An Undeniably Clear Resurrection

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Isaiah 53:10–12 NASB95
But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors.
1Cor 15:1-10
As a church we have been working through the beginning paragraph of .
As a church we have been working through the beginning paragraph of .
Verses 3–5 give four essential rudiments of the gospel message which Paul mentioned in v.1.
Verses 3-5 identify four things that Paul himself had received and of which he’d earlier said (in vv.1-3) to be of great clarity, communicabilty and centrality to us. These four essential core-meaning events of the gospel message are sequentially told to us in vv.3-5. Here they are in time sequence: (1) Jesus the Messiah (the Christ) died (aorist tense, simple historical past) for (i.e. on our behalf, in our place, in order to deal with) our sins under the direction of what the Scriptures predict and require. The last phrase of v.3 indicates that the death of Christ was in the purpose and prescription of God who ultimately inspired these Scriptures. (2) Jesus the Messiah was buried (that is to say He was widely, humanly-recognized as dead). This first phrase of v.4 indicates the evidence that Jesus’ death was a real and complete death in all its dimensions. (3) Jesus the Messiah has been raised (perfect tense, suggesting that He was raised and continues to live). The Resurrection is said to have occurred on the third day and again to be in full accordance with what the Scriptures predict and require. (4) Jesus then appeared to witnesses -- many witnesses -- even apostolic witnesses, who now become the God-moved authors of the new supplementary Scriptures then being written to further testify to the fuller meaning and purpose of Jesus' saving work.
Last week I told the story of a young fellow called Nard from the Philippines, who tried reading the book of Mark without knowing either the pre-story nor the end-story.
Our friends today, are like Nard, in that they cannot understand the meaning of the gospel events & achievements of Jesus’ life and death without them knowing the pre-story AND the post-story.
People need the Lord, as we used to sing in passionate tones, BUT without their perceiving their fallen condition, in a fallen race, fallen into sin and therefore into death, they cannot fully appreciate the purpose of Jesus’ death. — The way Paul summarizes the first stages of the gospel in v.3 is SO hard to appreciate unless we understand the human race’s fall into sin and death.
And, you know something else? ... we cannot understand the accomplishment and the benefits of the death of the Saviour without also understanding the story of the resurrection — as Paul summarizes it in v.4 and following in 1st Corinthians chapter 15.
And, you know something else? ... we cannot understand the accomplishment and the benefits of the death of the Saviour without also understanding the story of the resurrection — as Paul summarizes it in v.4 and following in 1st Corinthians chapter 15.
We can only come to a deep appreciation for what Jesus was doing when He died for us because His death and His resurrection were done in full accordance with what the Scriptures said.
Last week, we reminded ourselves from v.3, the first part of Paul’s gospel summary, that Jesus the Saviour died a substitutionary death instead of us being permanently separated from God in permanent, everlasting death.
We can only come to a deep appreciation for what Jesus was doing when He died for us because His death and His resurrection were done in full accordance with what the Scriptures said.
PRAY
PRAY
The old man made me a cup of tea, and took me through to his sitting room.
‘Now you must see this,’ he said, passing me a much-handled photograph album.
‘This tells you how we came here.’
The pictures told their own story. The happy family at home in Armenia.
The sudden journey with what they could carry and nothing else.
The key figures—father, grandfather, an uncle. On board the ship.
And then the arrival:
staying with distant relatives, finding their own home, settling down, making a new life.
‘And this is where I come in,’ he smiled, turning the last page.
‘I’m not really an Armenian, you see.’
There he was, a little baby, born just after the family arrived in their new world.
I wanted to know more of the history of this strange, proud people who had retained their sense of identity despite being hunted almost to extinction.
He gave me a book, also showing signs of being read many times.
‘This gives you the whole picture,’ he said.
‘When we read this we realize why it’s important that we came here and have carried on our way of life.’
Two stories, one old and long, the other sudden and short.
Weave them together and you create a new community.
And that’s what Paul is doing in ’s first paragraph.
Paul tells how the Christian movement had begun:
it’s a kind of family album, explaining what had happened to bring this little family to birth in its new existence.
He adds himself at the end of the list, though there is something odd about his being there at all.
And Paul gives the tell-tale hints that reveal this story as simply the most recent, and decisive, moment in a much longer story,
for which you need the Book, the Book that gives the whole picture and explains why these new doings of Jesus are so powerful as to save us.
This whole chapter BTW is one of the greatest sustained discussions of a topic which Paul ever wrote.
The theme is the resurrection—the resurrection of Jesus, and, the future resurrection of those who believe in Jesus.
Today, as we finish our series on the gospel, I too must speak about the critical resurrection of Jesus!!
What I have to say boils down to this:
There has to be an undeniable resurrection, and, the resurrection of Jesus has an undeniable Scripture-defined meaning -- which meaning powerfully affects people being saved.
The fact that Jesus was “buried” (in v.4a) verified His death by publicly accessible records & witnesses,
and the fact that Jesus “appeared” to others (in vv.5,6,7,8) verified His resurrection by still living witnesses (v.6b)
So, Jesus’ resurrection, like Jesus’s death, is undeniably grounded in witnessed testimony.
John Singleton Copley, one of the great legal minds in British history and three times High Chancellor of England, wrote,
“I know pretty well what evidence is, and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet.”
Paul was writing about 16 to 18 years after Jesus’ death. Just 16 to 18 years after. That’s the reason why Paul can say in verse 6, “All the people who saw Jesus raised from the dead … You don’t have to trust me. You can talk to them. You can interrogate them. They’re available to you. They’re still alive (most of them). It’s only been 16 to 18 years. Most of them are still alive. You go talk to them.”
And Paul’s changed life and testimony is part of the evidence. He talks about his own changed life, but think about this. He is able to make this offer that depends on more than human reactions to the resurrection. Paul insists on something more historically objective: “All the people who still live in Judea who are still alive who saw the risen Jesus with their eyes, you can go talk to them.”
You know, he could never have made that offer unless all the original witnesses of the resurrection were, through the rest of their lives, testifying to the reality of the resurrection, at enormous cost. When you put those three things together (the empty tomb, the eyewitnesses, and the changed lives of the people who saw Jesus), you have a very powerful case for the undeniability of the resurrection of Jesus — that it really happened.
Some say that Paul did not mention the empty tomb — though each one of the Gospels do.
The word translated “buried” means “entombed, placed horizontally in a [rock] tomb,” not “placed down into the ground.”
So, Paul strongly implied an empty tomb;
what else could the original words “He was buried or entombed, but … He was raised” mean?
Two recent scholars put this together (even though neither one of them is a conservative evangelical).
They “get it” just from the force of the historical evidence.
The first one is the German scholar, Wolfhart Pannenberg, who says:
the early Christians could not possibly have preached the resurrection of Christ publicly and successfully unless both the empty tomb and these hundreds of eyewitnesses really existed.
Do you hear that? What he’s saying is if there is anybody here today who says, “Well, who knows whether there was really an empty tomb after all these years?
Who knows whether there were really eyewitnesses? Why would I trust an ancient document?”
Pannenberg is saying, “Hey, just think. As a historian, there is absolutely no way those things didn’t happen, that they weren’t true.
There must have been an empty tomb, there must have been all those eyewitnesses, or Christianity would not have been able to preach the resurrection of Christ immediately and successfully the way it did.
It must have happened! Those things must be there.”
The second recent scholar is the English Anglican, N.T. Wright.
He works it out a little bit more. He effectively says:
...if there was only an empty tomb and there had been no sightings, people would have believed the body was stolen.
If it had only been eyewitnesses claiming to have seen Jesus but the tomb still had the body in it, then everybody would have believed they were just hallucinating.
Only if all these were true … the empty tomb, the sightings, and the permanently changed lives of the witnesses … could Christianity have ever even begun.
Briefly, that’s the case that Jesus’ resurrection is undeniable.
This too is part of the message of the gospel:
This too is part of the message of the gospel:
Not just the facticity and meaning of Jesus’ death, but the facticity and meaning of Jesus’ resurrection.
And that of course brings us to this issue of the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection as defined by the Scriptures — the OT scriptures.
Some people say that it’s not clear whether the OT Scriptures prophesy the fact of Jesus’ resurrection or give detail to the meaning Jesus’ resurrection.
But Paul mentions here the detail “on the third day” …and says that this too is in the OT scriptures.
So, yes there are OT passages addressing the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, such as .
But even such passages suggest something more about God’s vindication of His abused David-like servant.
And even more than that, passages like , in mentioning the third day, are giving a meaning to Jesus’ resurrection.
Read ; ; ; ; ; ,; ; ;
Help, salvation, or deliverance is frequently associated with the “third day” in the OT writings.
Help, salvation, or deliverance is frequently associated with the “third day” in the OT (see ; ; ; ; ; ; ; )
— and this makes it all the more appropriate for God the Father to be delivering His Son from death on the third day!
Jesus spoke about his own upcoming death and resurrection from this type of OT perspective:
, (notice the word Scripture in v.22)
And do you remember how He spoke in ; ; ; ; (how He was well-remembered as speaking)?
And after His resurrection, Jesus spoke, in Luke 24, with 2 of His disciples on the road to Emmaus:
Before recognizing Him they spoke to Him, in v.19, about the things concerning
“Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people,
20 and how the chief priests and our arulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him.
21 “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.
Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.
22 “But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning,
23 and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.
24 “Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said; but Him they did not see.”
25 And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that athe prophets have spoken!
26 “Was it not necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and [then] to enter into His glory?”
27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets,
He explained to them the [these two?] things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
Jesus could’ve started with types and patterns like ...
...the sacrifice of Isaac, the picture of a substitutionary atonement.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), .
He could have gone to to describe the details of the crucifixion, the very words that Jesus said on the cross, and the hope of vindication
But probably the most significant thing in the OT scriptures concerning the meaning or significance of the resurrection of Jesus comes from .
Probably the most significant thing in the OT scriptures concerning the meaning or significance of the resurrection of Jesus comes from .
Here, the resurrection of the Messiah confirms the effectiveness of guilt offering sacrifice made by the Messiah according to Isaiah.
And the glorious outcome is that the sacrificed Messiah somehow lives to be united with the people whom He has won for Himself.
That’s why the confession of the death and the resurrection of Jesus are crucial and central to the gospel.
If the Saviour doesn’t live, there’s no one for the saved to embrace and enjoy!
Let me quote from John MacArthur Jnr to finish up our series on the gospel message:
A crucified Messiah would be no Messiah at all, a Messiah left in the grave would be no Messiah at all, a Savior in the grave would be no Savior at all. It was the resurrection, , which proclaimed Him to be the Son of God with power. There’s no power demonstrated on the cross, the power is demonstrated in the resurrection.
Kenneth Latourette, one of the great Christian history professor says, “It was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted his followers out of the despair into which His death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation of the movement begun by Him. But for their profound belief that the crucified had risen from the dead, and that they had seen Him and talked with Him, the death of Jesus and even Jesus Himself would probably have been all but forgotten.” No resurrection, says Latourette, and you have a case for the disappearance of Jesus from historical records.
But He did rise and we believe in His resurrection, and salvation requires that, and 10, “If you confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” The church then, the redeemed church is the first witness to bodily resurrection. We’re not having a discussion about whether there’s going to be a bodily resurrection, we know there is. To say that believers don’t have a bodily resurrection is to defy the very fact that is necessary to be saved and that is to believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ who lives that we may live. Resurrection faith, by the way, is absolutely unique to Christianity.
The original accounts of Buddha which identify what Buddhism is, never ascribe to him any such thing as a resurrection. In fact, the earliest accounts of the death of Buddha in the documents indicated that he died with that, quote, “Utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains.” So long, Buddha.
Mohammed died on June 8, 632 A.D. at the age of 61 at Medina. And his tomb is annually visited by hundreds of thousands of Muslims. There has never been any indication by any of them of a resurrected Mohammed.
What sets the church apart is we are saved because we believe in a resurrected Christ.
You have no doubt watched the symbolic testimony of believer’s baptism; and what does such baptism symbolize?
Historically, baptismal candidates went down into the water because says they had been spiritually buried with Him in baptism, and spiritually speaking, they came up out of the water because they had risen with Him in newness of life. Historically, this was a symbol of our spiritual union with Christ in His death in which He bore our sin and of our union with Christ in His resurrection by which He raised us to life.
So the testimony of any true redeemed church saved by faith in a risen Christ, is its hugely important testimony to the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
The Corinthians had already believed in bodily resurrection.
They shouldn’t have been influenced by those who denied it.
Nor should we even neglect it …or be duped by the deniers.
Hugh Schonfield’s “Passover Plot” is one of the attempts to explain away the events of the crucifixion and the resurrection.
But it, like all the others, relies on that ancient lie circulated in the very first century by the soldiers
who were paid to say that the friends of Jesus had come and stolen his body away.
But no one has ever been able to explain how that could happen.
The originator of a new religion came to the great French diplomat statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord and complained that he could not make any converts.
“What would you suggest I do?” he asked.
“I should recommend,” said Talleyrand,
“that you get yourself crucified, and then die, but be sure to rise again the third day.”
General Wellington commanded the victorious forces at the great battle of Waterloo that effectively ended the Napoleonic Wars.
The story has been told that when the battle was over, Wellington sent the great news of his victory to England.
A series of stations, one within sight of the next, had been established to send code messages between England and the continent.
The message to be sent was “Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.”
Meanwhile a fog set in and interrupted the message sending.
As a result, people only saw news of “Wellington defeated—”
Later, the fog cleared and the full message continued,
which was quite different from the outcome that the people originally thought had happened!
The same is true today.
When many people consider the gospel message, what happened on that Passover Eve in 30 AD, with the death of Jesus,
they only read “defeat.”
Yet, on the 3rd day, at the Resurrection, God’s message was completed.
The resurrection of Jesus spells “victory” and “liberty”.
The Gospel is good news of a new world finally — in the age of the resurrection.
The Gospel is good news of a new society forming — the so-far spiritually-resurrected people of God.
The Gospel is good news of a new life of freedom — the individual believers identified with the life death, burial and resurrected Saving Messiah.
People who are finding freedom not only from guilt because of the death and burial of the Saviour...
…but people finding freedom from self and freedom from fear because of the resurrected and ascended Spirit-giving Saviour.
Jesus’ life death burial resurrection ascension and coming spell freedom and joy for us.
Are you telling the world this good news?
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