The Resurrection
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 4 April 2021
We come in John 20 to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. You need to understand that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is not just a feature of Christianity, it is the main event and purpose. Resurrection is the purpose of redemption. The whole purpose of God in creating and redeeming His people is to raise them to eternal glory in heaven so that they can worship Him forever.
The purpose of resurrection to eternal glory in not only to have glorified spirits, but to have glorified bodies. Our resurrection is secured by the power of God, and the power of Christ demonstrated in His resurrection. Because He lives, we will live. The resurrection is also a validation of His offering, because God was satisfied with the sacrifice Christ offered for the sins of His people.
Christ said, “It is finished!” And God said, “I am satisfied.” God raised Him, and He ascended to eternal glory, sat down at the right hand of God to intercede for His people and bring them all into eternal glory spiritually in resurrected form. The resurrection then is the greatest event in history. It is the most significant expression of the power of God on behalf of believers.
It is the cornerstone of gospel promise. We are saved to be raised from the dead, and into heaven we go forever in that resurrected form. The purpose of salvation is a resurrected people. Because Christ conquered sin, we will be raised to dwell with Him forever. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
That’s why the apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15 says, “I declare to you this truth of the resurrection which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand.” 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. Because Sunday is the day of resurrection.
The church has been doing that since it began. 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 the resurrection. All four gospel writers record the actual history of the resurrection. The composite testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is the full, inspired picture of the resurrection.
Now we celebrate the resurrection. We talk about it; we sing about it and we remember it. There are several interesting things to note about it. No one saw the actual resurrection. But it’s not an event you need to see. All you need to see is Jesus who was dead and is now alive. There were many witnesses. And we also are witnesses, because Christ lives in us. But no one saw the resurrection.
No Bible writer tries to explain the resurrection, because there is no rational explanation. But it’s not a problem that the Bible doesn’t explain the resurrection, because it is a creative event. It is a supernatural miracle like all the other miracles that our Lord did. You had the entire creation account of the universe in Genesis 1, where you go from absolutely nothing to the entire universe existing.
The results are obvious, but Scripture does not tell us how it happened. It is a creative miracle. That is why it is impossible for scientists to study creation. You can’t study creation from a rational, observable, pragmatic, scientific perspective; you can only accept the miraculous declaration that the Creator gave us in Genesis 1. We don’t know how any miracle happened technically.
It doesn’t matter how it happened. It happened because God willed it to happen, and by His supernatural power it happened. And we really don’t need to know how a miracle happened, but there were eyewitnesses. You could know that it happened without knowing how it happened. How do we know that it happened? Oh, there are several lines of evidence given in Scripture.
There is the empty tomb, that’s a pretty good indication. There is angelic testimony, directly from heaven; and there were eye witnesses. All of that is going to be laid out in John 20 for us. As we come to his account and as we go through this, we will blend in a little from Matthew, Mark and Luke at strategic points to help you get a better understanding of it.
John wants us to see the glory 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 He also was in charge of His own burial. Now He is in charge of His own resurrection. This is to show us “that Jesus is the Christ,” so that we might believe that, and by believing “have eternal life in His name.”
The Old Testament promised the Messiah would rise. It’s promised in Psalm 16:10, “Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption, but show Him the path of life.” Jesus prophesized He would rise in Matthew 12:40, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
The apostles also preached the resurrection in Acts with the first sermon by Peter. They preached the resurrection all through Acts. The subject was the death and resurrection of Christ to show the Messiah had to suffer and then rise to establish His kingdom. And the church began at the very beginning to meet on Sunday, the first day, to commemorate the resurrection. That’s why we have church on Sunday.
John 20:1, “Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away.” Jesus said He would rise on the third day. 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 a Jewish day went from sunset to sunset. So this was three days, because any part of a day was a day.
John said “it was still dark” when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. She was the first one there. But she didn’t start out alone. According to Matthew 27, Mary the mother of James and Joseph was with her. Matthew 28:1 tells us both Mary’s headed for the tomb. The same women at the foot of the cross were there on Friday when Joseph and Nicodemus were burying the body of Jesus.
It says in Luke 23:55, “The women who had come with the Lord out of Galilee saw the tomb and where the body was laid.” And they don’t travel anywhere on the Sabbath. After the Sabbath is over the first thing they think about is getting back to the tomb. They want to do more anointing on the body of Jesus. Mary Magdalene noticed that the stone had been “taken away from the tomb.”
Now we have a first evidence of the resurrection, the empty tomb. The stone wasn’t rolled away to let Jesus out. It was rolled away to let the witnesses in. A resurrected Jesus doesn’t need the stone to be removed. Mary fears the worst. Verse 2, “She ran and found Simon Peter and the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and I don’t know where they have put Him!”
This is evidence that they hadn’t planned to steal the body of Jesus. She doesn’t expect a resurrection. She is not part of a plot to fake a resurrection. They would never do that and then go out and preach and die as martyrs for something that they faked. Verse 3-4, “Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb. 4 They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.”
In the meantime, when the other women arrive, the angels appear to them. Mary missed the angel. She has a wonderful experience later. But she’s on her way to Peter and John. Now none of these people know what has happened that Saturday. They don’t know that the Sanhedrin got Roman guards 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 also put a significant amount of Roman soldiers there. They don’t know that. They also don’t know that in the dark night of Sunday, God sent a localized earthquake. But before He sent the earthquake, He put all those soldiers to sleep. And then with the earthquake the stone was rolled away.
Matthew 28:1-4 describes it. The soldiers didn’t know what happened and fled the tomb. They checked it and Jesus is gone. They can’t figure out why they went to sleep, because they were professional soldiers, and that was a violation that had severe repercussions. They don’t know where the earthquake came from. They don’t know how the stone was rolled away. So there’s no reason to stay, so they leave.
We know they’re gone, because Mary Magdalene never refers to them when she gets back there. The other women never refer to them when they get there. Peter and John never refer to them when they get there. The soldiers are gone, shaken by the earthquake out of their divinely-induced comas. They know they have failed in their duty, and so they go right back to the Sanhedrin.
And they are collective testimony that the body is not there. Meanwhile back at the tomb, Mary Magdalene assumed that somebody has stolen the body of Jesus. She has no thought of resurrection. Verses 5-6, “John stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in. 6 Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there.”
Verses 7-8, “While the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. 8 Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed.” I don’t know what he believed, because verse 9 says, “For until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead.” Notice that they all had no expectation that Jesus would rise.
Here’s the evidence of an empty tomb: the absent guards, the stone removed, the body gone; and then the grave clothes neatly lying in place. Now you have to go back to the burial and remember that they did not embalm His body. They had about a hundred pound of spices. So they would wrap a little and then put in spices, and do that again and again. The spices were designed to overpower the stench.
Now if somebody stole the body, they wouldn’t unwrap it. But if by chance, they might do that, you wouldn’t see the linen wrappings lying neatly in one place and the wrapping around the head lying in another place. But the linen wrappings were lying there where the body had been, and the face wrappings were where the head had been, because He had just gone out through them.
This is no grave robbery. If the disciples did this, they wouldn’t unwrap the body. But the disciples wouldn’t do it, because they didn’t even expect a resurrection. Look, the body was there on Friday, everybody knew that. Everyone witnessed His crucifixion and knew that He was dead. Even the Roman executioners knew He was dead; that’s why they didn’t break His legs.
Then the Romans pierced His side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out, an indication that He was dead. Several hours went by as they were wrapping Him and putting Him in the tomb. Everybody knew He was in the grave. The tomb opening was covered by the rolling of a large stone over the entrance, sealed with a Roman seal, and guarded by Roman soldiers. No human could come and steal the body.
The guards are at the Jewish Sanhedrin trying to explain what happened. In the meantime the Lord’s telling His followers to go to Galilee. Matthew 28:11, “Some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priests what had happened.” What could they say? “We don’t know what happened. We were all asleep. There was an earthquake, the stone was rolled away and the body is gone.”
Verse 12-13, “A meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe. 13 They told the soldiers, “You must say, ‘Jesus’ disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.” Verse 15, “So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today.”
John wrote his epistle sixty years later, and that was and still is the story among the Jews: the disciples stole His body. So the tomb is empty. The women testify to an empty tomb. The soldiers testify to an empty tomb. Peter and John testify to an empty tomb. The grave clothes testify to an empty tomb. The Sanhedrin testifies to an empty tomb, and comes up with a ridiculous reason to explain it away.
Mark 16:5-6, “When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The women were shocked, 6 but the angel said, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body.” Luke says there were two angels, there were two.
Luke 24:46- 48, “And Jesus said, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. 47 It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’ 48 You are witnesses of all these things.” Well, Jesus is alive! Praise the Lord! Let us pray.