Easter

A TOMB LIKE NONE OTHER

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On this Easter Eve, please notice something about the opening resurrection narrative (John 20:1-10). It doesn’t depict the Lord rising from the dead as it actually happened. Everything in the record follows that miraculous event. The main character by design is not a person but a place—the empty tomb. In keeping with John’s purpose of his gospel (20:30-31), here’s what we must ponder from the first ten verses:

The eyewitness evidence of Jesus’s empty tomb points to His identity as Messiah that we might believe in Him.

That Jesus’s tomb was empty that first Easter morning few dispute. What became of His body is a different matter. Explanations abound attempting to refute the very thing Jesus predicted repeatedly in His earthly ministry: that He would rise again from the dead. John makes his case for the truth of the resurrection starting here: the reality of the empty tomb.

Space in this post does not allow for unpacking significant details in the text to make this a tomb like none other. When it happened—the first day of the week. Whom it involved—a woman, a failure, a beloved. How it transpired—a whole lot of running, and more importantly, different kinds of seeing taking place. Let me close with four reasons the empty tomb matters as evidence of Jesus’s resurrection.

One, there is no lack of evidence of the resurrection. John makes us grapple with the reality of the empty tomb and asks the all-important question: do you see? If you do, believe today. If not yet, keep on “seeing” until you do.

Two, the resurrection of Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy. Speaking about the experience of Peter and John in the tomb, the writer adds this: “for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (v. 9). That had to wait until the Lord opens their eyes in His appearances to them and gave them the Holy Spirit. We know from Acts that the apostles eventually got this point and preached it from the Old Testament. Read Acts 2:22ff and you will see Peter quote from Psalm 16:8-11 just to cite only one reference.

Three, Jesus was raised bodily, the same but different. It was not just Jesus’s influence or spirit that prevailed after His death. His body was not there. And it never was produced—one of the most stubborn and striking facts that His enemies never have been able to explain. But it was a resurrected body. Incorruptible as the first fruits (1 Corinthians 15:23). That ties in closely to the last reason this matters.

Four, all Christians will rise bodily from the dead as well. Death is not the end of the story for your body and mine. At the last trump we shall all be raised. Our bodies, now like the Lord’s, incorruptible, imperishable, honorable, will be reunited with our spirits which have been with the Lord, and we shall bear the image of the man of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49). You and I, like Jesus, will be raised, the same body, but gloriously different. Hallelujah!

In one of his lighter moments, Benjamin Franklin penned his own epitaph. He didn’t profess to be a born-again Christian, but it seems he must have been influenced by Paul’s teaching of the resurrection of the body. Here’s what he wrote:

“The Body of B. Franklin, Printer Like the Cover of an old Book Its contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Guilding, Lies here, Food for Worms, But the Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ’d, Appear once more In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended by the Author.”

As you worship this Easter Sunday, remember the empty tomb, believe, and look forward to your new and more perfect edition yet to come!

Life’s Ultimate “What If?”

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Today’s Easter message from 1 Cor. 15:12-20 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here is how I summarized the argument in this portion of the epistle:

But here’s the good news. Paul has trafficked in the hypothetical for the purposes of his logical argument in these last eight verses. He has made his point. Denying the reality bodily resurrection results in logically necessary consequences of the most catastrophic kinds – false gospel, futile preaching and faith, fraudulent witness, flourishing sin, forever death, and forlorn-to-the-utmost believers. But none of that is the case! Look at v. 20. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. So we may rightly, and I am indebted to John Piper for this insight, reverse the implications of all six of Paul’s logically necessary consequences. We have no false gospel but a true one with Christ raised from the dead. We have no futile preaching and faith it produces, but full and worthwhile-to-the-max preaching and faith with Christ raised from the dead. We have no fraudulent witness but truthful witness with Christ raised from the dead. We have no flourishing sin but rather fully forgiven sin before God and resurrection power to fight its remaining influences until one day we are completely delivered from this flesh with Christ risen from the dead. We have no forever death but everlasting life and hope of being reunited with all those who have fallen asleep before us with Christ risen from the dead. And we have no forlorn, misplaced, pitiable hope but rather an enviable, blessed-above-all-others kind of hope, even if it costs us our lives, with Christ risen from the dead.

Blessed Easter to all.

We are anything but forlorn! He is risen. He is risen indeed!

Why I'm No Huckster, Charlatan, or Fraud

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Tomorrow is Easter.

I will preach on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead for the umpteenth time. I am getting up there in years and I have been a follower of Jesus of Nazareth since 1972 and a minister of the gospel most of the years since then.

My text for tomorrow’s message entitled Life’s Ultimate What If is 1 Cor. 15:12-20.  I will ask the question of questions that many have asked throughout the centuries: What if there is no resurrection of the body? What if this life is all there is?

Apparently some of the believers in the Corinthian church bought into the dualism Greek mindset of the day that denied the resurrection of the body.

In the text, as I shall attempt to show tomorrow, Paul proceeds to dismantle that erroneous strain of thinking by showing the logical consequences, devastating in every way, that follow from a denial of the reality of the resurrection of the dead.

One of those, according to v. 15, is that preachers like me who preach the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead end up misrepresenting God because of their testimony that Christ Himself has been raised from the dead.

This is no small concern. Nothing in me at all wants to be guilty of complicity in foisting upon humanity the cruelest hoax of all time if in fact Jesus has NOT been raised from the dead.

No worries. I am not alarmed. I am completely confident that rather than being a huckster, charlatan, or fraud, or any other word you can think of to describe somebody who takes people for a colossally deceptive ride down a bogus philosophical trail, I believe that I could hardly stand on firmer ground in terms of my confidence that Jesus Christ has indeed been raised from the dead and that, as such, He demands and rightly deserves my and your utmost devotion and the total dedication of my/our being every day until I/we cease to exist on this earth.

I say that because of three strains of evidence for the resurrection that I find ultimately compelling – documentary, well-established, and circumstantial.

My thanks to Douglas Groothuis in his substantive, award-winning tome Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith for this summary.

First, as for the documentary or minimal facts recorded in the gospels that are broadly agreed on by New Testament scholars of all stripes (Groothius’ exact words), there are four.

  1. Death by crucifixion – a well-established fact of history.
  2. Burial in a known tomb – that of Joseph of Arimathea (Matt. 27:57-61 et al).
  3. The empty tomb – discovered as such by several women (not considered in that day the most credible of witnesses mind you – an argument for the authenticity of the gospel records).
  4. The postmortem appearances of Jesus – twelve separate ones over a forty-day period according to the New Testament.The preponderance of eye-witness accounts of the resurrected Christ, including that of the Apostle Paul, cause Groothius to conclude This is either one of the greatest bluffs in the history of religion or a confident assertion of substantiated fact (p. 549).

Impressive enough standing alone is the documentary evidence. Groothius goes on to cite other well-established evidence in favor of the resurrection.

  1. The transformation of the disciples – from cowardice, despair and confusion to confident proclamation of the gospel and the willingness to suffer persecution, hardship and even martyrdom for the sake of Jesus and His gospel.
  2. The early worship of Jesus as divine – by monotheistic Jews no less who would not likely ever do such a thing apart from something so spectacular as Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Finally, there is the circumstantial evidence.

  1. The practice of the early church in observing baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Sunday worship – all clearly tied in symbolism and motivation to the reality of the resurrection.
  2. Spiritual experiences in history and today – the fact that millions of Christ’s followers around the globe for the last two thousand years have testified to the reality of their risen Savior’s claims lends credibility to the reality of the resurrection (p. 554).

And I am one of them.

That I have the opportunity tomorrow to preach the gospel and proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead is based upon evidence of the best and all kinds.

I will peddle no deception;  I will preach the truth, so help me God.

He is risen. He is risen indeed!

An Easter Gift During Holy Week

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I came across this offer on Justin Taylor’s blog today.

I downloaded the files and listened to their rendition of O Sacred Head. Lovely. Hope you like it.

CXVI: “We’re giving away an entire album again in celebration of Easter! . . . We’ve even including a song off our upcoming album, Re:Hymns. Derek Webb remixed and reimagined 7 of our hymns, and it’s coming out June 12th, 2012. Enjoy!”

See below, or go here: