Institutionalized: The Resurrection and Cross indivisible.

   "Our salvation may be thus divided between the death and the resurrection of Christ: by the former sin was abolished and death annihilated; by the latter righteousness was restored and life revived, the power and efficacy of the former being still bestowed upon us by means of the latter...Let us remember therefore, that when death only is mentioned, everything peculiar to the resurrection is at the same time included, and that there is a like snecdoche in the term resurrection, as often as it is used apart from death, everything peculiar to death being included.  But as, by rising again, he obtained the victory and became the resurrection and the life, Paul justly argues, 'If Christ be not raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins"(1 Cor 15:17)...Then, as we have already explained that the mortification of our flesh depends on communion with the cross, so we must also understand, that a corresponding benefit is derived from his resurrection."~Institutes II.16.XIII
   Here, Calvin points out that it is impossible for the victory over sin and death to be accomplished without either the death of Christ, or His resurrection.  To such degree does Calvin believe these to be two sides of the same coin that he states that each could be said to be fully concealed in the mention of the other in the text of Scripture.  Why this is, Calvin outlines: the destruction of death and the power of sin can properly be said to belong to the domain of the Cross, as in Owen's famous "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ", while righteousness and newness of life can be said to be consequent to resurrection (Calvin goes on to note in this passage that Christ is the forerunner of resurrection on behalf of the redeemed).  This is not a pure split, however, and Calvin cites Paul to the Corinthians to remind us that the final triumph is not possible without the resurrection.

   The Christian faith in the work of Jesus cannot be divided piecemeal, so as to make him only the final and perfect sacrifice, or only the resurrected Lord of life.  While no groups I am aware of claim to do so to an exhaustive degree, there have been times when the emphasis in Rome has been too greatly on the Cross (as witnessed by the continued and widespread use of the crucifix), whereas the various emergent groups denying penal substitution appear to want, as best as they can manage, a bloodless gospel.  The irony in the former case is that the eucharistic theology of Rome empties the Cross of its power by making it a repetitious, non-perfecting work incongruent with a Savior who is ascendant and seated; the failure of the latter is an emergent unwillingness to deal with the reality of harsh realities of sin and the law brought to us by the Cross.  Calvin reminds us, on this Holy Saturday, that Jesus has offered a complete Gospel and a finished work.  As Paul said to the Corinthians before his proclamation of the resurrection's necessity, Christ is not divided, and neither is the atonement by His blood.

~JS