The Death and Ressurection of Jesus In Us

For all of you youngsters, there was a time when everything on television was in black and white. I don’t recall when our family finally got a color TV, but I do remember my cousin’s family getting one in the late 1960’s because it was the very first one that I saw in person. I was mesmerized by it, which really didn’t make a lot of sense since everything else in my world was in color, but to now have TV shows in color was a big deal.

Color televisions back then had a lot of knobs that allowed you to make all kinds of adjustments to the picture. There was a knob for the intensity of the color (which even allowed you to tune it all the way back to black and white if you desired), a knob for the tint or hue of the color, a knob for the brightness of the picture, and there was a knob for the contrast which would allow you to sharpen the distinction between the foreground and the background or have then blend in a bit. I always wanted a sharp distinction with the contrast knob.

Contrast is also an effective literary device used by skilled authors to create distinctions in their storylines. The contrast used by authors, whether fiction or non-fiction, is often the difference between a book that you cannot put down and book that you grow bored with quickly. Contrast makes you think and draws out incredible and often mind-blowing aspects of a storyline with fictional accounts, or it illuminates your mind on a principle to be learned in a non-fiction book.

The Bible is full of contrast with the most essential one being the cross of Christ. The cross seems to indicate the most tragic loss while it is at the same time the ultimate victory.

Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of 2nd Corinthians. For the benefit of those who may be visiting with us or watching online for the first time, we have been studying the Book of 2nd Corinthians since the middle of October with a few breaks in between. In the providence and timing of God, we just so happen to find ourselves in the flow of that Book of Scripture, in a passage that deals with the death and life of Jesus Christ as it relates to us. And while I will most likely be preaching from this passage again next week as it relates to the account in 2nd Corinthians, this morning I will use this passage as a foundation for a more traditional look at the death and resurrection of Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12

Let’s pray.

In verses 10-12, the Apostle Paul draws out this amazing, if not at times confusing, contrast of the dying of Jesus with the life of Jesus. The immediate contrast in this passage is the order of things, as Paul writes of the dying and eventual death of Jesus and then he writes of the life of Jesus. Death before life is a huge contrast. By writing the dying of Jesus it is implied that life also came before death, but Paul is masterfully incorporating this literary device of contrast by focusing the dying before the living, the death before the life.

We all know the account of Jesus Christ – even people who rarely attend church know some of the details or at least a vague understanding. But let’s not assume anything. Let’s walk through a few highlights of the life, death, and life of Jesus. First, the reason for all of this.

Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of Genesis. We will begin in chapter 1.

Genesis 1:26-27

God, or Yahweh which is the name He chose to reveal Himself as to Moses, God in all three Persons of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, says in Genesis 1:26, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”. It then says in verse 27 that “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Genesis 2:16-17

Shortly after creating man and woman, God gave them complete freedom in the paradise He had created. God had but one prohibition – do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that He had placed in the middle of the garden. Besides this one prohibition, enjoy the garden, enjoy each other, and enjoy life to the fullest extent.

Previous to all of this, one of God’s most exalted angels that He had created by the name of Lucifer, decided that he wanted to replace God as the supreme ruler of the universe. Lucifer influenced one-third of the other angels to join him in this rebellion which God immediately quashed and sent all of the rebels to the earth, forever sealing their eventual and ultimate doom.

Lucifer, now known as Satan, takes on the form of a serpent in the garden. The fact that this serpent talks to Eve in the garden does not surprise her. Whether this means that all animals could talk or communicate in some manner at this time is not told to us, but Eve is not shocked when the serpent speaks. In the course of this conversation, Satan begins to plant seeds of doubt in Eve’s mind.

Genesis 3:1-5

If you have never noticed this before, sin has already happened even before Eve takes the fruit of the tree. In verse 3, Eve adds to God’s Word – she adds that God said that they could not touch the fruit of the tree, and God never said that He just said you can’t eat it. The bait has been set before her and Eve is already hooked at this point.

Genesis 3:6-13

Who ate first? Eve ate first. Who does God hold responsible first? God holds Adam responsible because God in His providence and divine plan created man to be the protector and provider and head of the union between husband and wife. Eve was deceived, Adam partook with full knowledge and understanding of the sinfulness of his actions.

And notice that Adam does more than shift the blame to Eve, he blames God Himself for his sin by saying, “the woman whom You gave to be with me”. Eve follows the lead of her husband and shifts the blame to the serpent. And for 6,000 years the rest of us have also followed suit by being quick to blame anyone or anything for our sinfulness.

Genesis 3:14-19

Sin brought death into the created world. Not instantaneous physical death to Adam and Eve or anything else in creation, but instantaneous spiritual death to Adam and Eve, and the process of dying to all things physical, which goes back to our passage in 2nd Corinthians. When Paul writes the dying of Jesus, it indicates the process of dying as opposed to the moment of death – and I will deal with that in depth next week.

But notice that even before the curse of sin is invoked on Eve and then on Adam, God sets in motion the remedy for sin. God reveals His plan to provide a sacrifice for sin that will allow mankind to avoid the ultimate penalty for sin.

Genesis 3:15

And right here we have the how God will provide a Child to be born of woman who would defeat Satan. The detail is not given in this verse, but right here even before He pronounces the penalties for sin upon Eve and then Adam, God gives the general outline of the truth that He will send His Son to provide the fatal blow to Satan in His birth, life, death, and resurrection. This verse is then developed, expanded upon, and realized throughout the rest of the Bible. The great contrast of death then life, death providing life, was started right here even before the consequences and penalties of sin are initiated.

And a quick side note: in verse 16 when part of God’s penalty for sin is placed on the woman, and it says, “Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he will rule over you”, that means that women from that point onward will fight against God’s design for the man to be the head. It is part of the curse of sin that women will oppose and fight against God’s design in creation. And according to Ephesians 5:18-21, the only way that this curse even has a chance to be overcome is for both husband and wife to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be subject to one another in the Spirit’s power. Outside of this divine filling and divine help, conflict will always be ready to explode in any marriage union between a man and a woman – all because of sin.

Turn with me in your Bible to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1.

Matthew 1:18-21

As we saw in Genesis 3:15, we now have the seed of the woman being born to save His people from their sins. God provides the necessary sacrifice for sins in manner that He promised right before He pronounced the penalty for sin on mankind.

While it is not codified until God gives the Law to Moses in the account of the Book of Exodus, we know by what happens in Genesis 3-4 that God required a blood sacrifice for sin immediately after sin was committed. God Himself killed animals to supply clothing for Adam and Eve in chapter 3, and He is pleased with Abel’s blood sacrifice in chapter 4 but displeased with Cain’s sacrifice of produce.

We then see in the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy the necessity of blood sacrifice to make restitution for sin. The sacrificial system is defined more fully as God formally hands down His Law to Moses for His people to atone for their sins. And this system of blood sacrifice is reiterated in the historical accounts of Israel and Judah, in the Book of Psalms, and throughout the writings of the Prophets. The only acceptable sacrifice for sin is blood, meaning substitutionary death of an innocent on behalf of the guilty.

In Hebrews 9:22, the Word of God plainly states that “all things are cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” The sense and context of that verse is how sin condemns everyone to eternal death in hell and the lake of fire. Death, which is what is meant throughout the Bible by all of the terms for blood sacrifice, is required to pay the penalty for sin – there is no other possible payment. You cannot give enough money, you cannot do enough good deeds, you cannot make enough other kinds of sacrifices or penance or offerings to pay for even one single sin in your life. Blood sacrifice, meaning death, is the only payment.

In the garden, at the very instant of sin being introduced into the world, spiritual death occurred in the lives of Adam and Eve, and thus every person born after them have been and still are born spiritually dead. Ephesians 2:1 states it that way – “And you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” We are all physically born with the penalty and payment of sins already within us; our physical bodies are born with a spiritual corpse within. That spiritual corpse will either be raised to life by God in salvation while our physical body remains alive, or that spiritual corpse will be raised to life in eternal damnation when our physical body dies.

Well, back to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Turn with me in your Bible to the Gospel of John, starting in chapter 3.

John 3:14-18

Jesus explains the way of forgiveness for sins and eternal salvation to a Pharisee named Nicodemus. In this Jesus explains why He has come to earth in human form and the implication that He must die for the sins of mankind with the illustration of the serpent lifted up in the wilderness during the time of Moses. There is not time this morning to dog into the details of that, but once you go back to the account in Exodus and bring it forward to what Jesus is now explaining, it is abundantly obvious that Jesus is pointing to the cross when He would be lifted up to die for the sins of the world.

John 5:24

When one hears the Word of Christ, as you are hearing this morning, the Holy Spirit will open your mind and your spiritual eyes to receive the truth and believe through faith that God will supply you with. This belief then brings salvation, brings life to your spiritual being, brings eternal forgiveness and eternal life to your soul. As Jesus says plainly, you will have passed out of death into life.

John 6:35-40

Again, the words of Jesus cannot be any plainer, there must come a time in one’s life that they savingly believe in Him, meaning that they by faith repent of their sins, believe that Jesus is the Son of God, believe that He died on the cross for their sins, believe that He was raised from the dead, and submit to Him as Lord of their life.

John 8:23-24

Apart from belief in Jesus, you will die in your sins, and Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, eternal death in hell and the lake of fire.

John 10:9; 11; 14-15

Salvation is through Jesus and only through Jesus.

John 10:26-30

If and when you are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, He will never let you go.

Well, there is so much more that we do not have time for, so let’s sip ahead.

John 19:1-6; 16-18; 28-30

The sinless, perfect, Lamb of God, the seed of the woman sent to crush the serpent’s head, is beaten, and bloodied beyond that of any man, so that His appearance no longer looked like a man, is nailed to a cross of wood to die in your place and in my place to pay the penalty for our sins – every one of our sins. Jesus then cries out, “It is finished!”, meaning that His blood sacrifice is sufficient to satisfy God the Father’s demand for holiness to enter heaven.

We have the life and death, but there’s more. There’s new life, resurrected life.

John 20:11-18

Resurrected life for all who will believe to follow in when this physical life is over.

Beloved, there are several Greek words that are translated as sin, transgression, lawlessness, and such in the New Testament. The primary definition of sin is missing the mark, meaning that sin causes us to miss the mark or miss the standard that God requires for eternal salvation. Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Not one of us has life a perfect and sinless life, which is required by God, who is the only One who gets to make the rules, for entrance into eternal life in heaven. All of us have sinned and deserve eternal punishment in hell and the lake of fire.

God knew our need from the very beginning, as we have seen in the time of creation and the very first sin of mankind. God set in motion His incredible and unthinkable plan when He cursed the serpent, cursed Satan, and provided a way for us to avoid the eternal penalty for our sins. Jesus willingly suffered and died when He took on the sins of the world at the cross.

The Bible says in Romans 10:9-10, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Then in verse 13, “for whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

This can be you. Now is the time, today is the day of salvation.

Let’s pray.