The Resurrection In Context of the Gospel

Transcript

GRM 1136
04/05/2015
The Resurrection in Context of the Gospel
1 Corinthians 15
Gil Rugh

The most important event that has ever occurred in the history of the world or will ever occur in the future is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Everything before that anticipated that event, everything since then is based upon what God did in Jesus Christ. No matter what we know about anything else, we must understand and know the importance and significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I want to look with you for a few minutes into 1 Corinthians 15. If you have your Bibles you can turn to 1 Corinthians 15. It is a chapter in our Bibles on the subject of the resurrection of the dead. It is not the only place the Bible talks about the resurrection of the dead, but it is the fullest discussion of that topic. The Corinthian church was in the city of Corinth, a Greek city. It is helpful to understand something of what the Greeks thought about the matter of immortality and resurrection. In Greek thinking the soul was immortal. So no problem with the Greeks talking about the immortality of the soul. But the Greeks did not believe in the resurrection of the physical body, general Greek thinking. They believed the soul would return to God, be absorbed in God upon death. They were opposed to any concept of the resurrection of the physical body because the physical body was not good. It was the cause of our problems, it was the source of evil. Remember when Paul, as recorded in Acts 17, went and spoke in the city of Athens on Mars Hill, they listened to him. But when he spoke to them about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, they began to sneer. That was not something that they could agree to.

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul is addressing the church at Corinth and is confronting an issue that had become a source of concern to him in the church at Corinth. Teachers had come into the church and were beginning to influence the thinking of the church that there was no coming bodily resurrection. And they didn't necessarily deny that Christ had come, that He had died. The issue was not really the resurrection of Jesus Christ because they could explain it away by saying, well, He was not only man but God so His resurrection was a spiritual resurrection associated with His returning to the realm of deity. Whatever their thinking, they denied bodily resurrection for believers. That's not something that is dated. That kind of thinking goes on today.

Let me read you just a couple of comments by more recent writers, more recent being within my lifetime and some of your lifetimes as well. Some of them very current. One writer wrote this about the subject of the atonement, Christ dying to pay the penalty for our sin. He said, too many theories of the atonement assume that by one single high priestly act of self-sacrifice, Christ saved the world. In other words He died, for “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, in order that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.” That concept of Christ by one sacrifice providing salvation for the world, he calls that a theological disgrace.

We'll move on a little bit to a couple of other comments. The church's fixation, and this is a different writer but a current writer, the church's fixation on the death of Jesus as the universal saving act must end and the place of the cross must be reimagined in Christian faith. Penal substitution, the idea that Christ paid the penalty for us by His death on the cross is a vile doctrine. These are from men who are part of churches, who are leaders and pastors in churches. One says substitutionary is a pre-civilized barbarity, we've outgrown it. This is by a man, he's not trying to destroy Christianity. He's trying to bring it up-to-date.

Then on the subject of the resurrection which we are focusing on today. To think that the central meaning of Easter, the resurrection, depends upon something spectacular happening to Jesus' corpse misses the point of the Easter message and risks trivializing the story. To link Easter primarily to our hope for an afterlife as if our post death existence depends upon God having transformed the corpse of Jesus is to reduce the story to a politically domesticated yearning for our survival beyond death.

Just read those as examples of the issues facing the church at Corinth 20-some years after the resurrection of Christ and they have not changed. Even within the church among people who claim to be Christians, there are those who deny the importance of bodily resurrection, the significance of Jesus dying on the cross to pay the penalty for lost sinners. So in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul addresses this, so we just want to highlight some of what he has to say here as a reminder and encouragement to us. Paul begins 1 Corinthians 15 by clarifying what is the Gospel, what we must believe to be saved. He starts out in verse 1, “Now I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached to you.” There is where we start. When I talk about the Gospel, this is what I preached to you when I came to Corinth. Secondly it's the Gospel “which you received.” They accepted it as God's plan of salvation. It's the Gospel, thirdly, “in which also you stand.” That is their present hope of their future salvation. They stand settled in that. It's the Gospel by which you are saved. This is the saving message of God. Paul in Romans 1:16, the Gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

At least four things about the Gospel. It's the Gospel which I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand. It's the Gospel by which you are saved if you hold fast this word, unless you believed in vain. Maybe that's not what you believed, maybe that's not what you trust in. That would be an empty faith. You believe something different. It's important to understand before he clarifies the Gospel here, even further, what the content of it is. There is only one Gospel. There is nothing that can be added to it. There is nothing that can be taken away from it. This is the only Gospel that saves. It's not a matter of that's how you understand it, that's how you interpret it. We must be clear on this.

Turn over to Galatians. Paul wrote to these believers in churches in the realm of Galatia where he had preached the Gospel and established churches. And he says in Galatians 1:4, that “Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us from this present evil age.” He goes on to talk about the concern he has that some in these churches are moving away from the Gospel that he preached to, a Gospel that is not the same, it's not related to what he preached. What the Galatians were doing was adding other things. This truth about Christ, we're going to add to it, you must also keep the Ten Commandments, the commandments of the Law as given to Moses. And note what Paul says here, verse 8, “Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a Gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is accursed.” Even an angel from heaven is not allowed to make any alterations or changes in this Gospel. He repeats that in verse 9. He reminds them in verse 11, “The Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. I received it neither from man nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” This is the message from Christ to us regarding salvation. Any changes in it, doesn't matter if a person says an angel appeared to me and said this, if he makes any changes or alterations in this Gospel, he will be anathema, cursed to hell.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 15. Paul reminds them it was the Gospel that these Corinthians had heard Paul preach, they had received it, they had planted themselves as those who believed in it, it was the Gospel that saved them. Verse 3, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.” This is not something I thought up, I received it. Remember we read in Galatians 1, I received it in a revelation from Christ, directly from Christ Himself. This is the content of the Gospel. There are four points that summarize the Gospel, this is what you must believe to be saved. You cannot believe anything less, this is what the problem at Corinth is, they want to take one of the points out; you can't believe anything more, that's the problem the Galatians had, they wanted to add something to it. There are four things here, each begin with the word that in your English Bible, at least if you have the same translation I do. Here is what I received: first, “that Christ died for our sins;” secondly, verse 4, “that He was buried:' thirdly in verse 4, “that He was raised on the third day;” and fourthly, verse 5, “that He appeared to Cephas” and so on.

Those are the four points that summarize the Gospel. If you believe anything less than that, you cannot be saved; if you add anything to that, you cannot be saved. We look through it, it's not a matter of your interpretation versus my interpretation versus someone else's interpretation. This is what God said. He allows no room for varying interpretation. For example the first point, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture.” I read you those who said substitutionary atonement is a vile doctrine. That person is saved? They don't believe the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ died for our sins, He was our substitute. He wasn't dying for His own sin, He came to pay the penalty for our sin. Christ died for our sin. There are people in church this morning celebrating Easter who don't believe that. You ask them, do you think you are going to go to heaven when you die? Yes. Why? I'm a good person, I do good works, I try to live by the Ten Commandments. That's not the Gospel that brings salvation, the Gospel is Christ died for our sin. The penalty for our sin is not keeping the Ten Commandments, the penalty for our sin is not trying to lead a good life. There are people who think they get baptized to be saved. The penalty for our sin is not being baptized. I hate to tell you this before I am done, but the penalty for your sin is not even listening to my sermons. Coming to church doesn't save you. Christ died for our sins and that is consistent with what the Scripture has said through the Old Testament. The great chapter, Isaiah 53, that prophesied the death and resurrection of Christ. All the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were a reminder the wages of sin is death, the one who sins will die.

So the first point is Christ died for our sins. Secondly, He was buried. You are going to see a major point and a sub-point in these four points, they become two major points, two minor points. The minor point supports the major point. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried. That's the testimony and evidence of His death—He was buried. That supports the statement He died, He died for our sins.

A number of years ago there was a book out and somewhat popular at the time, The Swoon Theory. That doesn't mean it has all gone away, but a guy came up with the idea that Christ didn't really die on the cross, He swooned. He was so overcome it looked like He died, but when His disciples took His body then they were able to give Him refreshment and get Him going. And people thought He died, then when they saw Him they thought He must have been raised from the dead. Well, His burial was evidence of His death. That's why the Roman soldier rammed the sword into the side of Christ before they took Him down from the cross. A Roman soldier wouldn't make a mistake of taking a man off the cross before he was dead. Do you know what would have happened to that Roman soldier if it was found out that that man hadn't really died? That Roman soldier had to be executed. It was not just some kind of indifferent activity going on here. Christ died. He was buried, He was put in the grave where His body would remain for three days.

After that the third point of the Gospel is He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the culmination, the demonstration of His victory over sin and Satan and death, He was raised. The fourth point, He appeared. You can see that supports the resurrection. The burial supports the statement He died for our sins; His appearance supports and gives evidence that He was really raised from the dead.

But these four points comprise the Gospel that Paul preached, and he lists some of the witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. These are not necessarily given in order and this not a complete list. If we go back and look through the Scriptures we find others. On other occasions we have looked at the complete list of those that He appeared to. But this is a summary to show the evidence was overwhelming that Christ was raised from the dead. He appeared to Cephas, that's Peter; then the twelve, that's the title for the original twelve apostles. Even though Judas is not part of it, the twelve still became a title for the group. After that He appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time. Now the resurrection of Christ had occurred over 20 years ago from the writing of this letter. Paul says He appeared to 500 at one time, most of whom remain until now but some have fallen asleep. During that 20+ year period some of those Christians who had been together in that group, now we're not told specifically when this was, perhaps it was when He met with them in Galilee. Remember at the end of the gospel of Matthew, Christ instructed them to go to Galilee and there He would meet with them. And it may be the word was spread then and that's where the 500 met, we're not specifically told. But we're told here of that event. Then He appeared to James, then He appeared to all the apostles. Paul says, “Last of all He appeared to me.” I'm not telling you this just because I've heard eye witness accounts, I'm telling you because I am one of the eyewitnesses. And Paul never lost the perspective as we've talked about often regarding Paul. The fact that he had been saved by God's grace, appointed as an apostle, one so unworthy and undeserving. “Last of all as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” After everyone else, He appeared to me. So he, too, is an eyewitness. He can testify Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, “I saw Him as these other witnesses could testify.” He testifies to God's grace in the following verses.

Then you come to verse 11, “Whether then it was I or they, whether it was me or Peter, one of the other apostles, one of the others who saw Christ raised from the dead, so we preached, so you believed.” That's where he started out in verse 1, “I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved.” Then he pulls together the facts of the Gospel so wherever you heard it, this is the Gospel, this is what you believed.

“Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” And you note, even as I read you some comments from those who are part of churches, so it was at the Corinthian church. Some in that church were promoting the doctrine that believers wouldn't be raised from the dead. They have eternal life, their spirit, their soul is immortal, but their bodies won't be raised. Well, if we are preaching that Christ is raised from the dead, and that's what we preach to you, that's what you claim to believe. If that's not what you believed, you are not saved; if you believe anything less than that, you are not saved; if you believe anything more than that, you are not saved. Understand that. We sometimes hear people say, I believe in the death and resurrection of Christ but I think also you have to do this, this and this. We say, well, they are probably Christians because they believe in the death and resurrection of Christ. A true Christian, one who has been saved by God's grace is one who believes the Gospel for his salvation, nothing more and nothing less and nothing else. That's Paul's point.

If we are preaching Christ as a resurrected Lord, how could some of you in the church at Corinth say there is no resurrection of the dead? Well they might, as I mentioned, say Christ was not only man, He was God, He is a unique case. But you understand He is unique, He is both God and man, but He is fully God and He is fully man. He is not in any way less than fully human. So when we talk about His bodily resurrection, we're talking about the resurrection of His physical body.

So Paul is going to make the point here. Christians get confused. The Corinthians were confused because they didn't stay focused on what the Scripture said. They began to think, that makes sense; that seems logical; that seems reasonable. The only issue is, is it biblical? Verse 13, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised.” He was man, He is called the Son of Man. That was His favorite title for Himself during His earthly ministry—the Son of Man. He is fully human. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; if Christ has not been raised,” note this, “then our preaching is vain, your faith is vain.”

Verse 16, “If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins.” We have some kind of idea and it pervades the religious realm and Christianity broadly speaking. People say, well, if you have faith, that's what matters. People will say to you, I have my faith. What does that mean? We have faith-based organizations. What is a faith-based organization? Well, people who have similar things, we believe certain religious principles. That does not save a person. These teaching at Corinth, these false teachers had faith there was no bodily resurrection. They had their faith, they weren't denying that Jesus died on the cross. They were denying that believers would be bodily raised from the dead. They had their faith. Jesus said if you don't believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ and the subsequent, meaning that believers will be bodily raised, you have a worthless faith. It is vain, it is empty, it can do nothing for you. This idea, I have my faith, you shouldn't judge me for my faith, we don't all have to believe exactly the same way. We have to all believe exactly the way God says we have to believe to be saved. That's it. You don't have to believe like I believe, I don't have to believe like you believe; but if either of us are going to be saved, we both have to believe what God has said and not what we think or what we think should have been said or we have reasoned out. That's Paul's whole argument here.

Verse 15, he makes it clear. “Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God,” if we are claiming bodily resurrection, “we testify against God that He raised Christ whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.” Do you know what? Paul says, if you preach contrary to what God has really done, you are opposing God. So he says if I am preaching to you that Christ has been raised from the dead and that's not true, I have taken my stand against God. I think he could be sincere in doing that. That has nothing to do with sincerity. Where do we get this idea that if you are sincere, if you really believe it, that's what counts. Doesn't count a bit with God, and Paul doesn't try to hide behind that. If I'm telling you what is not true from God, then I am opposing God, I'm declaring something that God says is not true. That sets me against God.

Verse 16, “If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins.” Those four points of the Gospel that he laid out in verses 3, 4 and 5, they all have to be true or none of it is true. That has to be the complete package or it's not worth anything. The Spirit of God put this here because it is an ongoing tactic of the devil to spread partial truths. There is a man who believes part of this, he says I'm not denying Christianity. The background for what one of these wrote, I am updating Christianity to bring it into the civilized world so the church can be relevant. Who has declared God irrelevant? This is what he says is His power for salvation—the Gospel. These are the facts of the Gospel.

Well, my church believes you also have to be baptized. Your church is teaching a lie. My church teaches that you have to partake of communion to be saved. Well, your church is teaching a lie. Well, I heard somebody say if you don't go to Indian Hills, you are not saved. Well, there is another lie. We just stay on focus. Paul says this is not my message, it's God's message through me.

Look at verse 18, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins.” You can't be forgiven your sins by having faith. You can only be forgiven your sins by believing in the truth of the Gospel which he set out. “Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” They weren't saved either, they believed in Christ, they believed that they would be saved. They would believe that their bodies would be raised and they would spend eternity in the glory of His presence. They perished, they are doomed. “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” The idea that you can believe a lie and get some comfort from it. A little while ago we had a man on Wall Street, Bernie Madoff I think was his name, and he perpetuated a lie—give me your money and I'll make you rich. And many people gave him their money and they had faith that when they retired they would have a vast fortune to live on. And they had comfort in that. Some of you have seen the interview, and they talked about how excited they were and how they were looking forward to being able to do this and that. They found comfort in that lie, but that lie did not produce what they were looking for. They believed a lie, they got comfort from that lie, they felt assured by that lie. But they ended up with nothing.

That's the way people can be with their religion. They say, “I believe this, I find comfort in this, I'm confident in this.” The issue is, are you believing the truth? If you are believing a lie, you will end up perishing. That's Paul's argument. That all depends on the resurrection of Christ, our resurrection depends on that.

But now “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.” The resurrection of Christ is the guarantee we will be resurrected someday. That's our hope and anticipation. He is the first fruits guaranteeing more to come. And it’s by the comparison with Adam who sinned in the Garden and brought sin. Christ by His death on the cross brought life and He will ultimately bring victory over sin and death.

Come down to verses 33-34. Note what he says in verse 33, “Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals.” We sometimes pull this verse out and it has a broad application, but note the context he is talking about. “Become sober minded as you ought, stop sinning, some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.” He's talking about the situation in the church at Corinth. He hasn't changed subject. You allow yourself to be associated with these false teachers and the false teaching, it will corrupt you. And I say this is a sad testimony to you. There are some there in your congregation who don't know God because those denying the resurrection have not experienced God's salvation, they have no knowledge of the salvation God has provided in the finished work of Christ and His resurrection. And the Corinthians are tolerating it. Later in his second letter to them he'll say if somebody comes and preaches a different gospel, you bear with that beautifully. You know we feel the pressure. We want to be tolerant, we want to be broad enough, you don't have to believe everything like we believe. This is serious business. A person is welcome to attend here who doesn't believe, he's not welcome to teach that, promote that. That's what they were doing at Corinth. Bad company corrupts good morals. Stop sinning. Some have no knowledge of God.

And he is still talking about the resurrection, verse 35, “Some will say how are the dead raised? What kind of body will they come?” You always come with a question, like the Sadducees who didn't believe in the resurrection. Here is a woman who died who had seven husbands. She can't have seven husbands in the resurrection. So we ask a question, what kind of body would you have if you are raised from the dead? The body we know is a problem. It decays, it is the source of pain and suffering. So with what kind of body will you come? Paul is losing patience. You fool. That's the kind of question a person who has no wisdom would ask. That is simply the word wisdom with a negative on the front. That makes you fool. Proverbs talks about that.

“That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies and you sow the bare grain.” It's like you put a grain in the ground and a flower comes up. Now it's the same grain but it is transformed. That's the glorified resurrection body, it will be this body but it will be totally changed. So it will be this body, that's what he's talking about, bodily resurrection, the body that was buried was the body that was raised for Christ. He showed him the wounds in it, He showed His disciples the wounds, His hands, His side. Same body. But the body which is raised has a glory of its own, far past. You look around at the flowers that come up in the spring and I think of this passage. You put a seed in the ground and what is that seed? But this flower came out of that seed. You can tell what kind of seed they planted by what kind of flower it is. They planted a seed for a peach tree and they have a tulip. That doesn't happen. So it's the same seed but it’s transformed. That's the body that God has prepared for us.

He goes on to talk about that to the end of the chapter. We're going on into this, in our study of Corinthians we're going to talk about the order of the resurrections. We're going to talk about those who are alive because that's the question at the end. What about those who are alive when Christ comes? They didn't die, how are they going to get a resurrection body? Paul answers that. Understanding the importance of bodily resurrection. And it's not only believers that are going to be raised from the dead. John 5:24-29 Jesus said there will come a day when He will call all the dead from the tombs. Some will be raised to a resurrection of life with a glorified body, some will be raised to a resurrection of judgment to be sentenced to an eternal hell.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the climax of the work of Christ in providing redemption. There is no more glorious truth than the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of Jesus Christ confirms its truth. That's what you must believe to be saved, and when you believe it you can be assured that someday your body will experience the same kind of resurrection to glory that the body of Jesus Christ did.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for Your grace, Your mercy and Your love that had Your Son come to this earth so that He in love for us, His enemies, hell-deserving sinners by believing in what You accomplished in and through Him for our salvation was sufficient, it was finished so that we can receive as a free gift Your salvation by simply believing in what He has done. We give You praise for a resurrected Savior and we pray in His name, amen.