This sermon was preached on Sunday
morning, April 3rd, 1988, at the Trinity Baptist Church in
Montville, New Jersey. Now as I stand before you to
open up the scriptures this morning, I do so confident that the vast
majority of those of you present are very much aware of the fact
that this particular Lord's Day has been designated in the so-called
Church calendar as Easter Sunday. And I'm also confident that most
of you know that in some way or another, Easter Sunday is
supposed to have something to do with the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. facts of our own corporate consciousness
about the significance of this day and the designation of this
day raise some very interesting and perplexing questions. We might ask, where and when
did this practice begin? How and why is the date for Easter
Sunday set year by year? Or we might raise the question,
should one who professes to be subject to the Bible in terms
of his life and practice even recognize a special Lord's Day
and call it, with others, Easter Sunday? And if he should, in
what way should he seek to bring peculiar honor to God on that
day? Well, I say, Those are perplexing
questions, and it's not my intention to answer any of them. Rather,
knowing that the teaching of the Bible concerning the bodily
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a foundational
truth of the Christian faith, I want to direct your attention
to that glorious truth itself. And in that sense, We forget
Easter and we occupy ourselves with the resurrection of Jesus. In particular, I want to speak
to you this morning on the subject of the biblical significance
of the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The biblical significance of
the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in taking
up this subject, I do so standing on two presuppositions. I stand on two unqualified affirmations
of faith. Affirmations of faith which every
true Christian is prepared to make. And the first is the historical
reality and accuracy of the biblical accounts of the bodily resurrection
of Jesus of Nazareth. All four gospel records have
independent accounts of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, who was
buried in a borrowed tomb, rose from the dead bodily. Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24 and John Chapter 20 give
us these independent accounts of the historical reality of
the resurrection of Jesus. And though each of the Gospel
records has its own unique contribution to make in terms of certain details
surrounding the resurrection, in this they are all one. They are utterly unanimous and
unified in their testimony to the historical reality of the
bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then the second presupposition,
which is the affirmation of faith of every true Christian, is that
he is prepared to accept the convincing testimony of the eyewitnesses
who had intimate contact with the resurrected Christ. In the
opening verses of Luke's account of the work of the apostles in
the book of Acts, he says that Jesus Christ showed himself alive
by many infallible truths. And among those infallible proofs
are the very things that I read in your hearing this morning.
Four times in four verses it is said, He appeared, He appeared,
He appeared, He appeared. It does not say that out of great
religious devotion Cetus had an apparition that he understood
to be the risen Christ. The emphasis falls not upon the
cognitive faculties of those to whom He appeared, but upon
the activity of the risen Lord. He appeared. He appeared. He appeared. He appeared. And so, as we address this subject
this morning, of the biblical significance of the bodily resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, we address it standing upon those
two great affirmations of our confidence in the historical
reality and accuracy of the biblical record of the fact of His resurrection
and our hearts being held by the convincing testimony of the
eyewitnesses who had intimate contact with the resurrected
Christ. Now, standing on those two great
foundational affirmations, we ask the question, what is the
significance of that resurrection? And it is our concern not to
deduce our own understanding of its significance, but I've
said that I want to speak to you on the biblical significance
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the Bible not only
contains the record of the fact that he rose, and the record
of eyewitnesses who saw the risen Christ, but the Bible tells us
the significance of the fact that he did rise from the dead. And it is that concern that is
the focus of our study this morning. And time permitting, we want
to look at three categories of significance with reference to
the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, the
significance for Christ Himself. What did the resurrection mean
to Jesus of Nazareth? And then secondly, the significance
of the resurrection for the people of God, for true believers, and
then thirdly, the significance of the Resurrection for the world
at large. First of all, then, the significance
of the Resurrection for Jesus Christ Himself. And I want you
to consider with me three aspects of the significance of the Resurrection
for Christ Himself. First and foremost, the resurrection
was and is the climactic validation of Jesus' personal claims. The resurrection was and is the
climactic validation of the personal claims of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, while our Lord was engaged
in His public ministry, He made some staggering claims concerning
His own identity and His own mission. For example, He claimed
to be God's unique Son. He claimed it in such a way that
His hearers understood Him to be saying, that He, Jesus of
Nazareth, actually shared in the divine essence, that as the
Son of God, He was deity incarnate. Now, He did this in many places. One of the most noteworthy is
found in the tenth chapter of John's Gospel. And on this occasion,
having made this claim in the presence of His bitter enemies,
They were determined to stone Him for blasphemy. We read in
John chapter 10 and verse 30, Jesus' words, I and the Father
are one. The Jews took up stones again
to stone Him. Jesus answered them, Many good
works have I showed you from the Father, for which of those
works do you stone Me? The Jews answered Him, For a
good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because
that you, being a man, make yourself God." They understood his claim
to be one of sharing in the very essence of deity. Now that's a tremendous claim.
for one who by all appearances and in reality did possess a
true, a real, a vulnerable human existence. Furthermore, while
in his earthly ministry, he claimed to be the appointed judge of
the world. He dared to assert, as he did
in John chapter 5, that the hour was coming in which all men and
women who have ever lived upon the face of the earth would be
raised from the dead, even by His own word of power, and would
stand before Him in judgment. John 5 and verse 22, For neither
does the Father judge any man, but He has given all judgment
unto the Son. Verse 25, The hour comes, and
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God,
and they that hear shall live. Verse 28, Marvel not at this,
for the hour comes in which all that are in the tomb shall hear
His voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good to the
resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the
resurrection of judgment." And he claimed that he would actually
be the judge in that day of judgment. He claimed it in Matthew 25,
verses 31 and following. He claimed it in Matthew 7 and
verse 21. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, then will I say unto them, depart from me. So he claimed
to be God's unique Son, the Son of God who was none other than
God the Son. He claimed to be the appointed
judge of the world. He even went further and claimed
to be the one true revealer of God and the exclusive way to
God. Think of it. He said in Matthew
11, 25, no one knows the Son save the Father. No one knows
the Father save the Son, and He to Whomsoever the Son wills
to reveal Him. He claimed to be the one true
revealer of God, and also the exclusive way to God. John 14, 6, I am the way, the
truth, the life, not one way among many. Not one aspect of
truth among much truth. Not one facet of life among many
facets of life. The way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but
by Me. Now those are stupendous claims. To claim to be God. To claim
to be the judge of the world. to claim to be the one true revealer
of God and the exclusive way to God. What did he do to make
good those claims? Well, in his earthly ministry,
his works attested again and again to the uniqueness of his
person and his position. He could even say, if you don't
believe what I say, believe me, for the very works sake. The
works that I do, they testify to my unique identity. They validate
my claims. This is why the apostles in their
preaching could say, a man approved of God among you by many signs
and wonders. But it was the resurrection that
constituted the climactic, not the exclusive, but the climactic
validation of all of those personal claims. We read in Romans 1 and
verse 4 that He is declared to be the Son of God with power
by the resurrection from the dead. The full wording of the
text, Romans 1 And verse 4, as Paul is speaking about the gospel
which he preaches, he says, it is a gospel, verse 2, promised
of four through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures. It is
a gospel concerning his Son who was born of the seed of David
according to the flesh, but who was declared or determined the
Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness. by
the resurrection from the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord. And so, for our Lord Jesus Christ,
the resurrection was the climactic validation of all of His personal
claims. And if we would seek to overturn
those claims, we have to do something with Joseph's empty tomb. For in the resurrection, God
is given that climactic validation of the claims of His Son. But
then, the resurrection to our Lord was also the radical termination
of His state of humiliation. It was the radical termination
of His state of humiliation. When our Lord was here on earth,
He was conscious of the glory that He had previously possessed
before He came to mankind by way of Mary's womb. In His prayer recorded in John
17, He indicates that consciousness when He prays in John 17 and
verse 5, And now, Father, glorify me with thine own self, with
the glory which I had with thee before the world was. He was
conscious that he possessed a pre-incarnate glory. And the Incarnation did
not scrub from His memory what that glory was. So here in this
prayer, as He is about to accomplish His work in this present state
of humiliation, He is praying that God would glorify Him with
the glory that He possessed with the Father even before the worlds
were created. But from the moment of His conception
in Mary's womb, we are told in a passage such as Philippians
chapter 2, He went from one state of humiliation to another, to
another, to another, until His humiliation reached its depths
in the horrible death of the cross. Philippians chapter 2.
Verse 5, Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on
an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant, and being made in the likeness
of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself, becoming
obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. And as we
read the account, and as we have been studying together in Mark's
Gospel, we see how progressively, as our Lord draws nearer to the
cross, the depths of humiliation increase until they reach their
apex, when the heavens are shrouded in blackness. and all consciousness
of communion with the Father is utterly cut off. And our Lord
experiences the horror of that abandonment that caused His cry,
My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? His humiliation
reached its depths there upon the cross. But then, as we read
in Philippians chapter 2, Wherefore, God has highly exalted him. And what was the turning point
from the humiliation to the exaltation? Well, according to the Scriptures,
it was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead that was the radical
cessation of the period of humiliation and was his entrance into his
state of exaltation. As surely as the humiliation
began with Mary's womb, the exaltation begins with Joseph's empty tomb. Mary's womb introduces the state
of humiliation. Joseph's empty tomb introduces
the state of exaltation. And from that point of resurrection,
to His ascension, to His session, to His present position at the
right hand of God the Father, to His future coming in glory
and power, to bring redemption in its consummate glory to His
own, and to judge the wicked, our Lord will know nothing, not
one moment of return to the state of humiliation. So for him, the
resurrection was not only the climactic validation of all of
his personal claims, it constituted the radical cessation of the
state of humiliation. And then thirdly, for our Lord,
the resurrection resulted in his formal installation as the
mediatorial king. It resulted in his formal installation
as the mediatorial king. Now, our Lord did not begin to
be a king at his resurrection. He was conceived a king, and
this was made clear at his conception when Mary was told by the angel
that he would occupy the throne of his father, David. And again
at his birth the angelic host declared unto you is born this
day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And the magi came seeking him
who was born King of the Jews. But in terms of God's progress
of redemptive activity, Our Lord's official installation as the
mediatorial King awaited His resurrection, which became, as
it were, the open door to His exaltation and session at the
right hand of God the Father. And this is why we read in such
passages as Acts chapter 2, Acts 5, and Acts 13, this kind of
language, Acts chapter 2, And verse 33, Peter is preaching,
and in verse 32 he affirms the resurrection of Christ, this
Jesus did God raise up, whereof we are all witnesses, being therefore
subsequent to the resurrection, being therefore by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you see and
hear." And then he quotes from Psalm 110, and then this tremendous
statement of verse 36, "...let all the house of Israel therefore
know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this
Jesus whom you crucify." He was conceived as the Lord of Glory. He was the Christ. Yes, but He
is now formally installed as the Mediatorial King and is thereby
constituted in that formal way in His Mediatorial reign and
power. Acts 5 and verse 30 you have
a similar emphasis. Acts 5 and verse 30. The God of our fathers raised
up Jesus, whom you slew, hanging Him on a tree. Him did God exalt
with or at His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior. And that exaltation and installation
was subsequent to the resurrection. In Acts 13, And verses 32 and
33, verse 30, God raised Him from the dead. He was seen for
many days. There is the fact, you see, of
His resurrection. Then the eyewitnesses, He was
seen for many days. Verse 32, we bring you good tidings
of the promise made unto our fathers that God has fulfilled
the same unto our children in that He raised up Jesus. As also it is written in the
second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Now that's not referring to some
physical begetting of Christ. It is referring to His formal
installation into His mediatorial kingship at the right hand of
God the Father. And so for our Lord, think of
what the resurrection meant for Him. the One who had come from
the presence of the Father, conscious of what He was laying aside when
He took to Himself a real human soul and a real human body, and
took that soul and body in this condition of sickness and weakness
and sin and grief. And though His soul was not touched
with the stain of sin, Though He Himself was utterly without
sin, He was so constituted that in the midst of the suffering
and the pain and the death, our Lord felt the horrors of the
human condition plagued by sin. He knew what it was to weep in
the face of death, to groan in the presence of unbelief, to
feel anger in the face of hardness of heart, to feel disappointment,
to feel a sense of holy frustration when he saw a vast need that
he could not meet given the limitations of his present position. And
now comes the day of resurrection, and for our Lord, No longer will
there be weakness. No longer will there be rejection. No longer will there be skepticism
in the face of His claims in terms of human beings being able
to look Him eyeball to eyeball and tell Him He was demon-possessed. All of that is behind Him. And
the resurrection becomes for Him the climactic validation
of all of His claims It becomes the radical cessation of the
period of humiliation and his formal installation as the mediatorial
king. Now, you see, it is these realities
that form the solid ground for bringing worship to him as we
have done this morning. It would be nothing less than
God dishonoring idolatry to sing some of the hymns we've sung
this morning if Jesus were not God. It's because He is who He is
we can sing, crown Him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne. It is because he is in the posture
of mediatorial kingship that we were able to sing as we did
when imploring the Holy Spirit to come and to conquer the darkness
and the blindness of men's hearts. We are able to sing such hymns
because Christ as mediatorial King is reigning now. And we read in 1 Corinthians
15, And that enemy is death that
still has its claims over the bodies of the redeemed. And when he comes in glory and
power, and we are glorified with him and are given our resurrected
bodies, then the last enemy shall be utterly swallowed up as our
mediatorial king accomplishes his great and final act of conquest. And this, you see, dear people,
is what forms the ground of the kind of worship and praise and
honor that we bring to our Lord Jesus Christ. We could not, I
say it reverently, we could not bring it to Him in spite of all
the miracles, in spite of all of the compassionate deeds of
mercy, in spite of all of the marvelous sayings of our Lord. If Joseph's tomb still held what
would now be but the dust of his bones, we could bring no
such worship. His claims would have fallen
to the ground. There would have been no validation
of those claims. The humiliation would have entered
a state far worse than crucifixion. The disintegration of the bodily
substance of our Lord is all that would remain of His body. And there would be no confidence
that there was any mediatorial king. And so, for our Lord, the
resurrection meant these things to Him. But now, secondly, what
is the biblical significance of the resurrection for God's
people? And when I say God's people,
what do I mean? I do not mean everyone who, in
some vague, nebulous way, professes to be a Christian. I'm not a
Buddhist. I'm not a Taoist. I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Jew. I was reared in a home where
there was a Bible on the shelf and where I was taken to church
and christened and taken to church a few times later and confirmed,
and I occasionally partake of the sacrament. I'm a Christian. No, no, I am not speaking of
someone who may have that kind of nominal, oblique contact with
certain elements of the Christian church. But I'm speaking of those
who have seen themselves for what they are, creatures made
in the image of God, accountable to God, but who have strayed
from God's law, who are hell-deserving sinners, who have come to see
in Christ crucified their only hope for salvation. and divorcing
themselves from sin, for that is what repentance is, the repudiation
of self-will and self-centeredness and self-righteousness and self-reliance,
have thrown themselves upon Jesus Christ as He is offered in the
Gospel, have received forgiveness and acceptance through His obedience
and through His death, have received a new heart, an implanted disposition
to love Him and to serve Him. That is who I am talking about.
Now, what does the resurrection mean for us as the people of
God? Well, it means many things. But
there are three things so central to its meaning that we as the
people of God need to come back to again and again. And as it
were, in our minds, I visit with the Gospel records open before
us Visit the tomb as Mary did and as Peter and John ran and
went into the tomb. We need, by the activity of sanctified
imagination, to go and stand by Joseph's empty tomb and tell
ourselves these three things again and again and again and
again and again. For the meaning of the resurrection
to the people of God is this, number one, It is their receipt
of full pardon and the gift of righteousness. It is their receipt
of full pardon and the gift of righteousness. We read in Romans
chapter 4 this most significant statement. And Paul, in opening
up the doctrine of justification by faith, says concerning our
Lord, Romans 4 and verses 24 and 25, or verse 23, it was not written
for his sake alone that it was reckoned, that is, for the sake
of Abraham alone. But for our sakes also, unto
whom it shall be reckoned, that is, a righteous standing with
God shall be reckoned to us, who believe on him that raised
Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our
trespasses and was raised for our justification." Yes, he was
raised to vindicate his claim. Yes, he was raised to end his
state of humiliation. He was raised that he might be
officially installed as the mediatorial king, yes. But he was raised
with something that has reference to my greatest need, and that
is the full pardon of all of my sins. and having in the court
of heaven credited to me a righteousness which earns me the title to everlasting
life in the presence of the God of the universe. And our text
says, as surely as He was delivered up, that has reference to His
death, delivered up for our trespasses, He was raised for our justification. Now, what's the connection? Well,
remember now, go back to His death. When He hung upon the
cross, He cried out in those words of triumph, it is finished. It was a declaration that in
His own consciousness He knew that He had fully satisfied all
of the claims of divine law against those whom He represented. By
His perfect life of obedience, obedience culminating in the
death of the cross, by His substitutionary bearing of the curse of the law,
He rendered to God everything that God demanded of all those
for whom He was representative and surety. and conscious that
He had rendered this, He cried, It is finished! But how do we know that that
cry was valid? How do we know that that cry
was not an overstatement of reality? Well, you say we know it because
Christ spoke only the truth. Yes, but look at our text. He was raised for our justification. May I say it in a way that hopefully
will make it stick? As surely as He upon the cross
bore our sins, Peter says, bore our sins in His own body up to
the tree, discharged all of the obligations that were against
us in the court of heaven, those sins for which He died If there
was any question whether the thing were paid in full, the
open tomb is God's visible receipt upon which He has stamped, paid
in full. For the wages of sin is death. And when all the claims of death
were discharged against those for whom He died, death had no
more claims over Him, and His resurrection is the validation
of that fact. So when you, as the people of
God, feel the weight and the pressure and the shameful consciousness
of your sin, what are you to do? Well, you're to go and stand
by Joseph's tomb, and looking into that empty tomb, you are
to say, he was raised for my justification, as Paul argues
in Romans chapter 8. Notice how he reasons this way,
verse 33. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? He challenges the whole moral
universe and says, who will rightly lay anything to the charge of
one of God's people? It is God that justifies. If the judge of the universe
has declared me righteous, who can come along and overturn his
decision? To what higher court can appeal
be made? In the appeal system in our own
system of jurisprudence, the appeal is always made from the
lower to the higher court. Well, the court of heaven has
already spoken. It is God that justifies. Who
is He that condemns? Who will appeal God's verdict?
Who is He that condemns? It is Christ Jesus that died,
yea, rather, that was raised from the dead. And you see this
confidence that there can be no overturning of God's justifying
sentence is rooted in the reality of this spiritual understanding
of the significance of the resurrection. The resurrection then to us as
God's people is the receipt of the full pardon and perfect righteousness
that is ours in Christ. And when conscious of our sin,
when pressed with nothing short of a distracting and distressing
and depressing awareness of it. We need to go back to the open
tomb again and again and again and there hear what that tomb
eloquently declares to us, penalty paid in full. But then the resurrection
to the people of God should also be not only their receipt of
a full pardon and a perfect righteousness, but their assurance of an indefectible
salvation. And why do I use that word? Not
to throw a big word into the sermon, but because that word
expresses what the Bible tells us about our salvation. It's
indefectible. It cannot fail. It is the assurance
of a never-failing salvation. For He came from that tomb with
resurrection life, and in that resurrection life He now gives
Himself to the great task of securing for all for whom He
died, the salvation which He died to purchase for them. Look
at a text such as Romans 5 and verse 10. For if while we were
enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His
Son, Much more being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life? Saved by His death? Saved by
His life? In what sense? Because in the
language of Hebrews 7.25, He ever lives to do what? To make
intercession for us. And what is the result of it?
Wherefore He is able to save to the uttermost. to the actual
enjoyment of every single blessing purposed in eternity, purchased
upon the cross, He is able to save us, bring us to the actual
personal enjoyment of every single blessing without exception. Why? He ever lives to make intercession
for us. As surely as He died to discharge
our debts as surely as he died to satisfy the demands of God's
law with respect to the sin that we committed, so he lives, that
that salvation purchased by his death might infallibly and indefectibly
be applied to all who come unto God by him. And then for us it
is also the pledge of our own future resurrection. His resurrection
is not only the receipt of our full pardon and a perfect righteousness,
the assurance of an indefectible salvation. It is the pledge of
our own resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15 and verse
20, I stopped at the first half of the verse, and I did it deliberately,
knowing I would come back to it in the message this morning. But now has Christ been raised
from the dead, the firstfruits of them that are asleep. And
the term, those that are asleep, is one of the beautiful ways
the Bible describes the state of the bodies of believers. They
are asleep in Jesus. That imagery of sleep never refers
to the soul. The soul is very much awake.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
Paul says, I long to depart and to be with Christ, which is far
better. It would not be far better if
there was any doctrine of soul sleep. It was better to have
real, vital communion with Christ in this present state, with remaining
sin, than to be unconscious and have no consciousness of communion
with Christ. There is no biblical doctrine
of soul sleep, either for the saved or the lost. When the soul
departs the body, it departs in full consciousness, in heightened
consciousness. And the souls of believers go
immediately into the presence of Christ, but their bodies,
in biblical language, sleep in the earth. Now notice, Paul says
that Christ's resurrection was constituted the first fruits
of them that sleep. And there he uses that imagery
from the Old Testament. When the harvest was just coming
to its ripened state, an Israelite was required by divine law to
take a portion of that freshly ripened harvest and to bring
it as an offering unto God. And the first fruits were the
pledge that the entire harvest was the Lord's, and the entire
harvest would in due course be reaped. Christ's resurrection
is constituted firstfruits of all that are asleep. And this
is why the Apostle could write as he did in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 4 and verse 14. If we believe that Jesus died
and rose again, and he knows that every Christian at Thessalonica
believes that, they would not be saved if they did not. If
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, Even so, them also
that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. His resurrection was not the
resurrection of a private person. Any more than His death was the
death of a private person. He died in His capacity as the
representative of His people. His death is our death. He did
not rise from the dead as a private person. He rose from the dead
as the great head of the new humanity, and His resurrection
is the sure and certain pledge of ours. Now, what three questions cause
greater agitation than these? Can I be certain that all of
my sins are truly pardoned? Can I be sure that what I now
know of God's salvation will last with all the opposition
that comes from the world and from my own remaining sin? Can
I be sure that I will endure to the end? And then, can I be
sure that the grave will not end it all? Those are pretty
ultimate questions, aren't they? For the believer who understands
the biblical significance of the resurrection, they are answered
in Joseph's empty tomb. Can I be certain that all my
sins are truly pardoned and that I have been credited with a perfect
righteousness in the courtroom of heaven? He was raised for
our justification. Can I be certain that in spite
of all of the cards being stacked against me in terms of my own
known vulnerability and weakness and remaining sin and a subtle
and well-experienced and cunning devil and a subtle world to seduce
me, can I be certain that I'll not put forth all of this effort
only to fall by the wayside? He is able to save to the uttermost
seeing he ever lived. being reconciled by His death,
how much more shall we be saved by His life? And as we feel the
increasing tokens of our mortality, as we see around us death and
serious illness, as we feel in our own bodies the reminders
that the seeds of death are very much at work, Do we have confidence
well-grounded, not just some ephemeral, wispy notion in hope
that in the end everything will turn out all right? Can I say
with Job, I know that in my flesh I shall see God? The answer is
Joseph's open tomb. Joseph's empty tomb. Christ has
been raised firstfruits. When he came out of that grave,
he brought me with him. It's only a matter of time before
that will be known before the whole universe. He brought every
believer with him. It's only a matter of time before
it becomes evident to all. So dear child of God, amidst
your ongoing struggle with sin, you dare not, you dare not relinquish
this foundation for all spiritual stability, the doctrine of imputed
righteousness, the doctrine of justification. It is the sheet
anchor to the soul. It is the impregnable rock on
which we stand. You and I must go again, again,
and again and again. to the open tomb and remind ourselves,
raised for our justification, in our ongoing struggle, when
at times we feel that the battle has almost come to a standoff. Remember, if we were reconciled
by His death, we shall be saved by His life. And cry to Him,
O living Christ, You are committed to save me with an indefectible
salvation, Lord. Carry Your work on. Strengthen
my will to fight. Strengthen my nerve to press
on. Strengthen every grace that You
have implanted. And then, Lord, when I feel that
I can do nothing but stand paralyzed before the world in the pressure
of my own sin, then, Lord, in ways that I cannot conceive of,
You surround me and uphold me and preserve your work in me. Dear child of God, you should
derive constant consolation from the resurrection. And when we
face our own inevitable death, and when we face the death of
loved ones, what do we say to ourselves as we see the last
earthly remains lowered in the earth? We say, firstfruits of
them that sleep as surely as Joseph's tomb was empty, so that
grave will give up the body of that loved one. This we say unto
you by the word of the Lord, that those that sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him, that is, their glorified spirits,
and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Well, in closing,
what does this say To those of you sitting here this morning
who are not Christians, you are not the Lord's. You have never
taken that posture of a helpless, hell-deserving, undone sinner,
trembling before God's wrath, seeing there's no way of escape
in the church, in rituals, in formal religious mumbo-jumbo
in saying words, in undergoing ceremonies you've never taken
the place of a helpless sinner, throwing yourself upon the mercy
of God in Christ. My friend, listen, the resurrection
of Jesus Christ says something very pointedly to you. And the
first thing it says to you that you need to heed is this, it
is the certain pledge of your future judgment by the very Christ
who rose from the dead. It is the certain pledge of your
future judgment by the very Christ who rose from the dead. Notice
how both Peter and Paul in their preaching emphasize this truth. Peter, in Acts chapter 10, Acts
chapter 10, notice what he says as he's preaching in the household
of Cornelius. Verse 39, we are witnesses of
all things which he did both in the country of the Jews and
in Jerusalem, whom also they slew, hanging him on a tree.
God raised up the third day and gave him to be made manifest,
not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were before chosen
of God, even to us who ate and drank with him after he rose
from the dead. You see our two foundational
pillars coming through again and again. Christ was raised. Witnesses saw him. Peter said,
I'm one of them. Now notice, hear the implications. And He charged us to preach unto
the people and to testify that this is He who is ordained of
God to be judge of the living and the dead. The same Jesus
who rose from the dead charged His apostles to preach that His
resurrection was indeed the certain pledge of the future judgment
of all men. by Jesus Christ, the exalted
Judge. Paul preaches essentially the
same thing in Acts 17, standing before a group of pagan philosophers. He concludes or brings his sermon
to a climax when he says in verse 30 of Acts 17, The times of ignorance
therefore God overlooked, But now he commands men that they
should all everywhere repent. Why? Inasmuch as he has appointed
a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by
the man whom he has ordained. And who is that man? He is the
one who said, the Father has given all judgment to me. I will
be the judge in the last day. And Paul says, He's appointed
a day in which He'll judge the world in righteousness by the
man whom He has ordained, whereof He has given assurance unto all
men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead. The resurrection
of Jesus is God's certain pledge of the future judgment of all
men by that very same Jesus. You see, dear people, that's
why I cannot, as a preacher of the Word of God, dabble in lovely
little thoughts about the bursting forth of the newness of life
in the spring and the Easter spirit and all this other nonsense. Joseph's open tomb thunders! Judgment is coming! Judgment
is coming! Judgment is coming! You're going
to be there! You're going to be there! Christ
will be the judge! You won't bring Him a basket
full of colored eggs and say, Oh Jesus, I colored eggs at Easter! Won't that get me in? My friend, you're going to meet
Him as your judge! The open tomb is God's pledge
of that judgment. Do you want to face Almighty
God with no mediator to plead your cause? Do you really want
to go before the God who knows your every thought? Every single
time you felt the slightest motion of unrighteous anger, of envy,
of lust, and of pride, the God who knows every time your lips
have spoken anything but absolute truth, absolute kindness, absolute
gentleness, do you really want to go before God and have Almighty
God read out the transcript of all of the claims of His holy
law against you? Are you so utterly out of touch
with reality that you really think you'll come off such a
judgment all right on your own? Oh, my friend, if you do, may
God somehow wrench you out of your never, never land of spiritual
blindness. Because Almighty God, according
to Romans 2, 16, will judge the secrets of your heart in that
day. Do you want Almighty God to read out the transcript of
all of the thoughts, not to speak of the words and deeds that have
been in violation of His law? That's what judgment will be.
Only one thing will matter in the day of judgment, and that's
the strictness of God's law and your life in the light of it.
If you do not have in that day one who has fully kept that law,
Pay for all of your breaches of that law. Almighty God in
the person of His Son will say to you, depart from me, you cursed. I never knew you. Oh, you have
no right, may I say it lovingly, you have no right to go through
another Easter Sunday preening your finery and painting and
coloring your eggs. Your soul is in jeopardy, my
friend! May God grant before you pillow
your head tonight, you'll hear the message of the open tomb,
and in the language of Paul, repent, turn from your sin, turn
from your self-will, turn from your indifference to God and
to His Son, and run to Christ for mercy and for forgiveness. If you are not saved, my friend,
the meaning of Easter according to the Bible is, it is the certain
pledge of your future judgment. But then it is, finally, it is
the solid basis of offered mercy and forgiveness. You see, the
flip side of this is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ
is the solid basis upon which God offers mercy and forgiveness
to sinners. In that very passage in Acts
10, Peter could say, not only was Christ the one who charged him to preach
and to testify that he is ordained to be the judge of the living
and the dead, But in Acts 10.43, Peter goes right on to say, to
him bear all the prophets witness that through his name everyone
that believes on him shall receive remission of sins. And that remission
of sins which you need is not offered by a dead Christ on a
cross, If some ask, why is your building so plain? Why don't
you have any crosses? Why don't you have any crucifixes? Why don't you have any images
of Christ hanging on a cross to help me to visualize His suffering? Well, for the simple reason,
my friend, that forgiveness does not flow from a dead Christ. It comes from a living Christ.
And how can we picture the living Christ? When John had but a vision
of him, it just about killed him. He fell at his feet like
a dead man. He almost went into a coma. No, my friend, the Christ
who stands in mercy and forgiveness stands in that posture in the
gospel. The only picture of Christ we're
warranted to paint is what we paint with His own Word in the
Gospel. If thou shalt confess with thy
mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised
Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart
man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. Romans 10, 9 and 10. And that's
why we can say to you who sit here this morning, yet in your
sins, yet outside the pale of God's saving mercy, the resurrection
in its meaning to you is not only the certain pledge of your
future judgment if you go on impenitent and unbelieving, but
it's the solid basis of offering mercy and forgiveness in a living
Savior, a Savior who by His own livingness can by His Spirit
change you and bring you to the place where you'll love the things
He loves, love His people, love His Word, love His ways, love
His presence. Oh, my friend, it is the living
Christ who is offered to you in the Gospel. May God grant
that you'll flee to Him today and mark this day that to you
was just going to be another day. when you sabbed your conscience
that you weren't a pagan because you went to church on Easter
Sunday, my friend. Could it be that God has taken
that silly notion that brought you here to dispel it with the
great truth that what you need is not another brownie point
that you did your thing on Easter, but that what you need can only
be found in the living Christ, and that living Christ offers
himself to you in the gospel. What will you do with Him? What
will you do with Him? His claims have all been validated. He lives and reigns to administer
grace and mercy to the neediest of sinners. But there is a moment
marked in God's calendar, I don't know when it is, when He will
leave that throne at the right hand of the Father and come forth
in visible glory and power And in that day all who have thrown
themselves upon him for mercy will experience that for which
they have longed and yearned, the full inheritance of their
salvation. But you, my friend, will join
those described in Revelation 6 When the kings and the rulers
and the bond and the free will cry to rocks and mountains, fall
upon us and hide us from the face of Him that sits upon the
throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, the living Christ will
come in judgment. But then it will be too late.
No one will be able to leave enough money behind to pray your
soul out of the so-called purgatory, which doesn't exist except in
the dogma of a church that's left the Bible. It's the only
place purgatory exists, my friend. There aren't enough people with
enough wealth to leave enough money behind to say enough prayers
and enough masses and burn enough candles. to snuff out one of
your sins, that's all reserved for the blood and virtue of Christ. And it's all yours if you'll
only get to Christ. And my friend, to get to Him
is not a difficult thing. The word of faith we preach is
near you in your mouth and in your heart. Christ is as near
as the word that comes to your ears. and registers in the patterns
of your thought, Christ comes to you in the word and proclamation
of the gospel. Will you then in your heart,
where he comes, now say, no, Lord Jesus, I reject, I refuse,
I withstand your claims, your offers of mercy, and in so doing,
I refuse and withstand and reject you? Or will you say, Lord Jesus,
if you've come in mercy so near to me in the gospel, and you
would have mercy even on the likes of me. What can I do but
be conquered by such love and grace and embrace it? The word of faith we preach is
near in your mouth and in your heart. If you will write where
you are, believe in your heart, confess with your mouth, you
shall be saved. What is the meaning of Easter?
We've seen what it is to our Son, what it is to the Son Himself. what it is to the people of God,
what its meaning is to you who are not His people. May God grant
that that word will not have been preached in vain as far
as you are concerned this morning. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for
the livingness of Your dear Son. We thank you for the glorious
fact of the resurrection. We thank you that you have given
us in your word the meaning of that fact, that we are not left
to ourselves to figure out what it means, and how we pray that
everything that you know we stand in need of would be imparted
by your grace and by your Spirit. We plead for those, our Father,
who came here this morning only as a matter of custom or habit
to attend a place of worship on Easter Sunday. Oh, may they
see how merciful you've been to preserve them to this hour,
and may they not leave until they know that they have closed
with the offers of your mercy in the Lord Jesus. Strengthen
the faith of your struggling saints that there may be new
measures of confidence based not in themselves, but in the
resurrected Christ. Seal, then, your word to our
hearts. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.