He is Risen!

Matthew 28:1–10

1 Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb.
2 And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it.
3 And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.
4 The guards shook from fear of him and became like dead men.
5 And the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.
6 He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.
7 And go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”
8 And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to report to His disciples.
9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Rejoice!” And they came up and took hold of His feet, and worshiped Him.
10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go, bring word to My brothers to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.” (NASB 2020)

He is risen!

The death and resurrection of Jesus is the seminal event of human history. Its importance and significance cannot be overstated.

We focus a great deal of attention on Jesus’ crucifixion, and well we should. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. Sin leads to death. Death is the sentence for sin, and at the cross Jesus, the Lamb of God who was completely without sin, paid the awful price for the sin of all mankind.

His resurrection, however, is the capstone, the culmination of God’s redemptive plan. With the resurrection, the victory was complete, and the kingdom of God was ushered in. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead changed forever how mankind relates to God.

Although our Bibles introduce the book of Matthew with the words “New Testament”, it is the resurrection which marks the beginning of the New Testament. A testament is a will or a covenant. The New Testament is synonymous with the New Covenant established between God the Father and God the Son on our behalf.

It’s important that we have this clear in our minds. If we don’t, we may misunderstand what the Bible reports in history books like Acts and the records of the life of Jesus we call “the gospels” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). We may think everything Jesus taught is what God expects of us.

Little is more damaging to our faith.

When Jesus taught about plucking out eyes and cutting off hands in response to sinful behavior, He was showing Hebrews who were under the old covenant of the Law that it was impossible for the Law handed down by Moses to make them righteous. He was making it very clear that they could not keep the Law and thus could never become acceptable to God by their behavior.

The same applies to His teaching that God will forgive people only if, and to the same measure, people forgive others. After the resurrection, no such teaching ever makes an appearance again. Surely one of the Apostles would have underscored the directives in the Sermon on the Mount, warned of the need to remove body parts, and so on if it were crucial to our acceptance.

Instead, the teaching we find about forgiveness is exactly the opposite way around. Ephesians 4:32 urges us to, “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” (NASB 2020) Colossians 3:12–13 reminds us of who we are in Christ “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so must you do also. (NASB 2020) Here too we are told that we have already been forgiven and that is the reason we should forgive others. There is no hint of our forgiveness being conditional upon our forgiveness of others.

This is because under the new covenant, we are dead to sin and completely liberated from the Law. This happened because, by His sinless life, sacrificial death, and resurrection Jesus fulfilled the Law on our behalf, making us free indeed.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:17–18 “Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished! (NASB 2020)

From the cross, Jesus said “It is finished.” At the resurrection, the “all” from Matthew 5:18 was accomplished. This is why Paul could later write, in Romans 6:14–15 “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Far from it! (NASB 2020) In Galatians 5:18 he reiterated, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.” (NASB 2020)

The way we relate to God has been changed forever because He is risen. Let’s review Matthew 28:10, which we read earlier. It reads, “Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go, bring word to My brothers to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me.” (NASB 2020)

The status of the disciples had changed. Jesus was not ashamed to call them brothers. Hebrews 2:11 points this out. It reads, “For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for this reason He is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (NASB 2020) Jesus referred to the Disciples as His brothers because now they were family, having the same Father.

Jesus had referred to the disciples as his brothers only once before. In Matthew 12:49–50 we read, “And extending His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold: My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother.” (NASB 2020)

In speaking of those who do the will of the Father, Jesus isn’t talking about those who keep the Old Testament Law. We know this because He said in John 6:29 “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’” And in John 13:34 He said, “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (NASB 2020)

Those who believe are doing the will of God.

The same point is made in John 3:14–16 “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in Him. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” (NASB 2020)

All the people had to do to be saved from the serpents in the wilderness was believe God’s promise and respond in faith by looking at the serpent on the staff.

Just a side note here: It’s significant that the serpent on the staff was made of brass. Brass is an amalgam of two metals. This is a picture of Jesus. He is an amalgam of God and mankind—the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and in Him all the fullness of the deity dwelt in bodily form.

The serpent on a staff in the Old Testament was a shadow of how we would relate to God under the yet-to-be-revealed New Covenant. To become part of God’s family, all that is needed is for us to look at Jesus, who was lifted up on the cross and believe that we have been reconciled to God just as He said.

Paul lays it out for us in Galatians 4:4–7 “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters. Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” (NASB 2020)

The resurrection gave us life!

We read in Colossians 2:12–13 “having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings” (NASB 2020)

And this is real life—everlasting, never-ending, indestructible life. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” (NASB 2020)

Eternal life is not just for someday when we all get to heaven. It starts the moment you believe in Jesus—who He is and what He has done for you—and accept His gracious gift.

Do you see the shadow of the snake on the staff and the reality of Jesus on the cross here? Just as the Hebrews were instructed to look at the snake on the staff, which they would do only if they believed what God said about it saving them, we are to look at what Jesus as our hope of eternal life, which we will only do if we believe what God said.

Jesus discussed this with Martha, the sister of Lazarus in John 11:25–27 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have come to believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, and He who comes into the world.” (NASB 2020)

This may sound a little cryptic, but Jesus is telling Martha, and us, that physical death is nothing but the destruction of the earthly body. To those who do not believe in Him, that means judgment and what the Book of Revelation calls “the second death”; but to all who believe, it simply means relocation, or as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:6–8 “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—but we are of good courage and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” (NASB 2020)

Paul spends some time on this in 1 Corinthians 15 where he lays out the good news of Jesus Christ and the importance of the resurrection at length. Let me read some of the text.

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 “For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” (NASB 2020)

He then goes on for a few verses presenting evidence for the resurrection of the Lord Christ by listing some of the many times Jesus was seen afterward. With the fact of the resurrection firmly established he begins to clarify the importance of it.

1 Corinthians 15:17–22 “and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied. But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man death came, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” (NASB 2020)

Just a note of clarification here. When the passage says that in Christ all will be made alive, it is not teaching that everyone inherits eternal life, or that everyone goes to heaven. It’s saying that everyone “in Christ” will inherit eternal life and go to heaven. Belief in Jesus Christ is required. That’s how we get to be in Christ. We must look at Him, and we will not do that unless we believe Him—have faith in Him. Hebrews 11:6 makes this crystal clear. It tells us that, “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.” (NASB 2020)

As Paul is making his point about resurrection, he says that if we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied. In making that argument about the future hope we have; Paul shows that the benefits of salvation begin in this life.

Jesus put it this way in John 4:14, “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” (NASB 2020) In John 6:35 He said, “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; the one who comes to Me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never be thirsty.” (NASB 2020) In these statements we see that we can expect spiritual blessing and abundant supply now and forever.

The resurrection provides entry into the kingdom of God, which Romans tells us is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. This righteousness, peace, and joy are found while we’re still here in this world. In Romans 1:17 we find, “For in it [the Gospel see v16] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written: “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS ONE WILL LIVE BY FAITH.” (NASB 2020)

This is clearly talking about our earthly life. We live by faith now. When we are in heaven faith will no longer be required (or at least it will be very different) because we shall see Him as He is. (see 1 John 3:2) If we are to live by faith in our earthly life, then we must also be righteous right here and right now.

Just a brief note: The Greek word behind “righteous one” is translated “just” in the King James. “The just shall live by faith.” This word is translated righteousness earlier in the verse and, among many other places, also in 2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (NASB 2020)

This is the righteousness from God, the righteousness of God, that is given to us. We are made righteous. We are given His righteousness in the here and now.

In John 14:27 Jesus said, “Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor fearful.” (NASB 2020) Jesus told the disciples that He was leaving His peace with them. They were staying behind here on earth, and His peace stays here on earth in all who believe too.

Then in John 17:13 “But now I am coming to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.” (NASB 2020)

These statements about righteousness, peace, and joy are talking about a lot more than happiness in the afterlife. They make clear that the effects of the resurrection are available now. Eternal life begins for us the moment we believe.

The resurrection of Jesus makes eternal life possible. As Jesus says in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (NASB 2020) Jesus says everyone who believes HAS eternal life.

Eternal life begins when we believe. At that moment, we have passed out of death and into life everlasting. At that moment, we are taken out of Adam—we die to that lineage and the death we inherited from it—and we are placed into Jesus Christ—we are made alive to His lineage and begin participating in the divine nature.

This is the good news of Jesus Christ.
This is why we celebrate Resurrection Sunday.

He is risen!
You are risen with Him!

Believe it; He is risen indeed!