First Sermon

The Significance of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Part 1—Acts 2:22-36

    As I was recently reading through the New Testament in my personal time of devotions, I was struck by the emphasis placed on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Of course I believed in the Resurrection and I understood that it was important, but I had never realized how key it was in the eyes of Scripture.  “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the very heart of Christianity,” according to P.G. Matthew.  Or as Wayne Jackson puts it, “The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the foundation of the Christian system.”  “If Christ be not raised,” says Matthew Henry, “the Gospel is a jest; it is chaff and emptiness.”  And yet, how many of us would share the Gospel with someone and make absolutely no mention of the Resurrection?  Sadly, the Resurrection of Christ has become merely another doctrine that we take for granted or another sermon that we expect to hear around Easter.    

   

    If the Bible emphasizes something so much, shouldn’t we emphasize it, too?  The Christian Church places a disproportionally large amount of focus on the death of Christ and not nearly enough time on the Resurrection; and our theology shows it.  We offer people Christ’s death and nothing more, and then we wonder why having their sins forgiven is as far as they seek to mature spiritually.  The death of Christ is presented throughout the Bible in tandem with the Resurrection.  Preaching Christ’s death without His resurrection is an incomplete Gospel.   

    In an effort to appreciate and understand this doctrine better we will look at two passages over the next two weeks that focus on Christ’s Resurrection.  We will see the significance of the Resurrection for the early Church, for Christ Himself, for the eternal destiny of all mankind, and for the daily lives of all believers.  It is my solemn hope that not only will we understand the doctrine of Christ’s Resurrection more fully, but that we will begin to live the truth of the reality of Christ’s Resurrection.

   Before we get into the study, I’d like to share a quick note on the word resurrection.  The Greek word translated resurrection is anastasis.  The base meaning of the word refers to the act of rising from a prone or sitting position to that of a standing position.  By extension it refers to a resurrection or a rising to life.  It is used in reference both to physical resurrections and to spiritual, or metaphorical, resurrections.  This metaphor is widespread throughout the New Testament, as we shall see next week.  But for now, let’s jump into Acts 2. 

    These verses that I have read are part of a sermon that Peter delivered on the Day of Pentecost.  The Holy Spirit had been poured out visibly on Christ’s people, causing them to speak in tongues.  Some were amazed, while others just accused them of being drunkards.  That is when Peter arose and began preaching.  The sermon that follows is Peter apologetically proving that Jesus Christ is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament.  Peter’s sermon has two main points based on two prophecies.  In verses 14-21 he shows that the outpouring of the Spirit fulfilled events that were to accompany the coming of the Messiah.  In verse 22 he begins his second point, namely, that the Resurrection of Christ fulfills Messianic prophecies.

    He says, “Men of Israel.”  He begins by addressing a specific crowd.  He specifically addresses those who had received the Old Testament prophesies and should have recognized the Messiah.  He also addresses those were corporately responsible for crucifying Jesus Christ.  It is possible that there were at this gathering some of the very people who had called out to Pilate, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!” but we can’t be sure of that.  I think Peter is following the Old Testament model of corporate responsibility.  While we shall be judged eternally based on our own lives, sometimes temporal punishment is meted out more generally.  Sometimes the righteous suffer for the sins of the unrighteous in a society.  God often judged the nation of Israel for the wickedness of the general population, even though there remained a remnant in the land.  We ought to take this principle to heart and work to cleanse this land of her moral stains. 

    Peter refers to Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth.  This was a term that pointed to the humanity of Jesus.  That was the name by which they all would have known who Jesus in that area.  It was often used as a derogatory term.  After all, when Jesus claimed to be the bread of Heaven, those who heard scoffed because they knew that He had come not from Heaven, but from Nazareth.  The name Jesus, or Yeshua, was not particularly uncommon either.  What Peter is really doing by calling Him Jesus of Nazareth is demonstrated by the next clause.  Peter calls to their remembrance all the signs and wonders that had been done through Jesus.  “A man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.”  Christ often described the role that miracles played in His ministry.  In John 5:36 he says, “But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John.  For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.” 

    Peter does not jump straight to the fact of Christ’s Godhood or Messiahship.  He forces the crowd to acknowledge that, at the very least, Jesus was a man on a sent by God.  “How can you deny the powerful signs that you saw with your own eyes?” Peter reasons.  The Greek word translated attested, or approved in the KJV, is the word apodeiknymi.  It means to display, to credit, to exhibit, to proclaim, to prove, to accredit, or to attest.  God gave his divine stamp of approval to the ministry of Jesus by working miraculous, supernatural signs.  When Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den, King Darius put his seal upon the stone over the mouth of the den to show that this death sentence had the official approval of the King.  If anyone refused to acknowledge that seal, they were rejecting the authority of the King himself.  Even so, those who witnessed the miracles of Christ and yet refused to follow Him denied God Himself.  John 15:23-24 says, “Whoever hates me hates my Father also.  If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.”  His opponents could not deny the miracles.  They were too well known.  Instead, they attributed them to Satan or attempted to ignore them. 

    “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”  Peter pulls no punches.  In this most direct and biting accusation we find perhaps the greatest mystery in the Bible, apart from the Trinity.  Peter affirms two doctrines that seem to be mutually exclusive.  On the right hand he confirms God’s absolute sovereignty.  The death of Jesus, he says, was no accident.  In fact, far from it, it was a crucial step in God’s divine plan.  The word translated definite or predetermined is orismene.  It means to mark off by boundaries.  The word translated foreknowledge carries not only the meaning of knowing beforehand, but implies that God’s plan was made with the greatest of wisdom and insight. The death of Jesus did not alter God’s plan for salvation or for the nation of Israel.  It fulfilled God’s plan. 

    On the other hand Peter affirms the doctrine of man’s moral responsibility.  Man is no mere robot.  He is no puppet on a string.  He is a living, breathing, moving part of God’s creation.  The fact that Jesus’s death was planned by God by no means left innocent those who committed what is easily the greatest crime in the history of the world.  We find both of these principles at work throughout the Bible.  One other verse where they clearly intersect is Genesis 50:20.  Joseph’s brothers came seeking mercy for their sin against him, but he replies, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”  How these two principles can coexist and exactly how they work out must be declared a mystery, but we must not reject that which is mysterious.  God is sovereign, but man acts freely and is truly responsible for his actions.  We must embrace that which is given to us in God’s word, even when we do not understand it.  God tells us to pray, but He also tells us that He already knows what we’re going to pray for.  It is our responsibility to obey God and to pray.  We are told to have faith, and yet Christ tells us in John 6 that no one can come to faith unless the Father draws him.  It is our responsibility not to question how those truths interact, but simply to have faith. 

    The word translated delivered is ekdoton.  It means to be surrendered, especially by the one who is responsible for your protection.  Christ was given over to death by God to death.  Death did not assail Him.  “The reason why this was insisted on by Peter,” says Albert Barnes, “was that he might convince the Jews that Jesus was not delivered by weakness, or because he was unable to rescue himself. Such an opinion would have been inconsistent with the belief that he was the Messiah. It was important, then, to assert the dignity of Jesus, and to show that his death was in accordance with the fixed design of God, and therefore that it did not interfere in the least with his claims to be the Messiah.”

    Now Peter comes to his punch line and we come to our main point.  “God raised him up.”  By this phrase, Peter now distinguishes Jesus from all the other prophets and men of God.  He was not merely a great teacher who led a relatively moral life.  There had been many prophets who were martyred and whose bodies turned to dust in the ground.  But God, loosing the pangs of death, gave life once again to the flesh of our Savior.  The significance of this fact is demonstrated by the amount of time Peter gives to it.  In just a few verses he had discussed Jesus’s life and death, but he takes the next 12 verses to prove the Resurrection.  I would like to take this time to demonstrate the vital role that the Resurrection played in the history of the Early Church. 

    Love him or hate him, Ron Paul has developed quite a following in the past few years.  He has managed to bring together an extremely eclectic group of people who are seeking to join together to restore freedom in America.  They are seeking to restore America to her former glory.  They are looking for a man with the character and influence to accomplish this formidable task.  This man, they believe, has been found in the person of Ron Paul.  His followers are extremely dedicated.  In fact, I recently saw someone on Facebook claim that they would take a bullet for him.  The movement is growing.  Now, imagine that Ron Paul’s enemies had him arrested and falsely accused and that he was publically executed.  What would that do to his followers?  How would that affect the movement that has risen up in his name and has blossomed under his leadership?

    Well, about 2,000 years ago, the church fathers were faced with almost exactly that scenario.  The nation of Israel had been scattered and suppressed for centuries.  They were looking for that promised Messiah who would come to deliver them and to restore the nation back to international significance.  And then Jesus arrived.  Could He be the One?  Could He be the Anointed Lamb of God?  Could He put Israel back on the map?  His followers certainly thought so.  They were confident that they were learning at the feet of the Son of David, nay, the Son of God, who would deliver them from the Roman occupation.  And then Jesus died.  The Apostles were discouraged and scattered.  Judas hanged himself.  The movement had lost its leader and, naturally, they lost their identity.  After all, what good would a dead Savior do?  This is the context into which we must interject ourselves if we are to understand the significance of what Peter is telling us in Acts 2.  By returning from the dead, Jesus assured His disciples that this movement was divine and that not even death itself could deny our Lord victory over the world! 

    An unmistakable change occurred after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  His disciples began to understand the true nature of what He had been sent to accomplish.  As J. Gresham Machen puts it, “Those same weak, discouraged men began, in a few days, in Jerusalem, the very scene of their disgrace, a spiritual movement the like of which the world has never seen.”  What caused the Apostles to go from helpless, hopeless, adherents of a lost cause to bold, martyrs of the world-tilting Gospel?  It was the fact that they had seen Jesus alive.

    This is the reason that the Apostles and Evangelists so emphasized the Resurrection.  Allow me to illustrate what I mean.  In Acts 1:1-3 Luke says, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.  He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the Kingdom of God.”  Jesus could have ascended quite soon after His Resurrection, but He stayed on Earth for forty days to remove all doubt that He was really alive.  He ate with the disciples and allowed them to touch His flesh to show that He had a true body, although glorified.  He was not merely a spirit.  Luke felt that this was vital to communicate.

    In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul takes time to illustrate the many witnesses to Christ’s Resurrection.  Read Passage.

    In Hebrews 6:2 the author lists the resurrection of the dead as one of the elementary doctrines that all believers should know.  And in Romans 10:9 Paul says these words, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Paul names belief in the Resurrection as one of the two things you must hold to for salvation.  That’s how basic it is to the fabric of Christianity. 

    Well, open up your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Acts.   I’m going to read several relevant passages in this book and I invite you to follow along with me.  I know this seems like a rabbit trail, but I want to hit home how important the Resurrection to the first generation of Christians.  Keep in mind that whenever you read the phrase the resurrection of the dead that the underlying assumption is the Resurrection of Christ.  That will be more fully explained next week.

Acts 1:21-22: The Apostles were selecting a 12th member to replace Judas.  Notice how they were choosing someone for the express duty of bearing witness with them of Christ’s Resurrection. 

Acts 4:1-3: Here we see Peter and John arrested for the Gospel, specifically for their teaching about the resurrection from the dead in Christ.  I think it is safe to assume Christ’s own Resurrection was the basis for their sermon.

Acts 4:32-33: This testimony of the resurrection was the focal point of the Apostles’ teaching.  It is part of the basic description of who the church was and what they were doing.  The Resurrection defines the Church.

Acts 17:18 and 32;23:6: Paul preached two things: Jesus and the resurrection.  The resurrection was what got him thrown into jail.  It was more controversial than Jesus.   

Acts 24:14-15: Here we see Paul preaching to the governor Felix.  He’s explaining that he worships the same God as the Jews who were bringing the charges.  Once again, it was the Person of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead that set him apart from his fellow Jews.  There are many more passages that we could look up, but I think these will suffice to demonstrate the vital light in which the Church Fathers saw the Resurrection of Christ.  Truly, they were willing to die because of it for they knew that apart from this one doctrine the whole of Christianity crumbled.  They were willing to give their lives because they knew that true life was found in the risen Savior.

    Let’s get back to Acts 2.  Verse 24 says, “God raise him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”  Well, why not?  What does this us about the Person and the Work of Jesus Christ?  What was God saying by raising Jesus from the dead?  Peter lists four things. 

    Firstly, it tells us that Jesus was indeed who He said He was. The Jews had put Jesus to death for the crime of blasphemy.  Jesus had claimed to be God.  He had done so right in front of the High Priest.  Hear John 17:9: “The Jews answered him [that is Pilate], ‘We have a law, and according to that law he [Jesus] ought to die because he has made himself to be the Son of God’.”  In a separate incident Jesus claimed to be the “I AM” and the Jews began to pick up stones with which to execute Him. Jesus made it clear who He thought Himself to be.  As He told His mother Mary, “I must be about my Father’s business.”  If Jesus were a fake, then He deserved to die.  But God raised Him up from the grave to demonstrate that He was the real deal.  Jesus really is the Son of God!  Death could not control the one who had created life.  The grave had no power over God.  Jesus was of necessity Resurrected because He was truly God, and it was not possible for Him to be held by death.

    Secondly, Peter says that it was a fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the Messiah.  If Jesus were truly the Messiah, He must fulfill every single one of the prophesies concerning the Messiah.  Just as he had pointed to Joel 2 to show that the outpouring of the Spirit was predicted in the Old Testament, so Peter quotes from Psalm 16 to show that the Promised Messiah would be a Resurrected Messiah.  “For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.” Many of the Psalms are what we call Messianic Psalms.  These are quoted throughout the New Testament as ultimately being fulfilled by Jesus.  Other examples are Psalms 2, 22, 34, and 102, just to name a few.  These were Psalms that were applicable to the day in which they were written, and yet were generally understood to have a deeper fulfillment awaiting them.  Jesus, says Peter, has come to fulfill these prophecies.

    David was dead.  He was buried and his tomb remained with them to that day.  David had prophesied of one greater who would come and fulfill the Promise that God had made to him that he would have a descendant on the throne perpetually.  “This Jesus,” says verse 32, “God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses.”  Peter is telling them that they had witnessed and were witnessing the fulfillment of the sacred Scriptures. 

    Thirdly, Peter says that the Resurrection was the beginning of God’s exaltation of Christ.  Verses 35 and 36: “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.  Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified!”  Jesus redeemed His people at the priceless cost of His blood.  He humbled Himself, and received His reward. 

    Paul describes this in Philippians 2:5-11: “Having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

    And in similar language in Ephesians 1:19-21: “And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”  There is human being ruling over the Universe as we speak.  He inhabits a glorified body, but a truly human body nonetheless.  God did not merely exalt Christ spiritually.  He raised Him up bodily and placed Him on the Throne. 

    Some time before Jesus was taken up into Heaven, He gave His disciples what we call the Great Commission, found in Matthew 28:18-20.  This is a beloved and familiar passage, especially to those who have a heart for missions, but I’m afraid that when we read it we rip it out of its Resurrection context.  We barely ever hear verse 17.  “And when they saw him [they being his 11 disciples] they worshipped him, but some doubted.”  Jesus’s declaration that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” was given to encourage His disciples and to alleviate any doubt they might be having.  “I am alive!” Jesus is saying.  “I am Lord of everything.”  That reality was the foundation for the Great Commission.  The Great Commission is not merely a command, but is a promise.  Jesus guarantees the success of the mission.  “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 

    Well, this segways perfectly into Peter’s last point in Acts 2:33: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.”  The Resurrection of Christ was the foundation of the Christian Church for two reasons.  Firstly, because Christ is the head of the Church.  We are His body.  We are His bride.  We are His reward.  The final two verses of Ephesians 2 tell us, “He put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Secondly, the Resurrection of Christ is the foundation of the Church because as our resurrected and exalted Savior, Christ has sent us His Holy Spirit.  As Peter puts it, Jesus has “received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit.”  It is by His Holy Spirit that He is present with us today.  It is through the Spirit that He fulfills His promise to be with us to the end of the age.

    Those who heard Peter’s message were convicted.  They had crucified the Messiah Jesus.  They had rejected God’s signs and had given over to death a perfect man.  Verse 37 says that they were cut to the heart.  Even so, this message should cut to our hearts.  Our sins were laid on the back of Jesus.  We forced Him to that cross.  But the good news is, the cross isn’t the end of the story.  Christ conquered the grave and provided a way of salvation for us.  By bringing Jesus back to life, God the Father was declaring to Jesus and to all of His followers that the sacrifice that Jesus had made on the cross was an acceptable sacrifice.  Only Jesus, wholly man and wholly God, was qualified to take upon Himself the sins of His people.  Had Jesus been left in the grave, there would have been no evidence to demonstrate that Jesus’s death had been pleasing to the Father.  The resurrection is the great, divine approbation of the propitiation that Christ provided for us.  And so Peter calls us to repent and to embrace the risen Savior.  Only in Him can we have life.  Only in Him can we conquer death.  Only His blood can take away the power of sin and the sting of death.