The Bible in 16 Verses: 14. Resurrection

The Old Testament Promises That Lead to Resurrection

So, as you guys can see, we are on session 14. Now, you know, so far we've gone through the Old Testament, which again was creation in Genesis, human beings in Adam and Eve, their fall in Genesis chapter 3, the promise of redemption in Genesis 3 .15, the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.

Then we got to Abraham and his covenant, Judah the king, the Passover lamb, the sacrifice, King David, the king who would always have one to sit on the throne, the suffering servant who would have to come and be the substitute for God's people, the resurrection promised, and then the entrance of the new creation, or the promise of the new creation.

So now we're in the New Testament, which is the fulfillment of all of those other topics that we have gone through already. So we've gone through the fulfillment, we've gone through the cross. Today we're going to go over the resurrection.

The following week will be justification, and then we'll finish up with glory. So our scripture verse for today is Romans chapter 1, verses 3 and 4. And this sometimes is not a verse that people use to talk about the resurrection, but it's very pertinent here.

And it says, concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And our quote for this week is, Kings don't beg, they decree. They only have one destiny, and that's to reign. Okay, so we'll start with this. Hundreds of years before Jesus died on a cross, God asked the prophet Ezekiel, can these bones live?

And we did a whole session on this. The first answer to this question is a resounding yes. And it should have helped God's people to see on the other side of the darkness of death that there is hope. So death doesn't get the final word.

God gets the final word. Yet, as two of Jesus' followers were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the third day after his crucifixion, they did not seem to grasp that hope. They said, we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

Their hope seemed to have died with him. So obviously with the death of Jesus, they were hoping in him. They didn't realize that there would be a resurrection, but they thought this person could not have been the Messiah.

He would not be the one who's going to lead us to victory. Those men did not contemplate Ezekiel's prophecy or ask, can these bones live? But on the third day when Jesus was raised from the tomb, God gave us the decisive answer to that question.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all end with the same event, the resurrection of Jesus and its immediate aftermath. Jesus was the first person to truly defeat death. God raised him up. Because of this, we have to realize that in the resurrection of Jesus, God started or began to fulfill his end time promises to Ezekiel.

So Jesus was, as the son of God died, God raised him up from the dead. And what was the gospel that Jesus proclaimed? The kingdom of God is at hand, right? Death came through Adam. Life will now come through Messiah Jesus.

In the resurrection, God gave life to the one representative of his people. And in the wake of that, all those who are united to him share in his life. To understand what happened in that garden tomb, however, we are not going to stop in the Gospels.

Instead, we need to jump ahead to the letters of Paul. And anyone want to take a guess as to why we're going to go into Paul and not through the Gospels? Why would we focus on Paul with regards to this?

Well, they talked about the resurrection, but that's along the lines. Okay, I'm going to put up an old slide from one of our first lessons, right? The Old Testament points forward to, right, that's the Sunday school answer.

The Old Testament is made up of the Tanakh, which is what? What does Tanakh stand for? The Torah, which is the law, the Nevi 'im, the prophets, and the Ketuvim, the writings. So the law, the prophets, and the writings are what the Tanakh represents.

Each of those letters, T-A-N-A-K-H, represent Torah, Nevi 'im, and Ketuvim. Okay, so when we say the Tanakh, we're not talking about just the five books of the Bible. That's the Pentateuch, right?

The Tanakh is the Torah, the Nevi 'im, the prophetic writings, and the Ketuvim, the writings, the 1st and 2nd Chronicles, 1st and 2nd Kings. Okay, and these all pointed us to the anticipation of Messiah.

It was a build-up of what was going to come, and you can see that unfold throughout each of the covenants. The New Testament points back at Jesus. Now in the New Testament, we have the manifestation of Messiah told to us in the Gospels.

The Messiah is here. The proclamation of the Messiah comes through the book of Acts. The explanation of Messiah comes through the epistles. They're what's known as didactic teaching. They're giving us the theology of who Jesus is.

Paul expounds on that. Now all of the books contain theology. It's all about God. But this is Paul's interpreting it for us and making it clearer as to what it is. Ultimately, we'll get to the consummation, which happens in the book of Revelation.

Paul’s Call and the Meaning of Romans 1:3-4

If you stop and think about it, it's remarkable that Paul wrote about Jesus' resurrection. For the first year or two after Jesus' death and resurrection, the Pharisee Saul spent most of his waking hours working to wipe out the growing group who would later be called Christians.

He was opposed to Christianity. He was killing the followers of Christianity. But then Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, where Saul had planned to ambush a group of Christians. From then on, Saul, who later became known as Paul, became God's chosen instrument for taking the good news to the Gentiles and the entire Mediterranean world.

Paul ends up going throughout the entire Mediterranean, all the way to Rome and then back. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome to introduce himself. In the introduction of that letter, he gives a concise theological description of several paths that intersect at the resurrection.

When we say several paths, these are the covenants by which each one make promises about Messiah. So he's going to trace it all back to Jesus. The Messiah, Paul says, is God's Son who was descended from David, according to the flesh, and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness.

The spirit rested on him like a dove. By his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. So there's a lot of theology packed into that one little sentence there. This is what we're talking about, the resurrection of the dead.

Ezekiel made the promise, can these bones live? Obviously he knows. He says, Lord, you know. Easy answer, right? Lord, you know if they can live or not. God raises the bones up. He now is going to start with the new creation by raising Jesus up, who's going to be the first fruits of everyone who comes after him.

He's the first. Paul first reminds us of one of the reasons why it was necessary for Jesus to rise from the dead. Jesus was descended from David according to the flesh. He was the royal Son of David and the heir of all the promises that God gave to David.

Remember that one of the promises to David was that God would establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Obviously that promise could not apply to Jesus if he were not alive to reign. So God raises him up physically.

He's going to ascend into heaven and what? Be seated at the right hand of God the Father. He's going to be seated on the throne. And when is he going to come back? Psalm 110? When all his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.

And how are all God's enemies made a footstool for his feet? Through the church proclaiming the gospel to the entire world, baptizing them, making disciples, going into all the world, right? We plan on seeing the kingdom cover the globe.

That's our job. That's why we send missionaries out to different countries to bring the proclamation of the gospel there. Because Jesus is Lord. He's ruling and reigning right now until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.

David's son Solomon and several other kings in Judah experienced a small taste of what it meant when God said, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. They understood that, but they didn't experience it obviously the way Jesus did.

But before Jesus, no king had fully experienced it that way. All of the kings before him had tasted God's discipline when they failed to obey him. How many of the kings sinned? All of them. There we go.

Good. That was an easy question, right? Jesus never sinned. He never failed to obey. He perfectly kept the covenant and so proved that he was the true son of God in every sense of that phrase, right? He was the one who was with God in heaven, took on flesh, came into the world in order to accomplish it for mankind.

Think of how much more we should be able to recognize the perfect son. There should be a family resemblance. Why? Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. Right? They're one in the same.

He's the exact image of the father, the invisible image of God the father, right? In fact, if we know the father, we should know the son because the son in his life and conduct resembled the father. In fact, John will tell us if we don't have the son or the father, we have neither.

Right? You need to know father and son. Father and son are not two titles of God. Some people, they're called modalists. They believe that Jesus is the father, Jesus is the son, and Jesus is the Holy Spirit.

That's heresy. We believe in a triune God. God is father, God is son, and God is spirit. The father loves the son. The father sent the son. The Holy Spirit proceeds forth from the father. Persons. The son loves the father.

The Holy Spirit magnifies Jesus to us. He testifies to us of Jesus. These are three persons, three who's in God, one what. One what and three who's. It's very important that we recognize that. Because it's the father who appoints, it's the son who accomplishes, and it's the Holy Spirit who applies.

Your salvation is the work of the triune God. Each person of the Godhead cooperating with one another to accomplish a specific goal, the salvation of those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

That's the only way your salvation can be guaranteed, is if God does it. If it was left up to your hands, what would happen? John MacArthur says it like this, if you could lose your salvation, you would.

None of us can accomplish it that way, only God. But then if we keep reading in Romans 1, Paul adds that Jesus was declared to be the son of God in power by his resurrection. Now you might be thinking to yourself, wait a second, wasn't Jesus God's son from all eternity?

Of course he was, you're right. Jesus was and is the eternal son of God, the second person of the trinity. And again, it's essential to get that right. If God is called father for all eternity, what does that necessitate?

If he's an eternal father, what does that necessitate? An eternal son, right? What does the term father denote? Parenthood, right? Father, son. This is a relational term between God the father and God the son.

Think of how much more we should be able to recognize the perfect son of God. At the resurrection, we see the eternal son of God publicly declared to be the messianic son of God, just as his ancestor David was.

For God to declare that David was his son meant that David and his descendants would be his closest allies. In other words, the ones through whom he would advance his saving plan. So through David's lineage, he would always have a king to sit on the throne.

So just as you might identify my sons because they look like and act like me and my children, you identify God's son because he does what God does. He rescues God's people and saves them from their sin.

Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen your father, I have come not to do my will, but to do the will of God. So his will is to do God's will. Now, thankfully, Jesus is God in the flesh, so he's going to be able to perfectly accomplish God's will for us.

That's the whole point. We could never accomplish it in and of ourselves because of our sin stained minds and hearts. And remember, what were we looking for with Abraham and David? We were looking forward to the seed that would come into the world that's going to eventually crush the head of the serpent.

The resurrection, therefore, was proof that Jesus was the true son of David, the true seed of the woman. At the resurrection, millennia, thousands of years of promises were confirmed. The king had come.

He paid the price to redeem his people and come out on the other side of death victorious. Death could not hold him. Because of this, it could finally be said of this son of David that his throne would be established forever.

Why? Because we have a resurrected Messiah, resurrected Jesus, who will never taste death again. What is death from a Hebrew perspective? Separation, right? Jesus will never be separated from his body.

Again, his body will not see decay. Peter quotes that from the Old Testament. His body will not see decay. So Jesus is the God-man forever. He's going to forever sit on God's throne, ruling and reigning, until he comes back after his enemies have made a footstool for his feet.

In the last part of Paul's description, we see the role that the Holy Spirit plays in the resurrection. Just as God had revealed to Ezekiel, according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead.

Can these dead bones live? Yes. And Jesus is going to be the first fruits and the proof that there will be a resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus was the first fulfillment of God's promise to breathe new life into his people and pour out his spirit on them.

In Jesus's resurrection, the spirit gave new life to the one representative and focal point of all the promises. So he's the Messiah promised. He fulfills all those prophecies. And he now is crucified in our place.

He's the suffering substitute that goes to the cross. He's buried. And like he said to the disciples and the Jews, just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. So will I be three days and three nights in the grave.

I will be raised again. He's raised now. And this, again, points to the new creation beginning here on earth. Jesus's death and resurrection were together the turning point in history. These connected events has had cosmic implications that trickle down into every nook and cranny of our everyday existence.

Our whole dating system is based on the birth of Messiah. Right? Jesus is the only person you know that split time in half. Everything that happened before him is B .C. Everything that happened after him is A .D.

No matter how much they try to say, well, it's not B .C., it's B .C .E., before the common era. So, OK, what was common? What happened that was common? Oh, yeah, Jesus. Yeah, OK. So you could try to redefine it whatever way you want.

The truth eventually is going to permeate and come out. Although we see the culmination of God's saving promises in Jesus, the resurrected spirit anointed son of David, we also know that those promises did not stop with Jesus.

His resurrection was just the beginning of more resurrections. Most people don't stop and consider this, but it was shocking for Jesus's followers to see his resurrection without also seeing the transformation of creation and the renewal of all things that we saw prophesied in Isaiah 65.

In other words, demons are cast out. People are now being healed. Jesus is restoring them back to a place of peace with God, which is what Isaiah 65 is about. Now, the Jews expected this to happen all at once, right?

They were expecting the Messiah to come in riding on a horse, conquer the Romans. So they were expecting when the Messiah came, boom, everything would be turned upside down instantly. But we can now see that these promises are being fulfilled in stages over time.

We know that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, smallest of all seeds, but it will grow into a plant and it will house even the birds of the air. Everything's going to get its shape as the plant grows, as the kingdom of God grows.

It's often said that these promises are a bit like looking at a mountain range from a distance. As you get closer to the mountains, you discover that what looks like a single mountain from several miles away is actually a series of smaller peaks that lead to the highest point.

So there's going to be a progression over time in the growth of God's kingdom. In the same way, what looked like a single end time event from the perspective of the readers of the Old Testament was actually a series of mountain peaks.

At the first of those peaks, the one that actually makes the rest of them possible is the death and resurrection of Jesus. So him taking on flesh, coming into the world, fulfills the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 9.

There's going to be one who's the son of God. The government will be upon his shoulders. He'll be born of a virgin. Now we see the fulfillment in Psalm 22 of his crucifixion and then his resurrection.

So Jesus is that Messiah. He ushered in the beginning of the new creation. This means that Jesus' death and resurrection launched the end of time fulfillment of God's saving promises. You might sometimes hear theologians talking about inaugurated eschatology.

They are describing exactly what we have been talking about here. So inaugurated means the beginning. He inaugurated. The eschatology just means the study of last things. In other words, this is the final epoch of history that we're going to be in until he comes back.

So as the Old Testament winds down and we see the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, the old covenant is now gone. Paul says about that covenant, upon whom the end of the ages has come. That covenant is gone.

We now live in the age of the new covenant, waiting the consummation of all things. So Jesus began a good work. He's going to complete it over time. Again, until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet, then he will come back.

You look confused. Okay. All right. If you have a question, anybody have a question, just raise your hand and let me know. The new covenant began at the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. 70 AD is when the old covenant ended, when they destroyed the temple sacrifice.

They had no more temple. So that covenant is gone. Right. Obsolete, fading away, like Hebrew says. Now we have the new covenant. So there's only one covenant by which you can be saved by. Right. Jesus fulfilled the old covenant.

No more need for that. Now it's faith in Messiah. It's always been faith in Messiah from Genesis 3 15 on. They simply mean that Jesus has already started to fulfill everything the Old Testament pointed us toward.

His death and resurrection constituted the decisive blow to sin and death. And by this, he crushed the serpent's head and defeated death. All right. We talked about last week, Satan was judged, Satan was disarmed and Satan was cast out.

We're going to get into that a little bit later. I don't want there to be confusion about that. And this comes from Colossians 2, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt paid in full.

That stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. And in doing so, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

In other words, the devil can no longer make an accusation. Who can make a charge against God's elect or God's chosen? Jesus is interceding at the right hand of God, the father for us. He can't make a charge.

Why? Because our sin debt was paid at the cross. He can't say, oh, look, he did this, he did this. Jesus said, yeah, I know I paid for that and that and that and that and that and that and that paid in full.

Thank God. You're going to start rejoicing when I say that, right? Smile at least. Thank you. And not only this, but the good news of his victory over sin and death is going to the nations. It's not going to just be a closely held sea, a guarded secret in Israel.

Right. So the blessing of Abraham is reaching all the families of the earth in his perfect keeping of the covenant in his life and sacrificial death. He fulfilled everything that the law was intended to do.

Israel was given the law, the temple worship, all the all the things that came with the covenants in order to be a light to the nations. And that word nations is Gentile, Gentiles. They were supposed to be a light to the Gentiles and showing all the other nations what a nation ruled by God looks like.

The blessing that it has, the prosperity that it has, the peace that it has. Unfortunately, Israel failed, as would we all. And that's why Messiah comes into the world. He is true Israel. Jesus is now the reigning, reigning as the Davidic king, the descendant of Judah, who is honored among the nations.

This is why Paul could say in Second Corinthians 517,. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. The new creation, the new heavens and earth has been has been inaugurated at the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

He ushered it in. If you are born of God's spirit, you are part of the new creation and you are the means by which God will use to bring heaven to earth. Right. We always talk to people when we're evangelizing.

How do you get to heaven? Really, a better question would be, how do we get heaven to earth? We get heaven to earth by sharing the gospel and seeing God's spirit bring dead bones to life. Right. And we spiritually multiply.

Jesus has done everything necessary for the new creation to come. Now the kingdom of God is at hand. We're not waiting for it. It's started. There are some people waiting for Jesus to come back to sit on the throne on earth to start his kingdom.

He started his kingdom. He's seated at the right hand of God, the father already. Jesus is ruling and reigning right now until he makes his enemies a footstool for his feet. And again, God does this through his church, through his bride.

What was Eve supposed to be to Adam? A suitable helpmate. The church is the bride of Christ. We are to be a suitable helpmate to our groom and help him bring the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. He does that through us, through our witness, us letting our light shine before our fellow man, not hiding our light under a bushel.

Not cowering when people start coming against Christ or coming against the things in the scriptures. We open our mouths and tell them the truth. While Jesus's death and resurrection won the long awaited victory over the curse, we are constantly reminded that the effects of the fall are still very much among us.

There's not a person in here who's not going to die. That's an effect of the curse. The wages of sin is death. We will all suffer death. A while back, a chef in China was making soup with a spitting cobra.

He cut off the snake's head and then continued to prepare the meal. I actually saw a video very much like this online. But 20 minutes later, when he went to throw it in the trash, the severed head bit him and he died.

I actually saw there was a snake whose head was cut off and it's still the part of the snake is still writhing around. It comes near the head. The head actually bites its own body. It's severed from the snake.

And the reason I'm telling you that is because although Jesus has crushed the head of the serpent, it doesn't mean that Satan is not active here today. He is curtailed in the sense that he can no longer deceive the nations.

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is a bona fide fact. It has gone worldwide. God will save his people through the proclamation of the gospel. I know my sheep. My sheep know me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish.

All of God's people will be saved. Even a dead snake's head can still do some damage. So Jesus' victory over sin and his new creation already has been settled, but we do not yet see the final full results.

We do not live in the glorified state yet. That's to come. After he rose from the grave, Jesus did not march back into Jerusalem and take vengeance on the Roman and Jewish leaders. He quietly appeared to his followers and taught them the significance of his resurrection, that God is giving life to the dead dry bones.

He joined those two followers on the road to Emmaus and helped them to see the ways in which all the promises of God and the entire story of Scripture points to him. He helped them see it was necessary for Messiah to die and rise again for his people.

He helped them to see that the new creation had indeed come. And then 40 days after he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven. We don't hear much about the ascension of Jesus into heaven, but that is a big, big deal.

All right. We need more preaching and teaching on that, to be honest. All right. So where in the New Testament is the clearest exposition of the resurrection? Where would you go to if somebody said, show me the resurrection in the New Testament?

Where would you go? I got a hint. Poll. Where? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which chapter? Fifteen. Who said that? Thank you, Ted. All right. Here we go. First Corinthians, Chapter 15. If somebody asks you about the resurrection, take them right to First Corinthians, Chapter 15.

This is crucial. This is the clearest explanation of the resurrection in all of the scriptures. That's why Paul's epistles are where we go to when we want to explain what the resurrection does. Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received in which you stand, by which you are being saved.

I thought you were saved, have been saved, are being saved, will be saved. Justification, sanctification, glorification. It's a three part thing. I just went off on a tangent. And by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you of first importance that what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve.

So what he's saying is, this was something prophesied in the scriptures. They didn't have the full New Testament yet. So he's pointing to the Old Testament saying, this was what was fulfilled. This was promised.

Jesus fulfilled it. That's why when somebody tells you to unhitch yourself from the Old Testament, tell them to get away from you. Leave. I don't want to hear what you have to say. You need God's word.

Every word that comes out of the mouth, you are to consume. If we didn't have the Old Testament scriptures, what would Jesus be fulfilling? Nothing. There was nothing written down for him to fulfill. It's preposterous.

It's crazy that a Christian preacher would tell you that. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Paul is pointing to the fact that there were witnesses to the resurrection, more than 500.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am. All right. By the grace of God, I am what I am. And you are what you are only by the grace of God. So, again, this is where you want to point somebody with regards to the resurrection.

And we're going to continue it right now. This is Paul continuing in chapter 15. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

They were saying it was just spiritual resurrection only, but Jesus rose physically. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

In other words, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, what we have faith in is bunk. It's wrong. We are even found to be misrepresenting God. That means bearing full witness. We're lying. Because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

So this is the linchpin for Christianity. If there is no resurrection, there is no Christianity. Yes. All their graves are full. You find the body of Moses. You'll find the body of Buddha. You'll find the body of Mohammed.

You'll find all their bodies. Go to Jesus' grave. Empty. Right? For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins.

So you've lied about the fact that Jesus was raised, if he really wasn't. Your faith is in nothing because he wasn't raised from the dead. And worse, you're still in your sins. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has also come the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

So everyone who is in Adam is going to die. But everyone who is in Christ is going to live. And you will be raised from the dead the same way Jesus was. That make sense? This is the linchpin for Christianity.

If Christ was found dead, Christianity would be found dead. It's over. And we're still in our sins. John 5 .25. I want to bring this up because it's important. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here.

When the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man.

This is what John speaks about as the first resurrection. In other words, when you're born again, your spirit is resurrected. Now your body is going to die and God is going to raise up a new one. So now you have a new physical body and a born-again spirit.

Do not marvel at this for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Ultimately, when the final resurrection happens, you're going to have the sheep and the goats. We're all going to stand before the judgment seat of God and receive our rewards for the things done in the body, whether good or evil.

Those who rejected Christ and are going to pay for their own sins. They rejected God's payment for their sins. They're going to pay for their own sins. They're going to be cast into the lake of fire with Satan and all the fallen angels.

The four E's of the resurrection are just this is made popular by Lee Strobel. All right. So execution. Jesus had to die in order to be raised from the dead. Right. Right. So we know that Jesus is a bona fide fact.

Historical fact. Jesus was crucified on the cross. The Romans put him on the cross. They crucified him. He was found dead. The Romans were excellent at doing this. They they had the revolt of slaves. They crucified more than six thousand people.

OK. They knew how to crucify people. Jesus was was actually dead. Then we had the empty tomb. Now, how do we know we had an empty tomb? Because even the enemies of Jesus are saying, hey, somebody stole the body.

If they're saying somebody stole the body, what does that mean? The tomb's empty because if it wasn't empty, they'd say, go look in the tomb. He's there. So what do they say? They concoct a story. The disciples stole the body.

So we know that there was a death. We know that there's an empty tomb. We now have eyewitnesses. OK. Aside from the gospel writers, 500 people who witnessed Jesus walking around alive after he rose from the dead.

Then we have early and excruciating testimony. All the people who saw Jesus and worshipped him, rejected Caesar as Lord, confessed Jesus as Lord were given a choice. You confess Caesar as Lord and live or you confess Jesus as Lord and die.

They all chose death because they saw the resurrected Christ. So a real quick way to to encapsulate or explain to somebody why we hold to the resurrection. Jesus really died. The tomb was empty. Even his enemies attested to that.

We have eyewitnesses that saw this and then we have excruciating testimony. In fact, that word excruciating X means out of Cruz means the cross. That's where we get that word that it was so painful they came up with the word excruciating.

But soon after Jesus ascension, we discover an ax that he sent the Holy Spirit to keep bringing life from the dead. John 14, 16 and 17. And I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.

Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. And Jesus called his people to extend the saving message to the nations and gather people from all over the earth to experience the blessing of Abraham.