What if the power that raised Jesus from the dead isn’t locked away in in the distant future—but available to you right now?
Most of us think about resurrection the way Martha did. “Sure, my brother will rise again on the last day,” she told Jesus after her brother died. Future tense. Someday.
But Jesus was about to shift everything.
“I am the resurrection and the life,” he declared. Present tense. And right now.
This is the pattern throughout the Kingdom of God—the Age to Come breaking into This Age. The future invading the present.
When Jesus Reframes Everything
The story unfolds in John 11. Lazarus was dead. Four days in the tomb. The kind of situation where everyone had given up hope.
When Jesus finally arrives, Martha meets him with a mix of faith and resignation. “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” Then she adds: “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus cuts through her theology with a promise: “Your brother will rise again.”
And Martha responds exactly how most of us would: “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24 NIV).
But Jesus was about to demonstrate something that would redefine what’s possible in the present.
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26 NIV).
Notice what Jesus is doing here. He’s not just promising a future resurrection. He’s declaring that resurrection power is standing right in front of her, fully present, fully accessible.
The resurrection isn’t just an event at the end of history. It’s a Person. It is the Son of God. And that Person is here now.
Understanding by Faith
Much of Jesus’s work in us is helping us see in a new and living way—to truly believe what seems impossible.
The writer of Hebrews puts it like this: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God” (Hebrews 11:3 NKJV). Understanding by faith is superior to natural, common understanding.
Martha’s framework for resurrection was narrow—reserved only for the future. If we’re honest, most of ours is too.
We believe Jesus rose from the dead 2,000 years ago. We believe we’ll be resurrected in the future after the Coming of Christ. But resurrection power operating in the present? Most of the time we don’t have a category for it.
Yet this is exactly what Jesus modeled and what he invites us into.
The writer of Hebrews describes believers as those who “have been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age” (Hebrews 6:4-5 NIV).
See that? We can taste the powers of the coming age now.
This isn’t fringe theology. This is the normative (not average) Christian life Jesus envisions for his followers.
The Kingdom Is Already On
Here’s what N.T. Wright, one of the world’s leading Bible scholars, says about this:
“Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.”
That’s the Kingdom dynamic. Heaven coming to earth. The Age to Come overlapping with This Age. Resurrection life breaking into our present reality.
After Jesus spoke with Martha, he went to Lazarus’s tomb. The professional mourners were there. The stench of death was real. Everything screamed “impossible.”
“Take away the stone,” Jesus said.
Martha pushed back. “Lord, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days” (John 11:39 NIV).
Jesus responded: “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” (John 11:40 NIV).
Jesus had already prayed about this. “Father, I think you that you have heard me. And I know that you always hear Me …” (John 11:41-42).
Now it was time to command in faith: “Lazarus, come forth!”
And resurrection life exploded into that moment.
Lazarus walked out of the tomb. The impossible became actual. The future crashed into the present.
This is what Jesus meant when he announced, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17 NIV). Wherever there is repentance—changing our minds, changing our approach to life, turning to the Lord—authentic Kingdom life becomes available.
New possibilities. Present realities. Resurrection life operating in the now.
Resurrection Life Through the Ages
The resurrection isn’t one-dimensional or limited to a single future event. Scripture shows us resurrection life coming in progressive phases through time.
Even in the Old Testament—under what Paul calls an inferior covenant—bodily resurrections occurred. These were precursors, previews of what would become available under the New Covenant (see 2 Corinthians 3:7-11 on the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old).
When Jesus died on the cross, something extraordinary happened. The moment he yielded up his spirit, the veil in the Temple tore from top to bottom. An earthquake shook the ground. Rocks split and graves opened.
Resurrection life was bursting forth even as Jesus died.
And when Jesus himself rose three days later, so much resurrection power hit the earth that “the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people” (Matthew 27:52-53 NIV).
Resurrection life was so abundant at Jesus’s rising that it spilled over onto others! Death couldn’t contain it.
The Mission Mandate
But here’s where it gets really interesting for us: Jesus didn’t intend for resurrection power to stay locked in the first century.
When he sent out the twelve disciples, he gave them clear instructions: “As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give” (Matthew 10:7-8 NIV).
Raise the dead. Present, active voice. Go do this.
This wasn’t a temporary assignment for the original disciples. It was and is the mission mandate for all full-on followers of Jesus until he returns. That includes you. That includes today’s Christ-followers.
And we see this playing out in the Book of Acts. Peter raised Dorcas from the dead using the same faith template Jesus used to raise Jairus’s daughter (Acts 9:36-42). Paul raised Eutychus back to life after he fell from a window (Acts 20:9-12).
Resurrection life didn’t stop with the apostles either. Throughout church history, credible accounts continue of people being raised from death, including in our own day.
G.K. Chesterton captured the scope of Jesus’s resurrection with these words:
“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away… What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.”
“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away… What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.”
The first day of a new creation. The Lord walking in the garden again.
This is the beginning of the reality available to us.
Partnering with Resurrection Life Now
So how do we actually step into this? How do we move from acknowledging resurrection as future doctrine to experiencing it as present reality?
The Spirit Without Measure
Jesus “gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34 NKJV). If you’re born again, the Holy Spirit lives within you. But the Spirit can fill you in greater measure. We’re told to be continuously filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). This isn’t a one-time event but an ongoing partnership.
Fresh in-fillings. Deeper surrender. Greater capacity to carry and release the present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit.
The Priority of the Word
God magnifies his Word according to his name (Psalm 138:2). If his Word has this priority with him, and if he really does nothing apart from the agency of his Word, then we should give it prime time and energy in our lives.
Consistent, fresh intake of Scripture doesn’t just inform. It transforms our worldview. It reconditions our inner person and aligns us with Kingdom reality.
The Release of Your Spirit
The Apostle Paul said it was with his spirit that he served God. There’s a release of the spirit that happens as we pursue sanctification and wholeness—as the crust in our soul life breaks down and the Spirit’s potential flows more freely through our spirit and bodies into the world around us.
This is intentional work. Partnership with what God is doing in us.
Examining Your Theology
Are you entertaining beliefs that limit what’s possible? Early in our Christian experience, we tend to carry the DNA of whatever denomination or doctrinal system first influenced us.
If you discover that your inherited theology is limiting, are you going to stay in that state of belief for a lifetime? Honor everything that’s good about your past. But be true to the modeling and words of Jesus. We should always be growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3:18 NKJV).
The Desire for God’s Glory
Do you have a strong desire to see the glory of God manifested here and now? The power of God trumps the effects of the Fall—sin, sickness, disease, lack, relational breakdown. Even death itself.
You have to want it. Pursue outrageous, radical belief.
The Already and the Not Yet
Yes, the complete realization of the resurrection life of Christ will come in the future, like Martha was thinking. There’s a fullness we’re still waiting for—the final resurrection at Christ’s return when all things are made new.
But the resurrection is already on as a foretaste of what’s to come. And Jesus means for us to live accordingly.
This is the tension we hold as Kingdom people. The Already and the Not Yet. The Age to Come overlapping with This Age. Tasting the powers of the age to come while still living in bodies that age and in a world that’s broken.
But make no mistake—what’s available now is real. Tangible. Powerful.
Resurrection life isn’t just about raising the physically dead (though that’s part of it). It’s about bringing life to dead situations, dead relationships, dead dreams, dead callings.
It’s about partnering with the God who specializes in making all things new—not just someday but starting right now.
The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you (Romans 8:11). That’s not metaphor. That’s reality.
And that reality wants to break into every area of your life. Your work. Your family. Your calling. The impossibilities you’re facing.
Wherever you see death—spiritual, relational, vocational, creative—resurrection power is available.
Will you believe it? Will you partner with it? Will you see greater measures of the glory of God?
Q4U: Where in your life right now does something need resurrection? What dead thing—a relationship, a dream, a calling, a situation—is Jesus asking you to believe could come back to life? What would it look like to pray with resurrection expectation instead of religious resignation?
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible and New International Version.