Celebrate the Resurrection
John 20:1-31
March 27, 2005
The Greatest Event in the World's History!
The Empty Tomb - The Author of Life died for us
and death could not hold Him!
Life from Him and in Him
v. 1 - "The first day of the week" - Genesis 1:3-5
Mary Magdalene - out of whom He had cast out
seven devils - Mark 16:9, Luke 8:2
Luke 7:47
Christ appeared to her first - vs. 14-17
"Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are
Christ's at His coming" - I Cor. 15:19-28
vs. 6-7 - Raiment cast aside for the clothing of
heaven that by made in spiritual looms.
I Cor. 5:1-11
v. 8 - "he saw and believed"
"This is the work of God that ye believe on Him whom
He hath sent" - John 6:29
Heb. 11:6 Matt. 8:11-12 Jer. 5:31
Rev. 21:22-27 Acts 26:27-28, 24:25-26
Luke 24:25-27, 44-45
John 3:16-19 Rom. 10:9-13
Mark 16:16 (damned) John 3:18 (condemned)
v. 9 - Psalm 16, 22 Isaiah 53
"not possible that Christ should be holden by death"
Acts 2:24
v. 12 - The entire teaching of the Bible from end to end
reveals and bears witness to a world ordinarily unseen
by human eyes, but none the less real.
To some this door to heaven is closed and sealed by
the seven seals of materialism, agnosticism, dogmatism,
scientism, worldliness, indifference and unspirituality.
Materialism - matter the only fundamental reality &
can explain everything.
Agnosticism - unknown & unknowable
Dogmatism - arrogant ideas based on insufficiently
examined premises
Scientism - exaggerated trust in natural science to
explain the meaning of the cosmos
Worldliness - devoted to pursuits in this world rather
than the next
Indifference - Unspirituality -
The whole of secularist America might have rambled
abut the garden, with trowel and spectacles and would
never have seen an angel or the risen Christ!
Thank God, all eyes are not that dim. Some there saw
and believed and they have revolutionized the world.
v. 13 - angelic wonder at human unbelief
The eyes of Cleophas and his friend were holden,
even though their hearts were burning within them"
v. 15 - "Woman, why weepest thou?" - the first words
that He uttered after He arose from the dead
were intended to console human weeping over
the most irremediable of human sorrows. The
beginning of a fulfillment of the Divine promise
"to wipe away tears from all faces" - Is. 25:6-9
Rev. 21:4
"she supposing him to be the gardener" - Even
though Christ was the same, yet He was different.
Luke 24:38-39 Import of flesh and bones -
Blood? "not yet ascended to the Father"
v. 17 - "my brethren" - not slaves, nor servants, not
disciples nor ministers, not apostles nor friends,
but "my brethren" - an eternal inheritance.
I am ascending to "my God and your God" to "my
Father and your Father"
v. 18 - "I have seen the Lord" - I John 1:1
Matt. 28 - Tell the disciples to go unto Galilee.
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus - went to
Jerusalem and found the disciples rejoicing that the
Lord had risen indeed, and had appeared unto Simon
Peter.
v. 19 - Laws profoundly different from five senses only.
A new order of existence - apparently the resurrected
body possesses additional senses, of which we have no
conception or experience. The spirit is clothed with
such properties of matter and dimensions of space
and active forces which are supernatural to us.
Jesus manifests the kind of life which will
eventually be the condition of all the redeemed!
v. 22 - The special action of Christ, the gift of
spiritual insight, the God consciousness,
the experience of two worlds.
Whoever enters into the sphere of that Divine
breath becomes "alive unto God".
It lies beyond the expertise of science and
cannot find any place in a sensational philosophy,
and is not a universal experience.
"Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God" - "Ye must be born again"
John 3:3, 7b
Nowhere else in the New Testament is this word
used to describe the breathing on them of the
Holy Spirit.
It is used by the LXX (Septuagint) in Genesis 2:7 to describe
the essential distinction between the living soul
of Adam and the living soul of all other animals.
Man's life was no evolution of the life in other
creatures, neither did it come from properties
in the the dust of the ground.
A direct decision of Almighty God conferred upon
humanity - the life of the flesh.
I Cor. 15:45
Here Christ confers on those He now sends forth
to complete the mission of His grace, the Divine
life which would make them new creatures, and
bestow on them power to generate the same spirit
in others.
v. 23 - Announce boldly the remission of sins on
condition of faith and repentance to all
nations beginning at Jerusalem. - Luke 24:47
This has been the divinest function of the church
ever since.
v. 25 - "we have seen the Lord"
Thomas did not receive their witness but said
"except....I will not believe."
v. 28 - When confronted by Jesus, Thomas' testimony
was "my Lord and my God"
v. 29 - "Blessed are they that have not seen , and
yet have believe"
The latest beatitude which Christ left us is
faith, in reality through the power of the truth,
is declared to be the law of the kingdom.
A great benediction is pronounced on those
who can rise in faith in Himself through the
Word which He has spoken and which His
disciples will continue to proclaim until He
returns again.
Luke 1:45 Romans 4:16-25
I Peter 1:3-12
Rom. 10:6-17 I Cor. 1:17-21
John 11:25-26 Isaiah 53:1
v. 30 - Jesus Christ has fulfilled the entire
idea of a Messiah - He is the Perfect
and Only Son of God!