Look back again with me in where
our reading was there in 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter and the first chapter. Man never has, and never will
and never can of himself glorify God. Just can't. Just won't. And so
it should be of no surprise to us that any man made holiday would not really glorify God. So even the things that are stated
and are true withhold the glory of the truth. We can know some true things
and not know the truth. And I thought about it, wonder
just how many times today in this world men and women will be told that
Jesus Christ rose from the dead. So this is the title of my message
this morning. Jesus rose from the dead. So what? Well, maybe something like this.
Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Now what? Now what? The Apostle Peter addresses this
particular letter to the elect of God that are scattered throughout
all the earth. And in this letter, he speaks
to them of their salvation which is the salvation of the soul. Look down at verse 9. He says,
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. And while he is doing this, while
he is writing being inspired by the Spirit of God, he shows
us that all the apostles, all true gospel preachers, just like the prophets, declare
the gospel of the sovereign purpose, grace of God to His people in
Christ crucified. Look at that tenth verse. He
says, "...of which salvation the prophets have inquired and
searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come
unto you." The prophet wrote of the grace
of God, the purposed grace of God that would come to his people
in the coming of Jesus Christ. He continues, searching what,
or what manner of time, The Spirit of Christ which was in them did
signify. They wrote about the Lord Jesus
Christ. He says, when it testified beforehand
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. The sufferings they all, as all
do who are led by the Spirit of Christ, they testified concerning
the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. the glory. You see that? And the glory that should follow. You see, the gospel has to do
with the sufferings of Christ and the glory. What is the glory? of Christ. What is the glory of the resurrection
of Christ? Have we ever, in our hearts and
our minds, seen the glory? Can we see the glory? I know this, the Lord Jesus Christ,
after his resurrection, he appeared to some who, like us, were unbelieving
by nature, though they had heard him and followed him on many
occasions, and they did not recognize him. But he said unto them, O
fools and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ, or ought not
the Christ, in light of what they said, ought not Christ to
have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? You see, the sufferings of Christ
were not the end of Christ. The sufferings of the Lord Jesus
Christ were but the threshold of the glory of Christ. Hold your place and look back
in John's Gospel. in that seventeenth chapter,
and listen to what our Lord said to the Father. He says in this prayer to the
Father, if you look in John 17, verse 4, He prays, I have glorified
thee on earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do, And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self,
with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Not
his essential glory as God the Son. But he's speaking here of
a glory that he says now is his, and that the Father would confer
upon him because he had finished this work. You see, the sufferings
of the Lord Jesus Christ glorified God. They glorified His grace. They glorified Him in His mercy. They glorified Him in His power. They glorified Him in His wisdom. They glorified Him in His justness. And they glorified Him in His
righteousness. Again, he said after the resurrection
in Luke 24, he said, thus it is written, and thus it behooved
Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. Look over in 1 Corinthians. and the 15th chapter at what
Paul says when he writes to the church at Corinth, beginning
in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 15. He said, Moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which
also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if
ye keep in memory that which I preached unto you, unless ye
have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first
of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that
He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He
was seen of Cephas then of the twelve, and after that he was
seen of above five hundred, and some who were already dead, and
James, and others." But he said, this is what I told you. Not
only that he died, died according to the Scripture, not only that
he was buried as the prophet said he would, but that also
he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." According to the Scriptures. You know, the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ is a truth that is essential to the Lord's
people every day. Not some sort of man-made holy
day or holiday, but this is essential to the faith of God's elect every
moment of every day. As a matter of fact, If you look
back in our text in I Peter 1, in verse 3, the Apostle Peter
tells us, if we be the Lord's people, that what Christ has
done gives us a living hope. Verse 3. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant
mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively or a living hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In other words, what God did
when He raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the ground and the
reason for any sinner who looks to Him to have hope. Hope. Our brother that I mentioned
a few minutes ago who died, As far as this world is concerned,
on last Friday morning, he died in the good hope of God's grace. And he had a reason and a ground
for it. Paul says that he rose again
the third day according to the Scriptures. And what that is
literally saying is this. that He has been raised, permanently
raised. He is still risen, and He continues
risen, never to die again. In other words, if you look back
in biblical history, you know that there were a number of people
who rose from the dead. who were raised by God, or a
prophet, or an apostle, raised from the dead, and yet their
being raised from the dead does not have any real significance
to us. But because of this glory, this
glory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, It has a great
significance to his people, and the glory that follows has to
do with the consequences of his resurrection. Jesus Christ rose from the dead,
so what? What is this glory? This glory,
this glory of his resurrection has to do with the accomplishments
of his death. It has to do with what he actually
achieved in his life and his death, and what it was toward
God for you and me in that God raised him from the dead. You see, it has to do with the
success of His sufferings for His people. That's what glory is about, isn't
it? In other words, it is very inglorious to one if they set
out to do something, and they're not able. If they set out on
a work, and they're not able to finish and complete that work,
they don't get any glory for that, do they? This is a unique work. This is
the work that the Father gave Him. This is the work that involves
the salvation of men's souls. This is the work that was entrusted
to Him as the surety of his people before the world began. You notice
Peter starts there and every other one of the apostles start
there. Christ started there. This work did not begin when
he came into this world. It began in old eternity when
he stood as the guarantor of our salvation. When he says, according to the
Scriptures, he is talking about the Old Testament Scriptures
at that particular time, but he is speaking also of the Old
Testament Scriptures and also the New Testament Scriptures,
which are in a complete harmony in this hour. Turn over to Matthew chapter
12, Matthew chapter 12, and listen here in Matthew 12 and verse
39. They just asked the Lord to show
them a sign. They had been shown hundreds
of signs, but they're still asking for more. Verse 39 says, But
he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation
seeks after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it
but the sign of the prophet Jonah. What was that? For as Jonah 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." What happened to Jonah? He came out of that whale's belly. That which pictured his death
That was the death that was for all practical purposes in the
life of this man Jonah, and he was from that death delivered
and raised up by God. And Christ said, this is the
sign, the only sign, and that is the fact that after three
days and nights the Christ rises from the dead. All right, look
over in Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11, these are
just simply New Testament references to Old Testament prophecies and
words That had to do with a man by the name of Jonah. This one
is a reference back to a man by the name of Abraham and his
son Isaac. Hebrews 11 and verse 17. By faith Abraham, when he was
tried, offered up Isaac, And he that had received the promises
offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said that
in Isaac shall thy seed be called." Now, there is no doubt that Isaac
is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. How is he described? He is his
only begotten Son. This young man, Isaac, was born
not of a kind of natural generation, but when his mother was far past
chowberry and his father was far past conceiving seed, he
was supernaturally born. All right, listen. Abraham, accounting
that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. In other words, when he took
Isaac at the command of God up on Mount Moriah in order to slay
him, offer him as a sacrifice, and worship God at God's command,
he did so with the knowledge and the confidence that God was
able to raise him up he was already dead in Abraham's mind. So, it says, from whence also
he received him in a figure. Whenever God stopped him from
slaying Isaac and put there in his place that substitute which
was the ram caught by his horns in the thicket and that in his
place that ram was offered up to God, it was in a figure the
fact that Isaac had been raised from the dead as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. I read one time where some old
writer said that God said to Abraham, Abraham, you're the
wrong father with the wrong son on the wrong mountain at the
wrong time. But it was about resurrection. And it was about resurrection. Because all of these things pictured
the fact, not only that the sacrifice and the substitute was raised
up, but that God had accepted his person. God had accepted his work. God would do something because
of this accomplished work. He would do something because
of Christ's sacrifice and death, so that the prophets, such as
Hosea, would say things like this, After two days will He
revive us, in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall
live in His sight. Now, wait a minute. Is he talking about Christ, or
is he talking about the people of Christ? Yes. Because they're one in the same
in the sight of God. Here's Isaiah, this prophecy,
"'Thy dead men shall live,' Together with my dead body shall they
arise, awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, for thy dew is
as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." And then in Isaiah 53, He writes, yet it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. Notice what he says. He shall
see his sin. That is as a consequence As a
result of the Lord Jesus Christ being bruised under the hand
of divine justice and wrath on that cross, he'll see his seed. That means he'll see his, how
can a man that's dead see his seed? How can he see his family?
I dare say that so many of us men here, if we have any children
or grandchildren, that's one of the things we live for. We
live to see our children do well and prosper and grow up. He said he'll see his seed. And the next thing is this, he
shall prolong his days. What's happening in the resurrection
of our Lord Jesus? He prolongs his days. How long? How many? Forever. And the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hands. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
the glory of His resurrection is this. He is not by Himself
in His death, nor is He by Himself in this sense, although He did
die by Himself, humanly speaking and individually, but He is not
by Himself as to what His death accomplishes. He says in John 6, And this is
the will of the Father who sent me, that all that he hath given
to me I may not lose it, but raise it up in the last day. And this is the will of Him who
sent me, that everyone who is beholding the Son and is believing
in Him may have life age-enduring, and I will raise him up at the
last day." Our Lord, though He in one great sense died alone
by Himself, tread out the winepress of God's wrath, His death and His resurrection
is life to His people. You see, the glory of Christ,
the glory of His resurrection is the glory of His election.
His glory is that He would raise them all up at the last day because
He had already raised them up through their union with Him
in His resurrection. The glory of Christ is that every
one God chose in Him and gave to him, and put in that everlasting
covenant with him, that were in that grace union with him
when he raised from the dead, and from that state of death
to which he came when he died for their sins. They all, none accepted. They all in Him passed from death
unto life. His resurrection was our resurrection. So that in Revelation he reminds
us and says, blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection, on such the second death hath no power. When was that first resurrection?
It was when Christ rose from the dead. Turn over to Ephesians
chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1, and look
down in Ephesians 1 and verse 16. Paul saying to the church
at Ephesus that I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention
of you in my prayers. that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened." that ye may know what is the hope of his
calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power
to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power
which he wrought in Christ. when he raised him from the dead
and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places."
Paul is saying there, my prayer is that God would make known
to you and give you understanding and confidence in that work which
he accomplished on your behalf in his son when he raised him
from the dead." You see, he says, now is Christ
risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that
slept. And so amazing is this, that
when the Apostle Paul writes to the Colossian church, he says
in Colossians 3, since, this is actually what it says, in
the King James it reads, if ye then be risen with Christ. No, he is writing this to believers. And what it actually says, is
since, or since you have been risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand
of God." In other words, when Peter stood up on the day of
Pentecost and began to preach the gospel in the power of God's
Spirit He made reference to what the psalmist said concerning
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But it's not just the fact that
he rose from the dead. You can believe the fact, but it's the glory that follows. You see, the glory
of the resurrection of Christ is that it is proof before many
witnesses that God accepted that work of righteousness which Christ
wrought on behalf of His people and accepted it. You know in
Ephesians 1 where it says, He has made us accepted in the beloved? He's given us acceptance before
His throne in Christ. And not only that, but Paul describes
it in this way. He said the one who was delivered
up because of our offenses was raised up because of our being
declared righteous. raised for our justification. The greatest thing in my mind,
my mind is kind of small, but one of the greatest things in
the Old Testament that pictured the resurrection of Christ is
when that great high priest would go in once a year into the Holy
of Holies. And if everything was not right,
if everything was not according to what God said, if the sacrifice
was not what He required, that priest wouldn't come out
of there alive. As a matter of fact, They sewed
little golden bells on the hem of his garment as he went about
in there doing that work and sprinkling that blood so that
the folks outside would know whether or not he was alive. But when he came out, if he came
out alive, God had accepted that sacrifice. If Christ came out of the grave
alive, that meant God accepted His work on the behalf of sinners. If Christ came out of that tomb,
if He showed Himself truly and actually alive, it was obviously
proven that He died. That meant that God's divine
holy justice had been satisfied so fully and so completely that
there was nothing that could hold him in that state of death
anymore. That meant if he came out of
that tomb, it meant that every dime, if you want to put it like
that, every cent, every peso, whatever you could use, everything
that was due the justice of God and the debt of our sin was paid. That meant the sentence had been
served and carried out to its fullest. The resurrection of Christ and
our resurrection with Him showed, just like Paul says there in
Romans, that the death of a woman's husband releases her from any
connection to Him. Our death with Christ, our resurrection
in Him, separates us from the curse of the law and from every
old connection with Adam. In Adam, all die. But in Christ, all who are in
Him are made alive. He didn't just raise from the
dead to give you a chance, or me a chance. He didn't raise
from the dead in order to make something available to us, or
possible to us, or to make us feel funny, or any of these kind
of things. He said that's the salvation of our souls. If the
Savior, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and
was taken in his death and laid in a tomb, in a grave, and stayed
there until it was absolutely certain that he was dead. If
he raised from the dead, if the Savior lives, we have
salvation. We have salvation. And not only that, but the resurrection
of Christ and our spiritual resurrection with Him, that also guarantees
another resurrection. And that's the resurrection of
the body. You see, when Christ redeemed
us, He bought us lock, stock and barrel, as we say. He redeemed our bodies. and will
one day make them like unto His own glorious body. Paul said, For they themselves
show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you
turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and
to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead,
even Jesus. who delivered us from the wrath
to come. Have you entered into that? Do
you have the peace of that? I'll tell you this, it'll never
come by anything you do. It'll come through rest in what
He did. Well, I don't know. It's left
up to me. I'm so unbelieving. So am I. I can't depend on my faith. I
can't depend on anything about me. Let me ask you this. Do you believe what God says? That God raised him from the
dead. You say, well, I don't know if
he died for me. He died for sinners. Spurgeon had a little devotional
thing and he said, this is something that you ought to get a hold
of in every circumstance, in every trial, in every fit of
unbelief, in every time of heartache or sorrow, in every time of condemnation,
the fact that Christ died for the ungodly. And if He died for the ungodly,
and God raised Him from the dead, that means that the ungodly are
saved by Christ. You say, well, everybody is ungodly.
No. You ask them. You just ask them. And you may well be one of them.
Because if you've not rested everything on Christ, you don't really believe yourself
to be ungodly. But if you're ungodly, if you've
been brought by the Spirit of God to know exactly what you
are as a wretched, worthless sinner, ain't but one place to go. And
that's the Lord Jesus Christ. But not only were we raised in
Christ when He raised, not only will we be raised in body, but
every one of God's people in between those two times, they're
going to experience another resurrection. They're going to experience a
spiritual revelation which is evidence in repentance toward
God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know what that means,
repentance toward God? It means we're brought to confess
and turn from our old and our own ideas as to who God is and
how he saves sinners. We repent and turn from all our
efforts that we have made to justify ourselves before God.
And what's the other side of that? And faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our Lord said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him
that sent me, hath everlasting life. and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto
you, the hour is coming, and now is." Christ said that hour
is now in His day. When the dead shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. And you hear the voice of God.
This is it. It's concerning His Son. It's
concerning His Son as a Savior, as a sacrifice for sins. It's concerning the fact that
the One who died, the Lord having laid on Him the iniquity of His
people, and God raised Him from the dead. He accomplished something, and
now they have something. We got something. And that's
the proof. Being raised from the dead, they
see the glory of Christ and what He accomplished in His death
and resurrection. They hear His Word. A dead man
doesn't hear. But when He raises us to life,
we hear. We believe on Christ alone for
all our salvation. We're brought to rest. in Him,
trust in His blood that was shed in the payment of our sins, trust
in God, as He said, having imputed to us the very righteousness
of His Son, and these things being all our standing before
God. Have you seen the glory? A multitude looked up at Him
as He hung on that cross. They didn't see the glory. Many people today, they'll hear
that He rose from the dead, but they won't know anything about
the glory. Jesus rose from the dead. So what? I'll tell you what. All His people have been redeemed
from all their sins. They've been delivered from the
wrath to come. They've been saved by what He
did, not by what they would do. Jesus rose from the dead. Now what? Well, he's going to
call everyone he died for unto himself. Why would anybody want to run
from that? That shows our deadness and our blindness, running from
good news, running from the only one that can save us. Running
from the only true sacrifice for sin there is. Running from
the only righteousness there is in this world. He always runs faster than we
do. And He's going to make manifest
every one of them. They're going to be brought to
believe on Him and trust Him and confess Him before men. And
then when they die, They're going out into His presence,
and He's going to raise, at that appointed time, their bodies
from the dead. I hear a lot of people getting
big discussions of whether or not a person ought to be just
buried, or whether they ought to be embalmed, or whether they
ought to be just cremated, or whatever it is. Really, it ain't
going to matter. You think a man that's burned
in a crematorium is in any worse shape than a person that's blown
to bits by a nuclear blast? But it doesn't matter to our
resurrected Lord. He'll call back every particle,
every atom, whatever, if they find something more minute, which
I'm sure they probably will, but they still won't have found
the source of life. He'll call it all back, and He'll
raise it all up. Then we shall know even as we're
known. Believing on Christ is the fruit of, the evidence of, and the hope
of those who are raised in Christ. One day our Lord raised up a
fellow who'd been dead a long time, and so dead was he that
his sister said, oh, he's been dead so long he's stinking by
now. Don't you say that to anybody,
Billy. I mean, that's not acceptable funeral talk language in our
day. We're not so honest about death. But he said unto her. I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes
in me shall never die." He said, Do you believe this?
She said unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ,
the Son of God, which should come into the world. Jesus rose from the dead. So
what? Now what? A lot. Everything. Everything. And all His people, He will bring forth in them what
Peter called this living hope. that was wrought by Christ when
He raised from the dead. That's our hope. My sin's gone. My connection to Adam's gone.
My fear of death should be gone. My hope of eternal life is on
a solid ground. God's pleased. God's accepted
me. He saved me. How do you know? because He raised my Savior from
the dead. I know because of the glory of
it that He reveals in the Gospel. Father, this day give us hearts
to believe. Bring us out of our blindness
and darkness spiritually. and cause us to see the great
mercy and love and grace that you bestowed upon us even before
we were even born, when as your covenant people entrusted to
Christ, He not only died for our sins, We not only died in
Him because of our union of grace in Him, but when He rose, we
rose with Him. And our husband, our head, is
seated in the heavenlies. Help us, we pray, to believe
on Him. to cast off all other hopes and
trust the Lord Jesus, who you raised from the dead. We thank
you for it. We thank you for your grace and
mercy in Him. We have no hope but Him, and
yet He is the very good hope of grace, and He is Christ the
hope of glory in us. We pray and ask all things and
thank you this day in Christ's name. Amen.