The Empty Tomb
Selected verses
Good morning everyone- Happy Resurrection Sunday -Easter- The empty tomb!
Prayer-
I would encourage you if you weren’t here last week to listen to the message “Awful yet wondrous cross on our church webpage or on my YouTube channel- it is because of what Jesus did on that awful yet wondrous cross and His glorious and miraculous resurrection that makes salvation and the forgiveness of our sins possible.
The two are of great value and both are needed for our redemption.
Apostle Paul says:
“For what I have received, I pass unto you as of first importance: that Christ died for sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures… 1 Cor. 15 The heart of the Easter message
That is the gospel message! Life, death, resurrection of sinless Jesus
That is where our salvation comes from… in the works of Jesus
No death, no resurrection… no forgiveness for our sins and no redemption and we are left in our sins with no hope.
Christianity is not a religion, It is a relationship with almighty God- not how good we think we are by comparing ourselves to other sinners. We are all sinners in the hands of a God that cannot tolerate sin. We are only in a right relationship with Him when we are saved from our sins by the blood of His Son Jesus and we follow Him.
Scripture say “God demonstrates his love for us in this; while we are yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“God reckoned Him to be sin who knew no sin.” 2 Cor. 5:21
Remember - you cannot kill God!
He is not going to give any of His creations the power and ability to bring Him down. He does by choice and love come in sinless Jesus from his immaculate birth we call Christmas to his death on the cross on Good Friday.
He is 100% man and 100% God. I know why but I don’t know how that is possible. There are some things only received by faith.
All hell and sinful man was allowed to do those horrific things to Him- He foreknew it/ anticipated it/ He choose to let them because He loved us that much!
Let’s try to pick up where we left off last week-
What did Jesus mean when on the cross He said it is finished?
By saying and proclaiming “it is finished” Jesus was signaling to the Jewish world that there was no more need for sacrifices because his work brought ultimate fulfillment to what their sacrificial system foreshadowed.
This sacrifice was the only way your sins could be paid for without your own eternal death. Christ's death paid the price of your sin.
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” he meant there was nothing else to do, nothing left to pay.
He paid it all—totally, completely, permanently.
Luke 23:45-46: “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last.”
Although the redemption of mankind is the most important finished task, many other things were finished at the cross.
The sufferings Jesus endured while on the earth
The power of sin and Satan was finished. No longer would mankind have to suffer the “flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). By raising the “shield of faith” in the One who completed the work of redemption and salvation, we can, by faith, live as new creations in Christ.
Jesus’ finished work on the cross was the beginning of new life for all who were once “dead in trespasses and sins” but who are now made “alive with Christ” (Ephesians 2:1, 5).
Importance of torn veil
During the lifetime of Jesus, the holy temple in Jerusalem was the center of Jewish religious life. The temple was the place where animal sacrifices were carried out and the Law of Moses was followed faithfully.
Book of Hebrews tells us that in the temple a veil separated the Holy of Holies—the earthly dwelling place of God’s presence—from the rest of the temple where men dwelt. This signified that man was separated from God by sin. Isaiah 59.
Only the high priest was permitted to pass beyond this veil once each year to enter into God’s presence for all of Israel and make atonement for their sins.
At the death of Jesus, the veil was torn and man now had excess into the Holy of Holies.
The high priest (Jesus) who does not need to sacrifice for his sins but for our sins once for all-
The perfect unblemished sacrifice
All of these things happened as predicted and recorded in God’s Word.
Open your bibles to Luke 24- one of the accounts in the gospels that records the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Luke 24:1-12
The empty tomb.
The women expected to find Jesus body because they were going to get his body ready for burial.
Some accounts tell us they thought that someone had stole the body.
They go back to tell the apostles of speaking to angels that proclaimed his resurrection.
They had to be reminded that these are the things that Jesus told them and recorded by prophecy in God’s Word.
Peter and some other go look for themselves because surely the women must have messed it up and just didn’t see Jesus in that tomb.
The culture of the day did not put much faith in the testimony of women so Peter takes a look for himself and a stronger cultural testimony.
Why importance of resurrection? What is the big deal?
The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in history, providing irrefutable evidence that Jesus is who He claimed to be – the Son of God.
The resurrection was not only the supreme validation of His deity; it also validated the Scriptures, which foretold His coming and resurrection.
Moreover, it authenticated Christ’s claims that He would be raised on the third day (John 2:19-21; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34).
If Christ’s body was not resurrected, we have no hope that ours will be (1 Corinthians 15:13, 16).
In fact, apart from Christ’s bodily resurrection, we have no Savior, no salvation, and no hope of eternal life. As the apostle Paul said, our faith would be “useless” and the life-giving power of the gospel would be altogether eliminated.
Because our eternal destinies ride on the truth of this historical event, the resurrection has been the target of Satan’s greatest attacks against the church.
Accordingly, the historical accuracy of Christ’s bodily resurrection has been examined and investigated from every angle and studied endlessly by countless scholars, theologians, professors, and others over the centuries. And even though a number of theories have been postulated that attempt to disprove this momentous event, no credible historical evidence exists which would validate anything other than His literal bodily resurrection.
On the other hand, the clear and convincing evidence of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is overwhelming.
The proof is overwhelming of Jesus resurrection. Believers, witnesses, and writers who were not known to be followers of Jesus recorded and verified that He lived, He died, and that He was resurrected and they saw him.
Why, some ask, is it important that Christ’s body was resurrected? Couldn’t His resurrection just been spiritual?
Why and how does the resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantee the resurrection of believers?
Will our resurrected bodies be the same as our earthly bodies? If not, what will they be like? These are questions they had and the answers are found in 1 Corinthians 15
Some believed that it was a detestable idea to believe that a corpse in the ground would be resurrected by God.
Paul reminded them that Christ Himself stated that His body would rise on the third day and that His body would see no decay.
He told his disciples that a spirit does not have flesh and bone as he had.
Proofing that it was not spiritual but a physical resurrection.
When Jesus Christ was resurrected, He became the “first fruits” of all who would be raised.
1 Cor. 15:42-
“So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power, it is sown a natural body and it is raised a spiritual body.”
So many signs of evidence-
The First sign of Evidence for Christ’s resurrection
Early witnesses saw and documented proof by believers and non-believers.
Many would give their lives for a cause but no one in their right mind would give up their lives for a lie! No one wants to be a martyr for a lie.
Many have been asked to denounce their faith or die in many parts of the world including USA and have chosen to die before they deny their faith- they would not if they believed it was all a lie.
Apostles gave up everything including their lives for their faith
The Second sign of Evidence for Christ’s resurrection
Apostle Paul was of his own admission a violent persecutor of the early Church. After what he described as an encounter with the resurrected Christ, Paul underwent an immediate and drastic change from a vicious persecutor of the Church to one of its most prolific and selfless defenders. He suffered and gave up all to follow Jesus
The Third sign of Evidence for Christ’s resurrection
The empty tomb-
Sanhedrin did their best to cover it up
Disciples stole the body
Everyone involved is lying/ hard to cover a lie with that many people involved
Which is more important- death or resurrection
The death and resurrection of Christ are equally important. Jesus’ death and resurrection accomplish separate but necessarily related things. The death and resurrection of our Lord are really inseparable.
The cross of Christ won for us the victory that we could never have won for ourselves. “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15).
On the cross God piled our sins on Jesus, and He bore the punishment due us (Isaiah 53:4–8).
In His death, Jesus took upon Himself the curse introduced by Adam (see Galatians 3:13).
With the death of Christ, our sins became powerless to rule over us (Romans 6).
By His death, Jesus destroyed the works of the devil (John 12:31; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8), condemned Satan (John 16:11), and crushed the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15).
Without the sacrificial death of Christ, we would still be in our sins, unforgiven, unredeemed, unsaved, and unloved. The cross of Christ is vital to our salvation and was thus a main theme of the apostles’ preaching (Acts 2:23, 36; 1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2; Galatians 6:14).
But the story of Jesus Christ does not and cannot end with His death.
The resurrection of Christ is also foundational to the gospel message. Our salvation stands or falls based on the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, as Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 15:12–19. “If Christ is not physically risen from the dead, then we ourselves have no hope of resurrection, the apostles’ preaching was in vain, and believers are all to be pitied.”
“Without the resurrection, we are still sitting “in darkness and in the shadow of death” waiting for the sunrise (Luke 1:78–79).
Because of Jesus’ resurrection, His promise holds true for us: “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).
Our great enemy, death, will be defeated (1 Corinthians 15:26, 54–55).
Jesus’ resurrection is also important because it is through that event that God declares us righteous: Jesus “was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The gift of the Holy Spirit was sent from the resurrected and ascended Lord Jesus (John 16:7).
At least three times in His earthly ministry, Jesus predicted that He would die and rise again after three days (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34).
If Jesus Christ had not been raised from the dead, He would have failed in His prophecies—He would have been yet another false prophet to be ignored. As it is, however, we have a living Lord, faithful to His Word. The angel at Jesus’ empty tomb was able to point to fulfilled prophecy: “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said” (Matthew 28:6).
Jesus’ entrance into the tomb is as equally important as His exit from the tomb. In 1 Corinthians 15:3–5,
Paul defines the gospel as the dual truth that Jesus died for our sins (proved by His burial) and that He rose again the third day (proved by His appearances to many witnesses).
It is impossible to separate the death of Christ from His resurrection. To believe in one without the other is to believe in a false gospel that cannot save. In order for Jesus to have truly arisen from the dead, He must have truly died. And in order for His death to have a true meaning for us, He must have a true resurrection. We cannot have one without the other.
As I close-
Christ has Risen! He has Risen indeed!
Amid the pathetic breakdown and chaos of this world, the wrecked hopes, uncertain future, a world that seems to have lost all common sense- there is a great fact that Jesus Christ rose from the grave. Over 2000 years we wait for His return but that empty tomb gives every believer in Christ hope that we will be resurrected to glory with Him.
And for that we all can say amen.
Prayer-
