John's Gospel, chapter 20, and
verse 1. The first day of the week cometh
Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre,
and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she
runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom
Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord
out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid
him. Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple, and
came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together, and
the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre.
And he stooping down and looking in saw the linen clothes lying,
yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following
him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the
linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went
in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulchre,
and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the
Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. Then the
disciples went away again unto their own home. But Mary stood
without at the sepulchre weeping. And as she wept, she stooped
down and looked into the sepulchre, and seeeth two angels in white
sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet, where
the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman,
why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because
they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back,
and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus
saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She
supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, If thou
have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and
I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She
turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabona, which is to say,
Master. Jesus saith unto her, touch me
not, for I am not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren
and say unto them, I ascend unto my father and your father and
to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene came and told
the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had spoken
these things unto her. Amen, may God bless to us this
reading from his word. One feature that is present amongst
the Lord's followers in the various accounts of the resurrection
that we have in the Gospels is the surprise that these disciples
felt when the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Despite all
the signs that they had, it seems as if none of the Lord's disciples
and his close friends grasped what was happening that morning. In fact, it appears from the
reading of the narrative that not only were his people surprised,
but that the only ones that weren't surprised Well, the Pharisees. The Pharisees had gone, according
to Matthew chapter 27, and said, we remember, they were speaking
to Pilate, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet
alive, after three days I will rise again. And it seems that they were the
only ones that remembered that Jesus had made this promise. Isn't that interesting? That
his disciples had become so preoccupied with what had happened, so distracted,
that they had forgotten, that they didn't yet believe that
the Lord Jesus Christ must rise again. The title of my sermon
this morning is, He Must Rise Again. I wonder if you've ever
noticed something else about this little narrative. Have you
ever noticed how much running around was done on this first
resurrection morning? Mary Magdalene was running. hither and thither. Mary the
mother of James, Joanna, Salome, Peter, John, every mention we
get of one of the Lord's disciples or one of the Lord's followers,
they were running. And these were not young women.
I was speaking to my neighbour, Barbara, recently, and we were
talking about the fact that John may well have just been a youngster,
maybe a teenager even. But he was the only one. The
rest all appear to have been mothers and grandmothers, at
least, and yet they ran. Such was the surprise, such was
the shock, such was the unexpected events of that morning. Now,
let's not be too unfair on these good folk, because we of course
have the benefit of hindsight. But had not the Lord Jesus Christ
clearly declared, all these things must be, had he not told them
that there was a necessity for him to rise again from the dead? We can see that in the terms
of the eternal decrees of God, this necessity by which there
was a divine appointment that the Lord Jesus Christ would rise
again. We can see it in the terms of
the covenant engagements that the Lord Jesus Christ undertook
when he came from heaven to earth to represent his people, to save
his people, to gather his people, to die for his people and to
rise again. for his church, for his people,
those that he had agreed to come into the world and die for. He must rise again for those
people that he might redeem his bride. We see it in the prophecies
of the Old Testament declaring that it must be so. and our Lord
Jesus Christ in his own ministry often taught the necessity of
the resurrection, that he must needs rise again. The justice
of God made it inevitable and made it essential that the Lord
Jesus Christ must rise again for the salvation of his people. This morning what I would like
to do, if you will give me a few minutes more of your time, is
to consider the necessity of the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, we have a small view of this world. And I don't mean to be disrespectful
in any way when I say we have little lives. And our little
lives revolve around a few things. They revolve around a few people. They revolve around a few places. They revolve around a few activities.
And even when we endeavour to enlarge our lives, when we try
to get a greater perspective in things, we really have just
a small appreciation and a small understanding about the way things
are. But this morning I want, if I
may, just to try to introduce you to the bigger picture and
try together to glimpse that bigger picture. Because what
we discover when we come to think about the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ is that this was not confined or constrained
to a few individuals in a few places at a certain time, but
this has to do with a plan that existed in the mind of God ever
before time began. Can you even begin to grasp the
scale of that big picture? In Psalm 90, And verse 2, we read these words,
And that tells us that God, the unchangeable God, the eternal
God, the God who had a purpose, the God who had a plan, the God
who had a will, willed and purposed and planned to raise Jesus Christ
from the dead. And the decrees of God, the ways
in which he puts that plan and that purpose into effect, they
existed also in the mind of God. This was the plan that he had
and this was the way in which he would accomplish this plan
of salvation for his people. So Ephesians chapter 3 and verse
11, Saul of Tarsus that we've just been speaking about, or
the Apostle Paul as he became, he says to the Ephesians that
all these things are according to the eternal purpose of God
which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. So God had an eternal
purpose. And in Zephaniah chapter two
and verse two, we read these words, before the decree bring
forth. And that shows us that it's the
decrees of God. It's the purposes of God that
bring forth all the circumstances and events and happenings that
happen at any time in the history of this world. Now we've got
our little house in our little town in our little part of the
world and we have our little sphere of friends that we are
engaged with. But all over the world, at all
times and in all places, the Lord's purposes and his decrees
are flowing out to fruition and to accomplishment and to the
achievement of God's purpose. God's world is ordered by divine
decree. And history follows that path
and that purpose, each step along the way, settled in eternity
by divine fiat, by divine purpose and by God's own control. John tells us, John, the Apostle
John, as he ran into the tomb, he said that the disciples struggled
to comprehend the resurrection. They were shocked, they were
surprised, they were running around, they were completely
disbelieving of what they were seeing, even standing in the
empty tomb. Because they knew not the scripture
that he must rise again from the dead. And when it finally
dawned, when they finally did understand, they knew that there
was a necessity in this resurrection and they knew that Jesus Christ
had indeed risen from the dead. It changed their lives. It changed
their view. It changed their horizons. It changed their vision. and
it inspired their ministries to spread the gospel to the ends
of the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ must rise
again because his death and his resurrection were ordained in
the decrees of God. These decrees from eternity,
these decrees which bring to fulfilment the plan and purpose
of God, are God's commands whereby he orders all the events of the
world and secures his purpose in the world. And because God
ordained to make peace with certain sinners, a people of His choice,
the Bible calls them His elect. Because God determined and ordained
to make peace with these elect sinners by the sacrifice of His
Son, He is called the God of peace. and he works by his decrees
the purpose of peace, what is called the covenant of peace
or the promises of peace. So that when the Lord Jesus Christ
came into this world and did all that God had required of
him, all that God had decreed for him, we are told that he
fulfilled the terms of that covenant of peace by dying as the substitute
for his people, and thereby the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ was assured. In Hebrews chapter 13, verse
20, we read, And here we can see how all of these Threads of the picture come together
in this beautiful little verse. He's the God of peace. He is
the God that eternally sought to have peace for his people. people for his elect, what is
called sometimes his sheep or his little flock, and that that
peace was wrought, it was won, it was secured by the Lord Jesus
Christ, the great shepherd or the good shepherd of the sheep
who came and died for them. and that through the blood of
the everlasting covenant, their salvation was secured and the
Lord Jesus Christ was brought again from the dead. You know,
sometimes we grapple with ideas that are bigger than ourself.
But why must the Lord Jesus Christ rise again from the dead? Because God the Father decreed
that he would raise from the dead his dearly beloved son,
because the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, successfully accomplished
the satisfying of the terms of that eternal covenant of peace. Why must the Lord Jesus Christ
rise from the dead? Well, here's another reason.
It was promised that he would. And there is an importance to
God's promises. God does not lie. God cannot
lie. So when God promises to do something,
when he prophesies that, then it will come to pass. And there
are countless Old Testament types. where the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ was prefigured. We can see it in the life of
Abraham and Isaac. We can see it in the life of
Elijah and Elisha, in Jonah who was three days in a whale's belly,
and Daniel that was put into the lion's den. And yet they
were, as it were, brought again to life, as Isaac was to Abraham. We can see it in the New Testament
where the Lord Jesus Christ speaks about the seed that is cast into
the ground and must die but then becomes fruitful. And how the
miracles of him raising people from the dead. And then again
by his words, explicitly saying, I am the resurrection and the
life. In Mark 8 verse 31, he says,
he began to teach his disciples that the son of man must suffer
many things and be rejected and be killed. And after three days
rise again. In Luke 24, the Son of Man must
be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified,
and the third day rise again. He told them, the pictures were
there, the evidence was there, the words were there, and yet
the disciples struggled to understand. Why must the Lord Jesus Christ
rise again from the dead? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
had a human body. The Lord Jesus Christ had a perfect
physical human body and today that body is in heaven. That
body is not in a hole in the ground. That body is not in the
earth. This was a personal victory of
the God-man and it was inconceivable that having won his prize, having
satisfied justice, having done all that God required of him,
having brought a atonement for the people for whom he died and
shed his blood, that that body through which the Lord Jesus
Christ accomplished all these wonderful things would moulder
and rot in the earth. Inconceivable that that should
happen. No, the Lord Jesus Christ was
victorious. He had defeated his enemies.
He had defeated Satan. And now he would show that Satan's
great strength, his great tool, death, had been defeated as well. The Lord Jesus Christ had to
rise because his body had to rise and take its place in heaven. In Acts chapter 2 verse 31 we
read, He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ,
that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see
corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up,
whereof we all are witnesses. Why must the Lord Jesus Christ
rise again from the dead? because he was being raised for
all his people. Not only must his own body be
raised, but he must be raised for his people. He was raised
again, we are told in Romans chapter four, for our justification. He was raised to show that we
were justified before the Holy God, that we had been made righteous
by God, that those for whom he had died, those whose sins he
had taken, those who had benefited from the shed blood of Jesus
Christ, were the recipients of God's blessing. He was raised
to be our living head and we are his body and we will ever
be united with him. He the head, we the body, the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is a physical dimension
to the church his existence in heaven. It's not going to be
a ghostly, spiritual, ethereal thing. It's a physical thing.
The body of Christ is in his Father's presence and our bodies
will be there too. We will be changed when our graves
are open. We will be changed when our tombs
are open. And there is a great public dimension
to the resurrection. There is a demonstration of power.
There is the evidence of the acceptance of this people by
God. There is a testimony to the success
of the Lord's work because there is an empty tomb. The Lord Jesus
Christ said, I am he that liveth and was dead. And behold, I am
alive forevermore. You see that word in there, behold?
He's saying, look at me, look at me. It's like when the Lord
went back into the upper room with his disciples and he said,
look at my hands, look at my side. He said, give me bread
that I may have something to eat. He was showing them the
evidence of his physical body. And Thomas said, I can't believe
that. He said, put your fingers in
the holes. Put your hand in the side. This
is a physical body. And we must rise in physical
union with him. Why must the Lord Jesus Christ
rise again from the dead? because the Lord Jesus Christ
was a trailblazer. He was forging a way back to
God for his people. He was pioneering a new and living
way. He was the first fruits of a
new creation. He is the captain, the leader
of our salvation, bringing many sons to glory. I am the door,
says the Lord Jesus Christ. I am the way to everlasting life. I am the way that will take my
people for whom I died back into the presence of my Father. Paul
says again in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, now is Christ risen from
the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For
since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from
the dead. It was through the physical human
involvement of the God-man for us, the Lord Jesus Christ upon
the cross, that resurrection from the dead comes to us. For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all for whom he
died be made alive. Let me ask you a question this
morning. Do you want everlasting life? Do you want peace with
God? The Lord Jesus Christ is the
way, the truth and the life. He is the one who has opened
up that way of escape and the breaking forth from his tomb
of the risen Lord was absolutely necessary and essential in order
to give every believer in him a lively hope of eternal life. No believer In the Lord Jesus
Christ, in the risen Christ, need fear death or need fear
the grave? Both have been defeated and the
Lord Jesus Christ is risen for us. Peter says in his first epistle,
chapter one, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten
us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. Why must the Lord Jesus Christ
rise again from the dead? because the resurrection of our
Saviour proved the doctrines of the Gospel of God. They verified
the message that the Lord Jesus Christ preached. They showed
the truthfulness and the authority of that message, the integrity
of the Lord's words, the veracity of the Gospel. Because he is
risen from the dead, the evidence has been given. All these things
which he declared are true. And Jesus says in John 14, because
I live, ye shall live also. There's a truth, there's a veracity
to these words of Christ. Because I live, ye who believe
in me, ye shall live also. Our God has a people in this
world to whom he gives life in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this
is not all people, not everyone is going to heaven, not everyone
will be saved, but a chosen people, a redeemed people, a people that
had been scattered because of sin and now are being gathered
by the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ, by the doctrine of the
gospel, by the message of the gospel, by the doctrine of free
grace and sovereign mercy. Christ died for these people. He called them his sheep. He
called them his little flock. And he was raised for these very
same people. And he ever lives for these very
same people, ever interceding for them. and for none else. Jesus Christ in his risen humanity
is in heaven today, interceding for his people, those for whom
he died, those for whom he rose again. What does he tell us? He tells us that he saves them
to the uttermost, that come unto God by him. To the uttermost
doesn't mean everyone. It means all for whom he died. Not one will be lost. God's method
of gathering is the preaching of the gospel, is the hearing
of this message that is being declared to you this morning. This message which speaks of
the substitute and the sacrifice, that speaks of the atoning work
of Christ, that speaks of the death of Christ, that speaks
of the victory of Christ and the resurrection of Christ and
the ascension and intercession of Christ on behalf of his people.
That's the message. Do you believe that message?
Then the just shall live by faith. I am not ashamed, says Paul,
of the preaching of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed, from faith to
faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. And here's
my final point this morning. Why must the Lord Jesus Christ
rise again from the dead? The Lord Jesus Christ must rise
again from the dead, brothers and sisters, in order to pacify
our hearts in the midst of the storms of life and against the
temptations of the devil. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
die in vain. He did not die in vain. Do you know how I know that?
Do you know how I know that the Lord Jesus Christ was successful
in his death? because he rose again as he must. And he proved that he had the
victory over death, over hell, over the grave, over the devil
himself. Are you one of these people that
doubts their salvation? Are you one of these people that
have problems with the question of assurance? Perhaps you feel
the devil coming to you and sowing in your heart and in your mind
his fears and his lies. Remember what the Lord said to
his disciples in John chapter 14. He said, let not your heart
be troubled. How is it? How is it that a man
or a woman has a troubled heart? It is when the devil comes and
he sows seeds of lies in that heart. The Lord says, let not
your heart be troubled. If you have a lack of assurance
of your union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the devil comes
to you and says, sure, the Lord Jesus Christ died, but he didn't
die for you. Or sure, the Lord Jesus Christ
suffered, but you're not one of the elect. Or sure, the Lord
Jesus Christ shed his blood, but don't assume he shed his
blood for you, because you're one of mine. If the devil comes
and says things like that in your ear, if the devil comes
and sows lies like that into your heart, if the devil troubles
your heart, what can you say to him? Let me tell you what
you can say to him. You can tell him on authority
that he is a liar. You can tell him upon the veracity
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is a deceiver
and a murderer from the beginning. and you can tell him that he
is beaten and defeated. Tell him about the empty tomb. Tell him that the Lord Jesus
Christ came in human flesh. Tell him that the Lord Jesus
Christ died and was buried and rose again and that through his
death that he might destroy him and the power of death, that
is the devil, and delivered them who through fear of death were
in bondage all their lifetime. John and Peter stood looking
at the place where the Lord Jesus Christ had lain. They stood looking
at the empty a place where Jesus' body had lain. And they knew
not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. And
rise again he did. Because God decreed and promised
that Jesus Christ would rise from the dead. Because Christ's
body could not see corruption. Because he is the living head
of a living body. because he opened the door to
everlasting life. He was buried and he rose again
the third day according to the scripture and behold, behold,
he is alive forevermore. You tell that to your heart.
You tell that to the devil. You tell that to your children.
You tell that to your friends. You tell that to your wife. You
tell that to your husband. And you believe that with all
your heart and with all your soul. And Jesus Christ is dead
and risen for me. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our hearts in them. Amen. Let me read another hymn to you,
and we'll bring our service to a conclusion. This is a hymn
by John Newton, and again, it's on the theme of the resurrection
and the life. I am, says Christ, your glorious
head. May we attention give the resurrection
of the dead, the life of all that live. By faith in me the
soul receives new life, though dead before, and he that in my
name believes shall live to die no more. The sinner sleeping
in his grave shall at my voice awake, and when I once begin
to save my work I'll ne'er forsake. Fulfil thy promise, gracious
Lord, on us assembled here. Put forth thy spirit with the
word and cause the dead to hear. Preserve the power of faith alive
in those who love thy name. For sin and Satan daily strive
to quench the sacred flame. Thy power and mercy first prevailed
from death to set us free, and often since our life had failed,
had it not been in Thee. To Thee we look, to Thee we bow,
to Thee for help we call, our life and resurrection Thou, our
hope, our joy, our all.