“Why the Resurrection?” David Owens
Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-28 3/20/03
Introduction:
A. The movie Amistad tells the story of a group of African slaves who seize control of their slave-ship and demand to be returned to their homeland.
1. The shackled captain tricks them by taking them to an American seaport where they are imprisoned.
2. As they await the judge’s verdict one of the men, Yamba, sits in a corner of the prison cell thumbing through the pages of a bible.
3. Cinque (Sin-Kay), the leader of the group, looks over and says, "You don’t have to pretend to be interested in that. Nobody’s watching but me."
4. After a brief moment Yamba looks up. "I’m not pretending. I’m beginning to understand it," he says. He cannot read the writing - English is foreign to him - but he can make sense of the pictures.
5. When Cinque comes over to see for himself Yamba explains the story in their native language. "Their people have suffered more than ours,” he says. Showing Cinque a picture of Jews being attacked by lions, he continues, "Their lives were full of suffering."
6. Then Yamba flips the page and points to a picture of the baby Jesus, crowned with a halo of light, "Then he was born and everything changed."
7. Cinque asks, "Who is he?"
8. Yamba replies that he doesn’t know, but that the child must be special.
9. He moves through the pictures of Jesus. He points to a picture of Jesus riding on a donkey, praised by onlookers. A golden orb forms a halo around Jesus. "Everywhere he goes" says Yamba, "he is followed by the sun."
10. Picture after picture the same theme emerges. Light surrounds Jesus as he heals people with his hands, as he protects an outcast woman, as he embraces children.
11. But this is not the end of the story. "Something happened,” says Yamba. "He was captured, accused of some crime."
12. Cinque shakes his head back and forth and insists, "He must have done something."
13. Yamba says, "Why? What did we do? Do you want to see how they killed him?"
14. Yamba is now getting very emotional. Cinque reminds him, "This is just a story, Yamba."
15. Yamba shakes his head in protest. This man’s death was real. "But look" he says. "That’s not the end of it. His people took his body down from…" Yamba pauses and draws a cross in the air.
16. "They took him into a cave. They wrapped him in cloth, like we do. They thought he was dead, but he appeared before his people again…and he spoke to them. Then, finally, he rose into the sky."
17. "This is where the soul goes when you die here. This is where we’re going when they kill us." Stroking a picture that depicts heaven, Yamba concludes, "It doesn’t look so bad."
B. The resurrection of Jesus, even an elementary understanding of it, has brought comfort, strength, hope and joy to all that have believed for thousands of years.
1. Today I want us to spend a few moments looking at what Paul told the Corinthians about the resurrection.
2. As we do so I pray that the resurrection of Jesus will inspire us, giving us hope and peace.
3. Paul makes three primary points in verses 1-28.
PAUL’S POINTS
I. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
A. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the heart of the Gospel, the good news that Paul proclaimed.
1. Sometimes people debate about what the gospel of Jesus really is.
2. But here in verses 3 and 4, Paul makes it clear what the Gospel is, “3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”
3. The gospel is Jesus Christ: crucified, buried and risen just as the Scriptures reveal.
4. Jesus rising from the dead is the climax of the Gospel, and also the most difficult part for people to accept.
5. Dead people tend to stay dead, both in the 1st Century and here in the 21st Century.
6. That’s why Paul gives such an impressive list of eyewitnesses who could testify that they had seen the risen Lord.
7. And suspecting that there would have been some skeptics, who might say, “Yeah, right, Paul,” he noted that most of these eyewitnesses are still living at the time of his writing which was about 25 years after the resurrection.
8. So, Paul was saying, “if anyone has any questions, go and talk to these people who saw the risen Christ with their own eyes.
B. Paul goes on to say in verse 8, “and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”
1. The appearance of Jesus to Paul happened relatively soon after the resurrection, within the first couple of years of the beginning of the church.
2. Paul, then called Saul, was on his way to Damascus to find and arrest Christians, when Jesus appeared to him.
3. That special encounter enabled Paul to become an apostle even though he was not an original eyewitness of the resurrection like the other apostles.
4. That’s why Paul calls himself “one abnormally born.”
5. Well, you might say, that was just a vision, but I think Paul would respond, “Oh, it might have been a vision, but I really did see Jesus. And while the other witnesses may have been looking for him, I certainly was not. I had believed that Jesus was as dead as anyone could be. But I was wrong and what I saw that day changed my mind and my life forever.”
II. Paul’s second point is: If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus Christ has not risen.
A. Paul’s total certainty of the resurrection made him puzzled by some of the thinking in Corinth.
1. In verse 12, Paul asked, “But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”
2. Paul saw an essential link between Jesus’ resurrection and the resurrection of other believers.
3. To deny one is to deny both. To say that one could not happen, is to imply that the other could not happen.
4. So, to say that believers in Christ who have died will not be resurrected is very serious, because that implies that Jesus did not rise from the dead.
5. And Paul then goes on to declare how bad that would be.
B. Look at the points Paul makes that stem from a belief that Christ is not raised:
1. Our preaching is useless – it makes no sense at all to go out and tell others about Jesus if he is still dead (vs. 14).
2. Your faith is useless (vs. 14).
3. The apostles are false witnesses (vs. 15).
4. Your faith is futile (vs. 17).
5. You are still in your sins (vs. 17) – because Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is unacceptable.
6. Those Christians who have died are still lost (vs. 18).
7. We as Christians should be pitied (vs. 19). We are nothing but fools to go through hardship and persecution for the sake of Jesus, if he is not the risen Lord.
8. We have no reason to believe any of the promises Jesus made, if he cannot make good on his promise to rise from the dead.
9. Paul says that to deny the resurrection of Jesus is to rip the heart right out of Christianity and make it nothing more than an empty shell.
III. Paul’s third point is a reiteration of the first: Jesus has risen.
A. Therefore all those terrible implications if Christ is not resurrected are not true.
1. Jesus indeed has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
2. “Those who have fallen asleep” is a 1st Century euphemism for those who have died.
3. Because of the resurrection, Paul sees death as temporary, so in a sense our bodies are sleeping in the grave, waiting to be awakened by the Lord at the resurrection.
4. Paul then goes on to explain how this is going to work.
5. In verses 21 and 22 he says that Jesus is the source of resurrection and life, just as Adam was the source of sin and death.
6. In verse 23, he says that Jesus’ resurrection is the firstfruits, a Jewish term for the first produce that was harvested and offered to the Lord.
7. Jesus’ resurrection is the promise that those who trust in Him will be resurrected as well.
B. This will not happen until the end of the age.
1. Look at verses 24-26, “24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
2. The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of the conquest of death.
3. That conquest will be complete; death will be totally defeated when Christ returns and our resurrection occurs.
4. To use a historical analogy, the resurrection of Jesus is like D-Day when the Allies landed on the coast of Normandy in France.
5. That event marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi Regime.
6. Jesus’ resurrection marked the beginning of the end of the reign of sin and death.
7. The resurrection of believers is like V-E Day, Victory in Europe, when Nazi Germany surrendered and the war in Europe was over.
8. God is the victor and we will enjoy his victory throughout eternity.
9. We know he is the victor, and we with him, because we know that Jesus is risen from the dead.
PERSONAL APPLICATION
I. A Jesus who did not rise from the dead is not the real Jesus.
A. I realize that that probably seems obvious to most of us, but there are folks who claim that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is just a myth.
1. Many scholars, including those members of the Jesus Seminar have suggested that Jesus did not really die on the cross, and therefore did not need to rise from the dead.
2. What is most disturbing is the fact that these people do not see themselves as attacking Christianity, but are just helping us see the truth about Jesus by stripping away some of the myth.
3. Many of you remember Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar. If you watch the movie you will be struck with the fact that something is missing. The Crucifixion of Jesus is portrayed as it was with terrible agony, and then Jesus died. As you wait for the next scene you will only see the film credits begin to roll across the screen.
4. That is the story of Jesus that Satan wants the world to remember.
5. A crucifixion without a resurrection. A cross, but no empty tomb. Tragedy without triumph.
B. Paul makes it clear, not only here in 1 Corinthians, but in all of his letters, that the resurrection of Jesus is real and it is at the heart of Christianity.
1. To talk about a Jesus who lived and died but did not rise from the dead is to talk about an imaginary Christ.
2. Any church that teaches that Jesus did not rise from the dead is not a church of Christ.
3. And any church that allows its preachers and teachers to deny the resurrection of Jesus is not a church that God approves of.
II. Because of the Resurrection we do not need to fear death.
A. Now, I tend to think that being afraid of dying is a very natural reaction to something unknown.
1. I know there are folks who claim to be unfazed by the prospect, but I suspect that most of them are like Woody Allen who said, “I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
2. I would argue that even as Christians we don’t need to be ashamed with being uncomfortable with death.
3. Death can be very difficult and it certainly brings some changes that we would rather not have to face.
4. But on the other hand death moves us into another faze of our life that we very much look forward to.
5. For that reason we need not fear death, nor grieve like the rest of men who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13).
6. The reason we can face death with courage and hope is the resurrection of Jesus.
B. John Bunyan describes death in a very helpful way in The Pilgrim’s Progress.
1. Before Christian and Hopeful are able to enter the heavenly city, they must first cross the river that represents death.
2. Christian is afraid he will sink as he steps into the water, but Hopeful who is a few years ahead says, “Be of good cheer, my brother, I feel the bottom and it is good.”
3. It is not pleasant to cross the river of death, but we will not sink, the bottom is solid and good.
III. Because of the Resurrection we have confidence in the power of God.
A. One of my favorite passages comes from Ephesians 1:18-21, “18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms”
1. God wants us to know just how powerful he is and just how much power he makes available for us in our lives.
2. When God wants us to know something about his power he points to the resurrection.
3. Paul wrote, “I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13).
4. Because Jesus got up we never have to give up.
5. Be transformed; be encouraged;. rise up; stand firm, be God’s person through God’s power.
VI. The resurrection reminds us that our preparations for the next life are more important than our plan for this life.
A. Let’s be sure we are thinking straight about what really matters.
1. What kind of car we drive is not nearly as important as how we treat people around us.
2. How much money we have in the bank is not nearly as important as our willingness to share whatever we have with others.
3. How successful we are in sports, academics, or business is not nearly as important as how faithful we are in serving the Lord and his church.
4. What other people think of us is not nearly as important as what God thinks of us.
5. Because the resurrection is a reality, the most important goal we can have is that one day, when this life is over, the Lord will say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
B. Friends, the resurrection is a reality.
1. Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead.
2. Those of us who trust and obey him will one day rise from the dead live with him eternally.
3. That is something to celebrate, anticipate, and perpetuate.
