The Gospel of John

The Resurrection

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 69- 70

Genre:

Track: 067

Dictation Name: RR197AL69

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is the spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that the government is upon Thy shoulders. Thou knowest oh Lord how often we are bewildered, distressed and disturbed as things go contrary to our hopes and our expectations. We know that we live in a sin filled world but we know that Thou art He who dost make all things work together for good to them that love Thee, to them that are the called according to Thy purpose. Give us patience and hope that we may trust in Thy ways, commit ourselves into Thy keeping and know that Thy purposes for us embrace all time and all of eternity. How great and marvelous are Thy ways oh Lord and we thank Thee. Bless us now as we worship Thee and as we study Thy word. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is John 20:1-18. Our subject: The Resurrection. John 20:1-18.

“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.

3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.

4 So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.

5 And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.

6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,

7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.

9 For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

10 Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.

11 But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,

12 And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.

17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

18 Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.”

The crucifixion had taken place on Friday. All remained inactive on the Sabbath but early on Sunday morning the women came to complete the preparation of the body for its permanent burial. Meanwhile at the requests of the chief priests Pilate granted permission for guards at the tomb to prevent theft of the body and a claim that Jesus had risen from the dead. The chief priests remembered more of Christ’s words at this point then did His disciples! The women apparently came singly having agreed to meet at the tomb. At some point before dawn an earthquake hit the area. While it was still dark Mary Magdalene arrived, she was shocked to find the tomb open and she ran at once to notify Peter and John. She assumed that the authorities had transferred the body to another site. Peter and John raced to the tomb, John arriving first, but Peter entered first. They both saw the great clothes neatly wrapped and placed to one side. In verses eight and nine we are told that both John and Peter believed but they as yet did not know the scriptures which predicted the resurrection. They knew something miraculous had happened but they did not see its place in the plan of God. The meaning escaped them. We can understand their feeling because so often in our lives when we are faced with very grievous circumstances the meaning escapes us.

We know the hand of God is in all things but we cannot see it and we are overwhelmed. The disciples view of the future was still tied to Israel rather than to Jesus Christ, a failing very much with us still in many parts of the church. The disciples then left to return home, Jesus was apparently no longer among the dead but the meaning of the resurrection for them was not yet evident. Mary had come back to the tomb more slowly than Peter and John who raced there and were now gone. She stood by the tomb weeping. She looked into the sepulcher and saw two angels in white, one at the head where Jesus had lain and the other at the feet. Her eyes filled with tears she did not recognize them as angels, they said to her ‘woman why weepest thou’, her answer was ‘because they have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid Him’. Quite plainly she felt no fear. She assumed that these two persons were no part of Pilates or Caiaphas’ entourage, their speech to her was too friendly. She then turned back not wanting to hear more and as she came out of the sepulcher she became aware of someone standing nearby. It was Jesus who asked her ‘Woman why weepest thou, whom seekest thou’, two questions. She did not answer Him but instead asked her own question phrased as a statement:

“Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”

Her assumption was that the authorities had reversed the position to Joseph and had removed the body.

At this point Jesus simply said ‘Mary’ and she recognized Him at once, calling out ‘Rabboni, my Master’. She apparently tried to cling to His feet in joy but He said touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father but go to my brethren and say unto them ‘I ascend unto my Father and to your Father and my God and your God’. Language changes and the language from 1611 to the present at times has a rather different meaning, touch me not means stop clinging to me because she so grabbed ahold of His feet. Stop clinging to me. All relationships were now altered because all His followers now had a task to cling to, a calling to fulfill, a world to conquer for Christ, so their relationship now was no longer to His physical presence but to His spirit. It was now to be defined by service to His kingdom, to one another, and to all peoples. The close ties with Him were now to be gained by doing His will rather than by serving a personal presence. I ascend to my Father, or I am ascending to my Father, that is, I am separating all of you from myself physically because my task is now a different one and so too is your task. The promise of the Spirit or strengthener is tied to this change. Mary then reported these things to the disciples. Too many commentators give us the jaundice view of the resurrection because for them such a supernatural event is impossible, however to deny the act of God means to deny the validity of all history and indeed our scholars are visibly doing so, meaning if seen by many as an artificial and man-made addition to events and hence subject to change or elimination.

It is part and parcel of a whole attitude, morality is no longer talked about but values because moralities implies something that is God ordained, values are man-made, man chosen. Similarly meaning, like morality, is seen to be man-made, we live in a world of brute facts, meaningless facts, everything is meaningless, we give them a purely personal meaning, these scholars say, but that does not mean they have any meaning in and of themselves. Meaning is an artificial addition. For others the test of validity is respectability. Well, is it respectable to believe that? Well then it could have happened, especially if something can be repeated under controlled conditions, a scientific experiment. Then it is a natural and valid fact. The uniqueness of the resurrection by definition makes it invalid to many, many people. Basic to all such views is the insistence first that reality has to be natural. If it isn’t out of the natural realm it isn’t real and second that man is the final judge of the reality of things. By the natural of course is meant that which is a part of our everyday experience and comprehensible within the physical universe as we know it. By definition the acts of God are all ruled out. Moreover if man is a creature is the final and authoritative definer of reality then man decides what is non-existent by simple definition and this is what our scholars do now. By definition they say this is real and that is not and by simple definition they rule out God and all His works.

The presupposition of the modern biblical scholar is radically humanistic. In the death of God school of thought its leaders simply eliminated God because they did not want Him, they openly said that they did not care whether He was real or not because as far as we are concerned He is irrelevant and dead for us. Therefore they said because God is meaningless for us God is dead for us. But all meaning for John is God ordained and God centered. Jesus Christ’s birth, ministry, death and resurrection are more than episodes in history; they open up the meaning of all history and all creation. In verse seventeen our Lord twice refers to His coming ascension. His language indicates that in some sense He is already ascending, separating Himself from this world. The ascension was to the right hand of God the Father, there to reign eternally. He is present there as the first fruits of the new humanity, the new human race, and as the head of the new creation. He is Lord over all creation as He reigns at the right hand of God the Father. The ascension and session are very important to our faith. The word session is hardly known in the church anymore as a biblical doctrine, but it means that Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father there to reign over all creation, so that He is now king and judge over all things. The ascension and session on the throne are thus the logical conclusions of the atonement and the resurrection.

We cannot isolate the reign of the Son from His resurrection, it is the logical conclusion. To isolate it is to do so in terms of humanistic presuppositions and to play the humanist game and to reduce events to a non-theological meaning which finally is no meaning. This is what the modern world is doing, it denies that there is a good and evil except as man says so. A right and wrong except as man says so, or that there is meaning other than as man says so. All this strips the world of any aspect of God’s creative power and work. It leaves man as the only God but in the process it brings in the triumph of sin and death. One scholar has just written a very technical book, newly published, on contemporary rock and roll rap music, the whole world of the drug scene and its music. The writer is not a Christian but the inevitable implication of everything that the writer says tells us that here you have the logic of humanism, of a denial of good and evil, of all meaning, come to fruition and what is the result? The triumph of sin and death. The high amount of the drug culture, of depravity, of crime and of suicide in the world of this most supposedly advanced music. It is the triumph of meaninglessness and of sin and death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the triumph of meaning. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and even now reigns at Thy right hand, that He is the great and final judge. Give us grace therefore to cast upon Him all our hopes, to leave unto Him all the judgments, to wait upon Him for His government and His answers and to know that He is our savior, our protector, our guardian. Our God we thank Thee in Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] All people know God but they suppress that knowledge in unrighteousness, in injustice.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] They do believe in judgment because as even the ungodly have so clearly documented atonement is the need in everyone’s life. Everybody being fallen, being sons and daughters of Adam, need atonement. So what do they do? I’ve gone into this before but I think it’s so important, we need to understand it totally, there are two ways that those outside of Christ make atonement. One is by masochism, punishing themselves because they want to be able to say Lord haven’t I suffered enough, haven’t I paid for my sins enough and so they are always doing things to punish themselves. A classic case was someone in one of my high school classmates, Stanley. You never, never dared when you saw this woman to say my, you look so well today Mrs. So-and-so because she would be furious and she would take it out on her poor husband and children for the rest of the day because she was always fancying ailments and she outlived her husband by years.

But she was a masochistic. She was constantly punishing others and herself, sadomasochism, for her sin. The sadist of course punishes others constantly and this is the way they make atonement. And there are actually psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and the like who insist that everyone is subject to sadomasochism because everyone is trying to make atonement, they don’t use the word atonement, they used to but they are unwilling to now because it exposes the religious aspect of this too much. Now, what are we to conclude from this? The people around us whether they call themselves Christians or whether they do not, if they are not free in Christ and His atonement are guilty of sadomasochism. So what are they going to do? They are going to punish you and everyone around them. They are going to make you suffer and precisely because you have freedom in Christ and they don’t, whatever they may pretend you. So we live in a fearful world, this is why as someone observed just in passing, in half a sentence recently, we have a problem today and it is leading to the murderer of Christians world over. We are told about three hundred a day and of course we could say we have other problems where Christians are being punished, why? Because we will be free of this burden of sin and guilt if we can be free of these Christians, because they remind us with their peace of what we do not have.

The way Freud put it was the Christian avoids the personal neurosis, sadomasochism, by embracing the cosmic neurosis, God. What a cop out. But that’s what we face and we are going to have people around us taking it out on us because they are sadistic. They may be friendly, they may be gracious but they, if they are outside of the atonement and have no peace because they are, they are going to punish us. The book of Isaiah tells us that the wicked are like the troubled sea which never rests, they never rest. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] If I understood your question we do have a great deal of obsession with the death of Christ in many, many circles, Protestant and Catholic alike, and it’s because of a failure to appreciate the meaning, to grasp the meaning of the atonement, and therefore the crucifixion takes over. You can see, for example, in medieval art when the change took place, when instead of Christ seated at the right hand of the Father holding the world in His hand, and the picture or mural as the case may be giving an image of absolute security and serenity because the world is in His hand, to horrifying pictures of the crucifixion. The culmination of all that was in [unknown] in Germany, they are the most fearful pictures of crucifixion ever made.

The artist apparently had a great familiarity with people who had been put to death under torture because this is what he depicts. I believe it’s in the [unknown] church. Well, we have too much restless Christianity today, it doesn’t have peace in the atonement and it is trying to destroy the peace of those who have.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Exactly, very well put, an obsession with suffering rather than victory. And there is so much of that in pietistic circles. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] It is what?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] We must certainly deserve His judgment as the whole world does but we are told that while His judgments are sure He will even remember mercy in some instances to the thousandth generation. So whether He will with regard to the U.S. I don’t know but it is clear we are experiencing His mercy. I’m afraid too many are assuming that because God’s mercy continues it will be perpetual and the judgment is to them unreal. Yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Because what?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] I think that in her case it was because her eyes were full of tears. She was crying, she was sobbing and therefore she was so assured that something untoward had taken place that she was unwilling to see until Jesus spoke to her, said Mary, in effect wake up [laughs], that she came to. And we are sometimes that way, it is really easy, it is a very human failing and we shouldn’t apologize if we are very much that way at times but we get so down and overwhelmed with griefs we can’t look past them. And I think that was Mary in that instance. The whole thing had been so horrifying, and remember they had been there, these women, and had witnessed the crucifixion. The most fearful kind of death the mind of man has devised. And as one person who made a study of all kinds of tortures said of crucifixion: nobody was deader than a crucified person, and this was a shattering thing for Mary. So our Lord had to bring her out short, loving her He said Mary and she came out of it at once.

Well our time is passing, let us conclude now with prayer.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee that we can come to Thee knowing that while our cares and burdens may be greater than we are they are not greater than Thou art. Take them Lord, give us Thy peace, Thy joy, Thy healing. Make us joyful in Thee, strong in Thy spirit and ever faithful in hope. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always, Amen.