The Resurrection: Anchor of History and Hope

• The Apostles' Creed and Confessional Affirmation [00:05:07 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor highlights the counter-cultural nature of affirming the physical resurrection in the Apostles' Creed, contrasting it with modern worldviews.
• Jewish Burial Practices and the Empty Tomb [00:07:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > Explains the two-stage Jewish burial process (linen/spices then ossuary) to demonstrate how easily a resurrection claim could be refuted if the bones were present.
• Refutation of Alternative Theories [00:10:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > Systematically debunks theories such as cognitive dissonance, swoon theory, mistaken identity, and grief hallucinations, arguing they fail to explain the empty tomb or the nature of the appearances.
• Militant Atheism and Historical Certainty [00:16:22 ▶️ 📄]
  > Contrasts the Christian belief in resurrection with 'militant atheism' (citing Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.) and argues that rejecting the resurrection leads to historical nihilism.
• The Tangible Nature of the Resurrected Body [00:19:04 ▶️ 📄]
  > Describes the resurrected body as physical and tangible, citing Jesus eating fish and appearing/disappearing, while using personal anecdotes to illustrate the reality of physical existence.
• The Resurrected Body of Jesus [00:22:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor discusses the physical reality of Jesus' resurrection body, using examples of Him eating fish and appearing/disappearing to argue against a purely spiritual interpretation, emphasizing the 'crassness' and physicality of the new creation.
• The Empty Tomb and Historical Evidence [00:28:59 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the cowardice of the disciples before the resurrection with their willingness to die afterward, arguing that their transformation proves the historical reality of the empty tomb and the resurrection, countering postmodern skepticism.
• The Moral Order of the Universe [00:36:26 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that the resurrection confirms a moral order where God is just. He addresses the question of why Jesus died, asserting that God's wrath was justly poured out on Jesus as a substitute for sin, thereby validating divine justice.
• Application of Redemption [00:44:25 ▶️ 📄]
  > Citing Calvin, the pastor explains that Christ's work is useless unless applied to believers. He identifies the resurrection and ascension as the mechanism by which the Holy Spirit applies redemption, bringing believers into existential union with Christ.
• The Resurrection and Application of Redemption [00:45:51 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that without the resurrection, there can be no effectual calling, regeneration, faith, repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, or glorification.
• Union with Christ (In Christo) [00:46:58 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor highlights Paul's phrase 'in Christ' as central to the New Testament, explaining that redemption is applied through existential union and fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
• Paul's Conversion and Persecution [00:48:34 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts Paul's past persecution of the church and Stephen, noting that his transformation was triggered by the sight and sound of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
• Bodily Union and Ethical Implications [00:50:48 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor asserts that believers are united with Christ in body and soul, using this to argue that sexual sin (visiting a brothel or pornography) involves Jesus and requires rendering one's body as an instrument of righteousness.
• Eschatological Hope [00:52:04 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor concludes that believers are already raised with Christ and sit in heavenly places, anticipating a future resurrection with new bodies when He appears.

• Sermon Illustration [00:04:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his experience in elevators in South Carolina, where he introduces himself as being from there, using it to transition into the public confession of faith.
• Sermon Illustration [00:06:03 ▶️ 📄]
  > He references visiting Hobbiton in New Zealand and standing outside Bilbo Baggins' house to contrast the physical reality of a fictional location with the physical reality of the resurrection.
• Sermon Illustration [00:21:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > He tells a personal story about his dislike of fish due to poor refrigeration in 1950s/60s Britain, contrasting his reluctance to eat fish with Jesus eating fish in His resurrected body to emphasize the physical reality of the resurrection.
• Sermon Illustration [00:23:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > He shares a recurring interaction with people who have lost their dogs, asking if there are dogs in heaven, to illustrate the tangible, physical nature of the new creation.
• Sermon Illustration [00:23:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about his dog, Roxy, and uses it to address the common question of whether there are dogs in heaven, answering affirmatively to connect with dog lovers and illustrate the restoration of Eden.
• Sermon Illustration [00:30:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references his obsession with 'Lord of the Rings,' mentioning reading it in three days at age 16 and comparing the orcs to his perception, to illustrate his personal engagement with culture while transitioning to the disciples' willingness to die for the truth.
• Sermon Illustration [00:35:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts Christianity with Buddhism, joking that one only needs to 'close your eyes and hum' to be a Buddhist, to highlight that Christianity is based on historical facts and doctrinal creeds rather than mere meditation.
• Sermon Illustration [00:48:34 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor illustrates the concept of union with Christ by recounting the story of Paul (Saul) on the Damascus Road, where Jesus identified with His persecuted followers ('Why are you persecuting me?'), and Paul's subsequent lifelong remembrance of his role in Stephen's death.
• Sermon Illustration [00:52:04 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the analogy of 'two zip codes' to describe the believer's current spiritual position ('sitting in heavenly places') versus their earthly reality, anticipating a future physical resurrection.
• Sermon Illustration [00:53:25 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the metaphor of 'opening little presents' to describe how believers experience glimpses of God's glory and beauty, which fuel anticipation for the full realization of redemption.

• Pastoral Charge [00:51:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > To dedicate and use their physical bodies for righteous purposes rather than sin.

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:08] Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 12. And my remit is to speak on the resurrection of Christ. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 12. Let's pray together.
[00:00:32] Heavenly Father, we thank You. Thank You for the Scriptures that holy men wrote as they were born along by the Holy Spirit.
[00:00:43] it. We thank You that no Scripture is of private interpretation, but is from You. We thank You that all Scripture is given as the product of the out-breathing of God and profitable for doctrine and reproof and correction and instruction in the way of righteousness that
[00:01:10] the man of God might be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. We pray, Lord, that by your Spirit, you would come and hide your Word within our hearts.
[00:01:30] We don't want this simply to be a cerebral exercise, but one in which the whole man in our hearts, in our affections, in our minds, in our wills, in our disposition might be drawn more and more to embrace the Lord Jesus as He is offered to us in the Gospel.
[00:02:04] So now as we turn to the Scriptures, we ask for your blessing, for unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it.
[00:02:19] This we ask in Jesus' name.
[00:02:21] Amen.
[00:02:25] That wasn't me.
[00:02:30] I'm hungry but that definitely wasn't me.
[00:02:37] Now let's try again, 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 12.
[00:02:45] Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
[00:02:56] But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
[00:03:05] And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
[00:03:16] We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that He raised Christ whom He did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.
[00:03:32] For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
[00:03:37] And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
[00:03:46] Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
[00:03:54] If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
[00:04:16] Our church, first Presbyterian church in Columbia, South Carolina, the greatest state in the United States.
[00:04:30] I love it when I'm in elevators and I will have said something, which floor, after you, and then somewhere in the journey up or down, someone is going to say, and where are you from?
[00:04:48] And just as the doors are opening, I will say, South Carolina.
[00:04:58] We say every Sunday morning the Apostles' Creed.
[00:05:07] It's a very counter-cultural moment.
[00:05:09] I love it.
[00:05:14] In defiance of all of the worldviews out there, this is a haven and a rest when the people of God affirm their faith vocally and in unison and often loudly, I believe.
[00:05:38] And we say the statement, on the third day He rose again from the dead. I believe in the resurrection, the physical bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead. It's not a metaphor. It's not a parable. It's not a piece of fantasy literature in the way that I believe in hobbits.
[00:06:03] I've been to Hobbiton. I've actually been there. I've stood outside Bilbo Baggins' house.
[00:06:18] I can show you the photographs. It exists. But when we say, I believe in the resurrection of Christ, the bodily, physical resurrection of Christ, we're saying something very different.
[00:06:37] And here we're saying something that is contrary to modernity and late modernity and post-modernity.
[00:06:53] Let me say that the doctrine of the physical resurrection, bodily resurrection of Christ is in itself an assertion that the noumenor perforates into the phenomena.
[00:07:07] Apologies to Immanuel Kant.
[00:07:09] Now, if disciples saw Jesus or they thought they saw Him, they knew as much as you and I know about things like visions and dreams and ghosts, and they had language for that.
[00:07:38] But it wasn't resurrection.
[00:07:44] Now let's remember that Jesus was buried according to a particular Jewish tradition which had two stages.
[00:07:55] One, the body would be carefully wrapped in linen and spices would be added to help when folk would come to revisit the body, help with the smell of putrefaction and so on, And that body would be placed on a shelf in a cave, that's stage one.
[00:08:17] And stage two in standard Jewish practice would be that later they would come and they would gather the bones.
[00:08:26] When the flesh had decomposed, they would gather the bones and put those bones in a box, an ossuary.
[00:08:35] So any claim to resurrection would have been perfectly simple to refute.
[00:08:42] would just show the bones. Any claim to the resurrection without an empty tomb would be entirely nonsense. Of course, an empty tomb in and of itself doesn't prove a whole lot.
[00:09:03] They may have gone to the wrong tomb. They may have seen someone whom they thought was Jesus resurrected from the dead, but actually it was a soldier or the gardener, as Mary thought, or even one of the disciples, James, for example, the brother of Jesus, may well
[00:09:25] have looked like Jesus, and in the half-light it would be perfectly easy for a disciple or someone, women, to think that they have seen Jesus.
[00:09:48] Now there are all kinds of alternative explanations, and we need to mention a few of them.
[00:09:56] Let's think about some of these.
[00:10:00] One is the view known as cognitive dissonance.
[00:10:03] It was popular in the early part of the twentieth century, mid-twentieth century.
[00:10:09] People who really want to see something are emotionally disposed, psychologically disposed to seeing certain things actually end up saying that they have seen certain things.
[00:10:27] They leap over, folk like this are more than capable of leaping over data, logic, sanity, and often become strident in doing so.
[00:10:45] The problem with the view of cognitive dissonance is that the disciples weren't expecting a resurrection.
[00:10:52] There simply is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the disciples were expecting a resurrection.
[00:11:01] So it's not as if they wanted to believe it.
[00:11:04] They were emotionally caught up in the expectation of a resurrection, therefore they saw a resurrection.
[00:11:15] Another view that is sometimes expressed is that the disciples experienced after Calvary And after that weekend, after those few days, they experienced just an overwhelming experience of grace and forgiveness and a conviction that things were going to continue and so
[00:11:52] on.
[00:11:54] But it doesn't explain why the disciples claim that the tomb was empty.
[00:12:05] Other explanations, Jesus didn't really die, that He had the equivalent of some kind of drug that makes you sort of lower, almost slow your heartbeat so that it's almost completely stopped, and then later, in the coolness of the tomb, He suddenly wakes up.
[00:12:37] But Roman soldiers knew how to kill people. They were masters at killing people.
[00:12:49] Or the view that women met someone who looked like Jesus, you know, somebody like James, perhaps, who may have looked like him. But, you know, that's a possibility once, or maybe twice, well, maybe three times. But at some point they would realize,
[00:13:14] where's James? I mean, did he disappear? Where did he go? Right, you're James.
[00:13:29] There's the view that Jesus only appeared to those who believed in him. Actually, that's not true. He appeared to Thomas, who evidently did not believe. He appeared to Saul of Tarsus, who most definitely did not believe.
[00:13:58] There are explanations that the accounts are biased. It's written by those who are predisposed to believing in the resurrection. It's written in the accounts that we have in the Gospels and in Corinthians and other places in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles.
[00:14:21] These are written by folk who are predisposed to wanting to make this story work.
[00:14:32] So it's biased, and in that case everything is biased.
[00:14:43] Everybody has an angle.
[00:14:44] Everybody has a metanarrative.
[00:14:46] Everybody has a point of view.
[00:14:49] Everybody has an angle.
[00:14:50] Every journalist has a certain angle – he's to the left, he's to the center, he's to the right.
[00:14:58] In that case, there can be no history.
[00:15:00] In that case, there can be no historical fact.
[00:15:03] In that case, there can be absolutely no certainty whatsoever, unlessing his right about the ugly ditch of history that history cannot ever be known.
[00:15:17] Tell that to the Scotsmen who are voting for independence based on absolute certainty of certain battles in places like Bannockburn hundreds of years ago.
[00:15:38] There's the explanation that grieving folk often see their loved ones after they've died.
[00:15:46] You're in a crowd and suddenly you see a face and it's your husband, it's your wife, it's your mother or father.
[00:15:56] I've met people who've claimed such things.
[00:16:04] But they had language for that. They would talk about angels. They would talk about spirits. They would talk about ghosts. But they wouldn't have talked about someone being raised from the dead.
[00:16:22] So the Enlightenment says dead people don't rise. That's a fact. Like militant atheism, scientific, militant scientific atheism of our time, the Richard Dawkins, the Sam Harrises, the Christopher Hitchens, the Stephen Hawkings, and so on and so on, these militant scientific
[00:17:08] atheists of our time. Dead people don't rise. That's it. It's a fact. I was listening few weeks ago to Richard Strauss's Salome. Who are the opera fans in here? One, we need to talk.
[00:17:43] Before you go rushing out to listen to it and certainly before you go rushing out to see it, you may need some advice as to what it might contain. It's based, of course, on Oscar Wilde's
[00:17:56] play on Salome, and it has that beautiful line in it where someone is telling Herod that Jesus is going about raising people from the dead, and Herod says, I forbid it. Someone go and tell Him
[00:18:14] that I forbid Him to raise people from the dead. And it's the strident voice of militant atheism in our time, I think. I forbid it. It doesn't happen. It cannot happen. I'm against it.
[00:18:41] Now, what is the evidence for the resurrection of Christ? And let me suggest, let me just suggest three things here. First of all, the faith of the early church. It's just an obvious thing as you
[00:19:04] read the early church, the accounts of the early church, that they believed the resurrection of the body of Jesus without dissent, that on the third day when the women came to the tomb and Mary before that, the tomb was empty. They saw in various stages, in various
[00:19:32] sequence of events, various individuals, they saw the resurrected body of the Lord Jesus, a tangible body, a physical body, a body with a head and eyes and nose and ears and a frame and legs and hands and feet, a body that spoke. Mary, sure there were aspects
[00:20:16] of the physical resurrected body of Jesus that had some features about it that distinguished itself from His pre-resurrection body.
[00:20:33] It appears to me as though that body was capable of appearing and disappearing on the road to Emmaus after the two disciples, and they stop in Emmaus, and they break bread, and then He disappeared out of their view. Suddenly, He's in northern Galilee. There's no evidence
[00:20:58] that He had walked, schlepped it all the way up to northern Galilee. He appears at the side of the Sea of Galilee, and He's eating fish. Who's clapping? You know, for years I really didn't like fish.
[00:21:21] I wasn't raised on a farm.
[00:21:23] We didn't have fish.
[00:21:26] Fish was something that came from somewhere.
[00:21:28] And by the time it got to where we were, it just wasn't nice.
[00:21:35] You know, I'm not that old, but refrigeration was a bit of an issue in the late 1950s, 1960s, for sure.
[00:21:46] In Britain, I'm not talking about the United States.
[00:21:49] So I didn't grow up eating fish, so it's taken me a long time. I still wrestle with it.
[00:21:55] My wife is still trying to get me into being a fish eater. You know, if I'm at a restaurant and I look down the menu, I'm probably going to skip over the fish things. You know, I want to
[00:22:08] enjoy this meal. I don't want it to be just an act of discipline, just doing the right thing here.
[00:22:18] And then there's Jesus, and in His resurrection body, He's eating fish at breakfast with the disciples, fish that He has caught, by the way. I know the disciples laid down their net in accordance with the command of Jesus, and they hauled in this, what was it, 169, whatever the
[00:22:48] number-wise of fish. You know, eating fish has consequences. Eating anything has consequences.
[00:22:58] Do I need to go there? Some of you just drank a whole thing of coffee, and there you go.
[00:23:15] Astonishing! The crassness of the reality of the resurrected body of Jesus with organs, not this kind of organ. I'm often asked the question, are there dogs in heaven? I love my dog. Dr. Sproul has Roxy, of course, and several others before Roxy. Roxy is the current master
[00:23:56] of the house. I love my dog. If you don't like dogs, we're going to have a problem from the very beginning. I've got something I've got to get over in order to make contact with you. But if
[00:24:15] you're a dog lover, it's immediate. We can talk about dogs. So, I'm asked the question because I love my dog. I can't tell you the number of times people will say, in, of course, usually
[00:24:32] difficult circumstances where they've just lost their dog, and they'll come to me and they'll say, Pastor, are there dogs in heaven? And my answer is always the same. Of course! It's a dumb question.
[00:24:49] Of course!
[00:24:50] What kind of heaven are you looking for?
[00:24:55] It's a new heavens and a new earth.
[00:24:57] It's like, well, Dr. Beale would say it's like Eden.
[00:25:04] It's the restoration of Eden.
[00:25:08] Why am I going down here?
[00:25:12] Will you eat in heaven?
[00:25:15] Of course.
[00:25:22] Because if you're hesitating, that's the degree with which you haven't understood the reality and the crassness of the resurrected body of Jesus. You could touch it. Now, there are aspects of the resurrection body of Jesus that seem to belong to a different order of
[00:25:48] physics. I was an applied math physics major, so I am right here. Do not question me on this. The fact that He was able to appear and disappear is not because He was God. That's
[00:26:14] not the answer. He lives out His incarnate state pre-resurrection, post-resurrection in the capacity of His human nature, and that human nature now has properties that it didn't seem to have before the resurrection. I don't understand that. I'm thrilled by it. It opens
[00:26:50] up all kinds of possibilities for space travel. Well, think about it. How are you ever going to see what's in the fourth quadrant where Captain Janeway is? Even in eternity, now of course you have eternity, and that means forever and ever and ever and ever. It'll
[00:27:18] still be an eternity with a conscious experience of time for us. We are created beings and space and time are related together, right, E equals MC squared and all that. But perhaps, perhaps Scripture is just giving us little glimpses, little hors d'oeuvres, fishy hors d'oeuvres
[00:28:02] of the glory, the grandeur, the amazement of what lies before us in the new heavens and in the new earth. Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what God
[00:28:18] has prepared for those that love Him. The disciples, the early church, believed in the bodily resurrection of Christ. You know, what changed them from, well, cowards? Is that too strong?
[00:28:59] You'd have been the same.
[00:29:02] You'd like to think that you wouldn't, perhaps.
[00:29:09] On that Saturday afternoon, where were the disciples?
[00:29:14] Where were they?
[00:29:16] As he lay on that cross, where were they?
[00:29:19] When he was taken down and put in the tomb, where were the disciples?
[00:29:24] Some, I think, were holed up in John's house in the city, doors shut, locked, barred.
[00:29:36] Some, I think, had fled to Bethany, had gone over the mountains to the southwest and fled out of the city? What changed them so that they're ready to be imprisoned for Christ, and in the case of James, ready to be executed?
[00:30:00] To be executed. Are you ready to die for a metaphor? You know, I love Lord of the Rings.
[00:30:16] I'm sorry, I do. I love it. I'm kind of obsessive about it. You know, it's one of those things I wrestle with? Lord of the Rings, Bible. I do. I mean, I wrestle with it. You know, what should
[00:30:32] I read on a long journey in a flight to New Zealand that's 16 hours in a plane? Sixteen hours.
[00:30:42] I don't feel too bad. I was in business class. Another story, kind gift. I read Lord of the Rings again because I read it every year. You know, when I was first ready when I was 16,
[00:30:59] it was the late 1960s, our high school, just became obsessed with this book. Everyone was reading it. And the first time I read it, I read it in three days, and I just could not put it down.
[00:31:16] And I imagined this world. I could see myself. Actually, what I saw as orcs wasn't way as terrible as what the movie saw as orcs, for sure. But I don't need counseling here, I don't think.
[00:31:40] I don't actually believe that hobbits exist. I've seen some short people, you know, height-challenged folk. One is a colleague of mine at the church, and I have referred to him as a hobbit more than once. But these disciples were ready to die. They were ready to die
[00:32:11] based on something that could easily be disproven. You know, if the disciples had taken the body of Jesus and hidden it somewhere, or if they thought they had just seen somebody who looked like Jesus,
[00:32:34] or they had seen a ghost, do you think they would be ready to die? The faith of the early church, you know, we have to face the issue, postmodernity has to face the issue of what Lessing called the
[00:32:48] ugly ditch of history, the belief that we cannot know anything for certain in the past because everything is viewed through a metanarrative. Well, there was no ugly ditch of history for these disciples. You know, that point of view wasn't the case for these disciples, the early
[00:33:14] church, they could easily verify whether that tomb was empty. The faith of the early church.
[00:33:29] Secondly, the faith of Paul. The faith of Paul. Saul of Tarsus, you know, read Machen's origin of Paul's religion. Saul of Tarsus almost single-handedly wiped out the church. He could have destroyed it. You know, we talk about, it's fantasy of course, but we talk about destroying
[00:33:58] certain organizations in our own time, just wiping them out. You know how difficult that is.
[00:34:06] Saul of Tarsus almost wiped out the church. He wasn't disposed to believing in a resurrected Christ. So what accounts for Paul? He saw the risen Christ. He saw Him. So you have the faith of the early church. You have the faith of the Apostle Paul. You've got the empty tomb,
[00:34:44] which was easily verifiable. Christianity is based on facts. You know, that's why I love saying the Apostles' Creed. There's no Apostles' Creed, you understand, for Hindus or Buddhists.
[00:35:05] You know, all you have to do to be a Buddhist is to close your eyes and hum.
[00:35:13] Just find a little zone, you know, a little quiet place of meditation.
[00:35:20] You don't have to think.
[00:35:21] You don't have to say anything.
[00:35:23] There are no principles, no doctrines to bother you.
[00:35:29] That's why I love saying the Apostles' Creed in 2014 against all the opposing metanarratives out there.
[00:35:41] believe these things. What are the doctrinal implications of the resurrection? Well, let me mention a couple of them. The doctrine of the resurrection, the bodily resurrection of Christ says to me, there is a moral order to this universe. There is a moral order to this universe.
[00:36:26] It's a point that the biblical ethicist O'Donovan has made at great length in the past twenty years or so.
[00:36:42] Here's the greatest question.
[00:36:47] Here's the most difficult question that you can ask this morning.
[00:36:56] Why did Jesus die?
[00:37:00] Why did He die?
[00:37:01] Now, let me ask the question in the way that it should be asked.
[00:37:07] Why did God kill him?
[00:37:15] Who killed Jesus?
[00:37:19] Was it the Roman soldiers?
[00:37:21] Was it Judas?
[00:37:23] Was it Herod?
[00:37:25] Was it the Sanhedrin?
[00:37:26] Who killed Jesus?
[00:37:31] The Father did.
[00:37:35] John 3.16, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
[00:37:43] He gave Him to death.
[00:37:48] whose unmitigated wrath came down upon Jesus. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
[00:38:02] As our sins are reckoned to Him, He is in outer darkness where there is no light, no embrace, no reassurance of His Father's love, no reassurance even of His identity as the Son of man. He's not saying, my Father, my Father. But my God, if Jesus is impeccable, if Jesus is
[00:38:33] without sin, without blemish, how in the world is that just? You understand that the cross calls into question, this is what liberals have been saying for years and years, that the cross calls into question the moral integrity of God, as evangelicals interpret it. Cosmic child abuse.
[00:39:06] But my dear friend, when the wrath of God descended upon His Son, and hear me, when the wrath of God descended upon His Son, it was the right thing to do. Yes, it was the morally just
[00:39:32] thing to do. It was the only thing that God could do, because at that moment He was, as Luther said, the greatest sinner the world had ever seen. How come? If He was sinless? Because
[00:39:59] the doctrine of substitution, our sins were reckoned to His account. And when Jesus died, It was the morally just thing to do. But you understand that the cross is almost saying, well, let me put it this way. Here's one answer. Why did Jesus die when He committed no sin?
[00:40:39] And one answer to that is, there's no justice in the world. There's no justice in the world.
[00:40:47] There's no justice in the universe. Suck it up! Or you can say, when Jesus died on the cross, it was the morally right and just thing to do. It was the reflex of the holiness of God
[00:41:19] towards sin. Now, once that sin had been paid for, once redemption price had been paid, it was also the morally just thing for God to raise him again. Sin had been paid for. Sin was
[00:41:47] no more. And the bodily resurrection of Jesus is a declaration of the moral order of this universe.
[00:42:08] You cannot keep a good man down. You cannot keep a good man down.
[00:42:18] We are tested, you and I, on a daily basis, perhaps, on the issue of whether this universe is just.
[00:42:35] When sin tempts and a brother falls whom you love, when disease comes, when a phone call comes and it's your doctor and he's got bad news for you, when a child dies, when a spouse
[00:42:58] whom you've given your heart suddenly wrenched from you. You question the moral integrity of this universe. Where's the justice? Read Psalms 78. Read the book of Job. The doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus says this universe and God Himself, the Creator of it,
[00:43:38] moral and just and will always do the right thing. That's huge.
[00:43:54] Second doctrinal implication of the resurrection of Jesus, how is the work of Jesus, the active and passive obedience of Jesus, how is that going to be made ours? You know, Calvin, who's read Calvin's Institutes. Now, all hands need to go up because you're at a Ligonier conference.
[00:44:25] You know, of the three or four most important books in all of Christendom, apart from the Bible, Calvin's Institutes is one of them. Pilgrim's Progress is another. In book three of the Institutes, Calvin begins book three by saying, all that Jesus has accomplished is useless and
[00:44:53] of no value unless it's applied to us. It's like out there in some platonic fashion, but unless it's applied to us, it's useless and of no value. So how is the finished work of Jesus
[00:45:17] applied to us? By the resurrection and ascension and session of the second person of the Trinity incarnate who sends His personal representative agent, the Holy Spirit, to apply all that Christ has accomplished for us to those for whom He died.
[00:45:44] You understand that without the resurrection of Jesus, there can be no application of redemption.
[00:45:51] There can be no effectual calling.
[00:45:53] There can be no regeneration or faith or repentance or justification or adoption or sanctification or glorification, because all of those are consequent to God saying to His Son, well done, well done, my Son. Come, let me embrace you again. So there's a connection,
[00:46:28] not only a redemptive historical connection, not only a connection in the sequence of history between the resurrection of Jesus and the application of redemption to the people of God, but there's also here an experiential dimension. What is the most important phrase
[00:46:58] of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament? And the answer is, in Christ, in Christo, in Christ, sixty-seven times, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, into Christ, right within Christ, Christ in me and me in Him. I in you and you in me, as he said in the high priestly prayer in
[00:47:36] John 17. Where did Paul… You see, for Paul, the application of redemption comes as a consequence of our union being brought into existential union and fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
[00:47:56] It's a kind of summary of what being redeemed is all about. It's being brought into union and into fellowship with Christ. That's it. Where did he get that from? There are lots of answers, but here's the answer. On the Damascus Road, papers in his hand signed for the persecution
[00:48:34] of the church, Stephen, godly, seraphic Stephen, giving his life and a voice, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Paul was persecuting Stephen. He was persecuting women and children. He was persecuting the Christian church, but he heard Jesus say,
[00:49:09] Why are you persecuting me? You lay a finger on him, and you lay a finger on me, Jesus is saying.
[00:49:28] You know, I don't think a day went by, I really don't think a day went by in Paul's life when he didn't remember his part in the death of Stephen. Pretty sure there was a moment in every day of
[00:49:47] his life when he thought about that. And what changed him? It was the sight and sound of the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus says the universe is moral. The resurrection of Jesus says this is how the application of the work of Christ is effected
[00:50:19] as a consequence of His resurrection. But then, and in one minute, the resurrection, the bodily resurrection of Jesus says to you and to me, if we are in Christ, if we are in union and
[00:50:48] fellowship with Christ in such a way that nothing and no one can separate us from Christ, we are in union with Christ, body and soul. It's not just our souls that are in union with Christ. It's not
[00:51:09] just our hearts that are in union with Christ. Our bodies are in union with Christ. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 that when you visit a brothel, read internet pornography.
[00:51:25] You take Jesus with you. You can't leave Him at the door, pick Him up on the way out.
[00:51:38] Render your bodies, the instruments of your bodies. Do I need to get specific?
[00:51:44] Render the instruments of your bodies as instruments of righteousness, because we were buried with Christ and raised with Christ, and we shall be raised with Him in the now, not yet.
[00:52:04] I've got to finish. We are already raised with Him. Right now, we sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We have two zip codes, but that is a mere anticipation of what we shall be.
[00:52:29] Now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, raised with new bodies. Oh, that raises a thousand questions
[00:52:54] for someone else to answer. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we cannot think or say enough about the Lord Jesus. At times like this, we find ourselves merely scratching the surface, opening little presents that are put in our lap, and we see something of glory and beauty
[00:53:25] fill us with anticipation, a longing that what we have now will be fully realized, For Jesus' sake, amen.