We will begin our Resurrection Sunday class by observing the Lord's Table or Eucharist where we remember our Lord Jesus Christ in the only ritual for the post canon period of the Church.
This ritual remembers the Eternal Word who was God who entered the human race in the person of Jesus Christ so that He could fulfill the Father's plan as savior of the world through His substitutionary spiritual death and spiritual victory on the cross.
Our celebration of the Lord's Table recalls our Lord's spiritual victory that was God's strategic victory over satan that was accomplished while He was on the earth in unglorified humanity and validated 3 days and 3 nights later by His resurrection as the first fruits on Resurrection Sunday.
Jesus Christ is the pattern for humility and obedience He became the channel for the fulfillment of God the Father's plan by complying with the grace principle of pivot power where the power of God's word is deployed under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit through positive volition. Luke 22:42;
In sending Jesus Christ to receive the imputation and judgment for all personal sins and die as our substitute, God demonstrated His love for us. Rom 5:8; 1John 4:19; we reciprocate or respond to His love by complying with His mandates. 1John 5:2-3;
Our celebration of the Lord's Table is an expression of our reciprocal love for our Lord who won the strategic victory over death. We concentrate on him through the elements of the Lord's Table. Luke 22:19-20;
He came to do the will of God the Father Heb 10:5-7; He demonstrated that obedience to the Father's unique plan for His life by enduring the suffering of life in the devil's world in unglorified humanity that was terminated with His death on the cross Phil 2:8;
He now resides at the right hand of the Father because the Father exalted Him above every created being, such that, every created being will ultimately bow down to him and acknowledge Him as Lord. Phil 2:9-10;
He completely and perfectly fulfilled the directive will of the Father by unilaterally providing a way of salvation for everyone. Rom 5:8; as the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" Rev 13:8; KJV John 1:29;
While we were God's enemies, God demonstrated his love for us by giving his uniquely born Son "monogenes" who entered the world impeccable through the virgin birth. John 3:16;
While we were his enemies He took our sins. He became sin in our place and was He rejected by God the Father so we would never be rejected by God. 2Cor 5:21;
As a result of Jesus' substitutionary spiritual death on the cross God is propitiated so He is free to reconcile mankind from their fallen state of depravity without compromising his perfect righteousness and justice because TLJC willingly laid down his life for us as our substitute. John 15:13 ; 1John 3:16
This is why believing in TLJC is the only way to a relationship with God John 14:6 , salvation Acts 4:12 and eternal life John 3:16;
Anyone can appropriate this Grace gift of salvation which is secured by the Power of God John 10:26-29; simply by believing in TLJC 1Cor 15:3-4 in the same way that Paul and Silas instructed the Philippian Jailer who asked "what Must I do to be saved?"
Their response recorded In Acts 16:31
This means that anyone, any time, anywhere can become saved in a moment in time simply by believing in TLJC in the privacy of their thinking.
TLJC left his friends, the members of The Royal Family of God, this one and only ritual in the church age The Lord's table which we are mandated to observe in remembrance of Him.
The mandate is found in 1Cor 11:24; in the second person plural present active imperative of the Greek word " poieo" that where Paul references TLJC's own instruction found in Luke 22:19-20;
An expanded translation of 1Cor 11:24 taking into consideration the tense mood and voice of "poieo" would be " Keep on doing this in remembrance of me"
Because these verbs are only imperatives regarding ritual in the New Testament the Lord's Table is one and only ritual of the Church Age and it is a test of our capacity to concentrate on our Lord Jesus Christ through the Bible Doctrine that is resident in our soul as we partake of the elements that represent his work on our behalf.
We have these instructions for partaking of the Lord's table from the Apostle Paul starting in verse 26 of 1Cor 11.
1Cor 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.
We understand from this that we are to examine ourselves privately in our own thinking. The imperative mood is a mandate to start doing something and stop doing another.
In the privacy of our priesthood when we find we are outside of the Word, we apply the first problem solving device, and simply acknowledge the sin as described in 1 John 1:9;
If/when (third class condition) we acknowledge any known sin he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. This is the believer's experiential forgiveness during their post salvation life in time.
Having examined ourselves, and acknowledged any known sin that we may have discovered, we are then instructed to partake of the bread and the cup that are the elements of the celebration of the Lord's Table.
The bread represents his body in which he bore the sins and the judgment for our sins and the sins of the whole world, past present and future.
1Cor 11:23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
1Cor 11:24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
eat the bread
The cup represents his substitutionary spiritual death on the cross which purchased the freedom from spiritual death and eternal condemnation of everyone who believes in him.
1Cor 11:25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper saying This cup is the new covenant in my Blood do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.
drink cup
Psalm 22 is a major OT prophecy of the suffering of Messiah. David wrote it regarding historical events of his life but it was prophetic of the sufferings of Jesus on the cross.
It was a prayer about David's suffering after he was anointed to replace Saul as king but before he was deposed. It was written during the time that Saul was trying to kill David so it corresponds to Jesus' suffering in His unglorified humanity while satan was trying to kill Him before Jesus could defeat him on the cross.
Verses 1 through 21 of the Psalm contain a number of prophecies that are fulfilled during the events of Jesus' Passion. In our Resurrection Sunday class today we will break into the stream in verse 19 to focus on God's deliverance of Jesus during His final moments on the cross through physical death and resurrection.
Psa 22:19-21; But you, O Lord, be not far from Me, You Who are My Strength, hurry to My aid.
v20 Deliver My soul from the sword, Your uniquely-born Son from the power of the dog.
v21 Deliver Me from the lion's mouth. For You have answered Me from the horns of the wild oxen.
Deliverance from the sword is physical death that precedes the thrust of the soldier's spear. John 19:34; One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out ( indicating that Jesus had already experienced physical death).
In Psa 22:20; "The power of the dog" refers to the kind of burial, or lack of it, that the Romans did with non-Roman citizens' bodies after being crucified.
The Roman custom for disposing of the corpses of those who were crucified was to throw them to the wild dogs to be eaten. But Jesus did not share the fate of the thieves, whose bodies were fed to the dogs.
Joseph of Arimathaea, a secret disciple of Jesus, begged Pilate for the body of Jesus, and receiving permission, Joseph, along with Nicodemus, took His body, washed, anointed, clothed it, and buried it in the tomb that Joseph had prepared for himself. (Matt 27:57-61;)
The wild oxen and the roaring lions are metaphorically used for the imputation of mankind's sins and their judgment in substitutionary spiritual death of Messiah.
Once the sacrifice was over the prophecy was answered and recognized by the Lord's proclamation of "Tetelestai." John 19:30; When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" (tetelestai, the perfect passive indicative of teleo).
The intensive perfect tense refers to the substitutionary once and for all spiritual death of Jesus Christ that is also described as the "blood of Christ" with OT symbology.
It stands for perfected action or action that has been completed and stands finished in the present. The perfect tense refers to action that has occurred in the past and once completed stands as a finished result.
The perfect is used to emphasize the results or present state that has been produced by a past action. It focuses on the new status quo that exists once the completed action is finished.
The tense places emphasis upon existing results so it is the tense of the "finished product." Special attention is thereby directed to the results of the action placing stress that the existing fact. It is the emphatic method or strong way of saying that something is an established reality.
Jesus Christ's separation from God the father in spiritual death was the most excruciating pain that will ever occur during the course of human history. It was the complete judgment for all sin and paid the full cost of atonement.
After the judgment of sin was completed Jesus Christ shouted (tetelestai), "It is finished!" Tetelestai, the perfect tense of teleo, means "finished in the past with results that go on forever!" Jesus had finished God's salvific work with eternal results.
Jesus shouted, "finished" to indicate that His work was completed. This was spoken before He died physically. Since He was still alive on the cross after the work of salvation was completed His subsequent physical death could not be the payment for sin.
This means that it is Jesus Christ's substitutionary spiritual death alone that is efficacious for the salvation of all humanity. That is why anyone can be saved by simply believing in Jesus Christ. John 3:16; Acts 16:31;
Psa 22:21; Deliverance from the bulls' horns and the lions' mouth was the propitiation of the Father Who accepted the work of Christ as payment in full for humanity's sins.
Deliverance from the death of the grave was provided by physical death itself and His resurrection that we celebrate today that occurred three days and three nights later before any decay started. The resurrection of Christ is itself a prophecy of future resurrections.
Paul describes God's resurrection program starting in 1Cor 15:20; But now Christ is risen from the dead ( the intensive perfect passive indicative of egeiro states that His resurrection is a completed action in the past with the result He will remain alive forever in resurrection body)
Christ becomes the first fruits ( the first product of a harvest ) of those who sleep ( believers who have died ).It is important to understand the significance of Christ being designated as "the first fruits of those who sleep.
In Israel first fruits marked the beginning of the grain harvests. Barley was the first grain to ripen. In the celebration of the feast of first fruits on the 1st day of the week during the Feast of Unleavened Bread a sheaf of barley was harvested and brought to the Temple as a thanksgiving offering to the Lord. Lev 23:10-14;
It was representative of the entire barley harvest and served as a pledge or guarantee that the remainder of the harvest would be realized in the following weeks.
Jesus Christ was resurrected on the Feast of First Fruits and thereby became the "pledge or guarantee that the remainder of the harvest would be fulfilled. This is what Resurrection Sunday celebrates.
Paul designates the resurrected Christ as "first fruits of those who sleep." Jesus was God's first fruit offering and as "God of the harvest" He will resurrect all who believe in Jesus is the Christ in their order.
Each resurrection occurs at the end of its respective dispensation.1Cor 15:21; For through a man ( Adam ) came death ( spiritual death ), so also through a Man ( Christ ) came the resurrection of the dead ( believers ).
v22 For as in Adam all die ( spiritual death at physical birth ), so also in Christ ( those who have been baptized by the Holy Spirit) shall all be made alive (resurrection body at the exit resurrection).
v23 But every man in his own order ( tagma: a unit or company of soldiers ): Christ the first fruits ( Company A ). Afterwards those who are Christ's at His coming (The exit resurrection of Church Age believers as Company B),
v24 then comes the end (of the Tribulation & the dispensation of Israel at the Second Advent ) when He hands over the kingdom ( the resurrection of Old Testament and Tribulational saints as Company C ) to the God the Father, when
He shall have put down all rule ( satan removed as ruler of the world ), and all delegated authority ( satan's lieutenants including beelzebub, and abaddon ) and all power ( the demon assault army).
v25 For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.
v26 The last enemy that will be eliminated is death... and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." Rev 21:4;