"Raised in Accordance with the Scriptures" (Acts 13:32-39)

Transcript:

Well, please remain standing for the reading of God's Word. Our scripture text comes this morning from Acts, chapter 13. And we'll be looking primarily at verses 32 through 39, but I'm going to read from verses 16 through 41. If you're using a Pew Bible this morning, this is on page 1095. 1095.

Here now, the word of the Lord, starting in Acts, chapter 13, verse 16. So Paul stood up and motioning with his hand, said, men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt. And with uplifted arm he led them out of it. And for about 40 years he put up with them in the wilderness.

And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them Judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king. And God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for 40 years.

And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus. As he promised before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course, he said, what do you suppose that I am? I am not he, no.

But behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear God to us has been sent the message of this salvation for those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead.

And for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children, by raising Jesus as also it is written in the second Psalm. You are my son. Today I have begotten you and as for the fact that he raised him from the dead no more, to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way. I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.

Therefore he says also in another psalm, you will not let your holy one see corruption. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about. Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish. For I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe even if one tells it to you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Please be seated. And as you're taking your seats, please join with me in prayer.

Gracious heavenly Father, we pray that as we come to your word, you would teach us by your spirit. Father, none of us were there on the day that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. But there were eyewitnesses. There were those who saw the one who had been crucified, the one who had breathed his last, who had given up his spirit on the cross, who saw him taken down from that cruel tree and laid in a tomb, with that tomb sealed up behind a big rock. There were eyewitnesses who were there when the tomb was empty, and eyewitnesses who saw him walking and talking, who saw the nail prints in his hands and in his feet and in his side.

And as we read what they have written down, we pray that your spirit would bridge the gap of 2,000 years, that your spirit would bring to us the truth of the resurrection of Christ, just as if we had been there on that blessed resurrection Sunday. And we pray that you would do this by giving us hearts to understand, eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the Gospel of your Son, our Savior. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Well, the Apostle Paul, who preached the sermon that we just read in a letter to another church, to the church in Corinth. In First Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 3 through 5, gives one of the clearest summaries of the Gospel message found anywhere in the Scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 15, 3, 5, Paul writes, 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, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12.

The question that we are going to be asking today and the question that this text is going to help us to answer in part the one that we read from Acts chapter 13, is what Paul meant when he said that Jesus was raised on the third day from the dead in accordance with the Scriptures. Now, the Scriptures that he was talking about were not the Scriptures of the New Testament. Indeed, as he was writing that letter for Corinthians, the New Testaments were very literally still being written down. Even as those words flowed from his pen, the words of Scripture, of the New Testament were being written down. So when the early church talked about the Scriptures, they were talking about the Old Testament.

And the question we are going to ask is, where was it prophesied? Where was it foretold that God's only begotten Son should not only suffer and die for the sins of his people, but then on the third day he should rise again from the dead in accordance with those Scriptures. And so this morning our theme is very simple, that Christ was indeed raised from the dead on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. And to help answer that question of where we see this in the Old Testament, we are going to return to this sermon that I preached on two weeks ago, kind of looking at the whole scope of this sermon to focus in on three Old Testament prophecies, one in verse 33, one in verse 34, and one in verse 35. And in these three Old Testament prophecies, we will see that the resurrection of the Christ was indeed foretold.

But more than that, we are going to see what the resurrection of Christ was about. What did God design for it? What was his purpose purposes for the resurrection of Jesus? Why did Jesus need to suffer and die only to then rise from the dead? And so as we look at this text, really focusing in on verses 32 through 39, we're going to start with looking at Jesus as the Son of God.

The Son of God. That's the first thing that we are going to see about Christ's resurrection. Second, the king on David's throne. Throne. The king on David's throne.

And third, the Savior of sinners. The Savior of sinners. So first, the Son of God in verses 32 and 33, Paul in verse 32 says, and we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers. This he has fulfilled to us, their children by raising Jesus as also it is written in the second Psalm. And then he goes on to quote Psalm 2, verse 7, you are my Son, today I have begotten you.

The question that this text raises, I think, is what exactly does it mean that today Jesus was begotten if Jesus is the Son of God? If Paul is saying that this text from Psalm 2, 7 is about the resurrection of Jesus, what does it mean that the Lord foretold that today he would be got, or he would have begotten Jesus at the resurrection? Well, this cannot mean that Jesus had not been the Son of God before the day when he was raised from the dead. If you were here on Good Friday, we studied together Philippians chapter two. And in Philippians chapter two, verse six, we read that the eternal Son of God existed in the form of God from all eternity past.

He was the most blessed, the Almighty, the most powerful God. He existed in the form of God. And we also read in the Scriptures that Jesus, the Son of God, was eternally begotten. So In John chapter 1, verse 1, the apostle John writes that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So when the beginning began, that Word of God was already there.

And indeed there was never a time when God was apart from His Word. There was never a time when the Father was apart from His Word. But we read that in the fullness of time in John 1, verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. This one whom we are reading about this morning, this one whom we confess not only died on the cross, but was raised from the dead on the third day.

This one was eternally the Son of God. He did not become the Son of God at the resurrection. He was not adopted as the Son of God at his resurrection. So what then did the Lord prophesy when he said that on the day of the resurrection, today I have begotten you? Well, the better understanding of this text is when we go back to what we looked at Friday night in Philippians 2, moving from verse 6 to verse 7.

When the one who was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. We read that he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. He was in the form of God, and yet he took upon himself the form of a servant. This is what theologians call the estate of humiliation where he veiled his glory. He never ceased being the Son of God.

But he did not look like the Son of God. He looked like a common slave. And we read this was especially true at the crucifixion. In another Old Testament prophecy. In Isaiah 53, verse 2, we read that he had no form or majesty that we should look on him, and no beauty that we should desire him, especially when he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.

But at the resurrection, something changed. He was raised up from in a state of humiliation to in a state of exaltation, as Paul writes in Philippians 2, verse 9. Therefore God has highly exalted him. On the day of resurrection, the glory that had been veiled was now revealed in Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected from the dead. And Paul reaffirms this is what he means in Romans 1, verse 4, where he says that Christ was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness.

By his resurrection from the dead, he did not become the Son of God. At his resurrection, what had always been true was now no longer veiled. It was revealed to all those eyewitnesses of his majesty. Psalm 2 prophesied that God's anointed one, the Christ would not be recognized. If you read the whole Psalm, it talks that he would be raged against, he would be plotted against, he would be rejected by the kings and the rulers of this earth who would join forces against him.

And indeed our Lord was despised, forsaken, rejected, spit upon, beaten, nailed to a cross, and cursed even my God himself. But Psalm 2 also prophesied that the Lord would indeed vindicate His Son. Today I have begotten you. The Old Testament is a story that acknowledges and prepares the way for the coming of God's Son into this world. Because in the Old Testament we see that the rejection of Jesus would not be a new thing.

It would be the continuation of what had always been true. You see, the ancient peoples were not more virtuous than we are today. If God is hated and rejected today, so also he was hated and despised and rejected through the Old Testament. But God had been preparing his people for this. God had been foretelling that a great Messiah would one day come.

And we need not to lose. It's important that we do not lose sight of an extraordinary claim that we are making in Christianity. An extraordinary claim about Jesus of Nazareth, a very poor man who lived in 1st century Judea, not even in the capital city of Jerusalem. But in backwater Nazareth of Galilee, a man who was eventually popular for a time, but ultimately condemned and crucified under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. Our claim is nothing less than that obscure man in an obscure portion of the world was indeed the eternal Son of God who took upon himself a human nature, who was crucified and died in such a way that his death purchased salvation for all those who believe in him.

Now, today, maybe you were visiting church and you were very skeptical of this claim. You might be asking, 2,000 years later, what's the proof that there is anything to make of Christianity? What makes Jesus different from Mohammed? What makes him different from Moses? What makes him different from Gandhi?

What proves Christianity to be different from Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism or Islam? Well, the proof isn't in the people. Take a moment, look to your left and to your right. You are surrounded by sinners. It's not the people that prove the truthfulness of Christianity.

It's not in our power. I will not perform any miracles before you this morning. If you came looking for that, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The proof also is not in our persuasion. I will not come with lofty speech or wisdom this morning.

It's not in the people, not in our power, not in our persuasion. The proof is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Moses is still dead. David is still dead. Muhammad is still dead.

Every other religious leader, no matter how popular, no matter how persuasive, every religious leader will die. And every religious leader stays dead. But not Jesus. Jesus passed through death and on the third day he was raised from the dead. And in that the Father proved that this was his only begotten Son, with whom he is well pleased.

In the resurrection. The voice of the Father thunders through history declaring that Jesus is His Son in power. Today I have begotten you. Today I have revealed with perfect clarity that you are indeed my son. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

The first question that the Old Testament Scriptures confronts us with is this. Will you believe the proof?

The second question that we need to consider then is this. What's the result? What did the resurrection of Jesus accomplish? And this brings us to the second section. The king on David's throne In verse 34, the king on David's throne.

The Old Testament had prophesied that through the resurrection God would give to David, to David's offspring, to the Christ, the holy and sure blessings of David. That was Isaiah 55, 3 and Paul says this. And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead no more to return to corruption. He has spoken in this way. I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.

Now, what are these blessings? Well, you can turn to Second Samuel, Chapter 7 and read about God's covenant promises to David, particularly to establish David's kingdom forever, not by perpetuating the life of David himself personally, but by raising up the offspring of David 1 in the line and lineage of David, and to set that one on David's throne forever. Now remember, at the time that Paul was preaching this sermon, there was no king in Israel sitting on the throne. Throne in Jerusalem. When the Romans had conquered Judea, there was a king, but it was a foreign Edomite who is installed not actually at this time as a king, but as a tetrarch.

Herod Agrippa I. This was not a kingdom that was ruled by David's son, but this was a Roman province under the reign of Tiberius Caesar. And yet Paul says that even so, even despite of appearances, the resurrection of Jesus fulfilled these holy and sure blessings of David. Now again, let's step back and acknowledge that this is an extraordinary claim because it is so difficult to see then and it is so difficult to see now what we gain from a kingdom like this. In Jesus day, people were frustrated by this.

When Jesus was still in his earthly life before his death, they wanted to make him king. But at every turn he refused. Religious leaders ultimately charged Jesus with a charge punishable by death by saying, this one claimed to be the king. As Jesus hung on the cross, there was a sign above him that says, the king of the Jews. And people walked by, taunting Jesus, taunting him, saying, he is the king of Israel.

Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe him. But even when Jesus was raised from the dead in the fulfillment of these promises to King David, his own disciples didn't understand. They asked if he would now restore the kingdom to Israel. But while Jesus affirms that he is indeed the king, the king of kings, the rightful heir to the throne of David, he also insists that his kingdom is not of this world. Now I want to bring it to us today.

What good is that kind of a king? What good is a king that we can't see reigning over a kingdom that this world moves along without any knowledge of it? You live a real life in the real world with real problems. What good is a kingdom of heaven when you are a citizen here of this earth? And the answer is that the kingdom of Jesus provides the stability and the safety that you long for.

The kingdoms of this world are constantly rising, constantly falling. One is here today and that same one is gone tomorrow. But when the Scriptures teach us that Jesus is king, they announce that his kingdom is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. In Hebrews 12:28, Jesus Kingdom is solid in this world because it does not rest upon the wobbly power structures of this world.

So this morning, are you frightened of something? Is there something that brings nothing but fear and dread and anxiety as you think of it? Well, this king, Jesus who rose from the dead, is the only one who can protect you in this life and the next. Particularly, what about death? Do you dread the thought of death?

Well, this king is the only one. No ruler, no ruler who has ever lived or will ever live possesses the keys to death and Hades. But this king does. Do you feel adrift in life, unsure of your purpose, unsure of your goals? Well, this king teaches us.

He governs us by his powerful word. He corrects us, preserves and supports us, convicts us of our sin, and leads us to salvation through faith in him. Are you suffering this morning? This king is the one who restrains and overcomes all of our enemies as he powerfully orders all things for his own glory and our good. Most importantly, the most important question you could ask them this morning is this.

Do you know him? Through all history, God had set the stage. He had made preparations to set his king on the throne and to do so by the resurrection. And as the resurrected king, Jesus now watches over and protects his people from all their enemies. And one day this king will return.

And when he returns, this king promises that he will take vengeance on all his enemies, on all who do not know God and who do not obey the Gospel. Earlier we looked at Psalm 2, 7, quoted in verse 33, here you are, my son, today I have begotten you. But at the end of that same Psalm, in verse 12, Psalm 2:12, David writes, Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Will you perish, or will you be blessed in your refuge that you find in him?

Well, the third section deals with the final aspect that Paul brings out in this sermon of what the Old Testament teaches us about the resurrection of Jesus. The first two Old Testament prophecies declared something about the resurrection, what the resurrection accomplished. But this last Old Testament prophecy in Psalm 16:10, is a very clear prophecy that Jesus Christ would indeed rise from the dead. And so we read in verse 35. Therefore he says also in another psalm, again this is chapter 16, verse 10.

You will not let your holy one see corruption. Now, these words were uttered prophetically by David, but they were not fulfilled by David, as Paul goes on to talk about in verses 36 through 37. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up did not see corruption. David is still in his tomb.

Earlier in Acts, chapter two, when the apostle Peter is preaching from that same text, he says, david's tomb is still here. You know where it is today?

Moses is dead. David is dead. Every religious leader is still dead and in his tomb. But on Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate the fact that Jesus is not in his tomb, that death could not hold him, corruption had no part of him, that on the third day he was raised nevermore to see death. So the final question to ask is, what relevance does this have for me today?

You know, many of you, maybe not all of you, but many of you have gone through sort of two major milestones in the lives of people. You've gone through graduation, graduating from high school, commencement, and there's a big pump and circumstance ceremony for that. And. Or you have gone through the ceremony of a marriage wedding ceremony. Now, what's really interesting in both of those cases is that there are so many preparations on the front end to get to those points.

Endless days in school when you're a child, you feel like this will never end. And yet some point you do get to graduation, and it's a wonderful, wonderful day. And yet they do not call that the end. They call that a commencement ceremony. It's the commencing, the beginning of something new, the beginning of a life after you graduate.

The same thing is true of getting married. And those of you who have been married know that there are so many preparations. There's all of the songs, stress and anxiety of the dates and does she like me? And all of these things, and oh, I don't want to mess this up and will she marry me? What's she gonna say?

And there's all of the planning and preparation to get to the day of the wedding. And let's be honest, guys, we don't do a whole lot of that planning stuff. But when you get to that day, it feels like you've come to a finish line. And yet it's the beginning of something new. The next day when you wake up, you can't go where you want to go.

You can't do what you want to do. I should say that differently. You are doing what you want to do. I love you, dear.

But all the options that had been available to you, you have foreclosed. And now something new is starting that is far better. The same thing is true about the resurrection. Don't ever think that Easter Sunday was the finish line for Jesus. It was the culmination of so many Old Testament prophecies, so many preparations, so many hints, so many seeds that took hundreds and thousands of years to grow and to blossom until the day when Jesus walked out of his tomb again, not to end what he had come to do, but to start the real work.

And so what Paul says is that from this, from what has happened, from Jesus Christ raised from the dead, verse 38. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed.

If you're honest in your heart of hearts, if you're honest, when your head hits the pillow at night, you are a guilty sinner. You stand condemned before a holy God. If you are to enter into the life to come with confidence, those sins must be blotted out. And they have been through Jesus.

Verse 39. And by him, everyone who believes is freed or literally justified from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. You have not only had the slate wiped clean so that you can have a second chance, because, let's be honest, if we had a second chance, we would ruin it just as quickly. We have had our sins wiped away and we have been counted righteous in Christ. This great gospel is for all those who turn from their sins and look to the crucified and resurrected from the dead.

Savior.

Just this week, a dear man in this church, Arne Decker, took his last breath. From the air of this world.

He breathed his last. He closed his eyes for the last time in this world. So that when he next opened his eyes, the next thing he saw, the next breath that he drew was from eternity in the presence of Jesus. In the presence of the one who has defeated death, in the presence of the crucified man who ever lives with the keys to death and Hades. And Arnie was ready for that.

Arnie was a man who loved Jesus his whole life, and he was ready to meet his Savior. Are you. Someday you too will draw your last breath from the air of this world. Someday your heart will stop beating. And again you will close your eyes here.

And when you open them, you will find that you have passed beyond the veil of death into eternity. And at that moment, everything that you have spent your life chasing, every worry, every anxiety, all of that will seem to matter not at all. And at that moment, whatever defenses you have tried to shore up for yourself in money or in strength, or in health or in status or in prestige or in relationships or whatever it is, all of those things will fade into the background. You cannot take those things with you. At that moment, you will find yourself under the immediate judgment and jurisdiction of the King.

The only question that will matter Is he your ally? Or is he your judge? Is he your savior? Or is he your condemner and executioner? Because King Jesus is the one who came into this world to provide salvation for all those who look to Him.

But he will come again as the judge, as the one who will bring about righteousness in a world that has been for so long marred by evil and wickedness and unrighteousness. The good news of the Gospel is that the One who is eternally God the Son, humbled himself to take a human nature for you. He voluntarily submitted himself under the law and and obeyed all of it perfectly for you. Though innocent, he obeyed his Father's will all the way to find himself condemned to death on a cross bearing the shameful scorn and the infinite wrath of God's curse against your sin for you. But on the third day he rose again from the dead in accordance with the Scriptures for you.

This Resurrection Sunday. What a day it would be if you don't know Jesus, to be reconciled to him, to submit to his rule as king. What a day to confess to him your sins and to ask him to forgive you and to save you. Because let it be known to you, therefore, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed so that you might be counted righteous in Him. What a day to entrust yourself to the Son of God and the King of Kings as your only hope in life and in death.

Jesus is risen. Jesus is risen indeed. Have you trusted him to be raised up with him from death on the last day when he comes again? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that Christ would be sweet to us, that Christ would be a point of rejoicing that this morning, for all those who do not know your Son, that you by your spirit would draw them to faith in Christ for their salvation.

Father, we thank you for all the work that you have done, all of the preparations. And we thank you that when Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he has continued his work in this life through the preaching of the Gospel in His church all the way until this day. And so this day we look to him in faith until he comes again. And we pray. Maranatha.

Lord Jesus, come quickly. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.