Why Resurrection is True and Saving
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How do you prove or disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? Science doesn't have a methodology that can tackle it. History does. And Paul taps into that in this passage of Scripture. This set of slides accompanies the sermon available on video at http://youtu.be/z85S_HeW11U
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Why Resurrection is True and Saving
- 1. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction
- 2. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.” v. 1
- 3. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? – Intellectual setting … proto-gnosticism
- 4. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? – Intellectual setting … proto-gnosticism – Resurrection is THE faith “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.” v. 1
- 5. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? – Intellectual setting … proto-gnosticism – Resurrection is THE faith – Resurrection is MY faith “the gospel I preached to you”
- 6. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? – Intellectual setting … proto-gnosticism – Resurrection is THE faith – Resurrection is MY faith – Resurrection is YOUR faith “which you received and on which you have taken your stand.”
- 7. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? – Intellectual setting … proto-gnosticism – Resurrection is THE faith – Resurrection is MY faith – Resurrection is YOUR faith – Resurrection is SAVING faith
- 8. “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”
- 9. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? – Intellectual setting … proto-gnosticism – Resurrection is THE faith – Resurrection is MY faith – Resurrection is YOUR faith – Resurrection is SAVING faith – Resurrection is authentic APOSTOLIC faith
- 10. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true?
- 11. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.”
- 12. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared • Peter
- 13. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared • Peter • The Twelve
- 14. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared • Peter • The Twelve
- 15. John 20 “Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.25 So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord! But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it. 26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you! 27 Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. 28 Thomas said to him, My Lord and my God! 29 Then Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
- 16. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared • Peter • The Twelve • More than 500 at once
- 17. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared • Peter • The Twelve • More than 500 at once • James
- 18. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared • Peter • The Twelve • More than 500 at once • James • All the Apostles
- 19. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared • Peter • The Twelve • More than 500 at once • James • All the Apostles • Paul
- 20. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared – It works
- 21. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared – It works • A persecutor
- 22. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared – It works • A persecutor • Grace was shown me
- 23. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared – It works • A persecutor • Grace was shown me • I worked hard for Christ’s Kingdom
- 24. 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 • Introduction • Resurrection – why are you stressing this? • Resurrection – how do we KNOW it is true? – He appeared – It works • Conclusion
Editor's Notes
- Paul goes to town here with these Corinthian Christians about Jesus’s resurrection.Why would he be doing such a thing?Obviously because there was a need to!Jesus death and resurrection are central to the Christian faith, and for all their problems at Corinth (see chs. 3-14 in particular), Paul has had some very warm things to say about the genuineness of the Corinthians’ Christian in the first couple of chapters.So what on earth is he doing here making a big stand for the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?Well, the church is never immune from the ideas and attitudes that are going around in the world it lives in.The ideas that are ‘out there’ have a nasty habit of coming to church … and there was a particular set of ideas (a school of thought) going around in the Greek world as Paul was writing which impacted the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.And it has a GREAT name …
- Gnosticism emerges in the century after this, but the themes of certain schools of Greek philosophy that created it were floating around throughout the period in which Paul was writing and that’s what we know as ‘pre-gnostic’ philosophy, or proto-gnosticism.Amongst other things, it taught that ‘spiritual’ things were good but anything physical was bad.Having a resurrection body after death was something (in this philosophy) to despise and avoid.Corinth had a big academy that never tired of hearing the latest ideas and proto-gnosticism had clearly arrived down in Corinth.Physical resurrection was going to be laughed at by the sophisticated and despised by the people they lived amongst.So Paul has to say …
- Paul appears here to be doing something that comes not from the Greek thought world, but from the Hebrew one.He alludes here to the process and language of receiving and passing on the body of faith - Paul is a scribe!The whole point of the scribing game is that there is a deposit of the faith which you must pass on without contaminating, contorting or confusing it.But Paul isn’t casting HIMself in the role of the guardian of the deposit of faith (that of the scribe).He doesn’t do that until v. 3.No he first puts THEM in that position … and they’ve received this faith to uphold and pass on faithfully from Paul.He is saying that he is about to remind them of essential stuff that they are under obligation to hold onto so that they can faithfully pass it on.
- This faith, Paul is saying, is “the gospel I preached to you”.The resurrection is essential to what I preached to you back in Acts 18, and that I preached amongst you over the next 18 months … watching in awe and wonder as God revolutionised your sin-wreck lives.Think BACK to those days … whoever is now telling you whatever, THIS is what I (I PAUL) taught you and on the basis of which you met with God and were changed.This resurrection faith is MY faith, and it became YOURS …
- Are you going back on THE faith, MY (Paul’s message) faith … which I passed on faithfully and which you embraced PUBLICLY … taking your stand before a watching world on it?It’s Not just the latest idea that comes along.It is the faith once for all entrusted to the saints.It is the faith that the word of God through the prophets has been pointing towards for millenia.This faith, this resurrection faith became YOUR faith and you committed yourselves to it.That’s the difference between embracing a philosophy and embracing Christ … the latter involves a once for all lifetime commitment to the crucifed and resurrected Jesus.Are they committed to Christ or blowing in the wind?(Quite a relevant question for quite a few ‘mainline’ denominations at the moment, isn’t it?)Because THE faith, MY faith (says Paul), YOUR faith is …
- So, firstly, the resurrection Gospel needs keeping intact because that Gospel SAVES you … it’s what deals with your sin and puts you right with God.But it only does that if you hold firmly to it … but look very carefully.It’s not just holding to an extracted core of fundamental principles that does the trick and saves you.Saving faith is faith in the Word that was preached to you … not your extracts from that corpus of belief which you CALL by the name of the whole of it.Let me give you an example.Jonathan Paxman had a bunch of people on the TV a couple of nights ago discussing the whole issue of ‘gay marriage’.Sharon James, wife of Bill James the minster at Leamington Spa Evangelical church was sat there with a bunch of compromised Anglican bishops, militant lesbian comedians, and a male couple who have entered into a civil partnership with the blessing of their local Anglican church and adopted four children … a couple that wants to be allowed to get ‘married’ and who were insistently describing themselves as ‘committed Christians’!Now, you have to say that they are no doubt committed to SOMEthing … but it wouldn’t be the word that Paul preached (because he is VERY clear on the identification of giving in to homosexual temptation with sin).They wouldn’t be committed to what Paul describes here as the word Paul preached, that saves.There IS a clear non-negotiable body of truth which, when committed to and held firmly, saves you.You can’t fiddle with or re-negotiate it because if you fiddle with it you break it.This body of faith which INCORPORATES faith in Christ’s resurrection is THE authentic APOSTOLIC faith.
- Here’s where Paul’s going next …It’s not just MY idea, says Paul …Jesus Christ did rise from the dead and it isn’t just you want to be listening to, because dead men don’t do public appearances and Jesus Christ DID.
- So here it goes … we’ve seen why Paul stresses the importance of believing in Christ’s resurrection from the dead as an essential part of a fuller body of faith which saves.How do we KNOW it’s true and He DID rise from the dead?
- “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.”Strong’s:1) to see with the eyes2) to see with the mind, to perceive, know3) to see, i.e. become acquainted with by experience, to experience4) to see, to look toa) to take heed, bewareb) to care for, pay heed to5) I was seen, showed myself, appearedThey’d seen Him die.They were associated, some of them, with His burial.On the third day His grave had been vacated and THEN …The word that is chosen is a particular word for ‘appeared’ which particularly indicates that He was SEEN.It is the physical reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus that Paul keeps referring to.OKWe KNOW it’s true because Jesus kept making personal, public appearances after His death and interrment and after the grave was found empty.WHO did He appear to?So now let’s deal
- PeterWe know his character … let’s say ‘tempestuous’?We know his recent history with Jesus … Peter had been in the inner circle of Peter, James and John for three intense years throughout the Galilean ministry.He’d been the first to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.He’d professed undying loyalty then denied Jesus. Three times.And when the women brought the news of the resurrection, Peter was the first into the tomb in John 20.He’d seen the strips of linen lying there with the body gone …And then in despondency and despair, back up in Galilee as instructed but no body in the tomb and no sign yet of Jesus, Peter went fishing.Jesus appeared … they shared breakfast with Jesus (He and the others with him) and Jesus restored Peter to the role of feeding Christ’s ‘lambs’.There was a LOT of talk yesterday about Dan Lydiart ‘putting his body on the line’ in Wales’s Grand Slam campaign.Peter too put his body on the line for Jesus … preaching at Pentecost in the faces of the religious and political authorities that six weeks before slaughtered the Saviour …And what took him from denier of Christ to life on the line for the Lord Jesus?His encounter with the Risen Lord Who ascended and gave Him the Spirit.Peter would later die horribly for his faith in the resurrected Jesus Who’d appeared to Peter.Who else?
- Well, of course, there was the rest of the Twelve … which was eleven, but that obviously wasn’t known as such.In fact, that famous incident where Jesus appeared behind doors that were locked to the Twelve who were ten is followed up by a meeting a week later where Thomas actually was present.And Thomas who doubted was convinced by the physical … tangible …. appearance of Jesus …
- Well, of course, there was the rest of the Twelve … which was eleven, but that obviously wasn’t known as such.In fact, that famous incident where Jesus appeared behind doors that were locked to the Twelve who were ten is followed up by a meeting a week later where Thomas actually was present.And Thomas who doubted was convinced by the physical … tangible …. appearance of Jesus …
- In fact it is the physicality of the resurrection of Jesus that leads Thomas to believe.The twelve saw the physically resurrected Lord
- And then there was a famous occasion when Jesus appeared not just to His inner circle but to 500 people at once … who Paul invites the Corinthians to check the story with.Paul is writing mebbe 20 years after the events he describes, and he writes (v. 6) “most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”If you wanted to check the historic reliability of something that happened in 1992 … how would you do that?You could still very likely go somewhere and ASK somebody.And s it was for these Corinthians on the issue of the physical resurrection of Jesus.
- Then there was James.Inner circle man along with Peter and his brother John.A person who knew Jesus well, another who was going to lay down his life for the resurrected Jesus who wouldn’t be fooled easily by an impersonator and who gives us no reason to think that he’d die for a lie!
- All these men would give their lives to Jesus twice … they would give their lives TO Him in faithful, costly, sacrificial service, and they’d give their lives FOR Him, because not everyone believes, but we do not stop preaching just because they’re not believing.The trouble is, they don’t stop hating just because we keep on preaching.All the Apostles saw Jesus.And they staked their lives on His bodily, physical resurrection.
- And then there was Paul.Golden boy of first century PharisaismA MADE man.As long as he stuck to persecuting Christians and didn’t follow Jesus.Whoops!Damascus Road – en route there to persecute Christians.Bright shining vision of the Resurrected and ascended Jesus clothed in the Splendour of the One led into the presence of the Ancient of Days in Daniel to sit with Him as the sharer of His throne and authority.Paul’s world was turned up on its head.From that point on … family breakdown, penury, persecution and peril.How do we KNOW that it’s true?Because we have the most convincing pattern of historical eyewitness attestation, and also … because it WORKS.
- So the resurrected Jesus appeared to a person dedicated to squashing His movement and blotting out His Name …And the persecutor was reprieved … not a man looking for anything like that to happen!What happened?
- His life wasn’t ruined, his day wasn’t spoiled …Grace was shown me.
- And what grace does is that it galvanises the faith that leads to obedience, it pours out the sacrifice that leads into living sacrifice.The effect on Paul of meeting the Risen Lord Jesus was that He was galvanised into giving himself NOT to scribing or Phariseeing or rabbi –ing for money and prestige … but to working very hard for the Kingdom of God.
- v. 11 "Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed."