If Christ is not Risen!

"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost." (1 Corinthians 15:17-18).

C.H. Spurgeon preaching on the resurrection in the Nineteenth Century pointed out that, "The electric telegraph, though it be but an invention of man, would have been as hard to believe a thousand years ago as the resurrection of the dead is now. Who in the days of pack-horses would have believed in flashing a message from England to America? Everything is full of wonder till we are used to it, and resurrection owes the incredible portion of its marvel to our never having come across it in our observation - that is all. After the resurrection we shall regard it as a divine display of power as familiar to us as creation and providence now are". (What would he now say if he had the aeroplane or the Space Shuttle or the Internet to draw upon for illustration?).

When it comes to preaching on the reurrection, I fully understand that this is a difficult thing to believe, after all, who of us has seen someone rise from the dead? However, what Spurgeon reminds us of, is that just because we find things really difficult or even impossible to believe does not mean that they are impossible! He argues, and we Christians beleive, that one day we shall see that resurrection is as common place for us as watching television is for us today!

In this chapter Paul makes a defence of the physical resurrection of Christ.

To the majority of Jews the idea of a physical resurrection presented no difficulties, though they were vague about what it meant in terms of physical, bodily existence, with some thinking of Sheol as a place of rest or sleep where people could be occasionaly woken up, but it would be better if they were allowed to rest in peace! The Pharisees beleived in resurrection but more in terms of a turn around in God’s fortunes in some future epoch, whereas the the Saducees did not beleive in a bodily resurrection at all.

The Greeks however, of which Corinth was a part, did not believe in a bodily resurrection. For them the 'soul' was immortal and the body was merely a receptacle, some even said a prison-house for the soul. Homer mentions Hades, the abode of the dead, place of shadows and did not imagine that there is a way back from death and Plato(427-347 B.C) did not believe anyone in their right mind would want one because he believed hat "body and soul are to be thought of as two distinct substances: the thinking soul is divine; the body, being composed of matter - an inferior substance - is of lower value than the soul. The rational soul or 'nous' is the immortal part of man which came down from 'the heavens', where it enjoyed a blissful pre-existence. Because the soul lost its wings in this pre-existent state, it entered the body, dwelling in the head. At death the body simply disintegrates, but the 'nous' or rational soul returns to the heavens if its course of action has been just and honourable; if not, it appears again in the form of another man or of an animal. But the soul itself is indestructible. So, "In Plato's view, the immortality of the soul is rooted in a rationalistic metaphysics: the rational is the real, and whatever is nonrational has a lower kind of reality. The soul is therefore considered a superior substance, inherently indestructible and therefore immortal, whereas the body is of inferior substance mortal, and doomed for total destruction. hence the body is thought of as a tomb for the soul, which is really better off without the body. In this system of thought, therefore, there is no room for the doctrine of the resurrection of the body"(Hoekema, pp.86f.) The classic statement is in Aeschylus’s play Eumenides (BC 647-8), in which, during the founding of the Court of the Areopagus, Apollo himself declares that when a man has died, and his blood is spilt on the ground, there is no resurrection.

So, the idea of resurrection - anastasis -refers to something that everybody knew just did not happen! Paul discovered this when he preached at Athens: “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”(Acts 17:28-30).   This is why they stumbled at the Gospel message. They could not beleive that there was a way back from death. The very idea of resurrection is dismissed it as fanciful and foolish(c/f Acts 17v32;1 Cor 1v23).

For Christians however, the idea of resurrection was not a mere resuscitation of the body to extended life; not the abandonment of the body and the liberation of the soul to go to Heaven to be with God, but a revival of bodily life but also a transformation, a new type of body living within a new type of world: 1 Corinthians 15:50-57: “I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and wthis mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Indeed, when the notion of life after death as described by the Egyptians, suggested that their kings were already enjoying a full life beyond the grave and they could point to their pyramids and their vaults of great treasures that they had been buried with and the Egyptians tried to show these to their new ruler Caesar Augustus in the form of their wonderful mummies, he replied that he wanted to see kings, not corpses!

Paul points us to a King who is alive; not a mumfied corpse; not sometone in a tomb, but he points us to the evidence and he does this here for those Corinthian sceptics who are abandoning their belief in the resurrection of Christ.

Donald Grey Barnhouse was the pastor of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church, when his wife died and left him with young daughters to raise alone.

On the way to conducting his own wife’s funeral with his daughters in the back of the car, he realised he had to say something to explain all of this to his girls, somehow to put into perspective for them something with which he himself was already struggling.

They stopped at a traffic light while driving to the funeral. It was a bright day, and the sun was streaming into the car and warming it. A truck pulled up next to them, and the shadow that came with the truck darkened the inside of the car. It was then that he turned to his daughters and asked, "Would you rather be hit by the shadow or by the truck?" One of them responded, "Oh, Daddy, that’s a silly question The shadow can’t hurt you. I would rather be hit by the shadow than by a truck."

It was then that he explained to them that their mother who had died, had been hit by a shadow becasue Jesus had stepped in the way in her place, and had been hit by the truck. Then he quoted the familiar words of Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."

John likewise records for us the funeral of Lazarus and a grieving family at a tomb and he records Jesus as weeping at the sight of all of this but then He calls Lazarus, out of the tomb and declares, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (Jn 11:25,26).

Sin and death have been vanquished by His work on nthe cross and His resurrection from the dead, but the shadow of deathy still hangs over the world and we are still subject to its dying struggles but we will not be hit by the truck of death!

We need not be afraid of death for its POWER has been broken by Jesus! - “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Paul recounts the evidence for the resurrection and argues that it must be held onto and believed because:

(i). It is a well-attested fact - Over 'five hundred' people (v6) had seen the risen Christ and most of them could testify to the fact some 16-18 years on and the majority of them were still alive!

Think about that! There is the evidence of the empty tomb which no one denied, though the Jews suggested the explanation for this was that the disciples, “stole the body”

But think of the fact that after only around 40 days following the claim for the resurrection, the Apostles are openly preaching this in a context in which, if they were lying, the evidence could easily be presented to contradict it. Instead they can confidently proclaim that “he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3, KJV).

The New Testament contains 6 independent testimonies to the fact of the resurrection. These 6 men (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul) wrote 24 of the 27 books of the New Testament.

Included in their testimonies are various eyewitness accounts as well as reports of other interviewed witnesses of the risen Jesus, including one of over 500 people at one time. Paul says, you can have the evidence of the eyewitnesses, many of them still alive, so they could be consulted as eyewitnesses.

Don’t overlook the importance of this fact. Charles Colson, who was involved in the Watergate Scandal that brought down President Nixon said, “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”

There was also the evidence of changed lives. Think about the impact on the Apostles themselves; frightened and overwhelmed as they were, hiding for fear of the Jews, but once convinced that Jesus was alive again and filled with the Spirit they went out and confidently preached the Gospel calling people to new life in Jesus and demonstrating the power of this lfie in their own changed lives!

This is a well-attested historical fact. As C. S. Lewis, once Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, acknowledged that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was a major factor in his conversion from atheism.

And, Lord Darling, former Chief Justice of England said that, "...no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true."

(ii). It is an essential part of the Christian message - 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

The Apostles and evangelists have preached it continuously and 'this is what' the Christian church has 'believed'(v11).

So Paul says to them, 'If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?'(1 Cor 15:12). It doesn't make sense, for then Christ could not be 'raised' and so all our preaching and your faith is useless!

Furthermore, for them to suggest this is to imply in effect that the Apostles are liars. People like Thomas who insisted on evidence before he beleived that Jesus was indeed risen! Those other disciples, who when first seeing the empty tomby doubted and beleived his body must have been stoen away but now beleived and were willing to die for those beliefs as in the case of James, Peter and Thomas himself. If He is not risen then they were all liars and deceivers!

But the really concerning piece of all in addressing this attitude is found in what is lost if Christ is not risen! Christ's resurrection guarantees the Christian's and so Paul allows himself to contemplate the awful “what if?” question that arises logically from their belief (1 Cor 15:12-16). He sees 3 awful consequences 'if Christ is not risen'.

These are:

1. You have a worthless faith - "your faith is futile'.

All the trust we have ever placed in God is just a big mistake.

Why? Because Jesus had all his life on earth placed His trust in God. He believed that God would raise Him from the dead: "You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay"(Acts 2v27).

But 'If Christ is not risen' then His confidence was misplaced and God is neither a God of love or a God of power or a God of truth!

Imagine that! Imagine a loveless God. It is beyond us isn't it? A God who ignores the plight of His suffering Son upon the cross. A God who turns a deaf ear to His sufferings!

Imagine a powerless God! One who could not act to save. One who could not control nor overrule man's actions.

Imagine a God who can't be trusted. One who lies! One who abandons Him to the grave!

It is beyond us. It offends us even to think about it, but think about it we must. For this is the implication 'if Christ is not risen'.

Perhaps you say : 'does it matter?' Is 'faith' all that important that we would miss having it?

Yes it does matter! 'Faith' is what keeps many going in a wicked and meaningless world.

What if 'faith' was worthless! What of those who have spent all their lives serving God?

What about those who have surrendered their lives in the service of God?

'If Christ is not risen' it was all a waste of time!

People like John and Betty Stam who were martyred by Communists in China on December 6th 1934. In a letter written previously to his parents back in the USA John said: "..If we should go on before, it is only the quicker to enjoy the bliss of the Saviour's presence, the sooner to be released from the fight against sin and Satan".

Of course they were badly mistaken 'IF CHRIST IS NOT RISEN'!

2. You have a worrying condition - "you are still in your sins!".

All, this talk about 'forgiveness' would be a delusion.

All talk about God casting your sins away, removing them from Him, blotting them out and remembering them no more. All would be pure fantasy. You would still be gripped in the vice of sin, a slave for life!

But you say, Jesus still died, surely that was enougth!

No, for if our last picture of Christ was of Him stretched out upon a cross, then death had the last word! Death had the victory And as “the wages of sin is death”, sin has won!

Does it matter? "The modern man is not worrying about his sins, still less about their forgiveness"(Sir Oliver Lodge).

Is that the case? Why then do millions crowd churches around the world? Why do many more millions adhere to the religious faiths of the world?

Why do so many live anxious and depressed lives caused by so much regret, people who cannot forgive themselves because of some stain on their conscience?

Men are seeking 'peace' for the faults and failings that grip them.

Remember when Herod heard about Jesus' miracles. He said, 'this is John the Baptist raised from the dead'!

It was a troubling thought. He felt his sin had found him out!

Men are seeking security in a fragmented and wicked world. Men feel lost and need reassurance for they know that life will end and death beckons!

You see what is at stake here? If forgiveness goes, then peace goes; freedom goes; happiness goes; Heaven goes!

It does matter! You cannot live without forgiveness! You certainly cannot die without it!

but this is the reality IF CHRIST IS NOT RISEN!

3. You are facing a wretched end - "those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished".

What misery if this is the case! When we put a dead loved one into the ground, one who has trusted in Jesus Christ, it is hopeless! We have: 'cast' them 'as rubbish to the void' (Tennyson), never to be met again!

Why? Because if Jesus never rose, neither will they!

If One who never put a foot wrong in life, did not break the grip of death, then how shall we? We are doomed!

Does it matter? Yes it matters!

What consolation could we give to grieving parents or grieving children? What comfort for those who who are about to enter the grim portals of death?

There could be none - ‘IF CHRIST IS NOT RISEN'

Paul’s Application! - So Paul thinks his grim thought - No faith! No forgiveness! No future hope! Nothing! Does it not make you shudder? Indeed "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men, the most pitiable"(v19)!

Yet at just that moment, when contemplation gives way to horror and despair, he interjects : "But Christ has indeed been risen from the dead"!(v20).

How does he know?

Well he had met many others who had seen Him and bore witness to the resurrection(1 Cor 15:5-7). But also and more importantly for him, he had seen Jesus himself(1 Cor 15:8), on the road to Damascus. And the sight of Him, changed his life!

"He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today.

He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.

He lives, He lives, salvation to impart.

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart".

The experience of the living Christ, in your life is the best testimony you can have! It is the most convincing one of all!

When Savonarola was facing his execution, the Italian reformer said : 'They may kill me if they please; but they will never, never, never, tear the living Christ from my heart"!

This is not mere optimism for as J.I. Packer said: “Optimism hopes for the best without any guarantee of its arriving and is often no more than whistling in the dark. Christian hope, by contrast, is faith looking ahead to the fulfillment of the promises of God, as when the Anglican burial service inters the corpse 'in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come.”

This is Christian Hope - “Because I live, you will live also!” Because He lives. You can have forgiveness of sins. When George Bush sr. served as Vice President of the United States, he attended the funeral of the former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed in an officially atheistic society; she reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest. The wife of the man who had run an atheisitc, anti-God society, hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.

It is also A GREAT HOPE have a great hope because of the resurrection! - Philippians 3:21 Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

In a world in which the only two certainties are said to be death and taxes, Christians also have A LIVING HOPE - “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.”(1 Pet 1:3-9). I hope that Newcastle may achieve Champions League football at the end of this season but I don't know that they will fr certain, I simply hope so. In this sense my hope is a desire for some future thing which I am uncertain of! That is not the way Peter, or the rest of the New Testament, thinks about hope. When Peter says in 1 Peter 1:13, "Hope fully in the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" he does not mean we should desire it and be uncertain of it. The coming of Christ is a matter of complete confidence for all the writers in the New Testament. So the command, "Hope fully," means desire and be fully confident that Jesus Christ is coming again for his people. As the writer to Hebrew Christians says in Hebrews 6:11 "We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope to the end." So we can define hope, in the New Testament sense, as full assurance, or strong confidence that God is going to do good to us in the future. We have a trustworthy faith and a hope for Heaven!

This LIVING HOPE is hope that has power and gives momentum to produce changes in life. Just as my football team has a renewed confidence after winning 4 games on the trot and an has a fresh momentum to start winning games and beleiving for Champions League football next season!

So Christian hope is a strong confidence in God which has power to produce changes in how we live in the light of our belief in the resurrection.

Take for example what Paul says in Paul says in Colossians 3:1-4 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

And again when speaking to the Romans, who have trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, and who may be facing hardships; trials; imprisonment and even death: "And if God is for me, then who can be against me?" He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died, yes who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.” (Romans 8:31–34).

this is life changing!

“Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon your account: and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.” (William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life [1728]

“Because I live, you shall live also” – “Our old history ends with the cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.” (Watchman Nee)

“Our present relationships are doomed to end, sooner or later, in betrayal, distance or the inevitable demise of each person we know. Seasons of happiness must always yield to seasons of sorrow…but not to worry…Jesus is alive with a new kind of life that he longs to give any and all who will believe….Thank God we have an empty tomb. The glorious fact that the empty tomb proclaims to us is that life for us does not stop when death comes. Death is not a wall but a door!” (Charles Swindoll & Peter Marshall)

In 1899, D. L. Moody died. He had been declining for some time, and the family had taken turns being with him.

On the morning of his death, his son, who was standing by the bedside, heard him exclaim, “Earth is receding; heaven is opening; God is calling.” “You are dreaming, Father,” the son said. Moody answered, “No, Will, this is no dream. I have been within the gates. I have seen the children’s faces.”

For a while it seemed as if Moody were reviving, but he began to slip away again. He said, “Is this death? This is not bad; there is no valley. This is bliss. This is glorious.”

By this time his daughter was present, and she began to pray for his recovery. He said, “No, no, Emma, don’t pray for that. God is calling. This is my coronation day. I have been looking forward to it.” Shortly after that Moody was received into heaven. At the funeral the family and friends joined in a joyful service.

They spoke. They sang hymns. They heard the words proclaimed: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:55-57).

“The resurrection of Jesus changes the face of death for all His people. Death is no longer a prison, but a passage into God’s presence.” (Clarence W. Hall)

So this really matters! It is the essential thing to beleive because as Tim Keller has said: “If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.” ― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism.

And you are invited to enter into this new life in Jesus - to be “born again”(John 3:3). To begin again and to enter into the life of God and be aprt of a redeemed humanity that invades this world, invisibly and spiritually bringing God’s Kingdom to bear upon this world, so that God’s will is done on earth as it is in Heaven!

"The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it...Our task in the present...is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day, with our Christian life, corporate and individual, in both worship and mission, as a sign of the first and a foretaste of the second…..Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.” (N.T. Wright - Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church).

God sent His son, they called Him Jesus He came to love, heal and forgive He lived and died to buy my pardon An empty grave is there to prove my saviour lives

And then one day, I'll cross the river I'll fight life's final war with pain And then, as death gives way to victory I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He reigns

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow Because He lives, all fear is gone Because I know He holds the future And life is worth the living, just because He lives

“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20)