Resurrection and Mission


Sermon by J. Ligon Duncan on April 12, 2009 Luke 24:45-48

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The Lord’s Day
Morning

April 12, 2009

EASTER SUNDAY


Luke 24:45-48


“Resurrection and Mission”

Dr. J. Ligon
Duncan III

CALL TO WORSHIP (Dr. Duncan): The stone the
builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made; let us
rejoice and be glad in it. Let us worship God.

~~~

Dr. Thomas: Now let’s look to the Lord in prayer.
Let us all pray.

Lord our God, as we come now again this Lord’s
Day, but especially this Easter morning, into Your presence, we want to come
with joy and praise and thanksgiving and gladness in our hearts for the truth,
the undeniable truth, that the tomb on that Easter morning was truly empty; that
Jesus rose from the dead, not just as an idea, not just as a memory lingering in
the minds of disciples and others, but that He rose physically and corporeally
from the dead; that as Peter — as only Peter could — ran into that tomb and saw
the linen cloths (and one in particular folded in a place by itself) showing
that He rose from a power within himself as the Son of God made flesh; that
death could not hold Him forever; that He had indeed died; that soldiers had
pierced His side, and blood and water had come out. They had seen Him in a state
of death and buried Him in that state. And yet, O Lord, on that Easter morning
He rose again in the power of an endless life.

We thank You this morning as we come before You
for the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ: that His body was transformed
by resurrection; that He could appear and disappear, and appear in one location
and then in another location. We thank You, O Lord, that in that glorious truth
lies the certainty of the forgiveness of our sins, lies the certainty of our
justification and our right standing with You; that You, as it were, confirmed
His mission and confirmed His finished work, and confirmed His substitutionary
satisfactory death on behalf of sinners on the cross by raising Him from the
dead. It is a confirmation to us of the reality of who He claimed to be. As a
consequence of the resurrection we can believe every word that He ever spoke. As
a consequence of the resurrection we may be assured that it is but a foretaste
of our own resurrection; that we too on that day when Jesus will come again on
the clouds of heaven…that we too shall rise.

Lord, we bless You this morning as we come before
You for the certainty and conviction that we shall not all sleep, but we shall
all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet —
when the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised imperishable and we
shall all be changed: for this perishable will put on that which is
imperishable, and this mortal will put on that which is immortal; and when this
perishable shall put on the imperishable and this mortal shall put on that which
is immortal, then shall come to pass what is written: “Death is swallowed up in
victory; O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?” The
sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law, but thanks be unto God
who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. We bless You, O Lord our
God, as we come before You this morning, that there lives now One in a physical
form, in a body like ours yet now glorified at Your right hand, and He ever
lives to intercede for us.

We pray for those among us this morning with
doubts; for those this morning beset by all manner of trials and difficulties;
for those this morning conscious of the loss of a loved one; for those this
morning conscious that in and of ourselves we cannot endure and we cannot
persevere. We bless You, Lord, for the truth that in Jesus Christ we have the
victory — a victory which is counter-cultural, a victory which is counter to the
agnosticism and atheism and tyranny of the world of unbelief. Everything about
the resurrection challenges every thought process and every world view and every
epistemology. We thank You that in Jesus Christ we are indeed a new creation,
and spiritually we have already been raised — raised with Christ. We sit in
heavenly places with Christ Jesus, and yet, O Lord, we await a glorious morning,
a resurrection morning when graves all over this world shall give up their dead
and they shall rise, and those who died in Christ shall rise to meet the Lord in
the air, and so forever be with the Lord.

Lord, bless these truths to us today. Give us this
day, this afternoon as we spend time with friends and family…give us this
afternoon that peace that passes all understanding, that joy that only the
Lord’s people know and experience, and grant it to us we pray for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.

~~~

Dr. Duncan: Amen. If you have your Bibles, I’d
invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, the twenty-fourth chapter.
We’re going to look especially at verses 45-48, but I’d invite you to allow your
eyes to roam all over the twenty-fourth chapter of Luke and notice some of the
details that Luke draws your attention to there, and notice some of the details
that John told you about in John 20 which Luke does not highlight. John actually
fills in some interesting things for you about the events of resurrection
morning.

And as you turn there, as you look at that passage in
Luke 24, I want to draw your attention to the fact that the Gospel narratives in
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all reveal things to us about the disciples that
you would never ever admit if you were making this up. If this is a fabrication,
a piece of pious fiction as some of the great liberal commentators have alleged
that it is, you just wouldn’t have written the story this way. You look
throughout these passages, and the disciples, both before and after they hear
about the empty tomb and both before and after they meet Jesus personally on the
day of resurrection, they are characterized by perplexity, fear, doubt, worry,
ignorance, and unbelief. Have you noticed already in Luke, for instance, as you
work your way through that passage that once the angels and twice Jesus…first on
the road to Emmaus and then later back in Jerusalem where the disciples are
gathered…first the angels and then (twice) Jesus have to say to doubting
disciples, ‘Haven’t you read your Bible? Didn’t you know that this is how things
had to happen in order for Scripture to be fulfilled?’ And so you find at the
very core of the Christian church these stumbling, sinning disciples who are
paralyzed by unbelief. Now you just wouldn’t have written the story that way if
you were making it up. The only reason that would be recorded is if that’s what
happened.

I want to say to you again, those of you who are
doubting today, no atheist who ever lived experienced the depth of doubt that
these disciples experienced. You can see it. You can see the defeat and the woe
in their hearts by their actions and by their words. And we’re told by Luke that
even when Jesus comes to them himself (look at verse 41)…“They still disbelieved
for joy,” Luke tells you. Even when Jesus comes to them in Jerusalem, they still
disbelieve for joy. They were overwhelmed by this all.

Well, what’s going on here? What’s Luke showing us
in this passage? He’s showing us a lot of things. The thing I want us to zero in
on today is the fact that Luke connects the resurrection of Jesus Christ with
our mission, our purpose in life.
There are three things that I want you to
be on the lookout for as we look at Luke 24:45-48. I want you to see how Luke
draws attention to the forgiveness that we have through Jesus the Messiah; then,
I want you to see how Luke draws attention to the suffering of Jesus the Messiah
as the means of our forgiveness; then, I want you to see how Luke draws
attention to the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah as the vindication of His
person and work on our behalf; and then, fourth, I want you to see how Luke
connects the resurrection of Jesus to our mission, our purpose in life. [All of
the Gospels make these connections, by the way. This afternoon, go take a look
again at John 20:21; at Matthew 28:18-20; at Mark 16:7, 8, and also verses 14,
15. All of the Gospel resurrection accounts connect the resurrection of Jesus
Christ with the great commission.] Now that ought to tell us something about the
Christian life, and indeed it does.

So before we read God’s word, let’s ask for His help
and blessing as we read it.

Heavenly Father, this is Your word. For all those
who are gathered under it this morning in this place, I pray that You would open
their eyes to see the glorious truth that You are revealing to us in this
Scripture, in the same way that You opened the disciples’ eyes to see Jesus as
He taught the Scriptures and broke bread with them. This we ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen.

This is the word of God, Luke 24, and beginning in
verse 45:

“Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them,
‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise
from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed
in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these
things.’”

Amen. And thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired,
and inerrant word. May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.

It is the first day of the week in Jerusalem. The
women have gone out to the tomb to properly anoint Jesus’ body for burial.

There was not time for them to do this on the Sabbath’s eve when He was taken
down. His lifeless body was taken down from the cross and transported to the
garden tomb, and so it was their intention as an act of love towards Him and in
the fulfillment of their normal customs to go and prepare the body properly,
anointing it with the various spices and perfumes that were used. Imagine the
practicality of that — the decomposing body is not a pleasant smell, and the
anointing of that body with these kinds of ointments and perfumes was an act of
care for a human body that believers believed was the very image of God. God
created us in His image, and therefore the body is to be treated with dignity
and respect, and in view of the hope of the resurrection. Good Jewish people
would have looked for a resurrection.

When they get there, Jesus is not there. Angels
address the ladies who made their way to the tomb. The ladies make their way
back to the disciples where they are gathered, and Mary Magdalene makes the
announcement: ‘The Lord’s not there, and angels tell me that He’s alive.’

The disciples do not believe it. They think that the women
are crazy. They think that the women have made up a tale. Peter (and we’ll
reflect on this in a little bit)…Peter doesn’t wait there. He runs! Now you
think about that. The last time Peter had seen His Lord, he was busy denying
Him. And when he hears that his Lord may be alive, he’s got to see it with his
own eyes and he runs there. Now it fascinates me that John adds in this little
detail: “Oh, I ran, too! I beat him there.”

Now every man in this room knows how this works, you
know? For the rest of their life this is how this conversation went: Peter’s
telling someone, ‘And then after Mary Magdalene told us this, I ran to the
tomb.’ And John’s going, ‘Yeah. I beat you there!’ And Peter says, ‘Yeah, but I
went in!’ But you understand, you know, as soon as John gets there he peeks in
and it’s just like Mary told him that it was. Peter’s not staying outside. He’s
going in. And they come back, and they tell the disciples it’s just like the
women said: ‘They’re not making this up. He’s not there! But we didn’t see Him.’

The disciples are still doubting. These are not
people that are looking for some excuse to believe. These are not people that
are grasping at straws and grabbing hold of any piece of flimsy evidence so that
they can go on hoping against hope. These are people who are thoroughly captured
by unbelief.

And then Luke changes the scene. He takes you
out onto a highway that’s leaving Jerusalem on the way to the little town of
Emmaus, and there are two discouraged disciples. And they’re walking down the
road and they’re talking about all the things that have happened in Jerusalem
over the last three days, and they’re thoroughly discouraged. You know how the
story goes. Jesus shows up but they don’t know it’s Jesus. And He walks with
them for a while, and finally He says, ‘What are you talking about? What’s all
this conversation about?’ And they turn to Him and they say, ‘You have got to be
kidding! You haven’t heard what’s been going on in Jerusalem the last three
days?’ And He says, ‘Well, tell Me. What? What exactly has happened?’ [It’s
highly ironic!] And they tell Him about Jesus and they say, ‘You know, we had
hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel, but now all our hopes
have vanished.’

And you remember what Luke tells you. Jesus says,
‘Haven’t you read your Bibles?’ And then, all the way to Emmaus He gives them
what must have been the greatest small group Bible study in the history of the
world, and He shows them from the Scripture what the Scripture said about the
suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah. And then they get to
their house and they say, ‘Look, you’ve got to come in and eat with us.’ And He
says, ‘Sure.’ And He goes in and He sits down, and He breaks bread. And for the
first time it dawns upon them who this is. This is Jesus! Immediately He
vanishes. They don’t wait! They get up, they get dressed, and they leave in the
middle of the night to go back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples. And right
after they’ve told the disciples what happened to them, guess who shows up?
Jesus! And then it’s all happy, right? Everybody believes, right? No. No. Luke
tells you that even when Jesus arrives there are disciples who are still
doubting.

You see, these people are gripped with unbelief. But
something dramatically changes them, friends. Something dramatically changes
them from Peter — who three days before has been denying to even know who Jesus
is — and these disciples who are gripped with doubt even on resurrection Sunday
after the testimony of the women, after the testimony of the disciples from
Emmaus, and after Jesus’ personal presence with them. They are still gripped
with unbelief. Something changes their lives so that every single one of this
inner circle will die for Jesus except one: John. He’ll die in his old age in
exile on an island. Every single one of them will give up their life for Jesus.
What happened?

What happened, my friends, is that God by His Holy
Spirit worked resurrection power in their hearts so that what they initially
could not comprehend and did not believe, they came to understand.
And they
came to believe it more than life and breath and food. And I want you to see
what Luke teaches us about that today, because every single one of us needs this
resurrection power in our lives.

Luke connects their life, their mission, their
purpose, their witness, their motivation for their life, their mission, their
purpose and their witness to Jesus’ resurrection. They need the power of Jesus’
resurrection in their life if they are to complete their mission, their purpose,
in life. Luke makes that so clear here. He’s telling us that
we have to have a resurrection-driven life
.
It’s the resurrection that enables us to live the Christian life. It’s
the resurrection that motivates us to live the Christian life. It’s the
resurrection that supplies us with the capacity to fulfill our mission and to
bear witness as servants of Jesus Christ to His resurrection.

And Luke tells us four things in this passage about
that. He points us first to the Messiah’s forgiveness, then the Messiah’s
suffering, then the Messiah’s resurrection, and then the Messiah’s mission.
Let’s look at these things together.

I. The Messiah’s forgiveness.

First of all, Luke points us to the Messiah’s
forgiveness.
Listen to what Jesus says when He’s with the disciples:

“He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus
it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the
dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in
His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’”

Do you see how Luke is saying there that it is essential?
If you are going to have resurrection power in your life, it is essential for
you to understand your need of the forgiveness of sins. If you don’t know that
you need to be forgiven, you will not be overjoyed at the provision of
forgiveness of sins that comes through the life and death of Jesus Christ. Today
will not be a joyful Easter Sunday for anyone who doesn’t think that he or she
needs to be forgiven.

Now it’s just possible that there are a few people
here today who are not here because your heart is overflowing with gratitude for
the salvation which has been given to you freely in Jesus Christ through His
costly death, through the love of the Father, through His substitutionary
atonement. It’s possible that some of you are here against your wills. You know,
it’s Easter Sunday…families get together…you’re from out of town (or you’re from
in town), and you get together at least on this one afternoon a year and you try
and survive one another…eat a big meal. And you’re here because it’s family
tradition for everybody to worship together in church on Easter Sunday, but your
heart’s not in it.

And it’s just possible that some of you are
here and your heart’s not in it because you don’t think that you need to
be forgiven of sins.
And this is not a joyful day for people who don’t
think that they need to be forgiven of sins. The joy of this day is all tied up
with the knowledge that we need to be forgiven of sins.

Let me ask you a question. Why do you think that
Peter went into that tomb?
I tell you that man was a man who was profoundly
aware of his own sins, and I imagine the thought had crossed his mind that for
the rest of his life he was going to remember that the last thing he ever said
about Jesus before his Lord died was that he did not even know Him, and when he
heard that his Lord was not in that tomb, he had to see it with his own eyes.
And even though John beat him there, he was going into that tomb. There was no
power on earth that was going to keep Peter out of that tomb because he was a
man who knew that he needed the forgiveness of sins, and it had just dawned on
him that there may be a glimmer of hope. And so he was going in that tomb.

Well, my friends, if you don’t have that sense of
your need like Peter had a sense of his need
this will not be a
day of joy for you
. This day became a day of deep joy for Peter that he
never ever forgot as he spent himself for Jesus for the rest of his life. But it
won’t be a deep joy for you if you don’t realize your need for forgiveness of
sins.

Thomas Boston, the great Scottish pastor, once said,
“If people knew my heart, I wouldn’t have four friends left in Scotland.” He was
a man simply being honest about the sins of his own heart. In each of our hearts
there are ugly things. There are things that we’d rather no one else know about.
There are things that we know separate us from God, but there are some of us
that work very hard to try and pretend like we don’t have anything to be
forgiven of. Some of us are so torn up about the sins that others have committed
against us that we have not thought about the sins that we have committed
against God that need to be forgiven. It’s those who know that they need to be
forgiven for whom this day is a day of joy. Luke begins by pointing us to our
need for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. He points us to preaching the
gospel, the Messiah who forgives.

II. How forgiveness is
accomplished.

Secondly, he points us to the way in which our
forgiveness is accomplished.
And you see this again as he points to Jesus’
suffering. Look at verse 46: “Thus it is written that the Christ should
suffer….”

Now, friends, you understand that this suffering is
something that He underwent for us throughout the whole course of His life but
it culminates at the cross, and on the cross He suffers in the bearing of our
sins. In other words, Jesus was punished and paid the penalty for sins that He
did not commit — your sins which were imputed to Him, which were charged
to His account, which were reckoned to Him, which were credited to Him. That is,
for everyone who trusts in Jesus Christ, your
sins are charged to His account and He hangs on the tree for your sins

though He was sinless. This is what it means for Jesus to bear sins.

Let me paint a picture for you. Suppose you picked up
the newspaper sometime in the last several weeks and you’ve seen any number of
horrendous crimes committed. You may have read of a husband who had been abusing
his wife and his children for many, many years. You may have read of a child who
had been molested and killed…put in a suitcase and dropped into a drainage pond.
You may have read of a man who committed a gross act of financial misconduct
against his partners in which he left them in dire straits because of his own
evil deeds. You may have read of a lie about someone who ruined their
reputation, and on and on and on it goes. Well, picture this. It’s the day of
the court and the sentencing. All of the perpetrators of those crimes and all of
the victims of those crimes — and you can add in a billion more crimes just like
them… all of the perpetrators and all of the victims of the crimes are lined up,
and as the judge hands out the sentences, the victims of the crime are sentenced
with the punishment due to the perpetrator, so that the abused wife and children
are sentenced with the punishment due to the abuser; so that the child who was
the victim of molestation is sentenced with the sentence of the perpetrator; so
that the financial cheat is not sentenced, but his victim bears his sentence; so
that the one whose reputation was ruined by untruth is sentenced with the
sentence of the one who had done this crime against him.

Do you understand that this is exactly what
happened to Jesus on the cross?
David tells us in Psalm 51…even after he’d
sinned against Uriah and against Bathsheba and against the child that was born
of that unholy union, he says to the Lord, “Against You and You only have I
sinned.” Do you understand that every sin that has ever been committed has been
committed against Jesus, and on the cross He steps in and He says, ‘Those sins
that have been done to Me, I will gladly bear them so that you might be set
free, so that you might be forgiven’? Your way to forgiveness, your way to life
is not through God sweeping those sins under the carpet, not by God saying,
‘Well, I’m just going to forget about those,’ but by
God visiting on His own Son the penalty for every sin
that had ever been committed against Him by those who trust in Him
.
It is a mind-boggling burden.

You understand that on the cross God is not canceling
your sin. He is liquidating your sin. You understand that on the cross Jesus is
not offering something in the place of what your sins deserve. He is offering
what your sins deserve. He is bearing what your sins deserve.
He is absorbing what your sins deserve so that when He
is through absorbing it there is nothing left
!
That’s how your sins are forgiven. And Luke wants that told to the ends
of the earth.

III. The resurrection of Jesus.

And then he points us to the resurrection of
Jesus.
Notice it’s not just that Christ’s suffering and death should be
proclaimed to the ends of the earth, but look again at verse 46:

“…And on the third day rise from the dead.” The
resurrection of Christ must be proclaimed. Why? Well, for a lot of reasons, but
Paul tells you at the end of Romans 4 here’s one really important reason why
Jesus’ resurrection must be proclaimed. Because, Paul says, you are justified by
Jesus’ resurrection. You are acquitted of your sin by Jesus’ resurrection. How
does Paul put it? “He was raised for our justification.” That’s what he says.

In other words, in
resurrection the heavenly Father is vindicating His Son
and He is
saying, ‘My Son is innocent for every crime for which He has suffered, and the
dictates of My justice demand that He be raised to newness of life in
vindication of the perfection of His life which He has lived on behalf of His
people.’ And Jesus’ vindication
by His Father is our justification in anticipation that on the last day
we’re going to stand before God, and if we trust in Jesus Christ we are going to
be pronounced “not guilty” in the final judgment. And the reason that
we’re going to be pronounced “not guilty” is because Jesus has borne those sins
and been buried and been raised again, and been vindicated by God.

IV. Our mission — our
responsibility — our purpose in life.

Now what does that have to do with living our
purpose for life, with fulfilling our mission in life? Well, that’s the fourth
thing that Luke draws our attention to in verse 47-48.
This is going to be
proclaimed to all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem. And then here’s what he
says (verse 48): “You are witnesses of these things.” In other words, Luke
directly connects the resurrection of Jesus Christ with the great commission.

Missions is based on the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Our mission in life is based on the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ resurrection is the foundation
of our mission in this life. And have you noticed how the Apostle Paul draws
attention to that? Turn in your Bibles to Philippians 3:10. Paul says in
Philippians 3, in the midst of saying that he counts all things loss in view of
the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ and that he wants to be found in
Christ not having a righteousness of his own, but a righteousness which comes
from God on the basis of faith…. Look at Philippians 3:10. What else does he
want to know? “I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection.” What does
he mean when he wants to know the power of Jesus’ resurrection? Well, turn back
to Ephesians 1 and notice what he prays. Look at verses 18-19. He says:

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what
is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance
in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who
believe.”

So he wants us to know the surpassing greatness of His
power, and then he illustrates that power. In fact he does more than that. He
defines that power. In fact, he does more than that. He defines that power. Look
at what he says in verses 19-23:

“These….”

[What are the “these”? The hope of the calling, the riches
of His glory, the surpassing greatness of His power.]

“These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, which He
brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.”

Now what’s Paul saying? Paul is saying that he wants
every believer to experience the same power at work in us which raised Jesus
Christ from the dead.

Flip over to Ephesians 3. He prays this same thing
again in verse 16:

“I pray that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be
strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.”

So it’s the Holy Spirit strengthening us in our inmost
being
. With what? The power of the resurrection Why? Because you cannot live
the Christian life without the power of Christ’s resurrection at work in you. I
mean, look at Peter. What changed him from a cringing coward in the
garden who could not answer a servant girl as to his relationship with Jesus
Christ, into a man who would eventually die because of the resurrection of
Jesus? The power of the resurrection in his heart.
Peter came to understand how the resurrection of Jesus Christ had forgiven his
sins, and it changed his life. And he was ready to undergo any trial, to endure
any persecution, to face any foe because of the forgiveness that he had in Jesus
Christ through His resurrection. And, my friends, that is the power that is at
work in the heart of every believer.

Now, it is possible that you are here today and
you do not sense this resurrection power at work in you. There are at least two
possibilities.
One may be that you don’t know Jesus Christ savingly. You
haven’t trusted in Him. You haven’t put your hope and your faith in Him as He is
offered in the gospel, and because of that there is no resurrection power at
work in your life. The other may be that though you have trusted in Jesus Christ
there are things in your heart and life that you desire more than Jesus and that
compete with your love for and your loyalty for Him, and which rob you of the
joy, the treasure that He alone is — because He is a matchless treasure — and
because you have been pursuing baubles rather than permanent treasures, you have
not experienced the reality of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good and the
resurrection power as you ought to. Either way, Luke wants us to know that if we
are going to live life as it is meant to be lived — if we are going to live life
with purpose, if we are going to fulfill the mission that God has put us here
for, then it will be because of resurrection power in our hearts. We cannot look
within and find the resources we need to live a life of purpose. That must be
supplied by Christ alone.

Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we ask that You would show us the
Messiah who suffered for our forgiveness and was raised for our justification,
and through resurrection power equip us for the living of these days for Your
glory and our eternal good. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Would you take your hymnals out and we’ll stand and
sing No. 273, Jesus Christ Is Risen Today.

[Congregation sings.]

Peace be with you.

——————————————————————————————————————–

A GUIDE TO THE MORNING SERVICE


Happy Easter

What is more natural and amazing
than for Christians to gather together on

the first day of the week to
celebrate the resurrection of the Lord? Natural

because Christians have been
celebrating (and anticipating) the resurrection

every Lord’s day for nearly two
millennia; amazing because by His resurrection,

Jesus demonstrated that He was
the sinless Son of God and Savior

of sinners, destroying death and
guaranteeing a resurrection of the body on

the last day. Normal and
amazing!

If you are a visitor with us
this morning, we are glad that you are here,

and trust you will know
something of the resurrected Lord’s presence.


Thoughts on the Resurrection

The cross has, in many ways,
become the symbol of Christianity. Crosses are

worn as jewelry and they
decorate our homes. You find them in Christian

art, atop church steeples, and
letterhead. Even the architecture of this sanctuary

is intentionally reminiscent of
the shape of the cross (looking down on

the sanctuary from above). When
you drive through the southern countryside

and see three wooden structures
grouped together that otherwise

would seem out of place, you
immediately recognize them not as agricultural

instruments, but as symbols that
point to the crucifixion of our Savior

(and the two thieves that died
with Him that day). The cross is the symbol

of Christianity.

But in many ways, the symbol of
the Christian faith could be something

else–an empty tomb. Paul, in a
discourse on the reality and implications of

the resurrection, tells the
Corinthians, “and if Christ has not been raised,

then our preaching is vain, your
faith also is vain.” If the tomb is still occupied,

all the preaching and faith are
of no use. If Christ’s work ceased the

moment He died, then our hope is
not secure. We, of all people, are to be

pitied. The gospel is more than
the wooden cross; it must include an empty

tomb!


Jesus’ Resurrection Body

Jesus’ resurrection, which was a
divine act involving all three Persons of the

Godhead (John 10:17-18; Acts
13:30-35; Rom. 1:4), was not just a resuscitation

of the ruined physical frame
that was taken down from the cross for

burial. It was, rather, a
transformation of Jesus’ humanity that enabled Him

to appear, vanish, and move
unseen from one location to another (Luke

24:31, 36). It was the creative
renewing of His original body, the body that is

now fully glorified and
deathless (Phil. 3:21; Heb. 7:16, 24).

The Son of God in heaven still
lives in and through that body, and will do

so forever. In 1 Corinthians
15:50-54, Paul envisages that Christians who are alive

on earth at the moment of
Christ’s return will undergo a similar transformation,

though in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 he
shows himself aware that Christians who

die before the Second Coming
will be “clothed” with their new body (the

“eternal house in heaven”) as a
distinct event, at or after the time of the old

body’s return to dust (Gen.
3:19).


The Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual
Songs


Christ the
Lord is Risen Today

This joyful and exuberant song
is one of the most popular Easter hymns in

the English language. Leonard
Payton, music director at Redeemer PCA in

Austin, Texas, says: “I think
I’ve sung this every Easter Sunday of my life;

and I hope my grandchildren will
be singing it, too. It deals with the third

and fourth articles of the
gospel (see 1 Cor. 15:1-4) while treating the second

article (He was buried) briefly
and the first article (Christ died for our sins)

only obliquely.” The music comes
from the Lyra
Davidica
(London,
1708).

Wesley’s words were written for
use at the first worship service at the

Wesleyan Chapel in London. The
chapel, on the site of a former iron

foundry, became known as the
Foundry Meeting House, and this hymn was

included in the Foundry
Collection.

© 2024 First Presbyterian Church.

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