Today in our study of God’s Word we come to Matthew’s text on the resurrection. I’ll ask you to open your Bible to the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew. We’re going to be looking this Lord’s day and next at the first ten verses of this great chapter in which Matthew gives His look at the greatest event in the history of the world, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.
This is the great cornerstone of the Christian faith. Everything that we are and have and ever hope to be, all that we believe in is predicated on the reality of the resurrection. There would be no Christianity if there were no resurrection. Conversely because there is a resurrection, all elements of our faith are affirmed as true in every sense. The resurrection then is the cornerstone of our faith.
The world knows that, for the most part, if they know anything about Christianity or anything about Christian history or heritage. There’s little question in our own culture that we believe that Jesus rose from the dead. But there are many possible reactions to the resurrection. Let me suggest some of them to you.
First of all, there is the reaction of rationalism. Rationalism says that the resurrection must be rejected on the basis that it cannot fit into human reason. This is a humanistic view that says because the mind of mind is ultimate, only that which man can perceive and explain can therefore be true and since the resurrection is inexplicable by human reason, it did not happen. And so rationalism rejects the resurrection as it rejects all other miraculous elements of redemptive history.
A second reaction and similar is the reaction of unbelief. Unbelief doesn’t reason away the reality of the resurrection, it just refuses to believe the plain truth. Simple unbelief is a denial of what is a fact for the fact of the resurrection is perhaps the most indisputable fact of all of ancient history, based on evidences and testimony from eye witnesses. But unbelief denies the facts.
Then there is the reaction of doubt. That’s to question the resurrection. There may be such a thing as honest doubt, a true seeker wanting to have questions about the resurrection resolved. And then there is hypocritical doubt which simply continues to question long after available evidence is made clear. But there are those who doubt the resurrection, whether genuinely or hypocritically.
Another possible response is the response of indifference. That is the response that says it may be true or in fact it is true but I just don’t care. It makes no claim on my life, it’s not something on my agenda, I don’t see it at the top of my priority list whether it happened or not, I’m not particularly interested.
Then I suppose we could say there is the response of ignorance. There are those people who are just not familiar with the facts of the resurrection. They may not even know about it and if they do it may be a rather whimsical passing vague thing for which they have no real attestation and so they are in ignorance.
And admittedly there is also the reaction of outright hostility. There are people who are just hostile to the resurrection. It is more than a rationalistic rejection based upon the supremacy of human reason. It is more than just a willful unbelief of the facts. It is more than doubt and more than indifference and more than ignorance, it is anger. It is hostility. It is a vocal vociferous effort to discredit the resurrection. And there are those people who have felt it was their place in life and role in history to write against the resurrection.
And sadly, all of these are wrong reactions and wrong responses and unnecessary. The proper response is the response of faith, of belief, of affirmation and application of the reality of the resurrection to the life of the one who is exposed to its truth.
Now as we come to the gospels, we confess at the very start that we’re going to be dealing with the response of faith…for Matthew, and Mark and Luke and John all believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ not because they were against their wills forced to believe, but because they who were close to the reality of it were overwhelmed with its evidence…as were all the other people who were a part of the believing community who identified with Jesus Christ.
So, as we come to Matthew’s account in chapter 28 verses 1 to 10, we’re going to join those who see the resurrection through the eyes of faith. Later on in this chapter we’ll hear from the rejecters, but it opens with those who believe. As we come to this chapter, do I need to say to you that this is the end of a long study of this marvelous gospel of many years? And some of us, as we come to chapter 28, have arrived at something we thought the Rapture would preempt, but it hasn’t. And maybe for some of us there might be the temptation to say at last we’re going to get it over. But you can’t look at it that way. Chapter 28 doesn’t just get it over, chapter 28 climaxes it.
Some people are under the illusion, you know, that the Bible is just a whole lot of spiritual truths that are put together at random. That’s not true. Every book in the Bible starts somewhere and ends somewhere. And as you come to the end as anybody who knows anything about literature knows, any writer worth his salt is going to go somewhere and he’s going to get there at the end so that the end becomes climactic and exciting and thrilling and confirming and affirming to all that has been said before. So what we see in chapter 28 is not just the end of a long study, it’s the climax of everything. It is the point of everything and the purpose of everything. This then is not a time to diminish our attention. This is a time then to call on all of our memory of everything we have to this point learned and pour it into our minds that we may understand the fullness of meaning that bursts on us in chapter 28. And we come to the glory of the resurrection…this greatest of all events.
I mean, this is it. The first sermon ever preached in the church the day the church was born was preached by Peter in Acts 2 and it’s a sermon on the resurrection. As a result of that and the reality of the resurrection became the theme of all apostolic preaching. Peter preached again on the resurrection in chapter 4 and again on the resurrection in chapter 10. And Stephen preached the resurrection in chapter 7. And Philip preached the resurrection in chapter 8. And Paul preached the resurrection in chapter 9 and chapter 13 and all the way on to chapter 28 of Acts.
And then we come to the epistles and the theme of the epistles is the resurrection. In Romans it says Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. And in 1 Corinthians it says He rose again the third day according to the Scripture. And in 2 Corinthians, He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also. And Galatians says by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead. And we read in Ephesians which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. And Paul says in Philippians that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection. And in Colossians, God who raised Him from the dead. And in 1 Thessalonians, His Son who He raised from the dead. And Peter says that He has in chapter 1 verse 3 begotten us to a living hope by the resurrection of Christ. And even when you come to the book of Revelation it begins by saying that Christ has the right to take the earth because it is He who was dead and is alive forever more.
The whole theme of the New Testament is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we are there as we open this chapter. Not only are we there but we are here because of the resurrection. This is Sunday…this is the first day of the week…this is resurrection day. Spurgeon also wrote so wonderfully of the meaning of the Lord’s day in these words, “We gather together on the first rather than the seventh day of the week because redemption is even a greater work than creation and more worthy of commemoration and because the rest which followed creation is far outdone by the rest which ensues upon the completion of redemption. Like the Apostles, we meet on the first day of the week and hope that Jesus may stand in our midst and say, `Peace be unto you.’ Our Lord has lifted the Sabbath from the old and rusty hinges where on the law had placed it long before and set it on the new golden hinges which His love has fashioned. He has placed our rest day not at the end of a week of toil but at the beginning of the rest which remaineth for the people of God. Every first day of the week we should meditate on the rising of our Lord and seek to enter into the fellowship with Him in His risen life,” end quote.
Here is the foundation of all our hope. For it was Jesus who said, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” It was Jesus who said in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” The resurrection is the core of all we believe. And so we come with great excitement then to this record of our Lord’s resurrection.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
