Would you open your Bible, please, to the book of First
Corinthians, chapter 15? So that's in the New Testament.
We've been studying and teaching through First Corinthians.
We're nearly there. We've almost finished the book,
and tonight we're looking at chapter 15, verses one through
28, and the title of the message.
Tonight, the resurrection reality proclaimed, proven and
promised. As you're turning, I don't know
what you might think is the most important thing that you know
that that piece of information or a collective of information,
facts, knowledge that you possess that if you were to come
down to it, we'd suggest and say this is probably the most
important piece of information or knowledge in my possession.
Remember, as a child in primary school, coming into our school
library and just being enamoured with the number of books and
just overwhelmed with the sense of thinking back then.
This is prior to obviously the days of Internet and other, you
know, access to those sorts of things.
Wow, what knowledge there is here.
And then heading into high school and, and again, it just
kind of doubled in size the library on campus and not
changed school into a, a relatively new one that was much
better resource than the one I'd been at.
And I was just like, wow, this is mind blowing.
This library. And then I went to university
and, and university had not only one level, but multiple levels
of books and, and, and all sorts of academic texts and things
that I could access to. And, and then computers were
starting to come about then and we had all of those computer
stations. And, and then now of course,
with technology and what we have access to at our very fingertip,
the amount of knowledge that is, that is possible for us to
access, to consume, to know is, is huge.
Just think of the vast constant influx of information that is
available to you. And I mean, the average
household has multiple TV's and all of the media that's coming
through to us. I mean, statistically they
suggest that the average TV is on 8 hours a day in the home.
And if you've got multiples of those with all of the news
information coming through. So again, it begs the question,
what is the most important thing that you know?
The question, simple yet profound, leads us to 1
Corinthians 15 where Paul answers it directly.
He says in verse 3, what I received, I passed on to you as
of first importance. So Paul declares to us tonight
the first important to him, the first importance to him, the
greatest piece of knowledge, the greatest information that you
can receive that you could ever know, He presents.
And that is this, the gospel, the life, the death, the burial
and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And if you know this tonight, that is the most important thing
that you know. And if you don't know the truth
of this tonight, then tonight's your night.
You can know its greatest, most important of first importance.
As Paul says again, in an age of information, that's what it's
called now seemingly drowning in information, this chapter calls
us to anchor our lives in what matters most, the gospel, the
good news of Jesus Christ centred on the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, and that's Paul's real focus.
The simple truth is this. You see, a dead saviour, if
Jesus is not alive, if he did not rise again from the death,
saves no one. It's a waste of time.
In fact, Paul will declare that we're to be pitied because what
we're doing, what we're gathering here, if Jesus isn't
alive, if Jesus didn't rise again from the dead as the
Scriptures declare and as we believe, then we're just kidding
ourselves and we're to be pitied.
But if it's true, well then, then there's something powerful,
there's something great to it. And this is what Paul declares
to you and I tonight, that the greatest thing of first
importance that you can ever know is that the life, death,
burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, the gospel message,
because this is what saves A risen Christ, saves all who will
believe. And the idea that Jesus lived a
good life, he was a good person, appeals to some.
And I'll declare that, yeah, I believe Jesus to to being a real
individual. And I think he taught some good
things that we can learn from. I think he taught some wonderful
things, in fact, but then he died and that's it.
And, you know, it was a tragic death and but he never came
back. And I don't believe that.
And so that begs the question, well, So what then?
There's been plenty of people that have espoused great things
and had some wonderful teachings and so on.
But what separates Jesus from just being a philosophy from a
guru is the fact that he rose again.
That's transformative. That takes a philosophy and
transforms it into the powerful. You see, this dead guy got back
up again. This dead guy isn't in the grave
anymore. He rose again, the Bible says,
and he's alive, which means this, that he can conquer death.
The death, that great nemesis, that great fear that holds much
of humanity did not hold him, that he had the power to conquer
death. And that means that if he has
the power to do that, then he has the power to do anything
that he promised. He said a number of things, and
we'll see the relevance of that. So tonight I want to look at the
powerful truth and fact of the resurrection of Jesus.
And what we're going to see in our text before us is that it is
proclaimed as the core of the gospel.
And then what Paul will do to to address any doubts at his
audience and that we might have is he he goes and proves the
resurrection. And then he builds on that and
gives the promise that the resurrection holds for you and I
tonight, that because Jesus is alive, that he is resurrected,
that he is immortal forever to live on, then that means
something for you and I. So let's look at these verses
and let's look at verses 1 to 4 to begin with.
Moreover, brethren, I declare I'm reading from the New King
James Version of the Bible. By the way, I declare to you the
gospel which I preached to you. Gospel simply means good news.
It's the good news of Jesus Christ which I preached to you,
which also you received, and in which you stand, by which also
you are saved if you hold fast. That word which I preached to
you, unless you believed in vain, or was emptiness or a
waste of time. For I delivered to you first of
all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, and that he was verse 4 buried, and
that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
Now, brothers and sisters, he begins with I want to remind you
of the gospel that I preached. You see, there was a challenge
in the church at Corinth that was questioning.
And this was big in in Greek philosophy.
In fact, they weren't big on this idea of being resurrected,
that when you died, they would much prefer that, well, the
spirit was released from the body.
And this idea of, of having some kind of a resurrected body was
just altogether foreign. And that was creeping in to the
church there in Corinth. Remember it was a a Roman
province, but lots of Greek philosophy and influence there.
What Paul here gives to us in verses 3 and 4 in particular is
often being called an early Christian creed, something that
the early church had developed an an earliest record of, of
what the gospel is, of what they would confess.
This is what we adhere to, this is what we believe.
This is what makes us Christians, followers of the way
as they are known followers of Jesus Christ.
And that is that Jesus died, that Jesus was buried, and he
rose again according to the Scriptures.
And so the message of the Gospel is exactly that, that Christ
Jesus when he came to this earth, lived fully human, but he
died and he was buried, but he rose again three days later.
And Paul's words aren't simply an introduction to this chapter
here. They are called to to stand on
what truly matters. It says, I want you to be firm
on this, to be secure, grounded in this, because this is what
truly saves. Paul says he reminds the
Corinthians and us tonight the gospel that he preached.
This is what I delivered to you from the very beginning.
This is what you received. This is what has transformed
your lives. And now stand in this gospel
because the gospel is not just good advice, it's not just some
wise words and some things that, well, we can glean and maybe get
some good understanding out of it.
It is good news for you and I that God entered into human
history in Jesus and that He came and He is able to
sympathise with all that we experience and go through as
human beings here in this fallen world, this earth as we know it.
He knows what it is like to be human.
He knows what it is like to suffer, to to feel hunger, to
experience pain, to to mourn the loss of loved ones, to
experience betrayal. All of the things that we go
through, Jesus was acquainted with, and yet He lived sinlessly
in this life. So all of the pressure that we
face, that we succumb to, the temptations that we endure, He
was able to stand against and to resist.
The pressures of life in this fallen world were there for him.
But he was strong and he persevered and resisted.
And then he died sacrificially at the age of 33.
And he did die, despite what people might deny and try to
claim. He was beaten, he was flogged,
he was whipped, he was crucified.
Expert witnesses, the centurion at the cross declared that this
man was dead, so much so that when it came to breaking the
legs of the other criminals that were crucified alongside of him
to to speed up their death process when they came to Jesus,
No, he's gone. He was already dead and he died
in our place for our sin. The Bible says to pay the
penalty, the wages that that we had earned through our sinful
lives. And he came to take that and to
make the way possible for, for sinful fallen humanity to again
gain access, entrance to a holy, righteous, sinless God.
And he rose triumphantly 3 days later.
This is all part of the gospel, defeating death, conquering the
grave, displaying his power over sin and the grave and the enemy
Satan who thought he'd won his greatest victory.
You see in a world that is overflowing with bad news and,
and there is much of it, if you turn on the TV, listen to the
radio, read the headlines, it's death, it's injustice, it's
wars, it's tragedy after tragedy.
Paul declares that Christ died for our sins, that he was
buried, but he rose again on the third day.
And this, he says, is good news. This is the gospel for the
Christian. This is not optional truth for
us to go. Yeah, I kind of like bits and
pieces of the Bible and and and I'll glean from that and I'll
apply that. But this is a non negotiable,
this is foundational when it comes to what makes us
Christian. So just as reporters announce
world altering events, so we as Christians and I as a preacher
and anybody that proclaims the good news, the single greatest
event in history is the death, the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. And the meaning of the gospel is
this. It's for our sins, it says.
This was no ordinary death. It was what's called
substitutionary, penal and purposeful.
It says Christ died for our sins.
He bore the judgement that we deserve.
He took our place absorbing the wrath of God on our behalf.
Paul says indeed, as we look into this, that without Jesus
the Christ, we have a problem. And the problem is simply sin.
And we're all sinners. Not, not a single human being is
exempt from that. We all have in Word and in deed,
in thought, done what we're not to do and not done what we were
we were to do. These are called sins of
omission. The things that we have not
done, that we should have been doing, that we've omitted doing,
and sins of Commission, things that we have done that we should
not have done, we've all perpetrated those things and
we've all had those things committed against us.
And we know the full experience of sin in our existence of
humanity. And the result the the Bible
says the wages, the penalty of sin is death and we all die.
It's been said again and again, statistics are that 10 out of 10
people will die. And that is the bad news,
because if we're to die in our sin, then we are doomed and we
are lost and, and, and we're we're separated for all of
eternity away from God. But the good news is that Jesus
the Christ came to love and to save us, to rescue us from
ourselves and the perilous eternity that we faced without
him. And Jesus didn't just die.
That would be a tragedy. Yes, as we read the story and we
go through it and we see all that he experienced and, and
there have been many people throughout history that have
died and experienced all, all sorts of forms of, of terrible
tragedies in their death. But no, we remember Jesus
because of the significance of his death.
He died for you, it says he died for me, for our sins.
Like a a firefighter rushing into the flames to rescue the
trap. Jesus faced the fury of God's
judgement to bring us out and to rescue us and so on.
The meaning of this the Gospel, the good news of Jesus life of
Jesus death of his burial of his resurrection is is that have you
trusted Jesus, not merely admired him, not merely
appreciated him, but have you surrendered to him?
Have you received this gospel not as a philosophy, but as your
hope for what lies beyond the grave because the message of the
gospel must not only be received but retained.
That's why he says to them, stand firm in this not only what
I preached to you that you heard, but but listen to it,
receive it. This gospel, you are saved.
If you hold firmly otherwise, he says in verse 2, you have
believed in vain. You see, it's not just what you
hear, but what you believe and what you cling to that saves.
And all of this is so important because early on in the book of
Romans, Paul said these words in chapter 10, verse 9.
If you confess with your mouth, listen to this, the Lord Jesus,
and believe in your heart that what God raised him from the
dead, you shall be saved. That's the promise of the
Scripture. In other words, you cannot be
saved. You're not a true believer, a
saved person, if you deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
That's how important it is. It's part and parcel of the
historic Christian gospel, this declaration of Jesus life,
death, burial and his resurrection.
And Paul sees this as our first importance.
So let let me remind you that the most important thing that
you can know, our first importance is this.
We need the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and we are
they were to stand firm in this. And again, do you have this
tonight? Is your faith a passing phase?
I'll check out this church thing for a little bit and I'm curious
about the Bible or is it a permanent foundation, the
gospel. Do you stand in the gospel, the
good news of Jesus Christ? Are you wavering an opinion,
habit and loyalty? You know, I'm not sure, I'm not
sure. So the gospel firstly is
proclaimed, but let's look at in case you say, well, how can I
trust that the resurrection is real?
Are you kidding me with all of this?
I mean that's 2000 years ago just because some text says it.
And yes, I am wavering an opinion.
And are you expecting me to believe that someone came back
from the dead? Paul pre empts those lines of
questions in the verses that come.
And so now he proves with convincing evidence in verses 5
to 11 the gospel and in particular the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. And verse 5 he says that he was
seen by Cephas that that is Peter of the disciples of the
apostles. Then by the 12.
So in reference to the other disciples, followers of Jesus,
that's a collective term. After that verse 6, he was seen
by over 500 brethren at once. So 500 people gathered at one
point in time had seen Jesus resurrected, physical body as it
was, of whom he says the greater part.
You can ask them, he says at the time of this writing, of whom
the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen
asleep. This is a euphemism for having
died. You see, for the Christian, when
our physical body dies, it's gone.
That's not the real us. It's akin to falling asleep.
And the Bible says after that, verse 7, he was seen by James.
This isn't James of the disciples of the apostles.
This is the half brother of Jesus, James.
We'll talk a little bit about him later.
Then by all the apostles. These were others beyond the 12
as well. Then last of all, he was seen by
me. Paul's own personal testimony as
by one board out out of due time.
For I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy 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, empty or a waste of time, but I laboured
more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God
which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or
they, so we preach, and so you believed.
So again here in these verses, Paul anticipates those that
might doubt the Verity of the resurrection.
And he answers and he doesn't appeal to blind faith in the
verses that we read. He builds his case on eyewitness
evidence, on fulfilled prophecy and on transformed lives, and he
gives for a scriptural proof. First of all, he says according
to the Scriptures, and Paul here is appealing to their knowledge
of the Old Testament here when he says this and and perhaps
what comes to the mind of the audience and of of those hearing
this. And for you and I tonight are
passages like Isaiah 53. Or the likes of Psalm 16 or
Psalm 22 and go ahead and be a student of the Word and look
into those and see how they connect with Jesus of the likes
of the book of Jonah. In fact, Jesus himself, when he
was asked for a sign, spoke of the example of Jonah having been
swallowed in the belly of the great fish as being a
declaration of what would happen to him upon his death and for
three days being in the grave but prior to his resurrection.
But maybe the greatest illustration in the Scriptures
is in the book of Genesis. You might recall the story in
Genesis 22 of Abraham being called by God to sacrifice his
son, his only son in Isaac. Now Abraham had another son in
Ishmael, but did God say that God said your only son, Isaac?
No, I don't recognise the son of the flesh, for that was what
Ishmael was, but your only son, the son of the promise, the son
of the covenant, your only son in Isaac.
And it's a type of this story, a picture pointing to what God
would ultimately go through with that Abraham did not.
But Abraham was resolved in that three days that Isaac is as good
as dead. But God is faithful because he
has promised. Then he will raise him back from
the dead because there's yet many promises to be fulfilled in
and through Isaac. Abraham did this.
And Abraham tells Isaac when Isaac questions, well, where's
this sacrifice? And Abraham tells Isaac God will
provide himself a sacrifice. And it was on Mount Moriah that
that episode took place. Later known as Calvary, the
place where Jesus would be crucified and the prophecy was
fulfilled, where God would provide himself a sacrifice.
And so Paul here proves the resurrection by appealing to
scriptural proof, saying there were prophetic words that were
given that have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ in not only his
life, but in his death and his burial in his resurrection.
But then in case that's not enough, he goes now and makes
mention of eyewitness proof. And he spoke of Peter and of the
12 and of the 500 and of James and, and then of himself, Paul.
And he bolsters the evidence given with these eyewitness
accounts and references that Jesus appeared to them.
And he says, if you doubt this, many of them are present today
and you can still go ahead and ask them.
Tells us that the resurrected Jesus appeared to over 500
people, many of whom were still alive at the time of Paul's
writing of this letter. And this was a public fact,
common knowledge for them back then, easily disputable if it
were not so. And So what we know through this
and what we understand from the Scriptures is that Jesus
appeared to his friends, yes, but also to strangers.
And Paul says that over the course of some 40 days, he
appeared to as many as a crowd, numbering 500 at one point in
time. Jesus appeared to large crowds
of people after his resurrection.
And at the point the time of writing, we're looking at a more
of a rural type of living people who are scattered about, busy
about their, their, you know, endeavours in an agrarian
society and culture. So for 500 people to come
together was a very major, significant public event.
And what this tells us is that Jesus was not in hiding, that
after his resurrection he was widely known and seen an
experience. This would have been the front
page of the newspaper today. The leading story in the nightly
newscast would have been the discussion at work, the
discussion at synagogue, the discussion around the dinner
table. Jesus was alive.
Did you hear he appeared to the two on the road to a Mass?
Did you hear that he appeared to Peter?
He appeared to Thomas and all of those people and he was walking
around and and visible publicly. It's like he's scheduling
meetings, going to meals, making appearances with people.
And everybody had an opportunity to verify that he had indeed
risen from the dead. And Paul says, if you don't
believe me, then go to the eyewitnesses.
Many of them are alive still. And Paul references some
specific appearances as evidence.
He speaks of Peter first of all and and what he has in mind is,
is Peter being the not a leader of the disciples.
But we know that he was cowardly in that denial and three times
before the Russo had crowed denying that he was a follower
of Jesus and Jesus specifically sought him out.
So Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?
Peter, do you love me three times and extending that
forgiveness that opportunity. The other disciples who were
afraid in the upper room as the record in the goth in in the
book of Acts tells us and of and of Thomas who was absent who
later when when Jesus had appeared and Thomas was there.
Thomas, you doubted me. You said if if you would stick
your hand in the side and and touch mine.
Well, here you go Thomas. He appeared and I mentioned the
two on the road to Emmaus. All of this here, but I want to
focus on on this one in particular.
He says and he appeared to James, James, Jesus sceptical
half brother. Now, Jesus had two brothers, at
least that we're aware of, James and a fellow called Jude, who
while Jesus was alive, did not believe in Jesus as Messiah.
In fact, at one point in time we read in the Gospels that they
thought Jesus and his teaching as a rabbi had gone so far that
they wanted to hold some kind of an intervention and bring him
out and kind of save him from himself.
Now, I don't know about you, but most of us probably would not
feel comfortable in worshipping our Big Brother, right?
Your Big Brother says to you, I'm God, what are you going to
do, Knock it off you? And we would say a whole number
of things, right? And yet after Jesus
resurrection, his own brother said, you know what, it's true.
We lived with him. He's our brother.
And as I look back, he never sinned.
And we saw him die and we saw him buried and we went to the
funeral and we saw him rise and and it's our brother.
Yes. And he said he was God.
And he came down from heaven to live without sin, to die, to
take away sin. And I didn't believe it at the
time, but but now I do. And it changed their lives.
And, and he said he would rise and, and he proved that he was
God by doing so. And, and now I'm on this mission
of salvation because I believe it.
And it's exactly as he said it would be.
And they began worshipping their brother as God.
And they both James and Jude became pastors and they both
wrote books in the New Testament named after themselves, the book
of James and the book of Jude. James becomes a very prominent
leader in the early church pastoring the the very pre
eminent church in Jerusalem. And Paul says effectively this
what would it take for someone to worship their brother as God?
Speak to James, speak to Jude. Extraordinary evidence is what
that would take, right? Such as the resurrection.
Now, all of this combined, if you were to think of it in court
today, if 500 eyewitnesses would testify of the same event, that
would be an unshakeable case, would it not?
In in our modern day courts, we're satisfied and happy with
2-3 witnesses, as was the case back then.
But 500 Paul says you want 2-3 witnesses, Let me give you 500
all at one time extraordinary evidence.
Now this wasn't some mass hallucination or emotional
delusion that was taking place here.
This is verifiable truth, but still not done.
Paul now having provides scriptural proof and eyewitness
proof gives personal proof of the radical transformation
that's happened in his life. You see, Paul, as he was
previously known as Saul, once hated Jesus with a passion, so
much so that he thought about murdering Christians.
Followers of Jesus tried with all that was within him to
destroy the early church. What changed him?
Seeing the risen Christ last of all he says verses 8 through to
10. He appeared to me also as to 1
abnormally born, but by the grace of God, I am what I am.
You see, some would say, and maybe you might think it with
all of the evidence given today so far.
Well, they're his friends, maybe his acquaintances and and his
family, and perhaps they're predisposed to eagerly yearn for
the coming of Jesus from from death.
Maybe, maybe they worked together out of their hearts
longing and yearning because of what they really wanted out of
Jesus. Maybe they needed this and they
managed to conjure up enough people and they're all in on the
lion. And some people say that and
believe that, right? And maybe they all suffered for
no apparent reason. That's a bit of a stretch, I
reckon. And to make the final point
here, that absolutely nails the case of the resurrection of
Jesus. Paul says I saw him too and man,
Jesus changed my life. Now Paul wasn't an acquaintance
of Jesus. He wasn't a friend or a family
member of Jesus. He was an enemy of Jesus.
He hated Jesus with a a deep seated kind of hatred that few
have ever had for Jesus or anyone else for that matter.
And as I said before, he despised Christians.
One of our first introductions to Paul, as he was called back
then, is Saul in the book of Acts is where he is
participating in the public execution and unjust murder of
an early Christian leader, a fellow called Stephen, because
Stephen worshipped and exalted and preached the resurrected
Jesus. And Saul, as Paul was known back
then, hated that. And Paul's mission was to murder
people who worship Jesus until he saw the resurrected Jesus on
the road to Damascus. It's called the Damascus
conversion. We read it in the book of Acts,
and upon seeing Jesus restored to life, Paul was struck with
this incontrovertible fact that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus
the Christ is God who has taken away sin and conquered death and
deserves our worship alone. And it radically transformed
Saul's life. He became known as Paul.
He went from a murderer of Christians to a pastor of
Christians. He went on three missionary
journeys as we read through in the book of Acts.
He would write a large chunk of the New Testament.
Ultimately he would be beheaded by Caesar for being a follower
of Jesus. That's a change.
That's a transformation that takes something significant to
effect such a change. There's a modern day example, a
fellow called Frank Morrison. He was a sceptical lawyer who
tried to disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He thought if he could disprove the resurrection and
incidentally disproved the transformation of Paul from
going going from Seoul to Paul, then he thought that you could
disprove Christianity. And he's true in fact, if you
can do that. So he set out to do so.
Of course, you know how those stories go.
In the process he became convinced, convicted and
converted and gave his life to Jesus as the Christ, believed in
him as his Lord and Saviour and and wrote a book called Who
Moved the Stone, A powerful account of faith built on
evidence. You see, no one is beyond grace.
Paul is proof, he says that it was the grace of God upon me.
And you here tonight might feel unworthy.
We've been hearing the gospel mention of our sin and of our
need for a Saviour and of Jesus and the importance of him coming
and of him dying and our place for our sin.
But you know, the resurrection is not for the worthy, It's for
the broken. It's for the sinful, it's for
the hopeless. And it changes everything, just
as it changed Paul. And so he firstly proclaims the
gospel message, verses wonderful, and then he proves
the gospel message, focusing specifically on the
resurrection. And now he goes and builds from
verses 12 through to 28 on the promise of of what?
Hope this should fill in our hearts in understanding and in
knowing this truth. And I want to read all of these
verses together and they're actually quite simple in their
flow, and I think easily digestible and understandable.
So we won't need to dwell a whole heap on these verses.
We'll find ourselves finishing very soon verses 12 to 28.
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, then Christ is not risen.
So as I said to you, there were some in the church at Corinth
were denying that there was a resurrection altogether.
So Paul says, why are some saying that?
And let me tell you that if that's true, then Jesus isn't
alive. That's the first thing.
And then he goes on verse 14. And if Christ is not risen, then
our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
It's a waste of time. We're kidding ourselves.
Yes. Verse 15 and we have found false
witnesses of God. In other words, we're lying
then. And basically what these people
are saying is I'm a liar, that you're a liar, that you're
deceived, that you're deluded and and that you're mad in this
because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ and he
did not raise up. If if resurrection's not real,
if in fact the dead do not rise. 4 verse 16 if the dead do not
rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ has not risen,
your faith is futile. And look at this, you are still
in your sins. Bad news.
Then also those who have fallen in asleep in Christ to perish.
And he says then even worse, those that have died before us
and believe this, we're fooled and deluded and they're perished
and they're gone forevermore dying in their sin.
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, verse 19, we
have of all men the most pitiable.
He says, then we're an absolute bunch of fools if this is all we
have and we have to be pitied for being so delusional.
But now verse 20, Christ is risen from the dead and has
become the first fruits, the prototype, the example, the the
prediction of what is to come for those who have fallen
asleep, who have died. For since by man came death, by
man also came the resurrection of the dead.
For and now he goes back to the problem.
Because of Adam we all die. Verse 22 Even so, because of the
second Adam, Jesus the Christ, all shall be made alive.
Just as it was so for one in Adam, it shall be so for the
other in Christ Jesus, but each one in His own order.
Christ the first fruits, afterward those who are Christ
at His coming. Then comes the end, and now He
gives His wonderful eschatology a breakdown of future events for
us. Then comes the end, when He
delivers the Kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to
all rule and all authority and power.
For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.
The last enemy that will be destroyed is death, and we read
of that in the Book of Revelation, for He has put all
things under His feet. Verse 27.
When he says all things are put under Him, it is evident that He
who put all things under Him is accepted.
Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son
Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him
that God may be All in all. What Paul does here is his
wonderful promise in these verses that we've just read.
He moves from Christ's resurrection to the promise of
ours, that if Jesus rose, and just as Jesus rose, so here is
the promise. We'll we, here is the hope, here
is the security. Our resurrection is tied to
Jesus Christ. That's what this passage
conveys, and as I said to you, I think it's fairly
straightforward and makes sense why I read it all together.
You see again, some in Corinth, influenced by something called
Greek dualism, denied bodily resurrection.
Greeks thought of resurrection is ridiculous.
Death for them was again a releasing of the soul from the
captivity of the body. And similarly the Romans denied
a resurrection. They didn't think much of it.
And remember Corinth being a Roman province.
Some of that thought was influencing those in the church.
You might in fact recall in the book of Acts when Paul was
before a fellow called Festus talking to him about the
resurrection. Festus stopped Paul and said
Paul, much learning has what made you mad because it was the
subject of resurrection. And even amongst the Jews there
was this sect. There's a group of people known
as the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection.
Remember when Jesus was alive and they came to him and they
posed this question about the resurrection Jesus.
If this woman married a guy and he died and then she marries his
brother and he dies and then there's another brother and he
dies and so on through. And then at the end if there's a
resurrection Jesus, well, whose wife will she be?
And Jesus, to paraphrase, basically says you're idiots,
you're ignorant, have you not read, you're you're mad.
And so Paul dismantles that thinking about the resurrection,
just as Jesus did back then. And, and whatever its source in
the church in Corinth, ultimately he declares this
truth. If there is no resurrection of
the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
And if Christ is not raised, then our preaching is useless.
It's a waste of time. Our faith is futile.
We're kidding ourselves. We're still hopelessly lost in
our sins, the dead who have gone before us, a loss God knows
where, and we are to be pitied. Above all people are to just
think of us as the most deluded bunch of ignoramuses out there.
And when you think and what you know of early church history,
Christians were tortured and martyred, beheaded, burned,
flayed for one reason. They believed that Jesus had
risen and that they would rise too.
You see, without the resurrection, Christianity is a
hoax. It's a waste of time.
But with it, even our suffering has purpose, even to the point
of death, because death loses its sting then.
Because this body, you can kill it all you want, but Jesus, who
has the power to defeat death, is alive, is resurrected, and he
has promised that I'll be alive with him.
Because Jesus is the first fruits, he says the first fruits
were the first sheaf that was in Jewish custom waved before God
in the harvest festival, symbolising that the full
harvest, the promise of the harvest was coming.
Because there it is, there's the first fruit and we know what
that means. The rest of the crop is coming.
And so Jesus was when it says the first fruits here, it means
he's the template, as I said, the the prototype and his
resurrection. Then what's wrapped up in this
from Paul is this Jesus resurrection is the guarantee of
what will follow for you. And I-1 guarantees the other.
The first fruit guarantees A crop to come because this is so,
because Jesus is a lie, because Jesus is resurrected, He's the
first fruit, Paul says. Then it is so it is guaranteed
that the resurrection will come for you and I as believers in
him. So like the first apple picked
signals more to come. So Jesus resurrection assures
that ours is on the way and that means this it means that victory
is certain that Christ will reign and that is what's there
in in the verses 24 through to the end of what we read in 28
that because Jesus is alive we will be for as in Adam all die.
He said so in Christ or will be made alive and Jesus reigns
until every enemy including death is crushed and then he
hands the Kingdom to the Father, having secured eternal life for
his people. You see your resurrection.
My resurrection is not a maybe not AI hope so cross my fingers.
It's as certain as Jesus Christ. Resurrection is historical, and
because of that, you and I, we can live with resurrection
confidence. That's what this passage is all
about. And so going back to my opening
question, what's the most important thing?
You know, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most
important thing that you can know.
Paul has proclaimed it tonight. He has proven it, and he reminds
you and I that we are promised it too.
It is historically credible. It's theologically essential.
It is the foundation that we're to stand firm and be secure in,
and it is personally transformational.
Just as it changed Paul's life, just as it changed the church in
Corinth's lives, just as it has changed millions throughout
church history's lives and has changed many years lives, it can
change yours. And so to the seeker, to the
unbeliever in Jesus Christ tonight, believe in Jesus not
just as a man in history, but as your risen Saviour tonight who
came and lived and revealed God to humanity.
And he died and he was buried, but three days later rose again,
and now he is seated at the right hand of the Father, making
intercession for you and I and the Bible.
He promised. He said, I go to prepare a place
for you, that where I am you may be also to the Christian, to the
believer tonight, stand firm. Be secure in this gospel
message. Your labour in the gospel is not
in vain. Your life, whatever suffering,
whatever you're experiencing, whatever you're going through,
resurrection is coming. And to the suffering, that would
be the same. Hope is alive.
Death is not the end. And to the church for all of us
tonight, live, worship and witness like people who believe
in the power of the empty tomb.