04.22.2020 Do You Believe This? 1 Cor 15

Do You Believe This...?

Last week we considered the Gospel of the Resurrection - The Resurrection Gospel described in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. Paul says this Resurrection Gospel involves three core beliefs:

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures

Christ was buried

Christ was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures

If someone were to ask you what you believe as a Christian, could you summarize for them the core elements of what you believe?

God has created us in his image and wants to have fellowship with us

All have sinned (disobeyed) and fallen short of the Glory of God

My sins cannot be removed by my works

Christ died for sins

All those who confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised him from the dead will be saved.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Romans-road-salvation.html

The Nicene Creed, adopted in 325, concludes with: “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.” The Apostles’ Creed professes a belief in “the resurrection of the body.”

And yet many today do not believe in a physical, bodily resurrection from the dead

“Do you believe that, after you die, your physical body will be resurrected someday?

Those who call themselves Christians generally believe these things, but like the Corinthian Christians there are some who struggle - not with the resurrection of Christ from the dead - but with the resurrection of the dead in Christ - with their own bodily, physical resurrection from the dead.

https://www.religionnewsblog.com/14273/most-americans-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection

This is the issue Paul is dealing with here: He repeats the question several times:

If the dead are not raised - v. 16, 29, 32

He’s not speaking about Christ’s resurrection here, but the resurrection of those who sleep in Christ for there were some in the church even then who did not believe in the bodily resurrection of the dead.

Sadducees

Others?

If the Resurrection is at the heart of the Gospel, then just as the heart pumps life-giving blood to every part of the body, so the truth of the resurrection gives life to every other area of the gospel truth.

Without the resurrection, Christianity would be just wishful thinking - no different than Buddahism, Islam…for the Christian faith without the physical bodily resurrection of Christ and those he came to save - it is no faith at all.

I left you last week with a question - the same question Jesus asked the Samaritan woman at the well.

“Do You believe this?”

John 11:25–26 ESV

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

READ 1 Corinthians 15:1-19

Prayer - Illumination

Our Resurrection is Grounded in Christ’s Resurrection

Scriptural Evidence for Christ’s Resurrection

The gospel Paul preached was no different from that of the other Apostles, nor was it any different from that which the Church had received.

The good news is that Christ has died (1 Corinthians 15:3), Christ is risen (1 Corinthians 15:4), and that Christ will come again (1 Corinthians 15:23).

All this was in fulfilment of the Scriptures.

The death of Jesus is foreseen in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53.

His resurrection is foretold in Psalm 16:10, and in the accounts of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22), and Jonah and the whale.

Our resurrection upon the Lord's return is anticipated in...

Job 19:25–27 NASB95PARA

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!

We see this more fully in the NT...

1 Corinthians 15:20–23 NASB95PARA

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming,

This good news is not simply NT News… it is God’s News...

Physical Evidence for Christ’s Resurrection

He was seen by Peter and “the twelve”; by five hundred of His followers at once (most of whom were still living when Paul wrote, and others who had “fallen asleep” and were no doubt awaiting their own resurrection); by James the brother of Jesus (who no doubt needed some convincing); then by the apostles again; and then by Paul himself “as one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:5-8).

In any court of law a matter is established by two or three witnesses, but some of these people had not even believed it themselves, but now were willing to suffer for the truth of it (1 Corinthians 15:30).

Was Jesus resurrected?

With no video footage or photographic evidence, the closest we can say is: "Eye-witnesses believed He was."

When Jesus was taken away by the soldiers, the disciples scattered (Matthew 26:56). When they thought Him dead, they hid (John 20:19). After He appeared to them, however, they changed.

Peter, who had denied knowing Him (Matthew 26:69-75), spoke boldly to entire crowds (Acts 2), stood up to the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 4:1-22), endured flogging (Acts 5:40), and went to prison (Acts 12:1-19), but wouldn't stop preaching.

Stephen insisted on Jesus' resurrection, right up to the moment the Sanhedrin stoned him (Acts 7).

In addition, several extra-biblical writers attested to the fact that eye-witnesses died insisting they had seen Jesus, alive and well, after a crucifixion that should have left Him unrecognizably disfigured.

Clement of Rome reported the deaths of Peter and Paul.

Ignatius, Polycarp, Dionysius of Corinth, Tertullian, and Origen all affirmed that people died because of their belief they had seen Jesus resurrected.

While many may die for a belief, these are martyrs who died for what they claimed they saw. They had no reason to lie. Saying Jesus had not risen would have given them a chance for a relatively peaceful, prosperous life. Insisting He was raised brought them multiple scourgings, imprisonments, and horrific deaths.

The testimony is unanimous. Whether the other Apostles proclaimed it, or Paul himself, so they preached, and so the Church believed (1 Corinthians 15:11).

Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no gospel at all (1 Corinthians 15:12-13), and we are of all men most vain and miserable (1 Corinthians 15:14-19).

Jesus lived, was crucified, raised on the third day, and was seen by many. The Jewish authorities tried to cover it up with money. The Roman government tried to silence it with violence.

Modern skeptics try to argue it away.

But there is no theory that can explain the eye-witness accounts except that Jesus really was resurrected.

Because of He Lives, we can have hope that we, too, will rise one day and meet Him.

The Basis of the Resurrection of our Physical Bodies from the dead is Christ’s Resurrection

1 Corinthians 15:20 NASB95PARA

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.

We are reminded with a sigh of relief, Christ is risen from the dead. He is risen indeed. As such He is the firstfruits from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20).

The Feast of the firstfruits was celebrated the day after the Sabbath after the Passover, and no further atoning sacrifice was necessary because the Passover lamb had just been sacrificed.

In Greek the idea of firstfruits carries the idea of His having paid our entrance fee. Jesus is the firstfruits, the first sheaf offered in anticipation of the full harvest, the first resurrected as the forerunner of our own resurrection.

The first man Adam, the representative head of the human race, ushered in death through sin. In a passage which echoes Romans 5:12-21, Christ is seen as the new representative head of the human race as the firstfruits from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:21-23).

Truly He is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).

Yet the resurrection of believers must await His second coming (1 Corinthians 15:23).

Jesus must reign until He has crushed all His enemies under His feet, and the very last enemy that will be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). Then comes the end (1 Corinthians 15:24; 1 Corinthians 15:28).

Paul owned this as his gospel (2 Timothy 2:8),

2 Timothy 2:8 NASB95PARA

Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel,

and was willing to suffer for it, as were all the other witnesses.

Those who deny the truth of the resurrection (resurrection of Jesus and the bodily resurrection of those who are found by faith in Him) are teaching a different gospel to that which we find in the New Testament.

Three Traits of the Gospel

It is Historical

The first is the historicity of the gospel. The gospel is about history. It presents the events that took place at a certain time (2,000 years ago) and in a certain place (Palestine).

The gospel is not a presentation of ideas about God, but a record of what he has done to redeem a people to himself.

That is why when we recite of the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, which churches continue to profess over the centuries, we are proclaiming with the saints of all ages the truth of the Gospel...“in Jesus Christ, his only Son, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried… the third day he rose again from the dead…”

If these events did not occur, there is no gospel; there is no Christianity; there is no salvation. Prove that Jesus did not live, or that he was not crucified or that he did not rise from the dead – prove any of these things, then Christianity topples to the ground. It is Historical....

It is Simple

Jesus died for our sins; he was buried; he was raised from the dead.

What Jesus Christ accomplished; how he accomplished it; how it affects all mankind and all creation; what it teaches about God and about man – these things are too deep for us to ever explore and understand fully.

But you don’t need to be a scholar to know the simple truth of the gospel; you don’t have to travel to a sacred land or find a holy guru; You don’t have to learn Greek or Hebrew - you don’t even have to be very old to understand that Jesus died for your sins as a substitute and rose victorious from the grave as the first fruit.

Scripture is like a river again, broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.

That translates the Latin original, included here with more context (note the bold words):

Habet in publico unde parvulos nutriat, servat in secreto unde mentes sublimium in admiratione suspendat. Quasi quidam quippe est fluvius ut ita dixerim planus et altus in quo et agnus ambulet, et elephas natet.

Cf. John Moorhead (Gregory the Great [Routledge, 2005], pp. 21, 161n41):

It is Historical. It is Simple. It is Good New.

It is Good News

Finally, consider the good news of the gospel. Jesus died for our sins. He died to free us from the guilt of our sins. For us! He is not some superero who lay down his life for a noble cause.

His death won for us victory over our own death. We no longer must fear the punishment that once awaited us on account of our sins. Why? Because Jesus took the punishment on the cross. That is what his death was about. And we know that he was successful.

1 Corinthians 15:54–57 NASB95PARA

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about 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.

How? Because on the third day he was raised from the dead. By whom? By God the Father, who accepted his Son’s sacrifice - his “work” on behalf of those he came to seek and to save, and he raised him to glory and is seated now at the righteous right hand of God.

God accepted the completed work of Christ...

And so we know the victory for us is won. We are saved! We are redeemed; set free from bondage; raised from death to life.

That is the good news of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.

The gospel is not limited to getting us into the kingdom and then we have to carry on the work of pleasing God.

The gospel is what takes us through our earthly lives until we are glorified.

Our sins continue to be forgiven because of the death and resurrection of our Lord. Our favor with God is secured only in the work of Jesus Christ. Never, never forget the gospel that saves and sustains you.

Jesus died for our sins; he was buried; and, praise God, on the third day he was raised from the dead that we might live in the newness of the resurrection life today and tomorrow and for all eternity.

It is Christ’s resurrection that is the cornerstone of the gospel and without it there is no gospel.

The Resurrection Cornerstone

Without belief in the resurrection salvation cannot be received.

Romans 10:9 NASB95PARA

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

The doctrinal problems Paul focuses on here is not the Corinthians’ disbelief in Christ’s resurrection but confusion about their own after the pattern of Christ.

Paul was not trying to convince them that Christ rose from the dead, but that one day they, too, would be raised with Him to eternal life - body and soul.

The Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter XXXII—Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead

CHAPTER XXXII—Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead

1. The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption: (Gen. 3:19, Acts 13:36) but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them: (Luke 23:43, Eccl. 12:7) the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. (Heb. 12:23, 2 Cor. 5:1,6,8, Phil. 1:23, Acts 3:21, Eph. 4:10) And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. (Luke 16:23–24, Acts 1:25, Jude 6–7, 1 Pet. 3:19) Beside these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none.

2. At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: (1 Thess. 4:17, 1 Cor. 15:51–52) and all the dead shall be raised up, with the self-same bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall be united again to their souls for ever. (Job 19:26–27, 1 Cor. 15:42–44)

Do you call yourself a Christian?

What does that mean? One who is trusting in Christ? for what? for your salvation from condemnation and eternal death.

It is not possible to be a Christian and NOT believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Do you believe this?”

1 Corinthians 15:16–19 NASB95PARA

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

The resurrection is at the center of every other truth Christ taught. He taught His disciples that

Mark 8:31 NASB95PARA

And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

He said,

John 11:25 NASB95PARA

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,

The first two sermons preached after Pentecost both focused on the resurrection of Christ (Acts 2:14-36; 3:12-26).

Because of that truth the followers of Jesus Christ crucified were turned into courageous witnesses and martyrs who, in a few years, spread the gospel across the Roman empire and beyond.

Belief in the resurrection, the truth that this life is only a prelude to the life to come for those who trust in Jesus Christ, could not be erased by ridicule, prison, torture, or even death. No fear or dread in this life could quench the hope and joy of assurance of the resurrection life.

New Testament Christianity is a religion of the resurrection - the resurrection of Christ from the dead - the resurrection of all those who have died, will die while trusting in Him - the resurrection and the life.

Without the resurrection salvation could not have been provided.

Without belief in the resurrection salvation cannot be received

Admitting the resurrection of Christ is inconsistent with denying the resurrection of the dead.

Denying the resurrection of the dead involves denying the resurrection of Christ

1 Corinthians 15:12–13 NASB95PARA

Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised;

John 20:29–31 NASB95PARA

Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

Muslims do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus because they do not believe Jesus died. They do not believe Jesus was crucified, but was taken to heaven by Allah. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the most central doctrine of the Christian faith. Therefore, it can never be said in truth that Christians and Muslims have a common faith