The Resurrection

Coming up next on the Lord's the illusion of Renewing Your Mind, God the Holy Spirit. Peter tells us was the one who is the life giver in the first place, and is the one who injects life back into this corpse.

And by the power of God. This dead man is ready from the tomb moment in human history was when Jesus was raised from the dead, conquering sin and death on our behalf. For those of us who placed our faith and trust in the risen Lord is the greatest news we've ever underscored today addition of Renewing Your Mind, Dr. RC Sproul looks at Mark's gospel to help us see the significance of the resurrection continues this morning with our study of the gospel according to St. Mark, and today we start the last chapter of the chapter 16 which gives us Mark's account of the resurrection that will be reading today from verse one through verse 13. In chapter 16 – the kind geisha place to stand for the reading of the word of God. Now on the Sabbath was passed Mary Magdalena in Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices that they might come and anoint him very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen and they said among themselves, who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us. When they looked up they saw that the stone had been rolled away for it was very large and entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed with the long white robes sitting on the right side and they were alarmed, but he said to them, do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He is risen.

He's not here see the place where they laid him go tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you into Galilee. There you will see him as he said to you, so they went out quickly and fled from the tomb for the tremble and were amazed. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Again, we have just heard the account of this astonishing work of God given to us through God's own inspired word may we take this truth through our hearts and embrace it for our entire lives. Please be seated.

This morning I heard part of the Lutheran hour on the radio and the message today was a message on the cross and I thought this I was listening to it. How that we hear messages on the cross. All through the Christian year.

The cross is proclaimed somewhere every day in the world, and yet it seems that we restrict our preaching of the resurrection to our celebration of it on Easter Sunday and we rarely hear sermons at any other time during the year the focus on the resurrection, unless we happen to be engaged in expository preaching following a book chapter by chapter and verse by verse and it happens the fall on a time that is not Easter such as the case for us. But I remind you that the reason why we are gathered here this morning on the first day of the week. Then gathering yesterday on the seventh day of the week is because Jesus rose on Sunday and because he rose on Sunday in the very early days of the Christian church. The Christians came together to celebrate the Lord's day, and that Lord's day became then the Christian Sabbath so that every Sunday we come we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Let's look them at Mark's narrative which characteristically marking is very brief. You remember when we first started studying this book that I told you one of the key words in Mark's gospel is the Greek word youth loose, which is translated either straightway or immediately. He moves rapidly sticks just to the salient facts of the matter and gives us very little lengthy commentary to fill out this narrative, we would have to look at the other gospel records for let's look today at Mark know when the Sabbath was passed Sabbath finished at sundown on Saturday. Mary Magdalena, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices recall from last week that Jesus's burial was made in haste so that it might be accomplished before sundown on Friday and the beginning of the Sabbath and there was no time to buy precious ointment and spices in order to anoint the body and you remember that the practice of anointing the body with these spices of murder and aloe and other precious spices that was done not to preserve a corpse but was done to show respect and devotion to the departed loved one, but the disciples were not able to perform that task in time for the burial. We don't know where the men were but presumably they were still cowering in fear.

Having fled the scene of the crucifixion and remained in hiding, but these women who had followed from a distance it had been eyewitnesses of the crucifixion took upon themselves to complete the custom of anointing the body of their master. And so as soon as they were able to engage in commerce. After the sun went down on Saturday that one out and they purchase the substances they needed for this task, and so that they came to anoint him and were told that very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen and they said among themselves, who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us.

Notice that the men were in hiding who will find out that we were numbered among his followers. That was their quest. These women were fearless and coming out on Sunday morning in broad daylight after the sun had risen to go to the tomb of Jesus for the purpose of anointing his body and in a sense they weren't worried about who might see them what they were worried about was how in the world. There were going to manage to roll away the stone from the tomb. They knew that together they didn't have the strength to do that and so they were hoping that one of the workers attended to the garden tomb may be present to help them get inside the tomb that they may anoint the body of Jesus. Just a few weeks ago.

In our studies on chapter 14 we read of the lavish anointing of Jesus by the woman who came in and poured precious ointments upon him flowing through his whole body and we were given the cryptic note by Mark that she was preparing him for his burial. But that's anointing in preparation was premature. She was anointing Jesus before he died. And so the only anointing he received was before his death, because now when the women come at first light there too late.

Their purpose will be thwarted and they will have wasted their money for buying the precious ointments because the body was gone, who will roll away the stone from the door, but when they looked up they saw that the stone had already been rolled away. We are told in the other Gospels that the stone was rolled away, not by a caretaker but by an angel and by the hand of God in bringing an earthquake to bear. And so that the stone was rolled away, not by human device, but by divine power. And that's important for us to remember because every detail of the resurrection of Christ in the New Testament points to the reality that it was accomplished by God and by God alone, and so they saw that the stone was already rolled away and they looked up they saw there was gone and it was very large and so they went inside the tomb, and upon entering the tomb, they saw a young man, clothed in a long white robe know that's the language that describes the presence of an angel so we can say they saw an angel clothed a long white robe sitting on the right side.

Notice that Mark gives the detail from the testimony of these ladies that they saw this young man. They saw the angel dressed in white and the angel that they saw was standing on the right side of the tune now couple things about this. You realize I'm sure that in the early church at the time of the Jewish domination that the Jews gave little credibility to the testimony of women in courts of law. They rank the testimony of women with the testimony of slaves and of criminals. They didn't think that women could be trustworthy witnesses and in light of that bias of the first century is in its striking batch. The New Testament record of the resurrection of Christ was born witness in the first place in chiefly, at least initially, by the testimony of women. Now some people look at that in order to discredit the historic reliability of that testimony and of the biblical writers on the other hand, if someone was about to falsified the testimony of the resurrection of Jesus. The last thing that they would do would be to put that testimony in the lips of women but Mark here is not interested in the law court.

He's interested in truth and to convey exactly what happened and he doesn't down to the detail of where this angel was standing on the fact that Mark records an angel standing in the tomb is another point of contention. I've heard people again and again argue that the New Testament cannot possibly be inspired or an errant because the resurrection accounts disagree and the chief disagreement is that a question of how many angels were present at the tomb Mark mentions one angel, other gospel writers speak of to angels being there and this is alleged as a contradiction. I try to remind people of the elementary principles of logic that if there are two angels present and somebody says there is an angel. There. That is not a contradiction because manifestly if there were two angels there. There also had to be one angel there.

Now if Mark would've said there was one angel and only one angel, and the other biblical writers that know there were two angels, then you have a contradiction, but in this case. Mark only mentions what these women saw on the right side of the tomb and their vision of the young man in the flowing white robe and we read that when they saw him they were alarmed by the word there that is used for alarm indicates a kind of fear in a kind of distress that is profound and is intense. This is exactly the same word that was used to describe the inner conflict that our Lord was experiencing in the garden of Gethsemane when the payslips they endured their pierced his very soul.

And so, with that same force of alarm and distress. These women saw the angel there in the tomb. They were terrified. Again, if you look at the accounts throughout the Scripture any time that an angel appears to somebody as Gabriel did to Zacharias as he did to Mary. The initial response was terror in the presence of the supernatural room. But the angel said to do not be alarmed. Calm down company distressed. Don't be afraid you seek Jesus of Nazareth's who was crucified. He's risen, he is not here see the place where they laid him now if I can just quibble a bit with this translation.

I think it's an important quibble. The text does not say in the original language. He is risen.

I know that we use that text all the time on Easter Sunday when we say he is risen and then the people say is risen indeed. But that's just a little bit inaccurate because the text here and the use of the verb is in the passive form and so what the text actually says is not that Jesus is risen, but that he is been raised know if he has been raised. He is risen.

But here's the point of the quibble.

The idea that he is risen, at least suggests that Jesus came back to life on his own, but the biblical testimony is not that the human corpse of Jesus was able supernaturally to defeat the jaws of death, and come out of the tomb, it is God who raises him from the dead, specifically God the Holy Spirit, whom Peter tells us was the one who is the life giver in the first place, and is the one who injects life back into this corpse.

And by the power of God. This dead man is ready just from the tomb. That's very important elsewhere. The Scripture says that he was raised for our justification. Recently we looked at the cross and its theological significance and that our Savior satisfied the demands of the righteousness of God, and he remitted at payments for us vicariously which God did not have to accept but when God raises Christ from the dead. God is saying to the whole world that our justification has been secured, and that God accepts completely the atonement that Jesus offered for his people, and so the father who sent him to the cross sent him to the grave brings him out of the grave for our justification and for his vindication as we are told elsewhere that it was impossible for death to hold him. Had God allowed an innocent man to stay dead, God would have been unjust but he vindicates the sinlessness of his son by removing the power of death over him. He is been raised. He is not here. I told you last Easter, and other times in the past that our faith in the resurrection is not based upon an empty tomb. It wasn't that I just found an empty tomb. And then we infer a resurrection from it. Know the testimony for the resurrection is based upon the eyewitness accounts of those who saw him after he had been raised from the dead, so that the resurrection is not the result of the empty tomb. The empty tomb is the result of the resurrection. That's why when something because it wasn't dead anymore because God raised him from the dead, look where they have laid the other gospels give more details of the grave cloths that were remaining but go the angel said to the women tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you into Galilee, and there you will see him as he said to you. I remember that Mark's gospel almost completely is devoted to Jesus's ministry in Galilee and we also know from the other gospel writers that Jesus saw the disciples before they ever got the Galilee, he saw them in the upper room still in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, then later he joined them for an extensive.

In this world after his resurrection in Galilee.

So they went out quickly fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid and I rose early on the first day of the week he appeared first to Mary Magdalena, out of whom he cast seven demons she went and told those who had been with them as they mourned and wept, and when they said that he was alive and had been seen by her. They did not believe the other gospel writers tell us how the two of them ran full speed to the Tomb Pacific St. in Mark tells us that after that, he appeared another form to two of them nieces on the road to Emmaus.

As they walked and went into the country and then they went and told her to the rest but they didn't believe them either so that the first response to the testimony of the women and to the testimony of the men was on belief. Secondary witness was not enough for the disciples or for the work that was necessary for them to believe was not hearsay but eyewitness experience which Mark mentions in the text that we will examine God willing next week whose eyewitness accounts when such overwhelming credibility. The resurrection of Christ you're listening to Renewing Your Mind in another sermon by Dr. RC Sproul from the Gospel of Mark Dr. RC Sproul, preach through entire books of the Bible with his role as copastor of St. Andrews Chapel in Sanford, Florida, and we benefit from those sermons here in this program. We also benefit from them because they're the basis of Dr. scroll's commentaries on these books are resource offered today will provide you the opportunity to continue study on your own when you contact us with a donation of any amount we will provide you with digital download of Dr. scroll's commentary on Mark. You can make your request online at Renewing Your Mind daughter work and on behalf of all of my college cheerleader ministries. Thank you for your generous donation. You can also hear Dr. scroll's teaching on ref that that's our 24 hour Internet radio station when you go to ref net.FM you'll hear faithful teaching and preaching from many trusted pastors and theologians.

You can also download the free ref net app. Next week we will hear the final message in her series from the Gospel of Mark, and will conclude with Jesus. Psalm command was disciples joined us his RC preaches on the great commission next Sunday.

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