Christ is Risen!
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2020 · 12 April 2020
Here we come to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. This is not just a feature of Christianity, it is the main event. Resurrection is the point of redemption. The whole purpose of God in creating and redeeming His people is to raise them to eternal glory so that they can worship Him forever in glorified bodies. Our resurrection is secured by the power of God, the power of Christ.
The resurrection is not only a demonstration of power, it is also a validation of Christ’ death offering. God was satisfied with the sacrifice Christ offered for the sins of His people. He said, “It is finished!” God said, “I am satisfied,” and raised Jesus, and He ascended to eternal glory, sat down at the right hand of God to intercede for His people who enter into eternal glory in a resurrected body.
The resurrection then is the greatest event in history. It is the cornerstone of the gospel promise. Because Christ conquered death, and because He conquered sin, we will be raised to dwell with Him forever. How important is this? Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” That is necessary for salvation.
It is the very essence of the gospel. And to signify that on an ongoing basis, Sunday, the first day of the week, became the day that the church meets to worship. The church has been doing that since the resurrection. Since the apostles on resurrection day, the first day of the week, met with Jesus that evening, the church has always met on the first day of the week to celebrate His resurrection.
All four gospel writers, record the actual history of the resurrection. The composite of all four is the total story of the resurrection. There are several inportant things to note about it. No one saw the resurrection. But it’s not necessary to see it. All you need to know is that Christ who was dead is now alive. And there were many witnesses. And we are also witnesses, because Christ lives in us.
We really don’t need to know how a miracle happened, because there were many proofs. There are many evidences given in Scripture. There is the empty tomb, there is angelic testimony directly from heaven, and there were many eye witnesses. As we come to John’s account, we’ll blend in a little from Matthew, Mark, and Luke at strategic points to help us get a better overall picture of it.
John wants us to see the power of Christ, even in His death. And he showed us the glory of Christ, because He showed us that Jesus was in charge of His own dying. And then He was in charge of His own burial. And now He is in charge of His own resurrection. This is to demonstrate to us “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” so that we might believe that, and by believing “have eternal life in His name.”
The Old Testament promised the Messiah would rise in Psalm 16:10-11, “He will not allow His Holy One to see corruption, but show Him the path of life.” Isaiah 53:10, “He will be made alive “He will see His offspring,” and He will be eternally glorified and exalted. Jesus promised in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple (body), and in three days I will raise it up.”
John 20:1-10, “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
“3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there.”
“7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.” John wants us to understand is that Jesus rose from the dead.
The first proof is the empty tomb. It’s Sunday, the first day of the week. It is so early it is still dark. The Jews numbered their days. Sabbath was the seventh day, because it commemorated the seventh day when God rested from creation, and they always worshiped on the Sabbath day. But this was the first day after the Sabbath. This is our Sunday worshipping the resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus said He would rise on the third day. He had been buried on Friday. He was in the grave a few hours on Friday before sundown. He was there all 24 hours of Saturday. And He was there about 12 hours of Sunday, because the Jewish days went from sunset to sunset rather than sunrise to sunrise. Mark says it’s “very early.” Luke says it is “early dawn.” Matthew says “it began to dawn.” John says “while it was still dark.”
What that tells us, and what we know to be true from the other writers, is that Maria Magdalena was the first one there. Now she didn’t start out alone. According to Matthew 27 another Mary, Mary the mother of James and Joses, was with her. She’s in a hurry to get there before the other Mary. Matthew 28:1 says that both Marys headed for the tomb. But now we know Mary Magdalene got there first.
Now there were other women who were coming along as well. The same women who were at the foot of the cross were there on Friday when Joseph and Nicodemus were burying the body of Jesus. It says that in Luke 23:55, “The women who had come with the Lord out of Galilee saw the tomb and where the body was laid.” After the Sabbath is over, they want to get back to the tomb.
Mary Magdalene saw that the stone was already taken away from the tomb. She fears the worst, verse 2, so “she turned around and ran.” She assumed that somebody had taken Him. She runs “to Simon Peter and the other disciple,” who is John, the one “whom Jesus loved,” and said to them, “they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.’”
The stone wasn’t rolled away to let Jesus out. It was rolled away to let the witnesses in. Jesus doesn’t need the stone to be removed. He didn’t need the door to be opened that night when He showed up with the apostles and came right through the locked door. Here is clear evidence that they hadn’t planned to steal the body of Jesus. Mary is not part of a plot to fake a resurrection.
Verse 3, “Peter therefore went out, and the other disciple, and were going to the tomb. 4 So they both ran together.” Mary Magdalene is running to Peter and John. In the meantime, the other women arrive, and that is when the angels appear to them. Mary Magdalena missed the angel. She has that wonderful experience later. Now none of these people knew what had happened on Saturday.
They didn’t know that the Sanhedrin got Roman soldiers to guard the tomb, and then put a Roman seal on the stone so that no one would come to fake a resurrection. A Roman seal meant that it would become a violent crime, if you broke the Roman seal. And they put many Roman soldiers there. They also don’t know that in the night of Sunday, God sent a localized earthquake.
But before the earthquake, God put all those soldiers under a divine anesthesia, so they all fell asleep. Then came an earthquake, and with the earthquake the large stone was rolled away in Matthew 28:1-4. The soldiers didn’t know what happened. The soldiers fled the tomb because when they checked it, Jesus was gone. As professional soldiers, being asleep had severe repercussions.
They don’t know where the earthquake came from and how the stone was rolled away. They don’t know why the body isn’t there, so they leave. They’re gone, because Mary Magdalene never refers to them. The other women never refer to them when they get there. And Peter and John also never refer to them when they get there. So these soldiers are the collective testimony that Jesus is not there.
Meanwhile Peter and John are “running together.” John was faster than Peter. He was also a little shyer than Peter, and he is “stooping, looked in, saw the linen wrappings lying there, but.did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, and he entered the tomb. Both saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, rolled up in a place by itself.
So the other disciple (John) also entered, and he saw and believed. We don’t know what he believed, because the next verse says, “As yet they didn’t understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” The point to notice is that they had no expectation that Jesus would rise: the women didn’t and the leaders of the apostles also didn’t. Also remember the burial and that they did not embalm.
And with Jesus, they also had about eighty pounds of spices designed to overpower the stench of decaying flesh. So if somebody stole the body, they wouldn’t unwrap it. But if someone did do that, you wouldn’t see the linen wrappings lying and the wrappings around the head lying in one place. But the linen wrappings were lying there, because Jesus had just gone through them.
No one could come and steal the body. They almost all, with the exception of John, died as martyrs because they preached Jesus crucified and risen. How could they sustain that their whole life, and die as martyrs for a hoax? The Jewish leaders were afraid of Jesus. They knew He raised Lazarus from the dead. They actually admitted He had power, but they said His power came from hell.
Let’s see what happened with the soldiers in Matthew 28. They’re back at the Jewish Sanhedrin trying to explain what happened. In verse 11, “Some of the guards went into the city of Jerusalem and told the chief priests all that had happened.” What do you think they said? “We don’t know what happened. We were all asleep. Then there was an earthquake, and the stone was rolled away and the body’s gone.”
Verse 12, “So they assembled with the elders and devised a plan.” And the Sanhedrin, the Jewish elders, “gave a large sum of money to the soldiers.” Is this not bribery? Whatever the soldiers said wasn’t acceptable. So they said in verse 13, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” In the meantime the Lord Jesus is telling His followers to go to Galilee.
How did they know that if they were asleep? Well, the implications of that is they failed to do their duty and there’s punishment for that. Verse 14, “If this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” And the truth is that these Jewish leaders owned Pilate. That’s why they forced him to crucify Jesus, even though he declared His innocence five times.
Verse 15, “So they took the money and did as they had been instructed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day. ” John wrote this sixty years later, but that is still the story among the Jews: the disciples stole His body. Even though no one ever denied the empty tomb. The women were shocked and terrified. Look at Mark 16, to give you a glimpse of what the women were doing.
Mark 16:3-4, “They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.” This is important, because it shows that the women couldn’t have done it. Verse 5, “Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe.”
Luke says there were two there. John says there were two and they were two angels. First, they are near the women, and then they’re at the head and the foot of where the body was and the linen cloth is lying. Why two? Well, Deuteronomy 19:15 says, “All that is offered and all that is declared as true must be confirmed in the mouth of two witnesses.” The women saw the angels and they were “stunned.”
Mark 16:6, “The angel said, “Don’t be amazed; you’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen,’” that’s the truth – “‘He is not here; behold, the place where they laid Him. 7 But go, and tell His disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’ 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
John 20:9, “for as yet they did not understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead. 10 So the disciples went away again to their own homes.” The ridiculous notion of critics through history that the disciples were so committed to the resurrection of Jesus that they fabricated is completely contrary to the testimony of Scripture. They don’t fully believe the resurrection until they see Him and touch Him.
In Luke 24:44, Jesus reappeared that night to the rest of the apostles. He ate with them and said, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms must be fulfilled.” It is their unbelief that is evidence for the resurrection, followed by their belief in the risen Christ after they saw Him. Let us pray.