Made Alive In Christ

John 19

What we are here for today and why we gather for worship of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit on Sunday...........is what we will read about today in Jesus Christ!

This is Resurrection Sunday, approximately the time of year that Jesus died and was resurrected! However, do not let days or times cause you to lose the hope that should live in the believer every moment of their lives of faith!

Charles Spurgeon wrote: “My dear friend, I am a poor sinner still; and I have to look to Christ everyday as I did at the first”

“Continual repentance, continual looking to Christ the One Who bore our sins.”

Let that truth not be lost today......Peter said in his letter......1 Peter 1:3 “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,”

Lively meaning that our hope in Jesus Christ is living within us at every moment!

Let’s get right into it, shall we!?!

John 19 and we will start at verse 1 and read the entire chapter........

To understand the Jews had laid hold of Jesus in the garden and carried Him off to be tried in an illegal (according to Jewish law) hearing before some of the leaders and found Jesus guilty of nothing but made up something!

The reconvened early that morning to make their illegal hearing somewhat legal.

They wanted Jesus to die and this did not just start, but now was their chance! They had one of Jesus’ own disciples betray Him and now they had Him in custody they was going to follow through!

It was against Roman law, which was the ultimate law in the city, for the Jews to execute Jesus!

So they brought Him to Pilate.

If you look over in chapter 18, you will see that Pilate tried to get the Jews to let Jesus go free and tried to manipulate them in a custom that during the Passover you could release a prisoner.

So, Pilate gave them 2 options, release Jesus or the worst criminal in the land Barabbas???

They chose the worst criminal, a killer!

No as we pick up these events, Jesus is now scourged.....more than likely Jesus was beaten at this point beyond recognition!

Skin open, face mutilated, bleeding......Jesus hasn’t slept or eaten at this time......His physical body was in extreme distress!

The Jewish folks that celebrated Him just a few days back were shouting “Crucify Him”!

In verses 9-11, is something that we all need to know.....

Pilate speaks to Jesus, he asks Him if “Where are you from?”

Pilate was concerned about if Jesus was a God, in his superstitious mind he didn’t want to kill a god.

When Jesus did not answer, Pilate began to flaunt his so-called authority...... “Do you not know that I have the power to crucify You or release You!

The answer is profound to all the world and everyone that has existed!

Jesus said that Pilate or anyone else can have no power against Him, except it be given to them from above (God)!

Jesus knowing what Pilate was concerned about, tells him that the Jews have the greater sin.

The important fact in Jesus’ declaration is that Jesus was in full control through His whole life and death! He was not a victim, He was a Victor!

The best way to explain this is what Joseph told his brothers who had sold him to the Egyptians..........Genesis 50:20 “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”

In control of all these things happening to Jesus!

There are around 300 prophecies fulfilled about Jesus death and resurrection!

Many examples of Christ’s death.........

When Abraham was told to sacrifice his promised son Issac to God, as they was walking up the mountain to the altar, Issac was carrying the wood, just as Jesus carried His own cross that He would be sacrificed with!

This is all for us to know assuredly, that Jesus was in charge of His own death!

Philippians 2:8 “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

Why, you ask? John 3:16 tells that John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Jesus told His disciples in John 10:17-18 “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”

Let’s move on, Pilate wrote the title “King of the Jews” not because he recognized that Jesus was actually their King as He said, but to spite the Jews. He was mocking them, the reason we know is because it worked. They asked him to change it to that Jesus said he was King of the Jews.

Pilate would not.......In trying to get at the Jews, Pilate declared the truth of Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords!

Philippians 2:9-11 “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Just more evidence that Jesus is control of this whole thing! Jesus now sees to His mother......

Woman behold thy son, John and John your mother!

Compassion while on the cross.....this showing also that it was not for Himself that He was concerned but for His family, His followers, and the whole world!

Luke 23:34 “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.......

To complete the fulfillment of Scripture Jesus said He thirsted........Psalm 69:21 “They gave me also gall for my meat; And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

They through their evil thoughts and evil hearts was completing what needed to be done for man to live eternally!

It is finished, everything needed for the true sacrifice for sins, was complete!

At one point, the 9th hour according to Matthew 27:46 “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

At this point, Jesus was experiencing the abandonment and despair that resulted from the outpouring of Divine wrath on Jesus as our sin-bearer!

So, it was complete......the eternal penalty was paid!

Jesus gave Himself to death, dropping His head in the locks of His shoulders and died…as S.M Lockeridge would say!

The Jews had a problem they had to get Jesus down before the Sabbath......there is a lot of debate about the Sabbath being a high day.....meaning there were other sabbaths....or that is a “high day” because it was during the Passover......which ever......the important thing to note is that Jesus died during the time they would be sacrificing the Passover lamb, becoming a complete fulfillment of the law for us!!!!!

The Jews had to get the body down, quickly before the Sabbath......

This is important to note......normally it would take a very long time for someone to die on the cross, some would take 3 days.

Jesus’ death did not take near as long as most.........but the Jews needed Him dead and down from the cross and in a grave before the sabbath!

So, they begged the soldiers to break His legs that would speed up death!

But Jesus was dead.......no one take His life, He gives it and He will take it again!

They pierced Him, blood and water come out......there is a lot of debate about this........some say His physical body died of a broken heart and the sac around the heart burst.........

Now, to the burial......Joseph of Arimathaea, a secret disciple of Jesus’, also a member of the Sanhedrin, as well as Nicodemus, who we find secretly with Jesus in John 3, both now come out boldly and take the body of Jesus.

Joseph had a new tomb, where no on had been laid.....they prepared His body and put Him in the tomb and rolled the stone over the entrance to the tomb.

Let’s keep reading in John 20........Sunday morning, the first day of the week, today.......Mary Magdelene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was rolled away from the entrance......

She ran and told Peter and John.......they have taken Jesus, the Lord.....she told them....

They ran to the tomb, John noting that he outrun Peter..........

I beat him, he said! John, however stopped at the entrance, but Peter went on in.

They saw the linen clothes laying there, undisturbed and the cloth covering Jesus’ face was laying beside the grave clothes.

If they was going to steal the body, most likely they would have left the grave clothes on or tore them off, it would of been disturbed.

Nothing was, it was if Jesus was in them and disappeared from those grave clothes.

John seeing this believed that their Lord had Risen....the angels declared that fact in Luke 24:5-6 “And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, the angels said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,”

Jesus will eventually appear to all of His disciples and followers......revealing the scars in His hands and feet and the piercing in His side!

What has happened is the most powerful event in the history of man, God the Son, Jesus the Christ the Son of the Living God has become sin for us Who knew no sin that we may be made righteous before God in the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Paul puts it this way in 2 Timothy 1:10 “But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:”

Jesus died to kill the sinful man and rose to bring the man back to life in Him!

Romans 6:6-9 “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.”

This is the greatest detail of what we just read...........What is dead lives again.....

Ezekiel 37 speaks of a valley of dry bones, Israel dead in their sin.......without life or form, we might live in this life but without Christ we are dead men walking! No true eternal life, life with the Father!

In that prophecy God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the valley of dry bones (dead Israel)

Speak to them the truth of God and now Christ!

Those bones start standing, then they get muscle, tendons, and skin, then the Lord gives them breath........but they do not truly live until verses 11-14.......

The Lord brings them out of the graves, you can have all the physical and earthly, but until His Spirit lives within us, we do not truly live!

That is what today and every day is in Christ Jesus! In Him we live, we never truly live until we believe in what we just read!

Lastly turn one last time to Romans 8:6-15.......

To be fleshly or earthly minded is DEATH......the 2nd death, you might breath and walk around and stuff but if your faith is in this life and not in Christ Jesus, then you are spiritually dead!

Spiritually dead because they that are in the flesh cannot please God!

Spiritually minded is to have the Holy Spirit, to have Christ, to believe in the True Christ, above all!

Without the Person and Work of Jesus Christ we are none of His (The Father)

Verse 10 points to Christ’s work not ours.....If Christ be in you, the body of sin has been killed through the crucifixion of Jesus......the Spirit that is given, is life because of Jesus’ righteousness dwelling in us!

Now, that the agent of Jesus Christ (the Spirit of Jesus Christ), if that Spirit dwells in you then God that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.....that same Spirit that raised Jesus will make you alive eternally with God and for God!

Paul, tells us in the next few verses that because of this, because of the work of Christ in us through the Spirit, we are no longer debtors to the flesh, but we are debtors to the Spirit.....

Through Spirit is the agent of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ and it lives in the believer, bringing life to the believer through Jesus Christ!

The Spirit is the life that Jesus died and rose again to give us to live unto God, no longer debtors to sinful flesh and world, but debtors unto God which is life and peace!

Sons and daughters of God, led by the Spirit, we are no longer in bondage and in fear, but we are adopted and can boldly come to the throne of Grace and cry ABBA FATHER!!

My Father!!!