Note: I have developed a set of PowerPoint slides for use with this sermon. If you are interested in the slides I will send them to you by Email. Email your request to me at sam@srmccormick.net and be sure to enter "Easter Slides" in the subject line (otherwise I am likely to overlook your Email message among the hundreds I receive). I will try to respond promptly but allow a few days for me to respond.
EASTER SERMON
I. Christ’s Resurrection Day
If you had been approaching Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate at a certain time, early on a particular Sunday morning you might have seen some peculiar sights:
• Evidence of two great earthquakes (the first 3 days ago, another earlier today) Matt 27:54; 28:2
• Passing by an ancient cemetery where kings of Israel and Judah were buried, you might have seen open graves – their occupants absent (Matt 27:52)
• Closer to the gate, you might have seen a group of Temple guards marching through the gate on their way to report to the chief priests that they had failed in their duties (Matt 28:11)
• You might have seen a group of women running—not merely hurrying, but running – entering Jerusalem by that very gate. They are coming from the tomb where Jesus had lain - now empty with the stone rolled back. An angel had told them the Lord has risen, and they were running to tell the eleven.
Moments later, you might have seen another woman running. Her name is Mary Magdalene. She had actually seen Jesus alive and hurries to perform a mission for Jesus: This was the message from Jesus Mary she carried.
"I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
• As you enter the city, you might have seen Mary running to deliver Jesus’ message.
When Mary found the disciples she told them, “I have seen the Lord!” and passed on the message as Jesus had asked.
Mary Magdalene was the first to witness the risen Christ, and the first to bear the message of the resurrection to others.
It wasn’t only Thomas, but all of the disciples who had doubts until they saw the risen Christ.
Mary’s report that she had seen Jesus was astonishing, and even more so because of the condition of his body as it was placed in the tomb.
The body of Jesus was in terrible condition. A human could not survive a Roman scourging and crucifixion, and the body of Jesus did not survive it.
The last time Mary Magdalene had seen Jesus, he was quite dead as his body was placed in a tomb where it would remain undisturbed for three days.
At some point Jesus himself appeared to the other women. They came to the disciples saying that they too ha d seen Jesus. The women’s report was not believed.
Mary and the mother of Jesus, along with other women, had stayed at the cross until he had breathed his last breath.
They must have remained there for some time while he hung dead on the cross, because Luke tells us that when Joseph of Arimathea had obtained permission to remove the body, “the women who had come with him from Galilee” followed the procession to the tomb, and saw how the body of Jesus was laid in it.
The principle of resurrection is presented in various ways in the bible.
Jesus illustrated it by plant life, or agriculture.
A grain of wheat gives up the life that is in it so that it may bring forth a full seed-bearing plant after its kind.
What occurs with a grain of wheat is a symbol of the transformation that occurs – or will occur – in the resurrection on the last day.
I doubt that any of you disbelieve it.
There are temporary resurrections – the son of the Shunamite woman, the son of the widow Nain, Lazarus, those mentioned earlier who vacated their graves when Jesus died, Tabitha, and others.
II. Two Resurrections
Various scriptures affirm that there is to be a universal resurrection.
But I want to start by examining a particular resurrection that is called “the first resurrection.”
Let’s read about them:
Revelation 20:1-6 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.
2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.
These verses, in conjunction with others, mainly the Thessalonian letters, have spawned various theories about what will happen in the years leading up to the second coming of Christ and the resurrection.
We’re steering clear of that controversy and the theories advance within it, and drawing from these verses only the plainly revealed facts that are useful in informing us about death and resurrection.
Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
The bible would not call a resurrection the first resurrection if there were no other.
So let’s examine what we just read and learn what John was shown about this resurrection.
Worship of the beast and his image had been addressed at length in Rev 12-14, where the three great enemies of Christ were introduced:
(1) the dragon, identified as Satan himself;
(2) the sea-beast, identified as persecuting government; and
(3) the land-beast - later pictured as the harlot, and later still as the false prophet, are identifiable as false religion – paganism and apostate Christianity.
Summarizing what is meant by these symbols, the worship of anything that is not God – however manifested – is some form of worship of the beast, who is a creation of Satan himself, or an image representative of Satan, that he offers for man to worship.
Two things are definite:
1) John saw this. There is no denying that John saw what he saw.
2) In receiving the revelation, John was told to write what he saw. Why? So that people who came after John would know what John saw.
Therefore although somewhat murky, this is not just useless fluff.
We were meant to see the words John wrote!
First, notice that what John saw was souls – the souls of martyrs and other faithful.
We have just read of a first resurrection and a second death, and that the second death has no power over those who share in the first resurrection.
What is this all about? Two deaths and two resurrections.
The thousand-year reign is often erroneously placed on the earth, distorting and complicating the understanding of the vision.
It is impossible to rescue the truth from that single error, even if there were no others.
Remember, in chapter 4 of Revelation, John saw…
…a door standing open IN HEAVEN, and a voice said “Come UP HERE, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
The rest of Revelation is what John was shown in heaven. It involves some things of the earth, but they are as seen from a heavenly perspective.
Can the thousand-year reign be understood at all? Again, I claim no special insight that isn’t available to every Christian, but I can point to some things about the thousand years of which we have certain knowledge.
As I said earlier, resurrection is our primary topic today, not the thousand year reign, so I’m going to say - without diverting into an exploration of the many millennial theories, that my firm belief is that the 1,000 years is not a literal millennium, but a symbolic number representing – but intentionally revealing the literal length of – the gospel, age, during which martyred and other faithful Christians are to come to life and “reign with Christ” in heaven by being with him on the victorious side of the conflict during that age.
What we know for sure is what the bible says plainly:
1. Satan – the devil – is bound at the beginning of a thousand years.
2. At some unspecified time, John saw the souls of the martyrs and other faithful dead “came to life” and reign with Christ. Nothing in the text ties it to the beginning or end of the millennium, for both had already been mentioned. Nor does John say whether they all come to life at the same time (John says nothing beyond what he saw – they “came to life,” within the millennium).
3. Therefore, those who “came to life” are not the people still living on the earth.
4. Then it is not the souls of living, breathing, Christians of today or tomorrow who reign with Christ for 1,000 years, but the faithful dead who John saw in the revelation.
5. This “coming to life” is called the first resurrection.
6. The first resurrection is not a bodily resurrection of the martyrs and other faithful.
John distinctly described what he saw as souls, not bodies.
They are “the souls of” the faithful dead, for both the martyrs, and those who had not worshiped the beast, “came to life.”
7. The beatitude in Rev 20:6 says “Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection.”
8. Therefore, some participate in the first resurrection, some do not.
9. The references to this resurrection as “first” demands that there be another resurrection.
10. That resurrection marks the end of the thousand years, for:
Revelation 20:5 The rest of the dead [those in the second resurrection] did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.
11. There is a second death, mentioned in Revelation 20 and other scriptures.
12. Some – but not all – will participate in the second death – some will escape it.
13. The second death has no power over those who share in the first resurrection.
14. If there is a “second death,” there has to have been a first death.
Our main interest, then, is avoiding the second death.
We have a keen interest then, in finding out all we can about the first resurrection – what it is and how we can be part of it, because the way to do that is to participate in the first resurrection.
In our time today our primary focus is on the first resurrection, and how it fits into God’s grand eternal plan.
Can we join that group who did not worship the beast or his image, and participate in the first resurrection?
Yes. Let’s find out how.
To do so we must try to identify the first death.
III. The First Death
If there is a “second death” there must have been a “first death.”
While the bible never uses the expression, the reality of it is demanded by several references to a
If there is a first death, there was a “first first death.” It was the consequence of sin in the Garden of Eden
Before the woman was created God had said to Adam:
Genesis 2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
“In the day that you eat, you shall surely die.”
Not “someday in the distant future,” or “on that day you begin to die,” but “in the day you eat you will die.”
Adam lived 930 years and died, but the death God spoke of in the garden did not wait until nearly a thousand years later, when Adam breathed his last earthly breath.
God said “in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.”
Something tragic happened on the day of the sin that God called dying. What was it?
The inevitable end result of sin was – and is – DEATH, for death is alienation from God.
Sin alienation = death
The bible tells us about the creation in this way:
John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
Triune means 3 within 1.
We are informed of this profound truth only through the work of the Holy Spirit, who was part of it and guided the apostles into all truth.
The Genesis account tells us that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1)
God created the man and the woman, intending that they would love him and obey his single command while having the choice to disobey.
Satan enters the story.
In their first sin, they committed the whole human race to physical death.
Because their children would be born of a dying race, any child born to them would be born with the seed of death in him.
The conditions in both heaven and earth were altered.
All was not well in the Garden of Eden.
Nor was all well in heaven, for when Eve and then Adam ate the fruit, and they succumbed to the first death and immediately handed Satan the weaponry of war in heaven – humanity’s alienation from God.
Satan gained something of great importance to his plan - the ability and the right to accuse Adam and Eve of sin before God’s throne.
And Satan definitely had access to heaven, and to stand in the very presence of God.
With this huge gain, he sought to undermine God’s plan to create a race of beings who would love and voluntary obey him.
This is war.
Another passage in Revelation spells it out:
Revelation 12:7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.
As we will see in a moment, the only weapon Satan had was the ability to accuse the human race of sin, connoting that God’s plan for a loving, obedient race of beings had failed.
We read in Psalm 52 that God looked down on the sons of men and saw that no one was good – not even one.
We have all participated in the first death.
It would seem that the dragon - Satan - had won the war in heaven. His accusations stuck because of the actions of the man and woman, and all who would follow them.
Why? Because of the alienation of sin, for which no remedy existed.
Coninue reading… Revelation 12:8-12 And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
IV. “First Resurrection” of those “in Christ”
But he was…
not willing that any should perish. (1 Peter 3:9)
There was to be a reversal of that kind of death – turning Satan’s triumph into defeat.
There was to be a way back to God – the path leading from death to life.
Death to life is the message of the prodigal son.
The older brother missed it but the father didn’t:
…your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.
But for that to become available, a propitiation must be provided, silencing Satan’s accusations in heaven. Once Satan’s accusations were nullified, he was cast out of heaven, down to the earth.
Revelation 12:8-11 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
The 4 descriptions of the one cast down – the dragon, serpent, the devil and Satan – identical to the 4 descriptions in Revelation 20, our main text.
The two passages both describe the same hideous monster being thrown down from heaven, defeated and cast out by the blood of the Lamb and the faith and testimony of the Lamb’s followers.
It is what Jesus foresaw in Luke 10:18 when the 72 returned from their mission and told Jesus that they even had power over the demons. Jesus said:
I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Jesus foresaw it. In fact, Satan’s demise was the fulcrum of success or failure of his life’s work.
The victory has been won in heaven.
The war was now isolated to the realm below, where it rages today.
The kingdom of heaven was inaugurated and the age of the gospel begun.
Jesus himself introduced the subject of “death to life” this way:
John 5:24-29 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Jesus carefully makes plain that in the first part he was not talking about the universal and final resurrection.
He was talking about the resurrection that had not previously been fully revealed; the resurrection of those who would hear the voice of the Son of God.
On the day of Pentecost, some person was the first of the 3000 baptized in response to Peter’s preaching of the gospel.
That person became a new creation, and a citizen of a heavenly kingdom. It was the first and only connection he or she ever had with something that will never be destroyed.
A second person was buried in water and raised up to a new life, then a third, and many more, down to today.
Paul develops it further in his letter to the church at Rome because by that time more had been revealed:
Romans 6:3-5 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life [this is clearly a resurrection]. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Romans 6:8-11 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
There have been many resurrections in this very room.
In this passage we see a death, a burial, and a resurrection. Our baptism is a symbolic re-enactment of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
In that act we demonstrate the death and resurrection of our former sinful self, and resurrection to new life.
It is a spiritual resurrection set in motion on Pentecost Day – a selective resurrection not for everyone, but for those who submit to the death, burial, and resurrection Paul describes.
Paul describes the spiritual side of this equation in his letter to the church at Ephesus:
Ephesians 2:4-6 …God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
The spiritual meaning of the symbolic re-enactment of Jesus’ DBR means that we have been changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
Being spiritually alive signifies a different way of living than that which made us spiritually dead.
In the Colossian letter Paul spells out where this leads:
Colossians 3:1-9 (excerpts) If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
How do these souls “reign with Christ?”
Where there is a “first resurrection” there is a victory for that person and that person’s reigning King and kingdom.
we will be with Christ on the victorious side of the epic conflict. Beyond what the scriptures reveal about this reign, we cannot know.
V. What lies ahead for those who have new life? And for those who don’t?
A. For as long as the Lord delays his coming, physical death.
What needs to be said? No explanation is needed.
We know more about it than we would like.
We grieve for departed loved ones because that’s how we are made.
B. Universal Resurrection
A final resurrection marks the end of the thousand years of Revelation 20.
All will participate in this resurrection.
Paul again, this time in his defense before Felix:
Acts 24:14-15 But this I confess to you [Felix], that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.
Jesus didn’t return from the dead just so he could ascend to the Father and remain in his heavenly home throughout eternity – but so you can.
Peter makes a direct connection of the rebirth of baptism to Christ’s resurrection:
1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through [through WHAT?] the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
The death and resurrection of Christ lie at the center of God’s eternal plan.
Christ’s resurrection is closely coupled with our own.
If Christ did not rise from the dead, neither shall we.
Just as surely as Jesus rose from death, so shall we.
We shall be raised to everlasting life, a glorified immortal body, and access to the tree of life an the water of life.
C. The alternative to sharing the first resurrection is the “Second Death”
Revelation 20 and 21 together define it, leaving no room for doubt:
Rev 20:13-14 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
Revelation 21:6-8 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
There is no way back from the second death. It is final.
VI. Our resurrection day
There is one woman you would not have seen running to report the empty tomb that morning was mother Eve. She lay then – as she does today – in a grave.
But notwithstanding many generations between them, there is a unique connection between Eve and Mary and Easter.
God spoke directly to Eve twice on that terrible day. Between those two utterances he spoke to the serpent, so Eve surely heard the Lord say,
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. - Genesis 3:15
Eve died waiting for the day the women would run to report that the tomb was empty.
One day the trumpet will sound.
Not one grave in any of these cemeteries will be overlooked in the final resurrection of the dead. Every grave in every cemetery will become a resurrection site.
Eve too will hear the blast of that trumpet and come out of her grave.
Those in unmarked graves all over the world will answer the trumpet call.
Even the seas will give up their dead.
And the morning will break on the eternal day.
