JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN
EASTER SERVICE
DR. JIM DIXON
1 THESSALONIANS 4
APRIL 22, 1984
In the year 1930, Bukharin the Bolshevik journeyed from Moscow to Kiev to deliver an address to a vast assembly. His subject was atheism, and as he stood before his great audience, for a solid hour he unleashed the full weapons of his arsenal against Christianity and the Christian faith. He hurled argument and ridicule and when he was done, he looked out on the masses and it seemed to him as though he was viewing the smoldering ashes of men’s faith. He had destroyed their beliefs utterly. “Are there any questions?” He demanded. A solitary man arose. He asked for permission to speak. He came forward, he mounted the platform. He stood next to the communist. He looked out on the assembly and the people were silent, but suddenly he shouted the ancient Orthodox Christian greeting, “Christ has risen” and the entire assembly arose and the response came crashing like the sound of an avalanche. With one voice, the people cried “He has risen indeed.”
For 2,000 years, Christianity has endured and flourished in the midst of political oppression, in the midst of persecution, in the midst of atheistic ridicule. Today more than 1 billion people on this earth proclaim Jesus Christ is risen.
It was 1,900 years ago on the island of Patmos when our Lord Jesus appeared to the Apostle John. Jesus was resurrected and alive. He appeared in His heavenly body, in His heavenly glory, in His resurrected body. The Bible says that earthly words could not describe Him. His voice was as the sound of many waters and His face was like the sun shining at full strength. When John saw him, the Bible says that John fell at His feet, but Jesus stretched forth His arm and He touched him and He said, “Fear not. I am the living one. I died, but I’m alive forevermore.” That’s the message of Easter: Jesus Christ is alive forevermore. He is the risen one. He has risen and He is the hope of mankind.
This morning I’d like to share with you two promises given to Christians at Easter and the first promise is the promise of the resurrection of the soul. Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead physically and bodily three days after His crucifixion on the cross, but he rose in His spirit. He was resurrected spiritually in His soul, in His spirit in the very moment that He died, as He cried out from the cross, “Father into thy hands, I commit my spirit.” And as He said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” What’s true of the Lord is true of all who believe in His name, and that very moment we die as Christians our soul and spirit leaves the body and goes to be in the presence of the Lord in paradise.
Throughout history, mankind has been fascinated by the study of the soul. In the year 1907, Dr. Duncan McDougal of Haber Hill, Massachusetts began to conduct experiments at a large eastern hospital. MacDougal believed that the human soul was like an energy field and that it had a capacity for reason and intelligence, that it had form and perhaps even substance. He suspended a bed scale from the ceiling of the hospital. He placed a dying tuberculosis patient upon the bed scale and he observed that at the precise moment of death, the patient lost three quarters of an ounce in weight. He attributed this to the flight of the soul or spirit from the body. In the next five years, he put many dying patients upon that bed scale and he found that in every case without exception, the patient lost weight at the precise moment of death from one quarter of an ounce to one and a half ounces. He tried the same experiments with animals, but none of them ever lost any weight at the moment of death. He said this was in accord with traditional Judeo-Christian teachings that animals do not have a spiritual dimension. He published his findings in a scientific journal in the year 1913, and the scientific and medical communities mocked him.
McDougal died in the year 1920. No one bothered to weigh his soul. Some suggested that perhaps they ought to weigh his brain, but it was of course never done. The truth is however, that his experiments have never been confirmed or denied scientifically, they’ve simply been left alone.
In the year 1948, James Kidd disappeared in the superstition mountains of Arizona. He was never found, but they found his will in the year 1964. James Kidd’s will was that $300,000 of his estate go to science for the study of the existence of the human soul. Many organizations wanted the money. It was left to the courts to decide. Initially they gave the money to the Barrow Neurological Institute, a division of the Roman Catholic Church. But ultimately the money went to the American Society of Psychical Research. It is only one of hundreds of scientific and parapsychological organizations today that continue to examine the human soul.
There are many scientists today who claim that they can prove that the human soul does indeed exist through aura photography, through out of body experiences. Elizabeth Kubler Ross and Dr. Raymond Moody have interviewed thousands of patients who were clinically dead, many of which claim to have encountered some kind of experience in their soul and spirit apart from the body at the moment of death. But you see, science may or may not prove that the human soul exists. It doesn’t matter. We know that the human soul exists and is real because the Bible proclaims it. The Bible tells us that we are trichotomous, that we are tri-part beings, we are body, we are soul, and we are spirit, “soma,” “psyche,” and “pneuma.” The Bible tells us that at the very moment we die, in that moment our soul and spirit goes into the presence of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
What the Bible affirms, the heart of man discerns to be true. Surveys tell us that the overwhelming majority of people in this world already believe that there is a spiritual dimension to man, that we have a soul and we have a spirit. From the very beginning, mankind has wondered what happens to the soul at the moment of death. The ancient Egyptians used to bury their dead in a tomb. They believed that in that tomb, after a period of time, the soul would leave the body and begin a long and perilous journey towards heaven, which they referred to as Amuns. They put provisions in the tomb to help the soul on this long journey. They put food and clothing and various necessities, but most important of all, they put a book called “The Book of the Dead” and the soul was to use that book in order to successfully make this journey towards Amun. If the soul used the book properly, the soul would be able to escape demons and hideous monster monkeys that lie in wait with large nets waiting to ensnare traveling souls.
The soul must travel across the great desert eluding poisonous snakes and come to the Great Sea. On the other side of the Great Sea were the gates of heaven, the gates of Amun. But there was only one way across the Great Sea and that was by ferry. There was a being that was in charge of that ferry and his name was Face Behind because he always looked behind himself. He had great power, and many souls he denied access to the ferry. They were left to wander in the great desert forever and ever for eternity. But some souls he would take across the Great Sea and they would come to the gates of Amun, but they were still not home free because at the gates of Amun was a hybrid monster, part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopotamus. A strange monster indeed. This monster threatened to rip the soul to shreds and many times the monster did, but sometimes a soul would make it through the gates of Amun and that was the beginning of a pilgrimage down the corridors of heaven until the soul came to the hall of 42 ancestors. There the soul was tried by its own relatives and the soul would have to make the declaration of innocence. The soul would have to say, “I have not blasphemed, I have not committed murder, I have not stolen. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. Finally, the soul must come to the hall of two truths where the soul was tried by Osiris and a council of the Egyptian gods. The soul must be weighed and the soul must balance perfectly with a feather. If a soul balanced, then it ascended to celestial bliss where it dwelled along the banks of the Heavenly Nile. But if the soul did not balance, it was condemned and that meant three things. Either the soul could be placed forever in the burning fires of the demons or the soul could be sent back to earth as a vile creature or the soul could be thrown into the atmosphere where for centuries and millennia it would be battered about by violent storms, expiating for its sins. Then it would return to earth and start the whole process all over again.
We marvel at the primitive thoughts of the ancient religions and yet modern religions are no better. Modern day Hinduism, and millions of people believe in Hinduism, modern day Hinduism views the whole universe as a cosmic egg. At the top of the egg there are seven heavens and beneath the seven heavens are seven netherworlds and they’re inhabited by demons and by spirit entities and by serpent creatures. Beneath the seven netherworlds are 8,400,000 hells, plenty of room for everybody. The Hindus believe that when you die, your soul immediately goes to the abode of the dead and it is ruled by a creature whose name is Yama. Yama is green in color, he wears a red robe, he has a flower in his hair, he rides a buffalo and he always carries a lasso. Now judgment is not given into his hands. The soul is judged by its karma, by the fruit of its life, but Yama ultimately assigns the soul to one of the 8,400,000 hells. There the soul may experience, for thousands of years, the pain of being pecked at by birds or another hell it may experience for a thousand years being strangled by snakes or another hell it may experience what it’s like to eat things that I’m not even going to bother to describe.
Such are the religions of the world, both ancient and modern. They simply reflect men’s desire to understand what we can never understand. They reflect man’s desire to understand sin and judgment. They reflect man’s desire to understand the soul and what happens to the soul at the moment of death. But God has not left us in darkness. He has spoken to us in His word and by His Son and He has told us what happens to the human soul at the moment of death.
The Bible says there are only two types of people in this world. There are Christians and there are non-Christians. Non-Christians are those people who do not believe in Jesus Christ either because they lived in a time or place where they had not the opportunity or because they’ve heard the gospel of Christ and rejected it. The Bible tells us that the souls of such persons upon death are kept. They are kept for the final judgment, a judgment that will occur at the consummation at the close of the age. The Bible tells us that this judgment is called the judgment of the great white throne. The Bible describes this judgment in the 20th chapter of the Book of Revelation. It is a judgment of what was done in the body. It is a judgment of works. It is a judgment of heaven or hell. But the Bible says there’s another group of people and they’re called Christians and they believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The Bible says they will not come into judgment, but they have already passed out of death into life. At the very moment of the Christian’s death, at that moment the Christian goes into heaven where he or she is with the Lord in paradise. Their soul, their spirit, leaves the body and immediately at that moment of death goes to be with the Lord. That’s the promise of Easter: “Today, you shall be with Me in paradise.”
In recent months we’ve had two young people in our church pass away. One was Justin Carbaugh, 11 years old. He died in the midst of heart surgery. The other was a boy twice his age, a young man, 22 years old, Christopher Patton who died in an automobile accident. Both of them believed in Jesus Christ. In both cases we had committal services. We placed their body in the earth, we committed their body to the earth, for the Bible says, “We are dust and to dust we shall return.” But we committed their soul and spirit into heaven. The Bible tells us that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy. Everyone who believes in Jesus Christ at the very moment of death goes to be with the Lord in their soul and in their spirit. That’s why Jesus Christ is more important than any person who ever lived. “He who has the son has life and he has not the Son of God has not life.” Jesus said, “What does it profit a man if he gained the whole world and forfeit his own soul?”
Finally, Easter is the promise of physical bodily resurrection. Jesus Christ rose from the dead bodily three days after His crucifixion on the cross. His resurrection from the dead physically is the hope of physical resurrection to all who believe in His name. Paul said, “Our commonwealth is in heaven and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power which enables him to subject all things unto himself.” Only Jesus Christ has the power of resurrection. Only Jesus Christ can provide bodily resurrection.
Throughout history there have been men and women who claim that they would rise bodily from the dead. In the 18th century there arose a woman whose name was Jemima Wilkerson. She was born in 1752 in Rhode Island to a Quaker family. In 1772, at the age of 20, she proclaimed herself to be the incarnation of Jesus Christ and amazingly, her own family believed in her and thousands of people began to follow her and she instructed them to adopt lifestyles of celibacy and discipline to prepare themselves for the consummation and her judgment of the earth. She once stood before a lake in New York state and a great multitude was gathered about her and she announced that she was able to walk on water. She asked the masses if they believed her and with one voice they said “Yes.” She then said there was no point since they believed already and she walked home on land.
In the year 1790 she founded a community called the Universal Friends in the Finger Lakes District of New York. The community flourished for 30 years until her death in the year 1820. Upon her death, she instructed her followers to place her body on the ground, not to place it under the ground, not to bury her but to lay her body on the ground and all of her followers should gather around and in three days they would see her body resurrected before their very eyes. Her followers gathered around her dead body, which they placed on the ground and they stood around her body for 30 days watching that body decompose before their very eyes.
Only Jesus Christ has the power of resurrection. He rose from the dead and we have the testimony of eyewitnesses. It was 1,950 years ago when Jesus stood outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem. He stood by an empty tomb. He stood by a weeping woman and He said, “Mary,” and she turned and she saw her Lord resurrected and alive. He then appeared to His disciples in the upper room and He said, “Peace I leave with you.” He showed them His hands and His side and they rejoiced to see that it was the Lord. He then appeared to Thomas and He showed Thomas His hands and His side. He said, “Do not be faithless, but believing.” Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.” He appeared to the disciples and He gave them the Holy Spirit. He empowered them for ministry and He sent them forth into the world. He appeared to the disciples again by the Sea of Galilee and by His power He made the disciples make a miracle catch of fish and in His resurrection body He ate breakfast with them by the seashore. He walked with Peter and He told Peter by what means Peter would die, but he said, “Do not worry, simply follow me.” He appeared to the disciples again on the Mount of Olives. There He ascended into heaven before their very eyes and the angels announced that Jesus would one day come again at the consummation in the same manner that they had seen Him go.
He appeared to His earthly brother James and by His appearance James accepted the Lord and He came to head the Jerusalem church. He appeared to Paul on the Damascus road. It changed Paul’s life. He appeared to John on the island of Patmos. The Bible said that Jesus Christ appeared to more than 500 people in His resurrected body. He is alive and we are the testimony of eyewitnesses.
The Bible bears witness to the risen Christ and it is an authoritative book, the historicity of which is confirmed by archeological evidence and by prophecies fulfilled in history and in our time. The Holy Spirit bears witness with the spirits of men and women that Jesus Christ is alive. He is the hope of the world. There are others who claim that they could raise the dead but only Jesus Christ can.
Jesus Christ came to Bethany many years ago and he found Mary and Martha weeping. Their brother Lazarus had died. Martha came out to Jesus and said, “Lord, if you’d only been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus said, “Martha, your brother will rise again.” Martha said, “I know Lord, that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he die yet shall he live and he who lives and believes in Me will never truly die.” He is the hope of resurrection. He raised from the dead the daughter of Jairus. He raised from the dead the widow son of the village of Nain. He alone has power of resurrection and yet all of those resurrections were really resuscitations for He restored them to their normal earthly bodies and they lived only to die again. The prototype of our resurrection is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. For the Bible tells us that He rose in a body that is indestructible, a body that will never die, a body that is eternal. The Bible describes it as “aphtharsia,” not subject to decay, “doxa,” glorious, “dunamus,” powerful, “epiourinoy,” fit for the heavens. The bodies we have now are terrestrial. They are fit for the earth, but the body that will be given is fit for the heavens. This promise is given to all who believe in Jesus Christ and to all who believe in His name.
Outside of Mandalay in the Philippines, and with this will close, there is a city where the dead are treated better than the living. It is a city that is called the city of the dead. It looks like an affluent suburban community and the streets of the city are lined with mausoleums and those burial chambers are really like homes. Each burial chamber for the dead person has two bedrooms. It has a kitchen, it has a dining room, it has a bathroom, it has a well-stocked pantry. It has everything that dead person will ever need in eternity. Outside the city of the dead, the living dwell in poverty. They are jammed into shacks. Once a week on Saturday night, the living come into the city of the dead where they visit their ancestors and they go into the homes of their relatives, into the kitchens and they eat and they feast. Once a year they have the festival of the dead where the living come into the city of the dead and they spend the night in the homes of their ancestors. Why do they do this? They do this because they’re trying to cope with death. They want to give death some honor, some dignity, some prestige, and they want to feel as somehow they are able still to communicate with the dead, that they are still able to fellowship with their relatives and that’s why they do it.
We live in a world that longs to cope, that struggles to cope with death. People diet and exercise in order to preserve life and ward off death. Some people actually have their bodies frozen at great expense hoping that some future date they might be revived at a time when science has destroyed disease and abled to provide eternal youth. We shroud death in symbolism and ritual. We have funeral services, memorial services, committal services. We put flowers and tombstones on grave sites, but none of this removes the sting of death. Death is the great tragedy of the human race. Only Jesus Christ has the power to raise a body from the dead. Only Jesus Christ removes the stink of death.
When we die as Christians, our soul and spirit go immediately into His presence. The Bible tells us that the close of the age when Jesus comes again, then all of us who believe will find our souls and spirits clothed with new resurrected bodies. That’s why Paul says in the fourth chapter of the book of 1 Thessalonians, “We would not have you ignorant brethren concerning those who have fallen asleep, but you do not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God through Jesus will take with Him those who have fallen asleep. For we declare to you by the word of God that we who are alive, who are left until His coming, shall not proceed those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise. Then we who are alive, who are left until His coming, shall be gathered together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and we shall always be with the Lord. So comfort one another for these words.”
If you really believe those words, if you really believe in spiritual and physical resurrection for all who believe in Jesus Christ, if that’s your faith, that’s your confidence, then it’s going to affect your attitude towards life and towards death. You’re going to view this life as a classroom, as a drop in the bucket when compared with the endless ages of eternity. You’re going to view this life as a time of preparation for the real life that is to come and you’re going to view death as a door to paradise. You’ll view death as a door to eternity and glory itself. Paul said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” That is meant to be the attitude of Christians in every generation. Shall we pray?