1 Corinthians 15 12 thru 19

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1 “And If Christ Be Not Raised,” 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 (April 20, 2014) 12

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 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. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 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. PRAY Welcome to Grace Bible Church – we are so glad you are here this morning. If you are a visitor, we want to make sure and extend a special welcome to you. Thank you so much for attending, and if I or any of the other leaders at Grace can help you or answer any questions you might have, please let me know. Today, obviously, is Easter, and Easter really is the high point of the Christian calendar. This is what the Christian faith is all about, because on Easter the resurrection of Jesus Christ occurred. The apostle Paul, St. Paul, says that the resurrection is absolutely central to the Christian faith. By the way, if you don’t know much about Paul, not only was he the most influential Christian thinker of all time – he wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else, 13 of 27 books – but he’s one of the most influential philosophers of all time, regardless of religious affiliation) says, in verse 16-17: “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” Christianity, as a religion, as one of the major world religions, collapses apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s futile to be a Christian, there’s no hope in being a Christian, without the resurrection. Why is that? What’s so important about the resurrection of Jesus Christ? That’s what we’ll talk about this morning, under four headings: first, what the resurrection is not. Second, what the resurrection is. Third, why the resurrection matters. Fourth, how you can participate in it. First, what the resurrection is not. We need to be very clear about this at the outset – the Christian hope is not just “life after death.” Resurrection is not some sort of synonym for “life after death” in general. That’s a very important distinction, because when you say “life after death” it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For a lot of people in the world, “life after death” means reincarnation – when you die you return to earth in some other form, as another person or perhaps as animal life, only to die and return again as something or © 2014 J.D. Shaw

2 someone else later. For others, “life after death” means that you become a ghost or a spirit of some kind, like in many, many movies, and you either torment certain people who do evil in this life, or you hang around and “watch over” your loved ones. For still others, “life after death” means getting absorbed back in the all-soul which governs the universe from which you came, like a drop of water returning to the ocean. For others, “life after death” really mean annihilation, you no longer exist. Except in the dreams and memories of your loved ones, and there as they nurture their remembrances, you continue to exist. None of these approaches to “life after death” even come close to the Christian hope. Nor does the typical American view of heaven come close to the Christian hope. When heaven is spoken of in our culture what do we normally hear? We hear about white robes, and wings, and halos, and harps, and clouds. If you read Heaven Is For Real, by Todd Burpo (soon to be a major motion picture), then according to his three-year old you can expect to see Jesus on a rainbow colored horse when you get to heaven. We see this a lot in our culture – I’ve noticed over the last few years that a lot of people, when they have loved ones who die, put stickers on their cars, or on the back glass of their vehicles, with the name of the deceased, the date of birth and death, then usually on either side of the information you see angels’ wings, and a halo, and some phrase like, “Fly high, Jimmy.” Why is that? Why do we do that? It’s not new. This is actually a very old view of “life after death” that goes all the way back to Plato, who taught that the body is the prison house of the soul. This world of space, time, and matter is an illusion. But when you die, you are freed from this world, and can go and get in touch with the true reality – Plato called it the reality of eternal Forms. And there, with our souls freed from this bad ole world, we can be truly happy and free. There are even some bad Christian songs that talk about this – one goes like this: “When the shadows of this life have gone,” then I’ll be “like a bird from prison bars has flown.” This body is like a prison, but one day we’ll get to heaven, get our halo, our wings, our cloud and harp, and maybe even get to pet Jesus’ rainbow colored horse. That’s not the Christian hope. By the way, I don’t care, church members, if you read that book or see the movie (by the way, there are lots of books like that out there, by someone claiming to have died, seen heaven or hell, and come back to report on it). I don’t care if you read the book, but please don’t think you’re going to actually learn anything about heaven or hell from them. Read them as fiction, not as non-fiction, is all I ask. Read them as the product of someone’s imagination. Don’t read them as some kind of companion guide to the Bible, because the Bible doesn’t need a companion. The Bible is sufficient, and tells us all we need to know about these things. So, what is the Christian hope? What is resurrection? Second, what the resurrection is. Two things: first, the resurrection hope means a physical body. The Christian doctrine of resurrection is that at some point in the future, those who have “fallen asleep” (that’s a euphemism for death in the Bible), those who

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

3 have died, will be reunited to their earthly bodies and will live forever in a real, physical, human body. Paul writes this in 1 Thessalonians about the bodily resurrection of the dead in order to comfort those believers whose loved ones have died (I read this at almost every funeral I conduct): “13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-16. And then, if you ask, “What happens if the trumpet sounds and I’m not dead but still alive?” Paul answers: “17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Bodily resurrection from the dead – that’s the Christian hope. But of course this begs another question: what will this resurrection body be like? I could imagine someone saying, “I’m not crazy about the body I have right now – I really don’t think I’m going to want the body that’s going to be left behind after I die. I’ve seen the zombie movies – I watch The Walking Dead; I don’t want to look like that forever.” You won’t. Philippians 3:20-21: “20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Our bodies that we have now – whether the resurrection takes place while we are still alive or after we have died – will be transformed. Here’s how Paul puts in later in 1 Corinthians 15 – he says that our current bodies are like a seed when compared to the resurrection body, which he compares to a full-grown, mature plant. 42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 1 Corinthians 15:42-43. The resurrection body will be like our current bodies in some ways – the resurrection body will, obviously, be physical. We read in John 20-21 and Luke 24 that when Jesus was raised from the dead, they disciples could touch him. We read that Jesus cooked breakfast for the disciples on the beach beside the Sea of Galilee, and passed out bread and fish. We read that Jesus ate fish with the disciples in Jerusalem But the resurrection body is not only physical. N.T. Wright, probably the foremost New Testament scholar in the world right now, describes what the resurrection body is like

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

4 with a wonderful word: it’s not just physical, it’s trans-physical. The resurrection bodies that we will receive are more physical than our current bodies are. So, for example, we read this in John 20:19: On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” John is very clear – the doors were locked. So how did Jesus get in? Not because he’s some kind of ghost and he could float through walls. He’s solid, remember – you can touch Jesus. One preacher put it like this: the reason that Jesus can walk through locked doors is not because he’s less solid than the door, but more solid. Why can you reach through a tub full of water down to the drain and pull the plug? Not because you are a ghost, but because your hand is more solid than the water. A good physics major will tell you that a door, even some of these heavy, solid wood doors some of us have as our front doors (not the hollow-core doors we have in our interior rooms nowadays) are only a collection of molecules, and if we had the technology we could pass force solid objects through the doors without damaging them. The resurrection body, apparently, has that ability. You say, “OK, J.D., I see from the Bible that’s true of Jesus’ resurrection body, but how can we know that will be what our resurrection bodies will be like?” Because, Paul says, Jesus’ body is the firstfruits. “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” 1 Corinthians 15:20. Do you know what the “firstfruits” were back then? Whenever you harvest a crop, whatever the very first part of the crop that matures at the end of the growing season is called the firstfruits. A farmer would take it, and in Israel they would offer it up at the temple as a sacrifice, but what the firstfruits would tell you is how the crop was going to turn out that year. If the firstfruits were bad, then bad news – the rest of the crop would be bad. If the firstfruits were good, then good news – the rest of the crop would be good. In calling Jesus’ resurrection “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,” Paul is assuring his readers – you can be certain that your resurrection body will be wonderful, will be physical, will never get sick, never die, because Jesus’ resurrection body is the firstfruits. His body is glorious, his body is transformed, his body is raised in power, and so will yours. Second, I want to be very clear on this point, the resurrection hope is a fact of history. I know a least a few of you here this morning have to be thinking, “J.D., I can’t really believe in this – a resurrection body. And, J.D., I kind of feel sorry for you for believing in it. You seem like a smart guy – how could you believe this nonsense? Couldn’t it all just be made up! Weren’t ancient people kind of dumb? They didn’t know all the science we know. And so maybe Paul and some of the disciples just made it all up, and they put this hoax over on them two thousand years ago, because they were gullible back then, but I mean, come on, today we know this stuff can’t happen!” Friends, if you think that, then, with all due respect, you are completely ignorant of what © 2014 J.D. Shaw

5 the ancients knew and believed. The ancients weren’t dumb; obviously, they didn’t have access to a lot of the information we have, but they weren’t dumb. They were in many ways far more careful thinkers than we are. And one thing the ancients knew – corpses don’t rise from the dead. If anything, with all of our zombie movies, we in 21st century America are more likely to believe in people being raised from the dead than they were. There were two views of “life after death” in antiquity – the immortality of the soul (which the Greeks and the Romans believed – when you die you’re free from the prison which is the body) and a general resurrection of the dead at the end of time (which the Jews believed – you can read about it in Daniel 12). But the one thing no one believed, nor did anyone even argue for until after the first Easter, was the one man could be resurrected by himself. No one ever even conceived of it as a possibility before then. N.T. Wright, in his book Resurrection of the Son of God, established that conclusively – no one even argued for this until Paul and the other disciples and hundreds of other people who claimed to see Jesus after his death started saying it happened, and many of them went to horrible deaths still proclaiming its truth. Why, then, if no one had ever even conceived of a solitary resurrection before then, did Paul and disciples claim it happened to Jesus? Because it did happen! The resurrection of Jesus is no hoax – this is history. All the alternatives theories to explain what happened with Paul and the other disciples without an actual solitary resurrection of Jesus Christ have been explored and found wanting. One example: Diarmaid [DEAR-mid] MacCulloch is a professor of church history at the University of Oxford in England. He’s a brilliant scholar; he’s received every degree and honor an academician can possibly receive. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. He’s far smarter than I am. His books are outstanding; I recommend them to you. He’s no Christian, though – not at all. And this is what he says about the resurrection of Jesus Christ in his magnum opus on the history of Christianity – he’s read all the scholarship on the resurrection that exists, and says: “What the Gospels tell us happened after the Crucifixion was the ultimate good news: Jesus came back to human life after three days in the tomb. Somehow a criminal’s death and defeat on the Cross, ‘Good Friday’, as Christians came to call it, were transformed by his followers into a triumph of life over death … This Resurrection [however] is not a matter which historians can authenticate; it is a different sort of truth, or statement about truth.” Do you know what that is? That’s a cop-out. It’s a dodge by a brilliant historian who can’t explain the known facts outside of a literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and so in a book chock full of history, he punts. He just refuses to address it and says it’s “not a matter which historians can authenticate”, it’s a “statement about truth.” What a crock. I guarantee you that if he could have plausibly explained everything that © 2014 J.D. Shaw

6 happened with Paul and the disciples without the resurrection, he would have. He does it with lots of other supposed miracles in church history, but he can’t with the resurrection. Friends, the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a fact of history; it’s fact. Now, the real question is: what will you do about it? Third, why the resurrection matters. Now maybe a few of you were really paying attention when I said that no one ever considered the possibility that one man could be resurrected from the dead before Jesus was and you thought, “Wait a minute! Aren’t there other resurrections from the dead in the Bible? Didn’t Jesus resurrect Lazarus?” And the answer is, “No!” Jesus didn’t resurrect Lazarus; he resuscitated Lazarus! Look at the difference between the two stories: in John 11, after he came back to life, Lazarus needed help getting out of his grave clothes, remember that? I can just see Lazarus coming out of the tomb, stumbling, coughing, gasping for breath, covered up like some kind of mummy – and people have to help him out of the grave clothes. No one helps Jesus get out of his grave clothes, though, does he? We read in John 20 and Luke 24 that they are lying in the tomb of folded up, nice and neat. For Lazarus, they had to roll the stone away from the tomb so he could get out. But no one had to roll the stone away for Jesus. Why was the stone rolled away? Did you think it was for Jesus to get out? No, it was so that we could get in, the disciples could get in and see the empty tomb for ourselves. Most importantly, what happened to Lazarus had to be a resuscitation because he lived only to die again. His body is still here on earth somewhere. But Jesus’ was resurrected; he would not die again. In light of that, do you know why the resurrection matters? Here’s the best way I know how to put it. Death had its grip on Lazarus. Death said, “Yeah, got another one.” And he held onto Lazarus for a time, for four days, until Jesus came along freed Lazarus from death. I picture it like this: death has its hand around Lazarus, and when Jesus said, “Lazarus, come out!” it was like a firecracker exploded against death’s hand. What happens when a firecracker explodes against your hand? You say, “Ow,” and you shake your hand, and you drop whatever you’re holding, right? But then you just reach down and pick up whatever you drop. That’s what happened to Lazarus; death dropped him, but later on, he just reached down and picked Lazarus right back up. Then, though, death picked up Jesus. He said, “Yeah, got another one.” Except this time the firecracker wasn’t outside his hand, it was inside. And in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the firecracker went off. Now, friends, what happens when a firecracker goes off in your hand? You don’t have a hand anymore. That’s what happened in the resurrection! Death can’t grab us anymore, death can’t win anymore. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, death is no longer an enemy. Death can’t do anything to us anymore. All death is now is a doorway to something better. © 2014 J.D. Shaw

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That’s why Paul celebrates in 1 Corinthians 15:55: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” What’s Paul doing there? He’s mocking death – he’s saying, “Death, I taunt you. Death, I take the football and shake it in your face and spike it in front of you. I hotdog before you, death. You don’t have a hand to hold onto me anymore – you can’t take my body from me anymore. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the firstfruits, I know what’s going to happen to me. Do you worst to me – go ahead, kill me. All you’ll do is make me better than I’ve ever been in my life.” That’s why the resurrection matters – we see the death of death in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, I’m a pastor, but I’m not naïve. The good pastors aren’t. I’ve been talking about the glories of the resurrection for twenty five minutes but I know plenty of you showed up here and the reality of Easter meant almost nothing to you because you were worried and anxious about so many other things. I know that. It might be big things we’re worried about: I got laid off, I can’t find work, my husband left me, my child is dying. More likely it’s small things: I don’t have a boyfriend, and I’m about to graduate. My clothes are too tight, I need to lose some weight. Exams are next week. I’ve got a lot on my plate at work. My wife is mean to me. My kids play with electronics too much. Whatever. What’s the world’s solution to our worries? What’s the answer of secular forms of counseling? I’ll tell you what they won’t say – they won’t tell you to think about what’s going to happen when you die. They won’t say, “Are you experiencing stress? Then what you need to do is think about your death, dwell on it and what will happen when you die. Reason from the greater to the lesser; think about the big picture, and then put your worries against that backdrop.” Never! That’s terrifying if you don’t know what’s going to happen when you die. Here’s what their advice is like: remember the old Corona beer commercials? Two people, sitting on a beach, in chairs, there’s no sounds except sea gulls and waves on the shore. And then one of the people plops a Corona bottle onto a table. That’s it – no voiceover, no nothing. What does that communicate? The solution to your worries is to get on a beach, look at the surf, practice breathing exercises, drink a beer, and, whatever else you do, don’t think. Don’t think! That’s the way to handle your worries. And, of course, that’s garbage, as anyone who’s been to the beach knows. It’s great, but it doesn’t solve worry. What will you do with the resurrection? The Bible says to think about it. Think about Christ as the firstfruits, meditate on it, worship the risen Lord, celebrate with other Christians on Easter and say, “Do your worst, life – no matter what you do to me you will only make me better. I know what’s ahead of me because my great Captain Jesus Christ has led the way.” Think about the big picture; reason from the greater to the lesser –

© 2014 J.D. Shaw

8 from the resurrection to your problems today. And then your worries won’t seem so troubling anymore. I’ve been a dad long enough now that I’ve got pictures of me and my kids from when they were really little – one, two years old. And sometimes what I wish I could do as the 37 year old J.D. is go back to the 27 year old J.D., a brand new dad in those pictures, and tell him, “All the stuff you’re worried about right now – it’s going to be fine. Trust me – I lived it. It’s going to be fine.” But I stop myself because whenever I think that I begin to wish the 77 year old J.D. could come to me, the 37 year old J.D. and tell me, “All this stuff you’re worried about right now – it’s going to be fine. Trust me – I lived it. You’ll be okay.” That’s not going to happen. But in the resurrection, we have something infinitely better. We have the resurrected Jesus Christ coming to us and say, “All the stuff you’re worried about right now – it’s going to be fine. Trust me – I blew death’s hand off. I won the ultimate battle for you. Death can’t grab you, he can’t grab your loved ones, he can’t grab your kids, he can’t grab your parents. And if death can’t hold you, if you’re just going to pass through death like a door and find something unimaginably wonderful on the other side, then why worry about not having enough money? Or no boyfriend? Or a rebellious child? Or even cancer? What can they do to you in light of what I’ve done to death?!” In the resurrection, Jesus says, “If you all will just trust me, trust me, everything is going to be fine. More than fine – everything will be wonderful. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well. But you’ve got to trust me.” And that’s the trick, isn’t it? Do we trust Jesus? And that gets us to the final point. Fourth, how do we participate in it? 1 Corinthians 15:17: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” It’s telling, I think – if you didn’t know anything about the Bible and what Paul says elsewhere, then here you would think that Paul would say, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and your body will rot.” I mean, that’s what no resurrection means – never having a body again. But that’s not what Paul says; it’s not what the Bible says. Paul says, “If Christ be not raised, you are still in your sins.” Friends, our great problem is that we are sinners. We have repeatedly and willfully broken God’s law. We have not lived or thought or spoken as we ought. And God will judge all people, and if we are found in our sins when he judges us then we will find ourselves sinners in the hands of an angry God. We must not be found in our sins; we must be found in Christ. How does that happen? How can we participate in the resurrection? You must acknowledge that you are a sinner, and that you desperately need the mercy of God shown you in Jesus Christ. If you do you will be found in Christ, and not in your sins. Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, was interviewed last week in the New York Times about his activism both in office and now that he’s out of office – working on behalf of gun control, anti-obesity and anti-smoking campaigns. And when © 2014 J.D. Shaw

9 Bloomberg wanted to evaluate himself and how much good he’d done as mayor, this is what he said: “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.” Please, don’t take approach to life. No amount of good works will ever, can ever, compensate for your sins. But neither do they have to. Jesus Christ has done the only work you will ever need. On the cross he paid for your sins, and the resurrection is proof that your debts were paid in full. All you have to do is know you are a sinner and trust him. Trust him, and he’ll tell you, “It’s okay – I blew death’s hand off. He won’t grab you, he won’t grab your loved ones, your children, as long as you all trust me – it will all be okay.” We’ll sing a lot of great songs this morning, but one we weren’t able to get to goes like this: “Lives again our glorious king, where O death, is now thy sting? Made like him, like him we rise, ours the cross, the grave, the skies.” That’s the hope of the resurrection, and it’s available for all who trust Jesus. Amen.

© 2014 J.D. Shaw