Easter 07
4/8/07 Easter 1 Cor 15:12-28 PrBC
A month or so ago, there was a very short-lived controversy, instigated by a Hollywood director, who claimed in a documentary that a coffin bearing the bones of Jesus Christ had been found. For as many headlines as the program generated, it ended up running the path of a shooting star and flaming out rather quickly.
But in the wake of it, a Jewish rabbi from New York wrote a column in Newsweek. He denounced the documentary for being anti-Christian. Rabbi Mark Gellman wrote, “I don’t think interfaith relations are improved when a Jewish filmmaker implies” that Christianity is led by a dead Messiah.
But, that wasn’t all he said. Rabbi Gellman went on to point out that if these bones did belong to Jesus, “then not only is the Christian Testament false, but, worse, Christianity is a cruel deception.”
But the really interesting part of his column was this. It’s a long quote, but I think it’s worth hearing: “Some Christian respondents to this film have said that even discovering the bones of Jesus would not seriously undermine their faith. They say that 2,000 years of tradition does not just get canned because somebody found some bone boxes in the basement of the Israel Museum. 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. 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. If the Red Sea never really split, there would still be the Ten Commandments and the Torah for me. What is left of Christianity if Jesus died and then just remained dead?”
That is an excellent question & an excellent observation. And sure enough, the makers of the Jesus tomb documentary didn’t have to go far to find a so-called Christian Bible scholar to make that very point; a professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University, said this: (John Dominic Crossan DePaul Univ Discovery Chan)
“If the bones of Jesus were to be found in an ossuary in Jerusalem tomorrow, and without doubt let’s say they are definitely agreed to be the bones of Jesus. Would that destroy Christian faith? It certainly would not destroy my Christian faith. I leave what happens to bodies up to God.”
And so we have a so-called Christian Professor who couldn’t be more wrong and an unbelieving rabbi whose comments are right on the mark. 1 Corinthians 15:17 says: “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins…”
You see: the rabbi’s right. There’s nothing left of Christianity if Jesus Christ has not been raised from the dead. I’d like you to turn to 1st Corinthians 15.
1st Corinthians was a letter written to the church in Corinth, a first-century group of believers who were beset w/ problems. The Corinthian church was a melting pot of new believers, many of them Gentiles saved out of idolatry. And these new Christians were coming out of old, familiar patterns of pagan worship. Some were still clinging to the secular philosophies & human wisdom on which they had depended for all their lives.
And that’s what led to many of the problems addressed in this letter, including confusion over the resurrection of the dead. Look at v. 12.
Now, these are people that Paul is addressing as Christians. The letter is addressed to those set apart in Christ Jesus and called to be saints. So, his expectation is that he’s writing to true believers.
And the confusion here probably doesn’t fall along the same line as the modern debate over whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. The problem in the first century probably had more to do with the pagan philosophy of dualism, which held to a very strict separation between a person’s body & his soul.
The body was seen only as a wretched prison for the soul, while the soul was thought to be the divine aspect of each individual. So, the popular philosophy of the day saw no place for a bodily resurrection of the dead. It was assumed that when a person died, his soul was set free to enjoy life in its divine nature.
Now, as Christians, we do look forward to the day when we will shed these frail, deteriorating earthly bodies, complete with flesh that is trained to sin, and bones and organs that wear out and quit. We eagerly anticipate that time when there will be no more pain or suffering or disease or physical hardship of any kind. A Christian understands that at death, his or her soul departs from this body of sin.
Yet the Bible is also plain in teaching a bodily resurrection, and not just a departure of the soul from the body into a body-less existence. In other words, we also understand from Scripture that we will ultimately be clothed in a glorified body. At the end of this chapter, it talks about the earthly body and the heavenly body.
Well, the Corinthians were being lured by this old way of thinking that said the body was left behind at death, while the soul went on into eternity. Again, biblically, there’s some truth to that, except that they refused to ever connect the two back up again, as is described in the New Testament.
So, when it came to their error concerning Jesus Christ, it may not have been the idea that He just died and went completely out of existence. In fact, it’s even been speculated by some that part of the belief system of that day may have inclined people to think that since Jesus was God, He never really was in a body in the first place. He was always just spiritual. And therefore the crucifixion itself was somewhat of an illusion.
Well Scripture does not sustain that at any level. As clearly as Jesus Christ suffered and was put to death as a man in a body, so too the Bible is clear about His appearance to the disciples after His resurrection. In Luke 24, it says:
Luke 24:37-43 they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.
Jesus was determine to eliminate any doubt about this and to make it very plain that He was not a mere spirit being. The Scriptures would have to be lying at this point, because He expressly demonstrated to them that He was in a body, even eating food in front of them.
The Gospels show Christ after His resurrection in a recognizable body. It was a different body - not bound by time and space limitations - but it was, nonetheless, a body.
Yet, within the church at Corinth confusion reigned over the matter of a bodily resurrection, and it was being taught by some that such resurrections did not happen.
So, you ask, why does that matter?
Because the beginning of 1st Corinthians 15 makes it clear that the death, burial & resurrection of Jesus Christ are all essential to the Gospel. God came in flesh to redeem human beings who had been created by God as flesh & soul. It was God’s design that only holy God could satisfy His perfect wrath. But He also became a man so that the body and soul of a man – not some animal; not a lamb – but a man, would be sacrificed on behalf of His brethren.
So, the Corinthians – and any other Christians for that matter – could not forsake the bodily death and the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, w/o gutting the Gospel. And that’s why Paul sets out to demonstrate in these verse the lack of logic, which flowed from a no-resurrection point of view. V. 13.
Somehow these young Christians had missed the connection. They had come to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but they were also trying to keep a no-resurrection philosophy. So Paul is showing them that those two cannot stand together. If there is no resurrection from the dead, then nobody rises from the grave. And if nobody rises from the grave, then Jesus Christ did not defeat death and rise from the grave, because He is fully man. And if that’s true, then the consequences are terrible. V. 14.
The flow here is very simple. Paul spelled out the basics of the Gospel - that message which Christians in Corinth had believed. Then he applied worldly wisdom to it. And here’s the outcome of that experiment: Add worldly wisdom to the resurrection, and you’ve put Jesus back in the tomb and made Christianity a dead religion, centered on the worship of a dead man. And if that’s the case, then what we are preaching is a vain message, & it’s totally useless for you to believe it.” 15-16.
If there truly is no resurrection of the dead, then all the people who claimed to see Jesus after His crucifixion were wrong. 1st Cor. 15:6 says He appeared to be more than 500 people at one time.
Well, the only logical conclusion is that they were all part of a grand conspiracy. That many people don’t make a mistake about what they’ve seen. They either all saw Jesus alive after He was put to death, or they somehow agreed to lie & cover up Christ’s crucifixion. And then they all carried that story, consistently with them to their graves, even when it meant some were killed for believing it.
If that was true, then Paul, & the rest of the apostles, were not only remarkably courageous and foolish actors, but they were also false teachers who deceived thousands of people with a story that could not be true. And if that was the case, then throw out Christianity, because the resurrection is at its core.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is all through the NT. So, if I have to cut it out because it’s not true, then nothing else about Christian teaching in the NT is reliable. It might as well all be a lie. 17-19
The arguments are piling up. Paul is taking his case right down to the gut level, where the Gospel meets man. This is where the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ hits home. If there is no resurrection, then Jesus did not conquer death.
Even if you settle for a compromise, saying that Jesus came out of the tomb as a spirit, but denying a bodily resurrection, then He still didn’t beat death. He still didn’t do anything to defeat death’s hold over man. And it is God’s authority over death that must be demonstrated at the resurrection.
God did not make man as body and soul in order to simply throw away bodies as useless. We glorify God in our bodies. And Philippians 3:21 says God will transform our lowly bodies into glorious ones. He will make them new. That’s the power of the resurrection.
Many religions believe in the eternal existence of the soul. Those who hold to reincarnation believe the soul lives on after death. It simply leaves the dead body & takes up residence in another life form. Others believe that at death the soul enters a state of rest, while the body disintegrates. Many believe that the body is just annihilated, while the soul goes on to some kind of after-life.
Christianity is unique on this count. Because Jesus Christ conquered death & sin, even natural bodies can be redeemed and transformed into spiritual bodies fit for an eternal existence. God does not annihilate our bodies & make brand new ones.
But rather, at the resurrection, God will take natural, perishable bodies, which have been placed in the ground like seeds, and He will raise them as glorious, imperishable, spiritual bodies. In one sense, we will be the same, but we will be transformed to live in the eternal perfection of heaven. That which is mortal will be clothed with immortality.
So, what God is saying back here in v. 17 is that w/o the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the power of sin would not be broken. And the proof would be that the body could not be raised to new life.
And if that’s the case, then there is no hope for those who have already died. Their sins have not been taken away, and therefore they must remain held within the bonds of death. And as for we who are alive, all that’s really left is for us to live out our short time here on earth. We might as well put all our hope into staying alive, because w/o the resurrection, we would never have the chance to be victorious over death. And if that’s the case, then all Christians have fallen prey to a terribly mean trick, and we deserve to be pitied for having staked all our hope on an eternity with the Lord. We have been fooled into believing in a future which doesn’t even exist.
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That’s Paul’s hypothetical argument. Worldly wisdom fails. Paul pulled the foundation out from under the Corinthians for a moment to show them how illogical it was for believers in Jesus Christ to fall captive to a false theory of human nature. For just a moment, he said, “Let’s go ahead and argue this out presuming you’re right.” And he did that to show the incompatibility of the Gospel & a no-resurrection view. The two can’t go together because the heart of the Gospel is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Having taken apart dualistic thinking, Paul now sets out to put the foundation back in place and pick up where he left off, with his case FOR the resurrection. V.20.
One of the duties of the Israelites, under the Mosaic Law, was to bring the very first sheaf of grain from their new harvest to the priest as an offering. That 1st sheaf was called the firstfruits. It was a symbol of the rest of the harvest, acknowledging that the whole thing belonged to God. So the first-fruits acted as the “downpayment” for the rest of the harvest.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ has a similar function. His rising from the dead makes the way for all who are trusting in Him to do the same. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead guarantees that all those who are dead in Him will also be raised from the dead by God. It also says that in Romans 6:5:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
If you have been joined to Christ by faith, you were identified with Him at the cross, and will be at the resurrection. 15:21-22
Paul is setting forth the inevitability of the resurrection of the dead, but this time he does it by stating the inevitability of death. Death came to all of mankind thru Adam. When Adam, the first man, sinned - when he rebelled against the command of God - death entered the human race. Adam was our representative.
Every person born since Adam has shared, not only in his humanity, but also in his sinfulness. Because of one man, committing one sinful act, we are all sinners by nature. BUT, by virtue of one man committing one righteous act, we can be set free from death. That is what Christ accomplished.
Verse 22 has sadly been used to teach universalism. Some read the phrase: “...in Christ ALL will be made alive..” as a promise that everyone will inherit eternal life. But, that’s not in keeping w/ the context. We’re talking here about those described in v. 18 as having fallen asleep in Christ. This is not addressing a general resurrection, or a resurrection of those who opposed the Gospel.
Since v. 1, Paul’s concern was exclusively w/ those who believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who “belong to Him,” as he called them in v. 23, as opposed to those who are enemies of Christ, a group he referred to in v. 25. So, not only is universalism not here, it does not stand up against the rest of Scripture which clearly teaches that God’s wrath, and His eternal judgment are directed at all who reject the salvation He has offered through His Son. 22-23.
Even when it comes to the Resurrection, our God is a God of order. Jesus Christ is the firstfruits - the first installment guaranteeing a full harvest to come. Then, there will be that great resurrection harvest when Jesus Christ comes for His church. And even within that resurrection, there is order. Listen to what it says in 1st Thessalonians 4:
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
Jesus Christ will call His church into the sky, taking first from the earth, those believers who had already died, and then calling forth those believers who are still alive. Let’s read on in 1st Corin. 15. 15:24-27a.
In these few verses, Paul has compacted the events of the end times into a very short summary. But that is in keeping w/ his purpose. His intention was not to teach all that will happen in the end, but to show the important place of the resurrection in God’s plan. It is only after the resurrection - first of Christ, and then of those who belong to Him - that Scripture says “THEN the end will come...” The resurrection must be first. It is God’s mighty declaration of victory over death.
Now, if you die before the day Jesus Christ comes for His people, your Spirit will go to be w/ the Lord immediately. As Paul wrote in 2 Corin 5, “I would prefer to be absent from the body & present with the Lord.” Jesus told the thief who was crucified with Him, “Today, you will be w/ me in paradise.” Death does not bring about some state of non-existence or sleep of the soul. We die and are with Christ.
However, that’s not all. The resurrection of our bodies, the rising of the dead in Christ, must also happen before the end will come. The resurrection becomes that grand demonstration of the Lord Jesus Christ’s overwhelming defeat of death.
The raising of bodies from graves and from the depths of the ocean, and from all across the earth to a new & everlasting life proves that God has crushed His enemies.
And by the way, those who are brought to life will not be resuscitated as was Lazarus, who came out of the grave only to die again eventually. This will be a resurrection to a new and eternal life, one which will never again be affected by the power of death, because Jesus will have defeated that power.
In the end, Jesus will stand as a conquering king. In ancient times, it was often the case that a victorious military leader finished the battle by standing w/ his foot on the neck of the enemy king, as a sign of total dominion. Jesus Christ will one day stand victorious, crushing beneath Him, Satan and death, and all the enemies who have rebelled against Almighty God. It is a glorious picture. 27-28.
The final point in this section may not seem necessary. But since Paul was writing to a church that was plagued by confusion, he guards against any possible misunderstanding. When all is said & done, Jesus Christ’s ultimate goal is not to stage a coup, and not to usurp authority over His heavenly Father. Instead, His goal - which is really the goal of all of history - is that God the Father be glorified and preeminent over all. And to the Father, Jesus will hand over the kingdom, and all authority.
At that time, the perfect order of all of creation, the order which God first established, will be restored. God will reign over all, and all authority will be subjected to Him.
Philippians 2:10-11 describes the finale’ like this: “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” It doesn’t just end w/ the proclamation that Jesus is Lord. That too is done for the purpose of glorifying God the Father.
That is what history is all about. That is the ending which all of mankind is racing towards - an ending that will exalt Jesus Christ to His rightful place, and that will glorify His Father. And glorifying the Father has always been, and will always be the primary endeavor of Jesus Christ.
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So, my friends, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ IS at the heart of the Gospel. There truly is no Christian faith apart from it. The test of whether Christ’s death was sufficient to pay the price for our sins hinges on His being raised from the dead. If that did not happen, then we are still lost in our sins, and we have absolutely no hope for eternity.
If Christ’s death did not meet the righteous requirements of a holy God, then nothing else will. And if His requirement was not met, then Jesus would not have defeated death, and would not have been raised to the right hand of God the Father.
But that’s where He is today. That is the testimony of the apostles, and the hundreds of believers who saw Jesus alive. That is the truth, as recorded on the pages of God’s Word. And it is the message of eternal life which the church has been spreading around the world for 2,000 years. The resurrection is the foundation of a Christian Church that has grown & prospered even amidst persecution.
When the apostles first stood in the streets of Jerusalem & preached that Jesus Christ had risen from the grave, it created an enormous stir. Some said their preaching turned the world upside down. Thousands of people quickly came to faith in Jesus as their risen Messiah. And the Jewish leaders - the members of the ruling Sanhedrin - watched what was happening and viewed those events as a terrible crisis. So they had the apostles arrested. But during the night, God sent an angel to free them.
Well the next morning they were out preaching the Gospel again at the court of the Jewish temple. Acts 5:30-31 And again they preached that Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven.
This time the Pharisees and Sadducees were livid. They brought the apostles back in, and questioned them and threatened them. Acts 5:33 says they were furious and they wanted to put Peter & the rest of the apostles to death. But then a wise Pharisee spoke up. Gamaliel, a man trusted by his peers and by the people stood up and gave his colleagues a history lesson. He reminded them of a rebel named Theudas who tried to start a revolt with 400 men. But Theudas was killed, his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing.
Then came Judas the Galilean who tried to lead another revolt to overthrow Roman rule, but he too was killed, and that was the end of him. “And so,” said Gamaliel in Acts 5:38-39, “…in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!"
If Jesus Christ was just the leader of another faction of zealots, His death would put a stop to the whole thing. Even a conspiracy with a story about His supposed resurrection would eventually unravel. Certainly, no one would hold on to such a lie if they were to be executed for it. If He’s really dead, the body will turn up. The movement will finally fade away. It’ll all end.
I doubt that old Pharisee ever thought that 2,000 years later Christianity would be spread around the world. I don’t imagine he ever dreamed that for countless years to come, Christians would read his warning and say, “Amen. Gamaliel, you were absolutely right.”
Had Jesus Christ just been another Jewish rebel trying to throw off the yoke of Roman rule, He would still be dead. The Jews & the Romans would have triumphed in silencing Him, and in shutting down the rebellion they thought He was leading.
But Jesus Christ was not just a man, and the business he was about definitely did not originate in the hearts of men. Jesus Christ was God in flesh. And what He began was something called the church. Something which He promised would grow & flourish, & which could not be stopped by even the power of Satan. Because Jesus Christ defeated Satan, He destroyed death, and He disarmed the power of sin. And He did so by His death on the cross and by His triumphant resurrection from the grave. Death could not hold Him.
This morning, if you are still fighting a belief in the resurrection; if you still refuse to be convinced that Jesus triumphed over sin & death, then Gamaliel’s warning is right for you.
To deny the saving power of the cross, and to ignore the life that is offered through the resurrection is nothing less than fighting God. And you cannot win that fight. In fact, you will lose and lose badly and eternally.
You cannot thwart God’s plan, because when all is said and done, Jesus Christ will put all His enemies under His feet, and will hand over the Kingdom He has conquered to His father, and God will be all in all.