experience. It meant that all life is lived in the presence of the love
and of the power of Jesus Christ.” 17Lutheran professor, Karl Paul Donfried, comments
similarly,
“The early church did not ask its followers to simply imitate or
observe some static principles of Christianity, but rather to so
comprehend the significance of the Christ event that they could
dynamically actualize its implications in the situation in which
they lived. The freedom for this actualization and application to
the concrete, existential situation can only be comprehended when
one recognizes that these early Christians were not worshipping
some dead prophet of Nazareth; rather, essential to their very
existence was the conviction that this Jesus was raised from the
dead by God, was now the Lord of the church, and present in its
very life. It is this presence of the Risen One that both compelled
and allowed the early church to engage in such vigorous and
dynamic teaching and proclamation.” 18The resurrection-life of the risen and living Lord Jesus is
the ontological essence of Christianity. The continuum of
His Life in a perpetuity that “cannot die” (John 11:26),
allows His eternality to be expressed in immortality. Jesus
“brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”
(II Tim. 1:10). Such immortality of life is not inherent to
man’s humanity for “God alone possesses immortality” (I
Tim. 6:16), nor is it a futuristic reward to be presented, but
is inherent in the eternal resurrection-life of Jesus Christ.
The Christian participates in and enjoys the perpetuity of
eternal immortality only in spiritual union with the living
Lord Jesus.