Resurrection: Redemption Ratified

Resurrection: Redemption Ratified

Text: Matt.28: 1-8; I Cor.15: 14

Intro: What a wonderful time of year is spring. Everything around us begins to awaken from its winter sleep, and bud forth with new and vibrant life.

Spring is my mother’s favorite season. She gets all enthused when the grass and trees begin turning green, and the flowers begin to grow and show their beautiful faces. The pleasant temperatures and gentle breezes of spring always seemed to revitalize my mom; at least when she was younger, they did. She finds it a little harder to be revitalized these days. But she still loves spring, because to her, it means life.

It’s befitting I think, that we celebrate Easter during the season when life springs forth anew. New life is exactly what Easter is all about, for Christ died on the Cross for the sins of the world, was buried in a tomb, and came forth alive on the third day. And He lives forevermore.

Easter is perhaps the most important holiday we observe as Christians. As important as Christ’s virgin birth and vicarious death were, they would have ultimately been meaningless without His resurrection from the tomb. Everything we believe about salvation and the Savior hinges on the resurrection. It is this idea we want to deal with today.

Theme: The resurrection confirms:

I. THE DEITY OF CHRIST

NOTE: If you have assumed that the majority of Americans believe Jesus was God in the flesh, you would be mistaken:

In a 1983 Gallup poll, Americans were asked, “Who do you think Jesus is?” 70% of those interviewed said Jesus was not just another man. 42% stated Jesus was God among men. 27% felt Jesus was only human, but divinely called. 9% [stated] Jesus was divine because he embodied the best of humanity. Also, 81% of Americans consider themselves to be Christians.

Gallup Poll.

A. His Deity Was Proclaimed By Many.

1. Isaiah proclaimed His deity.

Matt.1: 23 “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” (Quoted from Isa.7: 14)

Isa.9: 6b “…and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

2. Thomas proclaimed His deity.

John 20: 28 “And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”

3. Demons proclaimed His deity.

Luke 4: 41 “And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.”

4. Angels proclaimed His deity.

Luke 2: 11 “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

5. Jesus Himself proclaimed His deity.

John 10: 30 “I and my Father are one.

31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.

32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?

33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou being a man, makest thyself God.”

6. God the Father proclaimed His deity.

Heb.1: 8 “But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom.”

B. His Deity Was Prominent In His Ministry.

1. He is unchanging (immutable).

Heb.13: 8 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”

NOTE: There’s an interesting story that illustrates this point:

When Lloyd C. Douglas, author of The Robe and other novels, was a university student, he lived in a boarding house. Downstairs on the first floor was an elderly, retired music teacher, who was infirm and unable to leave the apartment.

Douglas said that every morning they had a ritual they would go through together. He would come down the steps, open the old man’s door, and ask, “Well, what’s the good news?” The old man would pick up his tuning fork; tap it on the side of his wheelchair and say, “That’s middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my friend, THAT is middle C!”

The old man had discovered one thing upon which he could depend, one constant reality in his life, one “still point in a turning world.” For Christians, the one “still point in a turning world,” the one absolute of which there is no shadow of turning, is Jesus Christ.

Source Unknown.

2. He is truth.