Christ Is Risen

Thanks for joining us on Truth for Life Weekend as we celebrate Easter with millions of believers all around the world, Alistair Begg reminds us that Resurrection Sunday isn't simply a spring festivity, it's a commemoration of the event at the very heart of the Christian faith. We'll find out why it demands a decision from each one of us. We're studying John chapter 20. In keeping with John's evangelistic purpose, I want to let you know that all that we're now about to look at in the Bible calls for a decision from every one of us—either that we lay, if you like, our hands upon Christ as a Savior and a Lord and King, or we continue to put our hands in our pockets or put them anywhere else and walk out as the master of our own destiny. And just to let you know, I want to bring that challenge very clearly to us this morning. John Masefield's poetry is largely unknown, except perhaps for I Must Go Down to the Seas Again, which we had to learn at school.

I never really knew what sea we were going down to, and I never paid much attention to it at all. I haven't really followed his poetry, but I did come across this last two weeks a book that he had written entitled The Trial of Jesus. And in that book, he has a fictitious conversation between Pilate's wife, whom he calls in his novel Procula, and Longinus is the name that he gives to the centurion who was responsible for the overseeing of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Procula, that's Pilate's wife, comes to the centurion to ask him, How did that man die? And the centurion lets her know. She then says to him, Do you think he is dead? No, lady, Longinus replies, I don't. Then she says, Then where is he? The centurion replies, Let loose in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop this truth. He's let loose in the world, lady, where neither Jew nor Roman can stop this truth. The conversation, of course, is a fiction.

He wrote it. But the underlying history bears testimony to the fact that the truth of Jesus' resurrection is today being proclaimed throughout the entire world—millions of people taking the words of the creed upon our lips, even as we did, declaring that Jesus was crucified, that he died, that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day. And our focus this morning is on that third day—not in the morning of the day, primarily, but, as we've noticed, on the evening of the day.

The day itself was quite a day. We sang about it as we sang of Mary coming from the tomb and so on. Mary, you will remember, had gone to the tomb early in the day, while it was still dark, and she'd gone there expressly to sit beside a dead body.

She had not gone there because she thought it was Easter Sunday morning. She had gone there because she knew that Jesus Christ was dead and buried. And when she got there, she discovered that even his body was gone. You will recall that she told Peter, and she told John.

They came running and were able to verify her statement. But of course, the absence of Christ's body does not equal resurrection faith. And Peter was not immediately saying, or nor John like him, Oh well, there we have it.

Suddenly everything is fine. Mary's encounter with Jesus was then reported to the disciples. It clearly didn't carry very much weight at all, because along with the rest of the fellows, on the evening of that day—verse 19 of chapter 20—and along with some others, as Luke 24 tells us, they had locked themselves away. They locked themselves away not in order that they might rejoice in the resurrection, but on account of the fact that they were afraid of the reaction of the Jews and of those who were opponents of Jesus. Now, if you could picture this—and it depends on your imagination—I think we have to say that they are a sorry lot.

There they sit in a kind of bewildered sadness. After all, just a week before, everything had looked so amazingly promising. They'd had that, what we refer to as the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and there were children, and there were songs, and there were palm branches, and there was everything. It all looked so good.

But now all the colors have faded to black and white. On that evening, the evening of the first day of the week, the doors being locked, where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. Suddenly, into the darkness comes the light of the world. He stands among them, and the gospel writers tell us, all of them, that they were immediately startled by it. He was not there, the doors were locked, and suddenly he was there. In fact, Luke says that their immediate response was, This is an apparition. Their immediate response was to say, This is a spirit. Or, This is a ghost. What in the world is happening to us here in this moment? And in fairness to them, people don't just appear through locked doors, do they?

No. Well, why would we be surprised by this? That the resurrection body, triumphing over sin and death, is no longer held by the ordinary limitations of time and space. That's why when they see him, they think it's him, and then they think it isn't him. They recognize him, but he seems the same, and yet somehow or another he is different. But let him speak for himself. And he stood among them, and he said to them, Peace, peace, shalom aleichem, the customary greeting. And yet, with significance on this occasion, vastly different from before.

We are not demystified that he speaks to them so kindly in this way, that he says to them, Peace to you. Some of us have been… If we'd been in that position, we would probably have started in a very different way. What a bunch you are! Where were you when I needed you? I knew that you would all depart, but I didn't think you'd depart just like that. I didn't think when he came for me in the garden and I looked around, you'd all be gone. He doesn't do any of that. No. In short order, he speaks peace to them, he establishes a purpose for them, and he provides a power that is going to be necessary for fulfilling that purpose—all of that peace, all of that purpose, all of that power found in the Lord Jesus.

Peace be with you. And when he had said this, he showed them his wounds, he showed them his hands and his side. What possible relevance is there in this? Well, on one level, not on a material level, it is an opportunity for them to actually touch him to see.

Thomas, of course, was not here. He gets his own special little show, which is a week following, which you can read on in John's Gospel and find. But they were able to look and say, Yes, we can see this. But beyond that, they understood something. These Jewish fellows understood that the whole story of meeting with God, of receiving forgiveness from God, had to do with sacrifice. They knew that all of the Old Testament had to do with taking a lamb or taking a goat, taking something, and the person aware of their sin placed their hands upon the head of the animal, identifying themselves entirely with it, realizing that they themselves are the ones who deserve punishment for their sins and yet offering up that creature in their place. So, when these disciples hear this word of peace—a customary greeting—they now hear it in a way that they could never have heard it before. By the time the epistles are written, Paul is making clear that what was happening in the cross was that Jesus was making peace by his blood shed on the cross. In fact, there is a sense in which, when Jesus comes and greets them on this occasion, this is the first truly authentic expression of peace in the entire world. Because from the Garden of Eden, man had been at war with God—turning his back, going his own way, making his own destiny, charting his own course—separated from God, alienated from God, unable to make a contact. And now, here in the person of the Lord Jesus, the solution is provided. So the peace gives way to the purpose that he declares for them. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Then and only then. The empty tomb was an empty tomb. It's… In Colombo terms, it's, you know, it's corroborating evidence that something has happened, but it's no evidence that a resurrection has happened.

No. When they saw the Lord, then they were glad. And he said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. Well, what does he mean by this?

Well, he means something's very straightforward. That is, that Jesus knew that he had come into the world on a rescue mission. His rescue mission was not to put together a religious club but to save men and women who were aware of the fact that they needed a Savior. And so what he's saying to them now is, phase one was my part, phase two is your part. And perhaps anticipating their diffidence after all, given the way they had responded to the events in the preceding seven days, he says to them, I am breathing on you in order that you might receive the Holy Spirit.

And what is pictured here is actually performed some weeks later on the day of Pentecost. And it is in that context that he makes this statement, which has been hijacked along the way by many people, but it is very straightforward. He says to his followers, I want you to go out and to take this good news to the world. And if you forgive people's sins, they will be forgiven, and if you retain their sins, then they will be retained. Well, some people think this is a prerogative that is given to religious professionals, to bishops or to priests or to people in a position of authority.

But no, not at all. No, it is simply this—that if you proclaim the good news of the gospel, that Jesus is a Savior for sinners, and they accept the gospel, their sins will be forgiven. If you proclaim the gospel and tell them this same story and they say no to it, then their sins will be retained. Because there is only one Savior from sin. You know, the power that they needed for this was significant power, and you can read the Acts of the Apostles and you'll discover it, because there were plenty of people who were willing to nip this in the bud if they could. They shut this crazy idea down, and yet to no avail. The people this morning are willing to nip this in the bud too, but throughout the world. This Galilean carpenter, who isn't dead, has gone out.

He's let loose in the world. No one in the ancient world who dealt with Christians—whether it was Nero in seeking to persecute them or whether it was the authorities in Jerusalem—ever once suggested that Jesus was a fiction, that Jesus was imaginary. You have to wait for centuries before you get to an idea that is as silly as that—that the whole development of the Christian church, the celebration of communion, the gathering on the Lord's Day, the taking of this news to the ends of the earth is based on an imagination? Well, let me just say three things by way of application, because that's the context. Jesus comes, and he speaks peace to them. He says, And this is my purpose for you, and here is the power that you're going to need.

Let me apply it in three ways. First of all, the application that is obvious, and that is to the church—to the church, to the followers of Jesus, to those who are committed to obeying Jesus and seeking to live for him. I actually think that this little scenario here, without being unkind to ourselves or to anybody else, may be a little too close for comfort in relationship to the predicament of the church in our generation. So where is the church? Well, I think, like the disciples, more fearful about the opposition from outside than resting on the power and purpose of God on the inside—losing sight of all that God has given us by way of the gospel, losing confidence in the truth of the gospel, losing a genuine desire to tell the whole world about his love.

You're a believer today. Jesus comes to his followers, and he says, Now the purpose of my departing is to pour out the Holy Spirit upon you so that you can actually go to the very ends of the earth with the good news of the gospel. And at a very basic level, it means that we go to our schools, we go to our clubs, we go to our exercise places, and we tell people about Jesus.

Unless, of course, we've become so afraid of those who are outside that we've decided the better part of valor is just to keep it to ourselves. And then the application beyond the church to the world itself. To the world. Our big world today. Our big world. What is the message of Jesus coming to his disciples in that evening of the first Easter Sunday actually have to say? What does it have to say to our world? Well, it has definitely something to say to a world that finds it far easier to go to the moon than to create peace on earth. But yet, look at our world. It's broken.

Why? Because there aren't enough conferences, there aren't enough arms talks, there isn't enough diplomacy, there isn't enough international peace endeavors. What about all the starvation? What about all of the brutal dictatorships?

What about all the clueless politicians? The hearts of men and women in our world are actually crying out for meaning, for love, for forgiveness, for reconciliation, for hope. Do you think that the visit of Jesus in this evening has something to say to a world like that?

What does it have to say? It has to say what the Bible says, that the underlying problem in broken relationships—first between ourselves and God, and then ourselves internationally and politically and familiarily and so on—the underlying issue is on that vertical axis, that we are sheep who've gone astray, that the reason we do think sinful thoughts is because we're sinful. The reason that we're jealous, that we're mean, that we're dispirited, that we're selfish is an outworking of the fact that we need a Savior.

Yeah, as individuals, we need a Savior. So, it has something to say to a church that may be losing its nerve. It has something to say to a world that is searching for answers to the deepest questions. And therefore, since the world is made up not just of nations but of individuals, it has something to say to you and me.

Well, what does it say? Well, it takes us from the picture and the anticipation of the Old Testament into the New Testament. The reason that those sacrifices—remember the hands on the head of the animal?

The reason those sacrifices had to be repeated was because they could not ultimately deal with the problem. Therefore, it was always looking forward to the one who would come, and the problem would be solved—that there was one who would come, and we would be saved by his death, that this one would be wounded for our transgressions, he would be bruised for all our stuff, that the punishment that we deserve would be placed upon him, and so, by his stripes, then we are healed. The reason that the sacrifice of Jesus was perfect is because he had lived an entirely sinless life. He never sinned. Therefore, it was not for him to endure the punishment for his own sin. Instead, God the Father accepted the death of Jesus on account of the sins of others.

What others? Those who laid their hands upon Christ and said, I am the problem. I am the sinner.

And you are the only Savior. Charles Simeon was a young man of privilege in the eighteenth century. He went to Eton College. He then went on to Cambridge University.

And when he arrived at Cambridge University in 1779, he says in his journals that he was anything but a Christian in his outlook. One of his tutors informed him that he was going to have to attend a Holy Communion service in three weeks' time. Simeon writes, The thought rushed into my head that Satan himself was as fit to attend the Communion service as I was, and that if I must attend, I must prepare for my attending there. And part of his preparation is in reading the books that take him from the Old Testament into the New Testament—from the sacrifices in need of repetition to the sacrifice that needs no repetition. And in one of the books that he purchased, he came on this sentence. Quote, The ancient Jews knew what they did when they transferred their sins to the head of the offering. Simeon writes, The thought came into my mind.

What? Can I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an offering for me that I may lay my sin on his head? Then he said, God willing, I will not bear them on my soul one moment longer. Accordingly, he writes, I sought to lay my sins on the sacred head of Jesus.

And from that hour, peace flowed in abundance. Power enabling him for fifty-four years to be the minister of Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge, and through whose ministry hundreds of young men were to go out into the world to tell the same story. But it all started because Simeon realized, This man Jesus demands a verdict. This man Jesus calls for a decision.

And with this man Jesus, neutrality is not an option. You're listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life weekend. If you still have questions about the gospel, I want to recommend to you a six-minute animated presentation called The Story. It walks you through God's salvation plan from Genesis to Revelation, including God's perfect creation, the fall of mankind, God's rescue plan through his son Jesus, and the ultimate restoration of everything. If you've ever wondered where you came from, why you're here, and where you're going, this brief video will show you the Bible's answer to those questions. You can watch The Story video at truthforlife.org slash story.

Thanks for listening. You know, Jesus didn't come into our broken world to make sure we're happy. He came to address our essential need. Next weekend, we'll find out what exactly that is and what Jesus did. And on behalf of all of us at Truth for Life, we want to wish you and your family a blessed and happy Easter. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.