Physical resurrection is a non-negotiable

1 Corinthians 15 and the Resurrection as First Importance

The passage we're going to be in today is 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, and we're going to be starting in verse 12, I'll start reading there as everybody gets there, I'll give you a moment. Starting in verse 12 of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, it says, 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 Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

This is the reading of God's word this morning, let's go to him and ask that he would open our eyes to see and our ears to hear this truth. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I come to you once again. We ask that you do the work that only you can do in our hearts and minds.

We trust your word. We believe that it is true and that it is certain. God I pray that we would rightly divide it. I pray that you would guard me from error, that you would speak only, that I would speak only truth.

God I pray that you would open our ears to hear this truth. We thank you for it, in Christ's name, Amen. So a fairly popular theologian, he's an Anglican priest by the name of N .T. Wright. Writes quite a few things, as a matter of fact, some of you might have read some of his work.

He has offered some good things, especially in the realm of Christology, the study of Christ. But he's also written a lot of other things that are extremely problematic. So I would not advise you go seeking out after N .T. Wright.

But N .T. Wright, while in an interview, was asked about a progressive Christian theologian by the name of Marcus Borg. And this is what N .T. Wright says about Marcus when asked. He says, Marcus really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead.

But I know Marcus well. He loves Jesus and believes in him passionately. The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection.

And so this quote, I share it with you because I believe this encompasses much of the sentiment in Christianity today. I believe many people think the way that N .T. Wright thinks here about Marcus Borg.

Because what he's saying is, he says, I have no reason to question his faith. He seems sincere. He seems very sincere in his love for Jesus. So why and how can I question his faith? And while I would agree with the fact that you do need to take that stance at times, but only when it comes to less vital doctrines.

We'll talk about that here in a moment. But I would argue this morning that the physical resurrection of our Savior is an absolute essential doctrine. Yeah. It's essential to our faith. It's a non-negotiable.

So what do I mean by non-negotiable? I know most of you in here already know this, but some may not. So let's bear with me here. The doctrines that we hold to in Scripture, all of them fall typically within one of three categories.

When I say doctrines, there's all of the things that we believe to be true about God, about us, about Christ, about this world. Everything that we see in Scripture, they land in one of three categories.

And I think probably one of the best analogies to give you a visual of that is think of a dartboard. Okay? So you have the outer circle here, and that's usually where my darts land, that or like the wall around it, you know.

But you have the outer circle, and then it gets closer until you get to a bullseye. Well, if you look at the outer circle, we would say, well, that's really a third-tier doctrine. And what that might be, I think one of the easiest ones for me to come up with, especially with our context here in the South, is whether or not a Christian can drink alcohol or not.

The Bible is not super clear one way or another, hence that's a matter of conviction. It's not like we're going to lose fellowship with somebody who holds to a different view. That's a third-tier doctrinal issue.

Then you get closer. You get another ring in. And this is like a second-tier doctrinal issue. Everybody tracking with me? You seeing the visual? You get a little bit closer to the bullseye. And these are doctrines that we can have some disagreement about.

Things like the mode of baptism. We have our Presbyterian brothers that they believe baptism is performed one way, Baptists believe another way, but yet we can have fellowship with each other because this is a second-tier issue.

This is not essential to the Gospel. But now we get to the bullseye. You get to the bullseye here. Here is where the doctrines that are non-negotiable land. This is where our faith has to be foundational.

Things such as the Trinity. That we serve one God who is represented in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We have to hold to that. If you don't hold to that, you are not in the Christian faith.

You cannot be. You cannot understand who God is without that. The deity of Christ. The fact that Christ is fully God and fully man. We cannot deny that. That's an essential doctrine. The virgin birth.

If Christ had an earthly father, then Christ's human nature had a sin nature. That's a non-negotiable. We have to have a stance here. And I would say that the physical resurrection of Christ is one of those non-negotiables.

This is an essential thing. So why? I think that's the big question. I think a lot of people get confused. And we hear somebody try and come up and say, well, Jesus, he rose as a spirit. He appeared to the disciples and everybody in a spirit form.

And he didn't really bodily raise. We don't believe in that. And then we look at it and we say, well, okay, well, they seem sincere. They love Jesus. Okay, so that's just a, maybe we have a disagreement here.

Well, this is a first level issue and I'm going to tell you why. The resurrection has been referred to in theological circles as a Gibraltar of the Christian faith. It's been referred to as the Gibraltar.

So there are many other important essential doctrines that are built upon the foundation of the physical bodily resurrection of Christ. And this is precisely, in my opinion, why many progressive Christians, put that in quotes, right?

Many progressive Christians have sought to undermine it. Because they know that if we will let loose on this essential doctrine, then all these other things begin to crumble and our faith crumbles. And so, I would say that we get this idea of it being this Gibraltar, this stone, this foundation of the Christian faith in many ways from scripture.

We derive this from scripture. As a matter of fact, look there in chapter 15. Just look a few verses ahead in verses 3 and 4. This is the Apostle Paul saying, For I delivered to you as of first importance, very first, this is an essential, this is a first important thing, what I also received.

Now mind you, Paul's reaffirming here, I'm not making this up. I'm not the one that's sitting here saying that this isn't a first essential. This isn't just Paul saying it, I received it. Not only did I receive it from the other Apostles who were actually present at the physical bodily resurrection, at the crucifixion, I also received it from the Holy Spirit.

This is Paul giving this. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins. I don't care where you land within the spectrum of Christianity. I don't know anyone that denies the fact that Jesus died for our sins.

They can't get around that one, can they? Now the mode of how he died and why he died and what actually happened to pay for our sins there we have disagreement on, but everyone agrees with that one. Let's keep reading.

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. The Old Testament had already affirmed this, had already prophesied of this coming. Verse 4, that he was buried. Key in on that for a second.

Paul put that there very intentionally. Jesus died. Some like to come along and say, well Jesus didn't really die. He just kind of woke up from his coma in three days and stepped out of the tomb. Well that's absurd.

We're not even going to go, we're not even going to address that, but I think Paul puts this here as the fact that he was buried. There is a certainty. Romans didn't pull people off the cross unless they knew they were dead.

As a matter of fact, Jesus' legs weren't even broken like they commonly would to make sure somebody went ahead and died. They knew he was dead. They were so certain of it, they didn't. And that was a prophecy that none of his bones would be broken.

That's another thing. But he says that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day. Remember he says this is of first importance. This isn't non-negotiable. This is essential. In accordance with the scriptures, the Old Testament had prophesied of this.

Jesus, the Messiah, would have died, would have been buried, and that he raised. This is essential to this foundation of Christianity. And now we finally get to our passage here in verse 12. So look back at verse 12 with us.

As a matter of fact, you know what? Let's get some background before we do that. Some background before we look at our passage. What we're looking at here in verse 12, really this whole chapter of 15 here in 1 Corinthians, is Paul rebuking a church that is on the cusp of capitulating on this non-negotiable.

This church in Corinth is right on the cusp of just denying the actual resurrection of Christ. Did you see the people in Corinth are very heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. And in Greek philosophy, there is this influence of this concept of what we would refer to as a false dualism.

But they had this concept of dualism. In Greek philosophy, there was this concept that they made a distinction between the physical world, what we're looking at now, and the spiritual world. These two things were completely detached.

So you had the physical world, you had the spiritual world. And in their mind, from a Greek philosophical perspective, everything in this world is evil. Now we understand that in a very different sense from total depravity and the fall of man.

But what they are saying is that they didn't believe that there was anything redeemable at all about this body and about this world and the actual physical aspect that we see. This was purely evil and not redeemable.

But the spiritual was good. The spiritual was good, the physical was evil, and this is why Paul had to remind them back in chapter 6, hey Christian, your body now, this body now, is the temple of God.

The Holy Spirit is dwelling within you. He had to remind them of that because they were affected, they were permeated by this Greek philosophy, and so it affected everything. Look at 1 Corinthians 15 -12 there.

It says, Well here Paul is saying, now if Christ has been proclaimed, he's affirming he's been proclaimed, there's no way to deny it. This is what the apostles have brought, this is what the foundation of our Christianity is, that Christ has been raised.

So how can you say there is no resurrection of the dead? And he goes on, he says, There is no resurrection. Because the people in Corinth, when they were affected by this, they saw the resurrection in the future, their bodily resurrection, as something that wasn't going to happen.

There were people in the church telling them, you're not going to be resurrected and given perfect bodies, because this physical is only evil and non-redeemable. You just look to the good. We'll talk about that here in just a second a little bit more, but I want us to see six things that I think Paul points out that are true, if Christ has not been raised from the dead.

If Christ has not been raised from the dead, these are six things that Paul wants us to see that are true. The first one is that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is ineffective.

Our preaching is ineffective. Look at verse 14 with me. He says it right there, and if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our preaching is in vain. If Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is in vain.

What I'm doing today is of no value for me, for you, for anyone. You proclaiming the truth, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to your neighbors or to your lost family members is futile. It means nothing.

If Christ has not been raised from the dead, it's powerless. It's completely and totally ineffective. When I think of that, I wonder why people like Marcus Berg, these progressive Christians, even preach at all.

What are they even saying? Because what they're preaching is of no value. Paul says it's in vain if Christ has not been raised from the dead. Back in chapter 1 of this very book, Paul says it's the foolishness of that which we preach to save.

We preach and God uses that to save the lost. There's power in it. If Christ has not risen, it's ineffective. Romans chapter 10, Paul says, Why would Paul contradict himself? If Christ hasn't been raised, then why in the world would we preach at all?

There's no value. It's meaningless. It's completely meaningless. There's no profit in preaching a dead Savior, is there? You starting to see how all of this is going to start to crumble? You get rid of this essential truth and everything is starting to crumble.

So if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is ineffective. Secondly, our faith is irrational. Our faith is irrational. Look at verse 14 again. And if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our preaching is in vain.

And your faith is in vain. So not only is our proclamation of the gospel in vain, meaningless, ineffective, the very core of your faith is baseless and irrational. The very core of this faith in Jesus Christ is irrational.

Without a resurrection, Jesus has no power to placate your sin. He has none. A dead Savior has no power to placate your sin, does He? Hence your faith is in vain. As a matter of fact, Jesus' own words are even meaningless.

Back in John chapter 14, Jesus says, because I live, you also will live. What does that mean if He's not living? If He didn't live, that means we're not going to live. Our faith is in vain. Everything has crumbled around us.

Paul says in Romans 6, just as Christ was raised from the dead, I don't know how you can get around that, by the glory of the Father, power of God, we too, us as believers that are in faith, walk in newness of life.

This is essential to our faith, and our faith is completely irrational without the resurrection. If these things aren't true, you might as well put your faith in anything else. Put your faith in Muhammad.

Put your faith in Buddha. Put your faith in Joseph Smith. Put your faith in Tom Cruise. Whatever it is you want to put your faith in, put your faith in that. Because it's no different if you're putting your faith in a dead Savior.

Because all of these men have one thing, I guess other than Tom Cruise, he's going to live forever, right? Now all of these men share one common thing, and it's that they're dead. If we don't serve a risen Savior, then how are we any different?

We're not. He's no different than them if he is not physically, bodily raised from the dead. So if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is ineffective, our faith is irrational, and thirdly, the disciples were impostors.

The disciples were impostors. Our entire faith is based on their account, isn't it? Everything that we believe is based on this account of Jesus. Look at verse 15 with me. It says, we are even found to be misrepresenting God.

Who's this we? Paul's talking about himself. He's talking about the apostles. He's talking about anybody that's proclaimed Christ at all. But specifically, the apostles, because this is where Christ expanded his ministry there in the early church.

We're found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ. Now there you go. That's a given. Paul's telling them right there in that little sentence, this is what we've testified.

Christ has been raised. So Christ is raised whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. If there is no resurrection in the future, if there is no resurrection for you, then there is no physical bodily resurrection of our Savior.

I love some of the arguments against the apostles. There's so many that want to turn the apostles into impostors, which again is why I think they want to attack something like the resurrection because it does turn the apostles into impostors.

But no theologian and no historian can deny the fact that the apostles claim to have seen the risen Lord, to have been with him, to have touched him, to have been in his presence and experienced a bodily resurrection.

None of them deny that. They can't deny that. So if this fact is true, how in the world are we supposed to put any stock in anything else they say? How do you have any kind of Christianity? How is there some progressive Christianity where there's not a risen Savior?

How does that even exist? Because everything that the apostles said must be a lie because they proclaimed a risen Savior. And so it crumbles. For 2 ,000 years people have been trying to delegitimize these men.

They've tried so many ways. A couple of the most prominent ways is the fact that they say that both Jews and Romans had started a rumor that they had stolen the body of Jesus. That there was this rumor that went around.

And they did. They started those rumors. The problem is those rumors couldn't hold up by the end of their lifetime. That falls apart pretty quickly. Because if they're just making up this resurrection thing, then why in the world would all of them be willing to die?

I mean, all but one banished. But why? Why are they all willing to die and then do die? I mean, I can see one or two of them being a little, maybe a couple screws loose, not really understanding what's happening.

But all of them? That doesn't hold water. It doesn't make any sense. And some bring up the argument. They say, well, what about other faiths? What do you do with these Muslims who are willing to attach bombs to their body and blow themselves up so they can go be with their 72 virgins or whatever it is that they do?

What about them? They're willing to die. They're willing to die for a lie, right? Well, the problem with that argument is, is there's a vast difference between that guy and the apostles. Because that guy is being fed a lie from so many trusts.

He truly believes it. He truly believes that if he does this, that his god, Mohammed or whatever, is going to bless it. But the apostles? If they had stolen the body, these men knew truth. These men knew the truth.

And why are they willing to die for it? It doesn't make sense, does it? So they're not impostors, are they? Now, I know there's a couple other arguments. We'll just deal with one. If they had stolen the body and they knew...

Now some want to say that the Romans had hidden the body. They want to delegitimize them, don't they? The Romans have hidden the body, some say today. The Romans hid that body. That doesn't hold any water because you've got to understand that this whole resurrection thing was quite a disruption for Rome.

You can guarantee if they had a body, they'd be parading it around the streets of Rome going, here's Jesus of Nazareth. But they didn't because they didn't have a body. So we can be affirmed that these apostles were not impostors.

But if there is no resurrection, they are. So if Christ has not been raised from the dead, fourth, the cross is insufficient. The cross is insufficient. Look at verse 16 with me. It says, for if the dead are not raised.

And here's Paul reaffirming what he's already said. He's saying it again in a different way. I love how Paul does that. Not even Christ has been raised. Are you following Paul's logic? If this is true, if there is no resurrection, not even Christ has been raised, verse 17.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. That just completely cuts the knees out from underneath our faith completely. What is our faith in? What do we have faith in?

Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith that our sins have been paid for. And if this is the case, then they've not. And we're still left in our sins. Because what Paul is saying here is if there is no resurrection, if there's no resurrection, there's no Savior.

No resurrection, no Savior. No Savior, no forgiveness. If you don't have forgiveness, then there's no justification. If there's no justification, then you and me and everyone that's ever lived are still in our sins.

It completely undermines it. It completely destroys our faith. You see why this is at the heart of the Christian faith now? Why they refer to this as the Gibraltar? This is core. This affects the very standing we have in Christ.

Because if Christ hasn't been raised, He is no Savior at all. And without a Savior, we can never achieve forgiveness. How do we come to that conclusion? How do we come to the conclusion that if He hasn't been raised, He's not a Savior?

And if He's not a Savior, then we're not justified and we have no forgiveness. Well, think about what Christ actually came to do. Most of us are very familiar with what Christ came to do, but it's so good to talk about it and remind ourselves, isn't it?

What did our Savior do? Christ, the one that created all things, He was there in the beginning. Nothing was created apart from Him. Condescends and comes down as one of His creatures. Lives a life that we can't live.

A perfect life. A sinless life. Fulfills the law perfectly. And then willingly, on His own accord, goes to the cross. And we get so fixated on the fact of the physical beating and torture of our Savior, which is horrendous, that we forget the fact that when He was on that cross, the one that had had perfect communion with the Father from eternity past, that had been with the Father in all of creation and had never, ever had any rift at all, now is taking the wrath of the Father.

That's what Jesus was crying out, if this cup can pass from me there in the garden. It wasn't the beatings. He knew that was momentary and He had eternity to look towards. He could handle that. It was the taking the wrath of the Father that was due us.

This is what Christ has done. When He was on that cross, He who knew no sin became sin for us. Every sin we'd ever committed. Every sin every saint that's ever lived committed. Every saint that will ever live committed.

In that moment of time, the God-man took upon himself the sin. He had never known sin. This is what Christ did. And then at that point, if you are in Christ or if you are one of His, one of His called, then when you're awakened and you see Christ for who He is and you run to Him in repentance and faith, in that moment, He who knew no sin took on sin for you and His righteousness got imparted on your behalf.

The great exchange, isn't it? This is what happened at the cross. This is why we're justified. We're justified from our sins because Christ took the penalty on Himself. That's what Christ has done. We understand that.

We know that as the Christian faith. We know what Christ has done. But we need to understand that the resurrection, this is God's validation of what He accomplished. None of that would have been of any value if Christ didn't defeat death.

If Christ did not raise, then we're still in our sins. We're not justified. Jesus could have done all of that and it would have been for naught. So He had to have raised. This is God's validation. Over in Romans 4, Paul says, Who was delivered up?

Who? Jesus was delivered up. Not by the Romans, not by the Jews, by God Himself willingly for our trespasses and raised for our justification. I'm reading from the ESV. There's a better translation that says because.

The better translation is that He was raised because of our justification. This is God's validation, isn't it? You see it? See why it's so essential and non-negotiable for us to believe this? If Christ has not been raised, the cross is insufficient.

Fifthly, if Christ has not been raised, death is infinite. Death is infinite. Look at verse 18 with me. Then those also who have fallen asleep. I love the language that's used for saints, right? Falling asleep, it's like we're taking a nice long nap.

Death is no longer a thing for us. But then those who have fallen asleep in Christ. Speaking about people who are in the faith that proclaim Christ. These are believers. Because unbelievers don't just fall asleep.

Unbelievers die, spend eternity in judgment. We're speaking of believers. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ. They've perished. They've perished. Our faith has been in vain. Their faith was in vain.

Those that have gone on before us, they are not in heaven. They're not with the Father. They're not looking for a physical resurrection. They're not looking for glory. They're in eternal punishment. When He says perished, He's not speaking of an end.

He's not speaking of ceasing to exist. He is speaking of a final judgment. He's speaking of God's wrath being poured out upon them for eternity. Death is infinite. It will never end. It is forever. And if Christ has not been raised, then those saints are gone.

They're gone. There's no hope for them. There's no redemption for them. There's nothing but judgment. Because if death defeated Jesus, you can rest assured it defeats you. Praise God it didn't defeat Jesus, right?

Praise God we don't perish. That when we fall asleep, when there's the death of a saint, they are just asleep, ready to be risen with a perfected body and glory. Sixth and lastly, if Christ has not been raised, everything is insignificant.

Everything. Look at verse 19. If in Christ we have hope in this life only. What does he mean by that? I think what Paul is talking about is those people that use the name of Christ on this earth for earthly benefit.

In this life only. We want to use Christ. The progressive Christians again want to use Jesus as some sort of moral standard. We can have a better life if we can just do these things. Then we will have a better life.

We'll be blessed by God. And we just imitate this Jesus, this loving, this lovey-dovey Jesus. He just wants to help the poor. We just want to do all those nice things. I'm not saying those are bad things.

I'm saying that that's what much of Christianity today sees Jesus as. It's this life only, isn't it? It's nothing. That's what he says. Look at verse 19 again. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

You're to be pitied. You wasted your life. You wasted it. You should have enjoyed it. You should have lived for yourself. You should have grabbed hold of everything that you could grab hold of. Why help the poor?

Help yourself. Why do good things? Help yourself. Why would you have lived this life? You wasted it. Why take on such persecution over this? You wasted it. It's meaningless. It's insignificant. Praise God we don't waste our life.

Why is that? How can we be assured that we're not wasting our life? That we are not of all people to be pitied. Look at verse 20 with me. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead. It's cut and dry right there, right?

Paul's as clear as can be. He's been raised from the dead. There's no question about it. Don't think for a moment that Christ hasn't been raised from the dead. The firstfruits of those who have fallen.

All of our brothers and sisters that he referred to that have fallen asleep. Jesus was the firstfruits. He was the first one. He led the way. He died the death that we deserved. But he rose as the firstfruits.

And now we follow after. Look at verse 21. For as by a man came death. By what man? Adam. We've all sinned in Adam, right? Adam ate of that fruit. He disobeyed God. We have death in the world. We die.

And he says by a man. Who? The better Adam. Jesus. By a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. This is how we have certainty and security in the faith. And the fact that Jesus Christ, our Savior has risen.

He has risen and we can be assured of that. Because if he is not then everything else crumbles around it. It's a non-negotiable. It's essential. Don't let anyone tell you or come up with any kind of way that maybe Jesus did rise but not bodily.

Don't fall for it. Paul warned the people in Corinth and we need to be warned ourselves. Rest assured in the fact that we serve a risen Savior. And because of that we get to partake in something today that we've not yet done as a church.

We are going to be partaking in the Lord's Supper. We're going to go to the table together and be reminded of what our Savior did. What a wonderful day to start it, isn't it? It's a great day to be reminded of a risen Savior and what he has done to redeem us.

And how we take part in him. We are in him. We are no longer born of Adam. We are no longer in Adam. We're in the better Adam. And we have a risen Savior. Defeated death. So, how we're going to do this this morning.

As you can see we have two tables. I'm going to be over here. Pastor Jeremiah is going to be over here. And we have offered both wine and grape juice for conscience sake. And they will be there and we can show you which one is which.

There is bread. Erica made unleavened bread last night for us. So bread is in one cup. The juice is in the other. You grab one. You can come up as a family. You can get it at the table and make your way over here.

If you would like to pray as a family together as you take it, you're welcome to. If you'd like to come back to your seats to take it, you're welcome to do that. But we're going to do all this together.

This is a group effort. And we're going to enjoy being reminded of what our Savior did at the cross for us as we partake in this communion together. And so everyone on this side, obviously that direction.

Everyone on this side, we have a small enough group to where we don't have to make lines and worry too much about that. But let me read from Matthew 26. This is when Jesus implemented this act that we are partaking in today.

Matthew 26, starting in verse 26, says, Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took a cup.

And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. This is something that the church has been called to partake in as a memorial of what our Savior has done, just as he illustrated with the disciples there, that Passover supper.