Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - A Better Resurrection (Easter)

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

The book of Hebrews is written to people who are so beaten down with troubles that they’re ready to give up.  The writer is trying to give the readers what they need to handle the brutal realities of life in this world. In Hebrews 11, he gives us something that helps us handle anything.  If you have it, you can handle absolutely anything life throws at you: 1) what is it? and 2) how do we get it? This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 27, 2005. Series: Christ: Our Treasury (The Book of Hebrews). Scripture: Hebrews 11:32-40. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. The book of Hebrews was written to a group of Christians who were weary of troubles, struggling with fear and discouragement. Sound familiar? Today Tim Keller is preaching from the book of Hebrews, showing us how fixing our eyes on Jesus is the only way to truly deal with the challenges we face in our lives. And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell you about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and

the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice and gained what was promised, who shut the mouth of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned. They were sawed in two. They were put to death

by the sword. They went about in sheepskin and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us, so that only together with us would they be made perfect. This is the word of the Lord.

We've been looking at the book of Hebrews, and every week we've been seeing that the book is about, or it's written to people who are suffering, people who are so beaten down with difficulties and troubles and problems that they're ready to give up. And every single week, the book of Hebrews writer is trying to give the readers what they need to handle the brutal realities of life in this world. Today, he gives us something else. If you have it, you can handle anything. If you have it, you can handle absolutely anything that life throws at you. What is it and how do we get it? What is it? How do we get it? First, what is it?

And on the surface, the answer is faith. Because when you read through that passage that you just heard, it's pretty obvious that we have here a list of great exemplars of faith. By faith they did this, by faith they did that. But what kind of faith are we talking about here? And the answer to that question is discovered by recognizing, I guess you might call it the interpretive key to this passage. And the interpretive key to the passage is the fact that the list has a division. There's two divisions. You could say there's a first list and a second list. Verse 32 to 35 and verse 35 to 38. Or you could say there's two divisions to the list but we have to notice what a radical division there is between the people who are

listed in the beginning and the people who are listed in the end. Let's first of all look at the people listed in the beginning. Verse 32 to 35, all of the people who are listed in the end. Let's first of all look at the people listed in the beginning. Verse 32 to 35, all of the people who are mentioned here, all of the great exemplars of faith are people who are characterized by, as it says here, their weakness was turned to strength. They started out on the margins, but they came to power. They look like they were about to be defeated again. They were facing overwhelming odds, but in the end they triumphed. And they experienced military triumph and political triumph. They conquered kingdoms. They routed armies. They administered justice. They escaped

the edge of the sword. And that's what's interesting about all the people in this list. In every case, it looked like they were dead, but they came out. So for example, and some of these are a lot of fun, notice it says, by faith, some shut the mouths of lions. Now who is that? Daniel, of course. Daniel was thrown into the lions, and he looked like he was dead, but out he comes. Miracle. Intervention. Escape from certain death. And then the next, some quench the fury of the flames. Now who's that? Well, see that's Daniel's friends. In Daniel chapter 3 we read about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they were about to be thrown into the furnace, right? And they were thrown into the fiery furnace. They looked like they were dead, but they came out. Why?

In every one of these situations, overwhelming odds, certain deaths, but always there was escape from death, escape from suffering, miracle, intervention. They called to God, and in comes some kind of miraculous intervention and they escape. And the greatest of all, the climax of the list, is in verse 35 when we get to, it says, women receive back their dead, raised to life again. Now you know who those are. In the Old Testament, there were two women whose sons died and through the power of God they were raised to life. So you have the widow of Zarephath and through Elijah's ministry, through the power of God,

her son who had died was raised to life. And you had the Shunammite woman and she met Elisha and through the power of God, though her son was dead, he was raised to life again. Now, in our culture, these stories of faith we love. We really resonate because in every single case you've got, it's sort of like this, it's someone who says, the doctor said I would only live for a month, but I didn't give up hope, and I prayed and I fought, and now I'm all better, and I've recovered, and the doctor says it's a miracle.

Well, we love stories like that. We should. Or someone who says my business was about to go under, I was facing economic disaster, but I prayed and I had faith, and I worked real hard, and God turned it around, and now I'm successful. That's a great story and we're so glad that they exist. But if your understanding of faith conceptually ends in verse 35, if that's it, if that's all you understand faith to be, if you understand faith as if you try hard enough and if you believe enough, you can overcome anything.

If that's your understanding of faith, you're doomed. You're doomed. Because life as it is, life in this world with all its brutalities, if you really think that if you believe hard enough and you pray hard enough, somehow you'll always escape. Somehow things will always work out. You're doomed. You know, Johnny Erickson, when she was 18 years old,

was swimming and dove into, I guess, the Chesapeake Bay and hit her head. She was paralyzed from the neck down. She became a quadriplegic. And she was in a wheelchair, 18 years old. And her friends came to her, and they were very well-meaning friends, and they came to her and they said, if you really have faith, God will heal you. And if you're not healed, it's because you don't have enough faith. See, their understanding of faith ended conceptually in the middle of verse 35. Their understanding of faith is, if you have enough faith, everything will work out. You'll always escape suffering.

You'll always escape death. But guess what? Fortunately for Johnny Erickson, she didn't accept that. Because if she had accepted that understanding of faith, her life would have been a disaster and she would have never had the great life she actually has had. Fortunately for her and for us, the book of Hebrews doesn't end in verse 35. Here's what we go on to. In verse 35, there's a major change, and it's both, the change starts both in English and in Greek with this word, others. There

are others. There are others who believe. There are others who have faith, and yet their lives went in a completely different direction. There are others who trusted God. There are others who obeyed God, and yet their life went in a completely different direction. There were others who trusted God, there were others who obeyed God, and yet their life went in a completely different direction. So for example, Peter would belong in the first part of the list, right? Because Peter was put into jail and all of his disciples prayed and prayed, and God sent an angel, and he was released. Now, that's what we want to hear, all right? You know, that's service. That's it, okay. But there are others, others, like John the Baptist, who went into prison, and his disciples prayed for him and he was beheaded. Hmm. David, as you know, belongs in the first part of the list because King David was just

a shepherd's boy. He was marginal, he was a poor kid and at one point he was on the run for his life, he was a fugitive, you know, he was marginalized and yet he triumphed. He moved from weakness into strength and he ascended to the throne and he had power and he conquered kingdoms and he wins, right? Because he trusted God. But others are like Jonathan. Do you know the story of David's friend Jonathan? Jonathan was a king's son. Jonathan had prowess. Jonathan had had nobility. Jonathan had character. Jonathan was an incredible kid and an incredible young man. And yet because he trusted God, because he was faithful to God, because he was faithful to his friend David, and because he was faithful to his father, he lost everything. Everything until eventually he died young in a hopeless battle far from home.

See, David trusted God and everything went well. Escaped from death. Escape from the edge of the sword. But everybody after the word others, there are others. And everything went wrong. They trusted God and there was no intervention and there was no escape and there was no miracle. And they were put to death by the sword. But the most interesting, the most interesting other is actually in verse 35 itself. Read this 35 with me for a second. It says, verse 35 starts, women received back their dead, raised to life again. That's talking about the two women in the

Old Testament whose sons died and they were received back to the power of God. It says, women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released. Now you would think when you first read that, that others would be other women. And actually, almost all commentators believe that the Hebrews writer is talking about other women. The reason why the others don't come immediately to our mind is because the Hebrews writer

and the Hebrews readers knew more about the history of Israel between the Old and New Testament than we do. This is a reference to the famous Maccabean martyrs. You see, between the Old Testament and the New Testament was about 400 years, and there are a number of writings that tell us what happened in the history of Israel in those 400 years, but most of us who are Gentiles anyway don't know much about what's called the Intertestamental Period. But here's what happened in that time.

Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king, came in at one point and conquered Israel and occupied it and he was brutal. He was a brutal tyrant. And one of the things he used to do was take publicly, by the way, this is going to be a brutal story too, so get ready. He used to take publicly prominent families, he'd bring them out into a public square and he would call on them to disobey God, to say eat unclean meat, to reject the law of God, the ceremonial law of their ancestors, and show fealty to him. And if they didn't do it, he would very often torture and kill them right in front of everyone just to make

a lesson of them. And in Second Maccabees, the book of Second Maccabees, chapter seven, perhaps the most famous of all of these martyrs, was a woman, a mother with seven sons who were brought out into public before the king. And every single son was told, you know, will you disobey the law of God? Will you show fealty to the king? And if he didn't, then the king had his tongue cut out,

his limbs lopped off, had him scalped, and then still breathing, still alive, had him roasted alive over a fire in front of all of his brothers and his mother. And when that one was dead, he would turn to the next son and say, what about you? Now 2nd Maccabees chapter 7 tells us that the mother stood there and encouraged her sons to die courageously. And here's how she did it. She says, and the mother stood there and encouraged her sons to die courageously. And here's how she did it. She says, And the mother encouraged each of them, filled with a noble spirit, she said to them,

It was not I who gave you life and breath. It was the creator of the world who devised the origin of all things and who will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again since you now forget yourselves for his sake." So every one of the sons died bravely. We're told here that one of the sons, when he was called before the king, put out his tongue, stretched forth his hands, and said, take them. I got them from heaven, and for God's sake I give them up, but from him I will get them

back. I got them from heaven and for God's sake I give them up, but from him I will get them back." And in chapter four, a little further down in the same situation, and let me read you this. Here's another one. Quote, with his blood now gushing forth, he took his own entrails with both hands and hurled them and with his dying breath called upon the Lord of life to give them back to him again." Now I don't really apologize for the gore, and here's why. We live incredibly safe lives. We're so concerned that the designer life

we had in our head isn't happening. But most people, most cultures, most centuries, were only ever a step away from stuff like this. How did they face it? Here's how this mother faced it. See, some women got their sons back, but here's a woman who just saw them tortured. No miracle, no intervention, no escape, but she spit in the world's eye. And you know why? Because she believed.

It tells you right there. Here it is. This is the faith you need. This is what you need. Here. A better resurrection. We all long for a home, for a place where we can truly flourish and belong. In One with My

Lord, a new book by Sam Albury, he shows how the Bible promises that there is a place like that for all of us, but it doesn't have a zip code. Instead, the key to home and the very heartbeat of the Christian faith itself is that we find ourselves in Christ. For the New Testament writers, this phrase was so important that instead of using the term Christian they referred to followers of Jesus as those who are in Christ. Jesus is not only our Savior, Lord, teacher and friend, he is also our home and our location. Each chapter of One with my Lord is short enough to be read as a devotional and in it Albury examines

what being in Christ means, giving us a fresh lens to view the gospel and all that it means for our hope, purpose, and identity. We believe this new book will help you grow in your relationship with Christ. To request your copy of One with My Lord, visit GospelInLife.com slash give. That's GospelInLife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now why would you call better resurrection?

What's a better resurrection? Well, here's why. As wonderful as it was for the widows to get their sons back, as wonderful as it was to have Lazarus raised from the dead, as wonderful as it was to have Jairus' daughter, do you realize that though those were miracles, they were great miracles, they were only resuscitations? Because even though the person came back to life, they were still subject to suffering, they were still subject to disease, they were still subject to death. In other words, the terrible day has just been put off.

Escape from suffering is only ever temporary. Escape from death is only ever temporary. Escape from death is only ever temporary. But this mother did not put her faith in the possibility of resuscitation, but in the absolute certainty of the future resurrection. She did not have some airy-fairy kind of hope just in life after death. She knew that death was going to be reversed. She knew that death was going to be defeated.

She knew that someday, resurrection, new heaven and new earth, you know what she's saying to them? It makes, this is the fifth time I've said this and every time it gives me goosebumps. You know what she's saying? Here's what she's saying. She says, we're going to get those eyes back. We're going to get those hands back. We're going to get our family back. We're going to get our lives back. We're going to get, we're going to get our lives back, we're going to get love back, we're going to get the world back, and far better than it ever was before. So don't flinch. Don't you even flinch. She believed in the resurrection, not just some hope, you know, some hope that somehow things are going to turn out better. And here's the reason why this works. Here's the reason why faith in the future resurrection is what you need to face anything.

I don't want you to get the impression that the people in the top of the list, you know, the people at the top, that somehow they had less faith than the people at the bottom. Heck no. As a matter of fact, if you go to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the ones who quench the fury of the flames, go to Daniel chapter 3 verse 17 and 18. The king has said to them, bow down to the idol or you're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace. You know what they say? Here's what they say. It's incredible. They say, oh king, our God can deliver us from these flames. In fact, we believe our God can deliver us from these flames.

In fact, we believe our God will deliver us from these flames. But if not, we're not going to bow down to your idol anyway. Hear that? Here's what they said. They said, our God could deliver us from death and suffering. In fact, we believe our God will deliver us from death and suffering. In fact, we believe our God will deliver us from death and suffering. But if he doesn't, it doesn't matter. Why not?

Because their lives were not rooted, their faith was not in their agenda for God, their faith was in God. Now, I'm going to have to repeat this here for the next 30 seconds. I want you to get it. Their faith was not in their agenda for God. Their faith was in God. When people say to me, I trusted God so much, I prayed for this, and I prayed for this, and I prayed, and he didn't come through.

He didn't come through for me, and I trusted him. No, you didn't. You were trusting desperately in your agenda for him. That was the foundation of your life. You had an agenda. How your life has to go, how history has to go. And you were trying to get God to, you know, you had an agenda for God. But guess what?

You're never going to face life like that. You're going to constantly, because life, the world isn't going to conform to your agenda. And if that's the foundation of your life, if ultimately you think you're believing in God, but actually you're believing in your agenda for God instead of God himself, you're not going to make it. See, these folks believed all the way down to God, or another way to put it is these big folks believed all the way forward to the future resurrection, the new heaven and new earth.

A faith that doesn't require success, doesn't need success, is the ultimate success. One commentator on the book of Hebrews puts it like this. He says, the greatest challenge of the book of Hebrews is to cultivate such a deep and satisfying relationship with God that we rest in him whether living or dying, whether comfortable or miserable. The great challenge of the book of Hebrews is to cultivate the unshakable confidence that God himself is better than anything life can give us or that death can take away from us.

All right. Now, how do we get this? How do we get this? anything life can give us or that death can take away from us. Alright, now how do we get this? How do we get this? If you believe all the way down to the resurrection, the future resurrection, the better resurrection, if you believe all the way down to God, then you can face anything. How do you get it? Well, the answer is in verse 39 and 40. Here's how you get it. It tells you. It's

a little cryptic, but it's there. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Now look what it's saying. First of all, verse 39, they were all commended for their faith faith yet none of them received what had been promised. Now we've already actually seen this. What made these people great, what gave them a faith that overcomes the world, that enables them to spit in the eye of the world no matter what, whether it's a miracle or not, whether it's intervention or not, whether it's escape or not, what gave them that was they were looking forward to something that hadn't happened

yet. They were looking forward to a promise that they hadn't received, right? But verse 40 has the audacity to say that we have something better. We have begun to receive what they were looking for. The thing that eventually is going to complete us all together, which would be another wonderful sermon which I can't go into. You know what verse 40 is talking about? Is that all these people in the past and us are all going to become completed together in the city of God by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But that's the point. We have something they didn't have, the death and resurrection of Christ. They saw something way in the future, but we've begun to get the thing they saw way in the future in a sort of vague way. And therefore, don't you dare look at these

people and say, oh, they were a whole different thing. They were, look at these people. Look at them. You know, stone, sawed in two, put to death by the sword. They went about in sheep skins, goat skins, destitute, persecuted. That's a different kind of person than me. We're a bunch of crybabies. Well, maybe we are a bunch of crybabies, but it's not because they were made of anything different. In fact, verse 39, and especially verse 40, is saying, you have got better resources. You could live bigger lives than they did. Now, what do I mean? Well, here's what I mean. I said the death and resurrection. Let's just finish this way. Number one, the resurrection. The whole reason

these people were great was they weren't afraid of death. They weren't afraid of therefore of anything. Now how can you really be sure, so sure of the future that you're not afraid of death? See, Epicurus, the great Greek philosopher, was very, very, really I thought made a very good point. Epicurus said, I could die happy if I was absolutely sure that death was the end. I could die happy if I was totally sure that death is just peaceful oblivion. But since nobody can be sure that death is just the end,

nobody can die happy. He says absolutely nobody can know what happens after death. You know, I hear people all the time saying, oh, it'd be better to die if you're suffering. He says, absolutely nobody can know what happens after death. I hear people all the time saying, it would be better to die if you're suffering. All this talk about death here lately. Be better to pull the plug because then people are at peace. Epicurus says, what are you talking about? How do you know what happens after death?

He says, we could die happy if we were sure that death was the end. But since we don't know that death is the end, how can anybody die happy? And the answer to that is, every religion gives us stories. They say, oh no, no, there's life after death, there's these wonderful things, you know, believe these, believe these. But Christianity alone, of all the religions, gives us something besides a story. It gives us an actual person raised from the dead. Did you see Newsweek magazine this week? It's absolutely astonishing, but it's partly because the historical data is so strong it's begun, I think, to dawn on people. But Newsweek magazine

looks at all the historical evidence and data for the resurrection of Jesus. And to my shock and to a lot of other people's shocks, it can be interesting to see the letters of the editor over the next month or so. A secular newsweek magazine basically concludes that probably the resurrection of Jesus Christ probably must have happened. And you know why? Here's the reason why. Bottom line, bottom line, there is no historically possible alternate explanation for the birth of the Christian church than that the early Christians saw the risen Christ. There is no other historically possible alternate explanation. You see, if you say, the burden of proof is on you if you don't believe in the resurrection. I know you don't like to hear that, but it is true. See, if you say, well I don't believe in the resurrection, okay,

you account for the fact that hundreds of Jews saw Jesus Christ in groups repeatedly for 40 days after his resurrection. You account for that. People don't have hallucinations in groups. And they spent the rest of their lives not only proclaiming that they saw Jesus, but they died for it. That doesn't sound like conspiracy. You account for the fact that thousands of both Jews and Greeks whose worldviews had no room for a resurrected Messiah. The Greeks didn't believe in a resurrection of the body and the Jews didn't believe in an individual resurrected Messiah in the middle of history who dies. They believed in a powerful Messiah. They believed in a Messiah at the top of this list. They had no concept of Messiah at the bottom. No concept of somebody who

was jeered and who was flogged and who called out for God and no escape, no miracle. But Jesus was that. Now here's the question. Why did thousands of Jews and Greeks overnight change their whole worldview and start to believe in Jesus? Why did hundreds of them say they saw Him? You account for it. You can't just say, oh, I don't believe in Jesus. Why did hundreds of them say they saw him? You account for it. You can't just say, oh, I don't believe in the resurrection. You have to come up with a historically possible alternate explanation for the birth of the Christian church

and it really doesn't exist. And then if you say, well, it just can't be, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it just couldn't have happened. Okay, well, now wait a minute. Now you're not doing history now, are you? Now it's a leap of faith. You're desperately holding on against the evidence to your white European enlightenment faith which is prejudice against the supernatural.

Fine, but do you know what you're doing? Just admit what you're doing. What you're doing is desperately leaping against the evidence by faith to stay away from the certainty that could make you able to overcome the world. Because if you know Jesus was raised from the dead, then you are even more sure than that woman that we're going to get our hands back, we're going to get our eyes back, we're going to get our children back, we're going to get our life back, we're going to get our family back. We can say, Jesus lives and so shall I. Death, thy sting, is gone forever.

And lastly, when Jesus Christ shows up, he shows that he's got his wounds still in his beautiful glorified body. Why in the world would Jesus Christ in his beautiful glorified risen body still have his wounds. Wouldn't you want to get rid of them? I mean that's what you use makeup for, to get rid of the old wounds. Here's Jesus Christ coming back from the dead and he's not only does he have his wounds but he shows them to his disciples. Let me tell you why I think he's doing that. When the disciples saw those nails go into their into his hands on the cross, when the disciples

saw the cross happening, their lives shattered. Did they not? They choked. They betrayed him. They denied him. They ran away from him. They blew it. They melted down.

They couldn't handle it. You know why? Because they never had actually believed in Jesus. They believed in their agenda for Jesus, and the nails destroyed their agenda for Jesus. See, their agenda for Jesus was he was going to rise into political power and they were going to be in his cabinet. And therefore, the suffering chariots of fire, no escape, no miracle, and they said, our lives are ruined. The very thing that was giving them a salvation beyond anything they could imagine, they thought was ruining their lives. If you

believe in the risen Christ, then you can shift your faith from your agenda for Jesus to Jesus. And then those terrible things happen in your life and you have no idea what he's doing, you remember the original case where the disciples saw something that was actually saving their soul and they felt like it was ruining their lives. See, Jesus Christ will say, embrace me and then every death will lead to a resurrection. Every failure will lead to the resurrection

of greater humility and wisdom and more beauty of character. Everything that goes wrong in your life, every sorrow, eventually will turn to gold. I think the reason why Jesus has his wounds in his resurrected, glorified body is this. His suffering, his tragedy, the tragedy of his suffering, God not showing up, his non-escape from suffering, his non-escape from death makes him more beautiful than all of the brightness and all the, I mean his death for me, his wounds makes him even more beautiful, isn't that true?

In the same way I tell you that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, every one of your sorrows will eventually make your eventual glory greater, your eventual joy greater. I don't know how but it will. And that's the ultimate defeat of evil. A faith that doesn't need success is the ultimate success. Let us pray. Thank you Father for giving us not just a wonderful inspirational idea in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but the very thing that will enable us to face anything in life, anything at all. We pray Lord that you would help us to take the resurrection into our hearts and into our lives in such a way that we will become one of these people, one of these people of

whom the world is not worthy, one of these people who can face anything with joy because they are looking to a better resurrection. We ask for it through Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel in Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel in Life monthly partner. Your partnership allows us to reach people all over the world

with the life-giving power of Christ's love. To learn more, just visit gospelandlife.com. That website again is gospelandlife.com. Thank you. Today's sermon was recorded in 2005. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.