The Resurrection
Jeffery Anselmi / General
Core 52 / Resurrection / 1 Corinthians 15:14
We are in trouble if the resurrection did not happen
INTRODUCTION
- What is one thing that most people fear as they get closer to the end of their life?
- For me, it was the thought of not existing.
- We get to live this incredible life and experience many great things; one day, it is over.
- I used to dwell on this even when I was young.
- The thought of dying and it all being over had always bothered me.
- To me, it seems like such a waste to live life, and then it is all over; you die and no longer exist.
- In the end, life will be void of meaning and purpose.
- Death would seem to be the end, the final part of life.
- How is that thought for some encouragement today?
- Today, we will come to the final message in our Beyond Belief mini-series.
- We saved the best for last; our subject is the resurrection.
- What is death is not the end, but rather a new beginning?
- What if death is not the final journey but the beginning of a new eternal journey?
- When we start looking at things that can be beyond belief, the claims the Bible makes that Jesus rose from the dead may be one of the most difficult for folks to believe.
- How many of us have seen someone raised from the dead?
- The resurrection of Jesus is also one of the most attacked events in the Bible.
- That is understandable; the event is incredible in itself, and if you are a follower of another religion or if you are a god unto yourself, the resurrection would have to make you think about your position.
- The resurrection of Jesus is one of the Bible's foundational truths and is a central part of our faith.
- We see serious implications if the resurrection did happen and if it did not occur
- The resurrection is a foundational truth of the Christian faith that has the power to transform lives.
- Without resurrection, there would be some serious implications for humanity.
- Context of 1 Corinthians 15:14 - Paul's letter to the Corinthian church addresses the importance of resurrection.
- We are in trouble if the resurrection did not happen.
- Let's turn to our main passage today.
1 Corinthians 15:14 (NET 2nd ed.)
14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty.
SERMON
I. The reality of the resurrection.
- In the first four verses of Chapter 15, Paul argues that the resurrection is a central part of the gospel message.
1 Corinthians 15:1–4 (NET 2nd ed.)
1 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand,
2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I passed on 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,
- Verse four punctuates the point of the importance of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.
- In verse 1, we are told that this GOSPEL, which when received and stood upon saves us!
- The message was that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures.
- Verses 5-8 list a few of the appearances of the resurrected Jesus!
1 Corinthians 15:5–8 (NET 2nd ed.)
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6 Then he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.
- 1 Corinthians was written around 57 AD. Jesus died and was raised in 30 AD, and it had been over 25 years since the resurrection.
- Some people, for whatever reason, most likely due to societal pressures, were starting to doubt the possibility of resurrection.
- Paul wanted the people to remember that many saw Jesus after the resurrection!
- These were objective appearances, the figment of someone's imagination.
- Paul offers a list of those who would have been known to the Corinthian church, and these are not all who saw Jesus, but a fraction of the appearances.
Acts 1:3 (NET 2nd ed.)
3 To the same apostles also, after his suffering, he presented himself alive with many convincing proofs. He was seen by them over a forty-day period and spoke about matters concerning the kingdom of God.
- The Acts passage tells us that Jesus appeared to the Apostles!
- Mark Moore points our four things that history says concerning the resurrection of Jesus.
- First, Jesus died by crucifixion; He did not escape from the cross alive.
- This is the unanimous testimony not only of the biblical authors (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, and the author of Hebrews) but also of the ancient historians Josephus1 and Tacitus.
- If the Jewish leaders believed Jesus was a threat, they would certainly have handed him over to the Roman governor for execution.
- Moore, Mark E.. Core 52: A Fifteen-Minute Daily Guide to Build Your Bible IQ in a Year (p. 298). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- The second fact is that the tomb was empty.
- Most affirm this fact; however, why the tomb was empty has been debated.
- There are various explanations as to why the tomb was empty; however, none of them are plausible.
- Someone stealing the dead body is not feasible because the body was under heavy Roman guard, as well as the fact that the disciples were terrified.
- The Jews would not have stolen the body because they would have been considered unclean.
- Had the Jews taken the body, they would have produced the body once the church got off the ground.
- Had the Disciples taken the body, they would have died for a lie.
- The third fact is the Apostles believed that Jesus appeared to them in bodily form after the burial.
- These men went from hiding in fear during the crucifixion to just days later boldly preaching Him resurrected in the streets of Jerusalem.
- Because of their encounters with the resurrected Jesus, these men were transformed and finally understood what Jesus had taught them throughout His time with them.
- The fourth thing history shows is the Christian Church was founded.
- Mark Moore states the following.
- Every Jewish movement in the first century died with its founder or continued only under the leadership of his next of kin.
- With Jesus, we have a messianic leader who was arrested and then crucified—the most ignominious punishment available.
- This destroyed all hope that Jesus was any kind of Messiah the Jewish leaders could have imagined (Luke 24:21).
- Yet fifty days later, the church exploded in the very city where Jesus had been executed. Moreover, the dreaded
- Moore, Mark E.. Core 52: A Fifteen-Minute Daily Guide to Build Your Bible IQ in a Year (p. 300). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- I will let you read more details in your reading this week.
- History tells us that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected!
- Let's look at our passage again.
1 Corinthians 15:14 (NET 2nd ed.)
14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty.
II. The implications resulting from Jesus not being resurrected.
- Had the resurrection of Jesus been a lie or a hoax, there are some negative implications.
- If Jesus is still dead in some grave somewhere, Paul lays out some consequences for us.
- The first one found in verse 14 is…
A. Our preaching is worthless.
- The word translated futile speaks of something void of any benefit, vain, futile, hollow, devoid of any reality, worthless, useless, false, void of meaning.
- I think you get the picture.
- Without the resurrection, we need not be here because the message would have no power.
- If Christ had not been raised, the message of the gospel has no power; there is nothing to it, and we would be just another false religion offering false hope.
- There are a couple of reasons our preaching would be worthless.
- First of all…
1. We would be false witnesses of God.
- Paul says if we are proclaiming that God did something He did not do, then we (Christians) are false witnesses.
1 Corinthians 15:15 (NET 2nd ed.)
15 Also, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified against God that he raised Christ from the dead, when in reality he did not raise him, if indeed the dead are not raised.
- If we say God did something He did not do, then we are offering false testimony concerning God.
- The Gospel is built on the resurrection of Jesus, and without the resurrection, the Bible is a lie as well as our message.
- Without the resurrection being true, the Bible itself would be false.
- The Apostles would be the biggest liars had they made up a story knowing He did not raise from the dead.
- What changed the Apostle Paul from a Jewish Pharisee who hunted down Christians to a man who wrote a large chunk of our New Testament?
- He has an encounter with the resurrected Jesus!
- How else do you explain Paul's conversion?
- We also see that…
2. If the dead are not raised, neither was Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15:12–13 (NET 2nd ed.)
12 Now if Christ is being preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
- If there is no resurrection, then Jesus was never raised, yet the Bible teaches that He was.
- Worshipping a dead savior is a waste of time.
- Now, if Jesus had not been raised from the dead, the next negative consequence would be
B. Our faith is worthless.
- No resurrection means no power, no victory over death.
- The lack of a resurrection has many far-reaching effects that render our faith worthless.
- By the way, the word translated empty in this part of verse 14 is the same word translated as futile in the verse.
- Here are three negative impacts we would experience that would render our faith as empty or worthless.
1. We are still dead in our sins.
1 Corinthians 15:17 (NET 2nd ed.)
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins.
- Here is the same thought as in verse 14, but it comes with why our faith would be useless; we would be still in our sins.
- One of the reasons we need Jesus is that His blood forgives our sins.
- If Jesus died and did not rise, our sins would not be atoned for.
- Another implication is:
2. Those who have died in Christ have perished.
1 Corinthians 15:18 (NET 2nd ed.)
18 Furthermore, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished.
- The word "PERISH" is usually a term used for those who are not in Christ.
- The verb tense pictures something final.
- The word does not mean annihilation but rather a state of damnation.
- It means being consigned to hell.
- We do cease to exist; we would be eternally separated from God.
- Through the resurrection, He defeated death!
- A final bit of bad news for us if Jesus is still dead is:
3. We are to be pitied for believing a lie.
1 Corinthians 15:19 (NET 2nd ed.)
19 For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone.
- If we only had Jesus in this life to cling to, we would have placed our fate in a lie.
- To live and die without God and hope in this world would be a sad way to go.
- Everything we believe in means nothing if there is no resurrection.
- We all wasted our time and our money on something that was not true.
CONCLUSION
- All of Christianity rises and falls with the resurrection.
- Without the resurrection, our faith in God, His church, and eternal life has no foundation.
- We are just another group of people following some cleverly devised tales; we might as well have had a holy salamander give us the Gospel.
- As we look at Paul's implications, it is very apparent that Jesus's resurrection is indeed the foundation of the Gospel.
- If you believe that God sent His Son to die to redeem us from the curse of sin, if you believe there is a God in heaven and that Jesus was His one and only Son, then you only have one logical choice to make today: that is to give your life to Him!
- The good news is that Jesus was raised from the tomb!
- The good news is that we do not have to suffer an eternity away from Him.
- Because He lives, we can claim all the promises in the Bible if we belong to Him and live for Him.
- The resurrection of Jesus makes it possible for you to enjoy the bounties of heaven.
- It allows you the opportunity to have a new start, to start all over again with a clean slate.
- For those immersed in the kingdom of God, are you living like you believe it?
