Dr. Rodney Plunket

In Galatians 3:1 the apostle Paul refers to his preaching of the Gospel and says, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified!”  Last week I tried to do just that.  I tried to place before our eyes the crucified Christ.  I did that in an effort to motivate us all to draw closer to God because of the wonder of Christ’s death on the cross.

This morning I want to focus on the powerful event which was revealed on the Sunday after Christ’s crucifixion.  I want to focus upon Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

Last week I was able to say quite a bit about the process of crucifixion.  I was able to give a picture of what we likely would have seen had we been there.  I was able to do that because reports describing crucifixion have survived into modern times.  The skeletal remains of a crucifixion victim have also been found.

But there is little that we know about the process of resurrection.  No human eyes witnessed the resurrection.  Yes, several persons saw the empty tomb after the resurrection had already taken place.  Yes, many people saw Jesus after He had been raised; the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:6 reports that Jesus “appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.”  But only God and maybe God’s angels saw Jesus apparently rise up right through those linen cloths with which His body had been wrapped.  We think that is what happened because both the Gospel of Luke (24:12) and the Gospel of John (20:6-7) tell us that the linen cloths were found lying in the tomb after Jesus’ body had already been raised, and both of these Gospels also reveal that the sight of these cloths had a significant effect on those who saw them.  I think it is because the cloths, which had been wrapped around Jesus’ dead body, were still somewhat in the shape of that body—that body which had just passed right through them.  The view that Jesus’ body passed right through the linen cloths is supported by the Gospel of John which describes two occasions when Jesus’ resurrection body appeared in a room even though all the doors leading into that room were locked.  If you have your Bible, please turn to John 20:19-29 and follow along as I read.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.”  But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them.  Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.”  Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”  Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Notice that Jesus twice appears to His apostles when they are in a room with all the doors locked.

The burial cloths lying empty in the tomb, two appearances of Jesus in a locked room––these two items reveal, I think, that the stone was rolled away from the opening to Jesus’ tomb not to let Jesus out but to let people in.  Why?  So they could see what had happened and believe.

One thing is for sure.  Followers of Jesus came to be fully convinced that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  But it seems still to have taken them awhile to make sense of that raising.  Let’s notice again verses 8 & 9 of John 20.  There we read,

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.  Then the disciples returned to their homes.

A disciple sees the empty linen wrappings in the empty tomb.  He “saw and believed.”  But then he just went home.  He did not seem to know what to make of what he had seen and believed.  Luke 20:12 reports that Peter’s reaction was very similar.  “He saw the linen cloths by themselves,” but he just went home, “amazed at what had happened.”  Jesus has been raised; that is amazing, but what does it mean?

This early period of bewilderment was addressed by the risen Jesus and by the Holy Spirit that was poured out upon those early believers seven weeks after Jesus was raised.  As a result the resurrection of Jesus Christ became central to early believers’ lives, central to their faith, and central to their message.  In fact, it became so central that in 1 Corinthians (1Cor) 15:17-19 the apostle Paul says,

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.  If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Here Paul makes clear that the resurrection is so central to Christian faith that Paul says believers are actually to be pitied if Christ has not been raised from the dead.

But that is not all that Paul says about the resurrection in 1Cor 15.  In 1Cor 15:54-57 Paul says,

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:     “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

     “Where, O death, is your victory?

          Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Due to the victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, believers know that death no longer has the victory over those who trust in Jesus; it doesn’t even sting.  We will be raised.  Our perishable bodies will put on imperishability; our mortal bodies will put on immortality.  God has given us this victory; God has given us this victory by raising Jesus Christ from the dead.  As a result, we can be free from the fear of death.  We can live victorious lives because of the victory God won when God raised Jesus Christ from the dead.  Receive the power of this truth!

And that is not all that is effected by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ also makes available resurrection power to those who believe.  What is resurrection power?  It is the power to live a whole new quality of life.  Listen to Paul again, this time in his letter to the Christians in the city of Rome.  In Romans 6:4-6 he says,

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

And so it will be clear what Paul means when he says we are “no longer . . . enslaved to sin” let me also read verse 14 of that same chapter.  There Paul writes, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”  What we hear Paul saying here is that the resurrection power of Jesus Christ has broken the enslaving power of sin.  Sin can no longer compel us to obey the forces of unrighteousness, because the resurrection power of Jesus Christ has broken sin’s power.

Receive this truth.  Realize that the resurrection power of Jesus Christ has broken the enslaving power of sin.  That means a person can be freed from a life controlled by temptation and lust.  We can live lives of purpose, meaning, and light.  We can shine to the glory of our God.  People can see the goodness of God that flows through us by the grace of God.  We can be free––free from the oppressive power of sin, free to be the persons God dreamed of us being before we were even born.

Please do not leave here this morning with the chains of sin shackling you, controlling you.  Let the resurrection power of Jesus Christ set you free, free from the fear of death.  Let the resurrection power of Jesus Christ set you free from the choke hold of sin.  Receive freedom.  Receive it now.

Top | Sermons | Home