2025 Resurrection Sunday: John 20:1-10 He Is Risen, He Is Not Here

All right, so today we're going to talk about the resurrection. So one of the important things to start off with, he is risen, he is not here. So the question is, resurrection, what is it? So if you're a good Bible student, you can answer that question. So I borrowed my brother Hal Malloy's definition. Resurrection is the rising of a physical body from the dead with a new body, glorified body, that will never die again.

And this has actually only happened one time. It only happened in the case of Jesus Christ alone. We're going to look a little bit later on. There have been many cases where there's been restorations, people have come out from the dead, but when they got old they died again.

Jesus Christ is the only one this has happened with. But the good news is, as was mentioned in several of the songs, is Christ is the first fruit. Afterward, those who belong to Him at His coming, the believers. So every believer will rise from the dead. Some are already dead, and there's a little question, you know, the ones that are in the grave, there's a whole other issue there. But ones that are alive will They're not dead yet.

So anyway, I'm getting tangled up here. Okay, let's carry on. So, let's look at some scriptures that talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Okay, so let's start off in Matthew. The angel said to the woman, Do not be afraid, for I know you are looking for Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, he is risen. Just as he said, come see the place where he was lying. Go quickly now and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. So I want to answer several, think about several questions today. What proof do we have of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? What does the resurrection prove about Christ? And then thirdly, why is the resurrection so critical to our faith? And some of this I've used before, I've kind of redid it again.

So if some things look familiar, it'll be okay. We were re-watching the Monk series. I don't know whether you're into Detective Monk, you know, he's crazy. But anyway, he's always saying, it'll be okay, it'll be okay, it'll be okay. So, all right, here we go. So what proof do we have that Jesus Christ was resurrected?

So there are actually some very critical ones, and we kind of read part of that already in the opening that was read by Jim. But let's look at these. So one of the key things is that Pilot, you know, Pilot wasn't You know, Pilate ordered the maximum security they had in that day. The maximum security was given to securing the grave site, the stone, the ceiling, we'll talk about that a little bit, and the guards. They all were there to make sure that nothing happened to that tomb. But something did.

Secondly, the stone was rolled away. That's a huge thing that happened. Thirdly, the evidence of the empty tomb. The stones rolled away, and there's no one in the tomb. It's empty. So what happened? And then another point is, look at the grave clothes. Were they just, were they not, they should have possibly not have been there at all, and, but they were kind of neatly wrapped and laid in places.

That seems kind of strange. And the last point Christ's appearances. He appeared, if you look through all the scripture, starting the New Testament, starting the Gospels through Revelation, you'll see that he appeared to men 17 times. And actually Dr. Schaeffer points that out and we're going to use his listing of that. So pretty impressive. So those are the five things we're going to talk about. And at the end we're going to talk about some, you know, do you really know the Lord Jesus Christ or just know about him. Many people know about him. Only a believer knows him. Huge difference.

Okay, so let's get on here. First one. So the first thing is securing the grave. So three things were provided, right? They provided two guards, They provided a big stone that covered the opening of the grave. They put the Roman seal on there, which was almost more like, if you touch the seal, you're a dead man, just about. So that was the maximum they could do, and the penalties were great for that. The guards could die if they fell asleep. And I haven't really researched this a lot, but a lot could be said about how secure it was.

So that's one huge thing. And then there is the cover-up. In today's world, there's all kinds of cover-up, right? Something happens, and the present administration, good or bad, whatever you think of them, doesn't want that to get out. So what do they do? They make up a story. They pay people off. Times have not changed. It's no different. So what do they do? So here's the story they made up.

And in Matthew 28 it says, they, the chief priest, gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, the guards that were there, and said, you are to say, his disciples came by night and stole them away while we were asleep. First of all, they would have been dead. If they had been asleep, they'd have been dead men. So that was a lie to start off with.

And then later it says, this story was widely distributed. It got the widest, it was on CNN of the day, or whatever it is. So I got the widest distribution possible. So that's point number one of why the resurrection was true. Number two, the stone was rolled away. So the stone was big, enormous.

We don't know. Lonnie was asking, Roger, you sure it's several tons? And I said, well, Hampton Keithley says it is, so I'll go with him. I don't know. It looks pretty big to me. We could probably look in that time period and figure it out. But it was large, right? And it would take at least a couple of guys, maybe more, to roll it in and out, get it off.

And actually, that question occurred to the women that were coming that morning. They said, well, how? They wanted to go in, and I gather after death they would treat his body or do things with it. I've kind of forgotten that aspect. But they wanted to do that. How are we going to get inside to the tomb to see his body, they were wondering.

They didn't have to worry about that, the Lord had taken care of that already. So they were wondering that exact question. So what really happened, the real story is given to us in Matthew 28 verse 2. Behold, a severe earthquake that had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone, like this. What did he do? Fly away? He sat on it.

Wow, okay, that's pretty. And we have an actual picture from the time period. I saved it on my phone. Not funny, right? Okay, let's go on. Okay, the stone was rolled away. More points here. So here's a question. Why was the stone rolled away? Well, obviously, if you think about it, it wasn't to let Jesus out. We gotta let him out. No, it didn't. Remember, he appeared, he went through walls, he appeared to the disciples. He didn't need, you know, he could go through walls, buildings, didn't matter. So that wasn't the issue.

God planned it. He wanted to draw attention to the fact that the tomb was empty. If it was sealed up again, and imagine if the disciples had tried to break that seal, they could have been in deep trouble. So the stone was rolled away so people could look in. It wasn't to let Jesus out, it was to let men in. Just the opposite. So why did the people need to get inside? Why did people need to get inside the tomb?

One of the huge things we're going to talk about a little bit later is the grave clothes. The grave clothes, the tomb is empty, and the grave clothes are kind of nicely, at least the face covering is nicely put to the side there. So that's one of the key aspects. The grave clothes are not just disheveled, they're neatly packed, sitting there. Okay, so let's go on. Okay, empty tomb. So now, we're going to look at this next section here. We're going to look at what was read by Jim. We're going to look at that ten verses, and I kind of repackaged those ten verses.

We're going to talk about Mary, we're going to talk about Peter, and about John. That's the disciple whom Jesus loved. That's the phraseology that's used there. We're going to look at those three eyewitnesses and see what they say. We'll take Mary first, Mary Magdalene. we read this first Jim read this already now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and I didn't put anything and saw the stone had already been taken away from the tomb so now we I'm gonna jump over jump down to verse 11 but Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping so as she wept Stooped in and look so she's looking in that picture is hard to see you can see look really careful that little picture you see Mary looking in there that's supposed to be a Picture of this verse it's hard to see her, but anyway She saw two angels and white sitting one at the head and one of the feet where the body of Jesus had been laying and and they said to her so the angel spoke to her these two angels spoke to her woman why are you weeping and she said to them because they have taken away my lord I do not know where they have laid him so she can testify at this point that the tomb was empty and the angels there and they told her what happened. So that's her testimony.

So now let's look at John's testimony. Now John was the one that, he outran Peter, you know, had this race. He got there first, so his testimony is after Mary, his testimony is next. So John said, John stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings, and there's actually three Greek words we're going to look for saw.

They're all translated exactly the same. Actually Hampton Keithley is the one that I got this from. Saw is translated the same in the English with three different Greek words. It drives you crazy, right? Why didn't they do it differently so it would help us out? They didn't do that. They're all translated saw.

So the first one is saw blepo in the Greek, and that means It's the idea, it's a mere glance, you look quickly, it's not a detailed examination, it's not really looking finely, it's just saying, okay, yeah, okay, it's empty. It's just a glance, that's the first one.

So John, he blepode, he blepode the empty tomb, to use the Greek word. How about Peter? So Peter, in John 20 verse 6 says, so Peter arrived, Here's Peter. So John's outside the tomb. Peter just blasts by. You know, Peter got to get to the story first, right? His mouth opens up and he starts talking. His life was that way, right? He just blasted on in there, arrived next, and rushed into the tomb, and saw the linen wrappings.

The word for saw in this case is theoreo. And theoreo, if you remember our brother Hal, he has such a vivid description of this word. It's a word for theater. So he would say, just imagine, you're in the theater, you've got surround sounds, you've got the Dolby, and you're just, you're totally into it. Well, using this word, Peter was totally into it.

Wow, it's empty. Wow, look at this. He was totally into it, whereas John is just saying, yeah, okay, it's empty. Okay, so there's two different words we got here so far. We got bleppo and pharao, two different ways of looking at the empty tomb. So now let's carry on here. So now we're gonna look at Once they're in the tomb, they saw something in the tomb. What was in the tomb? We'll look at Peter and John again. So Peter's observation, the same verse I had from before, but a little bit more of it maybe this time.

So Simon Peter entered the tomb, and he theatered it, the linen wrappings lying there, and the face cloth which had been on his head was not lying with the linen wrapping, but rolled up in a place by itself. So somebody had taken care in doing this. Interesting. Okay? So, you know, this is, Keith, I think, kind of a question.

If someone had removed his body, wouldn't we expect it, would it really be there? Would they have taken it with them? You know, if somebody had, the disciples had taken the body away, why would it be neatly rolled up? Another question is, Peter continued, and he continued to ponder it.

He was absorbing what was going on here. Okay, so let's get to John's observation. So John's still outside, so John now enters the tomb. So the other disciple, John, who had first come to the tomb, remember he beat Peter to the tomb, also entered. So now he enters, and he, there's another word for, the third word for saw, enduo, enduo, and believed. Pretty interesting.

For as yet he did not understand the scriptures that he must rise again. So when John entered the tomb, He had some understanding. The question is, how much did he understand? Verse 9 kind of qualifies that. He understood enough that the tomb is empty. Jesus is not there. He comprehended that.

So it's another level beyond just glancing. He endued it. So then the word for endual denotes a perception, mental perception. You perceive something. That's the core idea of the word. He perceived what was going on there. Having now seen this, the witness of the empty tomb, he understood that the Lord had risen, this is Keithley's opinion, had risen from the dead and believes.

Seems like it contradicts verse 9 a little bit. Anyway, so let's just carry on here. Alright, so now So that's the eyewitnesses that we had in the Gospel accounts. So now let's look at His appearances, Christ's appearances after His resurrection. We're going to start in the Gospels, we're going to get into the Epistles, and we're going to get to Revelation. So we have accounts in all those places in the New Testament.

The first one is Mary Magdalene. We just read about that outside the tomb. The woman running from the tomb, Peter, somewhere in Jerusalem. disciples on the road to Emmaus. I commend you. Go through and look at all these verses. Check them out. It's pretty cool. If you need a copy, I can send this to you.

The ten disciples, this is the first occurrence without Thomas, right? They were in there and Thomas wasn't with them. Then the next time, shortly later, there were eleven disciples. Thomas was with them this time. Then we have seven disciples in the Sea of Galilee. We're still in the Gospels, and now we switch to the letters, the epistles. 500, it doesn't tell us where. James, the Lord's brother, saw him. That's the same account in John 15. Disciples at the Mount in Galilee, and then the disciples at the Mount of Olives when he was taken up, when he ascended. So now we're into Acts.

Stephen, when he looked into heaven, right? When he was martyred. Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul in Arabia, three and a half years in Arabia with the Lord. Paul in the temple, saw him. Paul in prison in Caesarea. Then lastly, the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos.

So 17 times he appeared after his resurrection. Pretty amazing, pretty amazing. Okay, so now we have the testimony of his appearance after he was risen. So a couple more points. So what does the Resurrection prove about Christ? The Resurrection actually is a testimony about Jesus Christ. It testifies to who He is in several ways. It authenticates Christ as being the Son of God. It proves the atoning value of Christ's work on the cross, and it demonstrates Christ's deity.

So we'll look at all three of those, and then the last point is, why is it so critical? Why is it so critical that the resurrection, why is it so critical to our faith? And we're gonna see that. So we have many scriptures that show that, the criticality of the resurrection to the Christian's faith.

All right, so look at the first one here. The resurrection authenticates Christ as the Son of God. So the verse for this one is in Romans chapter 4, the first, the A part, who Christ Jesus was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. literally the father declared, in the Greek it's marked him out, declared as to mark out, marked him out to be his son by resurrecting him. That's it, he is my son. He declared that by the resurrection.

The next point is he proves the atoning value of Christ's work on the cross. In Romans chapter 4, 25 it says, he who was delivered over because of our transgression and was raised because of our justification. You know, justification is to be declared righteous, so I just... So, raised because of means it proves the sufficiency of the payment for our justification, which is us being declared righteous by God based upon faith. The resurrection proves that Christ's death was sufficient to bring about justification by faith. That is a means by which we become a believer. We are justified by faith. Okay, so what does it continue on here? It demonstrates Christ's deity.

And what's unique about this, the resurrection of Christ, I mentioned this before, was unique in a major way. Others were only raised to life and then they had to die again. Lazarus, Jairus' daughter, and the widow's son, they were raised and then died of old age later on, or whatever. Now here's the interesting thing. The resurrection of Christ tells us something very interesting.

Who was involved in the resurrection of Christ? If someone asked you that Bible question, Bible quiz, would you be able to answer that question? Hopefully you can. Okay, first of all, God the Father, this is probably your first answer, right? God the Father was, it says, God the Father, who raised Him, Jesus Christ from the dead. The Holy Spirit, Romans 8.11a, But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, so the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit raised Jesus Christ.

And then a surprising one maybe, God the Son, John 2.19, Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.

But he was speaking of the temple of his body. So what's interesting is Jesus was involved in his own resurrection. So it proves to me, you know what it tells me is? God, it affirms the Trinity, right? We have one God in three persons, and they're all involved, just like they're all involved in the ministry and many, many things we see in Scripture. Father, Son, Holy Spirit are involved in every aspect, and the resurrection was one of those.

So it's really unique about Christ. If Christ participated in raising himself from the dead, he must be more than just a man, right? Pretty amazing. So in Acts it says, Acts 2.24, But God raised him, Christ, up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in his power. You know, God has created all things. He created death. So something that He created couldn't control Him, right? Death couldn't control God. Another verse. We just read this. He must rise from the dead. That's the line we read earlier.

So the point is, death cannot hold God in its power. God is greater than death. He can overcome death. And Jesus Christ, being God, overcame death. but all three members of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were involved in that. Okay, so at this point, all right, so let's talk, last point in this area. Christ's resurrection is critical to our faith.

So here's the first verse I have to offer. It says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So we're born to a living hope. And we're born to a living hope. So let's just kind of go through this verse, point by point. The believer has been born again. Now, born again, the root definition of that is born from above. You've been born from above. You have a new life.

A living hope is not just hope so, it's absolute certainty. When God is the author or God is the person involved, hope is an absolute certainty. Through or by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, Christ's resurrection ensures our salvation. Here's another verse, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

Pretty tender phrase, fallen asleep in Jesus. Think of all the loved ones we know. It's a tender word, right? They've fallen asleep in Jesus. What a wonderful, wonderful verse. Okay, a couple more here. So thus we can see that there by the resurrection man is provided with a living hope Because it depends upon a living Savior. We have a living hope 24-7 because we have a living Savior a couple more verses beautiful verse Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life and he just testified he is by definition Jesus Christ is the resurrection I am the resurrection I myself and the resurrection and the life he who believes in me will live even if he dies and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die the one more verse not exactly to the point but really neat verse in John 17 even as you have given authority to all flesh that to all whom you have given he may give eternal life. This is eternal, I love this part, this is eternal life that you may know, I'm sorry, this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Just a beautiful verse.

So that kind of leads me into my My final three charts. I know it drives Courtney crazy, but I have a final chart with three parts. Three sections. Okay, so here we go. So here we are, April 20th, 2025. So here's my question for today. Question every day, actually.

Do you know Jesus Christ, or do you just know about Jesus Christ? I would say, you know, He is the best known person on the planet. More people know about Jesus Christ than probably anyone else. You know, the Muslims may disagree and the Hindus may disagree, but I think Jesus Christ is known by more people known about. But the key part is knowing about a person.

Let's take your family members. If you say, I know my wife. or I know about my wife. If you only know about your wife, you're in deep trouble. And if she only knows about you, you're in deep trouble. You know a person, you know about them, you understand them, you know their good points and their bad points, you live with them day in, day out. It's marvelous, you know them. That's the relationship that Christ desires with every person on the planet. That you know him, you understand what he's about.

And there's no other way to do that. I can sit up here and tell you verses till the cows come home. But you can't know him unless you read about him, unless you interact with him. The most interactive book we have in the world is the Bible. It talks to you. It actually can talk to you. It will talk to you if you have the right kind on your phone. The Bible will talk to you. But it will talk to you more than that. A verse will come alive to you and say, wow, I never saw that before. Look at that. So He wants you to know Him. He doesn't know about Him. Don't just know about Him. Know Him. So let's move on from that thought. You know, there are many sincere people. You come across many people who are super sincere. They're the kindest, best person you ever saw.

But they don't realize that they're in deep trouble. They have a desperate need for Christ's resurrection life. They're in jeopardy. Their lives are in jeopardy. Because if you don't know Jesus Christ, you're in trouble. So let's carry that thought on farther. Every man, woman, and child is under the just condemnation of God. He justly can condemn every man, woman, and child.

And we're going to see why he can do that shortly here. But God, and that's not, He's not being mean. He's not being mean-spirited. He's being righteous and holy and just. But here's an interesting quote. And see if you remember who said this. Do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? You guys remember who said that? That was... Amen! Hey!

There's a thief on the cross. He said to the other thief, you're under the condemnation of God. Well, I want to tell you today, if you do not know Jesus Christ, you are under the condemnation of God. not because of something you did or did not do. Maybe you were unkind to the lady walking across the street, or your spouse, or maybe you were, maybe you stole, maybe you did all kinds of bad things. Is that what God's gonna send you to hell for?

No, not one bit. He doesn't, it's not about that, you know? It's not our actions, or anybody's actions, you know? It's our relatives. It comes down to our relatives. We got bad relatives. And here's a verse that tells us about our bad relatives. Know this verse, understand this verse. Therefore, just as through one man, thee sin entered into the world, and death through thee sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned in Adam. Every single person, whether he believes it or not, is related to Adam. And he has Adam's nature. And that Adam nature controls him.

It says right here, death spread to all men. So all men are dead. Remember Christ said, let the dead bury themselves. Let the dead bury the dead. Well that just really stings to the heart. Let the dead, men are dead outside of Christ. They're dead. They're walking dead.

Because they have a sin nature. A fallen nature from Adam. And that nature sins. That nature can do nothing but sin. And that's what we try to teach here, I think, every week, if we can. You have this nature from Adam, and it controls you. Your only hope of that Adam nature being broken is by your faith in Jesus Christ. That's the only way you can break that bond. And that's why God can rightly condemn you He has every reason to condemn you because of that, not because you're not the best person, maybe you're the best person ever, you're the kindest, you know, you got double A's, you know.

I remember, go back, just, you know, kind of write my own story. I remember in school, I was kind of a quiet guy, not, didn't make any waves, you know, my grades in school weren't that great, but my, what do they call it, conduct grades Roger is the quietest and best students I ever had. I wish every student was just like Roger. I got all these glowing reports.

Well, I didn't know Jesus Christ. I went to church. I was baptized. I didn't know Jesus Christ, but I got all these wonderful things. I was such a great person. So you can look good, you can look like the best person ever, but that doesn't mean, you know, and you know whether you know Jesus Christ.

So let's look at faith for a second, just kind of take a little, so let's talk about faith for a second. I love this verse, I've come to love it even better in recent times. We covered it back several months ago. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. So faith, this is cool, faith comes from hearing.

So your first thought is, well, I just hear, just give me a little of the Bible, bing, bing, bing, and then all of a sudden, poof, hey, I'm good, right? I got a few verses, you know, I read a few verses, I'm good. Is that what it means? I don't think so.

It's actually, there's a definite article, it's the faith, it's a particular kind of faith, and the context is saving faith, the kind of faith that brings salvation. So he's saying, but this saving faith must have an object. Faith always has to have an object. The object is our Lord Jesus Christ. So this saving faith has an object, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And where does this faith come from? And God has provided this. And we'll see in the last chart here, we'll see that. What is this saving faith about?

Saving faith comes from the message, from the message heard. So faith is based on a content of a message. So God has provided a message for man to know to be saved. Once you have heard this message, faith is possible. So I think you all know what that message is. So what is the message to be heard? It's the gospel. And what's needed in the gospel is a resurrection. That's what we're talking about.

So the gospel, you guys all know this. 1st Corinthians. So Paul says, he doesn't say, I got this from Peter, James, and John. He says, I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. Paul received this as a divine revelation from the Lord Jesus.

He received it from Him that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried. He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. And He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve, and then to all those others we talked about.

So you can sum it up, and this is the core gospel, line by line, but that message comes through loud and clear in so many other verses, and here's a verse like that, in John 5, 24. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word, so we have to hear the message, we have to hear the word, right? We hear the gospel, we hear my word, and believe him who sent me, maybe gets eternal life, if he works hard, has eternal life. So believing, not working, believing, and you have eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.

Boy, so I would encourage you, if you've never, maybe you think you know a lot about Jesus, I've read about Jesus. I watched ten movies about Jesus. I had that said to me. I watched all these movies when I was a teenager. Anyway, don't stop. Read it for yourself. Understand it for yourself. It's the most important decision you'll have in your life. So let's close.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your marvelous grace, Lord, your marvelous provision, Lord. We just praise you for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We thank you that that life is available to every single person in this room or listening on Zoom, Father. We pray that your spirit would convince them of their need for the Savior if they don't know him. We thank you again. In Christ's name, amen.