📖 Matthew Intensive — Unit 13: Resurrection & Great Commission

Text: Matthew 28:6

The Empty Tomb

The tomb was sealed and the guard was set, but the last word had not been spoken. As the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. There was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended, rolled back the stone, and sat on it, his countenance like lightning and his clothing white as snow. The guards shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay" (Matthew 28:5-6). The stone was not rolled away to let Jesus out, for He was already risen; it was rolled away to let the witnesses in. The same women who had watched Him die and seen where He was buried now stood in an empty tomb.

He Is Risen

The women departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. And as they went, Jesus Himself met them, saying, "Rejoice!" They came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. He told them not to be afraid, but to go and tell His brethren to go to Galilee, where they would see Him. The message of Easter is that the resurrection changes lives, and it begins to change them in that very moment: the grief of Friday becomes the joy of Sunday. Over the next forty days He appeared again and again, and Paul records that on one occasion more than five hundred saw Him at once, many of whom were still living and could be asked. This is no tissue of fable; it is the best-attested event of the ancient world.

The Guards and the Lie

While the women ran with the truth, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. The leaders assembled, took counsel, and gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them to say that His disciples came by night and stole Him while they slept. So they took the money and did as they were instructed, and that saying was spread among the Jews. It is a strange testimony: the enemies of Jesus did not deny that the tomb was empty. They could not produce a body. They could only invent a story, and a poor one, for sleeping men make poor witnesses to a theft they slept through. The very lie they paid for is a witness to the empty tomb they could not explain away.

The Resurrection Defeats Distress

The women came to the tomb in deep grief, carrying spices to do one last service for the Lord they loved, and they left it running with great joy. The resurrection turns sorrow into joy because it answers our deepest distress, which is death itself. My first encounter with family grief came when I was about fourteen. I had a little niece, a beautiful baby, born with fluid on the brain; I remember pressing the small tube in her neck that drained it. When she was about a year and a half she needed another operation, and something went wrong, and she died. I remember my mother on the drive home from the hospital throwing her arms around me and crying, "Why did God let our baby die?" I had no answer then, and after years of study I still have no full answer to that question. But I believe with all my heart that I will see her again, because the tomb is empty and Christ is risen. That is what the resurrection does to our distress: it does not pretend the grave is nothing, but it promises that the grave is not the end.

The Resurrection Defeats Doubt

When Jesus first appeared in the upper room, the disciples believed, but Thomas was not there, and he would not take their word for it. He said he would not believe unless he saw the nail scars and put his finger where the nails had been, for he knew that dead men do not rise. A week later Jesus appeared again, and this time Thomas was present, and the Lord showed him His hands and His side. Thomas answered, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). I will be honest with you: I have had doubts. I have doubted whether there is a God, doubted whether Christianity is true, doubted whether God answers prayer, doubted His love, and doubted whether I had the gifts to preach. In the end it is the resurrection that conquers my doubts, for if Christ is risen then God is real, the gospel is true, and death is defeated. The Lord did not rebuke Thomas for needing to see; He met him in his doubt and turned it into worship.

The Resurrection Defeats Denial

Peter had sworn that though all others fell away he never would, and within hours he denied his Lord three times, the last time with cursing, saying he did not even know the man. But Jesus did not leave Peter to drown in his guilt. On the seashore the risen Lord asked him three times, "Do you love Me?" — one question for each denial — and three times He gave him back his calling: "Feed My sheep" (John 21:17). And the Peter who had denied Christ in a courtyard stood up on the day of Pentecost and preached Him boldly in the open street. I must confess that I too have denied Christ, not as Peter did, but in the subtler way of silence; there have been times God gave me an opening and I said nothing. The resurrection answers that failure, for the same Lord who restored Peter restores us, and the Spirit who emboldened a denier can embolden us to speak.

The Resurrection Defeats Disgust

Saul of Tarsus was a man filled with hatred for the church, going from house to house to drag off believers and put them in prison. On the road to Damascus a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell and heard a voice say, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" When he asked who it was, the answer came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:4-5). The encounter with the risen Christ so transformed him that the great persecutor became the great missionary, and the man who had hunted Christians spent his life proclaiming Christ. The resurrection can break even a heart set in hatred or turned away in bitterness, for the living Lord still meets people on their road and turns their disgust into worship.

The Great Commission

The eleven went to Galilee, to the mountain Jesus had appointed, and when they saw Him they worshiped Him, though some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke to them the words with which Matthew ends his Gospel: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20). The risen King claims all authority, sends His people to all nations, and commands not merely converts but disciples — baptized into the triune name and taught to obey everything He commanded. The Great Commission is not a suggestion for the gifted few but the marching order of the whole church.

An Anatomy of Christ's Commission

One of the recovered Matthew sermons gives a memorable anatomy to these marching orders. The mission of Jesus makes demands on our lips, our feet, our heads, and our hearts. He puts words on our lips by giving us a message we actually believe and a method that includes both preaching and teaching: the herald does not invent the King's message, and the teacher helps believers learn all that Christ commanded. He puts movement in our feet with one word — "Go." The gospel does not merely wait for people to find it; it goes where people are. He puts a vision in our heads: "all nations" means that no race, language, people, or place lies outside the King's concern. And He puts a burden on our hearts, because those who see the world Christ sees will accept responsibility either to go or to help send those who go through prayer, identification, and material support. Matthew therefore ends not with spectators admiring a risen Christ but with disciples under orders. The King has all authority; His people have a message, a direction, a vision, and a burden.

God With Us, to the End

Matthew began his Gospel by telling us that the child would be called Immanuel, which means "God with us" (Matthew 1:23), and he ends it with the risen Lord's own promise, "I am with you always, even to the end of the age." The whole book is held between those two words. The God who came to be with us in a manger, who was with us through the teaching and the miracles, who was with us even into the darkness of the cross, is now with us as the risen and reigning King, and will be with us until the age is ended. Jesus is alive. He rose from the dead, and we are His witnesses. The resurrection removes our distress, our doubt, our denial, and our disgust, and sends us out under the authority of a living King who has promised never to leave us. Every other grave in history has only footsteps leading in; the grave of Jesus has footsteps leading out, and because He lives, all who are in Christ shall live also. The Gospel that opened with a King in a manger closes with a King on a mountain, sending His people into all the world; and the same Lord who was Immanuel at the beginning walks with us still, every day, until the end of the age.

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