Sunday Morning Service

I Corinthians 15:1-20 (Click scripture reference for audio access)

“The Resurrection” • 1.13.13 • Calvary Christian Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service

Intro.

- The Apostle Paul, founder of the Corinthian church, is nearing the end of his corrective letter to the Corinthians, leaving the subject of doctrinal error as the last stop on his tour de force.

- It is easy to see how the resurrection could become a dispensable doctrine given the division that the Corinthians had given themselves to.

- They must have thought at some time, "Let's not appear unwise to the world. The resurrection is a bit much after all for the world to swallow."

- It may be that you face a similar cross road with your friends when you share the gospel. Maybe there is a tendency, however slight, to minimize the resurrection.

- I join with Paul and pray that you'll feel differently after the examination of our text today. Paul tell us that the resurrection of Christ is

I. Emphatic Point Of The Gospel  (v.1-4)

II. Established By Eyewitness Accounts (v.5-11)

III. Essential To All Christian Hope  (v.12-20)

Text

I. Emphatic Point Of The Gospel  (v.1-4)

• I Corinthians 15:1,2 : "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain." : "I declare to you the gospel." Just in case you need a refresher. Just in case there is any confusion. Let me lay it out for you again just as I preached it to you then.

- Moreover connects us to the concept of decency and order. He is setting their minds in order regarding the doctrine of the resurrection.

- The language indicates that he had preached this gospel to them repeatedly. They needed to hear it often and we need to hear it often as well.

- What is the gospel? The simple definition is that it means "good news." Good news is only good relative to the bad news.

- The bad news is that every man and woman on the Earth is naturally separated from God because of their original state of sin and their daily practice of sin.

- A person is not condemned simply because of his sins, like stealing or adultery. These are symptoms that stem from their primary sinful position.

- The primary sin is a rejection of God's rightful place as King and ruler over a person's life. This ends with the person rejecting God's way of salvation, blaspheming God and doing it "their way!"

- The good news then is that if a person puts their trust in a crucified, buried and resurrected Christ, they can be saved from their sin and look forward to eternal life! That is the gospel!

- The Gospel is that God wins! The Gospel is that we can be free from sin's slavery. The Gospel is that a champion has won a battle that we had no power to fight! Good news indeed!

- Paul tells us that the gospel is a declaration. To present the gospel is not an invitation to debate the facts. It is something that you declare. Knowledge is imparted to another person.

- Someone making such a declaration would be one who was giving news, such as an ancient evangel who declared news of victory from the war front to the battalion fighting in the trenches!

- When we present the gospel, a transfer of information has been given by the one who possesses that knowledge, to one who does not or who does not clearly understand.

- Your job ends there. What happens after that period belongs in the capable hands of God's Holy Spirit. Sometimes the facts of the gospel are denied or disbelieved.

- In the case of the Corinthians, it had the most positive response, in that they had received it!

- Hearing the gospel is not enough. Listening clearly is not enough. Even agreement or assent to the facts is not enough. The gospel is only effective when it is received!

- Receiving the gospel means that one has taken this declaration and made it a personal belief that then becomes the center of their actions. They have taken it to themselves.

- This is a one time reception, but a full time commitment, for once this information is received it must be that the person then stands or is established in it!

- I am established in the gospel. It is more than a belief that I embrace. The gospel for a Christian is a belief that defines them! That's establishment!

- And what a promise for those who enter into that: You are saved! You are preserved. You are kept. There is not another doctrine that carries such eternal weight.

- What a person believes relative to the gospel determines the state of their soul! The Corinthians were saved, the proof being if they held fast to what was preached to them!

- Many have believed in a moment, perhaps overwhelmed with emotion or looking for an escape from their problems.

- There are some who believe in a moment or make a short life change, but then fail to endure in believing the gospel. That is what it means to believe in vain!

- Please understand this: Paul is not saying that a person who establishes themselves in the gospel will fail to hold fast.

- He is saying that one who casually believes will not abide and will then be one who has believed in vain. Their little time of belief will not settle them in heaven after death.

- For God's part of salvation, it is a sure thing: Those who He predestines, He preserves and presents in heaven! For humans, those who believe and trust Jesus every day, are saved!

• I Corinthians 15:3,4 : "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures," : Here is the crux of the gospel that the Corinthians received from the Apostle Paul. As an Apostle, this is not technically "Paul's gospel." It's God's gospel entrusted to Paul and to the church!

- It begins first with the fact that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, died for our sins.

- If you are a Christian here today, Christ died on account of the sins that you committed in your past, the sins you will commit today and the sins that you will commit tomorrow!

- For a believer, His death pays what you could not have paid. His death was a loving, voluntary, substitution required by the justice of God.

- We sang it this morning: "Because a sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free; For God, the Just, is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me!"

- Christ's death carries the greatest significance in history! He died for the sins of every believer that will ever live, notice, according to the scriptures.

- In the Old Testament, there are both prophecies and pictures that speak of Christ's death. A prophecy that Paul might have considered is Psalm 22:16-18.

- That section describes crucifixion hundreds of years before it's invention and the scene at the cross where Jesus is surrounded by those who hate Him and those who cast lots for His clothes!

- Micah 5:2 speaks of where He will be born. Isaiah 7:14 predicts His virgin birth. Hosea 11:1 tells us that He would come out of Egypt. Look for their fulfillment in Matthew 1:22-Matthew 2.

- The Messiah would be betrayed according to Psalm 41:9, falsely accused in Psalm 35:11, crucified with criminals in Isaiah 53:12 and would die without a broken bone in Psalm 34:20.

- Those are just a few of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. I have shared 7. There are about 300! That's just the specific prophecies.

- The chances of one man fulfilling just 8 have been calculated to be 10 with 28 zeros behind it! You have a better chance of being hit by lightning or winning the lottery!

- But these are just the prophecies. Jesus is the innocent sacrifice that spared Adam and Eve and that was accepted on Abel's behalf. He is the Lamb that would be provided instead of Isaac!

- Jesus is the Passover Lamb whose blood caused the Angel to Passover the houses of those who believed in Egypt. He is the Lamb of the day of Atonement.

- Jesus died and was buried, then resurrected the third day, again, according to the scriptures. Psalm 16:10, the most clear of the verses, says that God would not allow His Holy One to see decay.

- Additionally, Hosea 13:14 tells of God's victory over the grave and death.

- There are also pointed pictures that are presented in the Old Testament that speak of the resurrection. I refer you to Abraham and Isaac's journey to God's mountain.

- God had called Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the altar on a mountain that He would reveal to him. Before he left his servants, Abraham said this to them:

• Genesis 22:5 : "And Abraham said to his young men, 'Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you."

- Later in Romans 4:17, Paul comments that this trip to sacrifice his only son did not deter Abraham's faith in God's ability to bring life from death.

- All of Genesis 22 is a prophetic drama concerning Christ's death and resurrection!

- A second scriptural picture comes from the story of the Prophet Jonah that Jesus gives fulfillment to in Matthew 12:38-40, where Jesus explicitly says that He will be in the earth for 3 days!

- The resurrection is a part of the gospel message and just as scriptural as His death! Corinthians, you cannot get away from it! The gospel without the resurrection is not the gospel!

II. Established By Eyewitness Accounts (v.5-11)

• I Corinthians 15:5-8 : "and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time." Beyond scriptural precedent, there are actual witnesses! Jesus, post resurrection, appeared physically to Peter and then the rest of the disciples.

- By declaring this, any one listening could verify this account by questioning any of the Apostles that were still living. They were eyewitnesses and they were not the only ones.

- At one point, Jesus appeared to over 500 at one time, many of whom were still alive for questioning at the time of this writing.

- Perhaps it could be true that the disciples conjured up a scheme regarding a resurrected Messiah. It's theoretically possible that the 12 shared some common vision, but 500 people?

- That takes more faith than I possess! Jesus lives and real people attested to that fact.

- James and the Apostles, presumably those from the church of Jerusalem, saw Jesus and then, as if late to the party, Paul saw Jesus on the Damascus road.

- You must understand that Paul is not simply boasting. The resurrection is a legally satisfied event of history!

- The Jews needed two or three witnesses to establish something as legally true. The resurrection, apart from the unnamed and unnumbered apostles, was witnessed by 515 people!

- Paul's note regarding the fact that these witnesses could be called is especially damning to those who are skeptical of Christ's resurrection.

- The religious leaders of this time had the best chance of squashing the resurrection and Christianity forever. They had the most to benefit from and not one witness recanted their belief.

- In fact, most died grisly deaths for what they believed about Jesus, but none denied the truth!

• I Corinthians 15:9-11 : "For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed." : Paul had seen Jesus but he viewed himself as one of the least of the Apostles.

- In fact, because of his past, Paul felt keenly that he would not have called him if he had been God, but by the grace of God, he was an Apostle.

- The facts of the matter are plain: If not for God's gracious operation toward you, there would be nothing redeemable about you! It's by His grace that you are what you are as well!

- God's grace was not in vain and that principle of grace worked through Paul to produce an amazing amount of work that rivaled that of any of the other Apostles.

- Because of God's work through Paul and the Apostolic band, there was a declaration and there was belief! The Corinthians had believed the testimony of the Apostle.

- His point is this: Only a resurrected Christ could have stopped Him from being a persecutor! Only a resurrected Christ could have changed His life!

- And only a resurrected Christ could have kept Paul in Corinth so that He would preach and they would believe! Do you remember?

- Turn to Acts 18. Paul has come from the Aeropagus, Mars Hill, and things didn't go so well. Additionally, he was alone and coming into a great city of wickedness known as Corinth.

- Not too long into his stay, things had already begun to go south as Paul was again expelled from another synagogue. 

- God has been working, there has been some success, but Paul knows that confrontation is coming and he's not looking forward to it. He's worried and filled with fear. Enter Jesus.

• Acts 18:9-11 : "Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, 'Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you; for I have many people in this city.'  And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them." : It was a resurrected Jesus who met with Paul and encouraged him to stay in Corinth!

- The implication is that if it was not for the Lord's intervention, Paul might have left! He stayed, he preached, they believed and so things were!

III. Essential To All Christian Hope  (v.12-20)

• I Corinthians 15:12 : "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?" : The Corinthians had received this air tight gospel. This is what had saved them. This is what all of the Christian churches held to.

- How is it that there was a contingent loud enough in their presence to deny a bodily resurrection? They were denying the possibility that a resurrection of any body was possible.

- In Greek culture, the popular belief was that only the spirit of a person lived on, but that the body was of no importance.

- As with many philosophies in life, there are unintended consequences that they may not have realized. The embrace of this philosophy made the resurrection of Christ an impossibility!

- They might have argued that it was His spirit that was raised, while His body was left in the ground, a theory that was thoroughly just decimated by the facts! 

- It also opened the door for them to cast off restraint regarding their own bodies. This might have been an early adoption of what would later be known as "Gnosticism."

- So, you might ask what the difference is? What does it matter if Jesus rose bodily or if He rose from dead spiritually? It turns out that this carries tremendous weight.

• I Corinthians 15:13-19 : "But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise.  For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." : Consider the ramifications of this belief in two sections beginning with the same premise. If there is no resurrection then Christ is not risen.

- Paul repeats this twice, first in verse 13 and again in verse 16. The first result of such an idea is vanity. Emptiness.

- If Christ is not risen, the Apostles are calling people to believe and trust in someone who does not exist to help them. That is bad enough, but what about those that believe?

- They have believed something that has no value to them at all! Which is worse?

- The second result is disillusionment. Beyond being deceived, as some would be, some Apostles then were actual falsely testifying! The Apostles would be liars!

- Vanity, disillusionment and futility. The Corinthian faith was futile and the people that they hoped to see who had died in the Lord, were gone forever!

- Everything that held them together when they watched their loved ones pass, would be robbed, as if there is no life in Christ, there is no life after death! What comfort would there be?

- The way that Paul writes this lets us know that there were those that had died and affected the body in Corinth. Some would maintain that they went to heaven, but without a resurrection?

- If the resurrection is not true, then we are the most pitiful of creatures! We are living a vain, futile, hopeless life! We might as well eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!

- Thankfully, the Lord moves Paul to write the next line!

• I Corinthians 15:20 : "But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." : There is no dispute. There is no doubt. Jesus has risen and that's the guarantee that all who have died in Christ will rise as well!

Conclusion
- Without Christ's resurrection, the gospel is powerless, because a Savior who cannot rise from death cannot promise to save from it! The resurrection is the emphatic point of the gospel.

- There is enough historical evidence to provide legal precendence to the resurrection. I don't just "feel" like the resurrection is true. The resurrection is established by eyewitness accounts!

- Everything I believe about all of my Christian friends who have died is true. I know that when I die I'll go to heaven, because of Christ's resurrection, your hope and mine is secure!

- Christ's resurrection is essential to our hope! Thank God for the truth of His resurrection!