Dr. Ed Young - Victory in Jesus

TOPICS: Victory

Three billion people who are Christians around the world will be celebrating Easter today. On five continents, every ethnicity, and virtually every language, a worship leader will stand before the congregation and express his profession, his witness, and the congregation will respond. This is what we will do today: when I say «Christ has risen,» you will respond, «He is indeed.» Christ is risen! He is indeed! And we’ll add something: the word «Hallelujah» is never translated in every language-French, Italian, Spanish, every language-it’s always «Hallelujah.» So as we give our witness, «Christ is risen,» «Hallelujah,» which means «praise be to God.»

To summarize Christianity in just a few verses, in fact, only two, you could open your Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and we’ll look at two verses there that succinctly tell us what it means to be a Christian. Dark 30 this past Monday, I got up, had coffee, a glass of water, opened the book, and began to read the Easter story in the Gospels as I have many, many times. As I was reading, I said, «You know, Easter is the most important event in history.» Then I thought back to what I did before Christmas. I opened the Bible and started reading all the Christmas accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I said, «No, Christmas is the most important event in history.» You can’t have it both ways-either Christmas or Easter, or Easter or Christmas. So I tried to put it together, and this is what I came up with: Christmas is the most important event in God’s history.

What do I mean by that? All the prophecy, all the promises over a thousand years, came together when Divinity visited the Earth. God took on human flesh-bang! Christmas! The Messiah has come: the most important event in God’s history. Easter is the most important event in mankind’s history. Why is that? Because Easter tells us that there is the promise of life after this life. So as we look at the simplicity of what it means to be a Christian in two verses in 1 Corinthians 15, let me tell you something: 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the great chapters in the Bible, and it clearly tells us, answering questions and making proclamations, what Easter is really all about. Here it is: verses 3 and 4. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, «For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and he was buried according to the Scriptures, and on the third day he was raised according to the Scriptures.» That’s it: death and resurrection, death on the cross.

Now, what is that all about? Well, we wear crosses, we talk about crosses. What is it? The cross is that moment in time in which God’s Son took on all the sin and the trash of the world that had accumulated in your life and in my life. I say that reverently, but Jesus on that cross was a garbage collector-a garbage collector. Somehow, all the ugly, unseen things that we have done were placed upon Jesus, who was perfect. And at that moment, amazingly so, Jesus quotes Psalm 22: «My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?» Why did God turn His back on Jesus when He most needed Him on the cross? I’ll tell you why: our God is holy; He cannot look on sin. Therefore, when all of our mess was placed on His Son, He looked away. The Bible tells us that Jesus at that time went into hell. What is hell? That is where God is not. Jesus did this on your behalf and on my behalf because the wages of sin is death. Jesus took all the results of your sin and my sin upon Himself, and He died the death that we deserved to die so we can live forever the life that He deserves to live. That is the miracle and the beauty of forgiveness and grace on the cross.

And then we come to the resurrection. You say, «Well, Jesus came back from the grave.» No, He didn’t. Jesus was stone-cold dead, and death can do nothing. It was God the Father who raised Him from the grave. Therefore, we’re here today to shout and explain our witness: «Christ is risen!» And we absolutely believe it. Now we look at this passage, and all of us come to the point and say, «You know, let’s just be real here at Easter. Let’s get down to business: Did this really happen? Is it a myth? Is it a legend? Is it what — we hope it happened?» Let me tell you something: this is absolutely a historical fact, and Paul deals with that. You say, «Okay, the Father raised Jesus from the dead; He was dead, and He was brought back to life again. How do we know?» Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen: there is no fact in all antiquity that has been examined as thoroughly as this by almost every scholar who has ever lived. In fact, there is more evidence-if you’re a historian or an anthropologist- there is more evidence that God raised Jesus from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever conquered Great Britain.

So how do you get evidence? How do you know? There are a couple kinds of evidence. First of all, there’s circumstantial evidence, forensic evidence, and then there is empirical evidence-there’s eyewitness evidence. How does this operate? Very simply: if you’ve ever been to law school, I hope many of you have not, but if you’ve ever been to law school, you’ve learned about evidence. Circumstantial evidence is simply this: you wake up in the morning, you look outside, you see rain is falling, you may hear thunder, you may hear lightning, and you hear it on the roof. You hear someone coming in with an umbrella; you see rain falling on them in the umbrella, and they come in, fold the umbrella, and you notice they’re wet. That is circumstantial evidence, ladies and gentlemen. You say, «Well, it seems obvious to me. I saw it; I witnessed it; I heard it on the roof.» No, that is circumstantial evidence. Now, if you go outside in the rain and you look up to heaven and the rain falls on you and the rain falls on your clothes, that is personal experience-that is eyewitness evidence. Two kinds of evidence: circumstantial- which is strong-and then absolute empirical evidence that you saw, that you experienced for yourself.

See the difference? You have that right here in the Scripture. Let’s just start with circumstantial evidence. Let’s just say on that Easter morning that we got up early and you and I had the privilege of walking into the place where Jesus was buried. We would walk in, and what’s the first thing we’d see? We would see a stone of about two or two and a half tons that had been rolled away. Now, one historical account tells us it not only had been rolled away from sealing the tomb, but it was rolled uphill-two tons, two and a half tons. That’s a pretty good feat, is it not? That’s the first thing we notice. And then, if we knew anything about what happened at the burial, we know the Roman seal had been broken. Listen, anybody who broke a Roman seal in that day would immediately be crucified upside down. Boy, the stone has rolled away. We see that! Man, the Roman seal- I wonder what happened?

And then perhaps we would look in the grave. The two Marys were there; they did not do that. They ran and got Peter and John. You remember? And Peter and John raced to the tomb to see what in the world was going on. John outran Peter. Peter had too many fishing chips and he finished second. John looked in, and then Peter looked in and went in. What did he see? He would see what we have seen: an empty tomb-an empty tomb. He would see clothes still in place where Jesus had been wrapped, and there' d be a little indentation — he’s gone! You say, «Well, what about the Roman soldiers?» Well, there was a squad sent there to make sure nothing happened- here at this place, that we’re done with Him once and for all. A Roman soldier who would leave his post would be buried alive, so you didn’t have many people wandering off if you’d pledged your allegiance to Caesar. So you see all the precautions that were taken by the Romans and the Jews to make sure this was secure. Now that is giving us even more circumstantial evidence that Christ has risen!

That is the forensic evidence, but what about the second category? Paul lists some of them right here: Jesus was raised from the dead. He walked on the earth for forty days; He made at least eleven recorded appearances to all kinds of people. On the road to Emmaus, He appeared to two people He didn’t know. He appeared to His brother James, who had thought he was a little bit out of it, and his whole family-remember, had backed away from Him. He appeared to James, and James subsequently became a leader in the early Church. An amazing thing: his brother Billy Graham said the fact that his brother James, who didn’t believe in him from the get-go, believed in him so completely was plenty of evidence for him. And then he appeared to the apostles in the upper room. You remember Thomas wasn’t there. I love Thomas; he was a wobbler without leave. When the other followers of Jesus told Thomas-old doubting Thomas-"Let me tell you something, He is alive!» Thomas said, «No, I know He’s stone-cold dead. Something happened to you people; you’ve lost it. You’re out of touch with reality; you’re delusional.» But then a second time Jesus appeared to those apostles, and Thomas was there.

Thomas had said earlier, «I’m not going to believe this until I see in His hands the print of the nails and the place where the sword went in His side. I’m not going to believe until I experience that.» But when Thomas saw the resurrected Lord, he didn’t check out His hands or His side; he just fell down and said, «My Lord and my God!» Appearances- empirical evidence, eyewitness accounts. And then finally — there are eleven of them-He appeared to over five hundred men. It’s important to note that they only recorded men in that day; we can be sure that women were there as well-some teenagers and young people would not have been counted. And all of a sudden, here’s Him who was dead-now He is alive! He appeared before five hundred. How strong a witness is that? If you’re an attorney and you got only six minutes of testimony from each one of those five hundred, you would have fifty hours of eyewitness empirical testimony that He who was dead is now alive! Christ is risen indeed! Hallelujah!

But we still have other questions, and it seems like Paul could anticipate those. If you look here in verse 35, but someone will say, «How are the dead raised? What kind of body do they have?» And Paul says, «You fool!» I didn’t think that was a foolish question, did you? He says, «Resurrection is a natural thing; listen how he explains it-it’s beautiful.» He says clearly, «And that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but bear grain-perhaps wheat or something else. If God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of their own.» Resurrection strange to you? No, no! Every plant, everything that’s alive came from a seed that died, that was buried; it came back a totally different thing. Here’s a little seed that becomes a turnip; here’s a little seed that comes back a tree. Resurrection is a very common thing in nature; it is natural. What about a caterpillar? Boy, what in the world could a caterpillar ever be? It goes in that little cocoon and it comes out a beautiful butterfly. Resurrection! All in nature! Resurrection is a natural thing; it is the fairest to observe in all of life. It goes in as a seed; the seed has to die, otherwise the seed will just be there. But it is buried, and it dies, and there’s life-totally different from the seed.

So resurrection, Paul said, is a natural thing. What kind of body will you have? Paul says in verse 40: «There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.» Then verse 42: «So also is the resurrection of the dead: It is sown a perishable body; it is raised an imperishable body. It is sown in dishonor-that’s the old body, yours and mine; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual-a supernatural body. If there is a natural body-this one-there is also a spiritual body.» Did you get it? It’s so clear and evidential and obvious!

I’ve got a shock for everybody here: all of us are going to die! I don’t care how you take care of this temple- and we should-how you eat, how many vitamins you take, all the health precautions you take-all of us are going to die. Every single one of us here-100% guaranteed! Anybody want to debate it? It’s clear. And I’m going to tell you something: resurrection is natural in nature, but resurrection is also supernatural, because in Jesus Christ He was given a resurrection body. Remember, He just walked through the wall. Though it was physical-remember, He fried fish by the Sea of Galilee; He ate fish; He could be touched-it was physical as far as we could determine. But also, it was supernatural. And when we die in the Lord Jesus Christ, that voice, that essence of who you are and who I am-you can call it a soul or a life-that remains. This old house is deteriorating, and we get a resurrection body, the prototype of which was the body that Jesus had in His resurrection. That supernatural body is equipped to live with God in Heaven forever.

People always ask, «Will I know my family in heaven?» Yes! And in heaven, if we have five senses now, we may have 20, 30, 40, or a thousand! Think about it! We’ll have creativity; we’ll be able to do that which we’ve never been able to do, and even more so in God’s divine assignment for us in eternity with this body that is made to live in eternity. Christ is risen indeed! Hallelujah! So it’s important that we see that resurrection is obvious around us. You say, «Well, you know, I know only Jesus.» Absolutely, that’s the evidence! He is the firstfruits; He’s the first out of the shoot; He is the first who leads the Easter parade for all of us who, in Christ, can be confident that to be absent from this body will be present with the Lord in our resurrection body. All of you, all of me-redeemed, changed, clean, alive, creative, dynamic, powerful-resurrection is natural; resurrection is supernatural.

And by the way, resurrection is practical! It’s very practical, and it’s right here in the Scripture, right in the Bible. What does Paul say? He says, «This perishable"-we got that-but put on the imperishable, our resurrection body; and «this mortal must put on immortality.» Then he says, «But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then it will be written: ' Death is swallowed up in victory! O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? '» The sting of death is sin. What happened to sin? Jesus took care of our sin on the cross, didn’t He? And He said, «And the power of sin is the law.» Jesus kept the law for us on the cross, didn’t He, when He took our place? But He said, «Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ, our Lord.»

Let me tell you why the resurrection is so practical: if it calls the resurrection, Easter kills death! Is that practical enough for everybody? Easter kills death, and death is swallowed up; it’s eliminated in victory! When we graduate to be with the Lord in heaven, what a beautiful promise! What a beautiful truth affirmed by the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ! He led the way; He is the drum major, and all of us will follow who are in Christ in that Easter parade.