Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - A Special Easter Conversation with Tim and Kathy Keller

Episode Date: April 8, 2023

In this short special episode, Tim and Kathy Keller have a conversation about the resurrection of Jesus as the historically verifiable event on which the Christian faith stands.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. Increasingly, the culture sees facts or truth as relative. The implication is that there is no certainty on what the right take on reality is. The Christian Church has become an anchor for the idea that there is objective truth, truth that is independent from individual's subjectivity. In this special podcast on the historic significance of the resurrection, we listen in to a conversation between Tim and Kathy Keller as they discuss how God made the

events of Christ's death, burial and resurrection, something we can trust in. And that these events are historically verifiable truths and what that means for the way we live. After you listen, we invite you to go online to GospelInLife.com and sign up for our email updates. Now here's Tim and Kathy Keller. Kathy, I think it's kind of ironic that here we are in the 21st century, 1st, 3rd, or the 21st century, And perhaps the biggest proponent of verifiable facts and truth is the Christian church. Because what's happening in our culture,

I just read a book by James Davis, a hunter, a friend of mine, who was saying increasingly the culture doesn't believe in facts or truth. It believes that people create their own truth, they create their own facts. There's no real certainty about what the right take on reality is. And so here we have the Christian Church of all things being the center of emphasis on there are historical facts that can be verified. Yeah, it's not just ironic, it's actually pretty frustrating.

I remember a number of years ago, I wrote an article for the Redeemer Newsletter when we still have Redeemer Newsletter called Trust, but Verify, which was a slogan that was being used at the time by the superpowers that were working on nuclear disarmament, which meant, yeah, we trust you to get rid of your nukes, but we also want to take a look and verify it. And the point of calling the article that was that God worked it out so that we didn't have to take the resurrection just on trust.

He actually made it verifiable. Now, I remember that article, despite my advancing years. I remember the article was a great article. That's why I remember. It's probably still running around the internet. You can never lose anything anymore. It's probably true. Lives forever.

One of the things I remember very clearly, though, is first Corinthians 15, you quoted. Very important place where Paul is talking about the resurrection. And he says, if Christ is not raised, you are, your faith is futile, you're still in your sins, and we have all people are most to be pitted. If the resurrection is just a nice story, we're lost. We're lost, we're lost because the resurrection really had to happen. And then Paul goes on to explain that there are witnesses.

And this is absolutely verifiable, and historical truth. Yeah, some people want to treat it like, if that's your lucky rabbit's foot, if that's the thing to get you to the day. Yeah, go ahead and do it. But you know, if I don't want to be believing something that's untrue.

So the thing that opened this up for me was I was reading through the McChain Bible reading plan that takes you to the Bible and it's here. And while we were on vacation one year long ago, I got to Matthew 28, which is the resurrection and the women going to the tomb. And I've asked a familiar passage. I've read it how many times I thought,

well, I'm not going to see anything near here that I haven't seen before. And I was going to read it really quickly and, you know, get done, that got it done. But then I did see something new. I mean, you could read a passage in the Bible how many times and God will always show you something new that you said, how did I ever miss that? Yeah, that is that is one of the reasons, because the divine book, because God speaks to us not only in it, but through it. You really can't read the Bible too often. You can never say, oh, I read that chapter, I can skip it. Never.

And so you went back, you read it again, and what was it you saw? Well, it's the part where it's talking about the women are going out to the tomb to annoy Jesus body, because of course, he was buried was buried very hastily after the crucifixion. They didn't think that all of the rights had been done properly. And they were in Mark 16, it tells us that they were actually worried about how they were going to get into the tomb because of that huge rock that was like down in the declivity, which would have been a problem not just for women, but men. I mean, it's not meant to be moved. So they were discussing that and going back

to Matthew 28, it says, when they got there, the stone was rolled away and there was an angel sitting on top of it. And, you know, I looked at the stone, I said, okay, Jesus didn't need the angel to let him out of the tomb. It's not like he's like knock, knock, knock, you know, could you let me out? Why didn't he need you? Well, he was the creator. He was, he was, he was in charge of every molecule the universe from all those gorgeous images

that the web telescope shows us to feeding of, well, 5,000, some commentators think it was more like 20,000 if you count the women and the children because that was the only men. Right, and also the risen Christ it was, that was only men. Right, and also the risen Christ appeared to his disciples through locked doors. Right, with his resurrection body,

he could have gone through. He really didn't need the angel to move. He did not need the angel to move it. In fact, he was gone by the time the angel got there. He was on his way to Galilee, as what the angel says. He was already, Elvis had left the building, you know? He was, he had already, he was already gone, and the angel was there to say, go in and

look. And what did they see when they went in and look? They saw the grave close, which would have been wound around the body. Mummy style. The gospel of John talks about that. But they weren't disturbed. They weren't like ripped off or anything like that. They were just all still wound up very neatly. And he had passed through those. And then he'd passed through the rock, etc. And then they went and told the disciples and the disciples came and looked and they saw the same thing. It says that Peter saw the grave close. So the stone was rolled away, not to let Jesus out, but to let us in, to trust, but verify that the resurrection had actually taken place because it took place

in time and in space and in history and to take a slogan that I've heard used in other situations that I may not agree with. History is on our side. You can ask any question you like of Christianity and I'll help you look for the answer. I'll help you ask the question because it can stand up to that. It has to be factual, it has to be. It can, by the way, too, really, really important books to show this.

I knew there would be. Well, Ante writes book, The Resurrection to the Son of God, which is a real doorstop. It is. And another one that's similar is Richard Bach, I'm Jesus, and the eyewitnesses. But the main point, I think, that we need to make sure everybody sees is that other religions,

and other religions, you're saved by following the teachings of the founder. Yeah, the Buddha or the Buddha. Yeah, whoever the founder is, the most important thing that that founder did was teach how do you behave so that you can be saved. And therefore, the teaching is the key thing. But we do not believe you're saved by your good works or by anything you do.

We're saved, we understand the gospels, we're saved by what Jesus did. What He did. Not what we do. It's a whole fact. Proveable. Which means, it's, Jesus though, it was a great teacher. He was more than a teacher, it was a savior. And it wasn't just that we need to listen to what Jesus says, which we do,

but we have to trust in what he did. And therefore, unless the cross really happened, unless the resurrection really happened, then we are still lost. We're still in our sins as it were. And it all started with an angel politely rolling the stone away and inviting us to come in and verify. But if it actually happened. You're right. Thanks for listening to today's special podcast on the resurrection. We pray you were encouraged by it. To find more gospel-centered resources like today's teaching, you can sign up for email updates at gospelonlife.com. That's gospelonlife.com.