My dear readers,

Looking for the Living Among the Dead? (Luke 24:1-10)

This principle of going to the right place to find the right thing applies with much greater significance in the spiritual realm, given its eternal consequences: spending eternity in hell or in heaven. To find the living Saviour, we need to look in the right place, or we will not find Him.

The Christianity of today is an apostate one. Millions of churches are found all over the world. Jesus Christ prophesied that the gospel will be preached throughout the world as one of the key signs that must be fulfilled before His return. Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Jesus did not say that the world will be converted and be saved. He said the gospel of Christ will be preached in all the world. This prophecy has already been fulfilled many times over. Christian churches are found in all the continents of the world. The gospel of Christ has covered the face of the world many times over through radio waves, television, and the internet. The problem facing unbelievers today, including believers, is not that there are no churches to attend on Sunday, but rather the kind of churches. If these churches are only Christian in name but no longer in heart, i.e. the glory of God has long departed, then it is like trying to find the living among the dead!

The scenario we see in Luke 24:1-10 was literal: some of Christ’s disciples went to the tomb to anoint Jesus, who had died three days earlier. It was the custom in Jesus’ time to anoint the body after death. They came to the tomb where Jesus was buried, expecting to find the body of Jesus.

• The Location (Luke 24:1) – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Joses and Salome went to the sepulchre on the first day of the week, our Sunday, very early in the morning, probably when the sun had just risen. They brought spices they had prepared to anoint Jesus' body, who had already risen from the dead amongst all the dead bodies.

Before Jesus’ arrest, persecution, crucifixion and death, He had already told them about His resurrection on the third day after He died, as we can see from a few passages in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 16:21-22: “²¹From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. ²²Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.”Matthew 17:22-23: “²²And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: ²³And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.”Matthew 20:17-19: “¹⁷And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, ¹⁸Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, ¹⁹And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.” Accounts of the death and the resurrection of Christ on the third day after He died are also found in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Knowing the truth is one thing, but living a life based on it is another. The women went to the sepulchre with good intentions, but they were wrong to expect to find the living Saviour amongst the dead.

• The Resurrection (Luke 24:2-7) – When they arrived, they found the stone that sealed the tomb of Jesus had been rolled away. They entered the sepulchre and did not see the body of Jesus. They became quite perplexed. Suddenly, two men in shining garments stood by them. The women were afraid. They bowed their faces to the earth. The two angels said to them, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). The women were not worshipping the angels; otherwise, the angels would have told them to stand and to worship only God. Fallen angels deceive man to worship them, but not the good angels. The evidence is found in Revelation 19:10: “And I [Apostle John] fell at his feet to worship him. And he [the good angel] said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

The angels explained further by citing what Jesus said before He died, in Luke 24:6-7: “⁶He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, ⁷Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.” The first witness of Jesus Christ’s resurrection came from the good angels. Good angels cannot lie. One-third of the created angelic beings fell with Satan at the beginning, when Satan wanted to be God. God cast him down from heaven to the earth. One third of the angelic beings followed him willingly. Satan was not the federal headship of the angelic beings. He was merely an archangel. Revelation 12:3-4: “³And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. ⁴And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.”

When God’s disciples were overwhelmed by grief and focused on their customary practice of anointing the dead body on the third day, they forgot God’s promises. Therefore, they came expecting to find the body of Jesus; instead, they found an empty tomb. To make sure that there would be no future misunderstanding, such as the disciples coming and stealing the body away, God allowed the women to be the first to visit the tomb and to find it empty, and the stone rolled away. The women definitely did not have the strength to roll the stone away.

The fulfilment of prophecy is the strongest evidence supporting the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection. Christ knew of His persecution, crucifixion and death before they happened. Instead of running and hiding, He went about His business doing the Father’s will, all the way until His crucifixion, which was part of His Father’s will from the beginning. God raised Jesus Christ from the dead as an affirmation and declaration that Jesus’ mission of coming down from heaven to live, suffer and die on the cross to save sinners from sin, death, and hell was successful. Otherwise, God would not have raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and the women would be seeking the dead among the dead!

Churches are supposed to be assemblies of believers testifying on behalf of the living Saviour that all who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved. Instead, churches today are assemblies of the spiritually dead. Any sinner who enters these churches hoping to find the living Saviour among the dead will only find the dead. Sinners can see the living Saviour today through the lives of believers who live in holiness and righteousness, as described in the Scriptures. Many churches today, like the ecumenical churches, Charismatic churches and neo-evangelical churches, have become sepulchres of the spiritually dead.

• The Testimony (Luke 24:8-10) – With the testimonies of the two good angels and Jesus’ prophecy, which the women remembered, the women left the sepulchre. They told all these things to the eleven disciples (Judas Iscariot had killed himself by then), and to the rest. Jesus is alive! He is risen! Jesus’ prophecy of His resurrection on the third day after He died has been fulfilled. The resurrection of Christ cannot be kept hidden but must be declared to all. For the disciples, it was for their encouragement as they were already believers. They needed their faith strengthened because they had a very difficult task ahead: starting a New Testament church witness. They would be the new children of God, rather than the Old Testament people of God of the nation of Israel. The resistance and opposition would be fierce. When the church was in its infancy, it was most vulnerable to being killed and persecution. The disciples had to be strong and courageous to keep the church's witness alive and thrive and grow, reaching the uttermost part of the world.

Sinners need to attend sound biblical churches where the living Saviour is found and where God’s children and God's truth are accurately proclaimed and obeyed. All sinners who seek Christ in unsound and unbiblical churches will be looking for the living among the dead. They will not find salvation and Christ in these dead churches.