Christ Has Indeed Been Raised
1 Corinthians 15:12-28
Christ Has Indeed Been Raised From the Dead!
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? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
How strange that anyone claiming to know Jesus, the Risen Son of God, would question that He lives! How strange that one professing to have been born from above should cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus! Yet, it is a tragic fact of history that from earliest days the Church of Jesus Christ has been infiltrated by ecclesiastical termites who endeavour to render the house of God an empty façade. At no time in history has the infiltration of these destructive clerics been more advanced than in this day late in the Age of Grace. As the return of Christ draws nigh, the activities of those who would cast doubt on the resurrection becomes more frenetic and more frantic.
Is there no answer to the efforts of religious pagans to destroy the Faith once delivered to the saints? Is the Bible powerless against their insistent tirades? Has the honest seeker of truth no defence against such overt wickedness from Christian pulpits? Since the fatal virus was introduced during the first days of the Faith of Jesus Christ, God provided an answer which proved adequate then and which proves sufficient still – if it is but applied. That answer is an appeal to the very foundation of the Faith of Jesus Christ – His conquest over death by the resurrection from the dead.
The Threat of Practical Atheists in the Church of Christ (verse 12) – Time magazine recently published as its cover story an article entitled Does Heaven Exist?. The article wanders in the wilderness of theological sophistry without ever coming to a cogent conclusion. Cited without comment are both evangelicals and liberals, neither wishing to offend the other and therefore avoiding the real issue of whether the dead indeed live on. Such religious postulations without knowledge are not new; they are as ancient at the serpent in the Garden who first raised doubt of God’s veracity.
For many believers, the declaration of the Word that Christ is risen from the grave is sufficient to quell any doubts which may arise. Others, however, are shaken by the sincerity of those questioning the Word of God; or they are intimidated by the apparent scholarship of these christianised pagans. Consequently, there are always some swept along as flotsam and jetsam by the putrid tide of destructive criticism. Practical atheists are destructive simply because they can undermine the faith of the unwary or the weak.
Even within the Church of God in Corinth, a church which the Apostle Paul had himself established on the foundation of Jesus Christ risen from the dead, there were those present who openly and seriously affirmed there was no resurrection of the dead! Perhaps these people were unduly influenced by their pagan philosophical and religious training from prior years.
In that ancient city there would have been representatives of three distinct schools of philosophical thought, each holding a particular view on the subject of the resurrection. Epicureans were blank materialists. They denied any existence at all beyond death, just as materialist today believe in utter extinction. Such people believed, and today believe, that death ends it all. The position of the Stoic was that at death the soul was merged in deity with the utter loss of personality. That concept has persisted to this day in what is generally described as absorption, in which the spirit returns back to its source and is absorbed back into the ultimate divine mind or being. Platonism, while insisting upon the immortality of the soul, denied the idea of bodily resurrection.
Today, we would add that many, adopting eastern thought, teach reincarnation, wherein the soul or spirit is continually recycled from one form to another – even from human to animal or animal to human. Another concept is soul sleep, in which the body dies and disintegrates, while the soul or spirit sleeps. This view has become popular among some professed evangelicals, though most commonly espoused among adherents of the cult of Seventh Day Adventism. In all these views, human personality and individuality are forever lost at death. Whatever, if anything, survives is no longer a person, no longer an individual, no longer a unique being. All alike are opposed to truth.
The confident assertions of those in Corinth doubting the resurrection served to discourage godly living and growth in grace; for after all, if there is no resurrection man need not concern himself with giving an account to God. Those who live without hope live for the moment. Thus, all the problems of the Corinthian heresy would ultimately find their origin in this doubt of the resurrection. The exclusiveness which created classes of Christians, the schismatic attitude which infected so much of the congregation, the attempt to live for the moment while forgetting the future, the failure to progress in holiness in this present life – all alike find their origin in this one grave denial. Like an unchecked plague, the virus of unbelief spread through the congregation until the Apostle was compelled to address the matter. When he did so, he did so masterfully and to the benefit of all Christians throughout the ages until Christ Himself shall return.
Practical atheists, for that is what such people who deny the resurrection are, destroy the work of God. Their deadly message insures that the church dies, and that faith shrivels, and that love ceases. Whenever you hear someone doubt that Christ is risen from the dead, mark that person as a pagan. Disregard any titles they may boast, discount any scholarship to which they may lay claim, they are ignorant and dishonest and destructive. The destruction of the foundation of the Faith serves to enervate Christian witness and participation in missionary advance.
The Implications of Denying the Christian Message (verses 13-19) – Paul listed seven consequences, four theological and three personal, which of necessity must hold if the dead rise not. Those seven consequences are worthy of consideration, if for no other reason than to alert each of us to the danger of questioning the Word of God. Weighing each of them in their turn will serve as a primer for a virile theology of the resurrection.
Christ has not been raised from the dead (verse 13). This is the first consequence if there is no resurrection from the dead. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. Perhaps the Corinthians doubters got around this through appeal to a belief that Christ was not human, that He only appeared to be human. However, such a view is far from what is presented in the Word of God.
John appears to have written to correct just such an incipient view. In the preamble to his first letter he stated: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ [1 John 1:1-3]. He stated that the Apostles saw Jesus, intently and carefully scrutinised Him, handling Him with their hands. Consequently, John here affirms that Jesus is fully human.
Later, in his second letter, John will warn believers against those who deny this. Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist [2 John 7]. It is a serious matter to deny that Jesus shared out human condition. Yet, if we deny that the dead are raised, that is precisely what we are doing. We are no different from the Jehovah’s Witness who denies that Jesus raised bodily, if we deny the resurrection.
Christian preaching, and your faith as well, are useless (verse 14). Then if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. If there is no resurrection, Christian preaching is futile and meaningless. The heart of the Gospel is Christ’s death and resurrection. If He has not raised, we are not justified. If He did not rise from the dead, He cannot be the Son of God. Apart from the resurrection Jesus could not have conquered sin or death or hell, and those three great evils would still be victorious.
Without the resurrection the Good News would be bad news, and there would be nothing worth preaching. Without the resurrection the Gospel would be empty, a hopeless mumbling of meaningless nonsense. Unless our Lord conquered sin and death, making a way for us to follow in that victory, there is no Good News for us to proclaim. If there were no Good News, then even faith in Him would be worthless. A dead Saviour cannot give life. If the dead are not raised, then Christ did not rise and neither can we anticipate rising from the dead. In that case all the believers of all the ages have believed for nothing, lived for nothing, and died for a sick, futile dream.
Christian witnesses are liars (verses 15, 16). More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that He raised Christ from the dead. But He did not raise Him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. If there is no resurrection from the dead, then every person who claimed to have witnessed Christ after His resurrection is a liar and every person who preached the Risen Christ is a liar, including Paul and the other Apostles.
If there is no resurrection, preachers of the Gospel and the witnesses to the Living Christ are not simply misguided, they are deliberate liars. There is no possibility, as many liberals claim, that such a mistake could have been innocent or naïve. Those witnesses could not have been honest men who unwittingly gave bad advice. If Christ was not raised from the dead, they not only were not sent by God with a message from Him, but they were liars who would have had to conspire together in order for their lies to have been so consistent and harmonised. If the Apostles lied about this, how can we believe them about anything they said?
These are the theological consequences if there is no resurrection of the dead: not even Christ is risen; both the Gospel message and your faith are useless; the whole of the New Testament is demonstrated to be a lie as are all who proclaim the Risen Son of God. There follow three personal consequences, if there is no resurrection from the dead.
Christians are still in their sins (verse 17). If Christ has not been raised … you are still in your sins. If Jesus was not raised from the dead, death continues victorious over all. When we die, in that case, we will remain dead. That dark verse, the wages of sin is death [Romans 6:23], will hold sway over us. If we remain dead, then death and eternal banishment from God are the only prospects for all peoples. We trust Christ that we may be forgiven our sin, that we may be saved, that we may have the promise of the resurrection. If there is no resurrection, then there is no salvation and we are yet damned.
Christians, who have died, died in vain (verse 18). One of the great hopes which I, as a minister of the Faith of Jesus Christ, can offer those who grieve at the graveside, is the knowledge that they can see their loved ones again if that loved one died in Christ. Often, as I leave the cemetery, I remind myself that death does not have the final word. If there is no resurrection of the dead, however, death does have the final word. If there is no resurrection from the dead, every saint who has passed from this life died in the grip of a vain hope. They would have all perished in their sin, unforgiven and undistinguished from the wicked who have dared laugh in the face of Holy God.
Christians are the most miserable of all people (verse 19). If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. I have heard people say, “If there were no Heaven, I would still be a Christian because it is the best life to live.” That is not at all clear. If there were no resurrection of the dead, if there were no promise of life, we are deluded and guilty of living a lie. If there is no resurrection, our labours will have been for nothing and our sacrifices will prove futile and our very life will be a tragic joke. If there is no resurrection, we who name the Name of Christ have no Saviour, no Redeemer, no Lord. For if He is not risen from the dead, He is not alive. Without the resurrection of the dead, we deserve nothing but the pity reserved for fools. However, we are not to be pitied. Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!
The Central Message of the Church of Christ (verses 20-28) – Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep! This is the central message of the Church throughout the millennia since He conquered death. All that we have believed is poised on this singular truth. All that we anticipate is pinned to this one truth. If there can be said to be a central truth of the Christian Faith, it is this truth that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. There is no Good News without this one piece of information. There is no Gospel if Christ has not been raised. There is neither hope nor help if Christ did not conquer death. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!
You will note that Paul continues by noting that death came through a man – Adam. Our first father chose to rebel against divine grace, and that rebellion plunged the race into separation from God who is life. Speaking of that disastrous event, Paul, at another place in the Word, writes: the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies [Romans 8:20-23]. We are under sentence of death; our bodies betray us and we march steadily toward death. Were this our sole hope, we would be a miserable people. Those who so live are described as without hope and without God in the world [Ephesians 2:12], and each of us once lived under those daunting, depressing conditions [cf. Ephesians 2:1-4].
The message we have received, however, is a message which causes our hearts to rejoice – a message of hope, a message of life. It is that Christ has conquered death and has therefore set at liberty those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death [Hebrews 2:15]. We are confident that He now reigns, and shall do so until He has put all His enemies under His feet. Those enemies are Satan, sin, and the last enemy, which is death; it, too, shall be destroyed.
No more night, no more pain,
No more tears, never crying again.
And praises to the Great I Am,
We shall live in the light of the Risen Lamb.
Christ is risen from the dead, having conquered death. What a message! Can any Christian be silent concerning this message? The message has great implications which provide answers to the propositions Paul put forward and which must of necessity be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!
Because He is risen, our preaching has purpose and we have reason to believe. If there were no resurrection, Christ would not have been raised and we would have no basis for believing in Him. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead! This one truth formed the heart of the Christian message. On the day of Pentecost, Peter charged his listeners with the death of the Messiah, pointedly saying, you, with the help of wicked men, put [the Son of God] to death by nailing Him to the cross [Acts 2:23]. Having thus charged them with the death of the Messiah, he immediately declared: But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him [Acts 2:24]. In a few short sentences he again affirmed this same truth when he declared to this hostile audience: God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact [Acts 2:32]. From that point every message recorded in the Book of Acts declares the resurrection of Jesus.
Haled before the Sanhedrin, Peter and John boldly presented Jesus as the One whom the Jewish leaders crucified but whom God raised from the dead [Acts 4:10]. Paul and Barnabas, during their first missionary tour, presented Jesus as the Son of God risen from the dead [Acts 13:35-37]. The resurrection of Jesus was the heart of Paul’s message when, together with Silas he carried the message to Europe [Acts 17:3].
Though the thought of the resurrection caused many of those sophisticated Athenians to ridicule the messenger [Acts 17:32], some believed and Paul was not dissuaded from keeping that truth central to his preaching. In Corinth, the next city in this second missionary tour, he insured that this note was central. He wrote the Corinthians, reminding them of his Gospel. What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born [1 Corinthians 15:3-8].
What message would a preacher preach were there no resurrection? What purpose would there be in preaching if Christ were not risen from the dead? Why would anyone want to believe in a dead Saviour? But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead! I have spoken in previous sermons of Roland McGregor, a Methodist minister whom I met while ministering in the Kaufman County Prison Farm in Kaufman, Texas. Though an ordained minister within the United Methodist Church, Roland did not believe in Jesus, did not believe Him to be God, did not believe that He was risen from the dead, did not believe that He was alive. He was contemptuous of any simple-minded soul who dared believe that the dead could rise, much less who would believe that God’s own Son has been raised from the dead.
I questioned Roland concerning his message. He had nothing of substance to say to those prisoners, except that they were good men and could surely do better than they had to that point in their lives. He often assured those hard men that if they only tried harder they could do better. His little sermonettes had no impact and there were no converts, either to Christ or to the Methodist Church. One conviction I drew after listening to Roland McGregor spoon out the spiritual pabulum he attempted to feed those imprisoned men and women is that without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no Good News. The liberal has no message worth declaring. There is no purpose to religion if Jesus is not risen from the dead. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!
Because He is risen, sin can be forgiven. To the Romans, Paul trumpeted that Jesus was through the Spirit of holiness declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead [Romans 1:4]. Upon this opening affirmation of faith, all the carefully reasoned theological conclusions of the Apostle proceed. Without the resurrection of Jesus there is no salvation, and we are yet in our sin. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead! Thus, sin can be forgiven and the power of sin can be broken.
Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification [Romans 4:25]. We are baptised as a picture of our faith, that being buried with Him through baptism into death, we may, just as Christ, be raised from the dead through the glory of the Father to live a new life [Romans 6:4]. By faith in the Risen Son of God we are assured that we are united with Him in His resurrection [Romans 6:5]. In the good confession we have made in our baptism we testified that we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. We are confident that in the death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. Thus, by faith in His death and resurrection we count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus [Romans 6:9-11]. For Christ has indeed been raised from the dead! Sin is forgiven where He lives and reigns.
Because He is risen, we are free from all condemnation. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death [Romans 8:1,2]. That is a glorious statement. Faultless by the merits of Jesus, I boldly approach Holy God as my Father. Without guilt because of the sacrifice of Christ the Lord, I am complete in Him. Now I am free of all condemnation. Recall Jesus’ promise. I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life [John 5:24]. This is the heritage of each child of God.
There is not a one of us who, as a Christian, hasn’t felt that we failed Christ. Even were there no evil one to condemn our hearts, we would condemn ourselves. We know we do not live as we ought, nor do we rule over our hearts, as we should. We read the words of the Apostle, which precede that confident statement and they resonate in our hearts. I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members [Romans 7:14-23].
In that situation we cannot be surprised when the Apostle cries out in despair: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death [Romans 7:14-24]? That is a dark moment in this brilliant letter. However, you must see where the Apostle ends his note of despair. Listen to the next verse: Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin [Romans 7:25].
Because He is risen, we have hope. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you [Romans 8:11]. I am saved by grace, and God’s own Spirit lives in this body because He has claimed me as His own. I am astonished and humbled to learn that He claims this body, this ageing, dying body, as His holy temple. I possess hope whereas I was once hopeless. What is true for me is true for each child of the Living God.
Jesus promised His disciples that when the Spirit of Truth came He would guide them into all truth. Of the Holy Spirit, Jesus promised: He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is Mine and making it known to you [John 16:13,14]. That Spirit who lives in our hearts by faith tells us that Christ lives, and that because He lives, we also shall live [John 14:19]. That blessed truth given by God’s Holy Spirit gives hope in a hopeless world. He reminds us of the love of the Father, a love which calls us each by name and which is everlasting. He reminds us that we are not orphans, but that we anticipate another, permanent home in Heaven.
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us [Romans 8:31-34]. We have perhaps recited those words at other times, but notice that they are solidly founded upon the resurrection of Christ. Glory! Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!
Because He is risen, we look to a glorious tomorrow. I just quoted a beautiful portion of the Word found in the Eighth Chapter of Romans. That beautiful passage, predicated upon the resurrection of Jesus, continues by asking and answering a series of rhetorical questions. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord [Romans 8:35-39].
Perhaps you are living for the moment. This is a fallen world, and all that defines it shall soon pass away. This world in its present form is passing away [1 Corinthians 7:13], warns the Word. The world and its desires pass away [1 John 2:17], and accordingly it is only the man who does the will of God who lives forever. If you live for this world, though you call yourself a Christian, you are to be pitied, for you have nothing of permanent value. If you live for this life only, failing to see the riches which are yours in Christ the Lord, how can you appreciate the significance of this Easter season? In that case, you need to hear the message of life, the message which renews and regenerates.
This is the message of life, then. If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [Romans 10:9-13].
That is our invitation to you – believe Christ the Living Son of God. Be that one who is born from above. Be saved, today. Amen.