The Living Christ

Luke 24:1-8
Richard Spencer | Sunday, April 21, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Richard Spencer

Thrice-holy God in heaven, we come before you with inexpressible joy and thanksgiving because you have taken away our sin and punishment and clothed us in the righteousness of Christ so that we may dwell with you forever. Father, you have given me the words to speak this morning, and I pray now that you would be present by your Holy Spirit and enable me to speak with clarity and power, and that you would grant all of us hearts to hear and respond with the obedience of faith to your glorious message of salvation. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

This is Easter Sunday, the day that we, as Christians, celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it is the greatest event in history and the greatest miracle that has ever been performed. And I am not speaking about a myth, or a resurrection that is only true in some mystical sense in the hearts of believers. No, I am speaking about a true, physical, historical resurrection. And it is not a resuscitation either, for Jesus was given a new body fit for eternity in heaven.

This is one of the best attested events in all of history and there can be no doubt about its truth. The empty tomb, the undisturbed grave clothes, the inability of the authorities to produce the body of Jesus and quash this new religion, the dramatic change produced in believers, the growth of the church, the testimony of the eyewitnesses and angels and much more. There is abundant evidence that we are speaking about truth, historical events.

And our text this morning, Luke 24:1–8, is an important passage that tells us about one small part of what happened on that first Easter Sunday. But before we can understand the passage, we need to go back and review the events of the preceding week.

On the previous Sunday, which we call Palm Sunday, Jesus had made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem accompanied by shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Matt 21:9). And then, during the week Jesus had cleansed the temple by driving out all who were buying and selling there and overturning the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. He had taught the people and had the last supper with his disciples. He had been betrayed into the hands of his enemies, deserted by his apostles, and tried before Pontius Pilate, found innocent, and yet was condemned to die.

On that Friday he was crucified, which is the most horrific, painful method of execution ever devised by wicked men. Then, after he died, a member of the Jewish ruling council named Joseph, who had secretly become a follower of Jesus, boldly asked Pilate for his body. His request was granted and he took the body, wrapped it in linen and seventy-five pounds of spices, and placed it in his own new tomb, which was cut out of rock. We are told in Luke 23:55–56, “The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” Since the Jewish sabbath was on Saturday, the women waited until Sunday morning to go and anoint Jesus’ body.

And now, with this background in mind, our story begins in Luke 24:1: “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.” But then, in verse 2, we see a surprise. We are told, “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.” That, in itself, is quite amazing for two reasons. First, the stone was extremely heavy. And we read in Mark 16:3 that as they walked to the tomb, the women had been discussing among themselves who would roll the stone away. And the second reason it is amazing is that the tomb had been sealed and a Roman guard had been posted. So, it must have been quite a shock when the women arrived and found the tomb open. Then, in verse 3 we read, “When they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.”

Just imagine their surprise! They must have been completely befuddled at this point. And we read in verse 4, “While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.” We are given more information about this in Matthew’s gospel. In Matthew 28:3 we read about one specific angel and are told, “His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.”

Now, one would expect this to be terrifying, and Matthew 28:4 confirms that expectation. We are told there, “The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.” And you must remember that these were Roman soldiers, not men whom you would assume would be easily frightened, let alone that they would shake and be like dead men!

And, as you would expect, the women were terrified as well. We are told in Luke 24:5, “In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground,” which seems like a perfectly normal reaction considering the extraordinary circumstances and the appearance of these angels.

Then, in verses 5–7 we read what the angel said to these women: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” And, finally, our passage ends in verse 8 by telling us, “Then they remembered his words.”

Now let’s think about the implications of what the angel said to these women. He started with a mild rebuke by asking a rhetorical question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

We use the same method ourselves to point out sin sometimes. Did you ever try to sneak into the kitchen and get your hand into the cookie jar when you were little? And perhaps your mother followed you in and she asked, “What are you doing here?” And in case you never figured it out, that was not a real question. She knew exactly what you were doing there. It was a mild rebuke. And the angel was doing the same thing with these women.

But you might be thinking to yourself, “Now wait a minute. Jesus had just died and been placed in the tomb three days before. Where else should these women look for him?” And because the angel knew that these women might have similar thoughts, he added, “Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then the women remembered Jesus’ words. And I am certain that they were deeply ashamed that they had not remembered before and believed them.

But we should not be too hard on these women. They, at least, went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. But where were his apostles? These men were hiding together somewhere and when these women came and told them what they had seen and heard, we are told in Luke 24:11, “They did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”

Now, we all know that in general the idea of someone being raised from the dead is an impossibility. But Jesus Christ himself told us in Luke 18:27, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” And so, as we read in Acts 26:8, the apostle Paul, when defending himself before King Agrippa, asked, “Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” Think about it. Why is it incredible that the one who made this entire universe by the word of his power should raise the dead? It is not incredible at all.

Some commentators attribute the apostle’s disbelief to the fact that the testimony of women was not considered reliable in the Jewish culture of the time, and that is certainly true. But it is also being a bit too kind to the apostles. The women certainly would have told them everything the angel said, including the reminder about Jesus’ own words predicting his resurrection. And that should have been enough to cause the apostles to remember, be ashamed, and believe. But it was not, although it did at least cause Peter and John to run to the tomb and check on the story.

But then, even after they had seen the empty tomb, Peter was wondering to himself about what had happened. Now, John was a little quicker. We are told in John 20:8 that when he went into the tomb and saw the grave clothes, “He saw and believed.” But we are also told [in John 20:9] that the apostles “still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”

Now to be fair, we must try and understand just how radical it was for them, as first-century Jews, to believe in a Messiah who was going to be crucified. How could such a Messiah save his people? And we must remember that all of them did, eventually, come to a confident and powerful faith that enabled them to give their lives in the service of this gospel. That is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that the resurrection is historical fact.

We have the great benefit of standing on the shoulders of the apostles, and many other pious and learned people who came after them. So, let’s look at what Jesus had told them beforehand about his death and resurrection, and examine what it meant to them and what it still means for us today, because, as I said earlier, this is the most important event in history.

The gospels record at least three separate times when Jesus clearly taught the apostles that he was going to be condemned to death, killed, and on the third day raised from the dead. The first time he did so occurred when they were near Caesarea Philippi in the northernmost part of Israel. This is also the time when Peter made the good confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). We read in Luke 9:22 that at the same place and time Jesus told his apostles, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

Then again, when he was teaching his apostles privately in Galilee, after his transfiguration, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise” (Mark 9:31).

Finally, on the way to Jerusalem prior to his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, Jesus told the apostles, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matt. 20:18–19).

When we look at these three statements by Jesus, along with the confession made by Peter, we learn three things about Jesus. I want to examine each one of these three things this morning. First, we learn from Peter that Jesus is the Christ. Second, we see that in each statement, Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man,” which is a very interesting expression with great significance, as we will see. Third, we see that Jesus said he must suffer, which is an indication that he is the suffering servant spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. L

So, let’s begin by examining the fact that Jesus is the Christ.

I.         Jesus Is the Christ

Our English word Christ comes from the Greek word Χριστός (Christos), which simply means “anointed” and is the equivalent of the Hebrew word “Messiah.” In the Old Testament, people were anointed as a sign of being set apart for a certain task. So, for example, we see Aaron and his sons being anointed to serve as priests in Exodus 30:30, and in 1 Samuel 16:13, we see the prophet Samuel anointing David to be king over Israel. Jesus Christ, however, is the ultimate Anointed One spoken of in the Old Testament. For example, in Psalm 2:2 we read, “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.”

This Anointed One was set apart and called to fulfill a unique role and to perform the most difficult work that any man has ever been called performed. And Jesus clearly proclaimed himself to be this ultimate Anointed One. After he was tempted by Satan in the desert, he went into his hometown of Nazareth and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath. He stood up and read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah as we are told in Luke 4:18-19. Here is what he read; “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he then sat down with all eyes fixed upon him and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus was anointed to preach good news and to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. And let me tell you the truth, we need freedom because we are all born prisoners of sin. We inherit a sinful nature from our parents, who got it from their parents, and so on, all the way back to Adam and Eve. Even when we do things that are, in themselves, lawful and good, we do them for the wrong reasons and they are, therefore, sin. God judges the motives of our hearts as well as our actions. We are to do everything in obedience to God and for his glory, but none of us does that. And, as Paul tells us in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death.”

Contrary to the teaching of our atheistic society, death is not natural to man. It is the punishment visited upon mankind because of sin. Adam and Eve were not created to die, but God told them that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, they would die. They did just that, and immediately experienced death, just as God said they would. And because Adam was the representative for the human race, when he died, we all, in a sense, died with him.

There are three different kinds of death. First, Adam and Eve immediately died spiritually, and so they lost communion with God, who is Spirit. Second, they immediately started the process of aging and dying physically and then, in time, they did die. And third, they became subject to eternal death in hell because of their rebellion against God.

But, praise God, the good news that Jesus was anointed to preach is that he came as the second Adam—in other words, as another representative for mankind. And God promised this Savior to Adam and Eve at the same time as he pronounced the curse. What amazing grace! And as the second Adam, Jesus kept God’s law perfectly and gave his life as a ransom; that is, an atoning death, to pay for the sins of everyone who will repent and trust in him alone for their salvation.

If we have repented and trusted in Christ, then his death paid the debt we owed, and his righteousness equips us to go to heaven. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” But, in order to be able to be this perfect, efficacious sacrifice, Jesus had to be unique. No mere man can pay for his own sins, let alone for the sins of others. And that leads to my second point, that Jesus is the Son of Man.

II.        Jesus Is the Son of Man

In order to understand this expression “the Son of Man,” we need to think carefully—and we need to know the Old Testament. First, simply think about it. We are all sons or daughters of human parents. So, to call someone “the son of man” does not in any way distinguish him from anyone else. And yet Jesus used the phrase to speak of himself and clearly intended it to have great meaning, so there must be a unique Son of Man to whom it refers.

To understand who that is, we have to go back to the prophet Daniel. Daniel was one of the young men taken captive when the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 605 BC. He was taken to Babylon and trained there, along with other young men, to serve the king. But Daniel stood out for his wisdom and piety and ability and God gave him the ability to interpret dreams, which led to his being made ruler over the province of Babylon.

Later, God gave Daniel a dream about the future. The dream had a great deal of imagery and spoke about future kingdoms on earth. But it also included a vision of God the Father, calling him “the Ancient of Days,” and he was on his throne in heaven. In Daniel 7:13–14 we read, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” Now, notice that all peoples worshiped this Son of Man. (RRS) But we are told in Deuteronomy 6:13 to worship God only. And Jesus Christ quoted this verse to Satan when Satan tempted him in the desert. Therefore, we can conclude that this Son of Man is, in fact, God.

And compare this passage in Daniel with what Jesus himself said to Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, which was the Jewish ruling council. In John 3:13 we read that Jesus told him, “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.” And in John 1:1–4 we are told about the one who came from heaven: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” The apostle went on to write in John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Friends, I declare to you today the obvious conclusion from these verses: Jesus Christ is God. He is the Word. He was with the Father throughout eternity. He became flesh—in other words, he became the Son of Man. He is fully God and fully man. And he is the unique God/man. He alone is able to save his people from their sins. He is fully man, just as we are, but without sin. He was born of a virgin, with no human father, and so he did not inherit a sinful nature. Therefore, he could keep the law perfectly. His righteousness is without any stain or blemish. That is what Jesus meant when he referred to himself as the Son of Man.

God told his people through Moses in Leviticus 19:2, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” And Jesus himself commanded us in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But because we are born with a sinful nature, we cannot be perfectly holy. We all sin every day. Therefore, there is no hope for us to earn our way to heaven. It is impossible. But as I said earlier, “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

Jesus Christ is the Son of Man. He is God, who came down from heaven, took on human form, made his dwelling among us, lived a perfect life of obedience, and then offered himself on the cross as the perfect, efficacious, one-time sacrifice to pay for the sins of all of his people. Only his sacrifice is sufficient to pay for our sins, and only his perfect righteousness is able to qualify us for heaven. We must be united to him by faith so that our sins become his and his righteousness becomes ours. Praise God! We have a Savior—the unique God/man, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.

This is glorious news. And now I want to move on to the third thing we learn about Jesus from these passages. He is also the Suffering Servant spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.

III.      Jesus Is the Suffering Servant

There are four passages in the book of Isaiah that are typically called “Servant Songs”: Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-9; and 52:13–53:12. Some scholars would also add a fifth passage beginning in Isaiah 61:1.

By far the most famous passage from these Servant Songs is Isaiah 53. The whole chapter speaks about the Messiah as even the Jews at the time of Jesus recognized, although they did not like the idea of a suffering Messiah, and there were attempts to interpret the passage so that the suffering applied to the Israelites, or to the Gentiles or to the wicked, rather than the Messiah.[1] But all such attempts to avoid the suffering of Christ must fail. When Peter tried to tell Christ not to suffer, Jesus rebuked him sharply, saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (Matt 16:23).

Verse 3 of Isaiah 53 tells us that this suffering servant “was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” We know from the gospel accounts that Jesus endured many sorrows and was despised and rejected by most. In fact, even his closest disciples abandoned him when he was arrested and put on trial. Most famously, of course, the apostle Peter denied three times that he even knew Christ.

And yet, in spite of this rejection, we are told in verse 4 of Isaiah 53, “He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.” This prophecy all came true. We read in the New Testament that the thieves who were crucified with him, along with the Roman soldiers and others, mocked him and spit on him, and mocked his claim to be the Messiah. And yet, astoundingly, even as they were mocking him, he had taken our sins upon himself. We are told in verse 5, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Brothers and sisters, Jesus was pierced for our transgressions when they nailed him to that terrible cross. If you have surrendered to Jesus Christ as Lord, it was your sins and my sins for which he was pierced. And because he took that punishment for us, we have been reconciled to God. The prophet says that his punishment brought us peace, and we are healed.

In Romans 5:1–2, the apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

This is the heart of the gospel message. He who knew no sin became sin for us. And we receive his righteousness as a gift. We are clothed with Christ, as we are told in Galatians 3:27. Isn’t that an amazing image? When God looks at us, he doesn’t see us. He sees Christ clothing us with his perfect righteousness. His righteousness covers over our sin.

And it is important to note that Isaiah’s prophecy was written about 700 years before the time of Christ. In Acts 4:28, we are told that in crucifying Jesus, they had done just what God’s “power and will had decided beforehand should happen.”

And yet, you may have noticed that the prophet wrote the passage in the past tense. We are told that this servant “was pierced,” he “was crushed.” The great Old Testament scholar Edward J. Young says that this usage of the past tense for a future event is called the “prophetic perfect” tense. He writes, “To the mind of the speaker, what he depicts is so vivid and sure of occurrence that he sets it forth as already having taken place.” [2] Praise God!

Friends, how glorious is the risen Christ! He is the Messiah, the Anointed One, sent to redeem his people. He is the Son of Man, the perfect, sinless, unique God/man who alone was able to carry out this task of redemption. He is the Suffering Servant spoken of by the prophet Isaiah. He is Almighty God, the Creator of the universe, the Author of all life. Truly, we cannot look for this living Savior among the dead because he is alive! He is risen! Praise God!

And now let me go on to my fourth point and make some points of practical application.

IV.      Application

Just as there are different kinds of death—spiritual, physical and eternal—so there are different kinds of life. We are born alive to this physical world, but dead to spiritual realities. If we are to know this risen Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, we must first be born again from above. And that is my first point of application. If you do not know this risen Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I command you, in his name, to repent of your sins today and believe in him and trust in him. The truth is that you will bend your knee and declare that he is Lord, either voluntarily in this life, which will result in your salvation, or just as you are being judged by God on the day you die.

For when we die physically, that is not the end. That is a lie of our atheistic society. Every single one of us will continue to exist, either in eternal death in hell, or in eternal life in heaven. I counsel you to choose life. All of us live contingently. There was a time when we did not exist, and we only exist now because God upholds us. But physical death is not the end of our existence. We need eternal life, or we will experience eternal death. We need to take hold of the life that is truly life, as Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:19.

And you take hold of eternal life by trusting in Jesus Christ. Unlike you and me, he has life in himself. In John 14:6 he said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In other words, there is no other way to be saved. Your good works cannot save you. Your money cannot save you. Your degrees cannot save you. Any other religion cannot save you. Only Jesus Christ can save you.

So, why look for the living among the dead? Why look for eternal life, or true life, among dying men inhabiting a dying world? We must look to our Creator God for all blessings, but we must also see our unworthiness and inability to save ourselves. Repent of your sins and believe on the risen Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. Because he lives, we can have eternal life.

My second point of application is for those who have repented and trusted in this Christ. It is instructive that in the servant passages in Isaiah, the servant sometimes clearly refers to Jesus Christ. But at other times the servant refers to the people of God, the church[3]. Jesus himself told us in Matthew 10:34–39, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Could our Lord have been any clearer? Preachers who tell you that you can have a wonderful life by accepting Jesus, and that he will give you perfect health, take away all of your troubles and give you a long, prosperous and pleasant life, are lying to you. They are preaching a different gospel and a different Jesus, which is not true—a Jesus they have made up in their own minds.

The real Jesus is the Suffering Servant. He is the head of his body, the church. So be prepared! The church is called to suffer just as the head suffered. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Be filled with the word of God and walk in faithful fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ, because none of us is able to stand entirely on our own. We need each other. And just as Jesus walked in complete obedience, so also must we walk in the obedience of faith.

We are promised an eternal[4] crown of righteousness[5], life[6] and glory.[7] But the cross comes before the crown. We must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. We must do the work that God has prepared for us to do, and there will be suffering.

And my third and final point of application is that we should be joyful.  Suffering and joy are not at all incompatible. If you have been born again, there is a joy available to you—the joy of the Lord—that is not dependent on your earthly circumstances.

A great example of that comes from the Puritan Christopher Love. In his last conversation with his wife on the eve of his being beheaded, he said the following, “As soon as my head is severed from my body, it shall be united with Christ my Head in heaven, and I am persuaded that I shall tomorrow go up Tower Hill as cheerfully to be everlastingly martyred unto my Redeemer as I went to Giles’ Church to be married to thee.” And the next day, at the end of his prayer, before laying his head on the chopping block, he said, “I am full of joy and peace in believing. I lie down with a world of comfort as if I were to lie down in my bed. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.”[8]

Paul wrote in Philippians 4:12–13, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Jesus commanded us in Matthew 5:11–12, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And in Romans 5:2-5 the apostle Paul wrote that “we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

So, brothers and sisters, do not expect an easy life. Do not complain when you face trials. Take up your cross and follow Christ. Let the joy of the Lord be your strength and take courage from the fact that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:28). Suffering is for a season, but our joy will be eternal.

Build each other up and show the love of God to your brothers and sisters. Christ gave us a new command in John 13:34–35: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Let us love one another as we serve this Christ who showed us the full extent of his love by dying on the cross for us and then who showed us the full extent of his power in being raised from the dead. He is the Son of Man, the Suffering Servant, the risen Lord Jesus.

Let us pray: Father, you have made known to us the path of life. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  Help each one of us to repent, believe, and live in the obedience of faith. If we do, you have promised that you will fill us with joy in your presence and eternal pleasures at your right hand. Oh, what a great and glorious God you are. We praise you in the name of our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

 

 

[1] See the article, “Servant of the Lord,” in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5, ed. by Merrill C. Tenney et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980), 361.

[2] E. J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, vol. 3, Chapters 40–66 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprinted 1979), 341.

[3] Ibid., 115, 276.

[4] 1 Corinthians 9:25

[5] 2 Timothy 4:8

[6] James 1:12

[7] 1 Peter 5:4

[8] Quoted in Puritan Heroes by G. F. Mathes and J. R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), 122, 124.