Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 14 – April 1991

 

I Believe In The Resurrection

 

Sermon by Rev. W. J. Bosker on Matthew 28: 6a (Easter Sunday)

Reading: 1 Cor. 15:1-24; Matthew 27:57-28:15

Singing: 324: 1,2,3; 191,321,313,322.

 

Beloved congregation, brothers and sister in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Something seems very strange to me.  Most people you talk to will readily admit that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, lived in Israel and died on the cross.

Well you can’t argue with history can you?

But switch over to talk about Christ’s resurrection and you get a lot of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’.

People think that now you’re going off the deep end and into something that cannot be proved.  Something supernatural…!  And you never know where that will end up!

Jesus wants us to be certain of His resurrection, so that you can know where you will end up!

1.  Let us in the first place look at the certainty of Christ’s bodily resurrection.

a.  To be certain of any historical event you need eye-witness accounts.

A Victorian television station illustrates this point.  In seeking to make its evening News bulletin sound the most reliable it uses the name ‘Eye-Witness News’.

A court of law bases its judgements on the testimony of eye-witnesses.  A history student examines the literature of a period and uses reports of eye-witnesses as factual material.

The NT presents us with an historical account of eye-witness reports and events surrounding Christ’s resurrection.

To give credit where credit is due, and to show that its reporting is not biased, the NT records our Lord’s resurrection from TWO ANGLES that of Jesus’ opponents, and that of His followers.

b.  We take the opponents’ view first.

To bury the dead Christ in a tomb cut out of rock, with a big stone rolled in front of its entrance WAS NOT ENOUGH FOR THE CHIEF PRIESTS AND PHARISEES – although it was enough for an ordinary burial (27:60).

So they asked Pilate, the Roman Governor not only to seal the tomb, but also to post soldiers at its entrance to guard it from any grave-snatching disciples.  At least that is what might happen.  An even worse fear was that Jesus might really rise again, so they did everything in their power to prevent it.

Isn’t it strange that the very people who didn’t believe what Jesus said while He was alive, were now so concerned that what He said might come true even though He was dead!

Their faith in Jesus’ words was at this point of time stronger than that of Jesus’ followers!!

Roman soldiers were known to be brave men and efficient fighting machines.  You can hardly imagine that these mean-machines would fall asleep on the job.

They would never have been called to this duty in the event of such a reputation!

Yet in vs.4 we see that they met their match.  Just the sight of an angel of the Lord made them shake with fear until they froze with fright.  They had become eye-witnesses of the resurrection!

Their first step was to hurry to the chief priests and report what had happened.  An agreement was struck.  The soldiers accepted a large amount of hush-money in return for admitting incompetence and negligence.

Fancy a Roman soldier, not one, but several, falling asleep on the job!  No wonder a large sum of money was required to keep these soldiers quiet!

The evidence of Jesus’ opponents should be enough to convince even the most hardened sceptic that Jesus did rise again from the dead.

c.  While Christ’s opponents were so anxious to disprove His resurrection, it is strange that His followers were so slow to believe that He had indeed risen from the dead.

In fact from the Gospel accounts they didn’t even expect a resurrection.  They were just coming to grips with the fact that he had died.  Surely this is unbiased reporting!

Notice from vss.2&6 that the angel of the Lord didn’t roll the stone away to let Jesus out.  When he rolled the stone away the tomb was already empty!

The angel was a herald, a proclaimer, who announced the resurrection.

He opened the grave by rolling the stone away, and figuratively speaking, he opened the eyes of these women by rolling away the stone of their unbelief.

‘He is not here; He has risen, just as He said.  Come and see the place where He lay.’

Not only did these women see the empty tomb.  From the other Gospel accounts we know that inside the tomb they saw the strips of linen cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ body and the burial cloth that had covered His head.

To verify that He was alive, the cloth that had been around His head was neatly rolled up and lay separate from the other clothes (John 20:5- 7).

The angel’s proclamation didn’t stop at that.  He told them to tell the good news to the disciples and that Jesus was on His way to Galilee.  There the disciples could see Jesus with their own eyes (vs.7).

In vs.9 we read that these women hurried away and literally bumped into Jesus.  In fact they saw Him, heard Him speak and touched Him.

To summarize this first point:
The evidence of so many eye-witnesses whether opponents or followers of Christ – as well as the circumstantial evidence accompanying these accounts, would be enough for any TV News team to present Christ’s resurrection as an authenticated fact.

Any court of law accepting eye-witness reports in the usual legal procedure could not hesitate to judge it as an accomplished fact.

On top of all this:
The Christian acknowledges that Christ did truly rise again from the dead because God says so in His Word.  ‘Thus says the Lord!’  Christ is risen from the dead, just as He said.  And you better believe it!

2.  In the second place, Jesus wants us to be certain of His resurrection.

We know this from the angel’s words, Jesus own words, and His actions.

The word ‘angel’ in the original literally mean ‘messenger’.  The angel wanted the women and the disciples to be certain of Christ’s resurrection, so he gave them this message:

‘…He is not here; He has risen, just as He said.  Come and see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell His disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see Him.’ (vss.6,7).

After Jesus met the women, and they were certain that He was their resurrected Lord, He repeated the angel’s message and said: ‘Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see Me’ (vs.10).

In the following days Jesus showed Himself to the two disciples travelling to Emmaus, to the rest of the ten disciples and later to Thomas.  Many other instances are recorded in the Gospels.

We can come to no other conclusion than that Jesus wanted to impress upon His followers that he had risen from the dead AS HE SAID HE WOULD.

In addition to this we read in Acts of an important qualification for an Apostle of Christ when the Eleven met to replace Judas after he had committed suicide.

Peter said: it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us.  For one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection’ (Acts 1:21,22).

These Apostles knew that as preachers of the gospel, if the resurrection was true, then everything Jesus said about the way of salvation was also true.

3.  A third point from our text is made by way of application.

We do this by asking the question:
            ‘Why is it so important in our day again
             to stress the certainty of Christ’s bodily resurrection?’

There are several reasons.

a)  It counters the charge that Christianity is an exercise in blind faith.

Blind faith is like jumping off a cliff on a dark night hoping that you’ll land safe in the arms of a rescuer.

Utter stupidity, if you ask me.  God created us with intelligence.  He expects us to use it!

The resurrection is historically verifiable evidence which not only confirms our faith, but proves our faith to be valid and reasonable before the whole world.

The urgency to be able to defend the Christian faith cannot be over emphasized.  It is urgent that our young people and older members alike are well informed about our Christian faith, so that we don’t wobble and waver in our personal faith but become useful and living witnesses for our LIVING LORD.

Our faith is built on solid ground.

Let’s not be afraid to tell others about it!

b)  The resurrection is another proof of Christ’s deity.  No human being who dies is able to raise himself from the dead.

Our Lord Jesus Christ DIDN’T ONLY CLAIM He would rise again.  He delivered the goods by rising from the dead proving that He was not only human but also God.

c)  The resurrection is also a sign of God the Father’s vindication that God the Son’s mission on earth was accomplished.  Taken together with Christ’s visible Ascension into heaven it constitutes the voice of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces saying: ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED – RETURN TO BASE.’

d)  Christ’s death and resurrection is the fulfilment of what He claimed to be and do.  He has been proved totally reliable in word and deed.

He said what He would do.  And it came to pass.  He perfectly atoned for our sin and now lives to intercede for us.  Therefore He is all He claimed to be.  HE IS A PERFECT SAVIOUR!

e)  The certainty of Christ’s resurrection is also for our assurance.  We have no reason to doubt His Word, and with the Holy Spirit’s internal testimony we can trust that he will continue to look after the salvation of His people.  We can also look forward to a resurrection to eternal life for those who believe in this Lord Jesus Christ.

By way of a summary statement the words of our text: ‘He is not here; He has risen, just as He said’, means this to us:
            Jesus wants us to be certain of His resurrection
            because our salvation depends on it.’

The Apostle John makes this the purpose of his Gospel when he says: ‘Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name’ (John 20:30,31).

And so we come to the bottom line of the proclamation of Christ’s resurrection.

When all is said and done HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO IT?

Coldly?  Without faith and without hope?

OR:

Will you humble yourself before a great and mighty God and come to Him with a believing heart?  Will you praise God that your salvation depends on Christ’s resurrection?

AMEN