Luke chapter 20 and we're going
to read from verse 27. So if you can turn to verse 27
with me please. We're going to be speaking this
morning about the resurrection. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ and what it teaches us with respect to our own rising
again. Verse 27, then came to him certain
of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection. And they asked him, saying, Master,
Moses wrote unto us, if any man's brother die, having a wife, and
he die without children, that his brother should take his wife
and raise up seed unto his brother. There were therefore seven brethren,
and the first took a wife, and died without children. And the
second took her to wife, and he died childless. And the third
took her, and in like manner the seven also, and they left
no children and died. Last of all, the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection,
whose wife of them is she? For seven had her to wife. And Jesus answering said unto
them, The children of this world marry and are given in marriage. But they which shall be accounted
worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead,
neither marry nor are given in marriage. Neither can they die
any more. For they are equal unto the angels,
and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. Now that the dead are raised,
even Moses showed at the bush when he called the Lord the God
of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For he
is not a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto
him. Then certain of the scribes answering
said, Master, thou hast well said. And after that, they durst
not ask him any question at all. Amen. May God bless this reading
to us also. Our thoughts this morning are
going to continue upon the theme of the simplicity that is in
Christ. That is a little phrase which
we garner from 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3. And we have spoken in the past
few weeks of the simplicity that is in Christ. We have referred
to the simplicity that was in the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we have thought about the life of Christ, and we have thought
about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we have seen that
there was a simplicity, a singleness, a clarity, What we have seen
is that in these things, in his birth, in his life, in his death,
there is nothing complicated. There's nothing devious. There's
nothing obscure respecting the Lord Jesus Christ. the revelation
of God in the flesh coming into this world, though it is a tremendously
profound thing, yet it is clearly stated, clearly revealed, and
clearly understandable. God became man and he came into
this world. And you don't have to have a
high IQ to understand about the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't
have to be a philosopher. You don't have to be a theologian.
You don't have to be an academic. The things of Christ are clear
and plain. They are uncomplicated. They
are true. There is a simplicity in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And you don't need to be a wonder
brain in order to understand the gospel of our Saviour. There's a lovely little verse
in Isaiah 35 and verse 8. We touched upon it a few weeks
ago. I want to repeat it to you today. It says this, that there
will be a highway. And highway shall be there and
a way. and it shall be called the Way
of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over
it, but it shall be for those. The wayfaring men though fools
shall not err therein. That's a beautiful little verse.
That verse tells us that God always purposed to make a way
of salvation. It's called a way of holiness. A way over which and upon which,
by which, the unclean shall not pass. But those who are clean,
those who are pure, those who are righteous, those who are
holy in Christ, they shall pass, though they be wayfaring men
and fools. though they be mere pilgrims
in this world, though they may be travellers through this world,
though they may not set down roots in this world, the wayfaring
men, though fools, shall not err in that way of holiness. Now this is not to disparage
education or learning or knowledge because these things are generally
good and generally beneficial. But we would be fools to not
recognize that there is a wisdom in this world which blinds men's
eyes to God. There is a foolishness in this
world that imagines that it is wiser
than the wisdom of God. There is a way of salvation.
There is a way of holiness. There is a gospel of grace. And we see it in the person of
Jesus Christ. We see it in his nature, in his
work, in his words. and it is plain, and it is simple,
and it is understandable, and if God the Holy Spirit give us
gospel light to see, to hear, and to understand, we cannot
fail in it, and we will not err upon it. If you leave here today murmuring
under your breath that you didn't understand what I was talking
about, That's my fault because the material that I've
got to work with is the simplicity that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us never be deceived into
thinking that the gospel is more complicated than it is. Let us
never think that those who try to make it complicated for their
own purposes for their own use are doing anything but self-promoting
themselves. The simplicity of Christ is his
singleness of purpose, the transparency of his words and his actions. The self-evident testimony of
the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel of truth leaves all men
and women without excuse. This morning, my thoughts want
to be with respect to the simplicity of the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus. It's understandable The resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ, I contend, is understandable. It is entirely
reasonable. It is self-evident and it is
completely obvious. It is to be expected that the
Lord Jesus Christ would rise again. We would be fools to think
that it could not be so, that it would not be so. It ought
to have been no surprise to his disciples that the Lord Jesus
Christ rose again. It ought to have been no surprise
to his enemies that he rose again. This morning, I want us to think
about five features of the Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection that
I trust will be for our encouragement and for our comfort. The first one is this. There
is an assumption of resurrection. What do I mean by that? Well,
the people should have assumed that the Lord Jesus Christ was
going to rise again. They should have assumed it,
that Jesus would rise from the dead. Really? Really? Is it feasible that we
should assume that Jesus should rise from the dead? I say yes. I say that there were lots and
lots of pointers that that's exactly what he would do. The Lord Jesus Christ had often
spoken about his death and his resurrection. The first time
in the book of Luke, we discover he speaks about it in chapter
9, verse 22. Then in 9 and 44, he speaks about
it again. And then he tells his disciples
for a third time in chapter 18, verse 31. There it reads, Then he took
unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to
Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning
the Son of Man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto
the Gentiles, and he shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated,
and spitted on. and they shall scourge him and
put him to death, and the third day he shall rise again. The Lord told them that he would
rise again. There ought to have been in the
minds of the disciples, in the minds of those who heard him,
an assumption that he would rise again. He told them that all
the things that the prophets had decreed and declared about
him would come to pass and he would rise again. He had spoken about the temple,
He'd spoken about this temple, this grand Ephesus that had been
so many years in the making, about it being destroyed, and
that in three days he would raise it again. Now in John chapter
two, verse 19, Jesus answered and said unto them, that is the
Jews that he was speaking to about the temple, or who were
speaking to him about the temple, Destroy this temple and in three
days I will raise it up. Then we're told he was speaking
about his body. And the Jews understood that
he was speaking about his body. The Jews knew, because you will
remember with me that at the time of the death of the Lord
Jesus, the Jews sent a delegation to Pilate and they said, we would
like you to set a guard at his tomb. Because he said that he
would rise again. Now, Probably what'll happen is that
some of his disciples will come and steal his body and say that
he's risen again. Let them rationalize it how they
wanted. They knew what he had said. They knew. And they were anticipating,
even then, by putting a seal on the gravestone and a guard
at its side. Matthew chapter 27 verse 66 says,
this makes me smile. So they went and made the sepulchre
sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch. They set their guards. I don't
know how they sealed the stone. I was wondering about that, whether
they got a little piece of wood and they stuck it on it and said,
this tomb is sealed by authority. Don't move the stone. Or maybe
they got some mortar and tried to put the mortar around the
edge of it to seal the stone against the grave. and they set
their guards outside to watch over it. There was an assumption
that the Lord Jesus Christ would rise again. Secondly, there are
lessons about the resurrection in the whole of the Bible. lessons
from Israel's history that were clear and apparent and obvious
to see. Noah's Ark is a picture of resurrection. It's a picture of surviving death
and destruction. Isaac being given back to Abraham
from the altar is a picture of resurrection from the dead. The children of Israel coming
through the Red Sea was a picture of the resurrection of that people
out of the trial and the death of Egypt. And the three men that
stood in Babylon in the midst of the burning fiery furnace
was a picture of resurrection from the dead. But we don't even need to have
pictures. Pictures are open to interpretation. And even if they had missed these
pictures, These people were the followers of Moses. They prided
themselves in knowing about Moses, in reading about Moses, in living
after the law of Moses, in having to do with all that Moses had
to do with. And they knew that the calling
of Moses had taken place at the burning bush out in the desert. And they knew that the one who
had spoken to Moses at that burning bush was the eternal living God,
the I Am. And they knew that when God introduced
himself to Moses, he introduced himself as I Am that I Am. I Am the living God. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
the passage that we read together here in Luke 20, he had addressed
the matter of the confusion of these Sadducees who didn't believe
in resurrection at all. They were one group of probably
higher class theologians, and then there were the Pharisees,
and they did believe in resurrection, but they had come to Jesus with
this fanciful story. It's made up. It's constructed
in order to expose, as they believe, the fallacy of resurrection. But the Lord Jesus Christ turned
it on its head. He showed them from their own
testimony. He showed them from their own
writings. He showed them from Moses' witness to Israel that
this God called himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac
and the God of Jacob. Now, can you show me Abraham
and Isaac and Jacob? No, they're dead centuries ago. Come with us and we'll show you
where they're buried. And the Lord said to them, I
am the Lord of the living. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are
alive because their God is alive and they are alive to him. The
very testimony of Scripture and of Moses proves that resurrection
from the dead, life after death, is a reality and is the experience
of God's people. He taught the Pharisees and the
Sadducees that God is not only the living God, but his people
are alive to him also. And more than that, the Lord
Jesus Christ took up the theme of the living God, that usage
of the phrase, I am, when he speaks to Martha, Mary's sister. He says to her, I am the resurrection
and the life, the context of living faith. Here he shows her
that there is life in him. Yes, there is life to those who
believe, but it's not simply our faith that is alive. There
is a physical life which comes also. Martha said, I know that
Lazarus will rise in the last day at the resurrection. And
the Lord says, Martha, I'm the resurrection. The resurrection
is here with you right now. Do you remember when the Friends brought the lame man
to the Lord and they climbed up onto the top of the roof because
they couldn't get in to bring their lame friend to the Lord
Jesus. And they took the tiles off the
roof and they lowered down the man in his bed right in front
of Jesus. And the Lord said to him, son,
your sins are forgiven. And everybody said, Who's he
to forgive sins? How can he forgive sins? Only
God can forgive sins. You remember what the Lord said
to them? He said, it's easier for me to say your sins are forgiven
or arise, take up your bed and walk. And turning to the man,
he said, son, arise. And the man got up, wrapped up
his bed, put it under his arm and walked away. You see, this
is the God of power. This is the God of life. This
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the I am. He is the powerful
one. And he said, of course, of himself
in John chapter 10, verse 18, concerning his life and the laying
down of it. No man taketh it from me. I lay
it down of myself. I have power to lay it down and
I have power to take it again. there should have been an assumption
that the Lord Jesus Christ would rise again. And there were lessons
from the Old Testament history and from the words of Christ
himself that he would rise again. And thirdly, there were instances
of rising again. There were instances. We are
repeatedly told there is evidence to be seen There are at least
10 explicit examples of resurrection in the Bible. And the Jews knew
that. The Jews knew it. Elijah, the
prophet, had raised the son of the widow of Zarephath. That's in 1 Kings chapter 17.
Elisha, Elijah's successor, had raised the son of the Shunammite
woman. 2 Kings chapter 4. The man who was being buried
and whose body touched the bones of Elisha sprang to life again. In 2 Kings chapter 13. And what
about the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel? The Lord Jesus Christ, in his
own ministry, raised three people. Jairus' daughter, the widow of
Nain's son, and his friend Lazarus. You know what, just a little
aside here. I am always delighted and intrigued to see the frequency
with which it was children that were raised in the scripture,
not exclusively, but often. And I think we should be comforted
in the knowledge that God has always taken care of little children. But these miracles were well
known. You don't raise somebody out
of their coffin on the way to the cemetery and it doesn't get
out and around that this has happened. The people knew about
Lazarus's resurrection. They were able to say, he's still
with us. Look, they could point to him.
Do you know they tried to put him to death because they were
so embarrassed about his continuing presence with them? They knew
he was dead and they knew he was alive, so they thought they
would kill him so that he wouldn't be alive after he was raised
from the dead. Such was the perverted thinking of these Jews, but they
knew about resurrection. They believed in resurrection.
It was in their own scriptures. There were many saints rose from
the dead at the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The streets
of Jerusalem were full of people that had got up out of their
graves. Is anybody counting these 10? Dorcas was raised from the dead. Her name was also Tabitha. That
hadn't happened yet, so you can't actually count that in the 10
that the Jews would have been aware of. And Paul raised Eutychus
from the dead also. And then, of course, the Lord
Jesus Christ himself rose from the dead. He's going back to
his tomb. I wonder how that seal is working
out and the guards are round about the tomb of the Lord Jesus. How foolish to think that they
could stop him doing what he said he would do. This one who
had power over life, to give life, to lay down his own life
and to take it again. And of course, this is another
great witness. The evidence from the Bible is
there, whether it's in picture form, whether it's the written
testimony of the prophets, or whether it's the actual raising
of the dead. The evidence of the Bible, the
personal testimony of individuals, and the witness of people's own
eyes told them that there was resurrection from the dead. And
another great witness to resurrection is that it is the victory over
sin, because it is sin that causes death. And that leads us on to
think about the success of salvation in the testimony of Christ. And
this is the fourth of the five points, that there is victory
in resurrection. So we've seen that there should
have been an assumption of resurrection. We have seen that there were
lessons about the resurrection. We have seen that there are instances
of the resurrection. And now here is the victory of
resurrection. Because the debt of sin is paid. The job is done. The finished work of redemption
required the resurrection. Didn't just assume it, didn't
just point to it, just didn't give evidences of it, required
the resurrection. The fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ had been successful in his death to take away sin demanded
that he rise again from the dead. Victory required it. If these people had had an understanding
of the prophets like they claimed to have, they would have known
what this coming of Christ, coming of the Messiah was about. It
was impossible for Christ not to be successful in atoning for
the sins of his people. and it was impossible for the
body of Christ to remain in the grave after his success. He who is life, he who is the
resurrection, he who defeated Satan, must rise from the dead. Satan couldn't prevent him, Death couldn't restrain him. The grave could not imprison
him, even if the tomb door was cemented around. He led captivity captive. He bound the strong man and he
spoiled his goods. But it's much more than just
the fact of Christ's resurrection. Important as that is, it should
be obvious. It isn't a question. The success of his death required
the resurrection of the body of Christ. But it's much more
than just the fact of his resurrection. The debt of sin that Christ had
come to shed his blood for had been paid. He undertook to be
the surety of that people whose debt rose up before God. God looked at them and he said,
you're transgressors of my law. He looked at them and said, you've
sinned against me. You've broken the law. There's
a debt to pay. Christ stood up in the eternal
council and he said, I'll pay that debt. I'll take that price. I, with my precious blood, will
pay the price for that people's sin. He stood up as our surety,
as our defender, as our representative. And in the discharge of that
debt, the Lord Jesus Christ was successful. Law A broken, breached,
transgressed law was satisfied because it had found in Christ
a perfect substitute. Justice was satisfied because
it had taken the anger, taken the wrath, taken the judgment,
and laid it upon the substitute, laid it upon the surety, and
the price had been paid. It was satisfied. Redemption,
the buying back of that people that had been sold because of
their sin, redemption was accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ. holiness. God himself was satisfied
with the death of the Lord Jesus. Justification was accomplished
by the death of the Saviour. all the covenant duties that
had been laid upon the surety who stood in the council of the
Most High God and said, I will stand for them. Every covenant
obligation and duty was satisfied. Reconciliation was accomplished
between God and man because of what Christ had done. We call that the covenant of
peace or the covenant of grace. It's a promise, it's a testimony,
it's a declaration of what God wills and what God will accomplish. And that great covenant of peace
or grace is sometimes called the everlasting covenant in scripture. And it is fully satisfied in
the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Okay. God satisfied. Laws satisfied. Justice is satisfied. Holiness
is satisfied. Every covenant obligation is
satisfied. The Lord Jesus Christ made satisfaction
for every demand. What did he call that? The covenant
of peace. So Hebrews tells us, chapter
13 verse 20, now the God of peace, why is he the God of peace? Because
he's been reconciled in the covenant of peace. Now the God of peace,
this is the same God of whom it is said, to fall into the
hands of the angry God is a fearful thing. But this is not the angry
God, this is the God of peace. Why is he the God of peace? Because
he's a satisfied God, because he is satisfied by the death
of his son. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of
the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. there
is victory in the resurrection because the Lord Jesus Christ
satisfied every demand that was laid upon him. And finally, there
is the experience of resurrection. I've made much of the satisfaction
in the previous point, in the point about the victory of resurrection,
I've made much of the satisfaction of Christ as far as God and the
covenant and every obligation and law and justice and holiness
is concerned. But there's one more, one more
person that was satisfied in the resurrection and that is
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed
representative, our substitute and surety, that one who stood
for us, the Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the dead to claim
his prize, to claim his people, because he was satisfied with
them. In Isaiah chapter 53 verse 10
we read, he shall see his seed, that is his people. He shall
see of the travail of his soul, that people for whom he travailed
in suffering in his very soul and in his body. He shall see
them and shall be satisfied. The satisfaction of our Lord
Jesus Christ is in the possession of his people. And such is that
covenant bond that the Lord Jesus Christ has with his people, that
spiritual union of the head and the body, that all the Lord Jesus
Christ accomplished All that he did in his life and in his
death includes his people in it. What do I mean? Well, I mean this. He lived and
he died and he rose again as our representative. And that
means that we live and died and rose again in him. We share in
all that he did. He suffered and we suffered. He achieved and we achieved. His obedience to death is our
justification with God. His shed blood is our redemption
from sin. His sacrifice is our atonement,
our peace with God. His resurrection is our life. Our union with Christ means that
the victory and the glory that he received from his father is
our victory and our glory as well. We are the children of
the resurrection. That's what we are, the children
of the resurrection. We are the living children of
the living God. And because we have experienced
that resurrection of Christ in our regeneration and being born
again, we live in hope of that resurrection, which is just as
sure. That glorification, which is
our portion to come, is as absolutely certain as everything that the
Lord Jesus Christ has already done for us. Do you know why?
Because he has already risen and glorified. And all that's
to happen here is that we catch up with him. Then, We shall experience the
resurrection of these bodies. We are going to rise from our
graves. We are going to rise from our
graves. Our bodies, these bodies, will
rise from the grave. Romans 8, verse 11 says, but
if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. John 14,
verse 19, the Lord says, because I live, ye shall live also. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts this morning. Amen.