Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-9 | Date: February 27, 2011 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Gospel of the Resurrection

The title of the message this morning is The Gospel of the Resurrection. The Gospel of the Resurrection. I’d like to look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 20. 1 Corinthians 15, beginning with verse 1.

Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you have received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you, otherwise you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve, and after that He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, and to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. I am the least of the apostles, and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether then it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believe.

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that He raised Christ from the dead. But He did not raise Him, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Father, what a wonderful event it is that we celebrate today, every Lord’s Day, to look back and to see that our Savior, who died in our place, has risen from the dead. The turning point of all history. How grateful we are that we have such good news as this, that Jesus Christ is the successful Savior. We pray that You’ll draw our minds and our hearts closer to Him today through this passage in Your Word. Give us a fresh appreciation of all that He is for us. We pray in His name. Amen.

One of the unique features of Christianity, perhaps the unique feature of Christianity in some sense, is that it is grounded in a message. It is grounded in a message. At the heart of the Christian faith is not a ceremony, not an ethic, a moral code, but a message. The two ceremonies that we do have in the Christian church were given to us as reminders of this message, and apart from their function as illustrating this message, they really have no use whatever. And, of course, Christianity does have a code of ethics and a moral code, a very distinctive one, a very important one. But that’s not at the center of the Christian faith, either. Christianity was designed, first and foremost, to deal with humanity’s alienation from God.

And its distinguishing mark at its very core, is this announcement of what God has done in Christ to reconcile the world to Himself. This is what the Christian faith is all about, this announcement. We call it the Gospel. The good news, the happy announcement that God has provided in Christ a Savior, a Savior that is suited perfectly for all of our needs, a Savior who has come, has borne our sins, and has done for us all that God has required of us. And everything else about us as Christians grows out of and revolves around this central message of Christ. This is the ground of our worship. This is the ground of our approach to God. This is what shapes our ethics. This is what shapes our morals. This is what shapes our ambitions. This is what shapes our hopes. Everything about us is shaped by this central message, which we call the Gospel.

And that’s why Paul speaks of it the way he does in verses 1 and 2. He says, first of all, there is this Gospel in which you stand. Our translation here says, in which we have taken our stand. You have another translation that probably says, in which we stand. Not much difference. I prefer the older translation. And he gets to the point: this is where we stand before God. This is where we stand in the Gospel. This is our whole hope. This is what shapes everything about us. And so he says, it is by the Gospel, verse 3, you are saved. That it is this message, rightly received by faith, that has brought us into fellowship with God. And so he says in verse 3, this Gospel is of first importance. This is first. This is what’s most important and central about us.

And so then in verses 3 and following, Paul provides for us a very brief and tiny summary of what the gospel message is. You’ll notice the little word “that” stakes out his several propositions, beginning with verse 3. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Secondly, that He was buried. Third, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. And fourth, and that He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve, and then he enumerates others to whom He appeared also.

So, we have four statements here that summarize Paul’s gospel message. I think we could probably reduce it to two. That is, I passed on to you, as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And the second one, that He was buried, is added as confirmation of the first, that He died. And then next, that He was raised on the third day, and then the fourth is added as confirmation of that, that He appeared to Peter. He died and He rose. He died, and that was confirmed in that He was buried. He rose the third day, and that was confirmed in that He appeared to so many.

Christ Died for Our Sins According to the Scriptures

Now notice, first of all, then, let’s look at these quickly. The Gospel is not just that Jesus died. The Gospel is, he says, that Christ died for our sins. Christ died for our sins. This is the heart of the heart of the Gospel, that Christ came as the great sin-bearer. We call this the doctrine of substitution that we talk about so much here. That Christ came as the sin-bearer. He came in the place of sinners.

He came to save sinners, but He came to save sinners precisely by taking their place and bearing their judgment and their curse. And taking all of our responsibilities, assuming all of our obligations, He went to the cross, dying not just under the unjust judgment of men, but dying under the just judgment of God, bearing our sin. He was, in essence, the great sinner, in that He took the sin of the world to Himself, and in the place of all of His people, bore their curse, and took their sin, and paying the penalty in their place. As the Apostle will say in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 21, He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Or as he’ll write to the Galatians, Galatians chapter 3 in verse 13, He redeemed us from the curse of the law having been made a curse for us. Or as Peter will say, He bore our sins in His body on the tree.

This is the real, the heart of the meaning of Jesus’ death, that He died as the sinner’s substitute, taking our place, bearing our sins, paying our debt, and exhausting the curse against us. It’s what we talk about so often here as the Great Exchange. On the cross, Jesus takes our sins, and in exchange, He gives us His righteousness. A marvelous exchange. Jesus Himself taught like this in John chapter 10. He’s the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. And He gives us an illustration of the shepherd watching the sheep. And the wolf comes, and the shepherd, because he cares for the sheep, stands between the sheep and the wolf. Jesus takes the metaphor a bit further. He doesn’t just fight off the wolf. He’s not just willing to risk his life, but He’s the good shepherd in that He gives His life. He lays down His life for the sheep. Seeing us before the wrath of God and divine judgment, He stands between us and the judgment of God and absorbs the wrath Himself.

This is the heart of the Christian message. Tied up with all of this, of course, is the notions of God and His holiness, God and His wrath, God and His righteousness, human sin, human accountability to God, judgment, wrath. All of these notions throughout the Bible are tied up in this that we meet at the cross. What is death? Why is there death? The answer, of course, is death is a punishment of sin. That’s why it was introduced. You eat of any tree in the garden, but of that tree you don’t eat. And the day that you eat it, you will die. The prophet Ezekiel echoes it. The soul that sins, it shall die. Paul echoes it, Romans chapter 6: the wages of sin is death. That is, our sin against God, our transgression of His law is such an evil rebellion that it constitutes an infinite offense that demands the ultimate payment: condemnation and death.

And this, of course, is the meaning of Jesus’ death, that He came to die to stand in our place and pay that penalty that we had incurred by our sin. And our whole hope, then, lies in something entirely outside of us. Our whole hope lies in what someone else has done in our place. And so, Paul says, the gospel is this, that Christ died for our sins.

But there’s more. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures, verse 3. That is, this is not some accident of history, and this is not some story that we’ve manufactured after the fact. We have to give account somehow for Jesus’ death, so let’s make up this story. No, he says, this is what was told us all along. Now, I don’t know what was in Paul’s mind exactly at this point. He’s thinking, of course, of the Old Testament. Perhaps he was thinking of Genesis chapter 22. Remember Abraham on Mount Moriah with his son Isaac, who’s offered at God’s command. Of course, he wasn’t finally offered, but God interrupted and provided a ram Himself in place of Isaac. And perhaps Paul is thinking of that. Abraham saw Jesus’ day.

Maybe Paul is thinking in terms of the Passover. Remember at the exodus, the blood was put on the doorposts of the house, and those who were in the house with the blood on the doorposts, they went free. The sacrifice of that lamb, taking the place of the firstborn in their house. Perhaps Paul is thinking simply in broad terms of the old covenant sacrificial system, and all the sacrifices that were offered—the sin offering, the guilt offering, the burnt offering—and all of these sacrifices that were made making the point that in order to have access to God, there must be the death of a substitute.

He’s thinking specifically in terms of Leviticus chapter 16, the Day of Atonement, when the bull and the goat were offered, and the other goat was offered but sent out into the wilderness, symbolizing on the one hand, the death that is necessary for our sins, and on the other hand, that we go free. Perhaps Paul is thinking specifically of Isaiah chapter 53 that we’ve read this morning. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. All we like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us.

Paul might have been thinking in broad terms, like he speaks in Romans chapter 3, that the Old Covenant, revealed in various ways through its rigorous demand of righteousness that we can never provide, and through its demand of sacrifice—the Old Covenant then in itself pointing away from itself to our need of rescue from elsewhere. This was the truth that was revealed in the Old Testament. It was missed before the fact by most, but looking back we can see that there’s just no way to read it without this. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Through all of those centuries, the drama of all of these sacrifices, after more sacrifices, after more sacrifices, after more sacrifices, year after year, after century after century, all of this great drama pointing forward to the great sacrifice that was made by the Lord Jesus. And so Paul says, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.

He Was Raised the Third Day

Next, he says in verse 4, He was buried. You say, well why is that so essential? Well, as I say, it’s added, I think, in order to emphasize and confirm the fact that He died. We don’t normally bury people who are alive. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried. This was no mere illusion. Jesus died.

And then, verse 4, He was raised the third day. He was raised the third day. Now, this also is a Gospel essential. It’s not just an irrelevant detail. Think of how important all of this is in reference to Jesus Himself. Jesus said that He would die, and He said that He would rise from the dead the third day. He made the predictions on several occasions, sometimes in a cryptic way that they didn’t recognize until after the fact, but sometimes it was very explicit. The sign that I’ll give you is the sign of Jonah. It says he was three days, three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Sometimes He would say to His disciples, the Son of Man must go, be arrested, be put to death. On the third day, He’ll rise again. And it was not always very subtle. In fact, the Jewish and the Roman authorities recognized that He had said that, and so they put the seal over the tomb in order to prevent some kind of a theft of His body and some delusion of resurrection.

So, what’s important here is that Jesus Himself said that He would rise from the dead. Now, if, in fact, He did not rise from the dead, what does that say about Him? We’ll see something here in a minute about the importance of the eyewitness factor. It’s extremely important. But there’s a sense in which that’s secondary. What about Jesus? He Himself said that He would. And if He did not rise from the dead, if His body still is rotting in some Palestinian tomb somewhere, what does that say about Him? For that matter, what does it say about Jesus and all the other things that He had to say about Himself? That He was the Messiah, that He was the King, that He was the Savior, that He laid down His life on behalf of His people? Did He pull it off? How could we believe any of it if He remained dead?

And that brings us closer, I think, to Paul’s point here. If Christ died for our sins, and acceptably so, if He successfully died for our sins in such a way that God accepted it as payment on our behalf—if Christ died for our sins and acceptably so, then how could death keep Him? Did He really exhaust the curse? As long as He remains in the grave, what reason do we have to think that He was successful in taking our sins? Did He exhaust the curse against us or not? This is what Paul has in mind when he writes in Romans chapter 4 verse 25, He was delivered over for our offenses, delivered over on account of our sins and raised again on account of our resurrection. That this is God’s signed receipt, a statement saying, “Payment accepted,” that Christ’s work was finished, that He has finished the task of redemption, and Christ’s resurrection then is viewed as God’s public announcement, if you will, of the sufficiency of Christ’s work for sinners.

And so he says He died for our sins according to the scriptures, He was buried, He rose from the dead the third day. And again, we see it according to the Scriptures. Again, this is not something we’ve manufactured after the fact. This is the reasoning the Apostle Peter used in Acts chapter 2 at Pentecost when he preached to the crowd there. He says, look, Psalms chapter 16, David, the psalmist, the inspired psalmist, tells us You will not abandon my soul in the grave. You won’t let it see corruption. Because I’m telling you, David’s tomb’s out here. We can go see it. He’s still there. Who’s he speaking of? He’s speaking of Jesus. Jesus rose the third day, according to the Scriptures. Perhaps he’s thinking of Isaiah chapter 53, where the prophet says, God will prolong his days.

I think a very fascinating expression of this we find in John chapter 2 and verse 22. You remember Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.” And they didn’t recognize what He said at that point until after the fact. But he said, after He had risen from the dead, John says, then they believed him? No, everybody says, after He rose from the dead, then they believed the scriptures. After the fact, they’re able to look back and see that the Scriptures had taught this all along. They’d missed it. But there it was. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried. He rose on the third day according to the Scriptures.

And then next, verse 5, He was seen of eyewitnesses. He appeared to Peter, then to Twelve, more than five hundred brothers at the same time, then James, then the apostles, and last of all to me, Paul. This is an essential point by way of emphasizing and confirming that Jesus was, in fact, raised the third day. This was no mere illusion. Jesus really did rise from the dead. The tomb was empty, and people saw Him. There are many eyewitnesses, he says, who can testify to it. The enemies of Jesus—you’ve got to try to enter into the thinking of their day in this regard. The enemies of Jesus. Oh, they’re done with it. Glad that’s over. That’s Friday. Saturday. Glad we’re done with him. Pulled it off. And then suddenly, on Sunday, the tomb was empty. And then people start showing up, saying, “We saw him! We saw him! We talked to him! He saw us, too! We talked with him! Yeah, we did, too!” And then once more, the 500 at once!

Paul’s point here is a powerful one. They’re eyewitnesses. They’re still alive. Several hundred of them. I’ve talked to them. This is one of the best-established facts of the ancient world. We don’t have time to go into that now. This is one of the best-established facts of the ancient world. Historical evidence is there. People who deny the resurrection of Jesus do not deny it on the ground of evidence. They ground it simply on the ground of presupposition. It can’t happen.

Five Observations

Now, here then is the Gospel, Paul says. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, He was raised the third day, according to the Scriptures, and He was seen of many eyewitnesses. Now, for the rest of our time, let’s just look quickly at some observations from all of this. I’ll make five observations, four of them very quickly. We’ll expand on them just a bit, and then our fifth.

Observation number one: The Gospel is not about anything we do. The Gospel is about what God has done for us in Christ. The Gospel is not about anything we do. The Gospel is about what God has done for us in Christ. The Gospel is not: try hard. The Gospel is not: keep the Ten Commandments. The Gospel is not: try your best to live according to the Sermon on the Mount. The gospel is not: let Jesus in your heart! The gospel is: Christ has died for sinners, and God has raised Him from the dead, declaring that His death was sufficient to save him. The gospel is not: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The gospel is: God has sent a Savior who died in place of sinners, raised Him from the dead in declaration that His work was enough.

Let me give a little more here, if I can go a little further with that. I think it is a wonderful thing for you to begin witnessing with your friends and family, a wonderful way to do that. I want you to hear me say that. A wonderful way to do that is to give your own testimony of your conversion, what Christ has meant to you, the change that He’s brought into your life. It’s a wonderful approach, but you must remember at the end of the day, that’s not the gospel either. We can’t always give everything, but we must get to the point at some point that Christ died for our sins. That the issue facing your friends and your loved ones when you’re witnessing to them is not that they have a messed up life and they need to have a happier life with Jesus. The issue facing them is that they stand condemned before a holy God, and there’s only one way of rescue, and that is a Savior who died in their place bearing their curse. This is the gospel. It is not what we do. The gospel is what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. This was the central message of the early church. This is the central message of Christianity, and this is the message that we have to take to the world.

Number two, just quickly: The Gospel is grounded in history. The Gospel is grounded in history, or you might say, the Gospel is grounded in historical events, essential events in history in which God acted for our salvation. In this respect, Christianity, like no other religion, is a historical religion. If you could somehow prove that Buddha never lived, you would not destroy Buddhism. If you could somehow prove that the great god Krishna never lived, you would not disprove Hinduism. They would still thrive. But if somehow you could go and prove that the body of Jesus is still in a grave, still in a tomb, Christianity would die at that point. Wouldn’t those people, that Sunday morning, who were so upset to hear these reports about Jesus—the tomb’s empty, people saw it—wouldn’t they have loved to just go get the body, produce it, parade it through the streets of Jerusalem? Christianity would have died in response. Christianity, the Christian faith, the gospel, is grounded in historical events in which God has been at work for the salvation of sinners. This is not some irrelevant detail. We might say it then, with liberal Protestantism that refers to these kinds of things as irrelevant, that the important thing is that Jesus lives in our hearts and the spirit of Jesus is alive today. They’ve missed the gospel. The gospel is grounded in historical events that God has done on our behalf.

Number three: The gospel is according to the scriptures, or we might say the gospel is biblical. But the point here is that it was in accordance with the Old Testament scriptures beforehand. It was not something that was originated by Jesus in His earthly life. It is not something that was originated by the apostles in their preaching. All along, God had been pointing toward this. This, I say, was the great drama of the ages, through all the sacrificial systems, through all of those centuries, demonstrating the unapproachability of God, the sinfulness of man, that we have no right to enter God’s presence. There must be sacrifice, there must be sacrifice, there must be sacrifice, and yet how could the blood of a goat or a bull ever do it? All pointing forward to this great event in history, when God acted to the salvation of sinners in Christ. The gospel is not about anything we do. The gospel is about what God has done for us in Christ. The gospel is grounded in history. The gospel is according to the Scriptures.

And then fourth, a point that Paul has made all through here: The gospel saves. The gospel saves. It is the message of God’s saving acts in history that saves. This has been Paul’s point since the beginning. Verses 1 and 2, this is the message in which we stand. This is the message by which we are saved. Verses 3 and 4, by this gospel you’re saved. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. This is the point, that this is the message by which we are saved.

Alright then, there’s our first four observations. Now, these observations so far, before we go to our fifth, have some necessary entailments, some implications. I want to explore some of them. Of first importance is the situation in Corinth itself. There were those in Corinth who had denied the resurrection of the dead. Perhaps they were influenced too much by some of the Greek religions around them, Greek philosophical thought around them. “It can’t be a resurrection from the dead.” You’ve got to keep in mind, they’re no more naive in that day than we are. We don’t believe in resurrections either, normally. Such would require some kind of divine intervention. And there were some in the church at Corinth, then, who were denying there’d not be a resurrection of the dead.

And Paul takes that on, now, in our next verse, in verse 12, in this next section. If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? Then verse 13, if there’s no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. That is, if you deny the resurrection, then you deny the resurrection of Christ. If you deny the resurrection of Christ, you deny the gospel. If you deny the gospel, what do you have left? What Paul is saying here, most basically, is by definition, no Christian can deny the resurrection. Why? Because it’s already happened.

We’ll see some more of that in a few minutes. Now, notice how Paul expands on that, then, in verses 14 and following. There are certain entailments that come with the denial of the resurrection. First of all, most fundamentally, if there’s no resurrection, then Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. But now, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, what then? Verse 14, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, preaching is a waste of time. There are a lot of people who think that anyway, right? This is an apostle speaking. This is the same apostle who wrote chapter 1, that grounded everything about the success of Christianity in preaching this foolish message. This is the means by which God works, remember? Through the foolishness of preaching, God saves those who believe. But he says, here we have preached a Savior who died for sin, a Savior who, having exhausted the curse, rose from the dead, and it is by this message you are saved. Now if, in fact, Jesus did not rise from the dead, what are we doing? And this whole message that we have to preach is worthless. The gospel, then, is not good news at all. It’s simply a fairy tale.

Verse 14 again, the end of the verse. If Christ is not raised from the dead, then Christian faith is useless also. Here we’ve preached the gospel of a crucified and risen Savior, we’ve said that salvation is free in Him, we’ve said that you may be saved by simple faith in Jesus, and we’re saved by grace through faith alone in Christ who has exhausted the curse in His death and resurrection. But if that’s not true after all, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then our preaching is foolish, and believing it—well, it’s like believing in the man on the moon. It’s worthless. Your faith has done you no good at all.

Verse 15. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses of God, for we have testified about God that He raised Christ from the dead. But He did not raise Him if, in fact, the dead are not raised. That is, if Christ is not risen, then the apostles are liars. There’s no option here to say that the apostles were good men founding a good religion, but they’re wrong, okay? Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. But they’re good men. There’s no option like that. They preach that Jesus rose from the dead, and if He did not rise from the dead, then they’re liars. That’s it. If the apostles of Jesus Christ are liars, then what is this whole Christian faith that they founded?

And so he says in verse 17, another entailment, Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless, and you are still in your sins. It’s simply the necessary corollary, isn’t it? If we preach a message of forgiveness and a crucified and risen Savior, and if, in fact, He did not rise from the dead, well, then you’re still in your sins. You believe that you’ve been saved from your sins, your faith is useless, and guess what? You’re still lost. And notice the exclusiveness here, the exclusivicity of the gospel. It’s either Christ, the risen Savior, or there’s no Savior at all. You’re saved by Him. If He did not die for sin and rise from the dead and you did not believe in Him who did it, then there’s no saving work left. Or here you’ve believed in a Savior who pulled off redemption by dying for sinners and exhausting the curse and rising from the dead. But if, in fact, He did not pull it off, well, then you’re left in your sins. Either He’s a risen Savior, or there’s no Savior at all.

And then, in verse 18, again another necessary corollary, if Christ did not rise from the dead, well, then the righteous dead have perished also. Think of those who died in faith. Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, John the Baptist. On what ground do you think that they are in the presence of Christ, the presence of God today? Well, you may not have worked out all of the implications of how Old Testament saints, what they knew, and how all that worked, but ultimately, at the end of the day, the reason you believe they’re in the presence of God today is because Christ died for their sins and rose from the dead, right? That’s what we come to. But if Jesus did not rise from the dead, they’re in hell. That’s what Paul says. And never mind the Old Testament saints. What about some of the New Testament ones? What about James and Stephen, who gave their lives as martyrs for Christ? Martyrs for their faith. What deluded fools they were, if Jesus did not rise from the dead. Here they gave their lives for what? And now they’re still lost, and they’re perishing. What fools!

And so, he follows up on that in reference to us more personally in verse 19. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. Here we have this hope for eternity that’s grounded in a crucified and risen Savior. And if, in fact, He did not rise from the dead, then we have given our lives to this faith which will not help us in eternity after all. What fools we have become. We are of all men most miserable, most to be pitied. What deluded fools.

My grandfather’s name was Fred, my dad’s father. He was converted as a young man, a young family. My dad was a little boy. And I think it was like within a year—it may not have been that quickly, but very shortly after he was converted—one of his sons, my dad’s younger brother, his name was Fred, became sick. He sat down on the couch one night, just suffering with his sickness, and finally it got so bad that they had to call the doctor to come back in the mid-30s. So, Grandpa—they didn’t have a phone in those days—he went down the road to find a telephone, called the doctor. The doctor came, and it was too late. Pritzy, they called him, went into convulsions, and died. Something my grandfather and grandmother carried with them all through their lives. They could barely talk about it without crying.

But Grandpa was a new believer at that time, and he became very bitter. He was German in every way. He was stubborn. You know, you can always tell a German, but you can’t tell him much. He became very bitter. “Here I give my life to Christ, and I get involved in the church, and God takes my son away.” He went through a period of deep bitterness. He stopped going to church. One night, he was lying in bed, trying to sleep, and this verse, verse 19, came to his mind. It was a verse he had memorized from the time he was a Christian. “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” And God used that. He says he crawled out of bed, got on his knees, and asked God to forgive him. But we have hope for more than just this life. And that hope is grounded in: we have a risen Savior.

Take away the resurrection of Christ, and we have nothing. Cut this thread and the whole cloth just unravels. And so notice how Paul comes back in verse 20: but Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. That is, Christ is risen. You have denied the resurrection. There were entailments of that that are just unthinkable. If there is no resurrection, then Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, well, then preaching is useless. Your faith is useless. You’re still in your sins. Those who have died are lost. The apostles are liars if Jesus isn’t risen from the dead. But, verse 20, Christ is risen from the dead. The apostles are not liars. Preaching is not useless. Your faith is not useless. You’re not still in your sins. Those who have died, the righteous dead who have gone, they’re not lost. Christ has been raised from the dead.

Jesus Is the Firstfruits

And notice carefully how he states this affirmation in verse 20, and this brings us to our fifth observation. Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Our fifth observation: Jesus’ resurrection is the harbinger of our own resurrection. Or we might say simply, Jesus is the firstfruits. That’s the word he used there. Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection to come.

This word firstfruits, remember, is taken out of the Old Testament. When they would come to harvest time, a sampling, a firstfruit, would be gathered and harvested. Praise to God would be given for it. This was the firstfruit. It was just a sampling of a fuller harvest that would come. What Paul is saying here is that Jesus in His resurrection is just a sampling, just a sampling of a fuller harvest that is to come. And all of those who have died in Christ will surely be raised with Him because He has been raised. This is what Paul will expand on throughout the rest of the chapter. We’ll see that when we get back to 1 Corinthians. I guess I won’t be back to that until June and Sunday mornings. But this is what Paul will expand on for the rest of the chapter. And because Christ has been raised from the dead as the firstfruits, we also who are joined to Christ in union with Him will be raised with Him.

I want you to see a fascinating way in which this is preached in Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4, look at verse 2. Here we have Peter and John. It says the Sanhedrin, where they were called into account, they were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. Now, you remember, I’m sure, that there are two factions in the Sanhedrin, two major factions among the Jewish people of that day: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees believed in the Resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in the future Resurrection. That has always been said. The Pharisees believed in the Resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection, and that is why they were Sadducees. I know it’s poor.

And they’re torn up. And Paul would cause this division among them. You’ve got this faction going on in the Sanhedrin. “There’s going to be a resurrection.” “No, there won’t be a resurrection.” “Yes, there will.” “No, there won’t.” And notice how it’s said here. What was bothering them about the apostles’ preaching is not just that they preached the resurrection. Notice how it’s stated. They were proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection. Oh, here they are. “There’ll be a resurrection.” “No, there won’t.” And the apostles said, “Look guys, I’ve got news for you. It’s already happened! Jesus has been raised from the dead, the firstfruit of a great harvest to come.” We will be raised from the dead because our forerunner has gone ahead of us. He has walked that way and we certainly will follow.

So then Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 is telling us we do have a hope for this life and the next. And it is a well-founded hope. The glorious announcement of the resurrection—if you want to say it this way—the glorious announcement of Easter, the glorious announcement of every Sunday, is that Jesus Christ is not still lying under the dust of the Palestinian sky. He was not just another loving but deluded martyr who gave himself for a hopeless cause. He did not undertake a work which, in the end, he proved unable to perform. He paid the penalty for our sin in full, and that penalty did not break him. He broke it. Rising from the tomb, all of our hopes and our salvation came to life. Amen.

Our Father, how grateful we are that we have a Savior who has come and taken our place. What a great Savior He is. We confess gladly this morning our utter need of Him, our utter dependence upon Him. We thank You that You have sent us Your Son. We thank You, Lord Jesus, that You are willing to come for us. We ask that You will refresh our hearts, the hearts of all of Your people today, in thoughts of Him. We ask You in Jesus’ name.