Praise God for the Risen Jesus! (1 Peter 1:3-5)

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When the Patriarch Jacob met the Pharaoh of Egypt in Genesis 47, the Bible tells us that Pharaoh asked him, “How many years have you lived?” Jacob responded “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life.” Most of us will not live to the ripe old age of 130, but all of us can look over the landscape of our lives and say that our years have been few and difficult. Each of us experiences hardship on a daily basis. We are not unique. Since the fall of humanity into sin, every person who has ever lived in this world has been affected by suffering and sorrow in countless ways. Peter’s original readers could relate. They had very likely been uprooted from Rome and deported under the Emperor Claudius, sent off to live in the newly established Roman colonies in Asia Minor. Why? We don’t know for certain, but we have reason to believe that they were singled out because they were Christians. And they were scattered across this enormous new territory where they came into contact with people who had lived there for a long time and were not too pleased about being under Roman control or having to deal with these new residents. These Christians were treated harshly by their new neighbors in a number of ways. Peter describes how they underwent “various trials,” “evil,” “harm,” a “fiery ordeal,” being slandered, reviled, and socially ostracized because of their faith in Christ. Not all suffering that we have endured is a direct result of our faith in Christ, but live long enough and you will experience some of it. Some of you have already experienced it to a great degree. Your decision to follow Christ may have cost you relationships, privileges, or possessions. So, what does the Word of God have to say to people who are living in hardship and difficulty, much of which may be directly related to our faith in Jesus?

Peter writes, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in verse 3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He calls them to worship the sovereign God of the universe in spite of their difficult circumstances. Instead of looking at the hardships around them, Peter directs their focus upward to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and says, “Blessed be Him!” In other words, “Praise Him!” Our worship of God is always rooted in the objective realities of who He is and what He has done. Peter uses very precise theological language in the opening verses of this letter to identify the one true God in His Trinitarian Nature, referring in v2 to God the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ. Here in v3, he refers to Him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, further establishing his conviction in the sovereignty of God and the deity of Christ. He is supremely and uniquely worthy of our praise and worship because who He is in and of Himself. But then notice that Peter also points to a particular act of God as a foundational basis for this worship: The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is that miraculous and historical event that we celebrate today.

God has done many things in the history of the world, and the Lord Jesus did many things recorded in the Gospels, and many more that are not. John said that if we recorded everything He said and did, the whole world wouldn’t contain the books. But the resurrection is the event that Peter points these struggling readers to. It is this singular event that he uses as a basis of his call to worship. Praise God, he says, on the basis of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And in the words that fill this passage, Peter tells us why the resurrection of Christ is so foundational to our worship as we live out our lives, few and difficult though our days may be.

I. Because of the Resurrection, we can be born again (v3)
I’m not much of a handy man. When something has to be assembled, my tendency is to tear into it and start trying to put it together without looking at the directions. Invariably I reach a point where I realize I am stuck and pull out the instructions to see where I went wrong. Often it was with step one. So I have to take it all apart and start over. Don’t you wish life was like that? Wouldn’t it be great if you could go back and start over, knowing what you know now? See, by the time we come to understand what God expects of us in this life, we are already guilty of violating His holy standards. In fact, we were born guilty because we inherited a sin nature from Adam. So we are sinners by nature and by choice, from the worst of us to the best of us. We deserve to be eternally separated from God because of our sins. But praise the Lord, God has not given us what we deserve. He has shown us “great mercy.” When the Bible speaks of mercy, it means that God is withholding from us some penalty or consequence that we deserve. In His great mercy, Peter says, He has “caused us to be born again.” And this new birth is a direct result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

You remember when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus in John 3. This man was a religious leader among the Jewish people. As far as human standards go, he was a good man. But his goodness was not good enough to please God. Jesus told him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And Nicodemus asked Jesus a very natural question in response: “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?” And Jesus spoke to him about a different kind of birth – not the natural birth by which we are brought into the world, but a spiritual birth that comes to us from above. This new, spiritual birth is accomplished through Jesus Christ. Because God loved the world, He came into the world in the person of Christ to die for sins. He died the death we deserve because of our sins. But because of His divine power, He conquered sin and death by rising from the dead. Therefore, He is able to impart new life to all who come to Him by faith. He is able to “cause us to be born again.”

The solution to our spiritual predicament is not to try harder or do better, but to have a brand new start given to us by God Himself in the new birth. We need a new nature to replace the sinful nature we are born with. Thus Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again if he would enter the Kingdom of God.” We are born again with a new nature, and are made to be part of a new family. In this new family, God is our Father, and fellow believers in Jesus are our brothers and sisters. And the bond of this family is not just for this life, but for eternity. Because Jesus has conquered death and given us new life, our life with Him in this new family will be everlasting as well.
In 1 Corinthians 15:17, Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” What he means there is that if Christ is not risen from the dead, then He has not defeated sin or its penalty for us, and thus there is still a price to pay for sin that we must pay ourselves. That price will be eternal separation from God in suffering and perishing in that horrific place the Bible calls hell. But if Christ has been raised, as we preach and believe, then He has made a sufficient sacrifice for our sins so that we can be born again by faith in Him. All the sins of our past are removed. Our nature is transformed by His indwelling presence within us, and eternal life will be ours to enjoy forever with Him and our new family in Christ.
Peter is writing these words to people who have made that commitment to believe in Christ alone to save them from their sins. They have been born again. And as a result of their commitment to Christ, many of them have suffered great loss in their lives. They may have been cut off from family, they may have lost friends, they may be undergoing persecution from others, but Peter calls them to worship God, because Christ is risen, and as a result of His resurrection we have been born again into a new life and given a new family with a new Father in Heaven, and new brothers and sisters in the Church of Jesus Christ. And this is true for all of us as well. Christ is risen, and therefore we can be born again and have new life, abundant life, and eternal life in Him. Praise God for the Risen Christ who makes it possible for us to be born again.
II. Because of the Resurrection, we have a living hope (v3)
To most of us, the word “hope” conjures up the idea of something we are less than certain of. “Will the pastor be finished with his sermon by 12:00?” “I hope so.” I hope so too, but I am pretty sure I won’t. The way we use the word “hope” in our ordinary conversation is a way of expressing what we wish to be true in the future. But that is not the way the word is used by New Testament writers. In the New Testament hope looks toward the future, but it does so with certainty and confidence. To have hope is the opposite of facing the future with fear. As one New Testament scholar said, “To have hope is a sign that things are well with us.” A Christian’s hope is more than wishful thinking, it is a confident expectation of what will be. The logic of the passage is this: the resurrection makes the new birth possible, and the new birth brings hope, and this hope is living.
What is a “living hope”? To understand that, we would have to understand its opposite–dead hope. Hope that is grounded in futile things is dead. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, Paul refers to those who do not understand the resurrection as those who “have no hope.” Their hope is dead. Many whom we know today have no hope – the only hope they know is a dead hope because it is not based on anything of real substance or value. The existentialists and materialists of our modern world look for satisfaction in this life only, and wrestle with the seemingly undeniable reality that it will not be attained here. Therefore, their only hope is to endure the hardships of this life until death comes, and at that point, they believe they will simply cease to exist. Death to them is just nothingness, a state of nonexistence, like a candle that has been extinguished. This view was common in the ancient world as well. But this is not how the Christian looks toward the future. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” We are hoping for something better beyond death. Our hope is a living hope because we understand that life goes on beyond death. Death is not the end for anyone, regardless of their spiritual condition. Hebrews 9:27 says that it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment. And in that judgment, some will enter eternal life and the glory of heaven, while others will perish eternally in hell. The difference is Jesus Christ. Those who have been born again by faith in him have a living hope of life beyond death. Jesus said in John 11, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”

Peter would have his Christian friends know that life in this world may be hard. People may mistreat us for no other reason than for our faith in Him. For 2,000 years, many Christians have even been put to death for their faith, and this continues in much of the world today. But Peter reminds these believers that we have a living hope. Because Jesus has conquered death, we will have victory over death as well in Him. What can this world do to you that Christ cannot overcome? The worst of it is death, but we have a living hope that enables us to wait with confident expectation for a better life than this beyond the grave. Living hope means that no matter what the future holds, the believer in Christ does not have to face the future with fear. We have faith in the promises of God and await the fulfillment of those promises with assurance that His word will be found to be true.

How are we to endure the difficulties of life in this world? By considering the risen Lord Jesus Christ and worshiping God. He has enabled us to be born again and given us a living hope.

III. Because of the Resurrection, we have a glorious inheritance (vv4-5)

In the Old Testament, the Promised Land of Canaan was often spoken of as Israel’s inheritance. The various portions of the land which were allotted to each tribe were referred to as that tribe’s inheritance. For them, the idea of an inheritance in the land was of the utmost importance. Much of Israel’s ancient laws about land and family had to do with this reality. Ultimately, that land was lost for centuries to invading powers.

It is helpful to remember the likely scenario of Peter’s readers as we come to this discussion about inheritance. While we do not know for certain, the most likely background scenario of these Christians is that which I stated before—that they had been uprooted from Rome and scattered across Asia Minor by the Emperor Claudius. This is important to keep in mind, because in the ancient world, one’s inheritance often consisted primarily of land. This is still true in much of the world today. When a parent dies, the property is passed down to the heirs. But in the case of these Christians, they have been deported from their earthly homeland, and at this point, any claim to that inheritance is questionable at best, and completely forfeited at worst. If their future hope is dependent on what they might receive in this world, then they are relatively hopeless.

Many Christians today can identify with this. I dare suggest that here in our midst are some whose grandparents and parents cut them off when they decided to follow Jesus. Maybe some were disowned, struck from the inheritance, and severed from the ties of family and home. When viewed through the lens of life in this world only, that is a very insecure and hopeless position to find oneself in. And most of us can only imagine the intensity of the temptation that must be faced as one wrestles with these realities, understanding that all those things may be restored if only one would abandon following Jesus. Peter’s friends understood that. Had they renounced their faith in Christ, they may have been able to return to Rome, be reunited with their families, and have once again the security of their future inheritance of land and possessions and wealth.

But Peter tells them here that there is a better inheritance awaiting them. No matter what your faith in Christ may cause you to lose in this world will be more than compensated in the life to come. Because of the resurrection of Christ, we have been born again to a living hope, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away. Nothing we stand to gain in this world can be described in those terms. Something that is imperishable means that it will not be corrupted or destroyed. Undefiled means that it is not polluted or stained by sin. Things that will not fade away are those which will never lose their splendor. Everything in this world is perishable, defiled by sin, and posses only a fading beauty. There is nothing you can possess here and now that can’t be broken, stolen, or spoiled. But the things we stand to inherit in the life to come are not subject to any of that. That is why Jesus admonished us in the Sermon on the Mount to “not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal” (Matt 6:19-20)

What will that inheritance consist of? Well, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that God has prepared for those who love Him things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard; things which have not entered the heart of man.” What we know is that it will be an inheritance of pure, imperishable, and eternal glory, consisting primarily of life in the very presence of this risen Lord Jesus and all the blood-bought benefits that come through faith in Him.

Israel longed for the homeland that God had promised them; but they couldn’t keep it. Because of their own sin, and because of repeated invasions from foreign powers, they lost that inheritance. But this inheritance that is promised to believers in Jesus is eternally secure. Peter said that it is reserved in heaven for us. This glorious eternal treasure has been stored up for us and is being guarded by the Christ who conquered death and lives forever more. It will never be taken away from those to whom it has been promised.

But what of us? What if somehow we become disqualified from receiving this inheritance before we obtain it? Not possible! Not only is the inheritance being reserved for us, but we are also being protected for it. In v5, Peter says that this inheritance is reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith. We are not maintaining ourselves in this relationship with Christ, but are being preserved in it by the power of God Himself, by the power of the Risen Lord Jesus who saved us and who is alive to keep us in the grip of this saving grace. Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. He is forever standing before the Father on our behalf, pleading the blood that He shed on our behalf, and nothing we do and nothing that can be done to us by others can ever take us out of His grace. In John 10:28-29, Jesus said, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”

How may we know if we are guarded in this relationship with Him? If we have put our faith in Christ to save us, then it is certain. We are “protected by the power of God through faith.” It has been well said that, “Our faith lays hold on God’s power, and His power strengthens our faith, and in this manner we are preserved.” If our faith should grow weak as we walk with Jesus, God’s power works on our behalf to strengthen us so that no one who has truly been born again will ever fall away. They have been redeemed into a salvation, the fullness of which will only be fully and finally revealed in the last time, at the final judgment. On that day, we will see the risen Jesus face to face and know that our living hope has become fully realized. On that day, all that was ever lost in this life will fade from view as we behold the glorious inheritance God has reserved for those who are born again by faith in Christ.

Yes, life in this world is hard. Our days are few and difficult as Jacob said. And for the believer in Christ, there are often hardships that we must face for no other reason than that we have put our faith in Him. There will be sacrifice, there will be suffering to greater or lesser degrees, there will be costly decisions made with severe consequence. But the Word of God says to us today what it said to those to whom Peter wrote this letter. Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ because Christ has been resurrected from the dead! And because of this we can be born again to a living hope and an imperishable, undefiled, incorruptible inheritance that is guarded for us in heaven, while we are all the while being guarded for it by the power of God through our faith in Christ.

1 Corinthians 15: Why Today (Resurrection Sunday) Matters

There is much cultural confusion about this day that so many call Easter. Consider what happened at a church outside of Pittsburgh a few years ago. In their Easter production, instead of portraying a crucified Jesus, they beat up the Easter Bunny.

For many people, today is just another day. It doesn’t matter at all. For some people, the only thing that matters about this day is new clothes, big meals, bunnies, eggs, and candy. But for Christian people, today is about the most important event in human history – the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead. The Christian faith is based on the belief that a dead person came back to life. And because that person, Jesus Christ, came back to life in His resurrection, this day MATTERS.

Paul tells us here that this belief that Jesus lives again is central to the Christian gospel. He says that it is a matter of first importance. Why is it so important?

I. The Resurrection is a matter of historical fact (3-8)

Paul does NOT say, “Jesus rose from the dead. Just trust me. Take my word for it.” No, rather, he seeks to validate the resurrection of Christ by pointing to evidence that supports that claim. The evidence is as strong than that of any fact of history. Paul mentions two elements of evidence here in this passage: the scriptures, and the eyewitnesses.

First, in v4, he says, “He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” The NT writers understood that many OT passages spoke of the resurrection. They refer to Genesis 22, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Hosea 6, and other passages which foreshadow and predict the resurrection. These Old Testament were compiled together by the Jews at least 200 years before the time of Christ. So when Jesus spoke of His own death and resurrection, He was not inventing new ideas, but proclaiming ancient truths which were fulfilled when His tomb was found to be empty and He appeared to His disciples.

This brings us to the second piece of evidence, the eyewitnesses. The OT Law established a principle that two or three witnesses would be required to confirm the truth of a matter. Paul tells us here of 514 eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus. If we add the ones mentioned elsewhere in the NT, we have 640 eyewitnesses of the resurrection. And Paul says in effect, “If you don’t believe me, go ask them.” That is what he means when he says, “Most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.” Think for a moment about the people in our churches. We have people in our churches who fought in World War II. We have people in our churches who lived through the Great Depression. Perhaps some here were present or nearby when the Tiananmen Square protests occurred or when Mao Zedong came to power in China. These are eyewitnesses of historic events. But Paul says that among the members of the churches of that day and time were MOST of the 640 or more eyewitnesses who saw the risen Lord Jesus with their own eyes. You could talk to them for yourself about their encounter with Him.

Of course, they could have all been lying. Maybe it was all a hoax and the people who claimed to have seen the risen Lord were all telling a great lie. Well, isn’t it interesting that of the ones who told their story, there is no variation or disagreement in the details? And isn’t it interesting that no one in the first century ever came up with a way to disprove what happened? And isn’t it interesting that many of those who claimed to have seen the risen Lord Jesus died for their faith in Him? You may say, well, people die for a lie all the time. Think of the Islamic suicide terrorists who die for the lies of their religion. Yes, but everyone who dies for a lie dies believing that it is true. And if the disciples of Jesus made up the story of His resurrection, then they died for a lie knowing it was a lie. One, two, a handful more may have been willing to do that, but a vast number of those first-generation Christians in the first-century embraced the death of a martyr willingly because they knew that the resurrection of Jesus was a fact. Many of them had seen Him with their own eyes.

But then again, maybe it was a hallucination. Solomon and I are big ice hockey fans. And because hockey is not as popular as other sports here in the Triad, we always notice things about hockey. The other night, we were leaving a restaurant and we overheard someone’s car radio going over the night’s hockey scores. And Solomon said, “Am I hallucinating, or did I just hear hockey scores?” I said, “No, you weren’t hallucinating because I heard them too!” You see a hallucination is a private experience. Two people can take hallucinogenic drugs and both will hallucinate, but they will not see or experience the same things. 640 or more people saw the risen Jesus and had the same experience of Him. This was no hallucination. This was reality. You see, today matters because the resurrection is a matter of historical fact.

II. The resurrection is a matter of personal significance.

Historical facts are important. We all need to know some of them. I was a history major in college, so I tend to think we need to know a lot of them! But even I will admit that very few historical facts make much difference in our daily lives. But the resurrection of Jesus is a personally significant matter.

Notice that Paul says in vv12-15 that it is the basis of our faith. If Christ is not raised, Paul says, then our preaching is “in vain.” That means that it is hollow, empty, meaningless. What Paul means is that the GOSPEL we preach is hollow, empty, and meaningless. And therefore, those who have believed it have put their faith in NOTHING. Our faith is in vain. If Jesus has not risen from the dead, then in who or what do we believe? A carcass. Actually, not even a carcass, because by now that carcass has decomposed into a pile of ashes that have long since been scattered into the desert sands. We have fallen for the biggest lie in history if Jesus is not alive. We might as well take the cross down from the wall behind me and put up a big picture of the Easter Bunny, or even better yet, just shut down operations all together. Apart from the resurrection, there is no Jesus in whom to put our faith.
He goes on to say in vv16-19 that the resurrection is the basis of our hope. Putting your faith in Christ is worthless because there is now nothing left to hope for if He is not raised. If Christ is not raised, then we have no hope of ever being with God, because “we are still in our sins.” The Bible tells us that sin separates us from God, and this separation will be eternal unless sin is forgiven. But the forgiveness of sins comes because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. He died in our place to bear the wrath of God against our sins. And in His resurrection He triumphs over sin and death, the grave and hell to reconcile those who trust in Him to God forever. Unless of course, He didn’t rise from the dead. In that case all we have to look forward to is hell. Paul says in v18 that our Christian brothers and sisters who have already died are perishing. In that case, there is nothing to hope for, only a future to fear and dread. And if we have only had hope for this life, then Paul says we are to be pitied more than all men. How pathetic must we be to believe in a myth or a fairy tale, to live without indulging in all the pleasures that this world offers, believing all the while that an eternal paradise was awaiting us? This is what the world must think of Christians. Unless of course Jesus really did rise from the dead. In which case, we have the hope of eternal life spent in the presence of our living Savior.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our faith and our hope are fixed upon Him, and our lives are lived in that reality. This brings us to the final point. The resurrection is the basis of our service. Paul says in v58: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.

If we know that Jesus is alive, then we must not sit around waiting for heaven but rather be steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord. Our faith in Christ should not waver. We can daily live in the confidence of His Word and His promises. And we can put our hands to the task of the Lord’s work. Always, Paul says, ALWAYS!!! ABOUNDING!!! in the work of the Lord. Why? Because it is not in vain. Our Lord lives and receives our service to Him, and nothing done for Him will go unnoticed or unrewarded by Him. Never give up, never stop, never step aside from the work of the work of the Lord. The risen Christ is worthy of our service, and He sees it, and He receives it as being done unto Himself, and He will be faithful to supply our needs in the work and reward our labor in it.

It makes a difference to believe in the risen Jesus. This is one historical fact that comes to bear every day on the lives we live in what we believe, what we do, and what we hope for. Today matters. It matters because the resurrection is a fact of history and because the resurrection is personally significant.

Mark 16:1-8 -- The Resurrection of Jesus

Audio available here

In 1820, Thomas Jefferson completed a book that had been many years in the making, with no intention of ever publishing it. Though he distributed a few copies to friends, this book was not published until long after his death. For many years, this book was given to incoming members of Congress. This book has come to be known as the “Jefferson Bible,” probably because the original title that Jefferson gave it was a bit cumbersome: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French and English. Our forefathers were fond of lengthy and thorough book titles, and I believe we suffer for a lack of them. The Jefferson Bible was compiled from selected verses in all four Gospels and arranged in a chronological order. Jefferson also omitted many passages which he believed were later additions or exaggerations by the Gospel writers as well as those passages which contained supernatural elements. So, for instance, there are no angels, no fulfilled prophecies, no references to the Trinity, no indication of the deity of Jesus, and no miracles in the Jefferson Bible. And so it ends with these words:
61: Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. 62: Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. 63: There laid they Jesus, 64: And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
That’s it. The End. Jefferson’s Bible ends with Jesus dead and buried. Thank God, our Bibles do not end there. Mark’s Gospel ends with Jesus dead, buried, and risen to life again! The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the climactic moment of all four Gospels, and the foundation of the rest of the New Testament and the Christian Church. And in our text today there are three important facts about the resurrection of Jesus that I want to bring to your attention today.

1. The resurrection of Jesus brings an end to human despair (vv1-4)

The three women mentioned in v1 did not set out that Sunday morning to witness the aftereffects of the greatest miracle in history. Rather, they had set out to complete the burial preparations that had been hastily begun by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus on Friday. As soon as the Sabbath restrictions were lifted, Mark tells us very early on the first day of the week (Sunday), they had gone to buy spices and came to the tomb. Imagine the disposition of their hearts as the approach the tomb. The one in whom they had placed all of their hopes is dead, having been brutally tortured. They are going to have to go in and view his dead body, not like we see them in the funeral home, but in its natural condition now on the third day. You will recall from the story of Lazarus that on the fourth day, it was said (in the old King James), “by this time he stinketh.”
But the concerns for what condition the body may be in by this time are all premature. Another factor will have to be addressed first: who will roll the stone away from the tomb? If the stone can’t be moved then they will have to go back home unable to complete their task. Not only is this Jesus whom they had loved and trusted in dead, but a massive stone separates them from Him and they have no idea how that stone might be moved for them.

In a sense, the situation these women find themselves in is not altogether different from the experiences of many human beings. It is a case of despair. Despair comes when all hopes are lost, when disappointments are all around, and when the obstacles in life seem too massive to overcome. Do you know anyone like that today? Anyone here like that? All of us have found ourselves in situations that appear hopeless. Everyone of us have tasted disappointment’s bitter waters. All of us have looked at massive stones in our lives that appear to be immovable. And let’s be honest – can any of us say that we have NEVER been disappointed by God? Haven’t you hoped and expected God to do one thing, and in actually it appears that He has done another, or else not done anything at all? Can any of say that we have NEVER felt isolated from God? Have you prayed and felt like a massive stone stood between you and Him? Maybe I am being too honest for some of you right now. You may not have known it, but we have a rule here: “No Perfect People Allowed.” So it’s ok for you to say that you know how despair feels.

But, notice what verse 4 says: “Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away.” LOOKING UP! Despair keeps us looking down at ourselves, our hurt feelings, our fears, our disappointments, and all the things that we can’t do anything about. But when we look up, when we pause in the midst of despair to consider that there is a GOD who can say that NOTHING is impossible for Him, then we are able overcome despair. What has you down today? Taxes? The economy? Your job, or your lack of one? Your marriage, your kids? Despair causes us to live like the God in whom we trust is dead. But God has overcome DEATH in the resurrection of Jesus, so I think He can probably handle your stuff and mine too. So, here’s what you do: think really hard about all the stuff that’s got you down; then say to God, “Lord, this stuff is so huge that I don’t really think you can handle it.” And then think about Jesus dying on the cross and being placed in that tomb and sealed with this massive stone. And then think about those women going there on Sunday morning and finding the tomb opened, and Jesus gone, and being told that He has risen from the dead. And then say, “Sorry, God. I forgot. You really can handle it.”

The resurrection of Jesus brings an end to human despair. And the most desperate circumstance human beings find themselves in is sin. Sin brings hopelessness, disappointment, and consequences that create obstacles in our lives. Because we are all sinners by nature and by choice, we are cut off from God. The Bible tells us this – our sins separate us from Him and bring death and the eternal separation of hell. Most people would just rather not think about it than to consider the hopelessness of standing before a holy God covered in the stains of our sins. But thanks be to God that the risen Lord Jesus Christ has conquered sin, AND death, AND hell for us, and brought an end to our despair. And this brings us to our next point …

II. The Resurrection of Jesus is a fundamental part of the Good News (v5-7)

It has been noted by many through the centuries that the moving of the stone was not necessary to let Jesus out so much as to let the witnesses in to see that He had risen. Entering into the tomb, the women did not find a corpse awaiting anointing but rather found a messenger with an announcement of Good News. Mark describes this messenger as a “young man … wearing a white robe.” While this is a rather vague description, Matthew tells us that he is an angel. And he tells them, “Do not be amazed.” That seems like a great understatement, doesn’t it? The person they expected to find dead is not there and an angel is instead. Oh no, nothing to be amazed about at all!
The word “angel,” actually means “messenger.” And this angel has a message to announce. In fact, it is not just any message; it is the most important message ever delivered containing the greatest news ever told. It is the Gospel message. Paul summarized the Gospel message in 1 Corinthians 15, saying, “I make known to you, brethren, the gospel … that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time….” If that is the Gospel, then notice that it is exactly what the heavenly messenger pronounces here.
· Paul: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”
o Angel: “Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified.”
· Paul: “and that He was buried”
o Angel: “Behold here is the place where they laid Him.”
· Paul: “and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”
o Angel: “He has risen; He is not here.”
· Paul: “and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve” (Cephas being another name for Peter)
o Angel: “Go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’”

So, you see that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a central element to the Gospel message, that proclaimed by the angel at the tomb, by the apostles, and by the orthodox followers of Christ ever since. One of the most popular scholars among a new wave of liberal Christianity today is Marcus Borg. Concerning him, the respected Bishop N. T. Wright has said, “Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately.” So, if you will permit me to say so, the Jesus that Marcus Borg loves is a decomposed corpse today; a pile of ashes in the desert. This is not the Jesus of the New Testament. But Borg is, unfortunately, not alone. A few years ago, when a documentary was produced claiming to have found the bones of Jesus in a family tomb outside of Jerusalem, Jewish Rabbi Marc Gellman stated, “Some Christian respondents to this film have said that even discovering the bones of Jesus would not seriously undermine their faith. … I know many Christian clergy who have told me that the main truth of Christianity for them is to love as Jesus loved and that no archeological discovery can change that spiritual lesson.” Do you hear that? The Rabbi claims that many Christian CLERGY(!) believe the resurrection is unimportant to their faith in Christ! The Rabbi goes on to say about these clergy, “I love these folks but, as an outsider, I just don't agree that decisive refutation of Jesus' resurrection would have no effect on Christian faith. Unlike Judaism and Islam and Hinduism and even Buddhism, which are built on God's teachings, Christianity is built both on God's teachings as well as on an historical event proving a transcendental miracle.” This Rabbi, a self-professed outsider to Christianity, understands more so than the clergy he knows how central the resurrection of Jesus is to the Christian faith and the Gospel on which it is built.

To demonstrate just how central the resurrection is to the Gospel, notice what Paul says in Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” And he also says in 1 Cor 15 that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then our preaching and your faith are vain and worthless and we are all still lost in our sins. Our fellow Christians who have died have perished, and the rest of us are to be pitied more than any other people. I would say that those statements make it pretty clear that the resurrection of Jesus is central to the Gospel message. In fact, if the Gospel is good news, then it requires the resurrection. Had the women come to the tomb only to find a corpse, there is no good news at all. But the fact that He had risen, as this messenger proclaims, means that God has kept His promises, Jesus has accomplished our redemption, and we can be saved from sin. That is not just good news; that is AMAZING news! And Paul says in Galatians 1:8, “even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.” The Gospel of the risen Christ is the only Good News there is.

And we come now to the third point …

III. The Resurrection of Jesus demands a response (v8)

Any time there is a revelation of God’s truth, there is the expectation of a response. And typically that response is to be one of faith and obedience. If one does not believe the report, then one will not obey the report. And if one does not obey the report, then it indicates that one does not truly believe the report. So faith and obedience go hand-in-hand, as our old hymn says, “Trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”

The women have been given a message to believe: Christ is risen. And they have been given a commission to obey: Go and tell. And their response is seen in verse 8. They went out and fled from the tomb. That is the right thing to do. They acted with swift haste. And then it says that they were gripped by trembling and astonishment. That is an appropriate reaction. To receive so great an announcement should astonish us cause us to tremble. In Isaiah 66:2, the Lord says, “to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” So far, so good. But then notice that verse 8 concludes with “and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Uh-oh. This is no good! Instead of faith we find fear, and instead of going and telling, they are silent! This is a highly unusual way to end this passage, but even more unusual is that according to many ancient manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel, this is the way the entire story ends. You probably notice some indicator in your Bible that verses 9-20 are of questionable authenticity because they are not found in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts. (I will discuss this on the Sunday following Easter, 2 weeks from today in our final message on Mark). This fear and silence seems like a very strange ending to a story that is supposed to be filled with good news.

We must remember however that there are two senses in which the Bible speaks of fear. First and most obvious is that normal sense we think of, like a dread or horror. But secondly is that very frequent kind of fear that is a sense of awe and reverence before the power and holiness of God. And in Mark’s Gospel, whenever there is a profound revelatory miracle, this kind of fear is usually the reaction of those who witness the miracle. For instance, in 4:41, when Jesus calmed the stormy sea, the disciples “became very much afraid.” In 5:33 the woman who had been healed of the blood disorder fell down before Jesus “fearing and trembling.” In 6:51, after seeing Jesus walking on the water, the disciples were “utterly astonished.” These are just a few of the many examples of this kind of response to God’s powerful acts of revelation throughout Mark’s Gospel. In addition to these, we would note that in each of the three times that Jesus clearly predicted His suffering, death, and resurrection, the disciples responded with fear and misunderstanding. So it should not surprise us that when the reality occurred, these women were confused, afraid, and dumbfounded into silence.
But here is the important thing to remember – they did not stay that way. In fact, from the other gospels we know that they did believe, and they did go and tell. The entire history of the Christian church is a testimony to the fact that these women told the story of the risen Jesus that they heard from the angel in the tomb, and that Peter and the twelve, and countless others since them have believed and told this story as well.

We preach Christ and Him crucified, and Him risen from the dead as a fact of history and as a miracle of God. This God accomplished for us and for our salvation. If we could travel back in time to that empty tomb so long ago, we would find ourselves in the same state as these women were in. We would fear the awesome holiness and power of God which has brought these things about. And that fear can paralyze us into unbelief and inaction, or it can lead us into faith and action. The choice is ours to make. Redemption has been accomplished through Christ’s death and resurrection. Forgiveness of sin and eternal life are offered to us as a free gift of God. This message has been proclaimed by His messengers coming down to us through the ages. And each of us has a choice to make. Will we believe? Will we go and tell?

In a week we will gather here in the sanctuary again and have a very special celebration for Resurrection Day. So between now and then, it is my hope that these words spoken today will be a foundation for meditation in our hearts. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. His resurrection brings an end to our despair. What worries, struggles, or situations have you feeling hopeless, fearful and desperate today? Do you believe that God who conquered DEATH in Jesus Christ can handle them? I believe He can, and I would challenge you even as I am challenging myself to put those things into the hands of our risen Lord. Ask Him to move the stone. Ask Him to lift your eyes to Him; rather than dwelling on the your inability to handle these things, consider His ability to do all things. Nothing, not even death, is impossible for our God.

And as you consider these words in the days to come, remember that our belief in the resurrection is not a fairy tale, nor is it an optional feature of Christianity. It is a historical event that actually happened. It is a central component of our Gospel. And the proclamation of that Gospel sets before us a decision – to believe it or not. Undoubtedly many if not a vast majority of those of us present here today have made the decision to believe in this risen Christ and to trust Him for our salvation. But perhaps others have not. We would welcome you to make that decision today as the Holy Spirit prompts your heart and convinces you of the truth of this message. And those of us who have received Christ are commissioned like those women at the tomb to go and tell. So who will you tell this week that Jesus is alive? Who will you tell that Jesus is waiting to meet them? Who will you tell that He lives to save them?

Reasons to Believe in the Risen Jesus (1 Cor 15:1-11)

Audio available here. (click to stream, right-click to download)

He was raised in a Christian home, baptized as a child into the church of his parents. His wife’s parents were killed during a war-time pogrom for possessing Christian icons in their home. Yet, this man went on to be the leader of the strongest Communist nation in the world, admitting publicly at various times that he was an atheist. While others wondered if he might not be secretly more religious than his public position would allow him to admit, he held fast to the godless belief system entailed by his political persuasion. After his Communist government collapsed, he opened up a little more, confessing to be a pantheist, saying “Nature is my god.” However, now at the age of 77 years old, the British newspaper Telegraph reveals this week that Mikhail Gorbachev is finally comfortable admitting that he is in fact a Christian[1]

Once upon a time in Russia, it would not be uncommon to hear hardened old-line Communists say spitefully, “I will believe that Jesus rose from the dead when the atheist leader of the Soviet Union becomes a Christian.”[2] Well, now that Mikhail Gorbachev is openly confessing his Christian faith, one wonders how many others will admiringly follow him to faith in Christ? Or will they instead say that old age has caused him to seek the spiritual comfort of belief in the afterlife, or that he has slipped intellectually into a belief in myths and fairy tales?

We have come to expect that each year around the major holidays, certain traditions will recur like clockwork. There will be picnics at the fourth of July, parades at Thanksgiving, countless reshowings of The Grinch at Christmas. But in recent years, a new Easter tradition has come about. During the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, one can expect numerous documentaries to air on television which seek to debunk the Christian faith by arguing against the historicity of the claim that Jesus is risen from the dead. Belief in the resurrection is not an optional or insignificant element of Christianity. You will recall that the Apostle Paul says in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” No less than 104 times in the New testament, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is addressed. And here in this text we read this morning, he says that the resurrection is an essential component of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, it should come as no surprise that this doctrine finds itself under attack perennially. The critics of Christianity understand perhaps more than many Christians that if they can undermine our confidence in the resurrection, they can effectually neuter the Christian faith of its power. And this is not a new phenomenon. Opponents of Christianity have sought for two millennia to debunk the resurrection, without success.

Think of it like this. Hinduism teaches that Krishna was a divine incarnation of the god Vishnu who was born on in late July in 3228 BC. But do you find the media airing midsummer specials debunking the belief of Krishna’s deity? No. One of Islam’s most holy days is Eid al-Adha, which occurs 70 days after Ramadan. This day commemorates the day that Abraham took his son to be sacrificed, only Muslims believe that it was Ishmael, and not Isaac whom God commanded to be sacrificed. Yet, in the months following Ramadan, one does not find a flurry of books being published to combat the notion that Ishmael was taken rather than Isaac. Scientology was founded by a man named L. Ron Hubbard, who prior to the start of this religion was a starving science-fiction writer. In fact, Hubbard is known to have stated once at a science-fiction convention that the fastest way for someone to become a millionaire in America would be to start his own religion. However, when a celebrity openly attests faith in Scientology, is he criticized or accused of anti-intellectualism? No, usually he or she is celebrated in the media. Why is it that only Christianity, and in particular the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus, comes under such frequent attack? Because the fact is that if Jesus rose from the dead, then such a miracle would validate every claim of the Christian faith and make it ultimately impossible to ignore. If Jesus is risen from the dead, then Christianity is not just another set of mythological fairy tales, but in fact is Truth (with a capital T), and each of us becomes accountable to responding to the Gospel’s claims.

So, is it true? Did Jesus in fact rise from the dead. My thesis is that He did, and in what follows, I will seek to present convincing evidence of support for that claim.

I will remind you that Paul is writing here in our text to the Corinthian Christians, a church which had become so distracted, so divided, so deceived by many unnecessary things, that he deemed it fitting to remind them of the truths that matter most. And so he says here that they must know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it centers around the fact that Christ died for our sins according to Scripture, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to Scripture. If the message of Christianity is that Jesus died and was buried, then Jesus is no different than any other human being who has ever lived. But we claim that He was different, and His death was different than any other death experienced by man. Jesus died for our sins, a claim that He made Himself and that others made concerning Him. But these claims are hardly believable unless some proof can be offered that demonstrates He was able to atone for those sins and be vindicated by God following His suffering. This proof is found in His resurrection.

Historian Kenneth Scott Latourete writes, “It was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted his followers out of the despair into which his death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation of the movement begun by Him. But for their profound belief that the crucified had risen from the dead and they had seen him and talked with him, the death of Jesus and even Jesus himself would probably have been all but forgotten.” Similarly, H.D.A. Major has written, “Had the crucifixion of Jesus ended his disciples’ experience of Him, it is hard to see how the Chrisitan Church could have come into existence. That Church was founded on faith in the Messiahship of Jesus. A crucified Messiah was no Messiah at all. … It was the resurrection of Jesus, as St. Paul declares in Romans 1:4, which proclaimed Him to be the Son of God with power.”

Now you will notice that Paul does not say here that Christ was risen and that we should just take his word for it. No, rather, he seeks to validate the resurrection of Christ by pointing to evidence that supports that claim. So many times people think that becoming a follower of Christ means taking an intellectual flying leap, checking your brains at the door, and foolishly buying into an unbelievable myth. You have heard it said by many that Christianity is a just crutch for weak-minded people. However, the fact is that God does not expect us to follow along in spite of evidence. God has given us evidence to confirm that our faith is rightly focused. It is not a leap in the dark, but a step toward the light. The evidence for belief in Christ and His resurrection is as strong as any other historical fact. Consider the evidence found in this passage alone:

I. The Evidence of Scripture (v4) (according to Scripture)

Luke 24:44-48 records that when the Risen Jesus appeared to His disciples, He said to them: "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

So, in referring to the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, Jesus says in essence, “The whole OT testifies to this.” The Hebrew Bible that we now call the Old Testament, was divided into three parts: Torah (Law), Nevi’im (prophets), and Kethuvim (writings). Therefore it became known as Tanakh: an acrostic based on the consonants TNK for those three divisions. Jesus Christ is saying to His followers that for centuries, it had been prophesied that I would come, and I would die, and I would rise again.

It is widely agreed by many scholars that the book of Job was the first book of Scripture written down. In this ancient book, Job declares a great affirmation of faith in Job 19:25-27-- "And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. 26 "Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; 27 Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes shall see and not another. My heart faints within me.”

You recall how Jesus answered the Jews who wanted a sign:

& Matthew 12-- 39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; 40 for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Jesus, Peter, and Paul all referred to Old Testament scriptures in discussing the resurrection. Genesis 22, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Hosea 6:2 are among their favorites. And these passages indicate that support for the resurrection of Christ can be found in every portion of the Old Testament. Genesis is from the Torah, the Law; the Psalms are from the Kethubim, or the Writings; Isaiah and Hosea are from the Nebiim, or the Prophets. Now some will accuse of a logical fallacy here, claiming that we are using a circular argument. They will say that we cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible. However, these have misunderstood what the Bible is. The Bible is not one book written by one man or assembled by one committee. The Bible is a collection of writings that were penned over the course of 1500 years by various people from all different walks of life, most of whom never knew each other. And the Old Testament writings which we hold to be authoritative were collected in the form we now have them before the time of Christ. And so the early Christians were not pointing to their own writings to validate Scripturally the resurrection of Jesus, but rather were pointing to treasured writings of ancient Israel, which had long stood the test of time.

And these Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures, written centuries before, affirm that in time God would send a Messiah, would not only die, but would rise again. But there will still be some who believe in the Scriptures, and who say that this is evidence is not sufficient. So, what evidence shall we give to them?

II. The evidence of eyewitnesses (v5-7)

We could say anything we want about a person after he has died. We can even say that he is risen from the dead, but that would be easily disproven. Just go dig up the grave and see if it is empty. If it is empty, that is still no guarantee. There are other explanations that could suffice to explain the empty tomb. We might also say, “I will believe it when I see him face to face.” We criticize Thomas for his skepticism, but we must say we would be just as skeptical about the claim that someone who was dead was no longer. Two words of the text we have read today are crucial: He appeared. And the eyewitnesses to whom He appeared are powerful evidence that He is risen indeed.

A. The Abundance of Eyewitnesses (5-8)

In Deuteronomy 19:15, a principle is given to cover matters of government and judgment: “A single witness shall not rise up against a man on account of any iniquity or any sin which he has committed; on the evidence of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.” If two or three witnesses is enough to confirm a thing, then how much more sure is something witnessed by no less than 640 eyewitnesses?

In verses 5-8, we read of no less than 514 eyewitnesses: Cephas (Peter); The Twelve; More than 500 Brethren at one time; James; and Paul himself, in an unnatural encounter on the Damascus Road. Elsewhere in the NT, we read of at least 126 other eyewitnesses. Mary Magdalene (John 20); Joanna and Mary (Luke 24); Annas and Cleopas (Luke 24); 120 people (Acts 1); and again in an unnatural vision, Stephen (Acts 7). So that is at least 640 different people who saw the risen Jesus after His bodily resurrection. If you were on a jury, and you were deliberating this case, after how many of these would you say, “OK, we’ve heard enough.” No case would require more than 640 eyewitnesses to identify a person. But you say, “Well, how do we know any of this is true? How do we know Paul wasn’t making it up?” One statement confirms it, as Paul points not only to the abundance of eyewitnesses, but also to …

B. The Availability of Eyewitnesses (v6)

“Most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.” In speaking of sleep here, Paul does not mean sleep like some of you are wanting to do now. Rather, he is speaking euphemistically of death, as was common in his day. Obviously by our own day, all of these have died, but when Paul wrote this letter, he indicated that most of those who had seen Jesus after His resurrection were still alive and could be consulted about the matter. Any person in Corinth who doubted the reality of Christ’s resurrection could have sent correspondence or traveled to Jerusalem and sought out any of these 640 people who could validate their eyewitness accounts of His resurrection.

The testimony of eyewitnesses is powerful! In fact, as Luke compiled information to send to his dear friend Theophilus, he said that Jesus had, “presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing (or, infallible) proofs” (Acts 1:3).

The evidence of Scripture and the evidence of eyewitnesses ought to be enough to convince anyone of the reality of Christ’s resurrection. But if spiritual evidence and eyewitness evidence are not enough, then perhaps practical evidence will be, as we see …

III. The Evidence of Changed Lives (v8-11)

“Last of all,” Paul says, “as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” For much of Paul’s career, people doubted his claim to be an apostle. They said he hadn’t even seen Jesus, so how could he call himself an apostle. But Paul said that Christ appeared to him last of all, “as to one born at the wrong time.”

Do you recall how Paul’s life was changed as he met Jesus? We find him first in Acts 7:58, in hearty agreement with the martyrdom of Stephen. So convinced was Paul that these Christians were blasphemous heretics, he began persecuting the Church with great intensity. Acts 8:3 says that he began ravaging the church, entering house after house, dragging off men and women and putting them in prison. Acts 9:1 says that he was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. So he sought permission to pursue them violently and that permission was given.

But then Saul (which was his Hebrew name) met Jesus. After this encounter on the Damascus Road, his life was radically changed: Acts 9:20-22 says, “immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’ All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, "Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests? But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ.” His changed life and his reasoning from the Hebrew Scriptures was considered proof to them that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.

So he says in 1 Cor 15:9-10 that he is not fit to be called an apostle because of his past, but God’s grace made him an apostle through that encounter with the risen Christ, and compelled him to be the most fervent laborer in God’s Kingdom-building work.

And we might point to hundreds and thousands of other godless people whose lives have been radically altered by meeting Christ. Josh McDowell was an intellectual young man who ambitiously set out to disprove the resurrection of Christ, but soon found that he could not, and he became a follower of Christ. Today is one of the world’s most influential evangelists. C. S. Lewis was an atheist with no appetite for the things of God, until he encountered Christ in a personal way. Following his conversion, Lewis was asked by the BBC to air a series of talks on the Christian faith for all England to hear during World War II. These talks have been preserved for us in his book “Mere Christianity,” a book which has been used to persuade countless atheists and skeptics toward faith in Christ. On and on we could list those who are well-known examples of people who the Risen Christ has transformed. By the time I was a teenager, I was a thoroughly convinced and committed atheist. Yet, as I read the Bible for the first time, and considered the very reasonable claims of Christ, I was convinced that God was there, and that He was pursuing me and calling me into a relationship with Christ. I run into people all the time whom I haven’t seen for many years, and they say, “What are you doing these days?” I say to them, “I am a Southern Baptist Pastor!” When they return to consciousness, they ask how on earth that could be possible. My conversion, and the conversion of Paul and many others including those I have mentioned, really doesn’t make sense unless you allow that Jesus is alive and is still in the life-changing business.

Thus far, we have considered theological evidence: long before the birth of Christ, His life, His death, and His resurrection were prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures. We have considered testimonial evidence: over 640 eyewitnesses to the Risen Christ are mentioned in Scripture, and Paul invited his readers in his day to contact them for further inquiry, since most of them were still alive that point. We have considered existential evidence: lives that underwent radical change through an encounter with Jesus Christ.

In addition to this, we have the testimony of the empty tomb as a evidence of the resurrection. I have already said that an empty tomb by itself is no evidence. But, an empty tomb with no other reasonable explanation is. Some have attempted to suggest many other theories of how the tomb of Jesus became empty.

It has been suggested that Jesus’ body was stolen by his disciples, and they made up the story of his resurrection. This was, in fact, the first alternative theory ever offered to explain the empty tomb. The chief priests, the elders, and the soldiers who guarded the tomb of Christ concocted this explanation when the tomb was found to be empty on that first Easter Sunday (Matthew 28:11-15). Yet people continue to advance this theory as if it was cutting edge scholarship. But, if it was all a lie, why then did so many of the earliest Christians die for their belief in the resurrection? You say, “Well, people die for lies all the time.” We need only think of Islamic terrorists who kill themselves and multitudes of others for Mohammed’s lie that death in jihad will transport them instantly to a heavenly garden to be attended to by 70 virgins. And how about the followers of cults who have committed mass suicide in obedience to their leader’s demands? Indeed, people die every day for the sake of a lie, but all do so believing that lie to be the truth. No one dies for a lie that they know is a lie. And if the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus, then they would have certainly known that His resurrection was a lie. And if they had known it was a lie, do you think they would have suffered and died for Him?

John suffered imprisonment and exile at Patmos. Some ancient traditions state that prior to this, he was tortured by being plunged into a caldron of boiling oil. Peter, Andrew, James the Less, Philip, Simon Zealotes, and Bartholomew were all crucified. Matthew and James, brother of John, were both killed by the sword. Thaddaeus (the other Judas) was killed by arrows. Thomas was run through with a spear while he was preaching. Paul was beheaded in Rome. Matthias died either by crucifixion or by stoning, and then his dead body was beheaded. And yet surely one of them would have recanted and fessed up if they had been party to stealing the body of Jesus. They did not. They sealed their testimony of Christ’s resurrection with their own blood.

Others have said that the body was stolen by the political and religious leaders of Jesus’ day. This is an even more ridiculous suggestion. First of all, they had no motive for stealing the body, and if they had stolen it, they would have surely put the body on display in order to prove that the resurrection did not occur. But that did not happen.

Others have said that the disciples went to the wrong tomb. While that was a possibility for the initial group that went to the tomb, the fact remains that the tomb was owned by Joseph of Arimathea, who could have then pointed them to the right tomb, or otherwise, the religious and political leaders of the day would have. Most certainly, this does not explain the empty tomb of Christ.

Still others have said that Jesus did not really die. They say that He merely fainted on the cross, but after being placed in the tomb, he regained consciousness and escaped from the tomb. I would remind you that we are talking about an individual who was beaten, whipped, and scourged beyond recognition; He was nailed to a cross with spikes in his wrists and feet; He was pierced in the side by a spear, breaking his pericardial sack and causing blood and water to flow out. Now, am I supposed to believe that this person did not really die, but rehabilitated himself to the point that within three days (with no food or water, mind you) he could move a massive stone, fight off an entire regiment of soldiers, and present himself alive and well to his followers? With all due respect, I believe that it would take much more faith for me to believe that than to believe that He rose from the dead.

There simply are no other believable theories as to how that Jerusalem tomb came to be found empty. Christian Philosopher Winfried Corduan presented this information to his class on one occasion, and was challenged by a student who offered this nonsensical explanation: “Jesus’ body was consumed in the tomb by a new strain of mutant bacteria that evolved within the tomb, totally devouring the body, leaving the linen wrappings exactly in place.”[3] This falls into category with alien abductions and the like. While no intellectually reasonable person would ever espouse such views, they are no more far-fetched than the other more popular alternate explanations which seek to avoid the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead, just as He said He would. When it is all said and done, the most believable hypothesis, the one with the most evidence to substantiate it, is that Jesus Christ arose from the dead.

Sir Edward Clarke, a once prominent English attorney for King’s Court said, “As a lawyer, I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter day. For me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the high court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling.”

Historian Thomas Arnold said, “The evidence for our Lord’s life and death and resurrection may be and often has been shown to be satisfactory. It is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece as carefully as every judge summing up on an important case. … I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is better proved by fuller evidence than the great sign that God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.”

In John 11:25-26, Jesus said, “"I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.” And after that statement, He asked a very important question: “Do you believe this?” Do you? If not, why not? I suggest that if you do not believe it, it is not because of the evidence, but rather in spite of it.

---

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/19/wgorbachev119.xml

[2] http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2008/03/easter-miracles-russian-style.html

[3] Adapted from Corduan, No Doubt About It, p226.

Why Easter Is Important -- 1 Corinthians 15

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Just recently, the Discovery Channel aired a documentary produced by James Cameron (of “Titanic” fame) and Simcha Jacobovici claiming that the family tomb of Jesus, including the tomb of Jesus Himself has been found in Jerusalem. And the remarkable thing of it all is that supposed confirmation this gives to the claim that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Here are His remains, in a family tomb, together with his father Joseph, his mother Mary, his wife Mary Magdalene, his son Judah, and the disciple Matthew. Well, what are we to make of it? We cannot simply ignore the claim. If it is true, then the conspiracy theories of The Da Vinci Code and the entire genre of literature spawned by it’s popularity are closer to the truth than the Bible. If it is true, then we have wasted countless hours, countless dollars, and even countless lives through two millennia of Church history. If it is true, then not only could we all have slept in a little longer today, but we can and should every Sunday. If it is true, then the best we can do today is color some eggs, tell stories about bunnies which lay chocolate eggs, and then go fishing. And, by the way, you have no reason to expect a day off from your employer today, tomorrow or two days ago on Friday. Basically, it the claims of this documentary and other theories about a non-risen Christ are true, then the best thing Christians can do for the world is shut down all the churches and all the organizations and institutions established in the name of Christ over the last 2000 years, and go hide our heads in shame and embarrassment about the lie we have all believed. If it is true.

So what do we say to it all? Some have said, “So what?” Some have said that without a risen Christ, they can still go on and play church on Sundays and do nice things for people. They seem to think that removing all the spectacular from Christianity makes it more intellectually palatable for the rest of the world, so why not jettison belief in the resurrection, the miracles of Jesus, the virgin birth, and every other supernatural claim of the Christian faith, and reduce it all down to moral improvement through the passing along of practical wisdom in the form of parables and proverbs. I think they are wrong. First, they are wrong because without a risen Christ, there is no need to play church. Second, without a risen Christ, there is no reason to do anything good for anyone – after all, we should just eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Third, removing the spectacular does not make Christianity more intellectually palatable, but rather exposes it as a sham and superstitious system of mythology and worthless traditions. Fourth, they are wrong because wisdom in the form of proverbs and parables are powerless to transform people’s lives. Fifth, they are wrong because they have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and fallen for the presupposition of the world which says that dead men don’t rise.

Rather than saying, “So what?”, I say, those documentarists have a tremendous burden of proof to shoulder. The tomb they have popularized is not a “new discovery.” This tomb was found in 1980, and was outrightly dismissed at that time by the entire academic community. The only reason that the thing is remotely of interest today is because of the craze of interest in debunking Christianity that has been throttled in recent years by the popularity of The Da Vinci Code. Secondly, we say that it would make no sense for the family tomb of Jesus to be found in Jerusalem. They had lived their entire lives mostly in Nazareth, and that is where we would expect the family to be buried. Thirdly, the entire claim of this documentary rests on the occurrence of names. The names on the ossuaries in this tomb are Joseph, Mary, Jesus the son of Joseph, another Mary (who is claimed by the documentary to be Mary Magdalene), Judah the son of Jesus, and Matthew. And the makers of this film claim that by virtue of statistical analysis, this must be the family of Jesus the Christ. The fact of the matter is that the name they claim to be Mary Magdalene is nearly illegible and has been understood by others to read differently. Add to this that it is highly unlikely that Jesus would ever name a son Judah, because of its connection to Judas. Add to this that it certainly seems unlikely Matthew would have been buried in Jerusalem, for though traditions vary on where he spent the latter part of his life, no tradition exists that assigns his latter days to Jerusalem. Also, it is an undeniable fact of historical record that many men and women in the first century Jewish world had the same names. There is a terrible lack of originality involved in the naming of sons and daughters. A more accurate statistical analysis than that which was done by the makers of this documentary would reveal that Joseph, Judah, Jesus, and Matthew are four of the top nine most popular names among Hebrew men in that day and time. Mary is far and away the most popular female name. If you were to stumble across a small family cemetery today with stones bearing only first names like Joseph, Rose, John, Edward, and Robert, you would no sooner assume this to be the Kennedy family’s graves than any other family’s, because of the commonality of those names.

We have discussed in times past the evidences of the Resurrection. We have spoken often of the universal agreement among those believers and unbelievers alike in first century Jerusalem that the tomb which had contained the body of Jesus was found to be empty on the Sunday morning after He died. So then arise the theories of how it got to be that way. First is the direct claim of Jesus Himself that He would rise from the dead. Second is the echo of that claim in the mouths of disciples who had initially doubted that it actually occurred. In saying this, they are either right or wrong. It is not my purpose today to talk about why I believe He lives. I have done that before. In fact, I did it last Easter Sunday morning. You can get a copy of it in written form or perhaps on tape. I can point you to numerous other scholarly resources on the subject. No, today I do not intend to discuss why I believe Christ is risen, but rather why it matters.

John Stott has said that “Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion. The concept of the resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.” Now to some in our world today, that is music to their ears. They want nothing more than for Christianity to be destroyed. But I suggest to you that the Christianity that most of them see regularly has already been destroyed because it has lost the significance of the fact that we worship and serve a risen Savior. Why is His resurrection significant?

I. The Resurrection is Significant for the Savior

There have been several movements in academic theology to search for the “Historical Jesus.” I suggest to you that the Historical Jesus is the Biblical Jesus, and that is a Jesus who was God incarnate, crucified for our sins, and risen from the dead. If you subtract one of those elements, you do not have the Biblical Jesus, and therefore you do not have the Historical Jesus. In First Corinthians 15 that Paul goes to great lengths to establish that Christ is Risen from the dead. It was prophesied in Scripture (vv3-4), it was testified by eyewitnesses (vv5-8), it was manifested in changed lives (v9-10). Now, why does He go to such great lengths to establish the resurrection as a fact?

A. The Resurrection Affirms the Deity of Christ

Nowhere in Scripture are we led to believe that the resurrection established the deity of Christ—that is, that He was not God until He rose from the dead. Rather, we find in Romans 1:4 that He was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. The resurrection declares that He is the Son of God. The phrase “Son of God,” does not mean that He is less than God or something other than God, but rather that He and God are of the same exact nature and substance. Jesus had claimed this for Himself. In John 10:30, He said, “I and the Father are One.” Many people have gone to great lengths to suggest that He did not mean that He was God. However, the people around Jesus when He said that understood exactly what He meant. The Bible says in John 10:31-33 that they picked up stones to kill Him, accusing Him of blasphemy saying, “because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” They knew what He meant. He was claiming to be God. Now anyone can claim to be God. Many people have made that claim in history. Why believe Jesus over any of them? Because Jesus said He would prove it. When the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign from Him, He said in Matthew 12:39, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign ; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He claimed that He would prove that He was indeed who He claimed to be by conquering death and coming out of the grave. And Paul says in Romans 1:4 that the resurrection of Christ from the dead POWERFULLY DECLARES it as a matter of fact.

B. The Resurrection Affirms the Sovereignty of Christ

In Matthew 25, Jesus says that He will judge all the nations. On what basis does He make that claim? What reason do we have to believe Him? How can a dead man judge the world? In Acts 17:31, Paul proclaims that God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, meaning Christ, having furnished PROOF to all men by raising Him from the dead. He will judge the nations because He is sovereign over the nations, and His resurrection proves this.

C. The Resurrection Affirms the Purity of Christ

Jesus told His disciples before He went to Jerusalem in Matthew 20 that He would be delivered over unto death, He would be mocked and scourged and crucified, and “on the third day He will be raised up.” And when they found the tomb to be empty, an angel said to them, “He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said.” JUST AS HE SAID. Those are important words. You see, Jesus said He would rise from the dead. What if He didn’t? What kind of person makes statements like that are not true? Jesus would be a liar. And so what? He’d be in good company – the world is full of liars. There isn’t a one of us who haven’t told a bold-faced lie, maybe this week, and maybe even today. So what? Jesus is a liar. Well, if He is a liar, then He cannot be the Savior. For in order to be the Savior, He has to be able to die in our place, that His death might pay for our sins. And His death cannot pay for our sins if He has His own sins to pay for. C. S. Lewis has well said, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell.” Is He a liar? Or did He rise from the dead, just as He said He would? It is a significant question for understanding who Jesus is.

D. The Resurrection Affirms the Victory of Christ

If Christ is not risen from the dead, then He is merely a guy who died on the cross, just like any number of other first century subjects of the Roman Empire. His mission, His claims, He Himself, lie defeated in a grave somewhere – either the one found by the Discovery documentary or some other one somewhere. Let us gather some flowers and place on His tomb, or better yet, let’s just forget everything we have ever known about Him. But Paul has gone to great lengths in 1 Corinthians 15 to demonstrate that Christ is risen from the dead. Skeptical Thomas was confronted with His wounded hands and pierced side, and called Him Lord and God. He is victorious over death, victorious over our sins, and victorious over Satan, and this is affirmed by His resurrection.

So it matters! Without the resurrection, Jesus is not who He claimed to be, He is not who the Bible says He is, and He is not who we have gathered to worship today. It is significant for the Savior that He be risen.

II. The Resurrection is Significant for the Scriptures

Turning our attention back now to 1 Corinthians 15, you will notice Paul says in vv3-4 that the death and resurrection of Christ are of first importance, and that both happened according to the Scriptures. In fact through the rest of this chapter, Paul strings together one Old Testament quotation after another, demonstrating that the resurrection was not invented by those who wrote the New Testament, but rather it had been proclaimed in advance by those who wrote the Old Testament.

Verse 27 contains a reference from Psalm 8:6. Verse 32 is lifted from Isaiah 22:13. Verse 45 comes from Genesis 2:7. Verses 54-55 is a restatement of Hosea 13:14 and Isaiah 25:18. The Hebrew Bible was divided into three sections – the Torah, the Nebiim, and the Kethubim. Those three words give us the acronym Tanakh, the name by which the Hebrew Bible is known. And it is of interest that Paul uses quotations from each of those three sections, just as Jesus did in Luke 24:44-47. There He said to His disciples after His resurrection, “‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses (that’s the Torah) and the Prophets (that’s the Nebiim) and the Psalms (the Kethubim) must be fulfilled.’ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’”

The resurrection is significant for the Scriptures in at least two ways.

A. The Resurrection Affirms the Unity of the Scriptures

The Bible was written in three different languages on three different continents by more than 40 different writers, most of whom never knew each other and lived in different places, times and cultures. It was written over a period of 1600 years, yet it has one single theme and purpose: the creation, fall, and redemption of humanity for the glory of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus was prophesied in the Old Testament and takes central focus in the New Testament. There we find reference to it over 100 times. It is mentioned directly or indirectly by every New Testament writer. So, without the resurrection, we have a disjointed collection of poems and stories, randomly assorted and without purpose.

B. The Resurrection Fulfills the Prophesies of the Scriptures

This is what Paul means when he says, “He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” It is what Jesus meant when He said, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day.” Where is it written?

In Hosea 6:1-2, we read this: “Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him.” Certainly those who heard these words initially understood this to mean that if they trust in the Lord, He would raise them up from their sufferings. However a long line of rabbinic traditions assigns this to a future belief of resurrection from the dead, and Paul says that Christ is the firstfruits of resurrection.

In Psalm 16:8-11 we read: “I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” After the Resurrection of Jesus, both Peter and Paul referred back to this Psalm as a prophecy of Christ’s resurrection. Peter said in Acts 2 that David could not have been referring to himself, for he died, and was buried, and the whereabouts of his tomb was still known to them in that day. But rather, David was looking ahead to the Messiah, the coming descendant of David who was the Holy One of God, Jesus Christ. Peter said, “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.”

Also, when Jesus said on the cross, “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me,” it was not a cry of hopeless despair. Rather, it was a citation of the 22^nd Psalm in which we read this very same line in verse 1; in verses 7-8, we read, “All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, "Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him." Certainly these things took place in this exact way as Christ was on the cross. In verses 14-16, we read, “I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.” Again all of this took place as Jesus died on the cross. His hands and feet were pierced, His bones were not broken, He thirsted, they cast lots for His garments, and when they pierced His side, His heart flowed forth blood and water, melted like wax within Him. Yet in verse 22, the Psalmist says, “I will tell of Your name to my brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.” He knows that death will not be the end. And just as he says, Jesus rose from the dead and testified to the glory of the Father in the midst of His disciples.

And in that remarkable passage, the 53^rd Chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet so vividly recounts all that the Messiah would endure, 700 years before it happened, we read that He would be “pierced through for our transgressions,” and “crushed for our iniquities,” yet “He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days.” Thus the prophet knew that Messiah would have victory over His sufferings.

These are just a few of the prophecies fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so you see it is significant for the Scriptures, in that it establishes the unity of the Scriptures and fulfills the prophecies of the Scriptures. If Christ is not risen, then the Bible is just a book, not unlike any other collection of myths, superstitions and fairytales. But if He lives, it is a strong testimony that the Word of God is true, and therefore we should feed ourselves on it allowing it to point us to salvation and a life of bringing glory to God.

III. The Resurrection is Significant for the Saints

Finally, let me address why the resurrection of Christ matters to you, the individual, and to those who are born-again by faith in Christ in particular.

A. The Resurrection Gives Assurance of Our Faith

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is vain, and your faith is vain. The word vain means “empty,” or “without meaning.” Then Paul says in verse 17 that if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. Surely, we do not want to believe in things that have no value to us. But if Christ is not raised, there is no benefit of having faith in Him. It is worthless. Faith is only as valid as its object. If the object of our faith is Christ, and He is not risen from the dead, then our faith is empty. Really—what is the point of following a dead guy who claimed to be God, and claimed to be able to save us, and claimed He would rise from the dead, if indeed He didn’t rise from the dead? We are the biggest idiots on the earth if Christ is not risen from the dead. We have fallen for the biggest lie of history, unless He really lives. We might as well have faith in the Easter Bunny or the Great Pumpkin.

But Paul proclaims boldly in verse 20 that Christ has been raised from the dead, and as a result, he says in verse 32 that he is willing to fight wild beasts at Ephesus. Why face death for a worthless faith? Why not just eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die? Because Paul is assured that he is not facing death for human motives, but out of absolute confidence that his faith is not vain or worthless, but valid and valuable, because Jesus is alive.

B. The Resurrection Gives Assurance of Our Forgiveness

In verse 17, he says if Christ is not raised … you are still in your sins. What hope do you have to overcome the burden of guilt and shame we all carry for our sins if Christ is not raised? It is ridiculous to say that Jesus died for them if He is not risen victorious over them. We might as well point to the death of Ghandi, or Abraham Lincoln, or Alexander the Great and say they died for our sins. They are just meaningless words. But if Christ is risen from the dead, then He has conquered death, conquered the penalty of our sins, and stands victorious over them still, and is able to offer us forgiveness if we come to Him in repentance and faith.

In verse 18, Paul says that if Christ is not raised, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ (those Christians who have died) have perished. You see, Jesus claimed in John 3:16 to come into the world because of God’s infinite love for us to prevent us from perishing and give us eternal life instead if we believe in Him. But if He is not risen, then He cannot give us eternal life, and our only other option is that we perish. It means that Billy Graham will experience the same life after death as Adolf Hitler. It means that the most godly people you have ever known are no better off in the end than the most ungodly. And if that is the case, then what motive do we have for living rightly? If Christ is not raised, then it does not matter how we live, for there is no remedy for sin, and we will all perish alike. But if He is risen as He said He would, then we have hope of forgiveness, of reconciliation to God from our sinful state, and of an eternal life in heaven that we do not otherwise deserve. That brings me to the final thought.

C. The Resurrection Gives Assurance of Our Future

Notice what Paul says in verse 19 – “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” Some of you know first hand the cost of following Jesus. Some of you have experienced firsthand to some extent loss of a relationship, a job, or possessions because of your faith in Christ. Certainly we know many of whom it could be said that they lost everything for Jesus’ sake. Why do we do it? Why do others who face death every day for Christ do it? Because they believe that He has promised something greater than this life. Jesus said in Matthew 19:29, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.” The pages of history are stained with the blood of the martyrs. We find their sacrifice noble, admirable, and heroic. I suggest to you that if Christ is not risen from the dead, they are not heroes, but fools. There is no future hope unless Jesus is alive. But because we believe He lives, …

A. We have the hope of a resurrection

Paul says in verse 20 that Christ is the firstfruits. Now, anytime we find mention of firstfruits, it is with confidence that second, third, fourth fruits and so on will follow. He says in vv21-22 that death has come to the entire human race through one man – Adam; and life will come through one man – Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the firstfruits, and after Him, those who are His. But if there is no firstfruit, there can be no second fruit. All we have to look forward to is death at best, hell at worst. But if Christ is risen, we have this hope, that we might rise from death also as He has promised to those who are His.

B. We have the hope of a renewed body

When God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, He did it because He loved them. Because of their sin, they entered a state of death where their bodies would be prone to sin, sickness, and suffering. God did not create human life in His image for it to be lived out in that way. So out of His love for mankind, He did not allow Adam and Eve to access the tree of life, from which they might eat and live forever. He does not want us to live forever like this. In verse 53, Paul tells us that there is hope of this perishable and mortal body becoming imperishable and immortal. Then we shall live forever in that place where the Bible says that every tear will be wiped from our eyes, and there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying or pain. But this is only true if Christ is risen from the dead. Otherwise, we just have to buck up and endure the lingering effects of sin, the dreadful misery of suffering, and the agonizing pain of sickness until it sweeps us away in death. And then, if the atheists are right, we just rot away to dust in the earth, or else if they are wrong, we endure unimaginable suffering for eternity in hell. But if Christ is risen then it means that these bodies can be restored, renewed into something better – something immune to pain and suffering and sin. And we all long to put on that weight of glory. It is the hidden desire of every heart if we dare to utter it. But it is nothing more than a pipedream—albeit a pipedream that is experienced universally by every human ever to live—unless Christ is risen from the dead. But I suggest that God has placed this longing in our hearts to direct us to Himself, where we might find salvation if we turn from our sins to trust this risen Christ. And having found eternal life through Him, this perishable will put on the imperishable and this mortal will become immortal, and then Paul says in verse 54, “will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’”

If Christ is not risen, the death is victorious over us. But if Christ is risen, then we will have victory over death, in like manner as He did. And we will taunt death by singing together that hymn of verse 55, “O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?” God gives us this victory, Paul says in v57, “through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So you see, the resurrection matters. Take it away, and what are we left with? Nothing but hopeless despair. Live as you want to live now, for this is all there is. But Christ is Risen, and we celebrate that fact not just today but everyday as believe in Him and live for Him, knowing that this life is not the end, but that He has opened a highway to heaven for us through His own resurrection and the promise of ours as well.

THEREFORE, Paul says in v59, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. There is a better day coming because Christ has victory over sin and death and hell. And that victory belongs to you if you have turned from sin and trusted in Him as Lord and Savior. And if you have never done that before, why not today?