The Resurrection Of Christ

What a happy message we have, telling about our risen Lord! Every other great religious leader is dead. Every other one who formed a religion is dead. Every other one who framed a new faith is dead. Our Lord is risen! As those sorrowing friends approached the tomb, that first Easter morning, they found the stone rolled away and an angel was there who seemed to know a great deal about their business. The angel said, “You seek Jesus.” How did he know whom they were seeking, how did he know what was in their hearts? I wonder whether he knows what is in our hearts this morning. Are we seeking Jesus or are we seeking fame, health, honor, wealth, or something else? Does the angel know? That angel knew. “You seek Jesus.” What a blessed testimony! And God wrote it down; He made a record of it. What an eternally blessed testimony it was; God considered it so valuable that He has recorded it, and today we in Chicago and in the great middle West know that here were some who were seeking Jesus. He writes it down if you and I want to find Him, if we are in love with Him, if we are seeking Him; the risen, living, loving Lord.

The angel said, “He is not here”—that is the negative side. But he put the positive side first, “He is risen; he is not here” (Mark 16:6). And then they met that young man. I am glad the Lord chose a young man to be in that tomb. He chose a colt on which to ride into Jerusalem. And we read when they brought a sacrifice, they were to bring two youngpigeons, they were to bring a lamb. Christ was looking for the young and He is still looking for the young; for youngmen and women in whose life He can rule and reign, in whose heart He can occupy the preeminent place, on the throne of whose life He can sit, and through whom He can give a message for His glory. The young man said, “Ye seek Jesus.” How did he know? Does the young man of heaven know that you and I are seeking Jesus or that we are seeking something else? Beloved, when you find what you are seeking, you will get what that gives you. If you are seeking for money, you will get what money can buy. If you are seeking for health, you will obtain that which health can give you. If you seek for fame or honor in the political world, in the financial world or in the social world, you will receive that which that thing can give you. But oh, if the young man of heaven can say, “You seek Jesus,” beloved, you will get what He can give, life eternal, everlasting life, joy ineffable, full of glory, a life of joy here and in the home of God over there, a life of rest. You will get what He can give you. The young man said, “He is risen; he is not here.” His body was not there, His spirit was not there, He was not there. And then as that other team sent from heaven to testify of our blessed Lord spoke, they said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” Our Lord was not going to leave you in doubt as to whether He is risen or not. We go to every other tomb and say, “The body of my loved one is there.” Every one in this room has the body of a loved one there and whether you put that one there fifty years ago or five days ago, that loved one is there. These two men said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.”

We have a living Christ. I wonder if all of you have a living Christ for your own. One that is all yours so that you can say, “My Jesus, I love Thee.” You never say that about one that is gone. I have seen in my ministry a mother kneeling beside the grave, holding her hands down toward the dead body of a precious young lady about twenty years of age, begging her to come back. I saw that mother with her tears falling on the casket pleading with that precious daughter to come back, telling her how much she loved her; but it was to no avail. There was no reply; there was no response for she was gone. But there is One to whom you can pour out your heart. You can make love to Him; you can sing to Him:

“My Jesus I love Thee,
I know Thou art mine.”

And you can sing:

“I cannot tell how precious
My Saviour is to me,
I only can entreat you
To come and taste and see.”

Did you ever notice that the first person the Saviour met when He came out of the tomb was Mary Magdalene? And it says of Mary Magdalene that she was the one out of whom the Lord Jesus cast seven demons. No wonder she was there waiting for Him. It is those who have had demons cast out of them who want to see Him; they are the ones that love Him. He said, “To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little” (Luke 7:47). This dear girl’s life is hidden from us. That is just like our Lord. He does not tell us about her life, what kind of demons she had, how she lived or acted or misbehaved. There is not one word about it in the Bible. It is none of our business. He did not come to advertise our sins; He came to blot them out. That is what He did for her. All the record says is that she was the one out of whom He had cast seven demons. In the Gospel of Luke it says she not only had demons but an infirmity. The Lord does not tell us what the infirmity was. It may have been a bad temper, she may have been hard to live with. We do not need to guess at the sins for the Lord lovingly covered them up.

She stood looking into that empty tomb and said, “They have taken away my Lord” (John 20:13). You will notice that demons called Him, “Jesus” but people called Him, “Lord.” When the leper came running to Him, he said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean” (Matthew 8:2). When that woman came whose daughter was grievously vexed with a demon, she said, “Have mercy on me, O Lord” (Matthew 15:22). And when Thomas saw those wounded hands and feet and side, he said, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). And when the blind man met Him and Jesus said, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” he said, “Lord, that I might receive my sight” (Mark 10:51). Out of this precious woman He had cast seven demons, and He reminds us over and over that He did it, for when He does it, he really does it. He does not do a half way job. And she said, “They have taken away my Jesus”—is that what she said? No. She said, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” Ask your heart whether Christ is your Lord. You remember the jailer that said to Paul, “What must I do to be saved?” And he said, “Believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:30–31). He wants to be your Lord, and I will tell you why. You will get in trouble if He is not. He wants you to have a life of joy and peace and rest and gladness, and when Christ Jesus is Lord of the life, we walk with Him, we please Him, we serve Him, we love Him, and He keeps us by His mighty power.

Notice again, Mary Magdalene said, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” There are thousands today that can say the same thing. They go to church to hear Him exalted and come away saying, “They took my Lord away. I didn’t find Him.” They go to school to find Him and come away saying, “They have taken away my Lord.” Don’t you let anybody take your Lord away from you. You say, “He is my Lord; you cannot talk against Him in my presence; you cannot say things derogatory about him in my presence. He is my Lord.” She missed Him and wanted Him but did not know He was raised from the dead. Let me ask you something. How would you feel if when you go home from this service, the dearest friend that you ever laid away in the cemetery was waiting in the home for you? What would you say, what would you do, how would you feel? Can you imagine a thrill like it? Can you imagine the stir of your heart, going back to your home and meeting the one you had loved the most, the one whose loss you had felt the most keenly waiting at the door to greet you when you came home? Can you imagine the feeling of Mary Magdalene? She had seen him dying there. She had seen that soldier plunge the spear into His precious side. She had seen His head fall upon His loving breast as he died. She had heard that cry, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” She had seen the precious blood; she knew that He was dead. She had seen Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus take that lovely, precious body down from the cross, wrap it, and place upon it the hundred pounds of sweet spices to fulfill the forty-fifth Psalm, “All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad” (Psalm 45:8), and the grave clothes were made sweet by those spices.

They brought spices that morning. Lots of us do that. We bring the spices and love offerings to give to folks after they are dead. Take them back home, the dead folks do not know anything about your flowers. If you are going to say something nice about somebody you don’t like, say it while he is living and then he will like you. Mary Magdalene brought her spices expecting to place them on His body. She loved Him. Do you really love Him? I do not ask you whether you are a follower, a Christian, whether you respect Him and believe He is the Son of God. I am asking you something far more sweet than that, something better than that. Do you really love that Man Christ Jesus? Can you say with the apostle, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). Do you love Him? The apostle John said, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

You remember, a few days after He had come out of the tomb He met Peter there by the side of the sea and He said, “Peter, will you work for me?” Is that what He said? Did he say, “Peter, will you become President of some welfare organization?” No, He did not. Did he say, “Peter, will you become a student of my theology and religion?” No, He did not. Did He say, “Peter, will you start a charitable organization to care for and feed the poor?” No, He did not. Those are lovely things to do, but that is not what Jesus asked that man. He said, “Peter, do you love Me?” May we ask our own hearts that question, and may we let Him ask us that this morning? May we let the Lord Jesus speak those words to our hearts right now, “Do you love Me?” Or shall we have to say as we read in Isaiah, “When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2)? Is that what we shall say or shall we look up and say, “Sure, Lord Jesus, sure, I love You. ‘I will kneel at your feet and the story repeat and the Lover of sinners adore.’”

In His resurrection, He proves His deity. Your body will never come out of the grave by your power when they put you there. He said in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Of His own free will He did it. He got up and walked out. You cannot do it. No other religious leader can or has done it. He got up and came out of that tomb as a marked proof that He is the One in whom you should trust, the One in whom you should place your confidence. The One who can get up and walk out of the grave is worthy of our trust and confidence. Should we not give Him all we are and all we have?

Do you know what He came out for? He came out for you. “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Sometimes men make a will. I have made a will and I have left everything to my good wife, but if I had a lot of children that did not like what I did and they would go to law about it, maybe they would break that will and the one that I wanted to get to the gifts would not get them. It often happens that the will of the person is not carried out. They say, “He wasn’t in his right mind when he made it out. That favorite daughter he lived with urged him to make it out in the wrong way,” and of course, the man that made it is dead and cannot fix it up. But our Lord made a will and then died, and listen, I am going to tell you something wonderful—He came back to see that you get what He left you. His will was that you should have eternal life and He has come back to see that you get it. His will was that you should have the knowledge of God and He came back to see that you get it. His will was that you should never perish and He came back to take care of you. In John 14, He said that He was going to take us to God; but He died. He was going to take us to God; but he died. How can He do it? He came back and he will do it, and if you belong to Him, He is living to do it. A dead man could never do it; a dead Christ could never do it; a dead Saviour could never do it; but a living Christ could and a living Christ is doing it. Oh the harvest of souls that are going into the glory land and everyone going there is carrying the name of Jesus, saying, “Thou art worthy...thou wast slain, and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9). The French, the German, the English, the Scotch, the Irish—He took us and by His precious blood has brought us to God; Christ is not a failure; He is going to have a numberless crowd up there, an innumerable company out of every kindred and tongue and people. They will say, “Lord Jesus, You did it; Lord Jesus, You brought us and we love You and adore You and worship You.” And to do it He came out of the grave.

There is another reason why He was raised. The Scripture says that “He was raised again for our justification—He was delivered for our offences” (Romans 4:25). I am glad the Lord used that word, “offences” because there are a lot of things that we will quite admit are not sins, they are just “offences.” We are easy on ourselves; we want to make it as nice as possible. Our Lord just covered the whole business, “He was delivered for our offences.” Christ died for anything under the sun that is an offence to God. Not only was He “delivered for our offences” but “He was raised again for our justification.” One day, a very dark, dismal, rainy day, a young man came to see me and said, “Dr. Wilson, I am lost; I have tried to be a Christian but I cannot get saved. Will you help me?”

“Yes, I will, Leonard,” I said, and so we went up to my little study which was in the attic. I said, “Did you ever read this verse, ‘He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification’?”

“Yes, I have read it but do not understand it.”

“It is like this. Did the Lord Jesus die for you?”

“Oh yes, I believe He did.”

“Was He bearing your sins on Calvary’s cross?”

“Oh yes; it says He was and I believe that he was.”

“Well, tell me this then, how is it that the Lord Jesus could be bearing all your sins on the cross and then just a few days later go right straight up to heaven and sit at God’s right hand? How could He do that?”

I wish you could have seen that boy’s face. He fell on his knees and fairly shouted, “Lord Jesus, I never saw that before. You never could have gone there with my sins on You. You must have put them away. You never could be there with my sins on You.” And Christ in glory was a proof to Leonard that the sins were gone. How could He go to heaven with our sins on Him? He didn’t. That is the beauty of it. At Calvary’s cross, bearing our guilt and sin and shame, He blotted it out as a thick cloud. That is the reason He could go to Glory and sit at the right hand of the Father. His work was so sufficient, so complete He could say, “It is finished,” and go straight home to Glory. He was raised so that we may know the debt is paid. He was raised as God’s receipt to you that the sins are gone for every man, woman, and child who takes advantage of His love, trusts Him, takes Him, belongs to him, accepts Him, falls in love with Him. Can you say, “Thank you, Lord Jesus; You have blotted my sins out as a thick cloud and have made me fit for Glory”?

But He was raised for another reason. The Man that died on the middle cross was the Judge of men, and God raised up the Judge for the criminals to face. That makes the judgment easy. The story is told of a huckster in London who stopped his wagon one rainy, muddy day on the walk that went across a muddy street, and got out to fix the harness that was broken. Along came a diminutive sort of fellow and said, “My friend, you should not stop your horse on this walk because there is a city ordinance against it. The walk is for pedestrians.”

“Yes, I know that but what do I care,” the huckster said. “Do you think I am going to get off and get my feet all muddy?”

But the little fellow said, “You are disobeying the law and putting yourself liable to punishment; you are putting yourself subject to fine. Move your horse off and let me get across.”

But he cursed him and said, “If you want to get over, get in the mud yourself.”

And so the little fellow stepped out in the mud and came up the walk again and started up the street. In a few minutes, he met an officer and said to him, “There is a huckster down there; go and arrest him for obstructing the sidewalk and for violating ordinance number ___; bring him into court tomorrow morning.” The officer did so and the next morning when the huckster came into court, whom should he see sitting behind the desk but the little fellow he had cursed and made to go in the mud. When they nailed that lovely Man to Calvary, they were nailing the Judge there and God raised Him up and put Him on the throne to judge those that did it.

Our blessed Lord counts in with those that nailed Christ to Calvary every unsaved man and woman. He counts them all in unbelief that nailed the Judge to the cross. And then some day we will have to come before Him and we shall not go in a great crowd but shall go alone to stand before that lovely Man. Perhaps he will hold out those nail-pierced hands and say, “Did you do that to Me? What was your attitude toward Me? I have no record in My book that you ever came and knelt at My feet and said, “’Lord Jesus, I am sorry; I want to love You; I do not want to be against You; I do not want You to reckon me among Your enemies. My Saviour, reckon me among Your friends.’”

Will you be able to say in that day, “Don’t You remember, I came one night, one morning, an Easter morning and knelt at Your nail-pierce feet and said, ‘I want to belong to You, You wonderful Saviour of sinners!?” If falling at His feet in adoration, you made Him your own, at the judgment day there will be no pierced Judge waiting for you; there will be a lovely Lover waiting for you, One that you fell in love with and trusted.

And then again His salvation is found in His resurrection. How could a dead Christ save anybody? We are saved by His life. It is a living Saviour that must give life and he said, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins...we are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:17 and 19). And then we have a living Christ to keep us alive. If the vine dies, the branches die, and those of us who have accepted Christ are kept alive in Him. The arm lives because the body lives, and when you trust Christ, you become a member of His body and He must live so that you and I can get life from him and love the life He gives and love to walk with Him.

Not only did He raise Himself but we read that the Father raised Him. Over and over again we read that the Father raised Him from the dead, and His resurrection shows that the Father is satisfied with what He did for us. That gives peace and rest. If there was any question about the work of Christ being sufficient, I could have no peace; but the Father raised Him from the dead as a testimony to all of us that God in heaven is satisfied with the sufficiency of the work of Christ Jesus on Calvary’s cross. Christ is sufficient.

He was raised by the Holy Spirit too as we read in Romans 6. Why is that put there? So that you would know that whatever the Spirit tells you about Christ is right, whatever the Spirit reveals to you about Christ is right; that this mysterious, lovely, indispensable, indescribable person called the Spirit of God is linked up with Christ in this blessed work of saving the soul. When the Saviour wants to save you, the Spirit comes and knocks and says to you, “Come, trust in Him, believe in Him; I raised Him from the dead. That is what I think of Him.” What do you think of Him?

Beloved, God has raised up for you His blessed Son that you might have a Saviour that saves, a Lover that loves, a Keeper that keeps, a blessed Companion who said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). I beg of you, make Him your own today.