The Gospel Message — Ken Baird

The Death, Burial, and Resurrection as the Gospel

The lesson manual took up the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. This is the gospel. It's the good news of which Paul speaks in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. And I think that would be a way to start the lesson this morning.

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand. By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose the third day according to the scriptures.

And the gospel would not be complete if all three of these were not involved. It takes the death, the burial and the resurrection of Christ to save the soul. He died for our sins. His burial was proof that he died.

And his resurrection is proof of his superiority over death. We read in the scriptures, the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. God has the funniest thing.

God's Holiness and the Need for Substitution

He is holy. He can't look the other way. We as parents, or I did it one time in my life at least, looked the other direction. I would give orders to my children and they'd forget, you know. I didn't want to punish them.

So I looked the other way. At the Christian Home for Children, I had about 55 children on my hands. We would lay down the laws. You have to have some guidelines in a family of 55. We'd lay these laws down and we'd be pretty skilled, but we couldn't.

But I would see infraction and I would look the other way. I'm confessing that now. I wouldn't tell them that, that I was looking the other way, but I did not want to punish them. They had forgotten. And I put that into account.

That God cannot look the other way. He's holy. He has to punish them. But the wonder of it all was that he did not want to punish you and me. He wanted this in his heaven. So he gave his own dear son.

And I wouldn't believe this if it weren't in the Bible. He gave his own dear son to assume the responsibility for my sins and to die in my place. And if I couldn't tell you that he did that for you, I wouldn't have any don'ts.

That's the good news. That's the glad tiding. Christ died for the ungodly. Now that is ours. How does it affect us? I think that sometimes we think of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as historical.

Indeed it is. And I think sometimes that we just think of it as being another phase of history. Everything points to the cross. Everything depends on the cross. All of God's plans. All of God's purposes are rated, rooted, perhaps with a better word, through the cross.

It's the answer to it all. Without the cross of Christ, we would have absolutely nothing. I want to talk about his death this morning as being voluntary, substitutionary, and necessary. I want to talk about his burial as being honorable, but temporary.

I want to talk about his resurrection as involving the Trinity. And that is the theme of the gospel as it was preached by the apostles. I'm going to the 10th chapter of John. I'm going to forsake the chapter that we just read and go to the 10th chapter of John for some of these verses.

Christ's Voluntary Death

The Lord Jesus Christ, in this wonderful chapter, speaks about his death. And he speaks about it in no uncertain terms. He says in verse 17, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.

No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. His death was absolutely voluntary.

He did not have to be persuaded to die. He could say, Here am I, send me. He offered himself without thought to God. He offered himself without it even being suggested. He loved you, and he loved me. And his death was absolutely voluntary.

I love this thought, that he did not have to be persuaded to go to the cross. He went to the cross because he loved me. He went to the cross because he loved you. I wonder if that love had moved him. I wonder how much it moved him.

The Son of God loved me and gave himself to me. The Apostle Paul speaks of that love. He speaks of his great indebtedness to Christ. And while he might feel that indebtedness because Christ bore with him so patiently, the Apostle Paul, when he was Paul of Tarsus, persecuted the church even to the point of killing some of the Christians, or voting for their death.

Holding the coat of Moses' stone, Stephen. And he indeed realized, after the Lord saved him, what a debt of love he owed. And probably that was the impelling force in the Apostle's life. I think that we would have to say that the Apostle Paul is the world's greatest church.

Certainly the world's greatest missionary. I would not take that, I would not guess that that evaluation of the Apostle Paul, that it should be changed. Not at all, I've heard others mention it. But the impelling force of his life was to just pay the Lord back, so to speak, for all his grace and his mercy.

And I think that's the impelling force of our life. I think that that's really what makes Christians really go all out for the Lord, is to realize what he did for you and for me. And I know there are differences in our reactions, I know there are differences in our response to the Lord, and to his work and to his desires for us.

There are differences in response. Even the Lord, as he told the parable, talked about 30-fold Christians, or a 30-fold harvest, a 60-fold harvest, and a 100-fold harvest. He even made the difference.

And the harvest there are the people of the Lord, they're the seed that is sown. Even the Lord took that into account. But why is it that some Christians take these things so much more seriously than others, are so much more devoted to the Lord than others?

I think that the reason is, is that they just realize in a little fuller sense how much they owe to the Lord who loves them and shines on them. I don't think any of us will ever know how much we owe to the Lord Jesus.

And it thrills my soul that his death was voluntary for me. Now it was substitutionary, and we don't have to go out of this chapter to see that. Chapter 10 of John, and verse 11, I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Christ's Substitutionary Death

He gave his life for the sheep, that's substitutionary, that's substitution. He gave himself for me. It boggles the mind that Christ would give himself to die for me. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

There's something else that boggles my mind. God gave his son for me. I have two sons. Would you expect me to let one of those sons die as a substitute for a criminal? Could you do it? Would you give one of your children to die in the place of a criminal?

You wouldn't, would you? No, you wouldn't. But God did it. He did it for you and for me. His death is substitutionary. I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. David on one occasion flew a lamb and flew a bear that attacked his sheep when he was keeping his father's flock.

Now, he didn't give his life, he risked his life, but he didn't give his life. Christ not only risked his life, he gave his life for you and for me. Now, his death was absolutely necessary, and we're still going to see it in the book of John.

The Necessity of the New Birth and the Cross

John chapter 3. There are three months in this chapter, at least three, and the Lord Jesus Christ in this chapter is talking to Nicodemus, that righteous, upright man, that Pharisee, the ruler among the Jews.

And he comes to the Lord and he acknowledges him as a teacher come from God. And so the Lord says, all right, you accept me as a teacher, I'm going to give you a lesson. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Then he says down later, marvel not that I said in the V, ye must be born again. That's the first must. It is an absolute necessity that we be born again. As we were born into men's family, so we must be born into God's family.

It's a separate, separate experience. I did not have anything to do with my being born into my parents' family. They didn't ask me. I was born, whether I wanted to be or not. I'm glad I was. But they didn't ask me.

I had nothing to do with it. I'm glad I was born. But I have everything to do with my second birth. I can choose to be born again or I can choose not to be born again. That is important. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, ye must be born again.

There was a man that preached this so much that his audience got a little bit tired of it. And they asked him, why is it that you are always preaching on the new birth? And he says, because ye must be born again.

That was his answer. Now there is another must here. Nicodemus, incidentally I may say, had in his mind another natural birth. And the Lord said, this is a spiritual birth. Born of water, which is the word of God, and of a spirit.

It's a spiritual birth. It's a birth that takes place the moment that we put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then God gives the life, even as he does, to a human baby. Gives them their soul and their spirit, the moment of their trust.

But, to make this clear to Nicodemus, he says down in verse 14, Nicodemus is at sea. He doesn't know the answer. He says in verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

And whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Here is the must. He must be lifted up. Now you remember, Nicodemus certainly remembered, the time when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

The children of Israel had complained against the Lord and as punishment the Lord sent fiery serpents among them. I think that means that the bite felt like fire. And they came, they acknowledged their sin and they came to Moses and they said, Pray to the Lord that the Lord will take away these serpents.

Moses went to the Lord and the Lord did not take away the serpents, but rather he told Moses, Now make a serpent of grass and put it on a pole and it shall come to pass that if anybody has bitten by one of those serpents, when he looks at the serpent of grass, he'll be healed.

And it worked. When they looked, they were healed. And I fancy that I can hear some of those people saying, Who ever heard of a stupid thing like that? Looking to a serpent, a brazen serpent, a serpent made out of metal on a pole and getting well.

Well, the important thing is it worked. And those that tried the remedies of the day, they lost their lives. And when they simply did what God told them to do, they lived. Now, the Lord knows that Nicodemus knows this Lord.

And he says, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Now, that's an absolute necessity. He has to be lifted up to give us somewhere to look when we realize that we have got the poison of sin within us.

We have got the poison of sin within us and it's fatal. And when we look and see what God did about our sins on the cross, we're healed. The third must is not written here per se. It's not in the text.

But we must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that whosoever believes in him should not perish and have everlasting life. And may I suggest, this is just simply not an academic belief. This is not an academic excerpt.

This is rough. This is reliant. This is depending on the Lord Jesus, putting everything I've got on what he has done. We must believe in order to be saved. Now, as to his burial. His burial, and I'm now going back to Luke chapter 24.

Christ's Honorable but Temporary Burial

And in verse 15 there we read, And behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counselor, and he was a good man and a just, the same had not consented to the counsel and deed of him. He was of Arimathea, the city of the Jews, who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.

This man went on to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus, and took it down and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulcher with a spoon and a stone, for him never mannered before the grave. And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew long.

And the women also which came with him from Galilee followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned and prepared Christ's anointment, and rested the Sabbath day according to this amendment.

Now, the burial of Christ was an emergency. There was a Sabbath that was coming up. Remember, he was crucified, our brother Bill was mentioning this morning. The date of our birth, the birth of our Lord rather, is not known.

We don't know. We celebrate it at Christmastime. But it's very evident that it was not at Christmastime, because the angels came at the birth of Christ, and the shepherds were in the fields keeping their flocks.

They don't keep their flocks at Christmastime, in the fields. That's not it. So it had to be on the spring of the Sabbath, when the Lord was born. It certainly wasn't at Christmastime. They were in the fields, watching over their flocks.

And the shepherds came as well. We don't know his date. We celebrate it on December 25th, I'm glad we do. But that doesn't signify it's born. We don't know it. But we know the exact day when he died. It was on the 14th day of April, on the day of the Passover.

The 14th day of the month. I was thinking in that connection of a verse in the book of Ecclesiastes, the 7th chapter and the 1st verse. But I'm going to have to read it, because I can't get it started.

A good name is better than fresh appointments, and the day of death than the day of one's birth. Did you hear that? The day of your death is better than the day of your birth. Did you ever think of that?

The day that you die is going to be a better day than the day that you were born. If you know the Lord, that means you're entering into heaven. Not into this world. Heaven! The day of your death is better than the day of your birth.

It was true of the Lord. But in a different sense. He died. And that death accomplished more than he birthed. Whenever you see a little baby born into the world, you think of the potential of that baby.

I preached a sermon for a 95-year-old man last Tuesday. He was a Christian. Thank God. But you know, I didn't talk about possibility. I was able to talk about what had taken place in that man's life.

He was a godly man. He was a saint. Now, in the connection with the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, he was predicted. And that death was honorable. It was a wonderful death. Everything depends upon it.

In the book of Isaiah, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, it was predicted that he would be with the rich in his death. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man. We're not told that in Luke's Gospel. We aren't told it in Matthew's Gospel.

He was a rich man. The Lord is very, very careful. And this amazes me. And I love this thought. Before the cross, and while the Lord was on the cross, God the Father permitted all the indignities that men could heap upon the Lord Jesus.

He permitted it. He stood by and let it happen. But the moment that our Lord Jesus Christ says, It is finished, the moment that he committed his spirits into the hands of the Father, man was done with the Lord Jesus.

And God, after that, says he gets preferential treatment now. He died for our sins. Men have done their part. Now I'm going to see that he is honored. His death, his burial was an honorable burial. His death was not, but his burial was.

He has died for our sins. And God says, My son now is going to be honored. And he put it into the heart of Joseph, our Messiah. He begged for the body of Jesus. They took him down with tender hands. It's not now the soldiers that are striking him over the head with a reed.

It's not the soldiers now that are slapping him around, applying the lash. No, that's not it. Tender hands put the Lord Jesus down on the cross. They wrapped him and he was laid in a new tomb. It was a stopgap major, actually.

The Sabbath was coming on. He was crucified, or that is rather he died at three o 'clock in the afternoon. At the time of the evening sacrifice. At the ninth hour, he died. And they had just a few hours to get him into the tomb.

To get the permission from Pilate to take away his body. To wrap him up and get him in the tomb before the Sabbath started at sundown. And so, they had to work fast. It was a temporary major, but it was a major that God honored.

Joseph of Arimathea was there for that occasion as a special instrument, as a special servant of God. He was a secret disciple. I think that they felt that they would not hinder his honoring the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Nicodemus was there, incidentally. It was a hundred pound weight of spices, myrrh, aloes. Nicodemus was an honorable man. He was the man of which we were reading there in the third chapter of John.

At this age, he came to know the Lord. He looked to the Lord on the cross. As did Moses look. As did the children of Israel who looked to their great and perfect on the cross. He knew that the Lord had died for him.

And I think he knew that the Lord was going to die for him. Because in the very same book of John, John's Gospel, we have clear indications that Nicodemus was a secret believer in our Lord Jesus Christ.

He had trusted the Lord. The Lord's message to him about he must be born again was not in vain. Nicodemus said he was inaugurated at the burial. With these expensive spices, a hundred pound weight, they were doing honor to the Lord Jesus Christ.

But his internment was temporary. I don't know whether they thought that they were going to be permanent or not. I'm not going to argue the question there. I knew they had to act quickly. And you remember the stuff occurred with my opinion.

It didn't have far compared to Lord Jesus. Thank God. And all of that was taken care of before the Sabbath began. And then they went on. And the ladies even, if you will read Mark's Gospel carefully, they even went out and got their spices before sundown.

So that they would indeed honor the Sabbath as every good Israelitish person should do. But that was a temporary burial. No man, no dead man had ever laid in that tomb before. The sense of death was not there.

And when the Lord Jesus Christ arose, that tomb was just as peaceful as he found it, as his body found it. There was no sense of death. In case of Lazarus' death, his sister objected when the Lord said, where is he laid?

He's in bed for four days. And the Lord said, take me to him. Beautiful. Now this time he's thinking. She's talking about her own brother and not the Lord. There's no connection. For the honor that was done to the Lord Jesus in his burial, everything was ordered as though, oh, if you think that is grand, think of the resurrection.

When he was raised from the dead. As a matter of fact, all three members of the Trinity were involved in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I know it'll be good there in John's Gospel. I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it again.

But John the Quarter was also involved in the resurrection. We read in Ephesians chapter 1, if you please, the first chapter of Ephesians, beginning at verse 15,. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all that faith, seek not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayer, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of hymns.

The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the city, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usher who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.

Now, we're talking about the Father. In the 17th verse, his prayer, is that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. And here, the ultimate of power, his resurrection power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.

So the Father had a part in the resurrection of Christ. Christ had a part in his own resurrection. The Spirit had a part in his own resurrection. Romans chapter 8, if you see. The 8th chapter of Romans.

Verse 10. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ also from the dead shall also strengthen your mortal bodies by his Spirit, as well as in you.

Now, you see here, the first part of the verse, it's the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, refers to the Father. But it's the Father that directs his Spirit. And notice that little word also.

He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also strengthen your mortal bodies by his Spirit, as well as in you. God is going to instruct the same Spirit to give us resurrection in our bodies. He was raised by the power of the Spirit of God.

That's wonderful. You and I are going to have the same resurrection. The same power working in us. The Spirit is indwelling me. The power is there. That Spirit is going to change my body. Also, as he did the body of the Lord Jesus, the power is right there.

I'm indwelt by the Spirit of God. And all that Spirit of God, the Spirit of God, is dwelling in me, is waiting for the curtain to open. It's the voice of the Lord. It's the shout of the Lord, the voice of the archangel, and the last trump.

And when that trump sounds, that Spirit goes to work and instantly I'm going to be conformed to the body of Christ. That is, my body can be like the Father. The power is there. I used to work in the mines when I was going to school, making money to go to school.

And they would tell you, you better get out of here, we're fired. Well, what they meant was that they hadn't been dismissed. The mining force, they had licked Jesus. Well, when they tell you that, you better get on your way.

Now, the power is in here right now, and it's in you. Right now. The power is inside of you, but it is a sonic Jesus. It's not one that you like with a match. It's a sonic Jesus. And when the Spirit of God hears that last shout, it's like that.

I didn't want to tell you that. I'm not going to have time to do it. When it's done, I'll tell you that. And it's going to change me into His body. That's our record. The power is there. Just wait. Just wait.

Resurrection Hope and the Assurance of Forgiveness

We are going to be with Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ says, because I live, you shall live also. That's a beautiful thing. Isn't that a sweet thing? Oh, how lovely. Oh, the resurrection. The glory of it.

The hope of it. The wonder of it. Everything depends upon the fact that Christ arose. Now, just briefly, and I'm going to take about 30 seconds to do this. The resurrection of Christ proved that my sins were gone.

Isaiah tells us that he laid our iniquities on Christ. Now, he took them off from us and laid them on Christ. Did Christ carry them back into heaven? No. His resurrection is proof that my sins are gone.

He bore my sins and He's in heaven. Oh, I don't think we really appreciate the truth of the resurrection. And we are going to experience it in our bodies by the power of the Spirit of God. We thank you, Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for these wonderful truths.

We do pray that none in this audience or other audiences this morning will neglect the salvation that has been provided us at all the cost. As I say, life has its blessings, the being of the Lord who loved and embraced us.

We ask that you give thanks and I thank you.