Easter’s Resurrection Promise
1 Corinthians 15
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Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won the PGA Championship and had 10 tournament victories. In his book, “Zinger,” he wrote about his battle with cancer.
He said, “A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live.”
He then remembered something Larry Moody, who taught a Bible study on the PGA Tour, had said to him. “Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living, going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying, trying to get to the land of the living.”
That’s what Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, is all about. It is God’s way for humanity to be reconciled to Him, to take them from the land of the dying, as the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death,” to the land of the living, as it goes on to say, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 NKJV)
Jesus said, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?” (Luke 9:25), or, as He said in Mark 8:36, “and loses his own soul?”
If it is possible to live forever, then there’s no more important or relevant issue than this. Since we are all going to die, can we live again? The Apostle Paul seems to grasp this idea in this observation.
“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” (1 Corinthians 15:19 NKJV) In other words, we’re to be pitied more than all men.
If it is true that life in this world is coming to an end, and there is no hope for life after the grave, then our life here on earth is lived in futility. But for those who believe in Jesus, who have made Him Savior and Lord, there is the hope of life beyond this realm, and for them, hope truly springs eternal.
Vance Havner, a preacher and Bible scholar from the 1900s, said, “The hope of dying is the only thing that keeps me alive.”
This is the good news of Easter, the day Jesus rose from the dead.
Now, in 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul addresses some important questions about life after death.
Is There Life After Death?
The answer is yes, and the resurrection of Jesus proves it beyond a doubt.
Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-7
In the Old Testament, Isaiah spoke not only of the Messiah’s death but also of His resurrection.
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” (Isaiah 53:4-7)
It goes on to say, “For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked--but with the rich at His death.” (Isaiah 53:8b-9a NKJV)
Now, so far, all we’ve seen in this passage is His death. But then it goes on to say, “He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.” (Isaiah 53:10b-11a NKJV)
Jesus’s death was no accident; His death was deliberate. He offered His life as the perfect sacrifice for sin, and in doing so became our substitute.
Again, I go back to Romans 6:23 that states, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 NKJV)
Jesus died on the cross and was buried. But it wasn’t permanent. Instead, we could say that Jesus was laid in a borrowed tomb, and the only reason you borrow something is that you’re going to use it temporarily. This is what Jesus did: on the third day, He rose from the dead and came out of the tomb.
This reminds me of a story I heard. During Easter, a children’s ministry showed an animated movie of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. After Jesus died on the cross and was placed in the tomb, one little boy who knew the story turned to his friend he had brought and said, “He’s dead now, but he’ll be back.”
Jesus rose from the dead, alive and well, emerging from the tomb. When the women came to the tomb on the third day to anoint His body, they found the tomb empty. Amid their confusion, an angel said, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!” (Luke 24:5b-6a NKJV)
The Apostle Paul shares that the resurrection of Jesus is a verifiable fact. Not only was he a witness to this fact, but so were the disciples and more than 500 others. In a court of law, such eyewitness testimony is sufficient evidence of fact.
When I went to school, there was quite a bit of discussion about whether we would ever send a man to the moon. Then, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon's surface. Afterwards, there was no further discussion because we all saw it, and the demonstration eliminated the need for further discussion.
And so, the resurrection proves that there is life after death.
This was Paul’s whole point as he went on to say, “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?” (1 Corinthians 15:12 NKJV)
Now look at what Paul goes on to say. “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.” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14 NKJV)
But the demonstration and the witness testimony that Jesus rose from the dead ended the discussion. Therefore, those who have faith in Jesus Christ, those who believe in Him, shall never truly die, but have everlasting life.
This was Jesus’s whole point when He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26 NKJV)
And then He asks all of us this question, the most important question we could ever be asked, “Do you believe this?” And then He raised Lazarus from the dead; end of discussion.
Winston Churchill arranged his funeral to emphasize this belief. After the benediction, a bugler played Taps, the universal signal that the day was over. But then, immediately following, another bugler played Reveille, the universal signal that a new day had dawned.
In other words, “While it’s Good Night down here on earth, it’s Good Morning in Heaven.”
This leads me to the second question that Paul answers.
What is Life After Death Like?
Paul goes on to describe exactly what life after death will look like through Jesus’s resurrection.
“But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Corinthians 15:20 NKJV)
The term “firstfruits” not only means the best of the harvest but also serves as an example of what was to follow. In other words, if you want to know what it’s like to die and live again, look at the resurrection of Jesus. He was and is the first fruit from the dead.
Looking at Jesus’s death and resurrection, the first thing we see is the separation of the body and the spirit. Just before Jesus died on the cross, he cried out, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Then he took his last breath (Luke 23:46 NKJV).
And so, while His body went into the tomb, His spirit went into Paradise, just as He told the thief on the cross, “Today you’ll be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) Today, Paradise is in Heaven. If Jesus is the example we follow, when we die our bodies remain on earth, but our soul and spirit will be in heaven in the presence of the Lord, as the Apostle Paul was extremely confident about and assured of.
He said, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8 NKJV)
Pastor Robert Russell tells the story of his father’s death. There was so much snow that a funeral procession was impossible. The funeral director said they would take his father’s body to the gravesite and bury him. But Russell gathered six of his relatives, and they all hopped into a four-wheel drive vehicle and plowed their way to the cemetery. They then carried his father’s coffin to the grave and watched it lowered as the wind and snow howled around them.
At the end, Russell prayed, “Lord, this is such a cold and lonely place. But I thank you that to be absent from the body is to be present in your warm embrace.”
As Paul said, “If our hope is in this life only, then we’re the most miserable of all people.” (1 Corinthians 15:19 paraphrase)
But there is more, and this is where it gets really exciting! And that’s because the time of the resurrection is coming. After three days, Jesus re-inhabited His body and left the tomb.
It was once explained to me this way. Just as a hand animates a glove, so the spirit energizes the body. When the spirit departs the body, the body becomes like a lifeless glove. But the glove, while put away, will one day come back to life when the hand reenters.
And in the same way, so will all who believe in Christ.
Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.” (John 5:25 NKJV)
Many say this is nothing more than wishful thinking, pie-in-the-sky kind of stuff, because something like this is impossible. But now consider this: if God has the power to make something out of nothing and to make Adam from the dust of the earth, then He certainly has the power to recreate our dead and decomposed bodies, because nothing is too hard for God and nothing is impossible with Him.
When Jesus came to Lazarus’s grave, He commanded that the tomb be opened. But Lazarus’s sister, Martha, objected, saying, “Oh no, He’s been dead for four days. It stinks in there,” or, better, “His body is already decomposing.” I love the way it reads in the King James version. It says, “by this time he stinketh.”
But Jesus told Martha that if she would just believe, she would see the glory of God. After they removed the stone, Jesus called out, “Lazarus, come forth.” And out from the grave he came. (End of discussion!)
And this will be the way it is for all who believe today.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NKJV)
And Paul ends by saying, “Comfort one another with these words.”
Paul then answers the next question.
How Are the Dead Raised?
Since the dead will be raised, what will that look like? Will we look like the walking dead or like one of the backup dancers in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video? Again, I go back to Jesus as the firstfruit, for the example of our resurrections.
God set this question in the natural order of how things work. Take a seed and bury it in the ground. There, it decomposes, and in a couple of weeks, a green shoot pushes up through the earth. In the same way, one day our dead and decomposed bodies will hear the voice of Jesus calling us, and we’ll rise up, no longer having a natural body but a heavenly one.
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44 NKJV)
Now, that’s good news. Think about it. If you’re old, have arthritis, and wear a hearing aid, you don’t want to pick up where you left off. No, instead, you will be given a brand-new body, a spiritual body, a body made to handle heaven and the presence of God.
And so death itself is swallowed up in victory, and we can shout, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55 NKJV)
There is a song I heard last year by Mercy Me entitled “Oh Death” that speaks to this.
“Oh death, I will not be afraid
In the end you will lose
I will dance on your grave
With the One who buried you
You ain't nothing but a stone
That my Savior rolled away
Set you straight and set me free
Oh, death you are dead to me”
And it’s these last words that stuck with me when I heard it. It was, “Death you are dead to me.”
How Can We Gain Eternal Life?
Well, we can’t afford it, so we can’t buy our way into it. The Bible says that no one can redeem themselves or offer a ransom, because the redemption of our souls is far too costly (Psalm 49:7-8).
We also can’t be good enough to make it in. The Bible says, “There is no one righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10 NKJV). That’s because all have sinned and fallen short of God’s holy and righteous standards for life.
But all is not lost. As Paul points out in our text, this is what Jesus came to do.
“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:57-58 NKJV)
Conclusion
Going back to our story of Paul Azinger, he recovered and returned to the PGA Tour, where he did fairly well. But his bout with cancer deepened his perspective.
He wrote, “I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tour, and I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I’ve found the answer to the six-foot hole.”
“I know I’ll spend eternity with God, and I have a promise – that as a child of God, He’ll help me deal with anything. He promises to offer me contentment regardless of what life brings – even cancer.”
And so to our question, “If we die, can we live again?” The answer is yes. Jesus proved it, demonstrated it, and purchased it for everyone. But now the question becomes, “Do we believe it?” Now it is up to us. Will we believe it and receive it?
