⬇ EPUB

IV . HIS ACTUAL RESURRECTION

Matthew 27: 62-66; 28: 1-8; Luke 24: 1-9, 23-43;

Last time we were together we were considering the wonderful death of the Lord Jesus in its sacrificial character in its relation to God, and its relation to men, and we were seeing that, apart from His death, everything would have been lost and Satan would have gained an immense and final victory.

Now what I propose this evening is to consider God’s answer to His death, that is, His resurrection, how God raised Him from the dead. That, too, is one of the great fundamental facts of Christianity that is being called in question by many of the religious teachers of the present day, and it is no wonder, Satan is the great opposer of the truth, and he knew very well what resurrection would mean for him; it meant his complete defeat and the overthrow of his kingdom, and if he could not prevent it, he would prejudice people by his lies and try to persuade them it had never taken place.

In the passage we read in Matthew, we see how. Satan (behind the Pharisees and chief priests) tried, if possible, to keep the Lord in the grave. They asked Pilate to make the sepulchre secure, lest His disciples should come in the night and steal Him away and say that He was risen from the dead, so that the last error would be worse than the first, and Pilate gave them authority to make the sepulchre secure. To deny Him as Man here, as they could, was serious enough, but to admit that He was risen from the dead would be to acknowledge the complete defeat of Satan and the world. Resurrection was the evidence of His complete and absolute victory over all the powers of evil.

I think that to see the value of resurrection, we must remember that in entering into death the Lord met not only the judgment of God, but also entered into conflict with the power of the enemy (Satan and man), the whole world as it were, and it seemed, for the moment, as if the enemy had triumphed. The Lord said when He was about to go up to the cross, “this is your hour, and the power of darkness”, Luke 22: 53. It was allowed in that hour to Satan and to men to do their will; to do their worst; it was given up to Satan that he might put forth all His energy and power against Christ to destroy Him if he could. That was the great conflict in which the Lord was engaged in entering into death. It was like David meeting Goliath and the Philistines. He went up alone, and when he came back having the head of the giant in his hand, the people shouted a shout of victory. Well, now, that is a feeble figure of the conflict into which the Lord Jesus Christ entered; it shows what was involved in His death and His resurrection.

Now suppose that He had not risen, suppose He had been left in the grave, what would that have meant? It would have meant, first of all, that His sacrifice (His death) had been unavailing to meet the claims of the glory of God, sin was not put away, and, on the other hand, Satan had gained a final victory and man was finally lost. That was impossible, but that is what it would have meant. See what is involved then in men’s denial of the resurrection of Christ. Now that is why the enemy is so active in seeking to deny the fact of the resurrection of Christ. It was that which brought the apostles into conflict with the world, and Satan raised up all the opposition he could to hinder the testimony, to destroy the witnesses, but the testimony was preserved, and the witnesses were maintained in the power of the Holy Ghost. Christ was triumphant; He is the Victor, and His victory is God’s triumph, God has triumphed by Christ. If Christ had not gone into death, if He had not overcome the enemy’s power, there would have been no triumph for God. God has triumphed by Christ over sin and over Satan’s power, as they sang in Exodus 15. when the children of Israel came through the Red Sea, Jehovah “hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”. How much more so is that true now in the presence of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! God has triumphed gloriously, sin has been put away, and God has been glorified.

I was going to remark that with many Christians (who would not deliberately deny His resurrection) there is a very feeble idea in connection with it. They suppose that in the resurrection Christ ceased to be a real Man, they think of Him as a Spirit. (I fear there are uninstructed Christians whose thoughts of the resurrection state are very vague.) Now if that be so, there is no resurrection at all, because resurrection applies to that which went into death and the grave, that is, the body. The Lord took a body and in that body He offered Himself a victim and died, and in that body He was buried, and in that body rose again. In His spirit He went to the Father, He said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit”, Luke 23: 46. So that His resurrection is a reality, He is as much truly Man today as He was before His death. The important thing to see is that in resurrection He retains the reality of His Manhood, and all that characterises Him as Man here has been carried over to the other side; all His tenderness, all His grace, so that He is still, as Man, able to enter into human suffering and feelings. He could not do this if He were not truly Man!

Now the Lord took pains to convince the disciples of this: He came into their midst and showed them His hands and His side and said, “handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have”, Luke 24: 39. He does not say, ‘flesh and blood’. It was no longer a body animated by natural life, but a spiritual body. A body that is the pattern of what ours will be another day when we are raised up in His likeness, but the Lord took pains to convince the disciples that He was the same Jesus, the One who could be seen, heard, and handled, and could eat and drink before them. I do not think He needed to eat, but He did that in order to convince the disciples of the reality of His manhood. Peter refers to this in Acts 10: 40, 41, speaking of how He showed Himself openly to witnesses chosen of God, the apostles, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead.

Then, as we saw in 1 Corinthians 15, God took care there should be adequate testimony. He appeared to the women (Mary Magdalene and others), then to Simon; to two disciples going to Emmaüs; then to the eleven and then to five hundred brethren at once. There were competent witnesses and adequate testimony to the reality of His resurrection.

Now we may consider what is involved in His resurrection. It was the evidence of what had been effected in His death. The great work was effected in His death. His victory over the power of Satan was effected in His death. The work of redemption was effected in His death, but the resurrection was the witness of it. What was that work for God? Had His holy name been honoured in the death of Jesus? Had God been glorified perfectly as to the question of sin? Had the work satisfied God? God raised Him from the dead the third day; God has put His seal on the work. Now that is an immense thing for our souls to understand and rest upon. God has been perfectly satisfied in regard to His righteous demands with regard to sin by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what we can rest in. Sometimes the question is asked, ‘Are you satisfied?’ What do you want to be satisfied with? Something about yourself? No; the only thing that can satisfy you is the work that satisfied God and the knowledge that God Himself is satisfied. Whatever questions can be raised by the Holy Ghost in the consciences of men, have all been met in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has raised Him from the dead. As to Satan’s power, the resurrection is the evidence of the complete annulling of Satan’s power, the earnest of the final and complete overthrow of His kingdom.

In the presence of a risen Christ there is nothing to fear, He says, “Peace be unto you”. Peace is proclaimed when the battle is won and the enemy completely vanquished. The work of Christ has met everything on God’s side and vanquished the enemy’s power, hence He can speak peace to us. It is the believer’s privilege, in the light of the resurrection of Christ, to enjoy peace, and it is impossible for a soul to be in the light of a risen Christ and not enjoy peace—I say it is impossible. If this peace is not known, it is because souls are not in the light of a risen Christ.

Through weakness and defeat

He won the mead and crown,

Trod all His foes beneath His feet,

By being trodden down.

All this is outside the power and reason of man. Men admit that death is the end of their power. Nobody supposes that anybody has power to raise the dead. It is entirely beyond man’s power, so that it becomes the great evidence of God’s power, Eph 1: 19, 20. You cannot reach the thought of resurrection by any process of reasoning. By reasoning on the laws of nature a man may discover a great deal that is true in nature, but it is impossible to reach the fact of resurrection by reasoning on these lines—you might reach the fact of death by reasoning on these lines, but resurrection is outside of natural laws and outside of man’s reason, therefore it must be a matter of faith, that is, faith in divine testimony. It is the great test of faith. I believe that Christ was raised from the dead; I know it, because I believe it; “I believed, therefore have I spoken”, Ps 116: 10. I believe in divine testimony by the Holy Ghost; thus we know that Christ is risen.

I refer to the gospels and how the effect of it is seen in each. In Matthew’s gospel the great witness there, is first of the great destruction of Satan’s power, the overthrow of his kingdom, and the introduction of the world to come. At the end of this gospel the Lord bids His disciples to “make disciples of all the nations, baptising them to the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have enjoined you. And behold, I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”, Matt 28: 19, 20. (That is the end of the present age.) What is in view is the bringing in of another age, and what will characterise the age that is to come? Just the opposite of this age! Things will no longer be dominated by sin and death, all opposition will be subdued, sin will be held in check, and there will be a state of universal blessing. The creature will be delivered from the bondage of corruption and brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God, under the power of Christ. That is, the world or age to come and the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee of it; He will subdue all enemies and establish God’s kingdom on the earth.

In Mark’s gospel the result is that the testimony of salvation in a risen Christ goes forth to the whole creation.

In Luke’s gospel I think it is more the deliverance of man from the power of death—“by one man sin entered into the world and by sin death, and thus death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”, Rom 5: 12. “It is appointed unto men once to die”, Heb 9: 27. We are all of us naturally under the power of death, but now a great deliverance has been accomplished. The witnesses at the sepulchre said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?”, Luke 24: 5. Could He remain there? Was it possible? No; it was impossible that the living One should remain in death. There was no cause of death in Him, and if He went into death, He did so voluntarily, so that He must come out of it, He could not be holden of death. In His resurrection we see the way of deliverance open from the power of death, and every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is delivered from the power of death and will never see death. The testimony of grace can go forth to men everywhere now, the testimony of forgiveness of sins, and salvation for all men in the name of the risen Christ.

In John’s gospel I think it is a little more; that is, it is the introduction of a new day, and of a new world, a new and eternal system of things altogether. It is the first day of the week (it does not speak of the sabbath in John’s gospel, as in the others). There is a great deal of stress to be laid upon the fact that on the first day of the week the Lord rose from the dead, and on the first day of the week He appeared to His disciples. The result of the death of Christ is that in His resurrection we have the dawn of a new and eternal day, in connection with the introduction of a new and eternal system of things, what I think one may call the Father’s world, a spiritual system of things in which the Father’s pleasure would be established according to His purpose, a system of things which will abide for ever and ever. Of this heavenly system, He is the beginning, as the firstborn from among the dead. A divine system has begun; something that is wholly of God and that in which we have our part as Christians. Every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ belongs to that new and heavenly system, and has part in all the blessing of it, in all that the love of God has planned and purposed for His own pleasure, and for the blessing of His children. So it is not only a day of peace, it is a day of joy.

The Lord said to His disciples when He was about to die, “ye now therefore have sorrow”, John 16: 22, and well they might. They were grieved at the thought of His leaving them, and their hearts were full of sorrow, but He says, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you”. When He saw them again was after He had been raised from the dead, as we read in John 20, “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord”. They began to taste the joy that could never cease. That is one thing that characterises the new day, and the new world, the new system of things that His resurrection has given us introduction into. None can rob us of this; it is wholly outside ourselves, outside this world and outside the power of man. Would to God we entered into it more, knew this joy more! The Holy Ghost would engage our hearts with this blessed One, and knowing Him as the living One out of death; knowing our part with Him in all that divine system of which He is the blessed centre.

What a reality is the resurrection of Christ! The apostle says in that passage we read in Corinthians, “if Christ is not raised, then indeed, vain also is our preaching, and vain also your faith”, 1 Cor 15: 14. “ye are yet in your sins” (v 17), and we are without hope. What a solemn thing to deny the resurrection of Christ! Those who do so are yet in their sins. But if Christ is risen, then we are not in our sins. Where are my sins? Left behind, buried in His grave. Again he says, “if Christ be not raised”, we have no hope, “we are the most miserable of all men”, v 19. If we have no hope beyond this life, “let us eat and drink: for to-morrow we die”, v 32. And then, again, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished? No, these saints have not perished; to God they live. He said to the Sadducees, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, Matt 22: 32. He is not the God of the dead but of the living. These men are living to God, although they are yet awaiting the resurrection condition. All the departed saints live to God. “But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept”. Not only has He risen personally, but being risen, He is the firstfruits of a great harvest to follow. “Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming”. As in Adam all die, so in Christ, everyone will be made alive. Every soul that has died in the faith of Christ will be made alive, but every man in his own order. When the Lord comes He will claim all His own, the graves will have to give up His own, they will be raised up in spiritual and glorified bodies and will be for ever with the Lord. He will not lose one; He knows where every sleeping saint lies today, and He is waiting for the moment when He will come and claim them. Then we shall fully share in the great victory that Christ has won, but, even now, in the faith of our souls, we can say, “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory”. We have the sense of victory even now. When the Lord comes, then “Death is swallowed up in victory”. “Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?”, v 55.

The more we ponder on the resurrection of Christ, the more we pray about it, the more we shall see how much is involved in it! The Lord give us light, and grant that the light may shine into our hearts, so that we may taste that joy which has been introduced for us in the risen One, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

← Previous 110 of 142 Next →