WWUTT 1621 If Not Even Christ Has Been Raised... (1 Corinthians 15:12-15)

The death and resurrection of Jesus. These are essential aspects to the gospel, to the Christian faith. You have to believe them or you have no faith when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

1 Corinthians 15 and the Witnesses to Christ’s Resurrection

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and we're gonna pick up where we left off last week. So I'm gonna start reading here in verse 12. We'll go through verse 22 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. Now, if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain. Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we bore witness against God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise if in fact 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 worthless. You are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive. What a beautiful section of scripture. And as we come back to verse 12 here, Paul begins this apologetic about the dead being raised, Christ being raised from the dead.

And because he has been raised from the dead, we can have hope that we will be raised from the dead. But the way he has started this argument is talking about the witnesses to his resurrection from the dead.

So I draw your attention again to what we had looked at last week in verses one through 11. And the first witness to Christ's resurrection from the dead is the scripture itself, who said that he would be raised from the dead.

The Holy Spirit speaking through the prophet said that Christ would be raised. So that is the first witness, God himself who said that he would raise his son. Jesus, the son tells his disciples, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem, I'm going to die, I'll be buried, but take heart, I'm coming back again.

I will be raised three days later. Three times in the gospel of Matthew, this is mentioned. And of course, one of those, the first of those accounts in Matthew 16, you know, because Peter confronts Jesus and says, Lord, I will never let this happen to you.

And that's where Jesus says, get behind me, Satan, for you are thinking not with the mind of God, but with the mind of a man. And as much as Peter cared for his Lord in that moment, if Peter had his way, we would not be saved.

It's like the disciples weren't even listening to what it was that Jesus said. We're gonna go back to Jerusalem, they're gonna put me to death, but take heart, because I'm coming back again three days later and they weren't even listening.

Any of those three times that Jesus said that, for after he died and was buried, what happened to the disciples after that? They kind of went into hiding and they're all just puzzling to themselves, what in the world happened?

Everything was going so well and then suddenly he was put to death. That's what they're talking about when they're on the road to Emmaus that we have recalled in the Gospel of Luke. And then Jesus, of course, shows up with those two disciples and starts explaining to them how the Old Testament scriptures prophesied this and how they must be fulfilled.

So Christ fulfilled those things, even through his resurrection, which was prophesied hundreds of years before he even showed up and did those things. So there's our first witness there. We have God himself who had said that he would send a Messiah and this was what would happen to him.

So the scriptures are fulfilled in this way. That's our first witness. Then we have hundreds of other witnesses. You have his closest disciples who saw this. The half-brother of Jesus, James, who previously did not believe, even he saw his own brother risen from the dead.

And then you have hundreds of witnesses to whom he appeared at one time. That was in verse six. Most of whom remain until now, but some had fallen asleep. You can still go back and talk to any of those who saw Jesus alive from the dead.

And then Paul says in verse eight, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. He also saw the resurrected Christ. It was in a vision on the road to Damascus, almost said the road to Emmaus there, but on the road to Damascus was where Jesus appeared to him.

Of course, this was after he had already ascended back into heaven, but nevertheless, Paul saw the resurrected Christ and then even spent three years with him in Arabia, learning from Christ before as an apostle, he went out to the world sharing the gospel.

And Paul said in verse nine, I'm the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. What testimony to see this man, who was a rockstar among Pharisees, give that up and become one of the ones he was persecuting, not to receive any kind of rockstar status.

I mean, the guy was persecuted for the rest of his life, even to the point of his very death. Yeah, he was very popular among Christians and even then not all Christians. There were some that were not convinced by him, but it wasn't like he achieved the kind of status that he had when he was a Pharisee.

He gave all that up to follow Christ because Christ appeared to him and made him an apostle by the will of God. That's the way Paul started this letter, if you remember that. In first Corinthians chapter one, Paul, an apostle by the will of God.

In verse 10, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain. It didn't prove empty or meaningless. It wasn't just he knocked me to the ground and then, okay, well, I guess I'm a Christian, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

And then I just love verse 11, whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. And this calls back to attention again, something else that Paul had laid down in chapter one. The factions that had developed in the church in Corinth because some of them were going, I am of Apollos or I am of Cephas or I am of Christ.

And so where Paul says, whether it was I or they, again, we're all preaching with the same motive here. It is to proclaim Christ that you would turn from your sin and believe in him and so be saved. So whether it was I or whether it was they, so we preach and so you believe.

We preach the resurrection of Christ. We saw him risen. We proclaim his resurrection, his death and his resurrection back to the bare bones of the gospel in verses three and four for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

Can't be resurrected unless he's dead. So we died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Whenever you ask some, if you ask somebody, give me the basic gospel, they might give you something similar to what Paul said here in 1 Corinthians 15, three and four.

Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. So they'll give that as like a bare bones gospel. We all must believe that.

There's what Paul says the basic gospel is according to the scriptures and so that's what we must believe. You ever heard anybody respond in that way? I've heard a Greek Orthodox reply that way. There was an interview not long ago with Max Lakato who I would consider to be a heretic but Max Lakato said this is the main thing that we all must agree upon as Christians and if we can at least agree upon that then we're all sharing the same faith and he said that we must believe that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

He was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. But even when you're using those verses as kind of like a bare bones basics of the gospel, you still have to understand the context that Paul is laying this down in.

He is stating this because there are Corinthians who don't believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead. Again, they're believing in Christianity because it's higher thought. It's the next new philosophy that's on the scene.

So I've got a philosophy that's even better than some of these other Greeks out here are talking about in the public square because I've listened to Christianity so now I've got the philosophy of Jesus.

That's the way some of these Corinthians are thinking. So they're missing the gospel and they don't even think it's all that important to believe that Jesus died. Like that's an embarrassing aspect of Christ.

Hence why Paul said back at the beginning in 1 Corinthians 1, 18, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. If you're thinking it's kind of an embarrassing thing that this God and we serve was put to death so we'll just leave that part out of it, then you're missing the gospel.

You don't have the gospel at all. For Jesus died and not just died. It wasn't just because he stirred up people among the Romans and the Jews who hated him enough that they put him to death. He died for our sins.

He did exactly what he said he was gonna do and that was laid down his life as a ransom for many so that all who believe in him, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life with God. So Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures.

It's necessary for Paul to establish that because there are Corinthians in that church who don't believe it. And then in verse four, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

It's what the scriptures have said. It is what he fulfilled. He was resurrected. He was raised on the third day. The Greeks find it embarrassing that you worship a God who was crucified and then they find it absurd that you would claim that he was resurrected from the dead.

Remember back to Acts chapter 17 with Paul preaching at the Areopagus. It was at the point where he said that God raised him from the dead, this one who would judge the nations and God has shown by whom he would judge all men by raising him from the dead.

And once Paul got to that part, that was where the Greeks were like, oh, resurrection of the dead, it's impossible. It doesn't happen. The Greeks thought that was absurd. So it's at that point in the gospel, they dismiss it.

Therefore, there are even Greeks there in the church in Corinth that don't fully believe it. Paul is laying down this apologetic here for the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of Christ, and then therefore our resurrection for those who believe in him.

Therefore, it's necessary for him to have to lay this down. At the very start, Christ died for our sins and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And then there were witnesses to that.

So he gives the basic gospel first, three and four, the witnesses to this, verses six through 11. This is what it is that we proclaimed in verse 11, whether it was I or they, so we preached and so you believed.

This is exactly what we preach. It's the reason why we preach because we need a solution to our sin problem. We need a solution to death and Christ is that solution. He who died for our sins so that through him, we would be forgiven and we stand justified in the presence of a holy God for those who believe in Jesus.

And then he rose from the dead. It was not just enough that he died for our sins, but even as it says in Romans four, he was raised for our justification. Oftentimes we think of his death being for our justification but even his resurrection was so that we would be justified because we can't live with God if we can't live.

And it is only through Christ and his life, death, resurrection, that we therefore have life in him. So Paul says, this is the very reason why we preached. So we preach and so you believed. You don't have faith if you don't believe this.

That's something Paul gets to here where he says, if Christ has not been raised, you're still in your sins and your faith is vain. It's nothing. It doesn't mean anything if you don't believe Christ died for our sins and that he rose again from the dead.

This is what we preached. This is what you have believed. You believe anything else, you don't believe the gospel. Look at verse 12. Now, if Christ is preached, so we preached, so you believed. So now if Christ is preached, that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

And this is almost like Paul is asking this question as though to say, are you a church or not? Are you a church of Jesus Christ or aren't you? So how can there possibly be some among you who say that he was not resurrected of the dead?

If you are truly of Christ, then you're gonna believe everything that was proclaimed about him, especially that he was crucified for our sins and that he was raised again on the third day. If you don't have that, then the rest of it is meaningless.

I mean, this flies in the face of any of the philosophers of the age who have said, you know, I believe Jesus. He said some good things. So yeah, sure, I like that Jesus. I like the neat stuff that he said.

And some might even go as far as saying, I know Jesus better than you do because I know him as the great philosopher. And then in which case they really don't know Christ. So there are plenty of people who say that about Jesus as though he were a Gandhi or a Buddha figure, but not that he was the son of God who died and was raised on the third day.

Then they don't really know Jesus. There's a quote from Gandhi that's pretty popular, pretty famous. In fact, I've even heard Jen Hatmaker repeated, I believe, but Gandhi who said, I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians.

Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. First of all, it was not Gandhi that said that. It was like a Gandhi biographer or something like that. So he never said it. But then secondly, you're hearing an entire group of faith being slanderized by a man who really didn't even know Jesus.

So where he says, I like your Jesus, but I don't like your Christians, he didn't know Jesus. He didn't like the Jesus of the Bible at all. He liked the philosopher that he had developed in his mind, but he didn't know the true Christ or else he would have believed him.

And he didn't. He just picked and choosed the different, neat, pithy things that I've heard Jesus say, which of course he ripped out of context and made it serve his social justice purpose that he was accomplishing in his day.

But he was not really an admirer of Christ for he truly did not know Christ. He did not know Christ preached and he himself never preached Christ. Here Paul says, if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

So we preached and so you believe this is the gospel message that you heard and believed in. So Christ has been preached among you. How is it therefore that there are some among you who do not believe that he was raised from the dead?

You know, there may be something else behind this question as though Paul is to say to these Corinthians, you need to test those people who proclaim that Christ is not raised from the dead. I mean, do these people need to be disciplined?

Is there something about their thinking they need to repent of, or do they just need to be disciplined out of your church because now they're just teaching and believing falsely. If they're not gonna be Christians, then they should not be in your midst, purge the evil person from among you as he said back in chapter five.

And so continuing to lay down this apologetic for the resurrection of Christ and therefore our resurrection, if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised, verse 13. So if you're going to lay on this axiom and you're gonna determine that this axiom is therefore universally true, there is no resurrection of the dead.

If that's what you're gonna say, and that's where you're gonna make your bed, then not even Christ has been raised. There's no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not even been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, verse 14, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain.

What were we preaching about? If Jesus was not raised from the dead, why would you even admire us at all? Why are you even a church if Christ has not been raised from the dead? Your faith is vain. Our preaching was vain, it was empty, it was nothing.

Your faith is nothing. Pack up the tent, go home. What in the world are you even gathering for? Why even have all these factions and divisions among you for nothing if Christ has not been raised from the dead?

So he's presenting the negative argument first. Like, let's just consider here for a moment what you say is true, what some of you are saying. Let's just consider if that's true. If Jesus was not raised from the dead, let's consider this Christian faith.

It's really no faith at all. It means nothing, it's empty. If you can't believe in the resurrection of Christ, there's no point to Christianity. You go back to Lewis's liar, lord, or lunatic argument, right?

So Jesus was either a liar, he was a lunatic, maybe he did believe what it was that he said, which is out of his mind, or he's lord. We have those three options based on the things that Jesus said. Was he a liar?

Did he just lie about everything? He never could do any of the things that he said he did? Was he a lunatic? He claimed these things as if he truly believed that he could do them, but he couldn't because he was just a loon.

Or is he lord? Now that's the way C .S. Lewis puts it, but Paul is really kind of laying that down here before the Corinthians as well. Who are you saying that Jesus is? Going back to the question that Jesus put before his own disciples in Matthew 16, who do you say that I am?

Who is it that people are saying that the son of man is? And then the disciples come up with all kinds of answers. Well, some are saying that you're a reincarnated prophet. Some think you're John the Baptist or Elijah or one of these other guys.

And then Jesus putting it to them this way, but who do you say that I am? And Peter's answer was, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for this answer was revealed to you not by flesh and blood, but my father who was in heaven.

And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The church has been built on this claim that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, that he was raised, that he was crucified for our sins and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

And if you don't have that, you have nothing. If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is vain and your faith also is vain. Moreover, Paul says in verse 15, we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we bore witness against God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised.

Once again, the first witness to these things are the scriptures themselves, the Holy Spirit having testified through the prophets that the son would come, he would die, he would be buried, he would be raised again on the third day.

So was preached and so we believe. Amen, brothers and sisters. Let's finish there, we'll come back, we'll pick this up again tomorrow. Heavenly Father, as we consider what we have read today, may we really understand the weight and the seriousness of this, that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Romans 6 .23, we have all sinned, we all deserve death, we need a solution to our sin problem, a solution to the death problem. And Christ is that solution. He who died for us, who rose again from the dead, that all who might believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

We have the forgiveness of sins, fellowship with God even now the promise of eternal life with you forever in glory. Be with us as we not only meditate upon these scriptures, but desire to live according to them.

Teach us to live resurrected lives this day. We live a life for Christ, not for ourselves, not for the world, not walking in death, but in newness of life, in Christ whom we proclaim. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

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