April 16, 2017 A Meditation On The Resurrection by Pastor Josh Sheldon

1 Corinthians 15 and the Resurrection as the Center of Christian Faith

Well, you've had a lot of scripture presented to you. And before I begin with the message this morning, I have quite a bit more scripture to read for you. So you may be glad that John asked you to sit down at this point.

But if you would turn in your Bibles also now to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 19, we will begin there. The words of the Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, he says,. Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas than to the Twelve.

Then He appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James than to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me.

For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me.

Whether then it was they or I, so we preach, and so you believed. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God, that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. You know, my wife and I went last Monday, and we saw that movie, The Case for Christ, which I read the book several years ago.

It's a true story of Lee Strobel, who was at the time one of the top investigative reporters for the Chicago Tribune. It's his journey from aggressive skeptic to believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a lot I liked about that movie.

In fact, both of us liked a lot about it. And for one thing, it's a true story. It's the true story of Lee Strobel's effort to disprove Christianity by researching its claims and scrutinizing them with the same standards and with the same intensity that he did his investigative reporting.

I like movies that are based on true stories, so I liked that about this movie. We also liked, my wife and I every now and then were kind of gently nudging each other in the side because it reminded us so much of our journey as a couple, and particularly my journey as a skeptic to a believer.

We both found ourselves thanking God for his work in me and then in both of us as a couple as the movie kind of brought back those memories for us. There are so many parallels between Mr. and Mrs. Strobel and Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon.

Mr. Strobel used an interesting device in his office to do his work, and it was kind of fun to see that. It was this metal thing. It was about yea big, and it had these keys that looked like piano keys, and when he struck them through a series of gears and levers, this metal thing that had this image on it would strike a piece of ribbon with ink in it, and that would then sink into the paper behind it.

It was called a typewriter. It was the most amazing thing that he actually used, and they were all over. I was surprised that they found so many of them to set up as props, but they were real. So that was pretty cool to see.

There were cars. It was a period piece. And there were cars. They were old muscle cars. He drove a Trans Am, and you could just hear that idle. You know, they used to put what we call big cams in those, and it would have this burbling kind of aggressive exhaust sound, which I liked.

There was a lot I liked about that movie. What I appreciated most about the movie... You wondered where I was going, didn't you? What I liked most about the movie was its focus on two things as he searched out the claims of Christianity, two things were preeminent.

The Reliability of Scripture and the Evidence for the Resurrection

First, his search for truth centered on the Word of God. He met with a Catholic pastor, an actual person, I forget his name, but he was quite a scholar, and he was able to show him, show Mr. Strobel, the plethora of actual manuscript evidence, the physical evidence we have that connect the Bibles that we hold in our hands back to what was originally written some 2 ,000 years ago.

Vastly more than any other ancient writings purporting to give accurate records of things that occurred, things that we believe, military campaigns and geopolitical movements and such, not even close to the integrity of our New Testament.

He did a lot of research about that, and they showed it pretty well in the movie, and it's very interesting to watch. And what I also liked there is he didn't go looking into a lot of extra biblical sources, though those are available, and they do confirm the Scripture, but he concentrated on the reliability of the Scriptures themselves, the actual written record.

Now, the fact that our Bible is reliable in the physical sense, and I mean that we can prove the direct linkage from these Bibles to the original texts, that is not the cause of our faith. And the movie did not imply that it was.

But it did a good job of laying out the fact that our Bibles have a continuity of transmission to the original authors that nothing else even comes close to. But here's the thing I appreciated most. It was all about the resurrection.

The movie was really all about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Strobel had become enraged, much as I was at one time. He was angry all the time at his wife's faith in Jesus Christ. As she blossomed in the Lord, he sort of withered on the vine, becoming more and more angry about it.

Well, one of his colleagues at the Chicago Tribune then tells him something, this man himself being a Christian. He says, look, this is easy. This is easy for you. You want to disprove Christianity? You want your wife's faith to blow up?

You want to blow up 2 ,000 years of church history and faith? Simple. Disprove the resurrection. Look into the evidence of the resurrection. Of course, this is what led him to look at the manuscript evidence and the integrity of the resurrection accounts in the Gospels.

But this man told him, I think very accurately, disprove the resurrection and all Christianity comes unglued. Without the resurrection, what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15? Your faith is in vain. Your faith is in vain.

Disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ and this whole thing is blown away like a house of cards in a tornado. We have nothing left. And it is this. It is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ that drove him to faith.

Not that the manuscript evidence is unimportant, but nowhere does God's words say that we're saved by the reliability of the volumes of original writings. Our faith is, as the Creed puts it, in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. There's our faith. That's the content of it and this agrees perfectly with Scripture.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. It's the resurrection on which we stand or fall. Not today only. Tomorrow, yesterday, next week, next year, until the Lord returns.

As long as he tarries, the resurrection is what this church stands or falls on, every one of us, individually and together, and all the history that led up to this very moment, all because of the resurrection.

By the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, God has set his seal of approval on the sacrifice that led Jesus Christ to the grave. To say it another way, I'll turn around what Paul wrote. Seeing that he has been raised from the dead, you can be certain that your sins are forgiven.

That's the point I want us to understand today. There's so much we can say about the resurrection. There's so many aspects of it. We can speak of it historically. We can speak of the physical evidence of it.

I want you to know this. If your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've repented of your sins by faith in what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, believing with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength that he raised him from the dead, you can be certain that your sins have been forgiven.

It's an old, old message of the gospel. It's a message that has been foretold centuries before Jesus' advent. It's something that they anticipated and they look forward to. The end of the prayer that John read to you, Daniel's prayer in chapter 9, O Lord, hear.

O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention. Pay attention and act. Delay not for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. This is a plea for forgiveness. This is a plea.

This is not the certainty that we have today by looking back to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so again, relying on scripture to guide us and direct us and inform us, I would ask you again to look in your Bibles with me.

Turn to page 88. That's Leviticus chapter 9. Page 88 in your Black Pew Bible if you're following it that way. Leviticus 9. And here we come upon Israel having just finished making the tabernacle exactly as God had specified.

The protocols for the priesthood had just been set forth right down to the garments that they're supposed to wear. Aaron, the first high priest, he's Moses' older brother. He's been chosen by the Lord for that office.

And with his sons, he had just been consecrated to the priesthood. The first high priest. The first service of the tabernacle which several chapters of the book of Exodus are dedicated to. And now look with me at verse 8 in Leviticus 9.

So Aaron drew near to the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering which was for himself. And the sons of Aaron presented the blood to him and he dipped his finger in the blood and put it on the horns of the altar and poured out the blood at the base of the altar.

But the fat in the kidneys and the long lobe of the liver from the sin offering he burned on the altar as the Lord commanded Moses. The flesh and the skin he burned up with fire outside the camp. Then he killed the burnt offering and Aaron's sons handed him the blood and he threw it against the sides of the altar and they handed the burnt offering to him piece by piece and the head and he burned them on the altar and he washed the entrails and the legs and he burned them with the burnt offering on the altar.

What's he doing here? Well he's covering his sins. He's atoning for himself. He's atoning for his sons. And he's preparing them himself and his sons the first priests and him, Aaron the first high priest of Israel.

He's preparing them for something very, very important. To intercede on behalf of others. To prepare the offering for Israel's sin. The nation of Israel. So beginning at verse 15. Then he presented the people's offering and took the goat of the sin offering that was for the people and killed it and offered it as a sin offering like the first one.

So to put all this in context we need to know what's happening here. It's right after the incident with the golden calf. We're not going to go back there. We all know what that was. The golden calf incident.

What we need to take note of here is where this fits in the whole Exodus narrative. Once the people are safely out of Egypt and that army was drowned in the Red Sea then Exodus chapter 19 to 24 all those chapters have to do with the giving of God's law.

Then 25 through 31 all those chapters continue the law but specifically the construction of the tabernacle and the initiation of the priesthood. Chapter 32, the golden calf. Then chapters 33 to 35 is God's gracious renewal of the covenant after the golden calf incident and the rest of the book of Exodus is about the building of this tabernacle that we come across in Leviticus 9.

And here Aaron offers his sacrifice for himself for his sons and he turns his attention. He presents the sin offering for the people. And so now if you're still there in Leviticus 9 then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them and he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings and Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting and when they came out they blessed the people and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.

So we'll stop for a moment here. We'll consider this for just a few moments. What the glory of the Lord actually looked like we're not told. We do know it appeared and it was clear to everyone who saw whatever it was that they saw just what it was they were seeing.

They all knew that they saw the glory of the Lord in some form in some manifestation. We're not given any description of it beyond this. It was the glory of the Lord and they knew it was the glory of the Lord.

It appeared. Aaron has just offered for the people for their sins to the Lord in accordance with the specifications of protocol every jot and tittle every stitch in the curtain every piece of clothing every implement in the tabernacle the tongs that are used to move the coals in the altar had to be atoned for everything done in exact accordance with God's word.

And the glory of the Lord appeared. The form of that word appeared is the form of a continuous action that does not come to completion. It's just hovering there as it were. Now the word is not for hovering.

There's a word in Hebrew that means hovering and it's not that. I need to be clear with you. But they saw it and they continued to see it. So as they're seeing it it's just sort of there continuously.

I use the word hovering to picture this for you because it's sort of like God has come down in this appearance so they all know it's God they all know it's His glory. He's sort of looking things over.

He's assessing as it were what has happened. Was everything done just right? Every move is specified. The prayers are dictated if you will. And this first burnt offering this first offering on behalf of the people has just been set up and there's God down from heaven just over it and looking continuously pondering considering hovering there for everyone to see was everything done correctly was everything done perfectly this glory of the Lord we'll read in other parts of the scripture is the one that comes down and destroyed Nadab and Abihu for their presumption in the tabernacle.

The glory of the Lord destroyed Korah and his cohorts in their rebellion. And there it is. Looking considering pondering if you will. And the people can only watch and wait. They're all there. They all took part in bringing this day to pass.

They all share in God's judgment of it. Whatever that judgment will be. Well verse 24 ends the suspense. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar and when all the people saw it they shouted and fell on their faces.

God was satisfied. God was satisfied. The priests had made atonement for their own sins and they had done everything just right which means primarily not just following the procedures but with faith that as they come to God the way God specified that God would accept the offering.

God was satisfied. They had done everything correctly. The sin offering especially. And what does that mean? That meant that God's wrath was satisfied and they wouldn't die. Their sin was forgiven. Their sin was forgiven.

The glory of the Lord had appeared and hovered and watched and pondered and considered and then fire comes down from heaven and consumes it all. And that's when the people fall on their faces and worship because that was God's signal that he was satisfied.

The offering was acceptable and the sins were in fact forgiven. Burnt offerings like this are first mentioned back in Genesis chapter 8 verses 20 to 21 and there it says that when Noah made an offering to the Lord he offered a burnt offering to the Lord.

It was a pleasing aroma to him. And what was that offering? It was a request that God be satisfied that his judgment against the world by the flood was final. That God was soothed as it were. The burnt offering you see is all for God.

That's why it's a burnt offering. It's all for God. Nothing is held back for man. So what has all this to do with the resurrection? Why am I speaking on this on a day when I said I'm going to talk and give a meditation on the resurrection?

Well that's a good question. I'm glad you asked. I hope you've been asking that as I've been going on. You see I've steered clear of trying to prove that Jesus Christ was resurrected. I mean that's a worthy exercise.

If anyone wants to examine the evidence even close to what Lee Strobel did you can get his book you can follow in his footsteps and I think you'd be confronted with proof upon proof upon proof even as he was.

Ignoring it would require a constant strain. The kind of strain Paul writes about in Romans 1 with men suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. I haven't spoken of some of the ludicrous ideas about the resurrection.

Some say that the Lord swooned on the cross. He just fainted. He recovered in the coolness of the tomb which would require us to believe that the Romans at Golgotha that day were the only incompetent Romans in the whole Roman army.

We haven't spoken about an entire Roman guard somewhere between one and five dozen trained soldiers all falling asleep yet all certain that the disciples snuck past them and stole the body. And yet somehow while they're asleep able to confirm it was the disciples.

I leave that all to your own reason to your own research. If you do examine the evidence I encourage you to begin where Mr. Strobel began and that's with the Gospels. But I want us this morning to consider just what the resurrection of Jesus Christ really means.

Not fully, not every aspect, just this, your sins have been forgiven. This is the confirmation of the resurrection. To those whose faith is in Jesus Christ that is God's signal, God's seal of approval and the assurance we have that we are in fact not just a nice happy thought in fact forgiven.

That's what the resurrection's about. How do we know this? Other than the witnesses of the Spirit of God to our own spirits testifying to us that we're children of God. How do we know? We know because God did raise him from the dead and Jesus Christ his sacrifice was adequate for all the sins that he took upon himself.

Second Corinthians 5 .21 says for our sake God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus, the sinless son of God, the only sinless man ever to live, he became sin.

And the reason for this is simple. God does not punish the innocent. Now Jesus was in fact of any act, anything that could be less than the holiness of God, he was innocent. And he couldn't be punished on the merits of offenses because he never gave any offense.

You and I did, but he never did. It was like Daniel prayed, what John read to you in Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9. To us belongs shame. Why? Because we've sinned. To God belongs righteousness. So in order that Christ be punished, what did God have to do?

God had to regard him, Jesus Christ, as sin itself. He became sin. Who knew no sin? That in him, in Christ, we become the righteousness of God. That's the logic of it. There is more, and it ties to Golgotha, it ties to the tabernacle.

Before the priests slaughtered the animal, they would lay their hands on it, they would confess their and the people's sins. And that would symbolically transfer the sin from them to the animal that was about to be killed, and the sin was now no longer mine, but the animal's.

The animal became sin for the worshiper, in that sense. Now you and I cannot do this with Jesus. You and I cannot in any way, physically, obviously, but even symbolically, turn Jesus into this. God gives us no such authority, but he, he can do it.

As 2 Corinthians 5 .21 says, how did he become sin? We're talking about just what was it that God was satisfied with? The sins. I want us to think for a moment, and I know I'm taking a few turns on you here, but God gave him a cup.

God gave Jesus Christ a cup, the very one that he recoiled from at Gethsemane when he said, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death, remain here. He said to his disciples, remain here and watch with me.

And then he goes a little further and he falls on his face and he prays saying, my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. A cup in the Bible means to experience something to its fullest, to drink it down, that you're experiencing it.

It becomes you, almost. Sometimes, like in Psalm 116, it's a wonderful thing. In Psalm 116, it's the cup of salvation that David says, I will take up the cup of salvation. I will drink it to its dregs because I want to experience what God has done for me in Jesus Christ.

Jesus' cup was something different. His cup was to experience to the fullest the wrath of God against sin. This goes back to Jeremiah 25. And like I said, I know we're bouncing around a bit. We'll pull it all together, Lord willing.

In Jeremiah 25, we read of a cup. It's a cup that is filled with God's wrath. God says to that prophet, take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.

They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I bring among them. A cup of God's fury. A cup filled with our sins. Every offense against God is a drop in that cup. It's a cup that doesn't go away.

It has to be drained. Something has to happen with it. It's not as if God looks at it and just shrugs and says, oh well, that was a nice little literary device I used by the prophet. That's okay. I've changed my mind or sin's not as bad as it was anymore.

Nothing like that could ever happen. He goes on to the prophet. If they refuse to accept the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, you must drink. And this message is not just to the pagan nations around Jeremiah several centuries ago.

The message is to us as well. That there is that cup being filled with our sins, being filled with our every blasphemy against God. Our every violation of his good and holy and right and just word. And this cup needs to be emptied.

And there's really only two choices. Because in that cup is God's wrath. It's gonna be drunk by somebody and that one is going to pay the price for everything that was in that cup. There's only two choices.

You yourself will have that cup. This speaks of God's condemnation. This speaks of you have to answer for yourself. Here's the cup. Drink it down. Give an answer for those sins that are in that cup. You cannot.

This is when he speaks of staggering and being crazed and the sword that he's sending. This is the sword of God's final judgment. Or it's the cup. By faith. It was drank by another. By Jesus Christ. The one he says, Father, take this cup from me if it be possible.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And it was God's will that Jesus drink that cup and become 2 Corinthians 5 .21. Sin. Become sin. If we say for us, that's a statement of faith. He became sin for me.

That's a statement of faith that we must make. That my cup, which I could only drink because God says you must drink, you shall drink. I decree that you will drink it. Or not as I will, but as you will.

And Jesus drank that cup on your behalf if you will believe. That's what Jesus drank to the last cup, to the last drop. The cup of God's wrath filled to overbrimming with our iniquities. My sins. Your sins.

A cup that filled drop by drop starting at the tree in the garden. A cup that has to be emptied and if you or I drank it down as we deserve to, even if only one micro drop was ours, there's no defense that this or that criminal or dictator contributed more than I did.

He was worse than me. Just one donation, ever so tiny. Such a small little sin. Splash. Oh, but I never committed murder. But I did this other thing just... Splash. If they hadn't done this, then I wouldn't have...

Splash. And we keep filling and filling and filling it. It's yours or mine to drink. It's yours or mine to experience to the full. It's God's just punishment eternally to suffer for our sins. But no. Our Lord took the cup.

Our Lord took it up. Not my will, but yours be done. He took it up and He drank it. He took mine. He took into Himself the awful weight of your sin. And then God poured out on Him the full measure of His wrath.

And so I'm able to say to you this day that if you have repented of your sins, if you have sought God's forgiveness by faith in His Son, then your cup was emptied by Christ. It's never to be seen again.

You say, well, how do we know this? How do we know? We know the same way the people at the tabernacle knew that their sin was forgiven. When fire fell from heaven and consumed the sacrifice and God took it all up, said this is all for me and it's none for you.

I've accepted what you have offered. Your faith in the sacrifice. And now God takes it up and the people knew they were forgiven. They knew their sin had been answered and that's why they fell down on their faces in worship.

How can we know? Not just one time because the burnt offerings went on and on and on and on. A constant procession. We've said before when you go in with your bull or your sheep or your goat and you lay your hand on it before the priest and by faith you confess your sins and they slaughter the animal, fallen humans that we are, we can't get out of the temple, we can't exit the tabernacle before we have sinned again and need another sacrifice and have to turn right around and go back in and kill another and another and another and another.

Jesus Christ's sacrifice was once for all time. He came once because of sin says the author to the Hebrews. And so we speak of faith in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance towards God.

And how do we know those are not just words, not just something that makes us feel okay and gathers us together on a common belief system, a worldview? Because of the resurrection. Because of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The people in Leviticus 9, they knew that the sacrifice had been accepted when the fire consumed it. What does Paul say in Romans 4 .25? That Jesus Christ was raised. Why? Because of our justification.

The resurrection is that fire that came down from heaven and consumed the offering. It's the proof positive that Jesus Christ's sacrifice was accepted by God. The resurrection is God's final. We need to mark this word.

His final statement regarding the adequacy, the efficacy, the eternal, the unlimited power to save souls that came from Jesus Christ's sacrifice. All this confirmed by the resurrection. Like the fire that fell from heaven, nothing is left.

Jesus returned bodily to the Father's side. And what does all this tell us? It tells us that God's anger has been soothed. Not just until our next sin or the next sacrifice, but once for all. The resurrection proves it.

Now not many of us have the skill of an investigative reporter of someone like Lee Strobel. And most of us wouldn't even know where the resources are to start checking these things out to see if the gospel records are true and reliable and credible.

It's a matter of faith. These records are true and reliable and credible. I set before you today the need to believe them and have faith in what they say about the forgiveness of sins and God's seal that He indeed has forgiven sins by raising up His Son.

That's the fire from heaven. That's what the whole Bible is about. That's why it's not a contrivance for me to pull Leviticus 9, see that fire coming from heaven and say, well that's Jesus Christ, that's a picture of Jesus Christ, that's a picture of the resurrection.

It's not the resurrection because it had to be repeated. But it pictures. We call it a prototype of that resurrection, that final, that once for all time seal of God's approval in the sacrifice of His Son.

Repentance is more than just being sorry for our sins. It's acknowledging our share of the cup that Jesus had to drink. Repentance is that way of coming to Christ. Repentance for our sins and everything that we did that added to that cup.

And by the resurrection, so much more so than the fire that came from heaven that one time sacrificed at once for all time by the resurrection, you can know that your sins are indeed forgiven. Amen. Heavenly Father, we again thank You for giving us this day for this time to come together in worship to consider the things of God and what You have done for us in Jesus Christ as we have them in Your Word.

Let's pray, Father, that Your blessing would be upon us and would continue with us as we continue in worship of You. We thank You, Lord, for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the confidence that gives us, for the sureness that we have that our sins have surely and indeed at once for all time by faith in Jesus Christ been forgiven.

It's in His name we pray. Amen.