The Door of the Sepulchre Removed

The removal of the imprisoning stone was the outward type of our Lord's having plucked up the gates of the grave -- post, bar, and all -- thus exposing that old fortress of death and hell, and leaving it as a city stormed and taken, and henceforth bereft of power. Remember that our Lord was committed to the grave as a hostage. "He died for our sins." Like a debt they were imputed to him. He discharged the debt of obligation due from us to God, on the tree; he suffered to the full, the great substitutionary equivalent for our suffering, and then he was confined in the tomb as a hostage until his work should be fully accepted. That acceptance would be notified by his coming forth from durance vile; and that coming forth would become our justification -- "He rose again for our justification." If he had not fully paid the debt he would have remained in the grave. If Jesus had not made effectual, total, final atonement, he must have continued a captive. But he had done it all. The "It is finished," which came from his own lips, was established by the verdict of Jehovah, and Jesus was set free. ... Come, brethren, let us rejoice in this. In the empty tomb of Christ, we see sin for ever put away: we see, therefore, death most effectually destroyed. Our sins were the great stone which shut the mouth of the sepulchre, and held us captives in death, and darkness, and despair. Our sins are now for ever rolled away, and hence death no longer a dungeon dark and drear, the ante-chamber of hell, but the rather it is a perfumed bed-chamber, a withdrawing room, the vestibule of heaven. For as surely as Jesus rose, so must his people leave the dead: there is nothing to prevent the resurrection of the saints. The stone which could keep us in the prison has been rolled away. Who can bar us in when the door itself is gone? Who can confine us when every barricade is taken away?

"Who shall rebuild for the tyrant his prison?
The sceptre lies broken that fell from his hands;
The stone is removed; the Lord is arisen:
The helpless shall soon be released from their bands."

"The Stone Rolled Away" by C. H. Spurgeon in Great Sermons on the Resurrection of Christ compiled by Wilbur M. Smith (Nattick, Mass.: W. A. Wilde, Co., 1964) pp. 40-42.

The Door of the Sepulchre Removed