Now, there's two main parts,
segments, or dispensations involving the ministry of our Lord and
Savior. as the Christ. What I'm speaking of is the Son
of God is eternal. He is eternal. He has no beginning. He has no end. He is the eternal
Son of God. But as the Christ, as the Christ,
he had a beginning in the flesh. And there's two parts to his
ministry. The first, and it speaks of his
time in the flesh, the first is what men call his humiliation,
the humiliation of Christ. And the second is what men call
the exaltation of Christ. And so from the time that Christ
was conceived, in Mary's womb by the overshadowing of the Holy
Ghost, he robed himself with flesh. And that time of humiliation
was begun. Now it's called Christ's humiliation. because the eternal son of God
took upon him the garment of flesh, the weakness of flesh,
flesh that can suffer, flesh that feels pain, physical pain,
mental pain. We're told in scripture that
there were times when he was grieved in his spirit. He was grieved in the spirit
and he felt the the infirmities of our flesh. And he lived in
that flesh. He knew what poverty was. He knew what hunger was. He knew
what thirst was. And it was only by his words
and his works that we saw and that men of his choosing saw
his divine nature by the things that he said, the power with
which he spoke. Never any man spake like this
man. And they saw his works, his healings,
his multiplying of the fish and the loaves of bread. They saw
him walk upon the water. They saw him raise the dead. And they witnessed and heard
Him. Their witness was that they heard
Him speak, they saw His deeds, and they witnessed His perfect,
sinless obedience to the Father. And Paul completes this thought
for us in Philippians 2 saying that he was found in fashion
as a man and being found in that fashion he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death even the death of the cross. And so our Lord's humiliation
was from that conception all the way to the time when he was
buried, when he died and was buried in the tomb. That's the
humiliation of Christ. And men despised him during that
time. They despised him. And the more
religious they were, the more they despised him, the more jealous
they were of his works. They were jealous of the people
looking to him and loving him and being enamored with the light
of Christ. And they hated him, and they
despised him, and they sought how they might destroy him and
put him to death. Even though he went about doing
good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God
was with him. And being perfect in all his
ways toward God and men, He showed himself to be the spotless Lamb
of God. He was showing. He was fulfilling
all righteousness for his people. He was doing everything necessary
that had to be done to love God, to serve God in heart, mind,
body, and soul perfectly. that he should be the fit, perfect,
spotless Lamb of God to put away the sins of his people, to stand
in the place of his people, to take their place, to take their
spot under the curse of the law, that he should put it away for
them forever. and the almighty God in human
flesh gave his life for a chosen people, a people chosen for him
by his father to redeem them from their sins and to give them
life in himself. Now the most helpful thing I
could say right here to help us identify with that, to understand
this humiliation is just you that believe, understand that
Christ bore that humiliation for you. You that believe, you
that have been taught that we have no righteousness, who know
by your experience what sinners we are, Christ bore that humiliation
for you. To make you righteous, to put
away your sin, to settle all your debts. before God and the
Holy Law, to settle all your debts, and to make you righteous,
blameless, accepted unto the Father. And so we that know what
sinners we are, to consider that the perfect One, the glorious
Lord and Savior, bore this humiliation for me, for me, to put away my
sin forever, and to make me acceptable unto holy God. This death was
not for all men. This death was not for all men.
It would have made him a failure, because not all men believe.
Esau was hated of God, and Christ didn't shed his blood for Esau,
but he shed it for sinful Jacob, for Jacob. He loved Jacob. Christ died for all his people,
those who are sinners, those who are sinners, made to know
what sinners we are, made to know what we are before the true
and living God, made to hear what the scriptures say concerning
our works, that all are under sin. all are under sin and cannot
work a righteousness of their own. And so Christ's work, his
ministry in the flesh up to his death and burial is the humiliation
of Christ. But that's not where the story
ends. The story doesn't end there at the death and burial of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Him, we're told, hath God exalted. God has exalted him with his
right hand to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins. This is his exaltation,
and his exaltation begins with his resurrection from the dead. And it really puts into perspective
our own lives, doesn't it? Because we're told that our life
here is but a vapor. Our life in this flesh is but
a vapor. It is quickly passing, and then
there is all eternity. And so it is we see that in Christ.
His life was short. It was cut short in righteousness. And He gave up His life to put
away our sins. And that was a time of humiliation
in the flesh, but it was short. And now is the exaltation, the
time of the resurrection, Until now, this very time, and the
things that shall happen hereafter, Christ is in His exaltation. And it really shows us what's
important. Not this time in the flesh, not these hardships, not
these disappointments, not these sufferings, but that which shall
be hereafter according to the promise of your God made unto
you in the Lord Jesus Christ. settled and satisfied brought
to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. God raised his son from the dead
and he shall never die again. He shall never die again. The
Apostle Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1 21 that by Jesus Christ we
do believe in God. If you think you are worshiping
God and that's not by the Lord Jesus Christ, and you despise
the Lord Jesus Christ, or He's just a component of your salvation,
if you come to God and you worship Him apart from Jesus Christ,
you're in darkness, you are in death. You don't know the true
and living God. You're not worshiping the true
and living God. The only way that we worship God is through
faith in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we worship
God. That's how we believe God. That's how we believe in God
is in Christ. That raised Christ up from the
dead and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be
in God. That's where it's in God. That's
where the worship happens. in Christ. It's by Him, it's
by His power and glory. So we believe that God raised
Christ from the dead and that without that, there is no faith. Without the resurrection of Christ,
there is no hope for sinners. You can strive, you can labor,
you can spend, but there is no salvation apart from the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without the resurrection, I have
no good news to tell you. The very foundation of preaching
Christ crucified, the reason why we preach Christ crucified
is that God raised him from the dead. There is a man seated in
the heavens at the right hand of the throne of God, Jesus Christ,
our Savior, our mediator, our intercessor. who's ruling and
reigning, who's now in session, ruling and reigning over all
things, implementing the will of God in heaven and in the earth. That's the good news for sinners,
that God raised him from the dead. Paul, I'm not making that
up either, Paul himself tells us that. He said, if Christ be
not risen, then is our preaching vain. or wasting our time, and
your faith is also vain. And there's no hope, because
we know according to the scriptures and the testimony, the witness
of the spirit in us, that we cannot save ourselves. We have
not the ability to make a righteousness for ourselves by the law or any
other work. Christ himself is our very good
news. The resurrection of Christ declares
the justification of sinners. That is the proof to us that
God has accepted the sacrifice of Christ made for our sins and
put them away forever. That we have forgiveness of sins
for all who believe God in Jesus Christ. And this word is spoken
by the Savior to you. It's fulfilled by Him. This is
what He promises His people. He says, and this is the will
of Him that sent me. that everyone which seeth the
Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I
will raise him up at the last day." That's our text, John 6,
40. I will raise him up at the last day. I want to look in this
time with you, the rest of this time with you, at the resurrection,
the resurrection. Christ's resurrection is a fulfillment. First, understand that Christ's
resurrection is a fulfillment of that which was declared to
us in the scriptures that we know as the Old Testament. The
Scriptures spoke of the resurrection of Christ. I'm not going to show
you a lot of verses because there's many. It's the whole thing. The
whole Bible speaks of it, but I'll give you enough. I'm just
going to touch on it so that you see the Scriptures declare the
resurrection. Turn over to Psalm 16. Let's
go to Psalm 16. And what we see in Psalm 16,
it speaks of the trust of the Lord Jesus Christ. When He came
in the flesh, He laid aside that glory and came in humility and
submitted himself to the will of the Father. He trusted the
Father perfectly. He was leaning on the Father
to provide for himself. He literally was fulfilling all
righteousness, serving the true and living God for his people. It says in Psalm 16, verse 1,
Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust. Christ trusted
the Father, just as the Father first trusted Christ when He
gave to Christ the salvation, the work to save His people.
Now drop down to verse 9. Therefore, my heart is glad,
and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. Now I realize and I admit that
I'm speaking of things that in my flesh I don't understand. But the Savior, the Son of God,
in the flesh humbled himself and trusted the Father, hoped
in the Father, believing that the Father would raise him from
the dead. He gave his life trusting that
God would not leave his soul in hell and that he would not
see corruption. Look at verse 10. For thou wilt
not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One
to see corruption." He believed the Father. He trusted the Father.
He gave his life believing that the Father would not abandon
him or forsake him. but raise him from the dead. And so that last verse is what
Peter quoted and what Paul quoted to confirm this is speaking of
Christ. This is speaking of the Lord's
resurrection from the dead. Moreover, Christ's resurrection
serves us, serves to us as a pledge that the bodies of the saints
And by saints, it doesn't mean that you worked a miracle, but
rather that God worked a miracle in you. He worked a miracle in
you and raised you from spiritual death to know the will and the
purpose of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, turn
over to Isaiah 26, 19. you too, like your Savior, shall
be raised from the dead." There are other verses we could go
to, but let's look at Isaiah 26, verse 19. Here the Lord is
assuring His servant, the prophet Isaiah, He records this for us
that we should be encouraged as He was, that you and I who
believe Him, who trust in Him, who have no other righteousness
but Christ alone, that you will not be forgotten or abandoned
or left in the graves. He is going to return and redeem
you. It says, thy dead men shall live. Together with my dead body shall
they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell
in dust. This body is dust. Even those
who never go into the grave are in dust. We're in dust. For thy
dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the
dead. And so Paul tells us plainly
that God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise
us up by His own power. You are promised that Christ
shall redeem you. And if you want an illustration
of that, have you ever purchased a house? When you purchase a
house, you give an earnest, a down payment. that says, this is my,
I want this house, I'm going to purchase this house, I'm purchasing
this house and here's three thousand bucks to let you know that I'm
serious about this. And then you show back up on
the day of closing and you finalize the deal and you take that house
over because you've redeemed it, it's your house and you're
coming again to lay claim to that house. And so it is that
the Lord is going to come again, He's going to return again because
he's already purchased it with his own blood and he's given
the down payment of the Holy Spirit and he's going to return
and take you to himself. And so God shall raise you from
the dead and we'll be given a new body fashioned like after our
Lord's body and we shall live with him forever. Now the scriptures
confirm the resurrection of the dead. And in fact, there's actually
many types in the scriptures that are also given to us concerning
the resurrection. So if it's not a scripture telling
us that there's a resurrection, there's many pictures, there's
many types, there's many examples that there is a resurrection.
For example, when God put Adam into a deep sleep, that is a
picture of our death. And when he was put into that
deep sleep, what was made? The Lord took a rib from his
side and created Eve. And then when God raised Adam
from his deep sleep, just as he raised Christ from his death,
his bride was brought to him. bride that God had made was brought
to him. And so Christ, when he rose from
the dead, his bride was brought to him. He had saved his bride
in love. Again, Isaac. Isaac was rescued
from death. He was going to be slain by the
knife of Abraham. When God told him, slay your
son Abraham, your only son, put him to death to me. Sacrifice him to me. And on the
third day, God stayed his hand and said, don't do it, Abraham.
And Isaac was delivered from death and returned back to his
father. Again, another picture of the
resurrection of the dead. He received his son from the
dead. And then, of course, there's
Jonah. And Jonah, when he was thrown overboard into that sea
of wrath, he sunk down, down, down into the deep. And let me
tell you. You can't live underwater for
very long. You're going to die by drowning. You're going to suffocate by
drowning. But he went down into the deep,
and he was swallowed by the whale, a picture of the grave encasing
him. And he couldn't get out. He couldn't
get out of that bondage. He was kept shut up in that whale. But after three days, He was
vomited out on the land, and he went and fulfilled that purpose
that God had for him. As Jonas was three days and three
nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And so Christ
had accomplished that work as the surety of his people, and
therefore God delivered him from that bondage of death. that he,
from the grave, it could not hold him, it could not keep him.
His power, his glory, broke through and delivered him from the bondage
of the grave. And the Spirit thereby justified
him, that he is the Son of God. And you who hope in him, who
believe in him, are justified, declared righteous by the true
and living God. We read in scriptures, Paul writing
in Romans 1-4, that he is declared to be the son of God with power
according to the spirit of holiness. How? By the resurrection from
the dead. God's testifying. He's testifying
to us that this is the Savior, the salvation of God, provided
for you whose hope is in him, who believe God in Christ. And
so we that love him, we rejoice at this good news. We rejoice
because the inheritance that is our Savior's is our inheritance. Just like you partake in all
the riches of your husband and everything that he's done and
provided, you're a partaker of it. What's his is yours. You
have every part in that. So it is that we in Christ have
every part in his inheritance. All that is his is ours. And
he is eternal life. And we in him have eternal life. In John 11, verse 25 and 26,
Jesus said to Martha. He's speaking to Martha, but
he says it to you. I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? He asks, do you believe? Do you
believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead? By the
power of the Spirit given unto you, you do believe. Many Jews
did not believe. Many Greeks who heard Paul mocked
him and didn't believe that a man could be raised from the dead.
But you that know Christ, you that have been taught by the
Spirit this humiliation to know what Christ was doing in the
flesh, why he came in the flesh, why he had to come in the flesh,
and what he accomplished in the flesh, and putting away your
sin and dying in your place, you believe that he was also
raised from the dead. He is your hope. He is your joy,
your gladness. You rejoice in him. And therefore,
you that believe him, he says, you too shall be raised from
the dead like me. Because I'm going to come back,
and I'm going to call your name, and you're going to raise up
from that grave your mind. Wherever your ashes are scattered,
I'm going to gather you all up and raise you up with a new body
like unto mine. And so Christ's death reconciled
us to the father. His death reconciled us to the
father, but it's in consequence of his resurrection that we receive
all the blessings of his intercession. Because he was raised in that
we glory in his death and we rejoice in his resurrection. because he's now seated on the
throne, interceding and providing for everything that we need to
deliver us from death and to keep us from going down the pathway
of death, that broad road that leads to destruction. He's keeping
and sustaining us and providing for us. And so I'm gonna close
with three blessings to comfort your heart concerning this. First,
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ declares to you,
whose hope is in Him, that all your debts have been satisfied.
They're all settled. When you stand before the throne
of God, there's nothing remaining for you to do. Christ has done
it all. He's paid every last jot and
tittle that we owe to to holy God and to the law. He's made
an end of the transgression. Sin and death is likened to a
plague. That's just creeping and just
taking over. And there's nothing you can do
to deliver yourself from it. And so men under that plague
are laboring and striving and working and afraid that at the
end, have I done enough good to outweigh the bad that I've
done? That's what the natural man looks
to and trusts in. Have I done enough? And he's
never done enough. To be honest, I've never done it. I can't do
enough. You can't do enough. We'll never satisfy. We'll never
be able to overcome the plague of sin. But in Christ, by the
blood of Christ, that is the cure. That is the elixir, the
salvation, the thing that delivers you from the bondage of fear
and death. So that we're not laboring anymore,
trying to work a righteousness for ourselves, trying to do enough
to settle and cool that fiery conscience, that guilty conscience,
because we know We're made to mourn our sin. Indeed, we are. But we know, especially when
the Spirit blesses it, to hear the gospel again, to know that
Christ is all my hope. He is my salvation. He is my
deliverer. And though I'm not worthy of
his mercy and grace, yet he's given it freely. Doesn't matter
what I want or feel, he's given freely the Lord Jesus Christ
to deliver me from the snare of death so that I may rest in
him, knowing that he has put away my sin and he shall return
and raise me from the dead. And so the righteousness of Christ
declares that we are righteous in and by Christ and His righteousness
is imputed to you that believe. That's why you believe, because
his righteousness is imputed to you. Romans 4, 24 and 25. Righteousness shall be imputed
if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,
who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our
justification. And so Paul asks, who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. He justifies, he declares that
justification in the resurrection of Christ. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. So the first thing, remember,
you are delivered from the plague of sin. It can do you no harm,
no harm. Second, you that believe Christ,
you owe your faith to the gift of the Holy Spirit, to the giving
of the Holy Spirit by God to make you to know what God has
done for you in Christ. Because the giving of the Holy
Spirit finds us and regenerates us, raises us up from death and
gives us life by the Spirit. And so just as we were raised
together with Christ, so we are quickened by the Holy Spirit.
Christ put away our sin, and he sends the Holy Spirit to make
us to know it, to know and to understand what he's done. Titus
3, 5, and 6, not by works of righteousness which we have done.
but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior. And so as I said earlier the
Holy Spirit is that earnest That's the down payment that you are
His and you have no fear of the second death. That's the first
resurrection. The giving of the Holy Spirit
is the first resurrection. When you are raised from spiritual
death and the scriptures tell us you have no fear of the second
death. It has no power, no effect on
you because you've been saved by Christ. You've been healed
and delivered by Christ. Third, Christ's glorious body
is the first fruits. His body is what our body shall
be like when we are raised from the dead. Listen to 1 John 3. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. That just amazes me, that that
body, that Christ is still in. made like unto us, but risen
now, glorified body, we shall be made like unto him, that we
may live forever in the presence of holy God, forever with the
Lord. Paul says, Christ is the first
fruits of them that slept. And then he says, afterward,
they that are Christ's that is coming. He is the first fruit. We shall be made like him. He
says, your Lord says in Revelation 118, I am he that liveth, and
was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell and
death. Brethren rejoice, because this
is good news to us, because Christ not only died to put away our
sins and was buried, not only did he bear that humiliation
that we deserve, but he was raised again from the dead for our justification. I'll close again with John 640. This is the will of him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and you see him
by faith, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and
I will raise him up at the last day. I pray the Lord comfort
your hearts, rejoice you in that glorious good news in Christ,
amen. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you for this glorious good news. And it is indeed good
news to us sinners who have no righteousness of our own to know
that your blood heals us from all our sin, from all the damage,
all the death that we have caused by our own wicked works. and
our own foolishness and folly, both in Adam and in the things
that we ourselves do in our hearts and minds, thoughts, words, and
deeds. But Lord, we thank you that your
blood is sufficient and has overcome all things to put away that which
stood between us and our God, to reconcile us, and to bless
us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for this. We pray
that you would bless this word to our hearts, making us to remember
what Christ has done. If we see family today that do
not know you, Lord, help us as we have opportunity to just simply
declare what Christ has done for us and what he does for sinners
whose only hope is him. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen.