This Changes Everything: Jesus’ Resurrection & Commission
Matthew 28
Pastor Jason Van Bemmel

 

The Resurrection

 

¹ Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ² And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. ⁴ And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. ⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” ⁸ So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

 

The Report of the Guard

 

¹¹ While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. ¹² And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers ¹³ and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴ And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵ So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

 

The Great Commission

 

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 

• Matthew 28, ESV

Introduction: This Changes Everything

Some things matter more than others. I think we all know that’s true, but what is often overlooked is that the things that get the most attention are often the things that matter least, while the truly consequential things can often be easily overlooked.

Every year in the United States, the most watched event is the Super Bowl. Every four years, though, the size of the Super Bowl audience is dwarfed by the size of the audience for the World Cup. Here’s the truth: The outcome of those sporting events doesn’t really matter that much. Very few people’s lives are changed dramatically because one team or another wins the Super Bowl or one country or another wins the World Cup.

But in a remote corner of the world 2,000 years ago, outside a relatively small obscure city, an empty tomb early on a Sunday morning changed everything. Millions upon millions of people have had their lives transformed, their hope renewed, and their eternal destinies changed for the better because of that empty tomb, and everyone has been and will be impacted forever by the resurrection of Jesus outside the city walls of Jerusalem whether they believe in Jesus or not.

1. The Resurrection
   
   
   1. Most Important Event in Human History

First and foremost, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead is, by far, the single most important event in the history of the world. It’s more important than Newton discovering gravity or Columbus discovering the New World or Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. It’s even more important than the launch of the iPhone in 2007.

Now, you might be shaking your head wondering why I’m comparing the resurrection of Jesus to these historical events. Maybe in your mind, you’ve put the resurrection into a different category, the category of religious belief, which is an important category of sincerely held convictions.

But the resurrection of Jesus is not a religious conviction. It was a historical event, and it’s not just a religious conviction that it was a historical event. It’s the kind of thing that can be tested using standard criteria for evaluating historical claims – physical evidence, multiple credible eyewitness accounts, and a whole series of effects that would be impossible without the resurrection. Billy Graham said, “There is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived or that Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three.”

 

Very briefly:

1. The tomb was empty. The Gospel writers tell us exactly which tomb Jesus was buried in: the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the ruling council. That is a verifiable fact that would have been known to the original readers of Matthew and the other Gospels.
   
2. Multiple eyewitnesses claim to have seen Jesus alive after death, and they weren’t solo encounters, either. Experiences that happen when we’re alone can be excused as hallucinations or mental phenomenon. But Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples on at least five occasions: twice in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, once by the shore of the Sea of Galilee, once on the mountain in Galilee where He gave the Great Commission, and once on the mountain where He ascended back to heaven.

Furthermore, the eyewitnesses of the resurrection refused to recant their claims, even under torture and in the face of the threat of execution. Liars and conspirators crumble easily under intense persecution, but 11 of the 12 Apostles were executed for their testimony of the resurrection of Jesus, and not one denied it.

3. The existence of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire by the end of the first century, within decades of Jesus’ life, with its own set of Scriptures, its own message of salvation, its different day of worship, on Sunday. A number of men claimed to be the Messiah in first-century Israel, and most of them were killed, but none of them had followers who claimed they rose from the dead and who spread the message of the resurrection of their messiah across the Roman Empire.    

At the very beginning of Matthew 28, we see the reason why Christians from the earliest years gathered for worship on Sunday, the first day of the week, instead of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, the last day of the week. Sunday, the Lord’s Day, is the day of resurrection.

But the disciples themselves were transformed from weak and cowardly men who denied and abandoned their Lord to bold men who would openly preach in the Temple, get imprisoned for doing so, be released, and then carry on preaching again. They would continue to preach until the corrupt authorities put them to death for doing so.

1. A Message of Hope from the Angels

It is interesting how each Gospel writer gives us a different perspective on what happened on that Resurrection Day. Matthew intentionally leaves out so much of what happened that day, including the meeting with the disciples in the Upper Room later in the evening of that first day of the week. We are told that an angel from the Lord came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. It’s vital to note that the angel did not roll back the stone to let Jesus out of the tomb. In His resurrection body, stones and locked doors were not obstacles for Jesus. No, the stone was rolled away not to let Jesus out but to let the women in.

The angel terrified the guards who fainted, but he offered comfort to the women with a message of powerful hope:

“Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”

– vv. 5-7

The women were at the tomb on the morning of the third day, but they were not expecting to see it empty and see Jesus raised. Jesus had told His disciples on three different occasions that He would rise again on the third day. At the very end of Matthew 27, just a few verses before the resurrection account, the religious leaders in Jerusalem asked for a guard to be posted at Jesus’ tomb:

⁶² The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate ⁶³ and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ ⁶⁴ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” ⁶⁵ Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” ⁶⁶ So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

– Matthew 27:62-66

These priests and Pharisees went to Pilate on the Sabbath Day – that’s what “the next day, after the day of Preparation” means. They repeatedly criticized Jesus for breaking the Sabbath during His earthly ministry when He healed people on the Sabbath, but here they are going to Pontius Pilate, an unclean Gentile, and then putting their own soldiers to work to guard the tomb on the Sabbath day.

It's amazing to me that the religious leaders remembered the words of Jesus better than His disciples. So, the angel’s message to the women was a complete surprise to them, but it was a powerful message of hope and also a rebuke of their forgetfulness: “He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.”

This message of the resurrection changed everything for these women in those early morning hours . . .

1. Joyful Obedience from the Women

Once the angel told them of Jesus’ resurrection, they quickly went to do exactly as they were told:

So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

 

They went from carrying burial spices to a tomb to carrying good news to their friends. They left with fear and great joy, and they ran to obey! What an awesome example for all believers! When we come to worship to meet with God and hear from Him, we should leave with the right fear of the Lord and with great joy, and we should be running to obey what the Lord has told us to do.

 

These women didn’t get far when Jesus met them:

 

 ⁹ And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

Here, we see that the women did something different when they saw Jesus than when they saw the angel: They worshiped Him. And Jesus did not refuse their worship because it was proper and fitting for them to worship Him, but it is not fitting to worship angels, who are created beings and not God. God alone is worthy of our worship and our prayers.

1. The Commission

The next time Matthew shows us Jesus, He is on a mountain in Galilee where He told His disciples to meet Him, and He is commissioning them:

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 

It's the eleven disciples because Judas has fallen away and killed himself, and he has not yet been replaced. Just like the women at the empty tomb, the disciples worshiped Jesus.  I find the honesty of Matthew amazing, that he tells us that some of the disciples doubted. This is at least the third time Jesus has appeared to the disciples, but some of them still have doubts. These were not gullible people who saw something at a distance one time and then believed Jesus rose from the dead.

Jesus gives His disciples the Great Commission on this mountain in Galilee. This Great Commission changed everything in the lives of the disciples forever, so let’s think about it:

He gave this Commission to His disciples together, not to each one individually but to all of them together. If we understand the Great Commission as given to the church and further understand the church as the Body of Christ with different members who all have different gifts, then we can see that we all have a part to play together in carrying out the Great Commission, which is quite simply to make disciples.

A disciple is one who follows Jesus. We have ONE JOB as the church of Jesus Christ: to make other Jesus-followers, to disciple people, even as we are ourselves being discipled. Disciples making disciples who then make disciples. This is the very heartbeat of the calling of the church.

Paul puts it this way in 2 Timothy 2:2, speaking to his young disciple, Timothy: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”

A disciple is different from a Christian, though the words are closely related. Christian is an identity. People call themselves Christians as a label for all kinds of reasons: culture, family, sociology, convenience, etc. Discipleship is a lifestyle. A disciple is someone who is actively following Jesus, living as a Christ-follower.

If you are a Christian, are you also a disciple?

1. All Authority

The basis of Jesus’ commissioning His disciples to make disciples rests on the fact that He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Jesus is now and will forever be the King over all the kings, the Lord over all the lords, supreme ruler of heaven and earth.

We are not building the kingdom of God. Jesus said, “I will build my church.” He has all authority, and He is building and advancing His kingdom. He is using us as His instruments to do that, and the way we do it is by making disciples. Since we’re making disciples who follow Jesus on the basis of the authority of Jesus, the way we make disciples is by giving the Word of God to people and helping them believe it and apply it to their lives.

1. All Nations

Jesus commissions us to make disciples “of all nations,” which means of every people group – the Greek word is ethne – and we get ethnicity from that. It means each distinct group of people – every tribe, tongue, people and nation to use the language of Revelation 5. So, a Christian cannot be a racist or a nationalist or ethno-centric. We are to be cross-cultural, and this should include both missionary work overseas and also inviting all people groups who live near us, in our community, into our church fellowship.

 

1. All That Jesus Commands

Jesus gives us two means for making disciples: baptism, which sets someone apart and identifies them as a disciple of Jesus, and teaching. Jesus tells us to teach all that He commands, not to pick and choose. This is why the Bible, and the whole Bible, needs to be our sourcebook and guide for discipleship.

Finally, in our disciple-making, we have the promise of Jesus that He will be with us always, until the end of the age when we see Him face-to-face.

The disciples were absolutely transformed, not only by the Lord’s resurrection but also by His commission of them. They would leave behind their homes, their families, and their comforts, and they would gladly, joyfully, eagerly spend themselves for the sake of the Gospel, to fulfill the commission Jesus gave them. Within a generation, these men would take the Gospel of Jesus Christ from India to Spain, from Ethiopia to Rome. 

• The Opposition

In between the resurrection of Jesus and His giving the Great Commission, we see the deceitful and corrupt opposition.

1. Power by Corruption

In contrast to Jesus, who has been given all authority in heaven and earth, the opposition of Jesus gets their power from corruption, by bribery and conspiracy.

1. Denial by Lies

The opposition denies the resurrection of Jesus by lies. They say things that are just not true. Islam says Jesus was never crucified. Modern atheists are trying to say now that Jesus never even existed. These are bold lies, flowing from corrupt hearts that cannot deal with the resurrection of Jesus.

Why lie and oppose the resurrection of Jesus? Well Tim Keller put it well when he said: “If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”

Where Do You Stand? How Have You Responded?

So, where do you stand? Do you know that Jesus rose from the dead? Do you understand that this proves that everything He said about Himself is true? Are you following Him, or are you still trying in vain to deny Him? If you’re follow Him, are you making disciples as part of His church? Has your life been truly transformed?