The Difference Resurrection Makes: My Two Favorite Resurrection Analogies

N.T. Wright expresses what it means to having resurrection daylight for Christians who live out the “new day of God’s kingdom” in the midst of the night of the same old evil age:

“[Paul] is like someone taking off just as dawn is breaking and flying rapidly westward, catching up with the end of the night and arriving in the new country in time to experience dawn all over again. His body and mind know it’s already daytime, while the world around him is still waiting for the dawn to break. This is the picture of the Christian, living in the new day of God’s kingdom—a kingdom launched by Jesus—while the rest of the world is still turning over in bed.” (After You Believe, p. 137)

James D.G. uses a vaccination analogy to express the difference resurrection makes as the same cosmic power of death that consumed Jesus led to a “sin-resistant” human Jesus that could pass on this cure to others:

“In vaccination germs are introduced into a healthy body in order that by destroying these germs the body will build up its strength. So we might say the germ of sin was introduced in Jesus, the only one “healthy”/whole enough to let that sin run its full course.  The “vaccination” seemed to fail, because Jesus died. But it did not fail, for he rose again; and his new humanity is “germ-resistant,” sin-resistant (Rom. 6:7, 9). It is this new humanity in the power of the Spirit which he offers to share with men.” (The Christ and the Spirit, p. 208)