Let us turn to Matthew 27. I am going to start reading in verse 57. This is after Jesus died on the cross. I will go into chapter 28, the first ten verses. It says in Matthew 27:57-28:10:
When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre. Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch. In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week…
In the King James, the English wording for Matthew 28:1 is not correct. Actually, it is better read from the Greek:
In the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.
I will stop reading there.
This is the wonderful account that the Bible records for us of the death and then the burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and it is the Christian’s or the child of God’s great hope. As we see that Christ rose from the dead, we also have faith that we will rise from the dead if we were to die, or to be raptured if we remain alive.
Yet before we get into this and discuss this, we have learned a lot more over the last year, since last Easter, that we have to keep in mind. We have to view what we are reading here with this other information in mind, like Revelation 13:8 which says that Jesus was as a Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world or from the foundation of the world. That verse, which has always been there (except we did not understand it properly), is telling us that Christ died for His people’s sins before the world began.
Actually, Christ created the world. He was the Son who spoke and the world came into being. Before that happened, everything was finished. All of the works necessary to save His people were completed. They were done and we have to keep that in mind.
Also, if we go to Romans 1, there is a little passage that gives us more information. We do read that Jesus was slain from before the foundation of the world, but we do not read anywhere, very straightforwardly, that He rose. It does not say that He was resurrected from before the foundation of the world. But since He died, He had to rise or He could not have entered into the world at the time that He did. In Romans 1, God really covers this idea. In Romans 1:3-4, it says:
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
Now, did everybody hear that? Did you see that? Did you see how that was said? God does this all the time. He will make a statement in the beginning part of the verse:
…declared to be the Son of God with power…
Then He will give more information following it that actually makes it easy for us, who are so dull of hearing to begin with, to miss the point. Then at the end of the verse, He will conclude with a very important bit of information.
In other words, if it read that Jesus, who this is speaking of:
And declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.
You see, if you take out that little middle part, it is more straight and clear. It is telling us that Jesus was declared, that the name or the title given to Him of the Son of God was via or through or by the resurrection from the dead.
So in order for Jesus to be called the Son—and we can see why this would be because He rose and He was the first begotten from the dead, as it tells us in Colossians—He rose from the dead. At that point, He became the first Son to do so, and so that is when He was declared to be the Son.
Now, this is important because in Hebrews 1:2, it says in reference to God:
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
So Jesus was the Son before the creation. He was the Creator, but He was the Creator who was called the Son. He could not be called the Son unless He had first risen from the dead, which means that He died from the foundation of the world.
So He paid the penalty in full. The wages of sin is death. Whatever God’s Law required, Christ fulfilled completely. Then He rose; He was resurrected. At that point, He was called the Son.
I do not know how we can pinpoint this. This was still in eternity past. He had not yet created the world. But following this, He speaks and He creates the universe and the earth as the Son.
Then later, after time begins to unfold, He enters into the human race; actually, after 11,000 years of history. He is born of a virgin and He is raised in the household of Joseph and Mary. Then later, He begins His ministry, which includes going to the cross and dying and then being buried and then being raised again. After the three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, He is raised early Sunday morning.
Yet it is all to show us or to teach us what He had already done from before the world began, and this is what we have to keep in mind. This is what we have to remember when we are reading Matthew 27 or Matthew 28. This was Jesus demonstrating what had taken place prior to the world’s beginning, and this helps us to know that Christ was suffering before the cross. He did suffer (on the cross), but He was not bearing sins at that point in time; He had already paid for them.
Well, I thought we could go through a few verses here in Matthew 28 and also take a look later at a couple other places in the other gospels that refer to the time from that early Sunday morning when the disciples came to the grave and what they found. It says in Matthew 28:1:
In the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths…
Why does God put this that way? The reason is that the Old Testament Sabbath was Saturday, the seventh day, a day when God had said that there was to be no work done. It was a day of rest. If anyone did any work, they were stoned to death, like the man who picked up a few sticks in the wilderness. God ordered him, commanded him, to be killed by stoning because that Sabbath looked towards the work that Christ had done and would do as He would enter into the world as the Messiah in order to fulfill all righteousness and to make things manifest of what He had already accomplished.
So that was the end of the Sabbaths. Early Sunday morning, God was finished using the seventh day as the Sabbath Day. That cycle, which was from creation, was finally broken. That is why it is plural:
In the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths…
Because that Sunday morning was the first Sunday Sabbath, the very first one.
By the way, I was just thinking about this. We know that from the cross, which was Friday—I think it was April 1st in the year 33 A.D.—until May 21st in 2011 is 722,500 days. Right? That is one of the proofs that show us that May 21st is going to be the rapture, because that number, if you break it down, is 5 x 10 x 17 x 5 x 10 x 17. That is the one that repeats. It shows the number 5 for the atonement, which Christ made on that day in 33 A.D. It also shows the number 10, the completeness of the work of God in applying that atonement to His people. Then the number 17 represents Heaven.
So God is telling us that, yes, we are correct, and there are many other bits of evidence that God gives us that May 21st, 2011 will be the rapture and the day of the resurrection. Yet when we realize that the first Sunday was two days later, then it was 722,498 days. Right? If Friday was 722,500, two days later gives us 722,498, which divides by 7 pretty neatly; it is 103,214 Sabbath Days until May 21st, 2011. That is the total number of Sundays that God gave to the world, the Sunday Sabbath. That last one in May will be the 103,214th.
Just to put this in perspective a little bit, from this Sunday until May 21st, 2011, we have about 109 Sabbaths left. So 103,105 have passed—now, I am very close with these numbers; I am not saying that I am exact, but I am very close—leaving about 109 more Sundays.
So if you are someone who does not delight in the Lord’s Day, if it has been a burden to you and you cannot wait for the Sabbath to be past in order to get to your normal activities—whatever it is that you enjoy and want to do—then you will not have very much longer to put up with Sunday, just about 109 more counting this one, I believe. So be patient. Be patient. It is coming to an end.
Well, I am sorry; I should not say it like that. You know, it is sad. It is very sad that God has given us this day and it is a beautiful day. It is a great day for spiritual activities. It is a wonderful day for reading the Bible and for worshipping God, to do all of these things on Sunday, and yet there are very few left, very few.
Well, here, in Matthew 28:1-2:
In the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake…
You know, when we read about resurrection in the Bible, sometimes God joins it together with an earthquake, like in the previous chapter. In Matthew 27:50-54, it says:
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.
You see, again, there was an earthquake and the graves were opened. In Matthew 28, there is an earthquake and the tomb of Jesus is open. That is how God is identifying an earthquake in the Bible.
It is also found in Revelation 11. In Revelation 11, we read about an earthquake after the two witnesses had stood upon their feet. I will start at the beginning of Revelation 11:11. It says in Revelation 11:11-13:
And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
So in these verses, we see the two witnesses standing on their feet, which has to do with the latter rain period that we are currently in as God is sending the Gospel into the world. Then following that—and that is what will happen—on May 21st will be the rapture. Notice here:
…they ascended up to heaven in a cloud…
Jesus comes at His return, as it says in 1 Thessalonians 4, in the clouds.
…and their enemies beheld them…
This is because it is the rapture. They are taken up. At that time, all of the unsaved will see. All of those left behind will see this happen. This is one of the verses that lets us know this matter-of-factly. They will behold these things with their eyes.
And the same hour was there a great earthquake…
This is because this is also the day of the resurrection, May 21st. It is the day when Christ will speak and those who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, some to life and some to the resurrection of damnation, which means that they will be brought out of the graves and lifted up supernaturally by the power of God. They are not coming back to life. None of the wicked, none of the unsaved will experience conscious existence again, but they will come up by God’s power as He raises them. Since they are coming up, God says that they are hearing His voice even though they have no life, and then they will be scattered on the face of the earth as dung, according to a few places in the Bible, and that day is close at hand.
If we also go to Zechariah 14, Zechariah is the next-to-the-last book in the Old Testament. It says in Zechariah 14:5:
And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and JEHOVAH my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
Once again, we see the earthquake and Christ coming with the saints. That is, again, what the Bible tells us will be the case. Jesus will come with His people. He will come with the saints and it is linked together. God associates it with the earthquake, which will be worldwide, because that is where the bodies are; they are everywhere; they are all over the face of the earth.
So the ground will open up at the cemeteries, obviously, but it could open up right in the middle of our house because we do not know what has been going on for 13,000 years of history before our time. Maybe some ancient people have been buried in our backyard or in our front yard, or wherever; we have no idea.
So there is really nowhere to run. There is nowhere to hide and to escape and say, “Well, I will just get away from tall buildings.” That will not be the case. The ground is going to open up on a massive scale everywhere in the world, and the Bible is telling us this.
In the Greek, “great earthquake” is megas seismos. Seismos is maybe familiar to you, like a seismograph that is used to measure earthquakes. They get that word from the Greek word for earthquake. They also use seismometers that measure the force of the shaking of the ground, and it comes from this word that is in Matthew 28:2:
And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
Who is “the angel of the Lord”? The language of “the angel of the Lord” is found many times in the Bible, and it is God. It is the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus actually is the One who came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it and announced His own resurrection. Is that not amazing! This is actually what is in view, that Jesus was announcing His own resurrection.
If we go to Exodus 3:2, it says:
And the angel of JEHOVAH appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
In the King James, it says “the angel of the LORD” and “LORD” is capitalized, but this is the same person as in Matthew 28:2 [note: the speaker inadvertently referred to Matthew 28:1]. It is the angel of God, the angel of the Saviour, the angel of the Lord, who is Christ.
Or go over to Judges 13. You might remember this account of Manoah and his wife as they were told that they would have a son, a very special son, who was Samson. God came to them in the form of this angel of the Lord. It says in Judges 13:13:
And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware.
Then verse 15, Judges 13:15:
And Manoah said unto the angel of JEHOVAH, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee.
And then verse 16, Judges 13:16:
And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto Manoah…
The phrase “the angel of Jehovah” is also in the bottom part of verse 16. It is in verse 17 and verse 18. There are many references to “the angel of Jehovah.” Then in verse 20, Judges 13:20-22:
For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of JEHOVAH ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. But the angel of JEHOVAH did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of JEHOVAH. And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.
So, very definitely, the “angel of the LORD” is God. It is Christ Himself.
There is another reference in Psalm 34:7:
The angel of JEHOVAH encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
Of course, God is the One who gets the fear and not an angelic being. We are not to fear angels who are in heaven, only God Himself. There are many Scripture verses that support and prove that “the angel of the Lord” is God.
If you think that it is kind of unusual that Christ is announcing His own resurrection, to us it is, but He also announced His own birth. It was the same situation when He came into the world in Matthew 1. In Matthew 1:20, this is referring to Joseph and it says:
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
In that, Jesus is referring to Himself. He is referring to His own birth.
In Luke 2, we also read of this. Luke 2:9-11:
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
This is a mystery to us. Why did they not recognize this “angel of the Lord” as Jesus? This happened several times where Jesus appeared after His resurrection and they did not recognize Him. When He was on the road to Emmaus, those two disciples did not recognize Him until later when they broke bread and then they knew who He was. Also, when Jesus was on the shore while the apostles were fishing, He asked them, “Have you caught any fish or meat?” They said, “None.” Then He told them to cast the net to (I think it was) the right side of the boat and they caught 153 fish; then they recognized that He was the Lord.
So, too, here in Matthew 28:2 [note: speaker said Matthew 28:1]. This is Christ:
…the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door…
This is what Resurrection Sunday is all about, because that stone sealed the tomb. They tried to make sure that it would never be moved. The Romans and the Jewish leaders were concerned that Christ’s body would be taken and that His disciples would start telling a story, so they sealed the stone and set a watch to make sure that His body could never be taken, and yet that could not stop God. He simply rose from the dead and went to heaven and no earthly stone or barrier of any kind could ever stop Christ from accomplishing His mission of showing what He had done from before the foundation of the world. So He just rolled the stone away.
Just like in the case of Lazarus in John 11. Remember Lazarus whom Jesus loved and his sisters, Martha and Mary? Well, Lazarus experienced a sickness and died, and it says in John 11:34-44:
And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
Jesus was able to do this, to raise Lazarus from the dead, because He was already victorious. He had already conquered sin and death. He had already died and risen from the dead Himself before this event in John 11, and so He could raise Lazarus, just like He can raise and will raise all of His people who are in the ground who have died.
If we go back to Matthew 28:2 again:
…the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door…
That stone represented what? There is the tomb and there is this big stone covering the tomb. It is the entrance into the grave or hell, because that is what hell means; it means the grave. So that stone, really, is like the gate of hell.
When someone dies unsaved, their eternal fate has been performed. They will never come back to life again. Hell, the grave, has devoured that person. It has securely locked them into the blackness of darkness forever. They will never come into being.
But here, Jesus is rolling away the stone, showing that He is victorious over hell itself. He is victorious over death. That is why, after rolling the stone from the door, He sat upon it. He sat upon the stone.
Would that not be a sight? I do not know how big that stone was. It was said to be a “great stone.”
They had hewn the tomb out of the rock and had cut this opening. So they rolled this stone away and there sat the angel of the Lord, sitting upon the gate of death, sitting upon the door that had sealed so many people’s fate.
To “sit” in the Bible means “to rule.” It means “to reign,” because kings would be seated upon thrones. It means “to judge.”
Here, the Lord Jesus is ruling over death. He has been victorious over death itself. Just like we read in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57, where it says:
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what is in view. It is a triumph. It is a glorious triumph over hell or the grave, over death itself, where Jesus has conquered death. He has beaten death and risen from the grave.
Then in Matthew 28:3, it says:
His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:
These descriptions can be found in Daniel 7:9 [note: the speaker inadvertently referred to Daniel 8:9], as far as the raiment, and Daniel 10:6, as far as the face like lightning. So this is referring to God and it is some of the descriptive language that the Bible uses to teach us about God.
Then it says in Matthew 28:4-5:
And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
Here we have the keepers who are shaking for fear and we have the believers, the women who came to the tomb. God is trying to comfort them and He tells them, “Don’t you fear; don’t you fear; you have nothing to fear.”
God’s people have nothing to fear as far as death is concerned. Do we? Actually, it is turned around. The Bible says, “To die is gain.” Because if we die tonight, or anytime between now and the end, well, we just got there a little quicker than everybody else, a little faster, and that is the perspective that the Bible gives true believers on death. It is not something to be feared anymore because we are not going to perish and we are not going to cease to be; we are going to live forever in the new heaven and the new earth, and so there is great comfort in the Bible’s language regarding death.
This should help us to be bolder; for instance, in going on a mission trip. The plane could crash. Many things could happen. But if that is the case, has the child of God lost anything? No, he has just gained; he has gotten to heaven to be with the Lord a little quicker than his brethren, than other believers who have to wait until the day of the resurrection and the rapture.
So here in Matthew 28:5-6, Christ says:
…Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
This is what I wanted to look at in a couple of other passages, “the place where the Lord lay.” We are being beckoned by the Word of God to take a look at the tomb, the empty tomb.
In Luke 24:11-12, after the women had gone to tell the apostles that Jesus had risen, it says:
And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.
They had wrapped Jesus in linen and spices. It is interesting that the Greek word (in verse 1) for “spices” is aroma, so we see another word that we use in our language that comes from the Greek.
They had placed Him in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, but when they came to the grave, when they came to the sepulcher, they only found the linen. That is all that they found. Here it says that the linen clothes were laid by themselves.
John 20 is another account of the resurrection, and I will start reading in verse 4. John 20:4-7:
So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
God is making a point of showing us the empty tomb. One of the points is that this is what they buried Christ in. He had these clothes wrapped about Him. Then we see the tomb is empty and there are the clothes. This is another way of saying that death could not hold its prey, that the burial cloth was left in the tomb where it belonged and that Christ rose from the dead.
But there is another reason also as to why God is emphasizing these linen clothes that has to do with the work of the high priest, with the high priest and the law that God gave concerning the Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would go inside the Holy of Holies and he would offer sacrifice. God spells out what he was to wear in Leviticus 16:4:
He shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired…
That would be the hat; everything was made of linen.
…these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on.
So he had to put on all of this linen that covered most of his body and then he would offer the sacrifices of the animals that were required on the Day of Atonement.
By the way, the high priest went once a year into the Holy of Holies, twice. He did it twice, which reminds us that Christ suffered before the foundation of the world and then He suffered a second time.
In Leviticus 16:11, it says:
And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself:
Then a little later, in verse 14, Leviticus 16:14-15:
And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times. Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil…
Now, we have to read this closely. He already had slain the one animal and had gone in and sprinkled it; then he has to kill the other animal. Would he kill it inside the Holy of Holies? No way. There is no way. He had to go back out and slay the other animal and then come in a second time to offer that animal’s blood.
Again, God is letting us know that this is all a tableau. It was true history, but it is a historical parable that we are reading in the Gospel accounts of Jesus suffering and dying and being raised from the dead. It had already happened, and so that was the second time.
Also in Leviticus 16:32-34, it says:
And the priest, whom he shall anoint, and whom he shall consecrate to minister in the priest’s office in his father’s stead, shall make the atonement, and shall put on the linen clothes, even the holy garments: And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation. And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as JEHOVAH commanded Moses.
The linen clothes are to be used for making the atonement. What ties in with what Peter and probably John are seeing in the Gospel accounts when they go into the tomb and find the linen clothes lying, we find right in the middle of Leviticus 16 in Leviticus 16:20:
And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:
There is language about the scapegoat, and then in verse 23, Leviticus 16:23:
And Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall put off the linen garments, which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there:
This is the point of the linen clothes in the tomb, that Christ was the high priest, not after the family of Levi but after the order of Melchisedec, who was a greater type, as Melchisedec was actually God making an appearance in the Old Testament.
So Jesus was a greater High Priest than any of the Levites because Levi, actually, in the loins of Abraham, paid tithes to Melchisedec, the Bible tells us. Christ was performing His duty in making these things manifest of His atoning work and resurrection. After He was finished with death, after He had defeated death—He had offered up Himself as the sacrifice, as the Great High Priest—then He took off His linen clothes, folded them, and left them lying right there where they were, as the high priest was to do on the Day of Atonement as he came out of the Holy of Holies.
We will stop here. Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Father, we do thank You for Your Book and Your Word, the Bible. Father, we thank You for Sunday, this day, Your Holy Day, and we ask that we would delight in it and that we would not desire for this day to pass, that we would enjoy all the things that You have given us to do. We do pray that You would help us to honor You on this day and to go about Your business and to be involved in spiritual activities, whether it be reading the Bible or praying or handing out tracts or maybe writing letters related, as we write people and we share information about the Gospel with them, or calling people. We pray that You would bless the day for us and strengthen us by it, and may it be a blessing for each one for the coming week. Father, we, once again, thank You for Your great work that we could never add anything to, lest we come under the curse. Father, we thank You for the deliverance that You have provided and the resurrection of the dead, which is our great hope. We pray these things in Christ’s Name. Amen.
Chris: If anybody has a question or a comment that you would like to make, you are welcome. You can come up to the mic, if you are here. If you are on Paltalk, raise your hand.
1st Question: Could you explain 1 Peter 2:24?
Chris: 1 Peter 2:24 says:
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
We have to keep in mind that Christ died for sin; He bore sins before the foundation of the world. He was not bearing sins in 33 A.D. while He was crucified on the tree. Well, then, doesn’t this say that He was bearing sins in His own body on the tree?
What God is doing is that He is using language to teach us about the nature of Christ’s death as a “lamb slain” from before the foundation of the world. Was Jesus a lamb before the foundation of the world? There were not even lambs. There were no animals created in this world at that time, and yet the Bible says that He was a “lamb.”
Well, likewise, He was not hanging on a tree before the foundation of the world, but He suffered shame. He suffered terrible shame. As God poured out His wrath upon Him, He became a curse.
So everything that the cross points to, as far as the one who hangs on a tree is accursed or bearing shame (as He hung there nakedly on the cross), is language that God is using to describe Christ’s death from before the world began, and so He can say that He bore sins on a tree from before the foundation of the world, even though there were no trees. There was no cross at that point, just like there were no lambs.
2nd Question: Chris, with respect to what you just said, why was there no tree? God is God. He could have a tree out in wherever?
Chris: I do not think that God wants us to think in that direction. He wants us to understand something. Keep in mind, the Bible says that Jesus was a “lamb.” Was He transformed into a lamb? No. Even though God is God, He was not transformed into a lamb and neither was He hanging on a tree. He suffered what the law required for the payment of sin and that involves great shame. He became a curse in our place, and that is what the cross points to.
2nd Question (continued): I understand that, but the word in the Bible says “on the tree.” If God in His Word, which is true, says “on the tree”—and I am assuming that this comports with the Greek—if He says that He hung on a tree, then who are we to say, “No, it was not a tree”?
Chris: Using that kind of idea, that is how many people look at the Bible, “What the Bible says, I believe,” yet we know that the Bible uses figures and types, like the beast coming up out of the sea, like Jesus being a lamb. Here, He is describing Christ’s sacrifice as though He bore sin on a tree before the foundation of the world. There was no tree; there was no world or any of the things that we currently have in our world. That just is not possible.
2nd Question (continued): To say that there was no tree and that there was no world, we know that there was no world, but that is not what that verse is saying. If He said it was a tree out there in space, wherever it was, why could there not be a tree? There is nothing to say that there was not, and we do have this that says that there was.
Chris: Yes, but you are not understanding how God is writing this verse. You are not understanding the nature of what He is referring to as the “tree.” Just using your argument, somebody can go to Revelation 13 or they can go to John 1—where John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God”—but is Jesus a lamb? No. Why is He called a lamb?
God expects us to search this out and we see that it is a reference to the sacrifices, to the sacrificial system. Here, too, He has given us a great tableau, a great historical picture of what happened before the foundation of the world. In that picture, there is a tree, but there was no tree from eternity past; there was no tree that Christ hung on.
3rd Question: I guess in 1 Peter 2:24, I trouble over it, too. It also says “by whose stripes ye were healed,” so we would also have to assume that Christ had stripes and that does not fit.
Chris: Right. Yes, that goes along with it. The whipping that Jesus suffered was to teach us the punishment that He endured, that He was afflicted for our sins, as it says in Isaiah 53, which I think that verse comes from. In Isaiah 53:4-5:
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
This took place, we know—and I know that this is not an easy concept for us to understand because we are so used to, it is engrained in us to look at the cross—and yet, no, God has taught us and recently (this is new) that Jesus was the Lamb slain. He was the Lamb because He was the sacrifice for sins. He was punished by God, which this language of stripes points to, for the sins of His people exclusively.
We could start putting all kinds of things back into eternity past, but God does not teach us any of that. He just says that Christ died for sin and then He rose again. If we start saying that there was a tree or whips, then we are not going the right way.
4th Question: Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, as He prayed, great drops of blood came off of His face. I was hoping that maybe you could try to explain that. Also, an angel of the Lord came down and strengthened Him. If that is Jesus, then Jesus…?
Chris: Yes, how we are going to figure that out, I do not know.
As far as the great drops of blood, the Bible tells us that the blood is the life thereof, and so He was giving up His life and, again, showing what He had to suffer. He was in an agony and He was suffering, but He was not making payment a second time.
This is what we have to stay away from, because that is not justice. When all of our sins were paid for, that settled the account and there could not have been a second payment for sin in any way.
5th Question: It looks like there were two earthquakes concerning Christ’s death and resurrection: one in Matthew 27:51-53 when He died, the other in Matthew 28:2 when He resurrected. Is this correct?
Chris: It appears to say this, but I would not say this absolutely because there are a lot of things that I would still want to check out before I would say something like that. It looks that way, but I think there is much more; there are many more verses to look at.
6th Question: Revelation 16:18, I was wondering if the believers will be on the earth when the earthquake hits.
Chris: Revelation 16:18 says:
And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
This is a chapter that is dealing with that five-month period of time. Again, we find language of an earthquake here and also in Revelation 6 that is dealing with that five-month period of time. There is a lot more evidence that is pointing to that.
Will the believers be here? I do not think that it matters because when Christ speaks and the ground opens up and the bodies of the saints are rejoined with their souls that have been in heaven for however long, at that point, it says in 1 Thessalonians 4, we will be caught up. Maybe we experience a little shaking, but it is not an important point.
For instance, in Hebrews 12, the Lord gives us a very good thing to think about. In Hebrews 12:26-28, it says:
Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
This is the thing for us to think about. The new heaven and new earth—that Kingdom of God—can never be shaken. This just shows us the instability of this world. God is going to shake the whole earth.
So if we experience any part of the earthquake, that is nothing at all because God’s people will be so comforted and consoled by what is going on that it will not matter. Immediately, we are with the Lord. And after the five months, it will be a new heaven and a new earth.
Let us stop here.