The hope of all believers – eternal life vice eternal death and everlasting punishment. But our hope for our eternity is more than just for life, it is being for all eternity with Life itself – Jesus. Jesus has told us that He is the way the truth and the life (John 14:6) and Jesus Himself is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). Our eternal hope is based squarely on the resurrection of Jesus.
Our Christian hope is not mere wishing, or relying of eternal luck. Our hope is in God Himself who through out the ages have proven faithful over and over again. The biblical hope is hope in what God will do in the future. And at the heart of Christian hope is the resurrection of Jesus. Without the resurrection of Jesus, Christianity would be quite literally a dead religion and no different from all the other belief systems in the world: Mohammad is dead; Confucius is dead; Buddha is dead.
I serve a risen Savior; He’s in the world today; I know that He is living, whatever men may say; I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer, and just the time I need Him He’s always near.[1]
Hope is an encouragement to believers in the midst of suffering, but it also prevents believers from being content with present circumstances. Hope insists that Christians wait with eager longing for the great day when all of God’s promises are fulfilled.[2]
As a young man, D. L. Moody was called upon suddenly to preach a funeral sermon. He hunted all through the Four Gospels trying to find one of Christ’s funeral sermons, but searched in vain. He found that Christ broke up every funeral He ever attended. Death could not exist where He was. When the dead heard His voice they sprang to life.[3]
Between now and Easter (which is more correctly called Resurrection Day), we will be exploring 1 Corinthians 15. Here the Apostle Paul outline the Gospel itself and examines the resurrection of Jesus, for there were those who said there is no resurrection from the dead.
The Bible clearly speak of resurrection of Jesus and today’s passage talks about the proof of Jesus’s resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:1–11
Of all the things recorded in the Bible, there are three things that are hotly contested by non-believers, especially of those in the world of science:
1) The literal six days of creation, and the Bible record is that of a relatively young earth (approximately 6,000 years old).
2) The universal flood of Noah’s day (approximately 4,400 years ago according to the Biblical record).
3) The physical and bodily resurrection of Jesus.
In April 2002, the well-respected Oxford University philosophy professor Richard Swinburne used a broadly accepted probability theory to defend the truth of Christ’s resurrection. He did this at a high-profile gathering of philosophy professors at Yale University. “For someone dead for 36 hours to come to life again is, according to the laws of nature, extremely improbable,” Swinburne said. “But if there is a God of the traditional kind, natural laws only operate because he makes them operate.” Swinburne then used Bayes’ Theorem to assign values to things like the probability of God’s being real, Jesus’ behavior during his lifetime, and the quality of witness testimony after Jesus’ death. Then he plugged the numbers into a probability formula and added everything up. The result: a 97 percent probability that the resurrection really happened.[4]
Today we are going to examine the proof for the resurrection as Paul outlines the Gospel in these first 11 verses of chapter 15.
1 Corinthians 15:1–2 Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
Paul declared the Gospel to the church in Corinth. And on this truth of the Gospel, they make their stands. Paul will go on to give the Gospel again in the verses that follow, for this is not a new Gospel, they have heard it before. The gospel is unchanging. It is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago. But Paul proceeds to give them 4 different proofs of the resurrection. Proof to reinforce their holding fast.
Proof # 1 “by which also you are saved” (verse 2). Their salvation is proof. When we are saved, we receive God’s own Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and because of His presence in our lives, we know Jesus is alive.
Romans 8:16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God
Because we have the Spirit of God, we bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus. And Jesus has entrusted and given us the responsibility giving this Life-giving message of Jesus to the world.
Acts 1:8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
So this same Holy Spirit will give us the power to be Jesus’ witness to the world. And we are not a witness to a dead man.
It is in this Gospel they are to "HOLD FAST" to that word. The key word here is "IF you Hold Fast" – because the world wants to take it away. Many people believe, but few hold fast. If a person falls away from the Gospel, it questionable whether they ever truly believed the whole gospel to begin with. There is no such thing as a temporary faith or commitment.
And in context to the rest of the chapter, there is the argument that this is also in reference to those who say there is no resurrection of the dead. There are those who believe Jesus died, and yes, may even believe He died for our sins, but deny the resurrection. If you deny the resurrection, you are denying the gospel, and your faith is in vain. And here is the gospel, the whole gospel:
1 Corinthians 15:3–4 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is the whole gospel. You cannot take any part of it away and it still stand as the gospel.
Proof # 2 "according to the Scriptures" (end of both verses 3 & 4). Paul didn’t make this stuff up. It was part of the first century confession of faith. We have the testimony of OT prophecies. We must always refer to the Scriptures for matters of faith. The Old Testament Scriptures are very clear. Jesus suffered for our sins on the cross:
Isaiah 53:5–6 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
This prophecy was around 700 years old when it was fulfilled. It was clear from the OT scriptures what Jesus did for us on the cross, It was accurately portrayed in many different OT passages in detail.
Isaiah 53:9a His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death,
He was hung on the Cross between two thieves, yet He was with a rich man in His death, for only the rich had tombs.
The fact that Jesus was buried assures His death, the Romans had crucifixion down to gruesome art form. They knew when someone died. The Romans executioners knew death. There was never any doubt about the fact that Jesus died. But the OT prophecies also clearly told of the resurrection.
Psalm 16:9–10 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.
So we have the OT witness of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We also have the report of eye witnesses:
1 Corinthians 15:5–7 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;
Proof # 3 “that He appeared” (3 times in verses 5-7). He was seen by many is proof of the resurrection. Interesting that Cephas – Peter – was mentioned as the first male eyewitness – the one who had denied Jesus, Jesus allowed him to be one of the first to see Him.
One of the more compelling reasons the truth of the scripture can be believed is that in all 4 of the Gospels, the very first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus were women. In the first century, women were not considered creditable witnesses, no self-respecting Jewish writer, if the story is made up, would have written that that a woman would have been the first to see the resurrected Jesus. But the writers of the gospels wrote the truth as it happened.
Peter saw the Jesus, then the rest of the disciples, Then over 500 saw Jesus at the same time. And at the time this letter was written, about 20 years after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, most of the 500 were still alive.
Now PROOF # 4
1 Corinthians 15:8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Paul saw the resurrected Lord first hand, starting on the Damascus Road at his conversion,
“As to one untimely born” in the Greek, means one born abnormally, or not in the normal way or in the normal time. The word in the Greek is also used for premature births or an abortion Why did Paul say this?
1 Corinthians 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Paul – or rather as Saul, he persecuted the church, yet God called Paul.
1 Corinthians 15:10–11 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
But Paul, by God’s grace and great mercy was called from one of working against God to one working for God. I look at God’s call on my life. God did not call me because of who I was, He call me in spite of who I was. He called me because of who He is.
Look at the example of Paul and how he traveled more and arguably more persecuted than the other apostles. Why? Out of gratitude for what God, through Jesus had done for Him. Now His motivation has completely changed:
Philippians 3:10a that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection …
The bottom Line is in verse 11 “Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” It is not about the messenger – it is all about the message!
The message. We may not have been eye witnesses, but for those of us who are saved we have:
Proof #1 The witness of God’s Spirit to our spirit. We have a spiritual Witness.
Proof #2 The witnesses of the Old Testament Prophecies
Proof #3 The Witnesses of the Apostles and over 500 others
Proof #4 The witness of Paul himself, who saw the Lord after His ascension into heaven, and wrote more of the NT than any other.
If we have God’s witness, we have the gospel which the world needs, are we passing it on or keeping it to ourselves? There are and will be those who continue to ask for proof of the resurrection. They will ask: How do we know He lives?
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.[5]
Does He live in you today? Do you have the proof of the Spirit of the living Christ living in you?
[1] Alfred H. Ackley, 1887–1960, “He Lives,” 1933.
[2] Janet Meyer Everts, “Hope,” ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 417.
[3] Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc., 1996), 1142.
[4] Craig Brian Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2008), 27. Also see Emily Eakin, “So God’s Really in the Details?” The New York Times (May 11, 2002).
[5] Alfred H. Ackley, 1887–1960, “He Lives,” 1933.
