The Significance of the Resurrection 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 Adapted from a David Owens sermon http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?SermonID=126633

2. The story is told of an old man named Fred
who had been a faithful Christian and was in
the hospital, near death.
The family called their preacher to come stand
with them.
As the preacher stood next to the bed, Ol’
Fred’s condition appeared to deteriorate and
he motioned frantically for something to write
on.

3. The preacher lovingly handed him a pen and a
piece of paper, and Ol’ Fred used his last bit of
energy to scribble a note, then he handed the
note to the preacher, and a few minutes later,
he died.
The preacher thought it best not to look at the
note at that time, so he placed it in his jacket
pocket.

4. At the funeral, as he was finishing the
message, he realized that he was wearing the
same jacket that he was wearing when Ol’
Fred died.
He said, “You know, Ol’ Fred handed me a
note just before he died.
I haven’t looked at it, but knowing Fred, I’m
sure there’s a word of inspiration there for us
all.” He opened the note, and read, “Hey,
you’re standing on my oxygen tube!”

5. In case you didn’t know it – all of us are going
to die someday.
You and I are terminally ill.
At this very moment, you and I are in the
process of dying.
It’s just a matter of time, unless Jesus returns
before that moment.
ESV
The only exceptions have been Enoch and
Elijah.

6. I don’t say that to depress us this morning, but
to encourage us.
“What are you saying?
How can the subject of death be
encouraging?”
The subject of death is encouraging because
death is not the end, it is just the beginning of
something so much better and more
wonderful.

7. We, Christians, should not let death take us by
surprise, nor should we let death worry us.
Death is a reality that we know is coming, but
what happens after death is just as much a
reality that we should look forward to.

8. In , we see the last of the
major issues that Paul addressed at Corinth –
the resurrection of the body.
Unlike some of the other issues Paul has
addressed, this one is not about behavior but
about belief.
Paul is deeply concerned about their beliefs
about the resurrection.

9. Without the proper understanding of these
things, their belief and our belief is truly in
vain.
So let’s take a look at the wonderful truths that
Paul lays out in this chapter about Jesus’
resurrection and ours as well.

10. ESV

15. In the 1740s, Lord Lyttelton and Gilbert West
went to Oxford.
There, they agreed to discredit Christianity by
disproving Paul’s conversion and Christ’s
resurrection.
After examining the facts, both these men
confessed their faith in Jesus.
Lyttleton concluded that the most ardent
persecutor of the church would have required
a personal confrontation with the resurrected
Christ in order to be turned from his opposition
to him.

16. Lyttelton wrote a lengthy text titled
"Observations on the Conversion and
Apostleship of St. Paul. in a Letter to Gilbert
West, Esq."
How wonderfully ironic that the most extended
discussion of the doctrine of Christ’s
resurrection and its implications for us would
come from the pen of a man who once
ridiculed the claim.

17. Paul begins chapter by reminding the
Corinthians that the doctrine of the
resurrection is at the heart of the gospel that
he had preached among them and that they
had believed and received.
His concern for them was that they

18. The preaching of the gospel revolves around
these facts.
The (which means “good news”) is not
a set of behavioral responses imposed on us
by God.
Rather, it is a message of love, grace and
peace.

19. By means of the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ, God is wooing and
winning our hearts by the lengths to which
He has gone for our sakes.
In emphasizing that the death, burial, and
resurrection occurred “
,” Paul was appealing to OT
prophesies concerning the event.

20. Additionally, Paul also cited numerous
eyewitness reports of the resurrection,
including his own.
Now we certainly would like to have more
details about some of these appearances of
Christ.
Certainly, in that day, these accounts were
widely circulated and well-known.
By mentioning the fact that many of the eye
witnesses were still alive, Paul was
challenging the Corinthians to check out these
stories for themselves.

21. In beautiful humility, Paul commented on his
own experience with the risen Christ.
Paul admitted that he did not deserve Christ’s
appearance to him, because he had been a
persecutor of Christ.
But the appearance of Christ to him was a
matter of divine grace, and that grace had
enabled and inspired him to serve Christ.
Paul and his fellow apostles had preached and
are preaching the same gospel with equal
emphasis on the centrality of the resurrection.

22. But it appears that some there at Corinth were
denying a general resurrection of the dead.
Paul insisted that such a doctrine was
inconsistent with the gospel.

23. The reasoning that Paul lays out is extremely
precise in logical terms.
He does so in the hope that it would shock
them into rejecting such a view of the
resurrection.
Paul led them down this logical road – If there
is no general resurrection, then the following
things are true:

25. Paul and the other apostles were bearing false
testimony about the workings of God.

26. The faith of the saints at Corinth was in vain
and had not delivered them from sin.
Deceased Christians have simply perished, for
they have no hope of being raised from the
dead.

27. Anyone serving Christ is foolishly wasting their
time and should be pitied.
That certainly is a powerful indictment of any
position which denies either Christ’s personal
resurrection or a general resurrection of the
dead.
Would the Corinthians really be horrified to see
what this false doctrine being taught by some
really meant?
Paul hoped so.

32. Against the denial of the resurrection by some,
Paul proceeded to affirm the doctrine of the
resurrection with bold assurance.
Paul said to them, “Yes, Christ has been
raised!
This doctrine is at the heart of the gospel you
have embraced.
More than that, it is the promise of your own
victory over death.”

33. We know that death became the common fate
of all humans through the sin of Adam.
But now we have been assured that
resurrection from the grave will be the shared
fate of all through the resurrection of Christ.

34. At the second coming of Christ, “the end” will
be written to the drama of human activity on
planet earth. The curtain will come down on
history as Christ’s final enemy (death) is
destroyed and the kingdom is delivered up to
the Father.

36. Some have speculated that chapter , verse
is perhaps the most obscure and difficult
verse in the entire Bible.
What was going on here?
Were the Corinthians practicing some sort of
vicarious baptism on behalf of people who had
died unimmersed?

37. It is not inconceivable, although we have no
historical evidence of such a practice in the
first century.
It would seem strange for Paul to refer to such
a custom without denouncing it, for it stands
against everything that signifies personal
responsibility in salvation.
Was Paul making some obscure reference to
the baptism which now-deceased Christians
had received in hope of their future
resurrection? We don’t know.

38. We must admit that it is beyond our ability to
formulate a definitive interpretation of this
verse, because we simply don’t have enough
information.
But although we do not know what being
“baptized for the dead” refers to, we can know
the significance of it to Paul’s argument.
If there is no resurrection, then nothing done
on the behalf of the dead is of value.

39. Paul then asks why he would expose himself
to such dangers for the sake of the gospel if
there is no resurrection.
Why carry the burden of daily ministry for the
church if there is no resurrection?
In fact, if Christianity has no sure hope of a
future life, we would be better advised to live
by the pagan motto,

40. We know that there is a resurrection, and so
Paul counsels those who share the hope of
the resurrection to avoid the corrupting
company of those who deny the resurrection
and thus avoid their sin of false teaching.

42. All of us have wondered about our resurrected
bodies, haven’t we?
What will they be like?
What of a cremated body?
What about someone eaten by a wild animal
or buried at sea?
Questions of this sort seem to be without end.
How did Paul respond to the questions?

44. The Corinthians with such knowledge and
insight should have been able to discern the
answer to these questions from the events of
nature.
Paul employed several analogies to illustrate
the resurrected body.
First, he offered the seed analogy – the new
body will be related to and in some ways
similar to the seed from which it came, but
certainly not the same.

45. Second, he offered the different flesh analogy
– each creature has a body appropriate to its
nature and environment. Third, he offered the
heavenly bodies analogy – God gives all
things in creation a body which reflects the
proper “glory” of its estate.

47. All this amounts to saying that our resurrection
bodies will be like Christ’s resurrection body.
Such a change in bodily form is necessary to
share in the eternal kingdom of God.

50. How exciting!
Whether a person dies before the Lord returns
or is alive at His coming, the earthly body will
need to be changed into the form which is
appropriate for a never-ending existence.
When all this is accomplished, death will have
been defeated.
Death will have neither “victory” nor “sting.”

51. Sin is the cause of death, and the occasion of
sin is our failure in relation to divine law.

52. The ultimate offense against God – at Corinth
or in our present situation – is in being blind to
our lostness, hopelessness, and helplessness.
But when our helplessness apart from Christ is
acknowledged, God’s mercy reaches us and
redeems us.
He gives us what we could never have
achieved – redemption and righteousness
through Christ that is validated through the
resurrection.

53. Christ’s resurrection is the guarantee of our
own.
What should be the believer’s response to all
this?

54. Does the resurrection matter?
Of course it does.
A person who does not accept it can neither
believe in nor live by the tenets of Christianity.
A sound faith and a righteous life go hand in
hand.

55. I have officiated a lot of funerals.
It is always an honor and a privilege to
minister at the time of a person’s death.
God has given us such hope about the
afterlife.
I know that God cares, and I know that God
has wonderful things in store for us in eternity.

56. Many years ago, when quite young, Paul’s
father had one of the first telephones in their
St Louis neighborhood.
Paul was too little to reach the phone, but he
would listen with fascination when his parents
talked into it.
Then Paul discovered that somewhere inside
this wonderful device there lived an amazing
person; her name was "Information, Please"
and there was nothing she did not know.

57. "Information, Please" could supply anybody’s
number and the correct time.
Paul’s first encounter with this genie-in-a-bottle
came one day while his mother was visiting a
neighbor.
Playing at his father’s tool bench in the
basement, Paul banged his finger with a
hammer.

58. The pain was awful, but there was no use in
crying because there was no one home to give
sympathy.
He walked around the house sucking his
throbbing finger, when he thought of the
telephone!
Paul ran for the footstool in the parlor and
dragged it to the telephone.

59. Climbing up, he lifted the receiver and held it
to his ear.
“Information, Please,” he said into the
mouthpiece.
Then a small clear voice spoke into Paul’s ear:
“Information.”
“I hurt my finger,” Paul wailed into the phone.
“Isn’t your mother home?” the operator asked.
“Nobody’s home but me” Paul blubbered.

60. “Are you bleeding?” the voice asked.
“No,” he replied. “I hit my finger with the
hammer and it hurts.”
“Can you open your icebox?” she asked.
He said he could.
“Then take a little piece of ice and hold it to
your finger,” said the voice.
After that, Paul called “Information, Please” for
everything!
He asked her for help with his geography and
math homework.

61. Then came the time when Paul’s parakeet
died.
Paul called and told her the sad story.
She listened, and said the usual things grown-
ups say to soothe a child, but Paul was
inconsolable.
He asked her, “Why is it that birds should sing
so beautifully and bring joy to families, only to
end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of
a cage?”

62. She sensed his grief, and said quietly, “Paul,
always remember that there are other worlds
to sing in.”
Somehow he felt better.
When Paul was nine years old, his family
moved from St Louis to Boston.
Paul missed his telephone friend very much.
“Information, Please” belonged in that old
wooden box back home, and he somehow
never thought of trying the shiny new phone
that sat on the table in the hall at his new
home.

63. As he grew into his teens, he appreciated the
memory of how patient, understanding, and
kind the information lady was to have spent
her time on a little boy.
A few years later, on his way west to college,
Paul’s plane landed in St Louis. He had about
an hour between flights.
He spent 15 minutes on the phone with his
sister, who lived there now.

64. Then without thinking about what he was
doing, Paul dialed his hometown operator and
said, “Information, Please.”
Amazingly, he heard the small, clear voice he
knew so well: “Information.”
He hadn’t planned this, but he heard himself
asking, “Could you please tell me how to spell
predicament?”
There was a pause, then came the soft
spoken answer, “I guess your finger must have
healed by now.”

65. Paul laughed. “So it’s really still you,” he said.
“I wonder if you have any idea how much you
meant to me during my childhood.”
“I wonder,” she said, “if you know how much
your calls meant to me. I never had any
children, and I used to look forward to your
calls.”
Paul told her how often he had thought of her
over the years and asked if he could call her
again when he came back to visit his sister.
“Please do,” she said. “Just ask for Sally.”

66. Three months later Paul was back in St Louis,
on his way home for Christmas Break.
A different voice answered, “Information.”
He asked for Sally.
“Are you a friend?” She asked.
“Yes, a very old friend,” Paul answered.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” she said.
“Sally has been working part-time the past few
years because she was ill. She died five
weeks ago.”

67. Before he could hang up she said, “Wait a
minute. Is this Paul?”
“Yes,” Paul replied.
“Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote
it down in case you called. Let me read it to
you.”
The note said: “Tell Paul I still say there are
other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I
mean."
(Story found in “Life Everlasting” by Robert Leroe)
http://www.sermoncentral.com/print_friendly.asp?SermonI
D=66730

68. Brothers and sisters, our God has another
world for us to sing in, and what great singing
we will do there, along with whatever other
wonderful things God has in store for us.
Christ indeed has risen and so will we.
Let us live every day with the hope of the
resurrection keeping us faithfully serving the
Lord.
And let us remember that our labor in the Lord
is not in vain!