Matthew 22 verse 23. The same
day came to him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection,
and asked him, saying, Master, Moses said, if a man die, having
no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed
to his brother. Now, there were with us seven
brethren, and the first when he had married a wife, deceased,
and having no issue, left his wife unto his brother. Likewise,
the second also, and the third unto the seventh. And last of
all, the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection,
whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her. It's clear, hopefully, that what
the Sadducees are describing here is a situation more than
likely fabricated. They made it up. If it had really
happened, it would be most unusual for a woman to have had seven
husbands. And according to Moses' law,
if her first husband died, and they had no male child, then
she was to marry her brother. Her brother was to marry her,
and then he, after they were married, they would have children,
hopefully, and he would name those children by the name of
his first brother. That was Moses' law, and it was
done that way, I think, mostly because at that time, the inheritance
went with the man and his children. So if he had no children, or
had no male children, then he would lose his inheritance if
his daughters married someone else. So, that was the situation,
and I believe it was fabricated because if they wanted to make
their point, they could have used just two. They could have
said, a second brother married her, and they both died without
children. And then in the resurrection,
if there is a resurrection, which is what they were trying to disprove,
the resurrection, if there was a resurrection, then that would
create an unsolvable problem. Because now there's two men who
need to be married to the same woman, and in heaven, how do
we know which one's going to be married to her? Therefore,
that must disprove the resurrection. That was the Sadducees argument.
A pretty weak argument. But they use this figure of seven
brothers to make it even more absurd, thinking that by making
it more absurd, they would be able to make the doctrine of
the resurrection a laughable doctrine. And of course Jesus
taught the resurrection, so they came to Jesus with this question.
But look at verse 29. Jesus answered and said to them,
You do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. For in
the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but are as the angels of God in heaven. It's interesting that
the Sadducees, there were three things that I know from reading
the commentaries the Sadducees believed. They did not believe
in angels. Actually, you didn't have to
read the commentaries, it's in Acts 23. They didn't believe in angels.
They didn't believe in the resurrection. And they only believed that the
first five books of Moses were the legitimate Old Testament
scriptures. The rest of them were not to
be treated as significant. So they thought that they had
him. They used Moses as the basis of their argument because they
cited this law of Moses where the brother must marry his brother
when her first husband died and so on. But Jesus answered, He
says, "...you do greatly err not knowing the Scriptures, nor
the power of God. For in the resurrection they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels
of God in heaven." So he claims, by his statement there, that
A. there are angels, B. there is a resurrection, and
C. contrary to their understanding,
there's no marriage in heaven. There's no need for marriage
in heaven. Because God's done with all of his elect. He's done
with mankind in terms of having more of mankind be procreating
through the process of marriage. But in verse 31 it says Jesus
really gets to the heart of it. He says, "...but as touching
the resurrection." You have to understand their attitude. These
men were foolish. I would compare them to clowns. really, clowns, because they
came really not thinking through what they were saying. And they
were considered the worldly religionists. The Pharisees were the strict
religionists. So if you saw the Sadducees,
people tend to mock them, because they weren't really, they didn't
believe in angels, they didn't believe in the resurrection,
it was just in this life, and they only believed the first
five books of Moses. There were a lot of things that they had
wrong. But Jesus, even though they ask a foolish question,
He takes their question and answers it for the sake of His people. If they hadn't asked this foolish
question, and if God hadn't seen fit to record it in Scripture,
then His answer would have been lost, and we would never have
it. But now we have it. And so look at verse 31, "...but
as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read..."
Now he's going to refer to the five books of Moses here. "...that
which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." God is
not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude
heard this, they were astonished at His doctrine." Isn't that
amazing? His teaching from that scripture
would never, I'm convinced, would have never been understood had
not Jesus Himself explained it. Now, the Lord Jesus is the Word
of God. And when He refers to that scripture,
and uses that scripture to teach the resurrection, He not only
just quotes a scripture that says, there is a resurrection,
or God raises the dead. There were plenty of scriptures
like that, and we're going to look at some of them. But he
uses a scripture that's so penetrating into the depths of this doctrine. that only the One who is the
Word of God would have understood, by the Spirit of God, would have
understood what that text was teaching. That's how powerful
this scripture was when Jesus brought it forth from Exodus
chapter 3, and we're going to look at that in a minute. But
before we do, and I want you to recognize here a couple of
things at the outset and in the context. As I mentioned in the
bulletin, three parables Jesus gave to give a warning to the
chief priests, to the Pharisees, to the scribes, to the rulers,
and the elders, and the Sadducees. Three parables. And in those
three parables, He condemned them. But in every parable, as
we've seen, as we've gone through there, the grace of God shines
forth. But after those three parables,
as I said last week, rather than seeking His counsel, how they
might be turned, because they were spoken against them, they
took counsel together against Him. How they might take Him
and entrap Him and arrest Him and kill Him. That shows you
the determined stubbornness of self-righteous unbelief. These
men suffered from one basic thing. They did not submit to Jesus
Christ. That was their greatest sin.
They did not submit to Jesus Christ. What He told them, they
didn't believe. They didn't believe about God,
what He said. They didn't believe about themselves. And they certainly
didn't believe about Him, what He said. And so, Jesus told them,
as long as they remained in that condition, they would perish
in their unbelief. But then, three times, on the
same day, and here in Matthew 22, three times, Jesus is attacked
by these same men. The first one we went over last
week, where they came to Him and they asked Him, or they tried
to ask Him about taxes in order to entrap Him. And we saw what
that was all about last week. How Jesus said their problem
was not whether taxes were right or wrong. Their problem was that
they didn't give God what was God's. And if you look back at
the three parables, they didn't give him the obedience in the
first one. They didn't give him the fruit
of the vineyard. They didn't understand or believe
the gospel. They didn't preach it, and so
they didn't bring forth the fruit of the gospel from God's people.
They were given the oracles of God, but Jesus said the gospel's
going to be taken from you. And then in the third parable,
in the wedding feast, they didn't respect the king, didn't respect
his son, didn't respect his bride, didn't respect his marriage.
They didn't respect the fact that the king had prepared a
feast in the gospel of Christ and Him crucified. And they turned
from those things to their own destruction. Like 2 Timothy 3
around verse 15 says, Wicked men will wax worse and worse,
being deceived and deceiving others. That's what these men
were. And so, in these three times, though, Jesus is attacked,
something happens that's very significant. Every time He's
attacked, He comes out more gloriously. And this is the wonder of our
Savior. It's like having a hero you're watching in life. Every
time there's a problem, that hero seems bigger and stronger
and better than you ever thought before. That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. To His people's adoring awe and
wonder, He comes out on top. in the face of his enemies. And
here in the second attack by the Sadducees, he comes out on
top and his own enemies admire and are astounded by his wisdom.
Isn't that amazing? They were astounded at his wisdom.
Because every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And so we
see here that in this attack, now, on the question of the resurrection,
on the same day, in the same week when they were going to
take him and crucify him, after he had ridden into Jerusalem,
in the same week, He's coming out on top. The scripture is
anticipating the fact that He's going to also come out on top
the most gloriously in this particular case. Because they deny the resurrection,
they're going to take Him and put Him to death. And guess what?
He's going to raise again from the dead. and to his people's
salvation and their wonder and worship forever. And so, if you
see the context here, I think it makes us stand in awe at how
God the Holy Spirit spoke through the Apostle Matthew to bring these things to us in
the Gospel. How glorious our Savior is, even
in the face of the worst enemies. Satan himself could find nothing
in Him, and now Satan's children could find nothing in Him. But
Jesus speaks of the resurrection. But before He did that, He said
to the Sadducees, "...you do greatly, not knowing the scriptures
or the power of God. Hebrews 6 says the doctrine of
the resurrection is a fundamental truth. They rejected the fundamental
truth that Jesus taught. They rejected the fundamental
truth of Scripture. They were ignorant of Scripture.
They did not know the Scriptures. They came to Jesus with Scripture,
but they didn't know the Scriptures. How foolish. That's why I call
them clowns. Because they came presumptuously,
almost mocking like school children would in an argument when they
didn't really know what they were talking about. And they're
made fools of themselves before the Lord of Glory. But it says
in Proverbs 26 verse 12 that a fool is wiser in his own conceit
than seven men that can render a reason. Isn't that true? We in ourselves Before the Lord opens our eyes
to show us our own foolishness, we think ourselves to be wise
and we will not hear the truth. So these men didn't know the
scriptures. And not knowing the scriptures, they did greatly
err. They made a mistake. They completely
missed the truth. And that teaches us that scripture
is the only way we know the truth. If we don't know scripture, we
have to be in error. If we don't believe God's Word,
we have to be in error. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 3 says,
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word
of God. It's only through faith, in believing what God has said,
that we understand anything at all. But the natural man does
not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness
to him. He cannot know them because they're spiritually discerned.
And a natural man is not a spiritual man. So these men didn't know
the Scripture. How often Here's a question. How do we know we understand
the Scriptures? How do we know we know the Scriptures?
Isn't that a reasonable question? A lot of people talk about the
Bible. A lot of people can quote Scripture.
But how do we know that we truly know the Scriptures? Jesus said
to the Pharisees, he says, search the scriptures, for in them you
think you have eternal life, but these are they which testify
of me. The only way you know you know
the scriptures is if you know from the scriptures Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, risen and reigning. Jesus Christ is the
Word of God. He's the subject of God's Word. And He's the one who fulfilled
God's Word. It came from Him. It's about Him. He gave it. He
spoke it. And He's the one who fulfilled
it and who will reveal it to us in His grace and make known
the fact that He's done it in glory. All that He said will
be shown to have come about exactly. Every jot and tittle. and He
will have brought it to pass." So knowing from Scripture, the
Lord Jesus Christ is the only way we know we know the Scriptures.
The Sadducees clearly did not know the Scriptures. They rejected
Christ. They rejected His words. So that's
the first thing. I want you to see that before
we go much further. How often we hear this phrase,
and yet it bears repeating, that the Bible is a hymn book. It's about the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's about Him. So I want you to first see that.
Now, there's several things about the Resurrection that I want
to cover, and I believe that it's going to take two messages
to cover them. It turns out the Resurrection
is mentioned throughout Scripture, both in the Old Testament and
in the New Testament. And I would like to take you
to some of those scriptures, but before I do, I want to ask
a simple question, a couple of questions to you, to get you
to think from scripture what God is, why this subject is so important. So let's ask this question first.
What is the resurrection? What does it mean? What does
the resurrection mean? Now, before we answer that question,
we have to ask this question, what is death? Don't we? What
is death? And what is life? And so, let
me ask you this question. Have you ever thought about the
resurrection as God? Well, first of all, we might
think of death as this. Death is sort of like the disassembly
of a man. When he dies, he decays and he
returns to the dust, the chemicals, and the air, and the water, and
everything that he is as a chemical composition. His cells and everything
just deteriorate. His bones return to minerals.
Everything just returns to the dust, as the scripture says.
We might think of death as just that. Man returning just to the
dust. And therefore we might think
of the resurrection as God just reassembling a man from the dirt,
from the dust. Is that what the resurrection
is? Is that what death is? If that's true, then why couldn't
God just simply recreate man from the dirt that He first created
him from and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life again?
Would that not be sufficient for the resurrection? But the
problem with that is that the resurrection is life from the
dead. And because it's life from the
dead, it requires more than just a reassembly. Because when we
think about this question, what is death? We find from scripture
a few things. First of all, death in its most
basic definition is a separation from God. A separation from the
life of God and the light of God. The light of God. Death
in the scripture is compared to darkness, to spiritual death. Their understanding is darkened
in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 8. As I mentioned before, 1 Corinthians
2.14, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit
of God. They're foolishness to him. He
can't know them because they're spiritually discerned. So death
is the absence of the light of God in the soul. It's a separation. It's an isolation, a separation
from God because of sin. That's what death is. Death really
is just the result of sin. Wherever there's sin, you know
this, there's death. Wherever there's sin, there's
death. The wages of sin is death. In the day, God told Adam and
Eve, that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. In the very
day. So death occurs when sin enters. And death is separation
from God. It's darkness in the soul. It's
a lack of spiritual discernment. You can't perform any of the
functions of life if you're dead, can you? When you're dead, your
heart's not beating, you're not breathing, your cells aren't
reproducing, your mind has no mental activity. You're dead. You don't see, you don't feel,
you don't sense things. You're dead. You don't respond.
There's nothing. There's no functions. There's
no signs of life when you're dead. And the Lord says that
we by nature, because of our sin, we are dead in trespasses
and sins. We don't have any spiritual life. No discernment. No ability to
perform the functions of spiritual life. No response to spiritual
things. We're dead. And death causes corruption.
Corruption begins shortly after death. Remember Lazarus had been
in the grave four days and Martha said that she didn't want the
stone rolled away because he would be facing the shame and
reproach of corruption because of death. So that's the things
we learn about death. So let me ask these questions.
In fact, here's a verse for you in Ephesians 4.19. It says, "...that
they, being past feeling, have given themselves over to work
all uncleanness with greediness." That's what it means to be death.
Being past feeling. Not having any feeling. A dead
man can't see, can't hear, smell, taste. Doesn't sense pain. He
doesn't know happiness. He doesn't know joy. He doesn't
understand things. Okay, so think about that on
a spiritual realm. No feeling, no sense, no awareness
of spiritual things. You know why it's so difficult
to describe life? Because of sin, we're dead. And if you're dead, how can you
possibly describe life? You're completely outside the
realm of life. And so it's difficult, isn't
it, to describe even what life is and death is in the spiritual
sense because we're naturally spiritually dead in our sins.
We don't understand the things of God. They have to be made
known to us. God's light has to shine. So
what is life? life. Jesus said, I am the life. I am the life. The only life
that there is, is in Jesus Christ. That's so primary, so fundamental,
that we can quickly pass over it. Jesus told Martha, I am the
resurrection and the life. Light is the life of Christ in
the soul. Life in us is the life of Christ
in the soul, but life truly is just Jesus Christ. Life is in
Him, He says. And so light also is, because
it's life in the soul, that's the first place we recognize
life. Life brings with it the light of faith. The light of
God's word in the gospel is given to us. God commands the light
to shine in the darkness of our death. And that light gives us
light so that by faith we can see the one who is the light
and alive. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
Physical life consists in the functions and signs of life,
like mental activity and so on. Heartbeat, breathing, and life
also includes sense and feeling in a spiritual sense. Spiritual
life consists of light in the soul. Jesus said in John 3.36,
He that believeth on me He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. How do we know we have life?
We believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We see. We understand. We're persuaded of the things
of Christ. We depend upon Him. We live upon
Him. Remember what Paul says? I live
by faith on the Son of God. And so we see that life has to
do everything with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, back to the question
about the resurrection. If the resurrection is simply
a reassembly of man from the decay of death and corruption,
then God could simply recreate man the same way He created him
the first time. But because resurrection is life
from the dead, and death is because of sin, the only way there can
be a resurrection is if God first takes care of sin. Sin. Death is the payback for sin. Death is the punishment of God's
justice against the sinner. It's the removal of God's presence. The removal of God's light. The
removal of all understanding. Spiritual understanding and comfort
and life in God. It's separation from God. So
the resurrection requires dealing with sin. Dealing with sin. And therefore, it requires that
the Lord Jesus Christ come. And that's why it's so significant
when He says, I am the resurrection and the life. How could Jesus
be the resurrection and the life? Well, you could think immediately,
the first thing we think of, well He's God. He can just raise
people from the dead, just speak to them. But it takes more than
just a command with the power of God to raise a man. It takes
a fulfillment of God's justice, an atonement for sin, a removal
of sin. And the person being raised has
to be made righteous, perfectly righteous, without sin. Then
life can be given in the soul and in the body. So resurrection
requires that sin be removed, that righteousness be established,
that God be propitiated, atonement be made, a reconciliation. The separation has to be removed.
God's wrath against the sinner has to be taken away. And that
is what happened in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he could
say he is the resurrection and the life. Because he himself
became He became man. He took the sins of His people.
He bore those sins before God and He fulfilled the promises
of God to remove those sins in making satisfaction for them
by Himself and in Himself to God. And that is why He gives
life. He did that for His people and
all those for whom He died are risen with Him. So that's what
the resurrection is in just a short nutshell. Now, when the Lord
Jesus answered these men in the Sadducees in Matthew chapter
22, He says, And then he went on to say that
regarding the resurrection, he says, haven't you read what Moses
said, or what God said? Moses recorded it, what God said
in Exodus chapter 3. So look back at Exodus chapter
3, where this was spoken by God. Notice it says in Exodus chapter
3 that what was going on here in verses 1, through 5 is that
God spoke to Moses out of the bush. In verse 2 it says, "...the
angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of
the midst of the bush." And he looked, and behold, the bush
burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed." Now, this
little verse here, verse 2, is speaking about the fact that
the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who was in the bush. He's
the one who spoke out of the bush. The bush being burned but
not consumed has to do with the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ,
in His human nature, bore the wrath of God against Himself
because He bore the sins of His people, and yet that wrath was
not consumed. And it also refers to the fact
that God is a consuming fire, but the Lord Jesus Christ was
not consumed by that He satisfied God's justice for His people.
So He speaks to Moses out of the bush. And Moses said, I will,
in verse 3, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why
the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he
turned aside, God called to him out of the midst of the bush.
You see that? The Lord Jesus Christ is God, one with the Father
and with the Spirit. And he said to Moses, Moses! And he said, Moses, Moses! And
Moses said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not hither,
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground. Because God was there. It was
holy. Verse six, moreover he said, now listen carefully, I
am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he
was afraid to look upon God. He didn't just say, I'm the God
of Abraham. If he had just said, I'm the God of Abraham, then
he could have said, well, he's the God only of Abraham. Or he
could have said, well, we could think maybe he's the God of all
of Abraham's descendants. But he's not the God of all of
Abraham's descendants. He was not the God of Ishmael.
He was the God of Isaac. He was not the God of Isaac's
descendants. He was not the God of... not
all of them. He was not the God of Esau. He
was the God of Jacob. And he says here specifically,
He was the God of Jacob. So we know in this pattern that
God is not the God of every person. He's the God of His people. Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob are named. Ishmael and Esau are not named. Nor are Abraham's brothers. Nahor
and his father And these others are not named. He gives his name
to Abraham. He says he's the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Now look at verse 15. Exodus
3, verse 15. And God said, moreover unto Moses,
and I should read verse 13. I'll read verse 13. He says,
Moses said, said to God, Behold, when I am come to the children
of Israel, and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent
me to you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What
shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am that
I am. And he said, Thus thou shalt
say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And
God said moreover unto Moses, listen carefully, Thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and
this is my memorial to all generations." Now, Jesus told the Sadducees
that when Jesus said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob, That what he was saying there is that he's
not the... Combine that with the fact that
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. That he meant
that he was the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and they
therefore were living. How could he make that connection?
How could the Lord Jesus Christ make those two things, connect
those two things, based on the rest of Scripture? How could
he say that he's the God of the living? Well, look at Psalm chapter
90. Again, this is what Moses said.
These guys only claim to believe what Moses wrote in the first
five books of the Bible. But here it is in Psalm 90. Moses
is speaking here. He wrote this Psalm. Look at
verse 1. This is a beautiful, beautiful
scripture. Psalm 90 verse 1. Thou hast been
our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought
forth, wherever Thou hast formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. Where is our dwelling
place? It's in God. And who is God? He's the One who is from everlasting
to everlasting. Therefore, our place in God,
our connection with Him, necessitates the fact that as eternal as God
is, so are His people in Him. Our dwelling place is in Him
through all generations. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 33. Deuteronomy 33, another beautiful
verse of Scripture. Verse 27. The eternal God. He always adds that. He doesn't
just say God, but the eternal God. From everlasting to everlasting. He says, the eternal God is thy
refuge. And underneath are the everlasting
arms. And he shall thrust out the enemy
from before thee, and shall say, destroy them. Who is our enemy? We know that death is our enemy,
isn't it? What's God going to say to death? Destroy them. What's He going to say to our
sins? Destroy them. What is He going to say to Satan?
Destroy them. And to all who follow them, destroy
them. Because they're the enemies of
God's people. From everlasting to everlasting, God is God. God
is eternal. God is eternal. If God is eternal, if He doesn't change, And if
He made Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob, then God Himself must be our God from everlasting to
everlasting. Remember what He says in Hebrews
chapter 13? He says, I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee. I think it's Hebrews 13, verse
5. He says, I will never leave thee,
nor forsake thee. It was a quotation from Deuteronomy
31.6. I will never leave thee. I will never forsake thee. No,
never! God's never going to leave His people. Romans chapter 8,
verse 35 and following, it says, Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Who? And he names all these things. Shall life? No. Death? No. The present? No. The future? No. The past? No.
Nothing can separate us from, how about a principality or power?
No. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Now, because God is eternal,
because He doesn't change, because He made man of the dust of the
earth, both a soul and a body. He didn't make man a two-part
person. He made man, one man, both soul
and body. Therefore, whatever man is, and
whatever he is to God, That's what determines man's state before
God. Because God made Himself the
God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all of His people
in Christ, therefore, before God, they must live. They must
live, both soul and body. God always loved his people from
everlasting. He says in Jeremiah 31 verse
3, he says, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. If
He loved us with an everlasting love, it means that His love
for His people never had a beginning. And it never has an end. It never
increases and never decreases. It's always constant. It's as
infinite as God is infinite. God is love. And His love to
us is in Christ Jesus the Lord. Therefore, His people, soul and
body, are in His heart, in His covenant, in His promises, in
His work. And because the Lord Jesus Christ
Out of our fallen Adam, out of our own sinful nature, the Lord
Jesus Christ took our nature, took our sins, became sin, stood
before God, answered God's justice, paid God what was due God for
our sins, and then fulfilled our righteousness. And that was
made ours by God's union of us with the Lord Jesus Christ in
His eternal election. And Christ stood for us as Adam
stood for all of his people. Therefore, God received from
him and he received us when the Lord Jesus Christ died and rose
again. Everything that God requires
of his people. There's no possibility that his
people cannot live forever. They always lived in the heart
of God. When He brought them into being, they will always
live. Even though in their souls and in their spirits they died
because of sin. And even in their bodies. Even
though in their bodies they die because of sin. Because they
are in the Lord Jesus Christ, it must necessarily follow that
when Christ lives, they live too. Now I want to take you to
a couple of scriptures. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, we're
talking about the resurrection. We're seeing, first of all, that
the resurrection does not depend upon us. Does it? Can the resurrection
depend upon us in any way? We are what? Dead in sins. If you're dead, you can't participate
in your own restoration to life. Especially after you've decayed
and all of your body has returned to chemicals and particles of
minerals and proteins and whatever else it was. Water and so forth. It's gone. How can you raise
yourself from the dead? How much less can you raise yourself
back to spiritual life when you don't even know God or can understand?
You're blind. You're dead. And so, 1 Corinthians
6, look at verse 14. He says, God hath both raised
up the Lord, and 1 Corinthians 6, verse 14, God hath both raised
up the Lord, that's Jesus, and will also raise up us by His
own power. Don't you love that? It's by
His power. It means it doesn't depend upon
me or you. Not my power. His power. And He also joins the two together. He raised up the Lord and He
will also raise up us. Because with the Lord Jesus Christ,
when He raised Him from the dead, the reason He made Him... One
in our nature laid the obligations on Him so that He could bring
us to God. He died the just for the unjust
to bring us to God. And then in verse 15 of 1 Corinthians
6, know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? the members of Christ. Now, when
the Lord Jesus hung on the cross and paid the uttermost farthing
for the sins of his people, and he cried, it is finished, he
actually established everlasting righteousness and obtained eternal
redemption. When he went into the grave,
he was raised again. Death could not hold him. We
are members of his body. Ephesians chapter 5 says we're
members of his, we're, look at Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. It says in verse 30, We are members of His body, of
His flesh, and of His bones. What does that mean? That means
we're members. We are as much a part of the
Lord Jesus Christ, more so, than a man's body is part of the man. That's what he's arguing here.
A man doesn't... No man yet ever hated his own flesh, he says. But He nourishes and cherishes
it, even as the Lord, the Church. The Lord Jesus Christ and His people are one body. He's the head, they're the members
of His body. And He loves and nourishes and
cherishes them just as much, no more, than a man nourishes
and cherishes his own body. I take care of my body. I mean,
so much. Some. Some, I try to. I'm lazy. I don't do the job
I need to do. And sometimes I abuse it by hitting it or doing other
things that I don't mean to do. But the Lord Jesus Christ never
mistreats His body. He treats His people as His own
flesh and bones and body. And God, when He raised the Lord
Jesus from the dead, He didn't just raise up His head. He raised
up Him as a body. And so now back in our minds
to Exodus chapter 3, when the Lord said, I am the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. What is He saying?
And also said, did you notice that in Genesis 3.15? I'll point
it out to you here. Let me read it to you. Genesis
3.15. Very significant statement is
made there. When God sent Moses to the Israelites and he asked
them, what's your name? God says, moreover to Moses,
thou shalt say to them, I'm to the children of Israel, the Lord
God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever. And this is my memorial unto
all generations." What name? What is his name forever? What
is his memorial to all generations? I am the God of Abraham. I am
the God of Isaac. I am the God of Jacob. What condescension
is this? God's own name. Who God is. is not defined to us in any way
other than how he relates to his people. What he made himself
to his people. That's what he's saying. And
that's what we just saw in 1 Corinthians 6, 14 and 15 and Ephesians 5. The Lord Jesus Christ and his
people are one body. In the covenant relationship
God has made with His people, they're one. So that God Himself
identifies Himself, not separately, but as part of His people. I'm
the God of Abraham. How do you know who God is? Well,
He's the God of Abraham. Now, take this even further,
as Scripture does, because when Scripture talks about The names of God, what you see
here is that throughout the Old Testament, oftentimes, God will
say, my name is Jehovah dash something. Do you remember that?
Like when Abraham was about to offer up Isaac on the altar,
Isaac asked him, Father, I see the fire and I see the wood for
the offering, but where's the lamb? And Abraham said, my son,
God will see to it. That's literally what he said.
In other words, God himself will provide himself a lamb. What God requires, God provides. God requires a lamb, God's going
to provide the lamb. God himself. And he says, he
said that, and it says, he called the place, he called him Jehovah
Nisi. God will see to it. God will
provide. Take all these names in the Old Testament, Jehovah
Nisi, or not Jehovah Nisi, but that was not it, Jehovah Jireh
was the name, I misspoke. Jehovah Jireh is what that name
means, the Lord will provide, or the Lord. All those names
of God, when you go through the Old Testament and look at those
names, He always has His name connected with Jehovah Dash,
or Jehovah, the second part of that name is what He is to His
people. That is amazing, isn't it? Whatever
God is, He is what He is to us in the Lord Jesus Christ to His
people. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. The Lord will provide
what? Himself a Lamb for His people.
Jehovah Nissi, the Lord my banner. The Lord my banner. Who is my
God? The Lord my banner. I glory in
nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He's my banner. Jehovah Shalom, the Lord my peace. Everything God is to us, He is
to us in Christ. And all these names refer to
who He is to us in Christ. This is absolutely mind-boggling,
isn't it? When the Lord Jesus said, You
do greatly err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God,
But in the resurrection, He says regarding that, haven't you read
what God said out of the bush to Moses? I am the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. That proved the resurrection. Because of God's eternality,
because of who God is, unchangeable and everlasting, because He's
almighty, because He has identified Himself with His people in a
covenant relationship in His Son. so that he can't be separated
from them. One body, one covenant, one people. God has so connected himself
to his people in Christ that they are literally one. Jehovah
Nishi, the Lord my banner. Jehovah Shalom, the Lord my peace. Jehovah Tzidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. Do you see the pattern? Jehovah
Ra'ah, the Lord is my shepherd. Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that
healeth thee. And I already said Jehovah Jireh,
the Lord will provide for me. Jehovah and His people. Jehovah
Shammah in Ezekiel 48-35. The Lord is there. He's there. He reveals Himself to us unceasingly
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then when we get to the New
Testament, what do we hear? The names of God are... This
is the name by which He shall be called Jesus. What does it
mean? He shall save His people from
their sins. What does that mean? If He saves
them from their sins, then He will raise them from the dead.
They cannot not live to Him. They will live in Him, because
He is the resurrection and the life, and they're joined to Him.
He's going to go into the depths of death, and conquer death,
and destroy the grave, and rise again, and reign, and bring His
people to life with Him. And then He will feed them on
Himself. He's the bread of life. He's the light of the world,
the true vine, the truth. He is the way. All the things
that Jesus is, He is to us. He is God to us. I mean God is
to us in Christ. Everything that God is, He is
to us in Christ. And all that He is to us, He
is all that God is to us. The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in Him bodily. Everything we find in our Lord
Jesus Christ, He teaches us who God is. And it's because of who
He is, because of His relationship with His people, that the Lord
Jesus Christ says, He's the God of the living. the God of the
living. It's amazing, isn't it? That
God would not identify himself in
any other way, and that since He lives, we live also. Now look
at a couple of verses. Look at John chapter 14. I just said it, but I'll take
you there anyway. I refer to these verses in my
mind whenever I'm studying over and over again. John chapter
14, Jesus told his disciples in verse 19, Yet a little while,
and the world seeth me no more, but you see me, Because I live, you shall live
also. Does He live? Isn't that the
question that gives assurance in every situation? What is my
assurance? Ask the question about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Is He accepted before God? Is
He righteous before God? Did God justify Him? Is He holy before God? Has He
been given all things? All of His people are given all
things in Him. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3 in
Romans 8 32. Everything that God has for His
people, He's given to them in Christ. And everything God gives
to Christ, He gives to His people with Him. This is amazing. So He says, because I live, you
shall live also. It cannot not be. You have to
be raised. Look at John 17. We could look at every scripture
in this light and it would just speak to us the same thing. Look
at John 17. He says in verse 23, Verse 22,
"...and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them,
that they may be one even as we are one." The glory? The glory of what? The revelation
of who God is in Christ and what He has done for His people to
the everlasting glory of God throughout eternity. But in verse
23 He says, "...I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one." that the world may know that Thou hast
sent me and hast loved them as Thou hast loved me." That phrase
is just all comprehensive, isn't it? The Lord, God the Father,
has loved His people as He has loved His Son. How long has He
loved His Son? Well, look at the next verse.
Isn't that what Jeremiah 31.3 says to the church? I have loved
thee with an everlasting love, therefore Because my love is eternal, my
love has to have the fulfillment of my love on its object. Therefore,
with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. One in Christ, loved by
God the Father as God loves His Son, which means He has given
us everything He has given His Son. He has thought of us as
He has thought of His Son from eternity to everlasting. You can see why when Jesus spoke
these words, haven't you read what God said to Moses, I am
the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? That he's really,
in an all comprehensive way, and in a way that's intensely
intimate, and infinitely deep, God is saying, the resurrection
is proved by who God is to his people. That is his name. Who
God is, he's life, he's eternal, he's unchanging, from everlasting
to everlasting, and he has made himself the God of his people.
Because of that, they must live. Their body and soul, body and
soul must live to God. Now, there's some basic things
about the resurrection that I wanted to cover, and maybe I should
save that for next time, because I've got a lot of information
about it, and I thought that we should probably go through
it. So I will save that for next
time. We'll make it a two-part sermon so that I don't weary
you with all of the details, besides the fact that you might
forget more if I dump too much on you. Let's pause for here,
and then next time we'll pick up the second half of this sermon.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have made yourself
to your people in the Lord Jesus Christ everything that you are.
Everything that you have for your Son, you've given it to
them. And Lord, we pray that you would
make known to us from your word this glorious, glad news, that
we might rejoice in it. We might see what God has done. We might see who God is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We might be fully astounded and
stand in awe and adoring wonder of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's
everything for us. Everything for us to God and
everything from God to us. He's our mediator. He has secured
us to God. He's brought us to God and He's
blessed us with all heavenly blessings in Himself. Dear Lord,
such things are too wonderful for us, but help us, Lord, give
us this faith to know it and believe it. And unlike the stubborn,
proud, self-righteous, self-trusting Pharisees, chief priests, and
all these others against whom you spoke, Lord, we pray that
by your almighty grace, you would turn us from our stubborn, self-righteous
pride, that we might submit to the Lord Jesus Christ in his
word, and believe him, and trust him, and admire and worship him. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.