If you'd open your Bibles to
Romans chapter six. Romans chapter six. What shall
we say then, shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? He had just said where sin abounded
or increased, grace increased all the more. And he knew that
someone would put up that challenge if they hadn't already. Shall
we go on sinning? that grace may increase by no
means. We died to sin. How can we live
in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of
us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His
death? We were therefore buried with
Him through baptism into death. in order that just as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too
may live a new life. If we have been united with Him
like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with
Him in His Resurrection. For we know that our old self
was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done
away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because
anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we died
with Christ, we believe that we also will live with him. For we know that since Christ
was raised from the dead, He cannot die again. Death no longer
has mastery or lordship or dominion over Him. The death He died,
He died to sin once for all. But the life He lives, He lives
to God. In the same way, count yourselves
dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do
not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil
desires. Do not offer the parts of your
body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer
yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death
to life, and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments
of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master,
because you are not under law, but under grace. Now, in most
of what is called Christendom, it's virtually impossible to
ignore the fact of the resurrection on this particular Sunday. We
are neither obligated to take special note of the resurrection
on any particular Sunday, nor are we forbidden from doing so. The Lord Jesus assigned no holidays,
which is simply a, if we might say, a corruption of the word
holy days. He did not assign any, so there
are no days on the calendar that are holy unto the Lord. But that
doesn't mean that we cannot, if we want to, say, well, this week, every year, we're going
to take special note of this. We can if we want. The problem is, as with all man-made religious
observances, the act of observing them begins to overtake the event
you're supposed to be taking note of. It's the same thing
with religious symbols. There's a difference between
a religious symbol and an idol. Now, some believe that every
little cross that somebody wears is an idol. I'm sure a lot of
them are. To some, it's just a religious
symbol. The problem is, today's religious symbol becomes tomorrow's
idol. And that's why I'd recommend to people just don't bother with
them, they really don't do any good, and they have the potential
of harm, so why mess with them? Well, it's the same thing with
holidays. And our church does not take note of them, and that's
not anything we do on purpose. I know sometimes I've gotten
up and forgotten that this is supposed to be the Sunday. You
take note of this, that, or the other. Christmas and Easter, get past
me. But that's just fine. It's okay. But sometimes, purposefully not
noticing them makes more of the day than simply acknowledging
y'all. For most of Christendom, they
take note of this or that on this particular day. It was said
of the Puritans, I believe, in the early part of the settling
of this continent, that they were so opposed to particular holidays that they
would specifically go out and make sure to work on those holidays
so that everyone would know they weren't observing them. Well,
we don't have to be one way or the other. Every man should do
what his conscience tells him. In Western culture, there are
these two main religious holidays, Christmas and Easter. And the
historical events that are noted on these holidays are indeed
important and essential aspects of the gospel that we believe.
There is no gospel apart from those historical events. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15,
I'm going to tell you the gospel again. How that Christ died for
our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and raised
on the third day according to the scriptures. Now, he didn't
say anything about the birth of the Lord Jesus because the
fact that he died kind of made his birth obvious. But ours is a historical religion. That, I mean, it's about things
that happened in time, even though they were ordained before time. They actually happened. If you
could somehow or another disprove the reality of Jesus Christ,
if you could somehow or another prove that he did not raise from
the dead, you will have undermined the entirety of the scriptures.
That's just so. If Christ did not raise from
the dead, you and I may as well just sell this building and find
something useful to do with our lives on Sunday. Because Paul
says, if Christ did not raise from the dead, your faith is
vain. It's useless. It's worthless. So these historical events are
important. However, that doesn't mean we
need a special day for them. In fact, we regularly note all
of these historical events. I don't know how many years ago
it was, But I was at the Stone Soup Cafe here in town eating
some breakfast, and it must have been in May, because a lady from
town, and I don't even know what she looks like, didn't know who
she was at the time, though she recognized me as the pastor of
this church, and she said something to the effect, what are you all
going to do for Ascension Sunday? Well, I didn't know there was
such a thing. I said, well, nothing special. You know, we're going to do what
we do every other Sunday. We'll gather and we'll read the
scriptures and sing and pray and preach the gospel. She says,
but without the ascension, there is no gospel. I said, well, you're
right, but that's true of everything Christ did. Nothing that he did
was irrelevant. His birth, absolute necessity
to our salvation, the life that he lived, every detail of it,
in some way or another impacts our salvation. His death, necessary. His resurrection, necessary.
His ascension, necessary. His continual intercession, necessary. And we speak of these things
all the time, one way or another. In fact, I would say this with
regard to the ascension, the ascension of Christ, the fact that he ascended, that
is, he went up, is not even the point of his ascension. The significance
of his ascension is that he ascended to the throne. And I don't imagine
that anyone in this area makes more out of the throne of the
Lord Jesus Christ than we do. If you shall confess with your
mouth Jesus to be Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised
him from the dead, you will be saved. Now what is Paul saying
there? I believe that's in Romans 10. But those are actually confessions
and belief in essentially the same thing. The resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ was just his first step out of death
to the throne. That's all it was. He could have, you know, ascended
right from the grave to the throne. But evidently there was some
necessity to him staying here for 40 days to give some final
instruction to his disciples that they might be witnesses
of his resurrection. But we believe in the resurrection
and all that it signifies. We believe in the ascension and
Because, and we talk about it all the time, not so much as
a historical event, but its significance to wit that Jesus Christ is Lord
of all, Lord over all, absolute ruler in the universe. To think
about his ascension as merely an event that happened 40 days
after the resurrection is to miss the point. And to think of the resurrection
as nothing more than a historical event that took place three days
after the crucifixion is also to miss the point. It's the significance
of these historical events that is important. There are many who take note
of our Lord's birth death, resurrection, and ascension, yet have no real
understanding of what those events mean, because if they knew what
they meant, they wouldn't worship as they do. And I had noticed this, and I
say it as a generality, the more that a church takes special note
of days associated with particular historical
events of the gospel, the more pageantry associated with it
and all of that, the less they understand the significance of
what they're supposedly celebrating. The same thing is even true when
it comes to the Lord's table and baptism. The only two ceremonies
the Lord commanded us to observe, even they become idols to people. But I would like to take note
of what the Lord's resurrection means. And first of all, let's
for a minute take it as the disciples must
have taken it and understood it when they first heard about
it. And to understand how they felt
about it, you've got to consider the previous
three days. And we all know what it's like
to lose a loved one. I imagine nearly all of us do. But there was none like the Lord
Jesus. And it was more than love that
they had for him. They adored him. They had set
their hopes on him. They had believed him. They had
been open to others about their confidence in him. And then they saw him arrested,
tried, beaten, crucified, and buried. Now, can you imagine
the mixture of sorrow, confusion, disappointment, fear, and even
embarrassment that they must be feeling. You know, believers are sometimes
mocked as simpletons for believing the
gospel. And the reason we endure that
is because we believe it's true and at the end we'll be vindicated.
Well, from their viewpoint, they had believed and they had suffered
some mockery for it. And it looks to them like their
enemies were right. They were in hiding. But as the dawn started on the first day of the
new week, Some women went to the tomb of
our Lord to do what was considered an honorable and respectful treatment
of a body. They hadn't had time to do it
on the day he was crucified. And when they got there, angels
told them he was not in the tomb, but that he was risen from the
dead. Now when you read the various
accounts of the resurrection, or of resurrection morning, it
may appear as though they conflict, but they aren't conflicting,
it's just each of the accounts in the gospel accounts are noting
different details. And I'm not gonna try to untangle
all of that, but there's one moment that I think will give
us a sense, well, actually two events on the day of resurrection,
one in the morning, one later in the afternoon and evening,
that will give us a sense of how the disciples reacted to
this. And the first one was when Mary
Magdalene was there at the tomb, and she's so broken. She is filled with a grief unspeakable. And she's weeping, and she sees
the Lord, but doesn't recognize him, probably because of her
tears. And she thought he was the gardener.
And she says, where have you taken him? And he responds, Mary. Now, I would imagine it was the
sound of his voice, and she'd probably heard him say Mary so
many times. The moment she heard him, she
knew what it was. Can you imagine what that felt
like? Can you imagine the sudden dissipation
of the fog in her mind? Bible says she grabbed him around
the legs. And the King James says something
to the effect, you know, don't cling to me. I've not ascended
to the father yet. And I've heard people say things
like, well, yes, he had not yet gone to the fathers and he didn't
want to be defiled. Well, if that's what that meant,
it was too late. She'd already defiled him. No,
I think what he's saying, Mary, you don't have to hold on. I'm
not going to the father yet. I'm not leaving right now. You're not going to lose me." That's part of the meaning of
the Resurrection. We're not going to lose Him. He died, yes, but He's alive
forevermore. The second event that will give
you a sense of how the disciples must have felt about that resurrection
and significance was when those two disciples were on their way
to Emmaus and the Lord joined up with them and they didn't
recognize him. And that was a miraculous act
of God. He didn't want them to know who
Jesus was at that point. He was going to have, the Lord
was going to have a conversation with them that would have gotten
derailed if they'd have known who it was. And they were, of
course, looking kind of downcast and confused. And he said, you
know, what's up? And they says, well, surely you
heard about. And they started telling some
things about the Lord Jesus and said and he was crucified. And then today we heard from
some women that they'd seen a vision of angels and he'd raised from
the dead. And, you know, we had hoped that he was the Messiah. Savior of Israel. And the Lord said, oh, how foolish
and slow of heart you are to believe all that the prophets
have said. And beginning there, he began to tell them all about
him throughout all the Old Testament scriptures and the prophecies
made concerning him, both in his life and his suffering and
death and resurrection. And they get to the place there
at Emmaus, and he ate with them. And he broke the bread. And they
recognized him. And then he just disappeared. But they suddenly realized who
it is they'd been talking to. Because it hadn't been that many
days previous they'd seen him break the bread and say, this
is my body, which is broken for you. They said, did not our hearts
burn within us as He talked with us in the way? Oh, the blessedness that must
have filled their hearts when they realized that the misery
of the last three days on their part was all for nothing. He wasn't dead. He died. But he wasn't dead. In November, I think it was,
yeah, November of 1970, I was in the 10th grade. And the university
near us, Marshall University, the football team was coming
home from a game. And their plane crashed, killed
everybody. I mean, they were just a quarter of a mile short
of the runway. And I remember it. If you've
seen the movie, We Are Marshall, that's what it's about. And I
was in the 10th grade when that happened. And we were watching
television. And news broke in the local station
and said there are reports coming from the airport that the plane
carrying the Marshall University team is late and that there has been
a plane crashed. I remember my mother saying,
they shouldn't be announcing something until they know something,
and until there's been time to give the families notice. But
as they went on and confirmed that indeed that was the plane,
you know, there were a lot of people in Huntington found out
that their loved ones were dead. The interesting thing is, as
they were boarding the plane after the game, one of the fellows
that was supposed to be on the plane wanted to go and do some
scouting. He was trying to recruit somebody
for the next year. And so he traded places with
a guy that had a car. And he drove his car to where
this young man lived. And then later on, drove back
to West Virginia the next day. And at this point, he was unaware
of what had happened. However, his family had been
watching TV and thought he was on that plane. They thought he
was dead. And then all at once, there he
is. He drives up in the driveway,
comes in the door as though nothing has happened. Now, can you imagine
what that felt like to that family? You get something of what this
was to the disciples. It says, they could not believe
it for joy. And that's something. Why are
they so full of joy if they don't believe it? Well, if you've ever
heard news that good, it's like you know what it's meant by.
Can't believe it for joy. It's too good to be true. But it is true. The Lord's resurrection has special
significance. He's not the only person to raise
from the dead. After all, it wasn't that long
before his own death that he had raised Lazarus from the dead. And there are other accounts
of resurrections even in the Old Testament. But there was
something unique about our Lord's resurrection because there was
something unique about his death. You see, our Lord died like no
one has ever died before. You say, well, lots of people
got crucified. That's true. But you've heard me make this
point before, but I won't make it again, because it's a real
important one. He's actually the only man who ever has truly,
completely died. Everybody else is either in that
category of never will die, or will die forever. And by that
I mean they will be in a process of dying forever, suffering death
eternally. Because whatever it is they suffer
is never going to be enough to justify them from their sins
and thereby they are delivered from death. Look at this verse
here. Verse 7, anyone who has died
has been freed from sin. Now that word translated freed,
I don't even know why they translated that but nearly every translation
does it. It is the verb that so far as I know everywhere else
is translated as justified. Justified from their sins. Declared
righteous. Well, those in hell are never
justified from their sins because they're never done dying. Our
Lord said, it is finished. On the Mount of Transfiguration,
it says that Moses and Elijah spoke to Him of the death He
would accomplish in Jerusalem. I remember Brother Tim James
one time said, whoever considered death an accomplishment? For Christ it was. Nobody else
has ever accomplished it yet. They either never died or they're
still dying and will be dying for eternity. Jesus Christ fully died. because he came here for the
specific purpose of dying, John 12, 27. Our Lord says, what shall
I say? Father, save me from this hour. It's for this very hour that
I came into the world. This is the reason I came here,
was to die. Now we're all gonna die, but
our death is not the purpose of our life, is it? But it was the purpose of the
Lord's natural life. The only reason he became a man
was so that he could die as a substitute for humans. If he came, and he, I mean, he
was perfectly at liberty to do so, but if he had been born and
never died, it wouldn't have done us any
good. He came as the sin bearer, as
the lamb provided by God. Do you remember Abraham and Isaac
going up the mountain for the sacrifice? And Isaac says, Father,
you've got the fire. And I assume by that, he meant
like a little tinderbox with coals in it, something they can
start fire with. And he says, I've got the wood. Where is the lamb for the sacrifice? Isaac knew what was going on.
And Abraham says, the Lord will provide for himself a lamb for
the offering. And many years later, John the
Baptist said, behold, the lamb of God, the lamb provided by
God, it takes away the sin of the world. That's why he came.
He came for the express purpose of dying. And nothing else that he did
would have had any significance to our eternal well-being. if
he had not died. Why did he die? He died because
sin was upon him. Christ charged the sins of his
elect to the Lord Jesus Christ. We say he bore our sins in his
body on the tree, but when Christ speaks of it, he says, my sins He has bound
my sins around my neck as a yoke. He took my sins and my sorrows.
He made them his very own." Now, folks, if you offend me,
I can forgive. I say I can. I'm not saying I
would. I'm not trying to brag about myself. I'm just saying
I can forgive your offense against me. But I can't do anything about
your sin against God. I can't bear your sin. I can
bear my own. Through unbelief, I can bear
my own. But I'll never be done bearing it. But I cannot, do
not have the authority to make your sin to be mine. And stand before God and make
atonement. But our Lord is a unique person
with a unique life and is the spotless Lamb of God. He was
able to bear the sins of others. He shall bear the sins of many,
says the scripture, Isaiah 53. Why? Again, Isaiah 53, the Lord
laid on him the iniquity of us all. Who's the us all? All his
sheep who'd gone astray. You say, well, everybody in the
world's gone astray. That's true, but not everybody in the world's
his sheep. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray, but the Lord
has laid on him, has charged him, imputed to him all our sin. Friends, you and I know, if we know anything
about God at all, we know what wicked sinners we are. And we sin and don't even think
twice about it. We sin and think we did good.
Sometimes our sins do bring us down some, but those who who
make some kind of sacrament out of coming to some deep understanding
of your sinfulness. They're wasting their efforts.
None of us have any real idea of how sinful we are because
none of us has any real idea of what perfect righteousness
is. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world without sin. He never fought anything sinful,
never said anything sinful, never did anything sinful. And on the day of crucifixion,
God, the judge of all, charged him with every sin of his people. And I'm not going to try to figure
out what this did to our Lord, how He felt about it. All I know
is He was in absolute misery that you and I can talk about
but cannot understand. What must it be like to be absolutely
pure and at the same time polluted with the sins of a multitude
no one can number. He who for eternity had enjoyed
perfect and unbroken fellowship with the Father says, my God,
my God, why have you forsaken me? We go all day and don't think
anything about God. But within a space of about three
hours, if I understand it right, Our Lord endured the fullness
of death, the death with which Adam was cursed because of sin. And our Lord endured everything
it means to die." And he said, it's finished. And while it's not recorded in
the scriptures, God, the judge of all the earth, said, yes,
it's finished. And it says anyone who has died
has been justified from sin. Our Lord Jesus Christ really,
completely, fully died and was justified from all the sin that
had been charged to His account as though He Himself had done
it. What's the significance of the resurrection? That He actually
did, by His death, put away all the sin that He bore. It's gone. The resurrection is God's declaration
that Jesus Christ is righteous. The crucifixion declared that
he was a sinner. We know that he never changed
in his character, but that's what the crucifixion declared.
It declared him to be a curse, declared him to be cut off from
God. That never happens if there isn't sin on you. So there was
sin on him. So he died because sin was on
him. But having died and even fully
died, he was thereby justified from all the sins that he bore. And when he came out of the grave,
he did not leave the grave with the same kind of life he had
before the grave. He came out with a resurrected life. You
know, when the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus
came out pretty much like when he went in to the grave. He was
unchanged. because he died later. So the life that he came out
of the grave with was the same kind of life he had before he
died and was put in the tomb. But our Lord, it says, he died
under sin once for all. And that was because he had been
born under the law, and as one born under the law, he could
be charged with sin. And he was charged with our sin.
But when he died, he came out not as one born under the law,
but as one free from it. He cannot be charged with sin.
It's a different life. And I don't mean a different
lifestyle. Now, this new life, when it's
created in us, ought to produce something of a different lifestyle
than what we had before. But our Lord, there was nothing
wrong with his personal lifestyle before he died. But he came out
with a different kind of life, having been justified from all
sin. And Paul goes on to say, if we die with Christ, we believe
we will also live with him. Now, there's a significance of
Christ's resurrection. Just as we died with him, so
shall we live with him. For we know that since Christ,
this verse nine, was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery,
lordship, dominion over him. Now, death has dominion only
when sin can be charged. Only the guilty die. Our Lord is not guilty. He said, well, he wasn't guilty
of anything when he died. Yes, he was guilty. He was guilty
with our sin. He was under the law, and since
our sins were charged to him, he became guilty before the law
of God, and he suffered the penalty that God had decreed for sin,
death. But having fully accomplished
death, he was justified, declared righteous, clear, free from all
those things he had been charged with. The price had been paid. Therefore, never again can death
have any authority. And that's what this word dominion
means. It's not talking about power,
it's talking about authority. Death has no authority over the
Lord Jesus Christ. The death that he died, he died
to sin once for all. Doesn't need to be done again.
We observe the Lord's table, but it's an entirely symbolic
act. It is not a repeat of the sacrifice of Christ. It's a symbolic
representation of the death of Christ and his sacrifice. He died once for all, and the
reason it's once for all is because it worked. The death of the unbeliever
doesn't work because he's never justified from his sins. And
it just keeps going on and on and on for eternity. The Lord
Jesus Christ, his death worked. A real, complete, and perfect
death that put away sin. And therefore, sin has no more
authority over him. But the life he lives, he lives
to God. Now, that sounds like a strange
contrast. You would think that he would say, the death that
he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives,
he lives to righteousness. Well, the point, I believe, and
this is common with Paul when he makes these contrasts, he
goes beyond the simple contrast, and he's saying he died to sin
once for all, a single event never to be repeated. But the
life that he has is unto God, the eternal God. And the life
he has unto God will never end. So the resurrection tells us
that Jesus Christ truly put away all the sins that he bore. And
having come forth from the grave, he's no longer under the dominion
of the law, sin, and death in any way, shape, or form. He cannot
die again. He ever lives to make intercession
for his people. Now, what's the significance
to us? Verse 5, if we have been united
with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united
with him in his resurrection. When he died, he died unto sin
once because he got the job done. Doesn't need doing again. He
died and it put away all the sin that he bore, and he was
justified from all that sin. And listen carefully. We who
are his people died with him. Died fully. And having died, we are justified
from all our sins. And death has no more authority
over us. It has some authority over these
bodies, but even that's limited. I don't know when the Lord will
return. Maybe some of us will live that
long. We have no way of knowing. But if the Lord doesn't come
pretty quick, a lot of us are going to die in the natural sense
of the word. But here's the thing. We will
not have really died. We will have merely put off that
which remains of the old self. which will lie patiently in the
ground until the Lord returns and raises that from the dead.
That's why our Lord said, he that lives and believes in me
will never die, and he that believes in me, even though he dies, yet
shall he live. We all fear death somewhat. It's
a frightening thing to consider. But we don't need to. Sin. Down here in verse 14, sin shall
not be your master. That actually says sin shall
not have dominion, authority over you because you're not under
law, you're under grace. If you're under law, sin and
death has authority over you. But if you're under grace, It doesn't have any authority
over you. Why? Because its authority was entirely
satisfied in Jesus Christ. And just as He rose from the
grave without sin and therefore not subject to death, all of
us in Him rose with Him, and we are not subject to that eternal
death that the unbelieving world will endure forever. And even
though we die in the flesh, yet we go on living in the Spirit
And even these, as Paul says, vile mortal bodies shall someday
be raised from the dead like he was, no longer a part of the
cursed world but part of a new heaven and new earth. New bodies that think right,
feel right, work right. Don't desire things that shouldn't
be desired. Glorious, perfect, and righteous." Brethren, that's the significance
of the Resurrection, that by His death, Christ actually put
away all those sins, and no one is ever going to pay for any
of the sins He bore, because He already paid for them. And
God will not demand payment twice. Brother Mahan once said, and
it's just one of the things he said that hit me like a bolt
of lightning, if Christ paid my debt, I don't owe it. I'm free of the debt. I'm justified. You say, I would sure like that
to be true of me. Trust him. Cast your soul upon him, and
you will discover. It is true of you. You will not have made it true
of you, but through faith, the God-given faith of the Holy Spirit,
we come to realize what God has freely given us in Christ, that
we are justified, sinless in His sight, in death has no more
dominion over us. Heavenly Father, bless your word. May it be powerful in our hearts
to work in us even those things Paul also mentioned, that we
would consider ourselves indeed to be dead unto sin. Lord, we
confess we're not dead to its power. But oh, how blessed to
know we're dead to its authority. Sin cannot bring us into condemnation
anymore, for our sin has been borne by your son, the Lord Jesus. Father, blessed be your name
for giving him in our behalf. Lord Jesus, blessed be your name
for offering yourself without spot to God. Holy Spirit, blessed
be your name, for telling us about it and giving us faith
to believe it. Jehovah, our God, we praise you
in every aspect of your being for your goodness and grace to
us. Amen.