He is Risen!
Death is dead! Death is dead!
The Lord, Christ Jesus has risen! Death is dead!
Death is dead
And love lives on.
This will be my people’s song.
Life lives again for all the world to see
Death has been overwhelmed by victory.
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
—1 Corinthians 15:3-4
A sermon delivered by R.C. Sproul at the 2006 West Coast Conference
Witnesses of the Resurrection: The Apostolic Message • HT
Included in this Resurrection Sunday post along with a sermon from Dr. R.C. Sproul and a clip from Ravi Zacharias, I add too excerpts from C.H. Spurgeon’s sermon, “Resurrection, Christ the First Fruits”. I pray you be exceedingly blessed by these videos and sermons far more than I have been. And before I leave you to sir Spurgeon’s sermon, I share to you a blessed hymn for this Lord’s Day, “O show me not my Savior Dying.”
O show me not my Savior dying,
As on the cross He bled;
Nor in the tomb, a captive lying,
For He has left the dead.
Then bid me not that form extended
For my Redeemer own,
Who, to the highest heavens ascended,
In glory fills the throne.
Weep not for Him at Calvary’s station,
Weep only for thy sins;
View where He lay with exultation,
’Tis there our hope begins.
Yet stay not there, thy sorrows feeding,
Amid the scenes He trod;
Look up, and see Him interceding
At the right hand of God.
Still in the shameful cross I glory,
Where His dear blood was spilt:
His shameful cross, set forth before me,
Hath canceled all my guilt.
Yet what, ’mid conflict and temptation,
Shall strength and honor give?
He lives, the Captain of Salvation,
Therefore His servants live.
By death, He death’s dark king defeated,
And overcame the grave:
Rising, the triumph He completed;
He lives, he reigns to save.
Heaven’s happy myriads bow before Him:
He comes, the Judge of men:
These eyes shall see Him, and adore Him,
Lord Jesus, own me then.
Words: Josiah Conder, Congregational Hymn Book, 1836, number 160.
“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.”—1 Corinthians 15:20
The fact of Christ’s resurrection is exceedingly well attested. It was needful that it should be beyond dispute, since it lies at the very basis of our holy faith; it is consoling to think that it is so; for thus our foundation standeth most secure.
Does it not strike you that very many events of the greatest importance recorded in history, and commonly believed, could not in the nature of things have been witnessed by one-tenth as many as the resurrection of Christ? The signing famous treaties affecting nations-the births of princes-the remarks of cabinet ministers-the projects of conspirators-and the deeds of assassins-any and all of these have been made turning points in history, and are never questioned as facts, and yet but few could have been present to witness them.
We believe that the very best attested fact in all history is the resurrection of Christ. Historical doubts concerning the existence of Napoleon Buonaparte, or the stabbing of Julius Caesar, or the Norman Conquest, would be quite as reasonable as doubts concerns the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. None of these matters have such witnesses as those who testify of Him-witnesses who were manifestly truthful, since they suffered for their testimony, and most of them died ignominious and painful deaths as the results of their belief. We have more and better evidence for this fact than for anything else which is written in history, either sacred or profane.
Oh! how should we rejoice, we who hang our salvation wholly upon Christ, that beyond a doubt it is established that, “now is Christ risen from the dead.”
But you may ask the question at the outset, “Why is it that the resurrection of Christ is of so much importance?” Upon it we have said that the whole system of Christianity rests; for “If Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain; ye are yet in your sins.”—1 Corinthians 15:14-17.
The divinity of Christ finds its surest proof in his resurrection, since the apostle tells us in the first chapter of the Romans, at the fourth verse, that Christ was “Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” It would not be unreasonable to doubt his deity if he had not risen.
Moreover, Christ’s sovereignty also depends upon his resurrection for Scripture affirms: “To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.”—Romans 4:9.
Again, our justification, that choice blessing of the covenant, hangs upon Christ’s resurrection. “He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.”—Romans 4:25.
Nay, more, our very regeneration depends upon his resurrection, for Peter, speaking by the Holy Ghost, exclaims, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”—1 Peter 1:3.
And most certainly our ultimate resurrection rests here; for “If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”—Romans 8:11. If Christ be not risen, then shall we not rise; but if he be risen, then they who are asleep in Christ, have not perished, but in their flesh shall surely behold their God.
It would not be difficult to enlarge this catalogue. The fact is, that the silver thread of resurrection runs through all the blessings, from regeneration onward to our eternal glory, and binds them together.
First, let us look well to the holiness of our bodies. “Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost? If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy.” We do not believe in consecrated Churches; we think it altogether absurd to talk of holy bricks and mortar; but we do know by Scriptural authority that the body is holy-that the body of the saint is as really holy as men pretend that Churches and temples may be.
Now, brethren, if our eyes look upon vanity, we have defiled the windows of God’s house; if our tongues speak that which is evil, have we not desecrated the gates of the temple of the Lord? Let us see to it that our feet carry us nowhere but where our Master can go with us, lest the pillars of our house become our destruction, like the pillars of the Philistine temple of old. Let us mind that our hands be outstretched for naught but that which is pure and lovely, lest like Belshazzar we profane the vessels of the Lord’s temple.
They who pamper the body, they who look to its adornment, they who regard its physical health more than its moral purity, forget the higher end of their being; for what is beauty after all? what the comeliness which human skill can give? See you that skull? “Go, take that to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, though she paint herself an inch thick, to that complexion must she come at last.”
“Will ye take the members of Christ and make them members of an harlot?” saith the apostle Paul, when he biddeth men see to it that their bodies be chaste and pure.
Know ye not that your very flesh, if ye be Christians, has been bought with Christ’s blood, and that precious is your very dust in his sight. Mind ye, O mind ye, that the slime of the serpent come not here, and that ye defile not the members of your body, lest the Lord abhor you, and cast you out from his presence, as things he careth not for, being none of his. Let us look at things in this light, and so by the Holy Spirit escape from sin.
What! shall these eyes that are one day to “See the king in his beauty,” be delighted with vanity?
Shall these lips that are to be tuned to melodious sonnets “sung by flaming tongues above,” talk that which is light and frivolous, and ministreth not unto edification?
What! shall these fingers that are to strike the golden harps be given up to work unrighteousness with greediness?
Nay, as we are to be fellows with the angels, and more glorious than they, and as these bodies are to be made like unto Christ’s body, let us keep them pure, washed with clean water by his Spirit, renewed and preserved, that we go not astray unto sin. But, secondly, another thought arises here.
Are we among those for whom Christ thus stood as firstfruits? For Christ is to rise first, as the firstfruits, “afterwards they that are Christ’s, at his coming.” Then when do the wicked rise? There are two resurrections; and “blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.”
When the Lord shall come from heaven, with the trump of the archangel and the voice of God, then the dead in Christ shall suddenly start from their sleep, and shall be offered to God as the great harvest, the great Pentecost, of which Christ’s resurrection was the firstfruits. What then shall become of the wicked? They shall continue rotting in their graves; the worm shall feed upon them…
But what then? When the splendors of the millennial age are over, then cometh the end. The king shall ascend the judgment seat; he who came to reign with his people, shall suddenly, sitting upon his throne, bid his angel proclaim the last assize. Then unwillingly shall souls tormented in hell come back from Tophet to be re-united with their equally guilty bodies, and he who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell, shall say, “Gather them together in bundles to burn them.?” He shall pronounce their sentence, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire in hell, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Oh! that you and I may be among the harvest, and not the vintage. There are two ingatherings mentioned, you remember, in the Revelation. The harvest is the gathering in of the righteous; they are carefully housed in God’s barn. The vintage is the gathering of the wicked; they are cast into the wine-press of the wrath of Almighty God, “and they are trodden under foot till their blood runs forth up to the horses’ bridles.”
Now, how am I to know whether I belong to that portion of which Christ is the firstfruits?
Why, thus: If Christ rose for me, and if I rose in him, then I died in him.
Oh! soul, dost thou believe that Christ died for thee?
Hast thou a part in his passion?
Dost thou hope in his agonies?
Dost thou rest on his cross?
If so, he that died for thee rose for thee too, and thou art a part of that holy lump of which Christ was the holy offering.
Hast thou died with Christ thyself?
Art thou dead to the world?
Dost thou hate the things that thou didst once love?
Art thou weaned from thine old pleasures?
Dost thou seek for something higher and better?
Ah! then, if thou hast died with him, thou art risen with him.
Say now, dost thou desire to be one with Christ? For if thou art one with him in heart, thou shalt be one with him in all his trophies and his glories.
Dost thou say, “Nay. I care not for Christ?”
Soul! Soul! If thou diest in that mind thou shalt have no part in the first resurrection; but when the wicked rise, then shalt thou “Awaken to shame and everlasting contempt.”
But, and if thou sayest in thy heart this morning, “I believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead according to the Scriptures, and I put my sole and only trust in him; he is to me all my salvation and all my desire,” go thy way; thou shalt “stand in thy lot at the end of the days;” thou shalt have thy portion among them that are sanctified; thou shalt rejoice together with him, and sit down at his marriage banquet for ever.
God add his own blessing, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Resurrection—Christ the First Fruits
No. 445A Sermon delivered on Sunday morning, April 20, 1862,by Rev. C.H. Spurgeon,at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.Read the whole of this sermon on the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and He being the firstfruits of our salvation, here.
