .

I would certainly recommend this book. It will encourage you to look forward to the day when we will be finally raised with Christ and be like Him in our resurrection bodies; it will challenge you to think about the implications of that same power which raised Christ from the dead being at work in our bodies even now; and it will remind you that we worship a living, vindicated and raised Saviour. And hopefully it will help me with my Easter Sunday sermon too!

via Raised with Christ (a mini-review) – TheVirtualWord.

Today one of my favorite bloggers, now author, Adrian Warnock is on a mission [to] awaken the church in our nation back to the apex of the resurrection. His new book: Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything makes the shocking point that the church in our day has relegated the message of the Resurrection to a holiday message at Easter.

via Headlines » Adrian Warnock.

Adrian was interviewed over at Pastoral Musings:

First of all, tell us a little about yourself. We know that you are nearing forty years of age and are a medical doctor, as well as a preacher. Beyond that, I know very little about you other than this book and your blog ( http://adrianwarnock.com ). Perhaps you could tell us a little of your background, how you came to Christ, and how you as a medical doctor became a minister of the Cross.

I grew up in a Christian home. My grandfather was a tent preacher and we were told stories of God’s miraculous provision for his family. One Easter I asked my father why Good Friday was called “good” if it was the day Jesus died. He explained the gospel, and after saying “but why isn’t it “Good Sunday” and “Bad Friday,” I made a response. By God’s grace I have never really looked back. I somehow instinctively knew that without the resurrection the cross could not be good news.

This makes your question about being a “minister of the cross” interesting. In fact, that phrase is not a biblical one as far as I can tell. The Apostles were, instead, described as witnesses of the resurrection. Indeed, unlike most preachers today, their sermons assumed the cross and emphasized the glorious good news that Jesus is risen.

Over the last fifteen years I have gradually become more and more involved in serving in the leadership team of my local church and preaching regularly. All my training has been on the job and via day release courses. . .

via Interview With Adrian Warnock, Author of “Raised With Christ” « Pastoral Musings.

Aaron Armstrong recently wrote that Raised With Christ is “one of the few new books that I’d classify as essential reading.”  He has also reviewed the book on his blog.  Here is an extract:

“Christianity hinges not only on the empty cross but also on an empty tomb,” writes Adrian Warnock . . . For such an important doctrine, there are shockingly few books written about it. Warnock discovered this for himself when he was asked to preach on Easter Sunday at his church in 2007 . . .

But this should not be, according to Warnock.

[W]ithout the resurrection we would still be in our sins. Without the resurrection we are lost and there is no hope! There is no salvation without a living Jesus. We need the resurrection to have its power-generating effect inside of us if we are to be born again. We really are “saved by his life” (Romans 5:10) [p.67] . . .

Without the Resurrection, We Have Nothing

This is critical for Christians to remember, as it’s tempting to shuffle the resurrection off into a corner and ignore it, or suggest that if we learned that if Jesus didn’t rise physically, but only spiritually, we wouldn’t lose anything. But the fact is, if Christ didn’t rise, we have lost everything . . .

Raised with Christ is an important book. That’s not something I say that lightly. Warnock’s passion for the resurrection of Jesus saturates this book. It’s what makes the good news “good news.” And to neglect it would be to our folly. Read this book and be inspired to see how the resurrection changes everything.

Book Review: Raised with Christ by Adrian Warnock « Blogging Theologically.

Bob Hayton has quoted from a recent interview and added his own comments:

In an online interview at ChristianityToday.com, Adrian had this to say about the resurrection.

“It is interesting that most Christians talk about the Cross often, and yet we seem to only speak about the Resurrection at Easter. I have also noticed that there is a big contrast between our preaching today, which tends to assume the Resurrection while emphasizing the Cross, and the preaching of the book of Acts, which does the exact opposite, speaking far more about the Resurrection and how it has saved us. Charles Spurgeon noticed this neglect in his day as well, and argued that if our preaching better matched the book of Acts, we would see more people become Christians.

But it is not just preaching. When speaking about the gospel to unbelievers, before I got into studying the Resurrection, often I would bring them to the Cross and leave them there without even mentioning that Jesus had risen again. I am now convinced that if we do that we have only done half of the job. Without explicitly proclaiming the Resurrection, we have not declared the biblical gospel at all. We must also explain the implications of this event. If our understanding of how Jesus saved us makes the Resurrection almost an optional extra, it is clearly deficient.”

I found that quite insightful and correct. His words here make me more eager to jump into the book. In my years in extreme fundamentalism, I heard quite a few truncated gospel presentations. I fear this tendency to make the Resurrection a footnote to the gospel is shared by many other segments of evangelicalism today, as well.

via A Resurrection-less Gospel? | Fundamentally Reformed.