Father, as we now come to Your Word, we recognize what a gift Your Word is as well. And we pray that You would use Your Word to do Your work in us. We remember that Your Word is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. O Lord, we ask that you would work these things in us through the preaching of your Word. We pray that you would use your Word to feed us, to strengthen us, to nourish us, to encourage us. Lord, You know what each one of us needs. Some of us need to be confronted. Some of us need to be comforted. Some of us need to be convicted. Lord, You know. And so by the power of Your Holy Spirit, working in conjunction with the Word being preached, we ask that You would work in us now for the glory of Christ. In His name we pray. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, please turn to John chapter 20. We'll be continuing our study in John. We are finally in the home stretch, so to speak. The point of the story where things take a turn and we see why the gospel is good news. Now over the course of the last few passages that we've studied in John's Gospel, we've seen that Christ came in order to die, in order to present himself as a sacrifice once and for all for the sins of his people. And we've seen that if Jesus didn't die, if he didn't die, if he only came close to dying. As many liberal theologians over the course of the past couple hundred years have tried to convince us to believe, if that's true, that Jesus only almost died, then Christianity completely collapses and our hope is in vain. That's something that we've seen over the course of the last few sermons, few passages. And of course, the reason for this is because the wage of sin is death. Right. And all of us are born in sin. We're not born innocent. We're born in sin. Because when Adam fell, we fell too. Now, I understand that people have a very difficult time with this doctrine of what we call federal headship. Federal headship. That is, that we are born in Adam. We're not born innocent. Because when you look at a baby, they seem so innocent, don't they? We have a difficult time believing that babies are conceived and born in sin, because they just seem so cute and innocent and cuddly, and what could they possibly do wrong? And yet every single parent I have ever known, and probably ever will know, I'm sure, can attest to the fact that children don't need to be taught how to sin. Children don't need, for example, to be taught how to lie. And every parent can attest to that. And yet, even at a very early age, children know how to lie, even if they haven't personally seen somebody do it. Why is that? Why is it that children just instinctively know how to lie? It's because they're born in Adam. They're born in sin. And as they grow older, they don't need to be taught how to dishonor mom and dad. Speaking from my own experience here. They don't need to be taught how to dishonor mom and dad. They don't need to be taught how to cheat. They don't need to be taught how to covet. They don't need to be taught how to lust. Again, why? It's because we're in Adam. We're born in Adam. And when Adam fell, we fell too. When Adam sinned, his nature fell. His nature changed. And when his nature changed, his relationship with God was changed. And Adam was the representative of our race, the human race. You might think of Adam, you might compare him or liken him to an airline pilot. Let's say that you're in an airplane. The plane is in mid-flight, and then there's Adam. He's our captain. He's locked in the cockpit with his co-pilot, when suddenly they both die. Now the cockpit is closed, and we know these days they are locked. There's no going in there. So with the co-pilot and the pilot both dead, The plane's going down, isn't it? It doesn't matter if you're in the cockpit and you're not dead, you're going down with the plane and you're dead too. That's an illustration of what happened with the whole human race which proceeded from Adam. In Adam all die, as Paul said to the Corinthians, referring to the spiritual death into which we are all born. Throughout the Old Testament, We learn that a spotless, a sacrifice without blemish was necessary to atone for sin. And for this reason, the work of the temple priests was to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people, and their work was never complete. Just as there was always more sin and more sin and more sin taking place among the people, there was always a sacrifice that needed to be made, because death was the consequence of sin. And if the person wasn't going to die, a substitute, a spotless, innocent substitute had to be offered in their place. Well, God so loved the world that he sent his only son to be that perfect sacrifice for his people. The blood of bulls and goats never did atone for sin, we learn in Hebrews. And if Jesus didn't die, then we would have to die. If he didn't die, Christianity completely crumbles, it completely falls apart as we've seen. Christ's substitutionary death is therefore what we would call a pillar of the faith. A pillar that stands, and it is strong. But there's a second pillar that the Christian faith stands on, and that is the truth of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I think it's important that we include the word bodily there, because there are some people who would say, well, okay, he was resurrected, but only as a spirit. No, he was raised in his body. This is of primary importance to the Christian. It's so important that if somebody denies the resurrection of Jesus, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, we deny fellowship to that person. That is to say that this is a doctrine, this is a belief that is non-negotiable for the Christian. And scripture forces us to draw a line in the sand and never to cross it. And somebody who does cross it, is no longer considered to be a brother or sister in Christ. It's something that we are to take as seriously as anything. Listen to what Paul says to the church in Corinth in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3 and 4. He writes this, for I delivered you as of first importance meaning this is primary, this is the most important thing. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The bodily resurrection of Jesus falls under what Paul refers to as a doctrine of first importance. There is no negotiating on this. He goes on to note later in the chapter that if there is no bodily resurrection of Jesus, he says, then our preaching is in vain. Your faith also is in vain. Now let me ask you this. Is our faith actually in vain? Is my preaching, or is Paul's preaching, or is any gospel preacher's preaching in vain? Paul would say, certainly not. Perish the thought. Not even close. It's not even close to being in vain. Is our faith in vain? No. Again, of course not. He wrote these letters to the Corinthians because their faith wasn't in vain. and neither is ours as we believe the same gospel. Now when I read 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3 and 4 a minute ago, I should note that I actually stopped at the end of verse 4, but that the sentence doesn't stop there. The sentence actually stops in verse 5. So allow me to read the entire thing to you. And listen to what he says. He 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 that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Now verse five, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Did you catch that? That final clause there in verse 5? He appeared to Cephas, that is Peter, and then to the twelve disciples. This is listed in the things that are of first importance. The fact that Christ appeared in bodily form to them is non-negotiable. They saw the resurrected Christ with their own eyes. It wasn't a wholesome fairy tale. It wasn't some story that they just made up. It wasn't a hallucination, as some liberal scholars have tried to argue. No, Christ literally and bodily appeared to the disciples. Now in the passage that we come to today, We're gonna see the events that lead up to that, how this all came about. Of course, we know that Jesus died on the day before the Sabbath, that is to say he died on Friday. And after having rested on the Sabbath Saturday, many of the women who had been faithful followers of Jesus throughout his ministry came to his tomb to anoint his body with spices. And so we read this in verse one. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. Why do we call this the Lord's Day? What day of the week did this happen on? This is leading up to the resurrection, to telling us about the resurrection, right? What day did the resurrection fall on? Sunday, right? The first day of the Jewish week. First day of our week. And so that's why we call it the Lord's Day. But here we're introduced to a woman named Mary Magdalene. If all we had was John's gospel, we would have absolutely no idea if anyone else was with her or not. Did she come alone? Did she come with others? We wouldn't know if all we had was John's gospel. But since we have three other gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we know that there were actually many women. There were several women who had come together to the tomb. Mark mentions Mary Magdalene, but he also goes on to mention Mary, the mother of James, and a woman named Siloam in Mark chapter 16 verse 1. Luke tells us that they were joined also by a woman named Joanna, and he tells us also just Generally speaking, he says there were other women there with them that came to the tomb. That's in Luke 24 10. Now let me ask you this, since all the Gospels name different women that are coming to the tomb, does that mean that they contradict one another? No. It is a contradictory, that is, for John to tell us only about Mary Magdalene, while the other gospel accounts tell us about all these other women who came to the tomb. Of course not. That's not contradictory at all. Let me ask you this. If somebody was writing a minute-by-minute biography of your life, It would be true if they said something like, you know, you came to church today to worship the Lord. But if another biographer said that you were there with 40 other people who gathered for worship, would those biographers be in contradiction? No. One just focused exclusively on you. One mentioned, hey, there were others there. There's no contradiction there. So John's gospel testimony, which there have been people who have tried to say that the gospel testimonies contradict one another on this point because they're naming different people. But no, John's gospel testimony here would only contradict the other gospel testimonies if he had said that Mary Magdalene and only Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Christ. But is that what he says? Is that what he writes? No. He just focuses in on her. And this is an important principle for us to keep in mind surrounding these events. Because there will be one gospel that tells us an angel was there, and then there will be another gospel account that says there were two angels there. That doesn't mean that there weren't a hundred angels there. It's just that they're focusing in on a specific angel or angels. Because while they're differing in details, even a half-hearted honest analysis of these testimonies, the gospel testimonies, shows them to be perfectly in harmony with one another. They are perfectly compatible with one another. When former Harvard Law professor Simon Greenleaf compared the testimonies specifically of the resurrection He believed that they were telling the truth, and he became a Christian because he knew that the eyewitnesses of Christ's resurrection were not lying based on the fact that there were some variants in their stories, in their testimonies. And he was actually the law professor that wrote the book on detecting lies by comparing the testimonies of multiple eyewitnesses. See, if they're too similar, they're lying. But if they add some other details here and there, coming at it from a different perspective, focusing on different things, those are things that actually lend credibility to their testimony. And his conclusion, Simon Greenleaf's conclusion was this, he says, quote, they could not have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated had not Jesus actually rose from the dead and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact, end quote. So Mary Magdalene and several other women They are actually the first ones to show up at the tomb on Sunday morning. What a wonderful example of faithful devotion unto God. If this was being made up, do you think they would have said that these women came there first? Think about the way that they viewed women in the first century. They weren't allowed to be eyewitnesses. But here are the Gospels telling us they're the first ones who are there. No, if they were making this up, they would have said we were the first ones there, right? So they show up, the women are the first ones to show up on Sunday morning at the tomb. Now we don't know why exactly John focuses in on her, but our modern age reminds us of how foolish and how dangerous it is to speculate too much on somebody that the scriptures speak very little about. Of course, you're probably aware that there are some very well-known modern books, works of fiction, that have speculated on things like, you know, Mary Magdalene and Jesus were having an affair, or that they moved to France and got married. By the way, these are blasphemous and heretical speculations. There is not a single shred, not a single grain of evidence to suggest or to support any of these things. No, all we have to support these theories is sinful man's fallen imagination. That's where these ideas all come from. But the truth is that we actually know very, very little about Mary Magdalene. All we know is what Scripture tells us. All we know is that Mark tells us that she had a son named Joseph, and Luke tells us that seven demons came out of Mary Magdalene, and that after these seven demons came out of Mary Magdalene, she financially supported Jesus's ministry. So with that said, She realized that she had received much from Jesus. She realized that she was richly, richly blessed by Jesus. And the fact of that was not lost on her. And her gratitude, her thankfulness unto the Lord was therefore great. Because she realized that what she'd been given was great. And the love of Christ constrained her to serve him. That's why she shows up Sunday morning. Has the love of Christ done the same for you? Does it constrain you? Does it compel you? It should. It seems that John actually focuses his attention on Mary Magdalene, not because she had some illicit love affair with Jesus, not because she moved to France and got married to Jesus, but because she's the one who would actually go to tell the disciples that the tomb was empty, which we read of in verse 2. So let's continue looking at verse 2. John writes, So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him. Now one thing that we can gather from this is very certain, and that is that neither Mary Magdalene nor the disciples had any idea, nor did they have any expectation, that Jesus would be risen in bodily form from the grave. They had no idea that Jesus was going to resurrect from the grave, despite the fact that Jesus had told them how many times? that he had preached at how many times that he would resurrect from the grave? Back in John 2, when Jesus goes into the temple, he says, you know, tear this temple down, I'll raise it again in three days. There you go. That's what he's talking about. And John realized that much later. But at this point, neither he nor any of the disciples realized that they're not expecting a resurrection. If this had been what they were expecting, you would have had the whole crowd of disciples, the whole gang gathered at the tomb on Sunday morning. And the women who showed up at the tomb wouldn't have come with spices to anoint his corpse with. This is something that took all of them by surprise. They didn't expect this, even though Jesus had taught them over and over. They had no idea that this was going to happen. We discussed swoon theory a couple weeks ago. That was the idea that Jesus didn't completely die. He came close. He almost died and was resuscitated by the cool air in the tomb, as if you could have your heart pierced, as if you could be scourged and lose pint after pint, gallons of blood, and then wake up in the tomb, as if that's possible. So we saw how easily that theory is refuted and debunked. But that hasn't stopped skeptics from trying to cast doubt on the bodily resurrection of Christ. There's a second theory out there that his disciples staged the resurrection. The reaction of Mary Magdalene and the disciples ensures us that this was not staged at all, as does the fact that the trajectory of each of the disciples' lives was completely changed upon seeing the risen Christ. the disciples would end up scattering eventually, and they would minister in various other regions throughout southern Europe, throughout the Middle East, throughout Asia, and all of them ended up being put to death for proclaiming the message of the resurrected Messiah. The one exception being perhaps John the Apostle, tradition tells us that he was thrown into a vat of boiling oil for preaching the gospel, but that it did not harm him and so he was exiled to Patmos Island. But the disciples scattered, they ended up scattering, going to different regions to minister. And if that's so, who was holding them accountable to this story if the story was invented, if they just made up this story? See, the fact is that if people put a story out there that they know is not true, if they know it's a lie, the less accountability they have to one another, the further they are in proximity to one another, the more likely they are to admit that the story is untrue, especially if the consequence for telling that story is death. And while people will die for a lie. They won't die. Nobody will die for something that they know is a lie. And so the disciples are shocked when Mary Magdalene shows up with this news of the empty tomb. If they had been staging the resurrection, they might have looked at each other and kind of winked and laughed. She's not in on it. Yeah, we're good. No, they wouldn't have rushed out of the place where they were gathered to see for themselves. But as we're about to see, that's what their reaction was, to run as fast as they could to see it for themselves. That's what we read of in verses 3-5, where John writes, So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together, and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first. And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. So two disciples, at least two disciples, Peter and the other disciple, react to the news by running to the tomb as quickly as they can. This isn't how people respond. This is not how people react when they are expecting something to happen. This is how they react when they weren't expecting something to happen. So of course, who is this other disciple? He refers to himself just as the other disciple here. In verse two, he referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loves. It's John. We know that it's John. He never refers to himself by name, but this is very characteristic of his style, so there's really no question about the identity of this other disciple. And John is sure to let us know that when he ran to the tomb, he got there before Peter. He ran faster than Peter did. I don't know about you guys. This has always been like one of my favorite little details, if not my absolute favorite detail that's found in the resurrection testimonies in any of the gospels, that the John outran Peter. It seems like that would just be a really insignificant detail. And I would say perhaps in one sense it is, and in significant detail, in the sense that the passage wouldn't lose any weight, any importance, it wouldn't lose any doctrine. There would be no doctrine that would be affected if John didn't include this detail. But there it is. There it is. And the scriptures tell us that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. So how does that verse, how does that little detail that he gives us, how does that become profitable to us? I've spent a lot of time wondering about that in my life. I've often wondered why John included that detail to begin with. Was he boasting? You know, like how young men will boast about, hey, you know, I ran, you know, two minutes faster than so-and-so, or, you know, I lifted, you know, 50 more pounds than so-and-so. You know, whatever. Young men often do that. Maybe he expected Peter to read this 30 or 40 years after it happened, knowing that Peter would say to himself, I can't believe that dude is still rubbing it in. Whatever the case may be, while this detail might seem insignificant, it's not. Number one, because it is in Scripture. And there's nothing in Scripture that's insignificant, but actually if we think about it, it's a very significant detail because somebody who's making up a story wouldn't include a detail like this that seems so unimportant. So what the inclusion of this detail actually does is it adds to the credibility. It adds to the trustworthiness. It adds to the reliability of John's eyewitness testimony. And so upon arriving at the tomb first, before Peter, John stoops to look inside. He doesn't go in. He just stoops to look inside. And he sees the linen with which Jesus' body was wrapped laying there. But he didn't go in. He didn't go in to investigate, not yet. But it's interesting that he didn't go in. Why do you think it is that he didn't actually just go into the tomb? Well, first of all, if he was making the story up, I think he would have told us that that's what he did. But the fact that he says that he didn't, again, it adds to the credibility of his testimony. But I would suspect that John possibly didn't go in out of respect to Peter, Peter being the older disciple. But really, I think it's more likely that John didn't go in because what he saw, he couldn't believe. As he looks into the tomb, he can't believe his eyes. Maybe he was even scared. Maybe he's struck with a little bit of being timid or being a coward. Or maybe he's just confused at what he sees. But I want us to think about what he saw. He saw the linens with which Jesus was wrapped lying there. Now, if the body had been removed by a grave robber, for whatever reason, would those linens be left behind? Of course not. They don't want to carry a corpse without it being wrapped. And if somebody had unwrapped the body of Jesus to leave the linens behind, what happened to the 75 to 100 pounds of spices that Nicodemus had wrapped in the linen on Friday? Where did those spices go? So implied here, very certainly implied here is that the spices were still neatly wrapped within the linens. Now John might've been expecting to find evidence of a grave robbery, but instead he sees evidence of a bodily resurrection. Something no person up until this point in all of human history has ever seen before. And so he doesn't know what to make of it. He doesn't know what to think. See, what happened here was entirely different from what John described for us back in chapter 11, when Lazarus was raised from the dead. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, we saw that he came out of the tomb. We read in John 11, 44, the man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. And of course, we know that Jesus instructed those who were gathered there with him, saying, unbind him and let him go. Now, okay, if Jesus' body had been stolen, they would have also taken the linens. If Jesus had raised from the dead the same way that Lazarus did, he wouldn't have been able to unbind or unwrap himself. But what John sees is that the linens which had been wrapped around Jesus' body were actually untouched, and yet the body of Christ was gone. So what this means is that what Jesus experienced was entirely different from what Lazarus experienced. Lazarus was resuscitated back into his same old body, the same body over which death had dominion. He would die again someday. But Jesus didn't. He didn't resurrect in the same type of body. It shows us that He was raised in a body that was different. Lazarus' body would grow old and die, but Jesus' body would not, and so He lives and reigns forevermore. Jesus was resurrected with a new, glorified body. James Montgomery Boyce writes this, he says, quote, The body of the Lord was glorified. It was sown a natural body and was raised a spiritual body, end quote. And that's not to say that he was a spirit. It's to say that this was his glorified body. And so what all of these details lead us to conclude is that when Jesus was resurrected, his body passed through the linens leaving them neatly and orderly in the place where his body had laid. And as we continue, the details continue to support this. Let's look at verses 6 and 7. John continues writing, Think back again one more time. to when Lazarus came out of the grave. Jesus has just resurrected him. He's resuscitated him back to life. He comes out of the grave. And John said this, he said, the man who had died came forth bound hand and foot with wrappings. And then this, this is the part I want you to see. And his face was wrapped around with a cloth. So there's an empty spot. The whole body, it's not a mummy. It's not wrapped like a mummy. What this means is that the wrappings around the body were separate from the cloth that was wrapped around his head. And that was the custom in that time. We can gather that actually from other passages in the New Testament. An archaeologist in the early 20th century named Henry Latham unearthed many buried bodies from that era. And as he did, he observed that the bodies from this specific time period were all prepared the same way for burial. They would be wrapped in linen from the bottom of the shoulders, from the lower shoulders down to the feet, but they would not cover the upper shoulder, the neck, or the face. the tops of their heads were actually covered by kind of a if you might want to imagine like a turban like cloth that have been twisted or twirled to keep it in place. This fits with the way that Lazarus's resurrection or resuscitation was described in this also fits with another story. Luke tells us of a time when Jesus came across a funeral procession for a widow's son as the procession was leaving the city, and Jesus raised the young man back to life. And in doing so, we're told that the young man sat up, so he wasn't encased in a coffin or anything like we might imagine. He was probably just on kind of a stretcher, but it was just his wrapped body on the stretcher. But he was also apparently laid on his back. We're told that when he sat up, he began to speak. Well, how could he speak if he was wrapped up for a funeral procession in linens and spices? because his grave clothes didn't cover his mouth. And by the way, this is why I believe the Shroud of Turin is probably just a big hoax. If you're not familiar with the Shroud of Turin, it's supposedly a linen that was laid over Jesus's face and it shows an impression, it kind of looks like a negative picture. of Jesus or of somebody and they say that it's Jesus. Well that's not exactly how they were buried. There wouldn't have been a linen over his mouth. That's not the way that they buried people in that time. But this would have been the exact same manner. What we saw in Lazarus's resurrection, what we saw in Jesus raising this young man, the son of the orphan, back to life, this would have been the same manner in which Joseph and Nicodemus had wrapped Jesus's body. And so with these things in mind, here, verse seven again, it says, the face cloth, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. Do you see what John's describing here? He's telling us that the linens and the cloth that covered the upper part of the head were both untouched, that they were separated. They hadn't been moved though, but the body of Christ was gone. Now at this point there is absolutely no explanation, no logical explanation for how this could happen unless His glorified resurrection body passed right through the linens and the headcloth. Now before we speculate too much about what that means for us when we're resurrected, let's make sure we understand that Jesus also walked on water in his human body, his non-glorified body. And we can't do that. So the things that Jesus can do, that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll be able to do the same things. So just to clear that up, because there is a lot of speculation about what our glorified bodies are going to be like. We don't exactly know. But everybody who's in Christ will know eventually. And John wasn't the only one who saw this. Peter, who went down into the tomb, he also saw this. Peter went in. And John followed him, but Peter saw this too. We often speak of Jesus' tomb being empty, but the tomb wasn't empty. It was just no longer occupied. Instead, John and Peter stumbled across all this evidence of Christ's bodily resurrection. Mary Magdalene hadn't gone inside the tomb. All she knew was that Jesus' body wasn't in there. She figured that his body had been stolen. She says they have taken his body, whoever they is, the authorities or grave robbers or whoever. But she figured that his body was stolen. But Peter and John, upon examining the evidence, they have every reason to believe otherwise. To conclude not that Jesus' body was stolen, but that it had been resurrected in glorious form. And so how did they respond to this? We see their response in the verses that follow. Let's look at verses eight and 10, eight through 10. We read, so the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes. Now if this was, again, the only gospel testimony, the only eyewitness testimony that we had for the resurrection, would it be enough to convince anyone to believe? Maybe. It was enough for John to believe. He tells us that after seeing and considering the evidence, he believed that Jesus was alive. So John believed upon seeing the evidence, and we actually see this progression that he goes through from confusion to belief in the way that he uses three completely different Greek words that get translated as to see or saw, past tense. Those Greek words are blepo, theoreo, and horao. In verse 5, John uses the Greek word blepo. He writes, and stooping in and looking in he saw, there it is, blepo, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. This word means simply to look. just to see, to observe. In verse 6 he progresses. He uses the Greek word theoreo. He writes, and so Simon Peter also came following him and entered the tomb and he saw the linen wrappings lying there. This is the Greek word theoreo from which we get our word Theorize, which is exactly what it means. It means to theorize. It means to contemplate, to think about things, to think about the meaning, to think about the significance of something. And then in verse 8, John uses the third Greek word for to see, horao. He wrote, so the other disciple who had first come to the tomb, speaking of himself here, then also entered, and he saw, there it is again, and believed. This word, horao, means to see with understanding. It means to see and to comprehend what you're seeing. So he understood that Jesus was alive. See, the disciples had no expectation. that Jesus was going to rise from the dead. They had no expectation that He was going to be resurrected. Which is why some of His disciples headed home to Emmaus thinking, oh boy, there go all our hopes, the Messiah is dead. They had no expectation that He would rise again. John tells us that He, like the other disciples, didn't understand that the Messiah must rise again, must be raised again from the dead. But after seeing what he saw, after seeing what John saw, the linens still wrapped neatly, the head cloth still twirled in the place where Jesus' head would have been, John believed. He reaches the only logical conclusion, that Jesus was alive. He had been resurrected from the dead in such a way that the evidence for Christ's resurrection would actually be undeniable. It would be so conclusive, it would be undeniable. If John's eyewitness testimony, isn't enough for you to believe. Maybe that would be understandable if his testimony was the only testimony that we have about the resurrection, but it's not. It's not by a long shot, not even close. Paul told the Corinthians, again, back in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, he said, he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, going on to verse six, he says, After that, he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also." Now John has already given us very credible, very reliable, considerable evidence in only these 10 verses for the resurrection. And he's going to continue to give us even more reasons to believe as he continues with his gospel after this. But the other gospel testimonies, they give us even more evidence that compels us to believe. And Paul tells us that Jesus at one time appeared to more than 500 brethren after His resurrection. Notice that He didn't appear to 500 people. Generally speaking, no, he appeared to 500 brethren. It's almost like Paul, in writing that, in saying that, that Jesus appeared to more than 500 people, some of whom are still living among you. It's almost like he's challenging the person who says, I'm not sure I believe. I'm not sure that this is real. Maybe they made this story up. It's like he's challenging them, saying, hey, if you don't believe this, there are 500 people who saw him at once, and some of them are your neighbors. Go and talk to them. Friends, that is not the way that somebody talks when they're making up a story. This is not the kind of stuff that somebody who's making up some kind of story would encourage their readers to do. Now, when somebody's making up a story, what they'll say is, well, only one person saw this, or only two people saw this, and sorry, there's no evidence, but they saw it. Is that not how Mormonism got started? That's how Mormonism got started. John believed. But while his faith was real, we need to understand that his faith wasn't complete. Not yet. To fully understand, where would John and the other disciples, where would they have to turn? to the Scriptures. In order to gain true understanding, John and the disciples would have to read through the Scriptures with eyes to see, eyes that are born of faith. And the same is true for us, friends. Richard Phillips, he puts it this way, he says, quote, whatever witness was used to bring us to believe in Jesus, our faith must then be built upon the solid rock of God's Word, end quote. It was not that they believed because they finally understood the Scriptures. Rather, it was the other way around. They understood the Scriptures because they believed. And this is a lesson that we have seen over and over again in John's Gospel. In God's way of ordering things, seeing is not believing. That's the way fallen man thinks. Seeing is believing. Prove it to me and then I'll believe. We all know that that's not true. It does not work that way. You can preach the gospel to a tree. And it's just as effective as preaching to a person who says, prove it to me and then I'll believe, without God working in them. No. In God's ordering of things, believing is seeing. And Scripture cannot rightly be seen. Scripture cannot rightly be understood through a lens skepticism or curiosity. It can only be rightly understood through the lens of faith. A faith that will yield itself to whatever God's Word says regardless of our own understandings or desires. As for John, he brings us to a very important point. That being that our experiences are not sufficient to cause us to believe. Rather, we, like John, must view our experiences in light of what the Scriptures say. As Christians, we must see God's Word as being the supreme authority in our lives. It tells us what is true. It tells us what is false. It gives us warnings. It gives us assurances. Whatever it says is true because whatever God says is true. The world will tell you, listen to your heart, right? Who hasn't heard that? It's like such an old cliche. It's like you'd think that by now somebody would have said, my heart's telling me to do some wicked, evil things. No, our hearts are liars. And they're terrible liars at that. But for this reason, our feelings and our experiences can only take us so far when we're trying to discover what is true. If we believe something to be true, it must first be measured against the Scriptures. What saith the Lord? What does God say? And not the other way around. I'll believe what I believe based on what I feel about what God says. If you're willing to believe the Scriptures only insofar as it aligns with your own feelings and your own ideas and your own preferences, you are in for a world of trouble. No, if we believe something to be true, it must first be measured against what God tells us in His Word. And this was the case with John. His faith was complete when he tested his experiences against what the Scriptures say. Hear again the words of Paul from 1 Corinthians 15. He 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 that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day again, according to the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures, that is the key to understanding the truth about reality. The fact is that the idea of the resurrection actually isn't unique to the New Testament. The Old Testament tells us that it's coming. The first book that was written was actually not Genesis, that tells us about the earliest, chronologically tells us the earliest times, but it wasn't the first one written. The first book that was written was probably Job, which was probably written sometime between the time of Abraham and Moses. But in Job, we read Job saying this, he says, "'As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall behold.'" What's he describing there? The fact that He will be resurrected, even after His skin is destroyed. How could that be? The only way is by a resurrection. We also know that Abraham, when Abraham was instructed by God to kill his son Isaac, the book of Hebrews tells us that he was convinced that God was planning on resurrecting Isaac. So the resurrection is found in the Old Testament. It's there. The resurrection of Christ is the fulfillment of those foreshadowings that we read in the Old Testament. The resurrection of Christ is God's guarantee that there will be a future bodily resurrection from the dead into glory one day for all who believe in Christ. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, 20, he says, but now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits, of those who are asleep. In other words, His resurrection proves that those who have already died will be resurrected with glorified bodies. So why does any of this matter? Why does the resurrection of Christ matter? I mean, it serves to demonstrate that He has conquered His and our enemies, sin and death. It serves to demonstrate that the claims that He made during His earthly ministry were true. And it serves to prove that His work of offering Himself as an atoning sacrifice for sin, for all who believe, was sufficient and accepted by the Father and pleasing to the Father. Without Christ's blood shed, there is no new covenant. And if there is no new covenant, there is no remission of sins. And without His resurrection, there's no hope. for what is yet to come. And there's no proof without His resurrection that the Father accepted and was pleased by Christ's work and His death. The resurrection of Jesus matters, friends, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Saved from what? Saved from hell. This is serious, serious stuff. The resurrection of Christ. is a warning to all who do not believe on Jesus of the judgment that they will face one day. Our existence, whether you're a believer or an unbeliever, our existence does not end when we take our last breath. Even those who do not believe will be resurrected into judgment, into what the Bible calls a second death. Now, I do not want that for anyone. I certainly don't want it for any of you. What I want for you, what I pray for you, friends, is for the Spirit of God to move you to believe. And if you already believe, to believe more fully, more firmly, with more devotion. You must know that tomorrow isn't promised to you if you haven't believed. But forgiveness is promised to all who repent and believe. For those who have believed on Jesus savingly, the resurrection of Jesus is God's promise. It's his guarantee that history's end will not be determined by fallen man, but that God is moving history toward a gloriously joyful ending in which we will forever dwell in God's presence. And we will never, ever have to dwell in the presence of sin ever again. Thomas Watson said this, I'll close with this, he said, the grave is your long home but not your last home. Though death strip you of your beauty, yet at the resurrection you shall have it restored again. And I would only add, and then some. Hallelujah. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the fact that You have given it to us, and the fact that it is breathed out by You itself is sufficient for us to heed everything that it says. We thank You for passages like this, which give assurance and give credibility to our curious, sinful natures, our flesh, which wants to see proof. We thank you for the eyewitness testimony that you have given us, that you've handed down to us in your Word through the eyewitnesses who saw the risen Christ. We pray, O Lord, that like John, we would believe. And that as we examine the Scriptures, and as we weigh everything against the Scriptures, that our faith would be strengthened. In fact, that it would be a completed faith by Your grace. We thank You, O Lord, that You have given us eyes to see and ears to hear the glorious truth of the resurrection. Forbid us, O Lord, from living as if this life is all there is, but teach us to live every day, every moment in light of the truth of the resurrection and for the glory of Him who redeemed us and rose again to prove that His work was sufficient. In His name we pray. Amen.