Witnessing the Risen Christ
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2020 · 19 April 2020
Let us now begin to look at the appearances of our Lord after His resurrection. We’ve looked at the empty tomb, which is the first evidence of our Lord’s resurrection. We also noted the appearance of the angels that is the second evidence of our Lord’s resurrection. And the third are the eyewitnesses, particularly Mary Magdalene who is the one featured in verses 11 through 18.
The women, Peter and John, Mary Magdalene included, have seen the empty tomb; but this is the first appearance of Jesus. And remarkably He appears to Mary Magdalena from the town of Magdala. We know she was a long-time follower of our Lord. We also know that her life was as severely demonic before she met the Savior. In Luke 8, we find that she was possessed by seven demons.
There is nothing in the Bible that says she was a prostitute. But certainly she was a sinful woman so that demons exacerbated the wretchedness of her condition. It is remarkable that such a woman with such a past and with no significant role in religion would be the first person to see the risen Christ, not the apostles. We know from Galatians 3:28 that in Christ there’s neither male nor female.
We know that God is no respecter of persons. And in those times, women were treated as second class citizens. But God has exalted women in the truest and purest way by giving them significant places, like in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Even in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, we know that He comes through the royal line of Abraham and David, but there were also four women in that royal line.
Matthew 1:3, “Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.” Tamar prostituted herself to seduce Judah in an immoral act. And then in verse 5 Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute living in Jericho. And then there is Ruth, an idol-worshipping Moabite, and the Moabites were cursed by God. And then in verse 6 that famous woman named Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah, who committed adultery with David.
What is God saying to us? He’s giving us, from the opening of the New Testament, a message of grace extended to men and particularly elevating women, because in the world they are so suppressed. Christianity is the only legitimate woman’s liberation movement, and here we find the first eyewitness of the resurrection is a woman with a horrendous past.
Without the resurrection there is no Christianity, without which there is no salvation, without which there is no forgiveness and without which there is no heaven. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was the divine affirmation of His work of atonement on the cross. God was declaring that He was satisfied by Jesus’ perfect sacrifice, and had accepted it as full payment for the sins of His people.
Resurrection then demonstrates that sin was atoned for, death was conquered, and eternal life is available to those who believe. You are not a Christian if you do not believe the resurrection. Romans 1:4 says, “God declared Jesus as the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.” Romans 10:9-10 says that, “If you confess Him as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
All those animal sacrifices for all those centuries could never take away sin; but the one sacrifice of Christ removes sin forever on the part of the people of God who believe. And God indicated that by the resurrection, and by ripping the veil in the temple. He ended the ceremonial system and the sacrificial system at that point. Christ is the only complete and satisfactory offering for sin.
In 1 Corinthians 15:14 Paul writes, “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. 15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. 16 For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. 17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!”
But the resurrection is always assaulted. There are people who believe that Christ did rise, but only in a spiritual way, not in a literal physical way. And there are other liberal “Christian” teachers, ministers, and theologians who say that He didn’t really rise, but it doesn’t really matter. He gave us a wonderful example of self-sacrifice for a great cause for God. The resurrection for many is just too difficult to believe.
A favorite in the nineteenth century is still around; it was called the swoon theory. It argued that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, He went into some kind of a coma, and He was buried alive. And then laying in the tomb, the spices with which He was wrapped, revived Him. So He woke up, rolled the stone away, defeated the Romans, and went to the disciples and told them He had risen from the dead.
This theory is a Romans 1:22 illustration, “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” First, the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus were experienced executioners. That was their trade. That’s why they didn’t break His legs, they knew He was dead. They knew He was dead because they ran a spear into His side and out came blood and water, indicating rupturing of His heart.
But beyond that, how Jesus, weakened by the crucifixion, and then three days without food and water, freed Himself from the grave clothes, something Lazarus couldn’t do. The swoon theory doesn’t explain how a half-dead individual could have then managed to convince His disciples that He had died and risen again, so much so that they would give their life for that belief.
There’s a second view called the hallucination theory. These folks argue that Jesus’ followers were so overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, and they wanted so desperately for Him to be resurrected that they imagined it. They literally hallucinated it into their own conscience. The problem with hallucination is that it’s a personal experience. You don’t have group hallucinations.
And Jesus is recorded to have appeared ten times. So were all these people in all their various groupings, including 500 at one time, all having this sort of hallucination? No way! And then you have to explain how a hallucination can eat a piece of fish, point out where to throw the net to catch fish and make breakfast. And then you have to account for the empty tomb and the missing body.
But the most enduring theory of the resurrection, is that the disciples stole His body; and that basically was initiated by the Jewish leaders. When the Roman soldiers came back and they told their story, you remember there was an earthquake, and an angel rolled the stone away and the angel even sat on the stone. Matthew 28:4, “The guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.”
They know they’re going to get in trouble with Pilate, because a Roman guard is supposed to do his duty. So the Jewish leaders say, “Well, we’ll handle Pilate for you. You just go and tell everybody the disciples stole the body, and we’ll give you this money.” So they bribed them with money, and that became the dominating theory of the resurrection. The Jews will do anything to deny the resurrection.
The reason the disciples did not steal the body is because they did not expect a resurrection. The disciples didn’t believe He would rise from the dead. And, the disciples didn’t overpower the Romans or the Romans would have said that. If the disciples stole the body to fake a resurrection, the Jewish authorities surely would have done everything they could to find that body to disprove the resurrection.
More importantly, Jesus appeared ten times after His resurrection. He appeared to Mary Magdalene. He appeared to the other women. He appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He appeared to Peter, appeared to John, He appeared to the ten without Thomas, then the ten with Thomas. He appeared to seven of the apostles on the shore of Galilee, then to 500 brethren on a mountain in Galilee.
Jesus appeared to them over 40 days. Acts 1 says He was with them for 40 days teaching things concerning the kingdom, and a final appearance in Acts 1 before He ascended into heaven. Massive eyewitness testimony. All His appearances were to believers. He made no appearances to nonbelievers, with one exception. He appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, to make him the apostle Paul.
John 12:37 says, “Though Jesus had performed so many miracles before them, they were not believing in Him.” And Jesus said in Luke 16:31, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.” Not long before His own death Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and He had raised a couple of other people as recorded in the gospels.
Our Lord determined that He would make some appearances for a 40-day period, and the eyewitnesses would give a record, and they would preach the resurrection, and every generation subsequently would preach the gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And by the preaching of that gospel and faith in that gospel, the Holy Spirit would bring only believers into His kingdom. Let us look what happened.
Verse 11-12, “But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping.” She’s going there because she loves Him. Then she finds the tomb is empty. Her tears are for the tears of a broken heart forlorn, frustrated having lost the object of her pure love. “So she stooped down and looked into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”
Mark 16 says that the angel was a young man. And Luke 24:4 says there were two men. Matthew 28 says an angel of the Lord rolled back the stone and sat on it. So these are angels who have taken on a male form. Mary didn’t know they were angels. And the presence of angels is proof that the body of Jesus was not stolen, but that heaven has a vital interest in the resurrection of Christ.
Mary looks in and there is the place where the body was to lie and an angel on each end. Remember Exodus 25 when the Lord gave instructions to build the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. He identified a place called the mercy seat. That was the place where God met men in mercy. At each end of the mercy seat, were two cherubim of gold, one at each end of the mercy seat. Verse 22, “There I will meet with you.”
Here in verse 12, again there are two angels, and a wonderful analogy: God is saying, “I will meet you in the empty tomb.” Once God met men in a tent, and once in a building on a golden mercy seat with two angels. Now God meets men in the empty tomb. Verse 13, Then they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they’ve taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”
Verse 14, “When she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus.” Her tears again are blinding her. She has no reason to believe in a resurrection. Every time Jesus appeared after His resurrection He had to identify Himself, because He was in a different form; He had a glorious resurrection body, this was not the body that died on the cross.
This was an eternal resurrection body that would never die and never decay. That is why on the road to Emmaus, in Luke 24, when Jesus joined those disciples and walked along with them, their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.” Verse 30-31, “While He was at the table with them, He took bread, “blessed it, broke it, and began giving it to them, and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight.”
Even when He appeared to the disciples they were terrified because of His entrance and because of His glory. His resurrection body was different. Even Mary didn’t recognize Him. Verse 15, “He said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”
Mary thinks Jesus is the gardener. Verse 16, “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ When she heard that she turned and said to Him in Jewish Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ which is an emphatic way of saying rabbi, teacher. She knew that voice. Matthew 28 says that when the women met Jesus they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. And Mary also held His feet and worshiped Him.
The transition is too profound, and the one thought she has in her mind is, “I don’t want to lose Him again.” So He says to her in verse 17, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.” He told them this many times that He was going back to the Father.
That’s the first time believers have been called brothers. They had been called, friends or slaves, but never brothers. How did we become brothers? The cross made us brothers. The cross made it possible for us to become children of God, brothers and sisters. Hebrews 2:11, “Jesus who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
When it says brothers and sisters of Christ that means we share in His inheritance. Verse 18, “Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord,’ and that He had spoken these things to her.” Luke 24:11, “And her words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.” But their turn is coming later on that night. Well, let us discuss that next Sunday. Let us pray.