|
Click here for a PDF
printable file
Click here to download your PDF reader - FREE
THE EASTER MIRACLE
Villa
Rica April 20, 2003
Genesis 2: 4-17; 3: 22-24
If a man die will he live again? And if a
man dies and lives again, what kind of life will it be? Will he live
again in a body, or will he just be a disembodied spirit? There is not a
person living who has not thought about these questions. Man has always
wanted to know if there is life after death and if there is life after
death will it be life in a body?
The Bible answers these questions. Nowhere
else but the Bible do we get authoritative answers. And we don't want
anything that is not authoritative. What good after all is speculation?
Who wants an opinion based on conjecture or proof less hypotheses? If
the questions are answerable at all then we want answers that are
reliable and certain. We want to know. We don't want to guess at an
answer. The Bible, gives us certain and infallible answers. How
important is the Bible. It speaks to the deepest and darkest questions
in all of life.
I. We Learn From The Bible That God
Revealed To Man The Certainty Of Life In A Body Beyond The Grave
A. The very first man Adam knew that there
was life in a body that was endless: God put in the garden the tree of
life (Gen. 2:9) which supplied Adam with continued life indefinitely.
Death was an unknown experience and was not the normal and intended
experience for man. Death was decreed the penalty for disobedience Death
was an experience only if Adam disregarded God's commandment not to eat
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We can see therefore that
God's will was that man might live forever, having access to the tree of
life, and since that life was begun in a body, and since eating implies
some sort of bodily function in order to receive the food from that tree
of life, we can argue quite conclusively from scripture that God created
man to live forever in a body.
But Adam disobeyed God's commandment and
brought himself and his posterity to a fallen estate and Genesis 3:24
states that God placed angels, Cherubim, and a flaming sword that turned
everyway, to keep the way of the tree of life. The tree of life was not
removed it was guarded. The tree of life was no longer easily accessible
as it had been before. But even that scripture does not make access to
the tree of life hopeless. Sinners must come in the way the Lord
directs, but the possibility of gaining access was not removed. Had God
said that the tree of life had been taken away, or that Adam's
banishment from the garden and the curse upon the ground for his sake
had also put a curse on the tree of life, so that life could no longer
come from that tree of life, then it might appear to be an utterly
hopeless situation.
As it is the Bible does not leave the will
of God to give a tree of life dependent upon the will of man. In that
case we would have to say that the will of God to provide a tree of life
had been effectively thwarted by man's disobedience. But God is still
the sovereign. Man disobeyed and lost his right to the tree of life, but
God can still provide a way to that tree of life if it pleases him to do
so. Man is not greater than God so that he can utterly destroy that
which God willed to create and provide. God permitted Adam to disobey
his commandment and introduce death as an unwanted and unnecessary
experience, but God never said that Adam's disobedience would destroy
the tree of life or frustrate God's will to bestow eternal life on whom
he willed to bestow it. God is still God. God's perfect will from the
beginning was to create man to be in God's image with all of the
blessings of having God as a Father and living forever, so unless you
believe that man has the power to frustrate and obviate the perfect will
of God, then you must come to the conclusion that the possibility of
eternal life in a body is still something God may cause to happen. If
not with all men then at least with many men. To not believe that is to
believe that Satan in his temptation and Adam in his sin succeeded in
defeating the will and purpose of God.
B. Secondly, we have the testimony of
scripture that
God made known to mankind by his prophets
and by special revelation that there can be life beyond the grave for
those who come the way God ordains, through faith in the Seed of the
woman -- the Messiah Lamb and that their understanding of that life was
that it would be in a body.
Job fully expected to stand upon the earth
at a later time in a body of flesh and he expected to see his Redeemer
for he said...Job
19:25-27 25 “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the
last He will take His stand on the earth.
26 “Even
after my skin is destroyed,
Yet from my
flesh I shall see God;
27 Whom I
myself shall behold,
And whom my
eyes will see and not another.
When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son
Isaac he was willing to go through with it because he believed in the
resurrection. We read in Hebrews 11:17-19
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had
received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; 18it was he
to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” 19He
considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from
which he also received him back as a type.
David saw in vision by the Word of the
Lord that God planned life beyond this one in a resurrected body. We
read in Psalm
16:9-10
Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will
dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You
allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.
And again in
Psalm 71:20
20 You who have shown me many troubles and distresses Will revive me
again, And will bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
In Daniel 12:2 we read, speaking of God's
people,
Many of those
who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting
life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.
In Hosea
13:14 we read: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will
redeem them from death.
O Death,
I will be your plagues!
O Grave,
I will be your destruction!
Throughout the centuries before the coming
of Christ this resurrection hope was passed from one generation to
another. At the time of Christ it was the orthodox teaching of the
rabbis of the pharisaical school. Of course the liberal view,
represented' by the Sadducees, disagreed with the Pharisees on this most
vital issue. Remember how they tried to disprove the doctrine of the
resurrection with a hypothetical situation they presented to Christ.
They thought they had a Biblical dilemma for Christ to ponder. They knew
he was a strict Biblicist. The Law of Moses required that if a man
married and died without any children, that the brother of the deceased
was obligated by the law to marry his dead brother' s widow and have
children so that the brother's name would be perpetuated. They said to
him in Luke 20:28-33:
“Teacher,
Moses wrote for us that if a man’s
brother dies,
having a wife, and he is
childless, his brother should marry the wife and raise up children to
his brother.
29“Now there were seven brothers; and the first took a wife
and died childless; 30and the second 31and the
third married her; and in the same way all seven died, leaving no
children. 32“Finally the woman died also. 33“In
the resurrection therefore, which one’s wife will she be? For all seven
had married her.”
You see the subtlety of the Sadducees.
They thought that this question was unanswerable and therefore a
refutation to the doctrine of the resurrection. Since it was illegal for
a woman to have more than one husband at a time, and since the
resurrection would present the impossible problem of one woman with
seven husbands, the resurrection would pose a dilemma. Since this woman
had seven husbands in the resurrection she would have seven husbands in
eternity.
But Christ in answering both exploded
their error and verified the doctrine of the resurrection. He said to
them,
“The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35but
those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the
resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage;
36for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like
angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37“But
that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the
burning bush, where he calls the Lord
the God of Abraham, and the God
of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob.
38“Now He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for
all live to Him.”
Luke
20: 34-38
That was the end of their questions. He
silenced the
Sadducees with his answer. Again, he
taught the certainty of the resurrection. He said in
John 5:28-29 “Do
not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the
tombs will hear His voice, 29and will come forth; those who
did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed
the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
Jesus made the doctrine of the
resurrection a primary teaching. He taught them that he himself would be
raised from the dead on the third day following his suffering and death
at the hands of his enemies.
II. The Easter Miracle Is Proof Of A
Bodily Resurrection
A. The doctrine of the resurrection is no
longer a fondly hoped for future eventuality, it has already happened
when the body of Jesus was resurrected to life. He is the first fruits
of all men of faith in the resurrection. He was visibly seen and handled
by witnesses. They ate with him. They conversed with him. The book of
Acts begins by saying that Jesus showed himself alive by many infallible
proofs to the apostles, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of
the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
B. The very dynamic for the spread of
Christianity was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Picture
those sorrowing and discouraged disciples following the crucifixion of
Christ. They believed their cause was lost with the death of their
Messiah. They had believed he was the promised Messiah but they had
expected him to set up his kingdom and begin to overthrow all their
enemies. They believed he would be a world Ruler and now he was dead.
They had forgotten his words to them about the necessity of his being
betrayed into the hands of his enemies, the elders and chief priests and
scribes. That at their hands he would suffer and be put to death. They
just had not understood the necessity of the cross.
But as they heard the report of the women
who had heard from angels that he was risen, as they went to the tomb
and saw the stone rolled away and Jesus gone, then as they saw him with
their own eyes and heard with their own ears his words concerning his
resurrection, they were convinced. They quit being sorrowful and began
to rejoice. They went forth joyfully, confidently to proclaim the
resurrection, even in the face of stiff opposition. The apostle Peter,
who had denied his Lord on the night of his arrest, now stands up to the
high priest and the highest council of the Jews to testify to the truth
of the resurrection.
In his sermon on the day of Pentecost
Peter preached,
Acts 2:22-24
22“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene,
a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which
God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know—
23this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan
and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless
men and put Him to death. 24“But God raised Him up
again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for
Him to be held in its power.
The crucified Jesus hath ascended into
heaven and sends forth the Holy Spirit upon men. He is both Lord and
Christ. When Stephen had finished his sermon to the Council, just before
they took him out and stoned him, the Word of God says in Acts 7:54-
Now
when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began
gnashing their teeth at him. 55But being full of the Holy
Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing at the right hand of God; 56and he said,
“Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the
right hand of God.”
C. Our faith today rests in the Lord Jesus
Christ, who died for our sins and was raised for our justification. His
resurrection is the foundation of all our hope for life beyond this one
and a resurrection of our own similar to his. We do not speculate. We do
not simply suppose or have opinions. We know. We are certain that all
who have trusted in Jesus Christ shall enjoy a like blessed resurrection
from the dead.
Why should we dread this thing called
death?
It's just an open door,
Where all within is love and peace
And joy forever more,
Because I live, you too shall live
We hear the Savior say.
Let's consecrate our lives anew,
On this glad Easter Day.
Back to
the Top
The paper and sermon manuscripts from
Pastor
Todd W. Allen
are made freely available for review and
distribution. We only request that proper
web page attribution be provided if
distributed for any reason. Please be
gracious to forgive typos and errors of
expression. These notes are faithful
approximations of what has been preached.
May God be glorified in the preaching of
His Word. |