It was June 18, 1815, the Battle of Waterloo. The French under the command of Napoleon were fighting the allied forces of the British, Dutch, and Germans under the command of Wellington. The people of England depended on a system of signals to find out how the battle was going. One of these signals was on the tower of Winchester Cathedral.
Late in the day it flashed the signal: “W - E - L - L - I - N - G - T - O - N - - - D - E - F - E - A - T - E - D - - -.” Just at that moment a fog cloud made it impossible to read the message. The news of defeat quickly spread throughout the city. The whole countryside was sad and gloomy when they heard the news that their country had lost the war. Suddenly, the fog lifted, and the remainder of the message could be read. The message had four words, not two. The complete message was: “W - E - L - L - I - N - G - T - O - N - - - D - E - F - E - A - T - E - D - - - T - H - E - - - E - N - E - M - Y!” It took only a few minutes for the good news to spread. Sorrow was turned into joy, defeat was turned into victory!
So it was when Jesus was laid in the tomb. Hope had died in the hearts of Jesus’ most loyal friends. After the frightful crucifixion, the fog of disappointment and misunderstanding had crept in on the friends of Jesus. They had read only part of the message. “Christ defeated” was all they knew. But then on the third day the fog of disappointment and misunderstanding lifted, and the world received the complete message: “Christ defeated death!” Defeat was turned into victory; death was turned into life!
1 Corinthians 15:12-19
I want us to consider one question today: what if Christ didn’t rise again?
1. Jesus would be a liar.
Christ predicted His resurrection on several occasions. At first He used only vague terms, such as “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19).
But later on in His ministry He spoke quite plainly. Matthew writes, “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day” (Matt. 16:21).
Jesus says in Matthew 12:40, “For as Jonas [Jonah] was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Soon of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
And later in 20:18-19 He predicts, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death. And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.”
Mark records Jesus saying, “But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee” (Mark 14:28).
In John 10:17-18 we find Jesus saying these words: “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down ,and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”
To the women who came to Christ’s tomb on Easter morning and wondered where His body was, the angel said, “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said” (Matt. 28:6).
If the resurrection did not happen, we would have to say the Jesus was a liar. And if He lied about the resurrection, could we trust His other sayings?
2. There is not gospel.
"And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain . . . ." (1 Cor. 15:14a).
Paul tells us what the gospel is in verses 3 and 4: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”
The word “gospel” means “good news.” But if the resurrection is taken from the gospel, we are left with sad news, not good news.
D. L. Moody, the great evangelist of the nineteenth century, assigned some ministerial students to conduct evangelistic tent meetings throughout the city of Chicago. The students were to preach nightly sermons as a means of winning souls for Christ and to practice their preaching. Dr. Moody personally showed up one night unannounced at one of the meeting places to hear one of his fledgling young ministers preach the gospel. The young man did quite well expounding on the death of Christ on the cross for the sins of the world. At the close of the service, he announced that everyone should come back the next night when he would “preach on the resurrection of Christ.”
After the people left, Moody said, “Young man, you will not be back tomorrow night! Many of these people will not be back tomorrow night and consequently have only heard half the gospel!”
Romans 4:25 says that Christ “was delivered for our offences, and was raised for our justification.”
Half a gospel is no gospel at all.
3. Our faith is groundless.
". . . and your faith is also vain (v. 14b)."
"And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins" (v. 17).
Faith in a dead Savior is both preposterous and pathetic.
If you were being chased by a madman, and you had the choice of running either to a house full of people or a cemetery for help, where would you run? I think we would all run to the house full of people. Why? Because the house if filled with living people who could help while the cemetery is filled with dead bodies which can do nothing.
If Jesus Christ did not rise and is still dead then He has no power to save us. Our faith is vain.
4. We are spreading a lie.
"Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not" (v. 15).
5. We have no hope for the future.
"Then they also which are fallen asleep [dead] in Christ are perished" (v. 18).
Christ’s resurrection is a guarantee of the future resurrection of His people; so if Christ is not risen then this guarantee is worthless.
Paul wrote to some bereaved Christians at Thessalonica who had lost relatives and friends, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have not hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him (1 Thess. 4:13-14). And then at the close of this message of consolation he writes, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (v. 18).
If Christ is not risen, there is no comfort.
6. We suffer for nothing.
"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable" (v. 19).
Here is how Alan Redpath paraphrases this passage: “If Christ is not risen, then our faith is empty, our preaching useless, and he has failed to deal with sin at all. If he has not been raised from the tomb, we are still in our sins and all his promises are absolutely untrue. He is a fraud, an imposter, and his ashes are buried somewhere in Palestine today. There is no hope beyond the grave for anybody, and those who have died professing faith in him are just left there forever.”
When Paul says if Christ is not risen then we are “of all men most miserable,” he means that of all the people in the world, Christians are the ones who deserve the most pity.
If Christ is not risen, why bother to go to church? You would be better off somewhere else.
If Christ is not risen, why bother to put money in the offering plate? You’re only giving to a lost cause.
If Christ is not risen, why bother to serve Him? You’re only wasting your time.
If Christ is not risen, why tell others about Him? You might as well save your breath.
Thomas Jefferson, a great man, nevertheless could not accept the miraculous elements in Scripture. He edited his own special version of the Bible in which all references to the supernatural were deleted. Jefferson, in editing the Gospels, confined himself solely to the moral teachings of Jesus. The closing words of Jefferson’s Bible are these: “There laid they Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulchre and departed.” Thank God that is not the way the story really ends!
Christ was telling the truth when He predicted He would rise from the dead. He is the Son of God.
The gospel really is good news. It really is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”
Our faith is grounded in a living Savior who can save every person from sin, death, and hell.
When we share the good news of Jesus Christ, we are spreading the truth, not a lie.
We have the sure expectation of a bodily resurrection. Our bodies will not stay in the grave; we will rise again as Christ did.
And we are not of “of all men most miserable.” We have every reason to be the happiest people on earth.
1 Corinthians 15:51-58
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychiatry, wrote: “And finally there is the painful riddle of death, for which no remedy at all has yet been found, nor probably ever will be!” But Christians have victory in death and over death because of the victory of Jesus Christ in His own resurrection. Jesus said, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19).
Every year thousands of people climb a mountain in the Italian Alps, passing the “stations of the cross” to stand at an outdoor crucifix. One tourist noticed a little trail that led beyond the cross. He fought through the rough thicket and, to his surprise, came upon another shrine, a shrine that symbolized the empty tomb. It was neglected. The brush had grown up around it. Almost everyone had gone as far as the cross, but there they stopped.
Far too many have gotten to the cross and have known the despair and the heartbreak. Far too few have moved beyond the cross to find the real message of Easter. That is the message of the empty tomb.
You can be saved today because Christ died and rose again.
jonathanrmcleod@yahoo.com
