There’s a well-known hymn by E. E. Hewitt called “My Faith Has Found a Resting Place.” You’ve probably sung it. The familiar chorus goes like this:
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that he died for me.
It’s a statement that’s glorious and beautiful—and false if misunderstood. Do we have no other argument? Is there nothing else Jesus did that provides our faith with a resting place?
Don’t get me wrong. Rightly understood, the chorus is perfectly biblical. From the cross, we hear Jesus say, “It is finished” (John 19:30). And Romans 5:9 tells us we’re “justified by his blood” (cf. 1 Cor. 2:2). So I don’t want to quibble with Hewitt’s chorus for not saying everything at once, just as I don’t want to quibble with Romans 5:9 for not saying everything at once.
Instead, I want to use the question raised by the chorus to press in on a deeper theological question: Is it really enough that Jesus died? If we’re justified by his blood, then what role (if any) does his resurrection play? I ask because shortly before telling us we’re justified by Jesus’s blood (Rom. 5:9), Paul claims that Christ was also “raised for our justification” (4:25).
What does that mean? What role does Christ’s resurrection play in our justification, and how might it provide us with another “argument”? Here are three ways that Christ’s resurrection relates to our justification.
1. His resurrection proves his death worked.
Imagine it’s still Holy Saturday, and Christ is still in the tomb. He’s been delivered up for our trespasses—praise God! But how do we know it worked? How do we know our debt has been discharged—what with Christ Jesus still laying “in death’s strong bands”?
Answer: Just give God a few more hours. Did Good Friday work? Easter’s answer is yes! Not only was he delivered up for our offenses, but he was also raised for our justification. Paul uses the same Greek preposition (διὰ, “for” or “on account of”) in both halves of the verse. Basically everyone agrees the first half means he was delivered up on account of our trespasses. But if διὰ carries the same meaning in the second half (which seems plausible), this would mean Christ was also “raised on account of our justification.” He was raised because our justification had been successfully secured by Christ’s blood (Rom. 5:9).
Something really was finished when Jesus died on the cross. But it needed to be demonstrated. So if you want to see how your debt was paid, look at the cross. But if you want to be sure that your debt was paid, look at the empty tomb. If the cross is where Jesus cried, “It is finished,” the tomb is where the Father said, “Amen!” In the words of Puritan Thomas Goodwin, “To hear that Christ is risen, and so is come out of [debtor’s] prison, is an evidence that God is satisfied, and that Christ is discharged by God himself.”
2. His resurrection is part of what we embrace in justifying faith.
It may seem obvious, but saving faith—yea, justifying faith—receives Jesus not just as crucified but as risen. We don’t even need to leave Romans to see this.
Something really was finished when Jesus died on the cross. But it needed to be demonstrated.
Earlier in Romans 4, Paul looks at Abraham’s justifying faith (in Gen. 15:6) and describes it like this: Abraham believed in the God “who gives life to the dead” (Rom. 4:17). In his case, this referred to God bringing life from Sarah’s dead womb and from Abraham’s own dead loins (v. 19). Paul then applies these statements about Abraham to us, saying, “But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord” (vv. 23–24).
We see the same truth in Romans 10:9, in which Paul promises that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” That’s saving faith. If you want to be free from condemnation and justified in God’s sight, you must not only believe that Jesus died for your sins; you must also believe that God raised him from the dead.
3. His resurrection allows him to continue saving us.
When Christ said, “It is finished,” that didn’t mean his role in our salvation was done and the Holy Spirit took over in a kind of Trinitarian tag team. No. Even in the ongoing application of our redemption, Jesus is still active. The bumper sticker is right to say “Jesus saves” (present tense), not simply “Jesus saved.”
Even in the ongoing application of our redemption, Jesus is still active.
We see this clearly in Hebrews 7:25: “[Christ] is able to save [us] to the uttermost . . . since he always lives to make intercession for [us].” Notice his living, heavenly intercession is saving.
But once again, we don’t even have to leave Romans to see this. In chapter 8, we find Paul triumphantly proclaiming that “it is God who justifies,” then defiantly asking, “Who is to condemn?” (vv. 33–34). His answer begins much like Hewitt’s chorus: “Christ Jesus is the one who died.” But it doesn’t end there. There’s “more than that.” Paul continues, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (v. 34, emphasis added).
Our justification depends not only on Christ’s death for its foundation but also on his life for its continuation (5:10). The reason you can’t be condemned is that you not only have a bleeding atonement, but you also have a living Advocate (1 John 2:1–2). Jesus may have saved us by dying, but it’s not as a dead man that he saves us.
We Have Another Argument
I’m confident Hewitt believed all this and that his chorus wasn’t meant to deny Romans 4:25 (or 8:34). And I say this for one simple reason. The very same song begins like this:
My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device nor creed.
I trust the ever-living One;
His wounds for me shall plead.
These words echo Hebrews 7:25 and Romans 8:34. Hewitt knew that if Christ weren’t risen, our faith would have no resting place (1 Cor. 15:17). And he knew that the crucified object of our faith is now “the ever-living One.”
Yes, “Jesus died” for me. But there’s “more than that.” So I trust our brother Hewitt would take no offense if we sang,
I have another argument,
I have another plea,
The Bible says that Jesus rose
And that he rose for me.
The Gospel Coalition