John 5:24-25 KING JAMES VERSION
24Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
25Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
What a glorious and magnificent thought....Death is not permanent! No promise or work of man has ever been so fulfilled in this fashion! Oh like Mary and Martha, like the Widow of Nain, like the disciples in the Upper Room, a wholesome and complete Doom was refuted.
Jesus came for one purpose, to refute Death that was the sentence upon the whole human race. But what good was it if He only talked about it? As I grow older and read the Scriptures, I find there are some points made by men, sinful and foolish most of them, that had they been in the proper timing, their observations would have been correct. My mind always goes to the one in the jeering mob at Calvary. "HE SAVED OTHERS, BUT HE HIMSELF HE CANNOT SAVE," as one puts it. Another, "HE SAVED OTHERS, LET HIM SAVE HIMSELF!" These statement are nearly the exact plan of God, BUT, for a misunderstanding of the times of the events, they lapse into utter brute and darkened understanding.
Christ planned not only to save others and Himself, but He would do it the Father's way. The key to the outsider of Faith to understand that Death, our mortal invincible foe, was not such a one to Christ. Jesus plainly told Pontius Pilate, that no man takes the life of the Son of Man. The Son of Man lays down his life AND Takes It UP again as He wills. Jesus knew as we should well understand, that without Resurrection, His Death, all the sin placed upon Him, all the insults and that awesome amount of unspeakable torture in the Praetorium meant NOTHING, unless He AROSE. You see, the statements of the foolish mockers on mount Calvary had validity, but they were not in command of the facts and procedure that must have to happen first. If Jesus never saved Himself, then others He could not save. The mob saw the cross as permanent. If the cross were the end, then their cries be justified. Jesus NEVER saw the Cross as the end, therefore, there was no need to come off of it prematurely until ALL was fulfilled concerning His Father's plan for humanity in the payment of our sins upon the shoulders of the Blessed One.
Then there is the Tomb. Cold, dank, unlovely, dark, unjust for such a One as to be its occupant. The only redeeming quality if you wish to find one is that the tomb was never before used. Christ, since birth bore the weight of more than sin, he bore the most humbling circumstances and poverty. At least now at His burial there would be a place that was, in this world's value, more than appropriate, because of the wealth that took to have it made ready. The tomb was a wealthy man's final abode, but it was not Christ's!! However, for a short period of days, that seemed like eternity to those who loved the King of Kings, it became a container for His body.
As was the custom, spices were to be delivered to anoint the dead, so that the smell of putrifaction would not be as noticeable. The tombs of the world always smell horrible. You see, you're sin may not be a literal thing to you to see, but wait until death, then sin has an odor that disrupts all others, barely to be hid as the women was wont to do. The body however took some time to leak out this horrendous odor. The Psalms tell us though that it was not planned for the Holy One to succomb to corruption (Psa 16:10). So when the women came to the tomb to perform a duty, that doubtless they had performed before on friends and family, they were were robbed of the task, gloriously!
THERE COULD NOT BE THE SMELL OF DEATH WHERE LIFE ABOUNDS!!
Plainly this, is our blessed and eternal hope, that no man taketh away.
When the women and later the men encountered what they thought would be a smelly tomb, there lay nothing in the air to suggest it. There are some interesting points in Scripture about what they found, and what we should find in the salvation for ourselves through Faith in Christ.
First, there was no more seal upon the tomb.
I have always thought it interesting, the act of "sealing the tomb" with a cord of some sort all held together by a big glob of imprinted wax. Now a dead man won't brake it and a live man won't be deterred from it (its not like a padlock and logging chains). Nevertheless, futile man embodied in foolish Pilate, Herod and the whole religious leader crowd deemed it worthy. It was the weakest of all the sights of the empty tomb, but it did do an important thing...namely...it showed how weak man is and how that he is no match for omnipotence. You will also remember that the sealing of the tomb was accented by soldiers. These soldiers, purported to be battle hardened, and no doubt they were, melted like butter before the angel of the Lord. My point in all of this is that your sin melts away like butter and is as binding as a glob of wax in the presence of the Saviour. There can be no defiable barriers to Grace. The first resolution for the tomb of your heart to smell sweetly with Life is to have the barriers or seals of sin eradicated. Paul wisely reminds us in Romans 8 that there is nothing that can stand between us and the love of Christ. The foes of Christ are too feeble to stand in His way. By the way, note in the final battle of this world, that Christ conquers His "foes" with the word of His mouth, and all His armies ride behind Him bearing no swords or armor...they simply are not needed.
Second, there was no odor from what was to be found.
Imagine the despair the disciple women must have felt. Coupled with their nauseating dread of what they thought to find and the putrid smell of a dead body to anoint, their mindset was anything but joyous. As noted previously, Death carries with it the most undeniable and sickening odor imaginable. You know Death by this factor and by the deterioration of its victim. When the women came to the Tomb and later the men, they expected a Smell, a Body, and a Painful Reminder. They received none of the three, save Mary Magdalene and what she received was magnificent, not putrid!
The reason why Death carries odor and can only be covered over constantly is because Sin is the catalyst for the dying process. In Adam, all die, but In Christ many shall be made alive (1 Cor 15:22). You and I have that sin catalyst, that is why we stink before the Lord in our unregenerate state. The odor of our sin can be smelled from one end of the Universe to the other just as if it were a smoldering pot under the very nose of God. So when we see the Tomb of our lives, we have odor, but Jesus left no unseemly smell behind. It is far incorrect to interpret the Righteousness of God to be a covering only, like myrhh for a dead body. The Righteousness of Jesus Christ doesn't merely cover, it eradicates! Thank God for that! Coverings, every one of them, leak out odors, but if the odor is completely eradicated, the sweet fragrance of Life is all that can be smelled, for that is all there is! When Christ redeems a person's life, our selves that once stank with sin's hangups, choices and guilt now does not smell so to God. Our tomb, once a place of death is now a sanctuary of Life, Christ's Life. Where the Life of Christ is, no loathsome odor remains. True we sin, but, the process of Sanctification is reversing the spiritual death in this life, not letting it spread. In a glorious fact, in the eyes of God, we right now are completely renewed, having only the sweet smell of the Holy Life about us. This is what the empty tomb most symbolizes: Emptiness of Death, Fullness of Life!
Third, the grave clothes were there, but not as they should be.
Yes the Tomb did leave one evidence of its short stay tennant, His burial wrappings. Why didn't Jesus eradicate them with His Resurrection? Simply to prove, that Death, even Death clothes could not hold Him. One point I have always found interesting (knowing that the Bible leaves nothing mentioned for filler or amusement, everything has meaning) is that the "napkin" or that which covered the face was laying separate and folded from all the rest of the garments. Why? Having no chapter and verse explanation, I can only add what I think may have been the reason. The act showed an order to His Resurrection. Note that the napkin was separate in its own place. The cloth could have been the first thing removed or the last, but the fact that it was removed is evident by its wearer. No plot of men would leave things laying separate or in neat fashion. Potential body stealers would actually take body and clothes in haste with them. Jesus proves He lives and He is the one that delivered Himself from the wrappings. Note also the Napkin was folded. Jesus effectively gave us the picture of the former things put away, like a retired object to its shelf. When you come to Christ, the old garments that smell of death are now put away. In this world they still remain with us, but are no longer part of our projected status as a child of God. Once we leave this world, as He left the Tomb, we leave all the grave clothes behind forever in full.
Fourth, there was no defilement upon entry, or exit.
The Gospels tell us that when the women had returned from the Tomb praising and glorifying God for the Risen Saviour, the men thought them to be out of their mind. However, John and Peter, run to the Tomb in search of the Truth. John being the younger man ran ahead of Peter, but he stopped short of entry, for he was not as bold. Peter, the leader of the disciples now, came to the opening and charged inside. In Jewish culture, it would defile a man to enter into a tomb, but all that presumed upon the fact that there was a decayed and unclean body there. As Peter found out, there was no body in there. However, little is talked about this act of Faith on the part of Peter. The tomb was dark, hewn into the rock several feet so that one could not see from the outside clearly what was inside. Peter risked his own perceived defilement by believing what the Master said and what the women testified and went in and came out. The point here is that when a Tomb speaks of Life, nothing can be defiling. The Life of Christ defiles no man. You have to have corruption to defile, and none was found by any witness. Now here is a stark contrast. We are defiled, we were born defiled, and but the Grace of Christ we die defiled. So how can we enjoy Life without defilement? The answer is that when we are buried with Him (that is our sins) He transforms us into living breathing creatures that are now Holy before God. You see, the body that Joseph of Armithea had placed in the tomb was defiled, BUT not with his own sin, but with OUR sins. When He raised that body (note that the Spirit of the Lord was apart from it as ours will be when we die) He reentered it in perfect Holiness, having put away all the former sin by offering His own blood before the Father. The Cleansing Spirit rejuvenated that body that was dead with all of our sin. Thus Resurrected to Newness of Life...this is what Paul talks about in Romans 6:4. When we enter the Tomb of Christ's Death and Suffering by Faith in His finished work, we come out not with the smell of putrefaction as some worker in a slaughter house, but as pure, fresh and Holy, having no stain or evidence that sin had marred and defiled us to Death. This principle is the Justification Process. You had sinned, but now you are made Righteous as the One who made you is Righteous. We could look at this process in the same light as you look upon a child in an orphanage. Once homeless, now with a Home. The homeless do not earn their home, they have no ability. The Home of Christ is a gift to those who could not possess it without the Giver (Eph 2:8). Once you exit this earthly life, you do not leave defiled, because you were renewed before defilement could run its course, just as it failed to finish off the Saviour.
Right now where you are....does the smell of Death or Life linger upon you? Whatever you are around in the physical, its odors cling to you. If you have been with Jesus, washed in His blood, then the sweet fragrance of LIFE permeates you and is transforming you each day. If you cannot claim Him as Saviour and Lord, then you wear your grave clothes proudly, but Tragically. Your end will be rotting and decaying, no matter how good a person you judge yourself to be. Do you know what a sinner's life is like? Its like the dead body that the women came to anoint with their spices. The spices could cover the stench for a while and almost make it unknown, but there is never enough spices to save you from that which is transpiring inside. The decaying man can be changed by admitting the sinful condemnation we own, and asking that same Jesus who rose from the dead to come in to the tomb of our heart and infuse us with Life and be our Lord and Saviour.
Christian, let us refocus this season of Easter, upon NEW LIFE, not the old you came from. No one fondly reaches their noses towards the rotting garbage dump, neither should we. It is enough that we live in a garbage world, so in this world, seek other rotting corpses of sin, not to join them, but rather to witness of what the Life of the Saviour can do. Oh what the leper could tell us about being cleansed! The joy is ours just as it was his. Tell others about the only One who taketh away the sins of the world. May Life, His Life, be evidenced in you by the dying.
'Rescue the Perishing, care for the dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave. Weep o'er the erring one, lift up the fallen. Tell them of Jesus the Mighty to Save."
Dear Heavenly Father, as we celebrate the Glorious Resurrection of Your Son and our Saviour, help us to appreciate and to live out the Life that lingers on us and that we should point others, who are dead, as we were, to the Grace of Christ. May we be living for You each day and bringing the Good News of Hope where it is not heard. Thank You for loving us so much, that a reprobate could be called a son. In thy Name we Praise Thee, Amen.
