Witnesses of The Gospel

Transcript

GR 1364
10-28-07
Witnesses of the Gospel
1 Corinthians 15:4-7
Gil Rugh

We're studying 1 Corinthians so turn to 1 Corinthians 15 in your Bibles. In the back of my office, or one of the rooms behind my office, maybe I should say, I have a room that people don't get to go to. It is where everything ends up. And I have a desk back there, a library table, it was my first desk when I came here to church. And I use it to put everything so people will think I keep a somewhat clean desk. I have a hard time keeping up so that desk sort of gets deep and I periodically go back and determine I ought to clean it up. So I start through my material and say, oh, this article. Forgot about that. I start reading it and I say that's too good to throw away. So when I'm all done I've just rearranged my pile. Some of you understand how that goes. Well I was going through that process and I came across an article that I thought was relevant to what we are talking about and some of the background for it.

I'll tell you where we are. This came from Time magazine, 1998. This is not one of the older articles on my desk. It was written by Charles Krauthammer. He is not a professing Christian, Jewish, some of you see him on TV, he's a commentator. I believe trained as a medical doctor who was paralyzed in an accident as a young adult and most of you are familiar with him through his columns or TV commentary. But he wrote this essay in Time in 1998 and it was entitled, “Will It Be Coffee, Tea or He?” Religion was once a conviction, now it is a taste. He checked in to the local hospital for some tests and the lady asked the usual—name, rank, serial number, insurance, ailment. Then she asked, what is your religious preference? I was tempted to say, I think Buddhism is the coolest of all, but I happen to be Jewish. My second impulse was to repeat what Jonah said when asked by the shipmates of his foundering skiff to identify himself. I am a Hebrew, ma'am, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. But that surely would have gotten me sent to psychiatry rather than x-ray, so I desisted. In ancient time they asked, who is your god? A generation ago they asked your religion. Today your creed is a preference. Preference? I take my coffee black, my wine red, my shirt lightly starched. And oh, yes, put me down for Islam.

The point is that we have reduced religion to just another preference. There is no conviction, it's a preference. He alludes to a man of a bygone generation, Chesterton, who said, tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything. And he was critiquing tolerance. But then Krauthammer notes, where religion is trivialized, one is unlikely to find persecution; when it is believed that on your religion hangs the fate of your immortal soul, the inquisition follows easily; when it is believed that religion is a breezy consumer preference, religious tolerance flourishes easily. After all, we don't persecute people for their taste in cars, why for their taste in gods? Goes on to show how in our society everything is acceptable and religious beliefs and convictions are acceptable as long as they are not true convictions, just preferences, just your own personal taste. He concludes, at a time when religion is a preference and piety a form of eccentricity, suggesting fanaticism, Chesterton needs revision. Tolerance is not just the virtue of people who do not believe in anything, tolerance extends only to people who don't believe in anything.

Now this fits where we are in our study of Corinthians and Paul's dealings with the Corinthian church. Now we keep hearing the term postmodern. You hear it so many times you get tired of hearing it, it just gets bantered around. We live in a postmodern day, postmodern society. But I guess we do, and one of the characteristics is there is no such thing as objectivity and objective truth. And the worst thing you can do is tell someone else they are wrong, especially when it comes to religious matters. It's all right for us to have our beliefs and other people to have their beliefs, and Catholics have their beliefs and the variety of Protestants have a variety of Protestant kinds of beliefs. And Jews have their beliefs, and on we go. That's okay, no problem, except if you try to tell someone else that their beliefs are wrong and yours are right. Now that's not acceptable. We think we live in a postmodern day, this is totally new.

But we ought to understand it is not totally new. The world in which Paul lived was a diverse world and the Roman society under Roman government under which the civilized world lived in Paul's day, they tolerated and encouraged a variety of religious beliefs. And when the Romans absorbed a new people or a new culture with their religion into their empire, they were happy to absorb their gods into their empire as well. That's why they could have a pantheon of gods. In fact shortly after Paul's day the Roman emperors were going to decide that they want to become gods, too, so they'll begin to declare themselves gods. Not the only god, but just a god.

So the offense of Christianity in the world of Paul's day was not that it was a different religion. The problem was it was a religion that claimed to be the only true religion, that the God that Paul proclaimed and the other believers proclaimed was the only God. Remember Paul told the Athenians, I passed an altar to the unknown god. Do you know why they had that? They weren't saying they didn't know any god, they had a lot of gods, but they also had an altar to the unknown god in case they missed any gods. They didn't want to offend them. Let me tell you, I'll tell you about the God you don't know, and He is the only God, and He can only be worshiped in one way. That exclusivity was not acceptable in Paul's day, it has never been acceptable, and it is not acceptable today. People don't mind if you go to church, people don't mind if you have your own religious beliefs, they may have theirs. What infuriates them is when you tell them that their beliefs are wrong, that their worship is unacceptable to the living God, that there is only one Savior, only one way to be saved, and all other ways are roads to hell. Now you have become unacceptable, you have become intolerant. But I'm not intolerant in that sense. I can tell them, it's fine, you can believe whatever you want, but you will go to hell for that belief. It's wrong. That's not intolerant. I don't have to be tolerant of people I agree on everything with, tolerance comes when you disagree, doesn't it? I have to be tolerant of people I don't agree with. They have a right to be wrong, but when it comes to the message of biblical Christianity, there is only one way. There is only one God, there is only one Savior, there is only one way of salvation. Everything else is wrong, everything else will lead a person to eternal condemnation and hell. That's the message of the Bible, that's the message Paul is presenting in 1 Corinthians 15.

He has to make clear to the Corinthians it is not possible to be a true follower of Jesus Christ, cleansed from your sin and be open to accept doctrines contrary to what God has said. Some in the church at Corinth were saying there was no bodily resurrection, that's in 1 Corinthians 15:12, some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead. Paul said if you truly believe that, if that's what you teach, you were never saved. You see how exclusive it gets, how narrow it gets. No, Paul, I believe in Jesus, I believe in His death and resurrection. I just don't believe that anybody else will experience bodily resurrection. Paul said you can't believe it that way. This is not a smorgasbord, you're not going to a buffet, the Word of God is not a pick and choose book, the teachings of the Word of God are not something that you go through and decide I like this, but I'm not really too keen on this. I'll just not believe that. It doesn't matter if I'm not straight on these other things and I don't agree with the Bible on everything, at least I agree with certain things.

So what Paul is telling the Corinthians, and that's why at the end of verse 2, remember, his possibility suggested is unless you believed in vain. I mean, you have to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ and continue to believe that Gospel. When you depart from it you indicate you never truly savingly believed it.

So Paul is reminding them that's the Gospel he preached. Verse 3, I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. This is not my word, and in Galatians 1 he made clear where he received it. It was not from Peter, not from other apostles or teachers. He received it by direct revelation from Christ. This is the word of the Savior who dwells in the courts of heaven today. I passed on to you just as I got it, Paul said. And that's a good reminder for us. I read in the paper that churches have contemporary services, traditional services. You know everywhere Paul went he only had one ministry, one message. He didn't say we have a church for this kind of people, a church for this kind of people. You know what? He preached in Palestine. Some of you watch the news. The Jews and the non-Jews of that region of the world can be quite emotional, quite expressive. He travels through the world to a different continent and he's in Greece where they really like wisdom. You know what? Paul says I preached the same message in Palestine, I preached the same message in Greece. I preached the same message in Asia, I'll preach the same message when I get to Rome. Nothing changes. We think today we have to adapt to reach our culture. Paul didn't. He says, I know what the Jews what, they want signs; I know what the Greeks want, they want wisdom. You know what I do? I preach Christ. Well don't you want to be culturally relevant? Yes, that's why I preach Christ. That cuts through all the cultural issues, all the social issues. There is one message. That's what Paul is drawing their attention back to.

Verse 3, I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received. Now I'm going to unfold the Gospel to you in four statements—Christ died for our sins, Christ was buried, He was raised from the dead on the third day, and He appeared to witnesses. Those four basic statements clarify the heart and center. Not all you have to believe, but it is the heart and center of the message. Christ for our sins. This is foundational to the others. You can see you build here. Christ died for our sins; He was buried, that's the evidence He died; He was raised from the dead; He appeared to witnesses. His appearance to witnesses is the evidence that He truly was raised from the dead. So there are two basic statements with two supporting statements. And there is one statement upon which the other statements build. He died for our sins. There would be no statement, He was raised from the dead on the third day, if He hadn't died, right? So the foundational statement is Christ died for our sins. He died in our place to pay our penalty, He was our substitute, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, I Peter 2. God has made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He died for our sins.

It's not just He died, He died for our sins. First things Jesus said in unfolding what the ministry of the Holy Spirit would be when He sent Him to earth after His death and resurrection and ascension to heaven would be He will convict the world of sin. So you recognize I am a sinner, Christ died for me, took my place, paid my penalty so that I might be forgiven.

There is no other way. You know, the multitudes of people who think they are going to church, they are doing good works. They don't understand, all have sinned, there is none righteous, and the wages of sin is death. Hebrews 9:22 says, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. How can people think I'm going to be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments? I'm going to be saved by being baptized, I'm going to be saved by (fill-in-the-blank). You don't understand, someone has to die. The penalty for sin is death. Without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness. That's why Jesus Christ came and died. His death for our sins was prophesied in the Old Testament. We looked at some of those passages.

He was buried. That's simply a statement of the reality of His death. You bury a dead person. Paul doesn't go on to all the evidence that supports that He really died—the soldier runs a spear into His side, they wrapped Him in burial cloths. I mean, it's a nonissue. These people lived in the Roman world, Roman soldiers didn't take someone down from the cross and put him in a tomb if He weren't dead. You know the penalty for that? You go to the cross. Roman soldiers didn't ............... Paul didn't have to argue and present proofs, you know He was really dead when they took Him down. It takes mindless fools two thousand years later to present such silly ideas. Paul doesn't go into those things. Just a statement, He was buried. That's what you do with a dead person, you bury the body, you put it in a grave, a tomb. That's what happened to Christ. That will form the bridge from which you can have the resurrection.

So the third statement is He was raised on the third day. Paul changes tenses here. We talk about tenses because it is so exciting for you and I like to keep the service really exciting. So we talk about Greek tenses. The first two verbs here, He died and He was buried are aorist tenses. And that's a tense used often for the past tense in Greek. It's not the only use of it, but it would be the normal tense you would use if you want to refer to a past event, something happened in the past. Now he switches from the aorist tense to the perfect tense. He was raised on the third day. A perfect tense pictures something that happened in the past but the result continued to the very present. He was raised, at a time in the past, and He continues to be resurrected, He continues to be a raised person, alive. Romans 6 says He is never to die again. Hebrews 9:27 says, He ever lives to make intercession for us.

He was raised, came out of the tomb on the third day. You know these are historical events, they happened at fixed times in history. Christ hung on a cross and died and it occurred at a particular time on a particular day in the past history. He was taken down from that cross, His body was wrapped in burial cloths and He was placed in a tomb, He was buried. That happened at a point in time in history. You could have written down that at such-and-such a time on this day, in this week, this month, this year, this happened. They are historical events. So also is the resurrection. There is nothing indefinite or unsure. Paul is going to elaborate on the subject of the resurrection because that's the issue in the church in Corinth. They weren't denying that Christ died for our sins. They weren't denying He was buried. But they had an issue over bodily resurrection. And so Paul now will begin to elaborate on that and really all of the rest of the chapter is a development of this subject—bodily resurrection. But first you must be sure to understand that part of the essential Gospel message is Christ was raised from the dead on the third day. He Himself taught this during His earthly ministry.

Back up to Matthew 12. Remember in 1 Corinthians 1 Paul said the Jews want signs, the Greeks want wisdom. Well that's the characteristic of the Jews. If we were doing it today, we'd say we're going to have a service for the Jews at an early hour, that will be our sign service. Then we'll have a service for the Greeks later in the day, that will be our wisdom service. Well, we know they would both need the same thing, the Gospel, the simple clear Gospel. When Jesus was on the earth during His earthly ministry in Matthew 12:38, some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, teacher, we want to see a sign from you. He answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign, yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, note, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He's going to be buried, He's prophesying His coming death and burial. He'll be three days and three nights. Wait a minute, that's a short stay in the grave. If you buried a loved one five years ago, the body is still in the grave five years later. Jesus' stay in the grave will be limited to three days.

Turn over to Matthew 16:21, from that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised on the third day. He is going to suffer and die at the hands of wicked men at Jerusalem, and then after three days I'm going to be raised.

Turn over to John 2:18, the Jews said to Him, what sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things? He has just cleaned out the temple of it moneychangers and so on. Jesus answered them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews said, it took 46 years to build this temple. They are there at Herod's Temple. It took 46 years in the building, and will you raise it up in three days? But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Destroy this physical body and in three days I'll raise it up. So clearly Jesus, on several occasions, spoke of His death, burial and resurrection after three days.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 15. This is absolutely essential because we’ve made an overwhelming statement, Christ died for our sins. Now I agreed He died, even died on a cross and cursed is the one who hangs on a tree. But you know He wasn't the only one who died, the Romans crucified literally thousands of people. The day Jesus died He was crucified between two other men. Dying on a cross doesn't mean you paid the penalty for sin for someone. Jesus Christ is a unique Person, He's the Son of God dying a unique death, acting as a substitute to pay the penalty for sin. Well you say so, what's the proof? After three days He was raised from the dead. That's the evidence. He was raised because of our justification, Romans 4:25 says. Because righteousness had been provided for sinful people, the work was done. So the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is absolutely essential. In fact Paul will go on to say later in the chapter, verse 17, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins, He wasn't a Savior, He was just another criminal crucified on a cross. Maybe a good man, but the way the Romans crucified people, they crucified good people as well as bad people. Depended if you got in their way or did something they found particularly offensive. They are crucifying a perfect man when they crucified Jesus Christ. Their crucifixions could be rather indiscriminate. But you understand that if Jesus Christ wasn't raised from the dead, He was just another man who died, died a terrible death. Maybe the best man who ever lived, but that's all there is to the story.

Here is what one man writes about the death of Christ. To think that the central meaning of Easter, the resurrection of Christ, 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. This guy is in a fantasy world. That's what it's all about, the bodily resurrection. Here's a man who reads the Scripture with a blinder over his eyes and understands nothing of what he reads. And then makes fun of what the Scripture says and mocks those who believe what it says. And these kinds of people are promoted as those we ought to listen to and learn from in the church. Remarkable.

Jesus Christ was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures. That's parallel to verse 3, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was raised from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures. The very prophecies of Christ are part of the Scriptures, even as Paul's writings. Peter, remember in his second letter, chapter 3, includes Paul's writings as part of Scripture. But Paul is probably referring to the teaching of Old Testament Scriptures, not necessarily focusing on one. He doesn't quote any, just like in Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, there are a multitude of Scriptures he could have used. So there are several Scriptures that could have been used when you say that Christ was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures.

We'll have to go back to Isaiah 53, that's the only one we'll turn to back here. We'll read another in the New Testament in a moment. Isaiah 53. This beautiful chapter written over 600 years before Jesus Christ came to the earth. People used to say, well, Christians changed Isaiah to fit the events of Christ's life. It used to be the earliest manuscripts we had, earliest copies of the Old Testament were from 1000 years after Christ's death. They said that during that time Christians changed the manuscripts. Then we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, and you know what they found? You guessed it, a complete copy of the book of Isaiah, from at least 200 years before Christ. Now it's a little hard to say that Christians after Christ changed it because everything in that manuscript 200 years before Christ, nothing changed. It's been remarkably, accurately preserved, the message in it, the truth in it. Nobody has changed it. So they went back 1100-1200 years to find a manuscript that was that much older and it was the same.

And then you have Isaiah 53 and we've been in Isaiah 53 because here he tells about Christ died for our sins, here he anticipates that He will die for our sins. We read verse 5, He was pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him. You see He was taking our place, it was for our iniquities, for our transgression, our chastening, so that we could be healed and made well from sin. Verse 6, the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He also here prophesies His burial. Verse 9. Note how precise Scripture is, that God tells us what will happen in detail. His grave was assigned with the wicked, yet He was with a rich man in His death. Do you know what happened to people crucified on crosses? They were criminals, they didn't get a nice burial. Well Christ was assigned with the wicked men, He was crucified, His body would normally have been taken and buried with the criminals. But He ended up being buried in a rich man's tomb, He was with a rich man in His death. Isn't it amazing? Every little detail of God's Word will come to pass. Not possible for one jot or one tittle, the littlest mark, to pass without it all being fulfilled.

We're here for the resurrection. Look down in verse 10, the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief. If He would render Himself as a guilt offering. Remember we talked about the sacrificial system, all anticipating Christ, the book of Hebrews showing how Christ is the one sacrifice that did what all the animal sacrifices could not do. He is the guilt offering for us. And yet what? He gives Himself as a guilt offering, He has to die, He's the sacrifice. He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days. The good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. He sacrificed for our sins, but He lives. Amazing.

The end of verse 11, by His knowledge the righteous One, my servant, will justify the many as He will bear their iniquities. No other way to have your sins forgiven. He'll justify the many by bearing their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, He will divide the booty with the strong because He poured out Himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He Himself bore the sins of many and was numbered with the transgressors. You see the connection, He's going to die, He's going to be the sacrifice, He's going to pay the penalty. And He's going to live. And on it goes. So the death, burial and resurrection of Christ all prophesied hundreds of years before it occurred.

Come to the book of Acts 2. On the first day of the church. The church comes into existence in Acts 2. The Holy Spirit is sent from heaven by Christ who ascended to heaven in Acts 1. And He sends the Holy Spirit, and this marks the beginning of the church. And now we have a record of the first sermon preached in the church and it's preached to Jews by a Jew, Peter the Apostle. The sermon begins in verse 14. I'm sure this is just an abbreviated summary because I can't believe he'd preach as short as this sermon, but we'll leave that as it may be. You can tell the quotes from the Old Testament, the way they are set off, in my Bible in capital letters. Verses 17-20. And early in Peter's sermon he quotes from Joel 2, which concludes with verse 21, and it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. This Man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to the cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again and put an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. You see the summary very clearly—Christ died, you crucified Him. But this was part of the sovereign, predetermined plan of God. We read that in Isaiah 53. All the animal sacrifices anticipated someone would die for sin, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. You crucified Him, put Him to death. God raised Him up. It was impossible for Him to be held in the power of death.

Then you'll note the quotes again. David says of Him, and he quotes from Psalm 16:8-11. I saw the Lord always in my presence, for He is at my right hand so I will not be shaken. My heart was glad, my tongue exalted, moreover my flesh will live in hope because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to undergo decay. You have made known to me the ways of life, you will make me full of gladness with your presence. He's going to say, brethren, David is dead, his tomb is here, his body is in that tomb. Verse 29, David died, was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. They could go visit David's tomb. David is not talking about himself here, he's talking about a descendant who would be raised from the dead.

Verse 31, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades nor did His flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we were all witnesses. This is where Paul is going, he's going to offer the witnesses to the resurrection in a moment. Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He's poured out the Holy Spirit upon you. Then again, it was not David who ascended into heaven, but He Himself, and he quotes from Psalm 110:1. You see the Old Testament anticipated and spoke of the coming resurrection of the Messiah, Psalm 16, Psalm 110, Psalm 53. And the result of this, Peter calls them to repent of their sin and place their faith in Christ. One person put it this way, the religions of the world are all based upon the lives and teachings of their founders, but only biblical Christianity rests upon the death and resurrection of its Savior. That's the foundation of everything--the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no Christianity apart from these events—the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 15. Christ died for our sins, He was buried, He was raised from the dead on the third day and He appeared to witnesses. This is absolute proof that His resurrection truly occurred. Numerous people saw Him alive bodily on the earth after His resurrection. We're not talking about visions and dreams here, we're talking about actually the physical, glorified body of Christ being present on the earth for people to see. Paul gives us selective examples of those that Christ appeared to. This is not a complete list, he selects basically prominent individuals that the Corinthians would be familiar with and then a large group that shows this is not a made-up story. He appeared to Cephas. Cephas is the Aramaic name of Peter, they both mean the rock. Jesus gave Peter this name in John 1:42. He appeared to Cephas. This was an actual bodily resurrection. There was a point in time when he appeared, was seen by Peter. Now there are several occasions when Peter saw Christ after His resurrection. One of the most extensive accounts is at the end of the Gospel of John, remember, when after fishing Jesus confronts Peter and says, Peter, do you love Me more than these? Peter, do you love Me more than these? Peter, do you love Me more than these? That's not the one Paul is talking about here, he's talking about that first appearance on that first day, that first Sunday when Christ was raised from the dead. Christ appeared to Peter. Now the actual recording of that even is not recorded, but in Luke 24:34 the Apostles tell two other individuals, the men who confronted Christ on the Emmaus Road, Christ has been raised and appeared to Peter. Now He also appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other women who came to the tomb, but the focus there is Peter. He's the prominent individual, the one who will provide the leadership in the early church, who is appointed to bear testimony for all. He is risen, He has appeared to Simon, as Luke 24:34 addresses him, Simon Peter. So that's the appearance. He appears to Peter. Peter was a well-known figure in the Corinthian church. Remember the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians and the issue over division and comes out in chapter 3. Some in Corinth said we're followers of Peter, some said we follow Apollos. So Peter was a well-known figure in the church at Corinth. He perhaps had visited there. Paul spent 18 months in the church at Corinth when he founded it, that was some five years before this letter. During that time there would have been a variety of teachers to come and further instruct the people there. Peter may well have visited the church at Corinth, they are well familiar with him and his ministry.

So He first appeared to Peter as an eyewitness. Then He appeared to the twelve. Now the twelve weren't the twelve at that point, they were the eleven, because Judas had gone out and hung himself. So he never experienced the resurrection of Christ. But the twelve becomes the identifying title of this special group, and they can be referred to as the twelve, even if only eleven are present. Because that's the identifiable group. Maybe like we say the Senate is in session, but every Senator may not be there. But that is the Senate. It has that identifiable group in the Scripture, so it's referred to as the twelve. That will be true even when only ten are present. In Acts 1 Judas will be replaced so that they maintain a full contingent of twelve to be eyewitnesses of the resurrection, Peter will say. The twelve are mentioned in Matthew 10:1-4, if you've forgotten who they are. Again, Judas is included there. This initial appearance is recorded in Luke 24:36 and John 20:19. In John 20:19, remember the disciples, the eleven there were closed in a room with the door locked because they are afraid of the Jews. That would have been again on that first day of Christ's resurrection. I mean, word is spreading around, but they are afraid. What's going to happen here? What's going to happen to us? The Jews may be coming for us. The word is coming out, Simon Peter saw the Lord. And you're getting reports, and Jesus appears to the twelve.

These will be His special official representatives and they will lead the way in carrying the message of a resurrected Savior to the world. And when they replaced Judas with Matthias in Acts 1, Peter says it is so he can join with us, the eleven, to be eyewitnesses to testify of His resurrection. So these are men who go out and they're going to be able to tell people, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin. He is the Lamb of God, you can be forgiven by believing in Him. How do you know? I saw Him after His resurrection, He's alive. He was raised from the dead. That's the argument Peter is using in Acts 2. He quotes the Old Testament Scripture, then he says, we're eyewitnesses of this event. I've seen Him, I've seen Him many times. On the last time in Acts 1, just prior to His ascension to heaven.

Verse 6, after that He appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. You know you could say, Peter, he could be an emotional kind of person, and being distraught in all that has gone on and the Messiah that he thought would set up the kingdom, now crucified. Maybe he just thought he saw Christ. And you know then you put the other ten disciples and they were thinking that He was going to set up the kingdom for Israel, and He is crucified and there is disarray. And pretty soon one person says I think I saw Christ, and the others say I saw Him. Pretty soon they've convinced each other they saw Him.

You know, a sideline. Some of you saw in the paper the ............ People see Christ everywhere—on a pancake, on a ............. You know, silly. I got the silliest. In fact if it weren't contrary to my religious convictions I might use it as a moneymaker myself. There was a guy who was replacing a garage floor and in the grease on the garage floor he saw the image of Christ, His face. They have a picture of it in the paper. He cut it out of the concrete, put it for sale on e-bay, this was in this week's paper. You know what he got for that? That little piece of concrete with the grease that looked like Christ? $100,000 from the e-bay auction. I mean, are people fools, a rich fool that you're going to give $100,000 for a piece of concrete somebody cuts out of their garage because he thinks he sees the face of Jesus in the grease on the floor of the garage.

So you can understand, people would say, look at the disciples, they thought they saw Him. But now you have 500 witnesses, all at one time. That expression at one time is one adverb in Greek, it denotes they were all there at the same time. You don't have 500 people hallucinating at one time. So Paul says in the 25 or so years since Christ has been raised, some of these have died. But some are still alive so they are credible witnesses.

So he moves from these select witnesses to this one group. It is not specifically recorded in the gospels when this happened. Some commentators think this is probably what occurred when Jesus instructed some of His followers in Matthew 28 to tell His disciples, the eleven and others, to meet Him at an appointed mountain in Galilee. You know much of Jesus' earthly ministry took place in Galilee, by the Sea of Galilee, north from Jerusalem. He is crucified in Jerusalem, but now He tells them He will meet them on a certain mountain. He would have many, many followers in Galilee, and so this may have been the occasion when the 500 would have seen Him at one time. Would have been much safer and much easier for a group of this size to assemble together, there were 500 believers with the opportunity to see Christ and His resurrected body on earth. That may have been when it occurred. You can read some of the commentaries that give some of the reasons and follow the Scriptures on that. We won't take time.

Paul just presents it as an evidence. You know I'm amazed, these Corinthians have been believers for 5-6 years. Paul spent 18 months there teaching them. Other teachers have come and gone in teaching and instructing them—some great teachers like Apollos, maybe Peter, maybe others. It's amazing what Paul assumes they should know. Most of you have probably been a believer longer than five years, a large number of you have been here as part of this fellowship of believers longer than five years. I mean, Paul just throws out these things as though everybody ought to know it. He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, of course you know the Old Testament Scriptures. You realize everybody didn't have a copy of the Old Testament like we do. He thinks there should be no question on that, you know the Scriptures taught that. He was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures. He doesn't give the Scriptures or explain them. Of course you know that. For Paul the meeting of the church and the fellowship of believers wasn't a fun time, wasn't entertainment. This is where you packed in everything you could so that believers knew the Word, understood the Word, had a grasp on it for themselves. He didn't have to unfold every detail here. Here are believers, 5-6 years old, a church without the precious treasure of having their own copies of the Scripture. And Paul just throws out, I don't have to explain this to you. If you're a believer, you understand and know this. He appeared to 500 witnesses, that's settled.

These are important to us because none of us have seen Jesus Christ in bodily form on earth. How do you know He was raised from the dead? I have the testimony of the witnesses, just like I know every historic event. You know, except for the last 100 years they couldn't make videos or film it or whatever. All our history we know from history, right? Nobody living was there when they signed our Constitution, we just have copies and ............ That happened, and this battle happened, and that event happened. We're saying the Romans ruled the world. Did you ever see the Romans rule the world? Have you ever met anybody that saw the Romans rule the world? Did you ever see anybody who knew Julius Caesar? Have you ever talked to anybody who talked to Julius Caesar? If you did, you're in trouble. The point is we believe it because the record of history, the witnesses come down. You say, I don't believe there was a Roman Empire, I don't believe there was a Julius Caesar, I don't believe there was an Abraham Lincoln. You say, that's silly. Well I say, you don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? That's silly, the witnesses are here, its recorded. Well, that's just what that said. Well, that's what every historical document is, right? That's what they said. But this is the Word of God, that we who believe understand and know it to be true.

Then He appeared to James. There are two Jameses of particular interest to us. There is James who was the brother of John, one of the inner circle of the inner circle. The twelve were the core followers of Christ and within that core following, remember, there were three, Peter, James and John, who were privilege to have an especially close relationship to Christ. James and John are brothers. That James the brother of John, an apostle joined with Christ during His earthly ministry, is executed by Herod in Acts 12. That's not the James that is in view here. This James is the one that Paul refers to in Galatians 1:19 as the first person among the apostles he saw when he went up to Jerusalem following his conversion, years after his conversion. He said, when I went up to Jerusalem I didn't see any of the apostles except James, the brother of the Lord. So this James is the James who was one of the brothers of the Lord. The four brothers of the Lord are named for us in Mark 6:3. The interesting thing is the Bible tells us in John 7:5 that Jesus' brothers did not believe in Him during His earthly ministry, they were unbelievers. Imagine that? Raised with Jesus, the Christ, then see the ministry He has on earth. And it says not even His brothers were believing Him in John 7:5. But yet when you come to Acts 1 and the disciples are gathered together in the upper room there, we're told that Mary and the brothers of the Lord are present for that prayer meeting. So after His resurrection they come to believe in Him. And evidently in the grace of God, Jesus Christ appeared to him following His resurrection, and they become believers.

In fact James and the other brothers may have visited Corinth. Back up to 1 Corinthians 9. This James becomes the leader of the church at Jerusalem, he becomes a key figure in the Jerusalem Conference in Acts 15. Paul refers to him in Galatians 1 and then the Jerusalem Conference in Galatians 2, so he becomes a prominent figure. But note 1 Corinthians 9:5, Paul is talking about his liberty, his right to have a wife. Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles? Now note this, and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas. The church at Corinth was familiar with the Lord's brothers, that they were married men. Perhaps some of these men had visited Corinth in their ministry, perhaps some of them had their wives traveling with them. They came to further teach them the Word of God and the word concerning Christ. Because Paul just assumes they know all about the brothers of the Lord and that they are married men. So James may well have been to Corinth, the brothers of the Lord as well. But he's a prominent figure, the church at Corinth is well familiar with him, and so Paul reminds them, James saw the Lord.

Then to all the apostles, as we wrap up with this. I thought we just saw the twelve. Now he says then to all the apostles, referring to the last meeting. That would evidently be Acts 1, when He does meet with His apostles. Now the question is, I thought He met with the twelve. Well a number of commentators think this is another reference to the twelve, the reference here is to the apostles, all of them. In other words, to the apostles as a group. And he is finalizing this series of earthly appearances with this climactic one, to the apostles, particularly the twelve. There is another appearance and it's the final appearance. It becomes significant because then Paul is going to be brought into the picture, which we will do in our next study. The other possibility is there are others included like James. In Galatians 1:19 Paul says when he went to Jerusalem he didn't meet with any of the apostles except James, which may indicate that since James knew of the earthly ministry, was able to observe it even though he was an unbeliever, and then saw Christ following His resurrection, he could be classified among the apostles, although not among the twelve. Acts 4:4,14 seem to indicate Barnabas was classified as an apostle as well. At any rate, the apostles saw him again, the twelve and any others that might have been classified as apostles on that date.

So the fact of the bodily resurrection is established. For Paul the final consummate evidence with the final appearance will be himself. And he will elaborate on that more than any of the others. The death, burial, resurrection and appearances of Christ—this is foundational.

Come back to Acts 10 and we will be finished. I want you to understand the importance of this. What do you think that the devil is going to attack in the church and its ministry and message if he wants to undermine it, ruin it, destroy it? The message of Christ's death as the substitute for sinners, Christ's resurrection from the dead as the final demonstration of His victory over sin, death, the world, the devil. You can go to church and you hear messages, but no message of Christ. I read an article in the paper this weekend by a Christian organization and to the best of my knowledge and memory there was not one mention of Jesus Christ in the whole article. Absolutely no mention of His death, of His resurrection. This is a Christian organization? We're all about the family. Well, believers are all about Jesus Christ, and more specifically, we're about the fact that He died to pay the penalty for sin—your sin, my sin. He was raised from the dead and He is alive today.

In Acts 2 Peter preached the first message to the church on the Day of Pentecost and it was to Jews, it was on a Jewish holiday in Jerusalem. In Acts 10 Peter is given the privilege of preaching the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time to an assembled group of Gentiles. And here is what he has to say, the sermon begins in verse 34. After summarizing something of what happened in Jesus' earthly life that they had all heard about, come down to verse 38. You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, how He went about doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil. For God was with Him. We are witnesses of all the things He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, not to all the people, not to everyone, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God. Some of which we just read about, and in particular the twelve, of whom Peter is a key figure. That is to us, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He ordered us, note this, He didn't suggest to us. He ordered us to preach to the people and to solemnly testify this is the One who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness, that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon those who were listening to the message. That's God's plan of salvation, that's the way He has done. We don't have to figure out how are we going to reach our culture today? What are we going to do with a postmodern society? Preach the Gospel. We cannot do what only God can do. Only the Holy Spirit can take that truth and drive it home to a heart. What Peter's responsibility was, was to present Jesus Christ, God's sacrifice for sin, the One who died, the One who was raised from the dead, the One who will some day judge the living and the dead. And announce all who believe in Him will be forgiven their sins. That's what we have to do—carry that message. We think people won't be interested in it. Tell them anyway. I can't decide what the Holy Spirit will do with the message, but it's not my prerogative to change it, to make adjustments. Well you know we live in a day where people don't want to hear black and white truth, they don't want to hear this is the way it is, period, no options. Well what makes you think they wanted to hear it in Jesus' day? Why do you think Jesus was crucified? Do you think they wanted to hear it when Paul preached it? Why do you think he was put to death?

This is the message that saves. Now think about it. When did the Holy Spirit impact your life and transform you and make you new as a result of hearing and believing that Christ died for your sins, was raised from the dead, and is alive? That's what it takes for salvation to occur. You must believe that He is the Savior, and when you truly believe in Him, the Spirit of God comes into your life in a transforming way and makes you new. And you're never the same again, never, ever.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the power of the Gospel, that Gospel that impacted many of our hearts and lives through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. A simple truth that goes beyond our understanding, that the eternal Son of God was born into the human race, that He might be the sacrifice for our sins, that He might be our representative, our substitute. That He might pay our penalty to satisfy the demands of holiness, the demands of justice. He was raised from the dead in glorious victory over sin, He is alive today. And You offer the free gift of eternal life to each and every man, woman and child who will repent of their sin and turn to Christ, believing in Him and Him alone as their only Savior. Lord, we rejoice to know that salvation is a free gift. You do not desire that any should perish, but that all should come to a knowledge of the truth. Lord, may we count it our greatest honor and privilege to tell the lost that Jesus Christ died for them, that He is alive and He desires to be their Savior. We pray in His name, amen.