The Resurrection of Our Lord

The Hope of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday

He's got to hand off a couple of babies real quick. Oh, just bring her up, man. She looks cool. She's got her shades on and everything. You only need one hand to turn pages in the Bible. Just hold her with the other hand.

Thank you, sir.

Good morning, everybody.

So I've been very anxious for this week to come. It has been several months in the making at this point. As a reminder, for those of you who may not have been here last week, it was not planned for dad and mom to not be here on Easter Sunday.

Business trips were planned like 10 months in advance or something like that. I don't think anyone thought maybe Easter could be in March in 2024 or something like that. So they would give anything to be with us here today, no doubt.

And so the Lord worked it out this way for reasons perhaps unknown at this time. But I am excited about it, and I've been looking forward to it for a while. Resurrection Sunday is interesting for a lot of reasons.

You know, there's only a couple ordinances of the church. There's the Lord's Supper, there's baptism, and just about anything other than that is going to boil down to some form of tradition in some form or other.

And this particular day is one of those. Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, really the whole liturgical calendar would fall into that category. But even though that's the case, not all tradition is necessarily bad.

We know that tradition can muddy the waters, depending on the particular area that you're talking about. But tradition isn't always bad. And this is one case where I believe it's actually quite beautiful.

I mean, you think about the thought, you have believers all across the world on this particular day celebrating one of the greatest moments in human history. And so it is quite the honor to get to fill the pulpit on such a day as that.

It is a tremendous blessing to get to do this, as well as have so much family on both sides. So I am really excited to get to do this today. And I appreciate all of you for being here. And looking forward to get to worship with all of you.

Job’s Confession of the Redeemer and the Coming Judgment

If you want to turn to Job chapter 19, time is of the essence today. If you guys were here last week, you know exactly what I was talking about or what I'm talking about. So we're going to get right into it.

And again, we're going to start in Job chapter 19. See if I can get there myself really quick. And we're going to start in verse 23. And let's read this brief passage together. We're going to be revisiting it here just a little bit.

But I like the idea of opening with this. So Job chapter 19, starting in verse 23, it says, Oh, that my words were now written. Oh, that they were printed in a book, that they were graven with an iron pen and led in the rock forever.

For I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold.

And not another, though my reins be consumed within me. But ye should say, why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? Be afraid of the sword, for the wrath bringeth the punishment, the punishments of the sword.

Ye may know that there is a judgment. Now Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this glorious day, the opportunity that we have to get together, not only to fellowship in general. Of course, we're so thankful for that opportunity each and every week.

But on a day such as this, where saints all over the world are gathering to do the same thing, so many voices being lifted up to you and your praise and your worship. And again, in celebration of one of the most glorious acts that you have ever accomplished on our behalf.

We're so thankful that we get to come together and talk about such an event. And we just ask you to be with this service, Lord. Bless this service. We ask that your words are spoken and that this be edifying to everybody present today and everybody listening.

We ask all these things in your name.

Amen.

The Resurrection Narrative in Matthew 27–28

So shortly after finding out that I'd be doing this today, I thought about the various ways that you can approach such a massive topic. Of course, you can look at it historically. You can look at it apologetically.

Obviously, the resurrection is something that's going to be attacked by the devil and through him, you know, any skeptic, any enemy to the word of the Lord. And evidentially, apologetically, there's so many different angles that you can take with this massive topic.

However, given the terribly short amount of time that we have, I decided that we would take a look at it from a particular angle that I've actually been thinking about for the better part of the last 18 months, maybe two years.

And I think you guys will see why when we get there. And I do believe this will be a very edifying thing for all of us. It's a kind of a subtopic that's enjoined with the resurrection itself. And that's going to be one of the things that I want to bring out today, a very specific truth about the resurrection and the reality of that.

And we're going to get to that shortly. But first, what I want to do is I want to walk through the story itself, similarly to how we did last week, as we, in preparation for today, walked through the crucifixion narrative.

And we're going to take a look at what's essentially the seal of our faith. That is the resurrection of our Lord. Now, last week, we ended with the narrative of the crucifixion in Matthew 27, 50. That's the verse that we left off with.

So we're going to pick it up at verse 51. And we're going to quickly walk through the remaining verses of that chapter, verse 27, leading into the resurrection story, beginning in chapter 28. So we're going to be looking at the events that took place after Jesus gave up the ghost and surrounding his resurrection.

So let's pick it up. Matthew 27, verse 51. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake and the rocks rent. We briefly touched on the significance of that event.

Last week, the veil being tore is a huge part in the overall story here, and essentially what happened at the crucifixion, immediately following it. And that is the separation between God and man being removed.

And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many. Now, when the centurion and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God.

And many women were there, beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him, among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, and mother of Zebedee's children.

When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.

And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre and departed.

And there was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sitting over against the sepulchre. Now, the next day, the followed after the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, We remember that this deceiver said, While he was yet alive after three days, I will rise again.

Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead, so that the last error shall be worse than the first.

Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch, go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. So in the events immediately following Christ's crucifixion, when the religious leaders of the day stood at the foot of the cross, mocking Jesus in every form and fashion you can imagine, the mockery continued even while Jesus was still in the grave, as the Pharisees here, of course, call him a deceiver.

And they even mocked his claims regarding his resurrection. Of course, they didn't believe it. But what they were worried about is that his followers would plot a fake resurrection. They got Rome involved once again.

Now, the involvement with Rome there as they put the seal on the grave and as they put the soldiers in front of the grave was particularly significant. Their involvement in sealing that, guarding Christ's tomb, it's a very important note regarding the testimony of the resurrection as an historical event, because of Rome's involvement there.

The Lord has all of those details here, obviously, intentionally there. And at the end of chapter 27 is pretty key, obviously, in leading into what we're about to get into here. So let's begin at chapter 28 now and let the narrative continue.

And we will begin the theme of our Lord's resurrection. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. Now, these women, they were notably at the cross when Christ's men had scattered all around in fear of the Jews.

And of course, we're aware of Peter's denial. And the rest of the disciples were nowhere to be found at this particular time, except for John. That was the one exception. But John and then these women devout to Christ, who had followed him throughout his ministry, were there and they witnessed all of the brutality that we talked about last week.

They were some of Jesus's closest friends and loyal followers. And that loyalty surpassed any amount of fear and trepidation that they perhaps should have had, especially after witnessing the devastating scene, again, that we discussed last week.

But it says that they came to the grave to look at the grave of Jesus. They simply wanted to see the tomb where Jesus was laying. But they also wanted to anoint to Jesus's body. And in the Mark and the Luke account, the gospel accounts in Mark and Luke, we learned that they were carrying spices along with them.

They were coming to anoint his body and to kind of honor him in that particular way. But it's important to note that despite their loyalty to him and the fact that they were going to see his grave, they were going to honor him in the anointing, they weren't necessarily expecting to actually see a risen Lord.

They weren't expecting any kind of miracle. The execution that they had witnessed just a few days prior was so horrifying that it apparently shook their faith to the point where they forgot Jesus's own words that he had given them not too long before all these events took place.

There's no indication that they were actually expecting to find Jesus not in the grave. What they did have was a tremendous amount of sympathy for the one whom they had followed all the way to his death.

And they were going to anoint him, like I said, they were going to honor him in that way. But their faith had waned, and it had waned considerably. It wasn't enough, though, to keep them from having that desire to honor their master.

They still wanted to do something, even though that faith had been waned to such a degree. Verse 2 says, And behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and set upon it.

Now, perhaps everyone remembers, we just read it a moment ago as well, when the veil was torn, that a great earthquake had occurred immediately following Christ's giving up the ghost. And now we have another one.

So we had one great earthquake that kind of signified or represented the very unique event that had just occurred. And now we have another one to usher in yet another very significant moment. The word behold, at the beginning of verse 2, it indicates that this was a very sudden, a very shocking surprise to the women, as well as the soldiers that were present.

This, it just absolutely came out of the blue. And it did so in a way that pretty much, quite literally shook all of these people to their core. The word great, when it says there was a great earthquake, it's the Greek word magos.

It's where we get mega from. So this was quite literally a mega quake that surely would have spurred on a considerable amount of fear for anyone that was present. Here we have some of these devout followers of Jesus, these women, as well as the Roman soldiers.

And it's not surprising that they were all deathly afraid at this particular moment. But what caused that earthquake? What caused this sudden, shocking, unexpected event that made everybody scared? It says, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven.

So the arrival of this angel was so great that it had caused this great earthquake. Now, it's important to note something really quick. The angel descended, but he didn't descend because he needed to let Jesus out.

That was not part of the job description for this particular messenger of the Lord. That wasn't his purpose in descending. By the time that the earthquake hit, the angel had come, the stone was then rolled away, but Jesus was already alive at this time.

He was already alive. He had already risen. He was already glorified. And so the purpose of the angel wasn't to set Jesus free.

Or anything like that.

This was meant as a special kind of testimony to what had already happened for these women who were coming to, again, show their sympathies to their Lord. This earthquake and the angel that followed, again, acted as these divine testimonies for the magnificent event that had already taken place before he descended.

In verse three, it says, his countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. So this wasn't an angel in unawares, so to speak. This was an angel that had just arrived from being in the presence of God himself, and he was radiating the glory that was cast upon him as a representative of God, much like the glory that shone on Moses' face.

If you guys recall him descending from Mount Sinai, he had seen the mere backside of Jehovah, and he descends from the mountain, his face shining like the sun to the degree that the people were afraid of Moses.

And so this angel, just like Moses radiating the glory of God.

When he witnessed him,.

This angel is radiating the glory of God, again, being in his presence right prior to this particular descension of this angel. It says in verse four, and for the fear of him, the keepers did shake and became as dead men.

So these soldiers, they shook, literally, and the root word for the Greek there, sio, it's the same root word for the word earthquake. It's the same root where we get seisma or seismic. This was a seismic event for these soldiers.

That's how bad these particular guys, some of the toughest guys around, were shaking. They were shaking out of sheer terror at this site, and they were literally falling into a state of unconsciousness because of it.

And verse five says, and the angel answered and said into the women, fear not ye, for I know that ye see Jesus, which was crucified. Now, keep in mind for a second, unlike Peter, James, and John, these women were not at the Mount of Transfiguration.

They did not get to witness that brief moment where Jesus's glory on earth was unveiled, and those men that were present actually got to see it for a second. They weren't there. They had not experienced that particular event the way that some of the apostles had, and so when they see this angel, this is a completely new experience for them.

They had never before witnessed such immense unveiled glory the way they were at this particular time, and it was terrifying to them. It was something that they couldn't have ever imagined up until this point that they're now seeing it themselves.

So obviously, you might ask, what made their fear less severe compared to these tough soldiers? Like, why did not these women fall to the ground and become unconscious, shake themselves into unconsciousness?

Well, the answer, of course, is that it was grace. The only way that they could have played out this event and come out not unconscious, come out conscious, actually know what's happening, be able to hear the words of the angel, is by the divine providence that the Lord extended to them, because the glory that this group witnessed, it shouldn't have been discriminatory.

It shouldn't have been in such a way that some of them fell, some of them didn't, some of them made it out okay, others didn't. It should have knocked all of them on the ground as it did with the soldiers, but even though the tough soldiers fell into a coma themselves, the loyal women of God, while they were afraid, they were still standing.

Now, I want us to keep something in mind here as the angel begins his discourse with these women. The women that were present had certainly remained loyal and faithful to Christ, certainly while he was alive on earth, and even after his death to a degree, but they were here to dress Jesus's dead body.

They weren't here to see his resurrected body. As I mentioned a minute ago, their faith had waned. The events that had occurred just a few days prior had shaken their faith to a considerable degree, and because of that, there was a clear lack of faith here, as loyal as they were, and as much as they wanted to honor their master, there was still a lack of faith, but notice that when the angel comes and he talks to them about this issue, he doesn't do it with rebuke.

He doesn't even do it with frustration, despite the fact that Jesus had told them what to expect on this morning more than once in days, months, and even years prior to all of this taking place. Again, they are loving.

They are loyal. They are devoted to Jesus, but they find themselves in a place of weak faith, and it's notable to see here and the way in which God handles it through his messenger, this angel, because at least in this instance, he doesn't discipline it.

Now, there are times when maybe some rebuke is necessary. Of course, we know that Peter was rebuked a fair amount of times, but in this particular case,.

There wasn't discipline.

There wasn't frustration. There wasn't anything upsetting from the angel's point of view, even though the weaker faith was present. The lack of faith even was present. So through his messenger, what is God in this particular context for these women?

Well, he's caring. He's comforting. He's about to give them words of encouragement rather than words of rebuke, and this is the way, more often than not, that the Lord treats his own even in their weakest times.

There's no excuse or human reasoning that can justify weak faith. The women didn't have any reason to be doubting and to show up to the tomb not expecting a risen savior if they trusted in their master while he was alive and believed his words that on the third day, he would rise again.

But despite the fact that you can't justify the weak faith that it's not okay, it just is what it is. It's always wrong to disbelieve the words of the Lord, but there's always grace, and we see this grace signified right here in this story.

We need to remember that ourselves. This is a particularly good example that we can apply to our lives when we're experiencing doubt and weak faith, that the grace comes through taking that doubt to the Lord and confessing it to him, and when we do that, he returns with that blessed assurance that we can have once again.

We're going to experience the weak faith. We're going to experience the doubt numerous times, more times than we could even count, perhaps, but he's still going to be loving. The grace will still be there, and he's given us the information we need all throughout the New Testament for regaining that assurance that we had to begin with.

In verse 6, it says, He is not here, for he is risen as he said, Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Now, the first thing I want to point out here really quick is an interesting parallel between this account of the resurrection and the account of the crucifixion that we looked at just last week.

Remember last week when you get to,.

Let's see here,.

Verse 35. Just look at it really quick. Matthew 27, 35. It says you have the buildup to the moment in which the atonement is about to take place. You have Simon carrying the cross. Of course, prior to that, you have the beatings, you have the torture, you have the mockery, you have the fake trial, the Sanhedrin, you have the betrayal before that, the agony in the garden.

You have all of these things with a lot of detail across all of the gospels, and you get to the moment the crucifixion actually takes place. And what does it say in verse 35 of chapter 27? And they crucified him.

There's not a lot of detail there. There's not a lot of description. In fact, there's no description. And as we said last week, the reason why is because the gospel writers knew there didn't need to be a description.

The word crucifixion was a very off-color word to use in ancient times. It was such a brutal, reprehensible form of murder, of punishing crimes that it carried connotations that ancient writers did not even want to convey in their writing.

And so they would stay away from the word itself. The gospel writers have absolutely no issue using the word plainly, but they did not have to take it further than that. They didn't need to give us a description because everybody reading this knew exactly what they were talking about.

They pictured the vivid scene.

In their minds.

The moment that they saw this word. But now here we are in chapter 28, verse 6. And what does it say? It says, he is not here for he is risen as he said. There's not some great elaborate description of what played out in the tomb.

There's not the scene of Christ, you know, raising out of the cloth and whatever the scene may have looked like. None of that is here. It simply tells us he is risen as he said. His promise was kept. It's an interesting parallel with the lack of description that we are given with the crucifixion.

In fact, I should say, it's just a plain fact. The two most significant moments that act as the crux of these narratives.

We've been looking at.

Are left without description because, I'll say it one more time, it simply wasn't needed. Now, the apostles later shed some interesting light on the resurrection itself in some of the later epistles. And this is really cool.

This is the kind of stuff that is so encouraging it's hard to even put into words because the amount of revelation that we are given is small, relatively small, as the book is, the Bible, the Word, is relatively small as it is and how much more information sometimes we may wish we had.

Of course, John ends his gospel saying, oh, how many books.

Could have been written.

On the things that I've seen. There are things that are sealed up in revelation that we are not going to know for some time. We wish we had more, but at the same time there is so much there that it's incomprehensible.

And the apostles later, again, they don't necessarily give us the scene, but they do tell us how it happened. In Romans,.

And I'm just going to give you.

All some citations here. Feel free to write them down because these are beautiful parallels. But in Romans 6, 4, in Galatians 1, 1 and in 1 Peter 1, 3, we learned that Christ was raised by the Father, that the Father was the one.

By his power.

That raised Christ from the grave. But then you get to Romans 8, 11 and we learned that he was raised by the Holy Spirit. It's specific. Paul specifically points out there that it was by the Holy Spirit's power that Christ was raised from the dead.

And then you have John 10, 18, which seems to clearly indicate that Christ raised himself when the time was come. So what does all that mean? Is that disharmony in the Gospels and in the New Testament?

Is there confusion there? There's no confusion when you start going throughout the New Testament and you see the ease in which the apostles had and spoke regarding the Trinity. The Trinity, of course, is something that there's no comparable thing to it.

And so because of that, if something is truly unique, you're never going to have an analogy that's good enough. If it's truly unique, because by definition, it's unique because there's nothing else like it.

And yet, despite some of the, you know, more complicated details, perhaps not necessarily being able to come up here and show you how the math works, so to speak, things that we will find out someday.

When we are glorified.

And we have better understanding ourselves, we can still look throughout the New Testament and see the ease with which the apostles talked in Trinitarian terms. And this is one of them. We learned that it was by the Father's power that he was raised by the Holy Spirit's power that he was raised.

And it was Jesus himself that it was by his power that he was raised. It's by the unified power of the Trinity as a work ordained to be accomplished by the Godhead together, all of them in perfect unity, that he was raised.

It's an absolutely beautiful example of the way in which God interacts with his plan and with his creation, including history, including time. He does it in ways, again, that kind of go beyond any way we could describe it.

But we do know that it was by the power of the Trinity, by the Father, by the Son, by the Holy Spirit, that these things took place. So that's some light that is shed on the moment of the resurrection later on throughout the New Testament.

Now, in Luke, we learned that these women remembered his words at this particular point. If you're looking at the synoptics side by side, we learn at this particular time, the women did remember Jesus's words as they're hearing the testimony of the angel speak to them.

And they remember hearing that he would rise from the grave. Apparently, though, it was just too simple. Or I should, no, I'm sorry. Apparently, it was too much for them to believe at the time, as simple as it sounded when it was proceeding out of Jesus's own mouth when he was telling them the site of the crucifixion.

It was just too much for them to believe after that took place, even the short amount of time in between the death and the resurrection. And then after this, after they recalled his words, after the angel had given testimony to his promises kept, they were shown the evidence of the resurrection.

And in Luke, we learned that the angel actually stooped back into the tomb.

And reiterated everything.

He had told them prior to them going into the tomb. Because he needed to alleviate the utter shock that these women were still under. At this point, they are now looking at the linen laid across the bed of stone, still wrapped.

They're looking at this, totally bewildered, and the angel comes back in. And then in John's account, we learned there was actually a second angel, one at the head, one at the foot. And they were both there saying, don't be afraid.

He is risen. Here's the evidence. In verse seven, it says, and go quickly, tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. And behold, he goeth before you in Galilee. There shall you see him. Lo, I have told you now keep Galilee in mind, because in verse 10, that's going to be important.

So put a pin in that for just a second. Verse eight says, and they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy and did run to bring his disciples word. Now, I want you guys to consider for a minute the very significant change in attitudes and emotion that has taken place just within a very brief span of time.

And in verse eight, it really, really pops out at you.

Prior to this,.

You had the scene so terrifying that two of the toughest guys in the country literally shook themselves into a coma. And these women witnessed the exact same event. They were also scared. They were also unsure.

And even our devout followers of Jesus needed a supernatural reassurance that everything would be OK. Again, it was by grace that they didn't fall over themselves. But now, after all of that, after witnessing the open tomb and Jesus's body absent from it and the angels giving testimony, they are now running with fear.

The fear is still there, but they're not running and there's an extra added component that was not there before. And that is the joy. With great joy, they are running. This is the moment when the shock turned into an acceptance that he truly is alive and they could feel it.

And they knew it was true.

And they knew.

They remembered his words. They were called it and they are now witnessing the fulfillment of that promise. And a promise that they knew was about to change the world for the rest of human history as everything would unfold from that point forward.

Verse 9 says. And as they went to tell the disciples, his disciples. Behold, Jesus met them saying all hail. And they came and beheld him. Excuse me. And they came and they held him by the feet and worshiped him.

They recognized his deity.

Immediately.

There was there. There wasn't any kind of there was no trepidation.

At this point.

I'll put it that way. They recognized his deity.

And the fact.

That they were able to. This is just an important note. Keep keep things in mind as you have conversations with people of very varying beliefs and interpretations of Christ's deity. They held him by his feet and worshiped him.

This indicates he was not some emanation, not some aberration or an illusion or some kind of dream that they were seeing.

At this time.

It was him. He was physical once again, but in a different state. But they were able to grab him. They were able to embrace him. They were able to feel him. It's not some spirit, some ghostlike emanation that they were witnessing.

Verse 10. Then said Jesus unto them,.

Be not afraid.

Go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee and there shall they see me. So Galilee, this is the place that Jesus began his ministry. It's the first place where he preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, worked the miracles for the first time, redeemed souls for the first time and taught in the synagogues.

It was the first place.

Where he was hated,.

Where he was rejected. It was the same place where they would see him risen. Now, he totally avoids Jerusalem, the city of David, the place where the temple still stood, which is a really phenomenal thing to think about.

The capital of the religion of God that had been diluted for 400 years prior to the arrival of John the Baptist still stood and the religious leaders still facilitated it at this very moment, post-resurrection.

But Jesus doesn't go there. He doesn't go to the capital of what is now a dead religion, but he goes to Galilee where he will now give his great commission. We, in Wednesday night, we were talking about Dave brought up Galilee because that's where he did his first miracle.