SPEAKER_00: Invite you to open your Bibles tonight to First Corinthians chapter fifteen.
SPEAKER_00: Michael and Marcy, thanks for the overview of your ministry, and we are looking forward to seeing you serve the Lord there and being encouraged by what we hear.
SPEAKER_00: It was a wonderful day today with the uh DR orchestra this morning, and I hope that you were all encouraged by that.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great way to end our day looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 7.
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of the back to the basics.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Vince Lombardi.
SPEAKER_00: This is a football kind of sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And it's impressive that this is the middle of the Nicene Creed.
SPEAKER_00: It's not coincidental that the Creed's authors placed this key text right at the heart of our confession.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us and then we'll dive into God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we do pray that your spirit would energize us and help us understand what we see in your word and in the creed.
SPEAKER_00: We take these spiritual truths that are the heart, the essence of our faith, and cause them to come alive in our thinking.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this tonight in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: First Corinthians 15, verses 1 through 7, I'll read.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.
SPEAKER_00: For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for sins in accordance to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, that he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: Last of all, as one and timely born, he appeared also to me.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: At our evening services, we're going through the Nicene Creed, and we are at the part of the Creed where it says he suffered death.
SPEAKER_00: That's the key phrase, he suffered death, but let me put it into the context for you, for us men and for our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He came down from heaven, the creed says, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that part of the creed last week that the eternal Son of God, God of very God, light of light, true God of true God, took on a human nature.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't merely robe himself in a human body, he didn't merely make a visit to earth, but he took his divine nature in the second person, the son of the Trinity, and added to that a human nature.
SPEAKER_00: So he was truly God and truly man, and part of his human nature is being born.
SPEAKER_00: He came into this world, born of the Virgin Mary.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that last week and became man, but you'll notice a huge jump in here between he was born and became man.
SPEAKER_00: It bypasses all of his life, all of his miracles.
SPEAKER_00: It bypasses his baptism, it bypasses his transfiguration, it bypasses him walking on the water, raising the dead, everything, and jumps right to the end of his life.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about why it does that tonight.
SPEAKER_00: The creed goes on to say, For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: The key phrase in this, I'll put in yellow there, he suffered death.
SPEAKER_00: That is a biblical phrase.
SPEAKER_00: It's used in Hebrews chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: It's also used all over the Gospels, but the key usage of it, why it's in the Creed, is from Hebrews chapter 2, where it says, He suffered unto death, or he suffered the pain of death.
SPEAKER_00: It's translated different ways.
SPEAKER_00: But the word suffer is obviously more than just the death of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It encompasses his whole incarnation, and then Jesus, in his life, in his earthly life, uses the word suffer to point forward to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: He would tell the disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things and then be raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: He said that in the very passage we looked at this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 16, after he says he's going to build the church, he says before he does that, he first must suffer.
SPEAKER_00: Paul picks up on that phrase, of course, he uses it a few times, but in 1 Corinthians 15, which is where this section of the Nicene Creed is drawn from, it's drawn from 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_00: Paul rattles off to you under the heading, verse 3, of what is of first importance.
SPEAKER_00: What is most important, he says.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives you a list of the key elements of the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: What you believe in.
SPEAKER_00: Now, people always ask, what's the minimum some somebody must believe in to be a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: You know, and that's a very, it's a, I don't like that question.
SPEAKER_00: It's a poor question because it implies a heart of unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: It implies somebody who says, I don't believe these six things, can I believe these four things and be saved while rejecting these things?
SPEAKER_00: The bottom line is this heart that is saved, a heart that has saving faith, believes all, receives the light, believes everything in front of it.
SPEAKER_00: But I do understand the question in terms of what about somebody who's who's untaught?
SPEAKER_00: Like a new convert who doesn't know things, how much do they have to know to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: And 1 Corinthians 15, it's an old question, it goes back thousands of years, and 1 Corinthians 15 is the common place to go to for an answer of it.
SPEAKER_00: And so the middle of the Nicene Creed draws out of that.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the Nicene Creed is not trying to encapsulate all of the mysteries of the faith, it's trying to be a distilled statement of what it is Christians believe.
SPEAKER_00: And so it gets right to the core, drawn from 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_00: You could almost make bullet point headings.
SPEAKER_00: The creed heads it with, For our sake, he did the following.
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you a heading for tonight of first importance, and we'll have four points the cross, the grave, the earth, and the sky.
SPEAKER_00: In that order.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's slightly different than the popular Christian song.
SPEAKER_00: But I have I have the biblical order here.
SPEAKER_00: It picks up at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I know in the song he comes from heaven to earth.
SPEAKER_00: But with this part of the Nicene Creed, it starts with the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says this is of first importance.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 3, he says, I delivered of you first importance that which I received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I mentioned it makes some people uncomfortable, the creed jumps over all of his life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not saying that his life is unimportant when it does that.
SPEAKER_00: It's attesting this idea that all of his life is building towards the cross.
SPEAKER_00: If you were to drive from here to Los Angeles, you wouldn't need to give the play-by-play of all the places you stopped and all the things you saw and all the meals you ate on the way in order to communicate the truthfulness of the journey.
SPEAKER_00: We would see you drive out in your car, and then we would get a text from you that says, you know, arrived in LA.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so the whole journey is complete.
SPEAKER_00: You got where you were headed.
SPEAKER_00: The play-by-play is less significant than the fact that you got there.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way Jesus' life is structured.
SPEAKER_00: He arrives from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He comes from heaven, born of the Virgin Mary.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the creed says.
SPEAKER_00: And then the rest of his life is building towards the cross.
SPEAKER_00: They even brought him burial spices as a baby shower gift, which is an odd baby shower gift, but that's what they did.
SPEAKER_00: His whole life is built towards the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Now, all four gospels structure Jesus' life this way.
SPEAKER_00: They all do it differently, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Mark's is the most obvious.
SPEAKER_00: In Mark's gospel, Jesus sets his face towards the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's the language that is used.
SPEAKER_00: And so much of Mark's gospel is built geographically.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost drawing you geographically through the flow of the narrative straight to Jerusalem where he dies.
SPEAKER_00: And once he dies, Mark's gospel ends so abruptly.
SPEAKER_00: It's like you hit a wall in Mark's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Because he died.
SPEAKER_00: He rose from the grave, women saw him, they were afraid, everybody scatters the end.
SPEAKER_00: The whole gospel had been building momentum to his death.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, we've seen how Matthew structures his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's so much of it revolves around chapters 16 to 17, where we are right now in the mornings.
SPEAKER_00: You see how it was building to Matthew 16 the opposition repeatedly.
SPEAKER_00: It starts to gain altitude around Matthew 12 when the Pharisees decide they're going to put him to death.
SPEAKER_00: Chapters 12 through 15, Jesus is on the run.
SPEAKER_00: Now, cat and mouse game with the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: It's not his time yet.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 16, he gets his 12 together and says he's going to go to Jerusalem and die and then build his church.
SPEAKER_00: And chapters 16 to 17 is spent trying to drive that point home to them.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to die.
SPEAKER_00: Then once chapter 18 begins, he starts teaching about the church.
SPEAKER_00: And it carries you all the way to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is framed around his death.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's gospel is different still.
SPEAKER_00: Luke's gospel is really bracketed with the virgin birth, and then it ends with Jesus on the road to Emmaus.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most incredible scenes in Luke's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus on the road to Emmaus with the disciples who tell Jesus, you know, they don't recognize him.
SPEAKER_00: They tell Jesus they're lamenting the person who died.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus feigns ignorance and they like, how do you not know what happened?
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus takes them aside and explains to them all the things in the scripture about himself.
SPEAKER_00: And then do you remember the next phrase?
SPEAKER_00: Not just about himself, period, but about himself and how the scripture said that the Son of Man or the Son of God would come and suffer many things and be put to death and rise from the grave on the third day.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Luke wraps up his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost given as a fulfillment of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Then on the third day he would rise from dead.
SPEAKER_00: That's Luke 22, verse 46, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: John's gospel, same way structured around his death.
SPEAKER_00: It starts with the Son of God coming to his own.
SPEAKER_00: His own did not receive him.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the gospel starts.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: For God so loved the world, he gave his only son.
SPEAKER_00: This really only makes sense in context of the death and resurrection of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He gave his son.
SPEAKER_00: The reader knows that his son dies.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be lifted up in John 3, verses, really, verses 1 through 15.
SPEAKER_00: The Son is lifted up on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Like Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness, the sun will be lifted up on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's how John begins his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Then John, the rest of John's gospel is built around, not geographically or not, you know, thematically like Matthew's gospel, the rest of John's gospel is built around these I am statements at Jesus' visits to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He comes once, twice, three times killed.
SPEAKER_00: So all four Gospels wrap themselves around the inevitability of Jesus' death.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that the creed passes over all of his life because it's not important.
SPEAKER_00: It's that the creed is taking on the flavor of the gospels that themselves drive you so quickly to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, the book of Acts picks up the same way.
SPEAKER_00: When Peter or even Paul, Peter in Acts 3, when he's describing the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, he goes straight from the birth of Christ to the end.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What God foretold by the mouth of the prophets that Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled when you killed him.
SPEAKER_00: Paul before Agrippa in Acts 26 says that the prophets and Moses, those are the two categories he uses, the prophets and Moses are all fulfilled in seeing the suffering of the Christ and his rising from the dead being proclaimed.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul does.
SPEAKER_00: That Moses and the prophets say this Christ will suffer, then resurrect, and that that will be proclaimed.
SPEAKER_00: That's the same order in the transfiguration, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Don't tell anybody until I suffer and resurrected, and then preach it.
SPEAKER_00: So the first point is the cross, which speaks of the crucifixion, that Christ died.
SPEAKER_00: The cross addresses the word crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, the word suffer really stands in for all of his death.
SPEAKER_00: I'll put the creed back up so you see it.
SPEAKER_00: The word suffer, and it's suffer under Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: The word suffer here stands in for his death.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word that Peter and Paul use in Acts.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word that Luke and Matthew use in their gospels, that Jesus will suffer, which means he will die.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I spent some time this afternoon chasing down that word suffer throughout the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's used in other ways that don't involve death when it's talking about other people, but just about every time it's used about Jesus, it's talking about his death.
SPEAKER_00: That's the language of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The cross is such a brutal death that to call it suffering is almost synonymous, it's almost redundant.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the cross entails suffering.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an easy death.
SPEAKER_00: And as deaths go, it's about as bad as it gets.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution that bans cruel and unusual punishment.
SPEAKER_00: The Romans had no such thing.
SPEAKER_00: The Romans treasured the cross because of how cruel and how unusual it was.
SPEAKER_00: And they took it from being an unusual punishment to make it well known.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they had taken it from the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_00: It was something that the Romans didn't invent, but they certainly marketed and made it their own.
SPEAKER_00: The cruelty of it, the suffering of it, was the point.
SPEAKER_00: They were not after an efficient way to kill people.
SPEAKER_00: They were after a way to kill people that inflicted as much public torment and public suffering as possible as a warning to the rest of the world of what happens when you cross Rome.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of death that Jesus embraced for himself.
SPEAKER_00: I fear that, especially going through Matthew's gospel, we sometimes lose sight of that because we see Peter arguing with Jesus about do you really need to die?
SPEAKER_00: It's not just the death that Peter has an issue with, it's that Jesus speaks of his death in terms of crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: In all the Synoptic Gospels, they have the language of pick up your cross and follow me, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: Like he's telling the disciples, if you want to follow me, you're going to have to pick up your cross.
SPEAKER_00: That is bringing all that baggage, all that terminology in with it.
SPEAKER_00: John doesn't use the language to pick up the cross, but John uses the same imagery in other ways.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said in John 3, that the Son of Man's going to be lifted up.
SPEAKER_00: This is cross language.
SPEAKER_00: John 12, the Son of Man will be lifted up.
SPEAKER_00: And then John 12, verse 32, it lets you know this is John giving you kind of the answer key here.
SPEAKER_00: John's own study Bible is this gospel, where John says, Jesus kept saying lifted up in order to indicate what kind of death he was going to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that John uses the word suffer there.
SPEAKER_00: This would have been perplexing for sure.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's so perplexing because crucifixion was so appalling to the world that the idea that the Savior would be crucified was a stumbling block to the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Don't skip over that.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the very book we're in, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul says that to speak of Christ crucified is a stumbling block to the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't, they didn't have ears to hear it.
SPEAKER_00: It was so abhorrent and so appalling.
SPEAKER_00: The idea that their Savior or Messiah was crucified, that's what you would imagine the whole deity of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: During his life, that's what turned the Jews away.
SPEAKER_00: The stumbling block was Jesus kept making himself out to be equal to God.
SPEAKER_00: But after his resurrection, the stumbling block shifted to saying that he was crucified.
SPEAKER_00: And one would also imagine that if the Jews are stumbling over the crucifixion, why doesn't Paul minimize the crucifixion when preaching to the Jews?
SPEAKER_00: Do you follow the question there?
SPEAKER_00: Like if the Jews are so bothered by saying Jesus was crucified, can't you get the essence of the gospel by dropping the crucifixion and just saying he died for sinners?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not dwell on the how.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what Paul does.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians, he says it's a stumbling block for the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, he says, So I decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified and proclaimed that to you.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder how Paul would fare at an elder meeting.
SPEAKER_00: I know this one point really bothers you, so I am proclaiming that I'm not going to say anything else except that one point.
SPEAKER_00: Peter likewise leans in on this in his first sermon to the Jewish audience back in Acts, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Surrounded by Jews that are offended by the crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, This Jesus whom you crucified, that puts the blame on them.
SPEAKER_00: And the creed adds this phrase, I'll show it to you again, under Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: And that sometimes catches our attention.
SPEAKER_00: Under Pontius Pilate?
SPEAKER_00: Where did he come from?
SPEAKER_00: We don't often talk a lot about Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: You might be surprised to know that he's named in the New Testament, I think, 56 times.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a minor character, he's all over the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: The Creed puts it in there because it pegs the events of his life.
SPEAKER_00: The Creed's written in the 300s, the fourth century.
SPEAKER_00: By saying he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, it puts the events of Jesus' life and death into a political focus that everybody understands.
SPEAKER_00: This was not a rogue act by rogue actors.
SPEAKER_00: This was an act that happened very publicly under the watchful eye of the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: The emperor was aware the agent of the Roman Empire is the one who enacted it.
SPEAKER_00: He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, when you get in the details of John's gospel, Pontius Pilate watched his hands of his thing.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted nothing to do with it, but he did not stop it.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he authorized it.
SPEAKER_00: So Rome is not able to hide its face from it.
SPEAKER_00: The Roman Empire was partners in the death of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that makes the preaching of the gospel for the first several hundred years of church history, in a sense, subversive.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's taking a person that was put to death by the empire and elevating them as your savior and your God.
SPEAKER_00: So it's subversive to that part, makes it into the Nicene Creed, even.
SPEAKER_00: By the time the Creed is written, the capital of the empire had moved from Rome to Constantine.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, the church fathers made it known Jesus was crucified under the watchful eye of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: This was not just rebels, it was not just Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Although the Jews were certainly responsible for it.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was betrayed by Judas, a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he was persecuted by the Roman authorities.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they put some sham trial that violated all their rules to condemn him to death.
SPEAKER_00: They did all that.
SPEAKER_00: But the government acted.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, Pilate represents a historical anchor in the story.
SPEAKER_00: By saying he was crucified under Pilate, everybody knows when and where and how.
SPEAKER_00: And we might do this in our own conversations.
SPEAKER_00: I was trying to think of some examples.
SPEAKER_00: So I just I just Googled some examples and found one.
SPEAKER_00: People will often say the riots in Portland that were under Trump's first term.
SPEAKER_00: And I like that there's so many riots in Portland you have to distinguish between them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the ones that were under Trump's first term.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a way, you're not saying Trump's responsible for it, although he was president.
SPEAKER_00: You're just like pegging those things.
SPEAKER_00: So everybody who hears that puts it under a category.
SPEAKER_00: Another common example is the Berlin Wall under President Reagan.
SPEAKER_00: So that when you hear that, it starts to frame, not the Berlin Wall as it was built, but you start to picture the Berlin Wall when Reagan was calling it for it to come down and everything.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a way of pegging it around who was there.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the creed does.
SPEAKER_00: He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: In the Jewish mind, the Messiah was not supposed to suffer and die, but in Jesus' mind and in God's mind, he was supposed to suffer and die in a real place, in a real time with real witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, this was unavoidable, his death.
SPEAKER_00: He was destined for this.
SPEAKER_00: This was the plan.
SPEAKER_00: He was the man that would be bit by the serpent from Genesis chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: He's the only son who would be giving up his own life as a sacrifice in the place of Isaac from Genesis 22.
SPEAKER_00: He's the true object of Rachel's tears.
SPEAKER_00: He's the Lord who is pierced from Zechariah 12.
SPEAKER_00: He's David's son who is abandoned from Psalm 22.
SPEAKER_00: He's the shepherd that when struck, the sheep scatter.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah 14.
SPEAKER_00: He's a suffering servant in Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: He's wounded for our transgressions.
SPEAKER_00: He's bruised for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_00: Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole.
SPEAKER_00: By his stripes we are healed.
SPEAKER_00: So when the Scripture speaks repeatedly prophesying of Jesus' death.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks of it as being struck and pierced and abandoned.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not the only way he suffered on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, he suffered in the physical death, but he suffered in the mocking, the ridiculous sign put above his head, the stripping him naked, the taunts.
SPEAKER_00: He suffered spiritually as our sins are imputed to him.
SPEAKER_00: The holiest person who ever lived became the most sinful person ever as he took our sins on him.
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, he suffered in his death.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he was buried.
SPEAKER_00: The grave.
SPEAKER_00: He went from the cross to the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Language of 1 Corinthians 15, that he was buried.
SPEAKER_00: That's the phrase in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: He was buried.
SPEAKER_00: Each of the gospel accounts contain elements of his burial, descriptions of it.
SPEAKER_00: John's gospel lets you know that his side was pierced, that he was really dead.
SPEAKER_00: He was buried in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb.
SPEAKER_00: I love that John names the guy who owned the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: This keeps it from being abstract.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you have the stuff of fairy tales, is that, you know, he he died and, you know, was buried in some random, he died sometime in a land far, far away long ago, was buried in somebody's grave, and rose later in people saw him.
SPEAKER_00: I love that John doesn't allow that.
SPEAKER_00: John lets you know, no, he was crucified while Pontius Pilate was there.
SPEAKER_00: He was buried in Joseph of Arimathea's grave.
SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus came at night with 75, or in the afternoon with 75 pounds of spices to bury him with.
SPEAKER_00: John names all the people.
SPEAKER_00: I love that the women thought that the 75 pounds of burial spices was inadequate.
SPEAKER_00: He was buried on Friday, John's gospel tells you, before the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: That's key in John's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, they wanted the body down before the Sabbath began.
SPEAKER_00: Because obviously it's unclean.
SPEAKER_00: Accursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew describes the sealing of the grave to make sure nobody could steal his body, which is its own hilarious twist, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: By sealing the grave, they end up proving the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Had they just left it alone, there'd be reasonable doubt.
SPEAKER_00: But no, they insisted on sealing it and putting guards so that when the body goes missing, the whole story of like, well, uh we lost it doesn't work anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the disciples went to the wrong grave.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, along with all the Roman soldiers and the angels.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think everybody got the grave wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It was sealed and guarded.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus also descended into the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not in the Nicene Creed, but it is in the Apostles' Creed, which is written 300 years or so after the Nicene Creed, that Jesus descended into hell.
SPEAKER_00: He descended into Sheol, is a better way of saying it.
SPEAKER_00: He went to the realm of the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And he did so because he had a true human nature.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes where all true human beings go when they die.
SPEAKER_00: Their souls descend to the grave.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Old Testament reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's different in the New Testament, of course, but in the Old Testament, every soul that dies goes to the realm of the dead.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a realm of suffering, but a realm of rest, a realm of worship for those who die in faith.
SPEAKER_00: Job longed to go there, David longed to go there.
SPEAKER_00: People who had faith longed to go there.
SPEAKER_00: It was a realm of relative tranquility to be desired.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus went because he was truly human.
SPEAKER_00: His humanity did not end when he died.
SPEAKER_00: His humanity continues even through death.
SPEAKER_00: Jonah 2, verse 2 says that Jonah descended to the bottom of the sea as if he were in Sheol, which is an odd phrase to describe, but it's there in Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus latches onto that phrase and says that that's the sign of his, that's the pattern of his death and resurrection, that he will die, he will descend, that he will raise again on the third day.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus experienced death as every true human does.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 3.19 says that Jesus went to soul prison.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just go to the realm of the saved, but to the unsaved.
SPEAKER_00: Now in the New Testament, you die, you go up to be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the key difference.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, you went down.
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, if you have faith, you go up to be with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: To be absent from the body is present with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the Old Testament reality.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that Jesus reorients death around himself.
SPEAKER_00: Until he resurrected, those who died in faith went to the realm of the dead.
SPEAKER_00: So the point of his burial is not just that his rock was rolled in front of the grave, that it was sealed off with the Roman seal, there were soldiers stationed there, that his body was wrapped in a sheet with 75 pounds of burial spices.
SPEAKER_00: That's all true.
SPEAKER_00: That is not where the story ends.
SPEAKER_00: The story continues into the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Where he proclaims the victory over the spirits that had rebelled during the days of Noah.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get stuck in that flood, though, so we'll carry on.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, from the grave to the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He goes from the grave up to the earth again.
SPEAKER_00: This is the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is so unlike the crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: It's in its own category.
SPEAKER_00: The crucifixion is a dark day, although our salvation is accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is a happy day.
SPEAKER_00: We even celebrate them on two different days.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is what ties everything together, it gives the rest of the gospel narrative its power.
SPEAKER_00: When I put in Christmas lights, I start at the end.
SPEAKER_00: When I hang the Christmas lights on my house, I start at the end of the line and work my way backwards.
SPEAKER_00: So the last thing I do is plug them in.
SPEAKER_00: And I do this so they don't get electrocuted, is my thinking, because I don't trust those lights at all.
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is like that.
SPEAKER_00: It gives everything else its power.
SPEAKER_00: You understand the cross and the crucifixion, you understand the burial and the descent, but those things are meaningless apart from the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: It's what plugs in everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Back in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that he was buried on the verse 4, and on the third day he was raised again in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: That's the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if the resurrection hadn't happened, you can jog in your eyes down to verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: If it hadn't happened, then our preaching would be useless, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he says, your faith is futile.
SPEAKER_00: You're still in your sins.
SPEAKER_00: None of this matters.
SPEAKER_00: You're the most to be pitied if Jesus didn't actually rise from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: Paul had no truck for this idea that Jesus was a good moral teacher.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if he actually resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, go party it up, man.
SPEAKER_00: Go eat and drink and be merry, because tomorrow you die if Jesus didn't rise.
SPEAKER_00: Let's be done with the moral stuff of like, hey, it's better to be a moral person in church than an immoral person on the street if Jesus didn't rise.
SPEAKER_00: Like Paul shoots that argument down.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is, Jesus did rise, though.
SPEAKER_00: And his resurrection validates him as the author of life.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what did you expect?
SPEAKER_00: You killed the Lord of life.
SPEAKER_00: What did you think would happen to him?
SPEAKER_00: Of course he resurrects.
SPEAKER_00: In so doing, he's the first person who receives his resurrection body.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he's called the firstborn from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: There have been other resurrections before, but those resurrections are restoration of the old body.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gets his resurrected, glorified body.
SPEAKER_00: So he gets to add another title.
SPEAKER_00: I think of some of the kings of England that have like 25 titles at the end of their name.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gets to add another title, the firstborn of the dead.
SPEAKER_00: He now holds the keys to death in Hades.
SPEAKER_00: By conquering death and vanquishing the grave, he's in charge of it.
SPEAKER_00: The keys are his.
SPEAKER_00: They belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: Now all the gospels have testimonies of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: They don't just say he resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: All four gospels describe people who saw him in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And so does Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 again.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve.
SPEAKER_00: 500 brothers at once.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you can take all these together.
SPEAKER_00: I came up with 12 different resurrection appearances.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't make him on a slide or anything, but he first appeared to Mary Magdalene.
SPEAKER_00: That was the first person who saw him.
SPEAKER_00: It's John chapter 20.
SPEAKER_00: That was at the tomb, remember?
SPEAKER_00: Mary mistook him as the gardener.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appeared to the rest of the women.
SPEAKER_00: That's Matthew 28.
SPEAKER_00: That was on his way from the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus greeted them and said, Rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: And they fell at his feet and worshipped him.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appeared to Cephas, and we just read that in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: That's in Jerusalem somewhere, we don't know where, but he was the first male disciple to see him.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, two disciples.
SPEAKER_00: That don't recognize him until he breaks bread.
SPEAKER_00: I have questions, but that's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appears to the rest of the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: By the rest I mean the rest of the twelve, minus, of course, Judas and minus Cephas had already seen him, Peter, and then minus Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: That's John chapter 20, Luke 24.
SPEAKER_00: That was in the lock room where Jesus appears.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas wasn't there for some reason.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus shows his hands and his side and eats with them and prophesies the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appears to the disciples with Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: That's John chapter 20.
SPEAKER_00: That's in the same room in Jerusalem a week later.
SPEAKER_00: Leaving Thomas, you know, to wonder for a week, to taught Thomas to doubt for a week.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like they appeared to the disciples in the morning and then later that afternoon to Thomas, but Thomas had a week to contemplate life.
SPEAKER_00: His seventh appearance was to all the disciples at the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he told them to go.
SPEAKER_00: When he saw them in the room, he said, Get on to Galilee, I'll meet you there.
SPEAKER_00: That was where he restores Peter when Peter jumps off the side of the boat.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appears to the eleven on the mountain in Galilee and gives them the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: Then in 1 Corinthians 15, it says he appears to 500 other believers.
SPEAKER_00: That's in verse 6 there.
SPEAKER_00: He appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, although Paul says it like almost, I suppose a few probably have died.
SPEAKER_00: No, there's 500 of them, who knows?
SPEAKER_00: But if you want witnesses, they're around.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appears to James, his half-brother.
SPEAKER_00: That's described in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Here, he appeared to James.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know any more about that, but he's the one who led the church in Acts 15.
SPEAKER_00: Then he appears to all of the apostles again at the ascension.
SPEAKER_00: That's the end of Luke's gospel and the start of the book of Acts, where they're all together being taught by the resurrected Lord for 40 days, Jesus teaches.
SPEAKER_00: 40 days after his resurrection teaches, and then he ascends into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, he appears to Paul at some point, we don't know where, but that's what Paul says in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Then last of all, he appears to me.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps he's thinking of the vision on the road to Emmaus, we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all the proofs of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: So many people saw him from earth.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the sky.
SPEAKER_00: This is the ascension.
SPEAKER_00: The ascension completes and validates the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: It fulfills the mission.
SPEAKER_00: He returns to the Father, but now he returns to the Father with a human nature, a glorified nature.
SPEAKER_00: There's now a human being who sits on God's throne.
SPEAKER_00: This fulfills so many more prophecies he did not fulfill at his first coming.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Psalm 110 is the most obvious one.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
SPEAKER_00: So it's this address to the vindicated Lord to sit down in heaven until his enemies are subdued.
SPEAKER_00: You see it foreshadowed in Psalm 2 when I've set my son on the holy hill, but the nations are still raging, yet he's enthroned.
SPEAKER_00: So this idea that the Son is enthroned in heaven, even though the nations rage.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens at the ascension.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to heaven, he sits at the Father's hands, and he waits for his enemies to be subdued.
SPEAKER_00: It's a time between the resurrection and the second coming.
SPEAKER_00: And in that time the Lord is in heaven, enthroned, and for the first time in all of eternity, there is a God man reigning over the world.
SPEAKER_00: Truly God and truly man.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of being the Son of Man, this is an integral part of Daniel's vision.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Daniel saw the Son of Man with authority to judge the nations.
SPEAKER_00: But in Daniel's vision, the ancient of days or the Son of Man is enthroned before the books are opened.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ascension.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, he had to go away.
SPEAKER_00: It's better for us if he goes away, because it completes the gospel trajectory in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the word of God is outside of us.
SPEAKER_00: It's the law, it is external to us, we can't touch it.
SPEAKER_00: It's outside and distant.
SPEAKER_00: In the Gospels, the new the Savior is in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: He's touchable.
SPEAKER_00: The image of God makes his dwelling among us.
SPEAKER_00: He walks among us.
SPEAKER_00: John says we can touch him.
SPEAKER_00: Lay against him, listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: And in the epistles, the word of God goes inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: Outside as the source, in front of us as the Son and the image, and then in us as the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit can't dwell in us until the Son ascends away from us.
SPEAKER_00: So the Son can send the Spirit together.
SPEAKER_00: The Father and Son send the Spirit together.
SPEAKER_00: But that takes us to next week's passage where we talk about the coming of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful for the gospel message that you elevate for us.
SPEAKER_00: What is the first importance?
SPEAKER_00: That you died, that you were buried, that you descended into the grave, that you rose from the grave, and that you rose all the way to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: What can it mean that you ascended, except that you first descended down to the earth and in the lower parts of the earth?
SPEAKER_00: But now you've ascended and are seated in heaven forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: We long for the day where you will return to earth and reign from David's throne over the nations here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: But until then, we know that you are our true King reigning in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful for this message.
SPEAKER_00: Give you thanks for it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.