At the end of yesterday’s study, we gave two reasons why we should see the tomb. Today, we consider three more.
The third reason we should come and see the tomb is that we might be reminded that we also will lie there. Unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes for His own before we die, we too must die. There is a time when we will be separated from all that we know now. We will leave friends and loved ones. We’ll leave all our material possessions; we’ll leave all that we know behind. So we look to the tomb and we say, “What does this have to teach us of our mortality?” It teaches us that we are mortals and that there is a life beyond for which we must prepare.
The fourth reason we look at the tomb is not just to see the love of our Lord, not just to see the horror of our sin, and not just to be reminded that we too must die, but we look to see that He is not there. He is risen. He has conquered death. This is the great evidence for the resurrection: the empty tomb.
Oh, there are other evidences also, evidences like the change in the character of the disciples, those who were timorous and afraid and scattering after Good Friday. But after Easter Sunday, they went throughout the whole Roman world proclaiming the Gospel and were not afraid to die for what they knew to be true. There is the evidence of the change in the day of Christian worship, from the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, to Sunday, the first day of the week. There is also the evidence of the grave clothes. But again, the great evidence is the empty tomb.
Most of those who have written in a serious and thoughtful way about the events of these early weeks notice that, if they are honest, in all the reports that we have of the resurrection, whether it’s in the New Testament or preserved indirectly in secular writings from Josephus or non-biblical sources like the Jewish Talmud, there is not one attempt to deny that the grave was empty. Of course, there is the argument which is also reported in our New Testament, that perhaps the disciples came and stole the body. But not one secular or religious writer denies the fact that the tomb was empty and that the body was gone. And so we come to the tomb and look, and see that it is empty; and we learn, should we not, as John and Peter learned, that the body was raised and that Jesus triumphed over death.
While we’re looking at the tomb, there is a fifth lesson also. It is not only that Jesus rose from the dead, but that we shall rise also if we are united with Him. Jesus did not come to this earth and teach and die and rise again in order that at last He might lose those for whom He died. But rather He came, as the Scriptures say, to save to the uttermost those that believe on Him. Thus, we are saved, not just in spirit in order that we might have fellowship with God, not just in soul in order that we might be transformed during the days of our earthly life, but in body also. The salvation that Jesus brings is complete. We look to the empty tomb to see that one day, we too shall rise and shall be with Him.
