The Resurrection

If you want to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15, that's where we will be this evening. I believe the Nursery is open. There's no one in it but if you need somewhere to take your kids, a quiet room where no one can hear them screaming. That's through these doors and up the stairs; you're welcome to it. There's a washroom there. And I remind you too, if you're new and need to wash, there's one through these doors as well.

The Scripture we will be reading from this evening, and considering is First Corinthians chapter fifteen, verse one to eleven.

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,
2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10 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 with me.
11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

One of the exchanges in the Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King, if this ruins the details for you I don't care because you should have read it by now. Sam and Gandalf have had this exchange. Sam says, "Gandalf, I thought you were dead, but then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What happened to the world?" The great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf and then he laughed and the sound was like music. It's like water in a parched land, and as he listened, the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment. For days upon days, the fun? [02:58 inaudible] count. What has happened to the world? " said Sam. "Will all sad things come untrue? The great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf.

This evening I want to consider with you the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I want to consider the resurrection. I want to consider the resurrection as a historical reality. I want to consider what the resurrection was, what actually happened, and I want to move beyond that to consider what does the resurrection actually means. Not just what happened, but what does it actually mean. And that I want to discuss with you and consider from the Word of God, what does it mean to me? And what does it mean for you?

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is by far the most significant event in the history of the world. It was in fact the beginning of a new history in the world, a new trajectory in the world, a new creation as the narrative of the Bible unfolds. See we don't just mark our calendars by the Lord Jesus Christ, even if we're to stop doing that, it wouldn’t change the fact that the resurrection stands, is the greatest event in the history of the world and it changes everything. In the words of Gandalf, "A great shadow has departed". Now I want to look to see Him. What do we mean, what has changed? What, has God changed to the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
So to begin with what really happened. The reason we need to actually focus on what happened is because Paul says that the gospel that he preached to these people, that they received, in which they stand above their being saved, include the historical death and resurrection. You quote in early church creed, probably received from Peter, and James or Cephas and James, themselves three to five years after Jesus, which resurrected from the dead. That's what most scholars think; this is the creed.

I delivered to you as the first report that I also received, this is the creed that Christ died for our sins and it's according to the Scriptures. That He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures. That is the creed that he received.
Why is this important ? Well, because in the Book of Corinthians he's responding to people who are denying the resurrection. Either on theological or philosophical grounds or what they consider to be reasonable grounds. The resurrection from the dead did not and or cannot happen. The resurrection from the dead did not and cannot happen and things today are exactly the same. Every year we get closer to Easter, Discovery Channel or something has a new theory. Here the idea of Jesus is just the biggest hoax and the Christians are the most duped people in the history of the world and there’s the secret thing deeper thing that happened that nobody realized until now; that's all just fake. Even in churches today, you hear people who will say things and deny the resurrection, who are ashamed to believe in something supernatural like [06:18 inaudible] and the world today is so skeptical who are barriers to the facts of Jesus' resurrection.

But things were not so different back then. Even in the gospel accounts we just read of a doubting man, Thomas, who would not believe until he saw skepticism. It's not a new thing. It's a very old thing. It's a human thing. And Paul's response is not whether or not it really happened, What's important is that we love one another. What's important is that we extend forgiveness to one another. Note Paul's messages : if Jesus Christ did not really live and really die, really be in the ground , and really raised from the dead in history and time and space, then your faith is in vain. That we are liars, that we are wasting our lives and we're wasting your time. And you're still in your sins. It's sadder, It's sadder, It's sadder.[7.14 stop]
You see, for Paul, unless the resurrection really happened, that there is no gospel; there is no good news whatsoever. So he begins by saying not only this is the good news, but that Jesus appeared not only to Cephas, or to Peter, then to the twelve disciples who became apostles, but He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time , most of whom are still alive. Some have fallen asleep. This letter was written in the same generation that Jesus died. There were people living and breathing, Paul is saying. He saw Jesus. What he's trying to do here? He's saying you can go talk to them. See if this is a hoax, then you want to cover that. You want to keep this [08:01 inaudible], you want to keep space. You don't want people digging. Paul does the exact opposite. He said, here's what I heard from Peter, here's what I heard from James, here's the decree that I have : and Jesus actually appeared to me and actually about 500 of us, a lot of whom are still alive. You can ask them yourself. Christians want to be verified, Christians want to be truthful.

Christianity is not a religion that's ignoring the facts. That's not true. We don't bury our heads in the sand, we don't make things up. If this is not real, if this really didn't happen, then there's no reason to gather. Just sentimentality and a waste of time. So Paul is saying , if He cares this really did happen. I want to propose to you three reasons for what happened. This morning - the three reasons that we can accept the resurrection - one of them is the empty tomb. The second reason is Jesus appears to His disciples, and the third reason is the fact of the spread of the gospel of the resurrected Jesus Christ .
So to begin with the empty tomb, how do we know that the tomb was really empty? The first thing is Jesus' tomb that He was supposedly—He left, that He walked out of, was in the same city that people were preaching the resurrection. So this didn't happen in the middle of nowhere, this didn't happen far away to have people walking and saying this crazy thing happened that you can't verify. You could walk inside the city. You could walk into the tomb. You could check for yourself. It happened at the exact same place . Further Scripture records that the Jewish authority tried to cover up Jesus' disappearance, not by denying it, but by creating the conspiracy story. Matthew 28:11-15. They paid the guards to tell people that the body was stolen by His disciples. This is admitting that the tomb was empty. Dr. Paul Myer calls this, and historians call this "positive evidence from a hostile source".

You see it wasn't in their best interest to admit that the tomb was empty, because if the tomb is empty, it starts this whole craziness of the Christian religion which they did not want. Instead of saying that the tomb isn't empty and verifying the fact, they just admitted that right off the bat and Chris started creating another story. "A positive evidence from a hostile source". So it happened in the same city. Even those who wouldn't want to admit it, did admit it. Thirdly, nobody had the interest to steal the body , but the Jewish and Roman authorities wanted to squash the Christian religion. It was not in their best interest for this to happen. and the missing body only confirmed it. A lot of people say as the Jews did, the disciples really were the ones who stole the body to start this Christian religion. And all of us believed it ever since.

The disciples had no interest in doing such a thing. Ten of the twelve disciples suffered brutal, horrible deaths. People will definitely die for a lie that they believe. People will not die for a lie they know is a lie. People say that lots of people die for things that are totally bogus all the time. That's true, but if they stole the body, then they would know that it was a lie.
And if you look at their life, this didn't happen at one time, this happened over decades; and all different pats of the known world at the time, These people met their end in brutal, horrible ways for something they knew was simply a hoax. That's pretty far-fetched.

Fourth, the gospels mentioned the tomb as the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea who was actually a member of the Sanhedrin, kind of like a modern day version of the Supreme court.
He was well-known, powerful, political figure; they knew where his tomb was. They could verify this very, very easily. It was not some obscure place. Some people suggest that the body being taken was a legend, but this letter was written in the same generation which is far too early for a legend to take place. Lastly, who were the ones who reported? According to Christians, the empty tomb, who reported it? Women, women reported it. So if you want to have a conspiracy, if you want to have a hoax, if you want to make up a lie, about a man who was dead coming back to life, you know he would not ask to go and give evidence?
A woman, who was not even legally allowed to give her testimony in trial, that is literally the worst idea you can have. Lots? [13:08 inaudible] would have everyone to believe that the guys were following Jesus Christ raised from the dead which is already far-fetched enough. A lot of witnesses to testify to this, and our recordings of the history of them . Let them be women! That would be the worst thing to do. The tomb was empty. This is the best solution; the tomb was empty.

Second evidence is the resurrection appearance that Paul mentioned in first Corinthians fifteen. He says that He not only appeared to Cephas, and the twelve, and then to me, but to 500 other people. He's saying, go and check this out, go and interview, go and test. Now this leaves two options: and calm your fears, everybody was lying which we already talked today. Our one popular theory is that they’re all hallucinating. So people grant that the tomb was empty. No one denies that; you cannot historical grounds that the tomb was empty. And they knew how people think they saw the Lord Jesus Christ. That is something that is not It is not widely denied as well but scholars, not Christians scholars, New Testament scholars, on the most part people don't deny this but if some people thought they saw Jesus Christ. So even if they were all lying, or allow me to say maybe they were hallucinating, But see, hallucinations tend to be individual experiences. Rarely are hallucinations . Everybody shares the exact same hallucinations of the exact same event to the degree that their lives were all changed in the exact same way.

That's fairly far-fetched. So not only is proposal that everyone saw something that really didn't exist. But they saw this over with the gospel. It's recorded forty days. See, it wasn't an isolated incident. Jesus didn't come back one time and someone saw Him over the hill coming like Saswatch walking through the forest and people think, “Oh, I thought they saw something. I'm sure I saw something like that”. The record is that Jesus ate meat, the record is that they touched Him, that they felt Him, that they heard Him, that they saw Him and not just once, but for extended periods of time. Hallucination is completely out of the question. So maybe they were just all lies. Maybe this whole thing - the empty tomb and maybe the appearance of Jesus Christ is something they lied about. But when you can say that the early church causes it was to them, people often have a revisionist view of history. 

And they fast-forward to when the church had political power, and authority, and they say, "Well we'll send these people best interest. No, it wasn't in the best interest. It came hundred of years later before anything good happened to Christians. and argue there that wasn’t good for the church. These people suffered, these people were persecuted, these people were scattered, ten of the twelve of them died horrible deaths. They’re leaders and the followers didn't do much better. Why would they make up a lie? Even when people wipe the floor, the Roman authorities never told, “you can’t worship Jesus, you need to worship Caesar. Some of them came. You know when you don't read records, you don't read records of people denying that the resurrection happened , cause I wasn't on the table. So you have the empty tomb to deal with, you have the fact that people saw Jesus Christ, witnesses too, and then lastly, you have the fact of the spread of the gospel. Unless this is true, this is not a popular or efficient way of starting a new religion. The crucifixion, the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the foundation of the Christian religion. Read that in the book of Acts, it's not a later development, it's not something that people look back on decades or centuries later. Imposited into our world view, it was the foundation of the religion.
So the resurrection of Jesus isn't hard to believe because It is the lack of evidence that is hard to accept. You see, the problem with us today is we think we're very reasonable, rational people. The skepticism is a noble thing. and two of the grief we should question things to be shared. But the problem is not we're skeptical, the problem is that often we're not skeptical enough, that we're skeptical enough to dealt(?), we're not skeptical enough to dealt our dance. That is the problem. Just like Paul writing to the Corinthians, the Christians are not afraid of exposure, are not afraid of honest looking and searching. The problem is not that there are not enough facts to believe, they are hard to accept. Just like when someone faces an extreme loss or a tragedy, they say something like "it's just so hard to believe that they're gone". Well it's not hard to believe because it's irrational. Do they know their God? It's hard to accept and this can happen with something that is so happy, you can hardly contain it. It's hard to believe this person who I thought was lost is now returned. I have not seen them forever, now they're right here. It's hard to believe, but it's not hard to believe, because they're not facts, they're there.

It's hard to accept and that's what the Cross and the resurrection of Jesus are like. It’s not because they’re not enough facts, it is hard to believe, it’s because the weight of it and the reality of what it means for our lives it's hard to accept. So Paul's first concern is," No". If Jesus didn't really live and really die and really rise, there's no gospel. So let's start there. He did, but then we have the entire question of what does this all mean? What does this all mean? That's what Jesus spends a lot of his time after His resurrection, explaining to His disciples. They didn't understand what was happening, like Gandalf said, "The great happening shadow has departed". Everything has changed with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He says in First Corinthians fifteen, verse seventeen: And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

We as Christians talk about the Cross, and the cross is central. But Paul says the beginning, that the gospel is the cross and the resurrection, and if Jesus simply died and He did not raise, then nothing has happened. and we simply have another well-intentioned dead man to deal with, and we are still in our sins. Yes, Jesus died for our sins, Paul says in Romans 4:25, He was raised for our justification.

If Jesus did not get up out of the grave, we would be in our sins. We would not be forgiven. The sacrifice offered, God did not accept but when he raised Jesus Christ , He said,” I am accepting a sacrifice, I am accepting that work of redemption on your behalf.” If Jesus did not really rise, then everything we're talking about, sins, it's just all a lie. But He did rise from the dead, and we have been forgiven. Christ died and was raised.

Second, the resurrection of Jesus was our resurrection, both from spiritual death and the promise of a resurrection in the physical death.

"But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. First by a man came death, by a man is come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."

What the disciples could not immediately see when they saw the resurrected Jesus, is that His resurrection was their resurrection. That's what He's saying. A resurrection to spiritual life. Ephesians 2: 4- 6. says it. By grace we have been saved and God raised us up with Him (past) and seated us with him in the heavenly places.

Romans 6, we've been buried with Jesus in His death and raised to newness of life. The Christian life is not a death-making, making good people a little bit better as in making dead people alive. Moralism is-- here's five tips to make your life a little better, to be a better person. The Christian view of the world is not that people need some helpful hints, some good tips and some life advice, it's that people need new life. That is the controversy, that is the claim of Jesus Christ. We don't need good advice. We need a new life. And in Jesus Christ, we are given a new life, a life if we truly love God, if we truly love other people. And there's also the promise of the resurrection to come.

It says that Jesus was the first fruits; this is the idea of a harvest and we collect the first fruits to see what the harvest is going to be like. Is it going to be a good harvest this year or bad harvest? Let's see what it is and the image that Paul uses is that Jesus coming back from the dead is a promise of what's going to come. Jesus was raised from the dead, so will you to physical life which brings me to my third point, that the resurrection of Jesus was the death of deaths.

One thing all mankind has in common is the shared enemy. We think we have these various enemies. And these countries have enemies, people have enemies, but everyone does have one enemy, and that enemy is death. At this point if you have a plant that never died, then this doesn’t apply to you. But if you don't, then this does apply to you. Our common enemy is death and the death of Jesus was the death of death. We try a million ways to defeat this enemy, we outrun him by being healthy and strong, by living as long as we can. We ignore him, by living in the moment, We finally embrace him by romanticizing. Death is our enemy and anyone who has seen someone died, anyone who has walked through some other sickness knows that death is not our friend. Death is our enemy and this is the reality that every single human being sits on.

The gospel message is not something a little cloister of people fancifully believe in gathering these churches off by themselves. The claim of the gospel is that Jesus Christ is called to death. He hasn’t simply offered a good way for you to live your life. Other people have suggested that. He said, I have actually called to death. Who has said that, and who has done that? Either He's a lunatic or he’s a liar, or He’s who He says He is. The death of Jesus was the death of death.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is your victory. O death, where is your sting?

Verses 54 and 55.
John Dunn wrote the famous poem called-- and Andrew? Salk wrote the song called O Death, Be Not Proud. Andrew? Salk rewrote his poem into the form of a song and it goes like this,
Death be not proud, though the whole world fear you;
Mighty and dreadful you may seem;
But death, Be not proud, for your pride has failed you.
You will not kill me.
For you may dwell in plague and poison,
You're a slave to fate, a desperate man ,
So death, if you are sleepy,
The gates to Heaven,
Why your confidence? then you will be no more, when you will be no more.
Even death will die,
Death, be not proud.
Even death will die.

He wrote this poem thinking of the verses in this chapter of Corinthians, a man who suffered sickness and looked at death himself in the face and said, “O death, be not proud.” This is to fulfill the promise that Isaiah spoke.

He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord Himself will wipe away tears from all faces. And the reproach of His people, He will take away from all the earth , for the Lord has spoken.

And the end of the story in Revelation,
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death should be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain any more . For the former things are passed away.
The great shadow has departed. The death of deaths.

The cross of Jesus Christ's resurrection was the beginning of the end. It's as if the war has been won and they're just marching on to the people who haven't heard and the final battle is taking place. The final enemy to be defeated will be death. The resurrection of Jesus promises that will happen . This is a wonderful, magnificent, enormous claim. We're saying that one day there will be no death, no sadness, no pain, no sickness, none of that. When all of that is accomplished, the resurrection of Jesus Christ , For the resurrection of Jesus gives us purpose, and this purpose in this life and hope for the next.

1 Corinthians 15:17 to 19:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.Some people say regardless of whether Jesus raised and all that supernatural stuff is true, it's so good to be a Christian. Paul says if Jesus wasn't really raised from the dead and we have no hope for the life to come, then we are not actually to be admired, we’re to be pitied more than everybody because we are a bunch of jokers who are wasting our life. We have a profoundly wrong sense of reality leading us. Paul would have met with a lot of skeptics who say, I would agree with you on your terms. If we're wrong about this, then we're just wasting our time. But we're not wasting our time and we don't have to be pitied. That we do have hope not only in this life, but the one to come. He says in verse 32 ,32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

If the dead are not raised, you'll see people come in to church and say, just drop the resurrection and keep everything else. Look, if the dead are not raised, then I give myself as a martyr. And I wrestled the beast in Ephesus, it's of no value to me. It's not noble, you shouldn't write songs about me, you shouldn't remember me, you should pity me, you should think I'm a quack. You shouldn't think that was great of Paul, I mean that was wrong. Like it wasn't noble, you should think that's awful. What a horrible way to live your life. Instead what is the natural outcome if Jesus was not raised?

He quotes the song, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. The outcome is annihilation?.( 30:34) It's hedonism. Get as much as you can, as quick as you can, cause that's all you going to get. That is the logical and rational thing to do. But we don't live like that because we have purpose, and we have hope. And lastly we see the resurrection of Jesus mark His authority over all things.

1 Corinthians 15:24-28
24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.
28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Who rules the world? Who runs the world? It's not ISIS, it's not the American President, it's not the Canadian Prime Minister, it's not NATO, it's not the United Nations, it's not any great powerful leader, or group or country that will rise up and they will fall, one after the other, after the other, after the other . The history is not marching towards their end and their being. The resurrection of Jesus means there is a new boss in town, that there is a new king on the throne, and history is marching towards Him. That's a bold claim, that's a hard thing to take; it has a glorious, glorious truth. All things will be in subjection to Him, but He is in Heaven ruling from His throne until all things are subjected to Him. And this is not happening through political force, and acts of violence. It’s happening through the advance of the Church and the gospel. I don’t mean the political church, I don't mean the institutional church, I mean with the people of God giving up their lives, living and bearing witness to the gospel of the Son of God, resurrected from the dead. See, Jesus overcome His enemy, by dying , and that's how He's overcoming them still. There’re two ways of overcoming your enemies, by force or by making a new friend.

If you make some your new friends, they're no longer your enemy. and that's what Jesus is doing. In this time of grace, in this time of forgiveness, Jesus is extending His reign and His rule and destroying His enemies through the gospel, by making His enemies into His family. So the resurrection is the historical reality, otherwise, it is nothing. If it is historical reality that means the forgiveness of sins, life from the dead, the death of death, hope to come, and the authority of Jesus. But it is not only a reality out there, it is a personal reality. Paul wrote in the beginning of the chapter, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you which you received, in which you stand, by which you're being saved. He said the same gospel is what He himself received. He received it, the gospel is not something to simply be speculated about, historical reality to be skeptical about, to stand over and look at and pick apart, it's not also just a theological truth, to just think about and wonder about and ponder about. The gospel is the good news about the man, Jesus Christ. Ultimately where it lands for us is, what do we do with him?

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me even though he died, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die, Do you believe this?" Do you believe this?

Let us pray. Father in Heaven, we thank you for the gospel. We thank you for the good news of Jesus Christ, that he lived, that He died, and that he was buried and that He was raised according to the scriptures. We thank you that behind this historical reality was a great and glorious truth of what you had done for us. That at the raising of your Son, the raising of us and the promise and the future hope the first fruit that was to come. We thank you that you have conquered our great enemy not by force but by sacrifice , That you defeated death by death, that you gave up your life and love so You might pour out your grace on those who were dead . We thank you that you have raised us with the lord Jesus Christ . We ask that you would help us to be people who wholeheartedly trust in Him. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

As we come to the table now, we remember the body and the blood of Jesus. not the body and the blood of a fictitious character in a vain hope of a fairy tale of a bunch of confused and deluded people, but a resurrected Savior of all who offers His grace and his forgiveness, to anyone who will come so if you can answer that question, “yes, I believe” I invite you to the table to take the bread which is His body that was broken, and His blood that was spilt to defeat death. So come to the table, to the Lord Jesus Christ.