The following comments on the salvific efficacy of the resurrection of Jesus are from an excellent work which I only recently encountered:
F.X. Durrwell, The Resurrection: A Biblical Study (2d ed.; trans. Rosemary Sheed; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960)
On the soteriological importance of the resurrection being downplayed:
There is a widespread idea that the Resurrection is an epilogue; that the whole mystery took place on Calvary, and the drama was brought to its close at the ninth hour on Good Friday. Easer simply tells us of the fate of our hero after his great adventure. His work done, he must come back to life, for “it was impossible that he should be holden by it”. (Acts ii. 24) But Scripture sees the history of your redemption differently. (p. 1)
The Risen Jesus as the Dispenser of the Holy Spirit
The special mark of the risen Christ, which shows him to be the Messiah, is his power to dispose of the riches of the Holy Spirit ([Acts] ii. 33.) The pouring out of the Spirit is the sign that “the last times” are come (ii. 16ff.), and contains all the blessings of the promise; the Spirit is the substance of the promise. (i. 4-8; ii. 33.)
Christ’s use of his power is not in accord with the current messianic ideas. The era starting with the Resurrection is marked by a new relationship between God and his people. And from now on it is Christ who is to form the intersection of this relationship; so much so that all Israel’s communication lines with God, and their only road to salvation, must pass through him. “This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.” (iv. 11-12) (p 12)
On John 17 (the Great High Priestly Prayer):
In his sacerdotal prayer, our Lord asks the Father to complete the Son’s work of salvation by glorifying him: “Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him.” (xvii. 1-2.) His prayer looks beyond his own exaltation to the fulfilment of his mission. He offers to reasons for what he asks. First, his Father will be glorified by it. And then he represents to his Father that he must be glorified if he is to exercise his power of giving life to all things. (xvii. 2.) This second reason might be expressed thus: Glorify your son . . . for you have given to him the task and the power of giving life to men, and he can neither perform the task nor make use of the power unless he be glorified. “The full exercise of [Messianic] power is dependent upon Christ’s entering into the glory of heaven.” (J. Hyby, Le discours de Jésus après la Céne, Paris, 1932, p. 128)
From the next verse (3) onwards we are introduced to the theology of the Redemption on which the fourth gospel is based: The eternal life which Christ in his glory confers upon us is a light; it is the knowledge of the Father and of Christ whom he has sent. The life-light, which came into the world at the moment of the Incarnation, will be diffused in all its fullness over mankind once Christ has passed through his earthly phase and entered into the glory of the Father
This prayer could hardly express more strongly the salvific nature of the Resurrection. It also shows how the paschal theme in the fourth gospel fits in with its basic conception of salvation as coming through the Incarnation. (pp. 22-23)
On Rom 4:25 (cf. 2 Cor 5:14-15)
That the death of Christ also plays a leading part in Paul’s soteriology, no-one ever doubted. We find the importance of the two events balanced in a text which contrasts their two roles in the strictest parallelism: “It is not written only for him, that it was reputed to him unto justice, but also for us, to whom it shall be reputed, if we believe in him that raised up Jesus Christ, our Lord, from the dead, who was delivered up for [δια] our sins and rose again for [δια] our justification” (Rom. iv.23-5.)
The distinction for the Apostle makes between two aspects of the one salvation is curious. And many attempts have been made to dispose of the difficulties it creates and restore the monopoly of the Redemption to Christ’s death alone . . . For Christians, according to St. Paul, Christ’s resurrection is not merely a motive of credibility, a miracle that elicits faith; it is the object of their faith: “If thou . . . believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Rom. x. 9.) And if this faith has power to save us, surely that power must come from its object.
Considering the effectiveness the parallel phrase attributes to Christ’s death, and since the context does not allow of a restrictive interpretation, we must admit a direct connection between the Resurrection and our justification. But since the death of Jesus is of itself sufficient to expiate sin, some exegetes have fixed upon the one relationship which in no way robs the death of its monopoly, the lowest form of causality—exemplar causality. The death of Christ, they say, is an image of our death to sin, the Resurrection if the exemplar of our justification. Some see only an exemplar causality in the opening words, “He was delivered up for our sins”; others destroy the balance of the sentence by letting our Lord’s death bear all the weight of our salvation, while allowing his resurrection no more than the value of an example. That Christ in his glory is an example is frequently stated by the Apostle. (Rom. vi. 4; I Cor. xv. 47-9). But it is a very arbitrary exegesis that sees no more than that here. Christ’s death makes expiation for sin, declares the text; it is not also fully serious in saying that the Resurrection effects our justification? If we are to be faithful to the parallelism of the statement, we must place our Lord’s resurrection beside his death as fully effective for our salvation . . . to this major text we may add another, not at first very striking but most significant: “The charity of Christ presseth us: judging this, not if one died for all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all; that they also, who live, may not now live for themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again.” (2 Cor. v. 14-15.) The death and resurrection of Jesus are both working towards our salvation. Each plays a different part in it. If Christ is dead, we who are united to Christ are also dead. This death signifies the end of our life according to the flesh (16ff.) We now have no right to live for ourselves, for this would be to live according to the flesh. Henceforward we shall live for him—and here the Apostle suddenly brings in a new element, Christ’s resurrection—who died and rose again.
This new lie must be linked with the resurrection of Christ, for the Apostle cannot mention one without the other. Our death stands alongside his death; therefore when our new life is spoken o, his resurrection must be, too. Paul leaves it to us to understand his train of thought: “And if one is raised up or all to a new life, we are all raised to that life.” Dead to ourselves in his death, brought to life by his resurrection, we live from now on for him who, for our salvation, died and rose again. (pp. 25, 26-28)
Salvation Given in the Raising Action of God
The phrase “in Christ” was used to indicate our risen Saviour as the principle of our justification. In another phrase, equally dear to him, he identifies the act whereby we are justified with the actual act by which Christ is glorified; we are divinely brought to life by the Father’s act in resurrecting Christ: “Even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together in Christ . . . and hath raised us up with him.” (Eph. ii.5-6; Col. ii.; 12ff.; iii. 3.) The Father has given us life by raising up Christ, we are included in the one life-giving act which was performed for our Lord. (p. 31)
The Resurrection and Jesus’ Role of Mediator in Hebrews:
Our Mediator in Heaven
A priesthood is a mediation, the active presence of one man between God and other men. Christ was already bound intimately to God by his initial grace, but only in the divinizing Resurrection could his closeness to God be fully realized, for before that Christ’s humanity was separated from God by a journey of blood. The author makes the most felicitous use of Psalm [110], in which he finds all the three elements which are to him the basis for the transcendence of Christ’s priestly mediation: sonship, eternity according to the order of Melchisedech, and being seated by the Father. His being present with God in such intimate familiarity is what gives Christ’s mediation its special character, and it is only in his glorification that Christ comes thus to take his place by the Father with his whole being, and more particularly, with that part of his being in which our contact with God in Christ takes place.
This direct proximity to God raises his mediating action to supreme efficacy: “Being consummated, he became to all that obey him, the cause of eternal salvation, called by God a high priest according to the order of Melchisedech” ([Heb] v. 9-10.) Henceforth he exercises jurisdiction over “the good things to come” (ix. 11), those “marvels of the world to come” (vi. 5), of the world above. There is no reason why a mediation of grace should not have been exercised even during his life on earth, but it did not achieve its fullness of saving power and universality until Christ had drawn his body, which had been held back in the world of sin, into the glory of God. “In his perfection he became the cause of eternal salvation.” We find God and salvation in Christ who has attained consummation, for God’s grace is henceforth open to the world in this man who in all things belonged to our world.
Because of this closeness to God, a new way of intercession is possible to our Mediator. Christ “becomes . . . our paraclete, the advocate taking up our cause, rather as a man of importance might present his client’s case to a prince” (J. Bonsirven, Épitre aux Hébreux, p. 412). This intercession is not now the supplication he once made prostrate and weeping. (v. 7) Christ is seated (i. 3, 13; viii. 1; x 12; xii. 2) beside the Father, and he intercedes for us simply by being there “He is entered . . . into heaven itself, that he may appear now in the presence of God for us.” (ix. 24.) From Christ’s prayers on earth we did not learn that the mere showing of our human nature, that nature which still bore the marks of sin, was an intercession for us. Now this humanity which is ours, which is of our sinful race, has returned to God in the risen Christ, and its presence in the bosom of the Father, showing the seal imprinted upon it in five places, in witness of its death to sin and possession by God, exercises for us a coercion of love on God’s heart. It is as if Christ said: “Father, in thy Son, behold prodigal man returned.” He is now truly present before the face of God for our benefit. (pp. 141-42)
