Sean: Resurrection is a character attribute of God. It is not an exception for him. It's the norm. You see it in the very creation of the world. What does he start with?
Nothing. There's nothing there, and he makes the entire blossoming universe out of nothing. You see it in the way he chooses to make mankind. He takes dirt, breathes into it, and makes all of humanity his images here on earth.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Sean: The rest of us will be in first Corinthians 15. We're going to be continuing where we left off last time I preached with Paul in first Corinthians 15. He's talking about the resurrection. Now brief review as you turn there, the Corinthians have been denying the resurrection. Possibly this is due to their idea that the eternal state we would be in the eternal state as a spiritual existence but devoid of the body.
Many think that the Corinthians were seeing the body as something that was inherently sinful and that would not be preserved throughout eternity. Of course, this is not true. We talked a bit about it last time. Jesus himself, when he came back perfected and glorified was in a body. We will in fact be in a renewed body for our eternal state.
What's more though is that the Corinthians misunderstanding here when they deny the resurrection of the body, they are denying the resurrection of Christ by default and they're destroying the foundation for our faith, for the gospel forgiveness of sins, for our hope in the resurrection, even for a key element of our knowledge of who God is. This really is the biggest problem they have had so far and they've had many many problems in Corinthians. Maybe that's why Paul takes 58 verses to address it. This is a a big section. So in one through 11, more or less, he said you cannot claim to have received the gospel and be standing in it now if you're denying the gospel and you are in fact denying the gospel if you deny the resurrection of the body.
What we're gonna see today in 12 and onward is he's gonna continue this argument showing the Corinthians the implications of what they proclaim. He says, okay, you say there's no resurrection from the dead. Let me show you where that gets you. So I'll start in verse 12 in just a moment. Let me pray for us all first.
Lord we thank you for your word and we thank you for your spirit who applies the word to our hearts, who leads us into all truth, and all labors, are in vain apart from the spirits working and so even as I've labored on this sermon, it's like building a ship and ships do not move unless the the wind comes and picks them up and and moves them where they go. We pray it would be like that today that your word would not be falling on dead ears or closed hearts but your spirit would be doing all the work and applying this in all the ways, that he does so well and we thank you for him and his ministry. We thank you for the resurrection of Christ and God we thank you that you have resurrected Christ and it shows us who you are. Bless us this morning in the receiving of your word. We pray in Jesus name.
Amen. Verse 12 then. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, well then not even Christ is raised. So that should be familiar.
That's essentially the argument of one through 11. No resurrection from the dead. No resurrection of Christ. Now he's gonna hash out what that would mean theoretically. 14.
And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testify about God that he raised Christ from the dead whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. So he starts with three theological consequences here that would be the case if Christ were not raised. Firstly, preaching is in vain. It all amounts to nothing.
It's of no value. It's of no substance. Why is that? Paul's done a lot of preaching in the book of Corinthians so far. We're at the very end of the book and he says kind of retroactively all that stuff I said earlier means nothing if there is no resurrection.
You think, well wasn't there some good teaching there, that we could kind of apply apart from the resurrection? He hasn't mentioned the resurrection yet. So why if there is no resurrection does it void all the things he said in Corinthians and in fact all the things he preaches as a total? He said not to commit sexual morality. That seems valuable even aside from the resurrection.
He's told the Christians not to be suing one another, to be content with where God has placed them, told them not to use their freedoms in a way that harms one another. He's told them about the right role of a husband and wife in marriage. He's taught them about the value of love, in chapter 13. I mean, there's lots of good principles for life and godliness and good living in the book of Corinthians so far and no real mention of the resurrection. So how is it that all this teaching is in vain apart from the resurrection of Christ?
It's a good question we should ask ourselves. So let's take, Paul's admonition to love as a for instance here. How is it that Paul's preaching about love means nothing apart from Christ being raised? Well, we first ask ourselves, how is it that we evaluate, the worth of any message? Whether it's vain or valuable.
How do we evaluate a teaching? Specifically in chapter 13 here on love. Well, you evaluate this teaching like any other based off the character of God. Right? So we know that God is good and it's only by knowledge of God who is good that we're able to know what is good or what is wrong, what is vain.
God is perfection. And the degree to which something aligns with God, it is good and valuable and real. And the degree to which something is misaligned with God, it is bad and disgusting and false. So we need to know God then for our preaching to be valuable since it's his own character that's the foundation of our preaching. The validity of Paul's preaching then, whether whatever the topic is, necessitates a knowledge of God such that you cannot say chapter 13 teaching on love is of any worth at all unless you know that, well, God is loving.
God demonstrates love. He, his person, his character is the foundation of all preaching. How then is preaching vain apart from the resurrection? Well, it's simple. We can only know God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
If we do not know that Jesus has been raised, then we cannot really know God and then that basis that we talked about for all of our preaching has just been washed away and eroded. This all comes back to the all important understanding that Jesus shows us who God is. He's the way we know who God is. When God finally pulls back the curtain, the veil, and reveals himself in his full glory, not veiled like he was for Moses, he shows us the person of Jesus Christ. The man who was God, lives a perfect life, dies in weakness, and raises from the dead in glory.
Jesus shows us who God is. This is attested to throughout all the scripture. John one eighteen, no one has ever seen God. The only God who is at his father's side, he has made him known. Jesus, praying to God the father in John 17 says this, I have manifest your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world.
Jesus showed, manifest the name of God. Colossians one fifteen, he, speaking of Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Hebrews one three, he is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. Second Corinthians four six, for God who said let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. See Jesus and the father are one.
Jesus reveals the father. So all of our knowledge of God balances on this razor's edge of who Jesus is. Therefore, all of our preaching, whether it's vain or valuable, depends upon who Jesus is. And if Jesus is not raised from the dead, he is a fraud. And God is a fraud and our preaching, whatever it is, is a fraud.
You can see then how if we're missing that one key element of the resurrection, it all falls apart. The the entire message of the bible hinges on the resurrection. Paul writes in Romans one four that Jesus was only fully, and I'm quoting here, declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. This is what makes the gospel good news as Paul writes or as Luke writes in acts thirteen thirty two. It says this, and we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.
The resurrection is fundamental to Christ's identity and Christ's identity is the revelation of God and everything we preach depends upon God being who he is. So this is how if you just remove the resurrection, the knowledge of God falls and all of our preaching, it just turns into mush. It means nothing. Similarly, Paul says, if the resurrection is not the case for Christ, then your faith is in vain. Of course, these are for the same reasons that the preaching would be in vain.
It's because everything is a lie and all that we believe is baseless because Jesus is not raised. There there would be no faith because there'd be no one to faith in. We wouldn't know who God is or at the very best we'd just know he's someone who doesn't tell the truth. So either way there'd be no place to put our faith. The fundamental basis we have for knowing God is gone apart from the resurrection and that's very important for this next point Paul says.
He says if Christ is not raised, we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testify about God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. You see, for Paul, the declaration that God rose Jesus from the dead is more than a theological statement. It's more than just something you should know about God. It's more than just a historical fact. It is central to God's identity.
He says that if you remove that point, everything else he's said about God, everything else Paul said about God is actually just a misrepresentation of God. What's that mean? It means that God being a God who rose Jesus from the dead is so central to Paul's preaching that the entire idea of God is erased if you get rid of the resurrections. Like that one last block in the Jenga Tower and you take that one out and the whole tower falls down. That's what our understanding of God's identity is like apart from the resurrection.
Paul says to them, I'm not preaching to you about just any God. I'm preaching to you guys about one who rose Jesus from the dead. That's that's what he does. So the dead aren't actually raised then the God I'm preaching about doesn't exist. I'm totally misrepresenting him.
There's a very important point here behind Paul's statement that I don't want us to miss and it's this. Understanding God as someone who raises the dead is a key element in understanding his personality. It's a key element in understanding his personality, his character, what he's like. You have to know this about him if you're gonna know him at all. It's something that if it were not true of him, he'd be a completely different person.
You might be able to relate with this with someone you know and they're just so characterized by one element of their personality. And if it were gone, you'd say, they're not even the same person anymore. Maybe it's generosity or something. You're with this person, you see some else in need, know, well, he's gonna go help that guy out. And he does.
Something that's just so core to someone's personality. You associate it with them. It's their habit, their character. That's what resurrection is like with God. This is really important for our own faith especially as we walk through trials.
We need to remember and understand that all God does, he does as someone who has raised Christ and who will raise us. Helps us persevere in our faith of his goodness. In fact, second Corinthians, the next book Paul writes, the next letter he writes to the Corinthians, God being a God who resurrects the dead, this colors Paul's entire theology of suffering throughout the whole book. You see it time and time again. He's talking about brought low and then God brings up high and brought low and brought high.
This death and resurrection character. You see it most clearly in chapter one nine, Paul says this, indeed we felt that we had received a sentence of death but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. See Paul understands that about God and then he moves forward in faith and concludes this. He delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.
Now you see how that works? Paul says, I know God is one who raises the dead. I know that's his character. So I will be delivered from the trial I am in. And until I am, God's gonna comfort me in this trial.
And I know that I'll be able to comfort others with that same comfort I have received once I am delivered. Paul says, I believe that God will take this trial, this thorn, this bad circumstance and make it into something good and beautiful. And I believe that because I know he's a God who raises the dead. That's how he acts. Resurrection is a character attribute of God.
It is not an exception for him. It's the norm. You see it in the very creation of the world. What does he start with? Nothing.
There's nothing there and he makes the entire blossoming universe out of nothing. You see it in the way he chooses to make mankind. He takes dirt, breathes into it, and makes all of humanity his images here on earth. You see it in the way he chose to rise up Israel, a nation for himself. He took figuratively speaking the dead body of Abraham and the dead womb of Sarah and brought a multitude from that more than the stars of the sky.
You see this attribute of God even in in little things like choosing Moses, someone slow of speech and of tongue to deliver the message of deliverance of God's people to pharaoh or choosing Gideon, someone of the weakest tribe of Manasseh and the least of his father's house whittling his army down to 300 people and then defeating all the Midianites through that. You see this element of God's resurrection character in choosing David, the least of the house of Jesse, a boy, using him to kill a giant, using him to be one of the greatest kings of Israel and then still more amazing and there are many examples, but still more amazing, you see it with us. You're living this experience. Your spiritually dead dry bones, very dry according to Ezekiel 37 and he breathes his spirit into us and puts flesh on those bones and says to us live and you are dead in the trespasses and the sins in which you once walked but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us has made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him. So Ephesians two one through five.
Again, and you who were dead in your trespasses and were uncircumcised in your flesh, God has made alive with him having forgiven us all of our trespasses. Colossians two thirteen. We see God's resurrection character even in the way he chooses to conduct his ministry today. Listen to what he said to the Corinthians earlier in the book. God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God has chosen what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. Resurrection, starting with something dead or weak or broken or non existent and bringing it to life, this is the norm for God. It is not the exception. Resurrection seen most clearly in Christ is front and center and at the core and all throughout the identity of God and how helpful and comforting that is as we walk through our lives day to day.
Paul continues restating his initial point. He says this, for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. Verse 17. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. What comes next?
Well, if Christ is not raised, not only is preaching in vain, faith in vain, missing a core characteristic of who God is such that you can't really know him, but if that's not bad enough, you're still in your sins. You've not been delivered from them. You're still subject to the wrath of God. Why would that be? Well, it's because only God can pay for your sins.
Only God can pay the penalty of your sins and Jesus has only proven to be God fully when he is raised from the dead. This gets back to what I mentioned from Romans one four. I'm gonna read it again here because it makes it clear. Paul says in Romans that the gospel is promised beforehand to the prophets. We see it through the scriptures.
It concerns Jesus Christ who was a descendant of David according to the flesh. Okay. He was a descendant of David and what else? And was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. Right?
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead by the spirit, that was his vindication. The proof before men and angels that Jesus is God. God has paid for sins and we are freed from them. You see that in first Timothy three sixteen. So think of it like this.
Let's say you've got your mortgage and a rich generous man comes up and says, well just give me the amount. I'll write you a check. I'll take care of it. And you say that's not possible. He goes, yep.
I'll do it. I say, alright. Give him the number. He writes out that check, hands it to you. Like, oh, this is a this is a great guy.
I like this guy. And you go to the lenders and you give them the check. Now so far, this person has not really been vindicated yet. Right? That check could bounce and then you're still in your bondage to your debt.
Right? But when the check is accepted and the mortgage is paid, you say, Everything this guy said, he wasn't just speaking a big game, he's vindicated. The check passed. It didn't bounce and it's all finished. That's how the resurrection works for Christ.
Jesus has been writing kind of this huge check his whole life. He's been preaching the gospel. He's been healing. He's been claiming to be the Christ, the Messiah, to be God himself. He's been forgiving people of sins.
Does he really have the authority to do this? Is he really God? Well, yes. We see that he is and that's when he raises from the dead. So yet again, another all important structural element of reality hinges upon Christ's resurrection.
After this, Paul moves to his next point. This marks an important transition in his overall argument because here is the main place where he bridges this gap between Christ's resurrection and our own resurrection. Until now, most of the implications of Christ not being raised from the dead have been mainly kind of theological in nature. Well, now Paul is going to show that, but also, if Christ isn't raised from the dead, then you will never be raised from the dead either. These things are bound together.
He says, if Christ is not raised from the dead then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. This text is extremely important for how we handle death. Notice the two words that Paul uses in describing death here. He uses falling asleep versus perish. He's contrasting those two words, falling asleep and perished.
What's the difference? Falling asleep, and that's Paul's preferred term when he writes, this implies what? Implies waking up. Right? Paul uses this in first Thessalonians four thirteen through 15.
First Thessalonians five ten uses this term of believers who will be resurrected. Jesus also uses this same term falling asleep to describe Jarius' daughter and to describe Lazarus. What did they have in common? They were both raised from the dead. Right?
The commonality of the usage of terms is that falling asleep is used for those who will be raised from the dead. This changes fundamentally the way we think of death. This changes it from thinking of it as eternal separation to a temporary separation. Someone falls asleep. You want to say something to them.
You don't say, well, that's it. Never gonna get to talk to that guy again. Say no. Wait till he wakes up and then I'll say what I needed to say. That is why Jesus and Paul both use the term sleep to describe death.
It is an eschatological statement. It's a statement of faith. You say falling asleep, you're saying this person will be raised. It's not a euphemism. Right?
Like pass away. We use euphemisms to avoid using harsh language, that we we don't like. You know, to say die is so so hard. So we'll say something like pass away. It's a nice way to talk about death.
That's not what they're doing here though. They are speaking of death as it truly is for the Christian and what it truly is is a sleep that will end in an inevitable joyful awakening about which Paul teaches at the the very end of this chapter. And you know my my favorite teaching on this and it's very applicable to what we're looking at right now comes from first Thessalonians four thirteen through 14. I'll read it but I want you to be listening for a few things. Some commonalities here.
Listen for sleep, and resurrection and the idea of that resurrection being tied to Christ's resurrection. Paul says this, 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. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so through Jesus will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. See that? As Christ is raised we too will be raised and so we don't grieve like those who have no hope because we have much.
So much that we can actually change the term to fall asleep. That's all true. If Christ has been raised now turn the bus this way a little bit where where Paul is headed. If Christ is not raised, then on the contrary, we do not have hope. We do mourn, like those who have truly lost something precious and permanently.
See how dark this gets? You see how Paul lays out for them this nightmare scenario, which in fact is just their logic applied out into the future. Right? God, Jesus not raising from the dead. It's this is kind of like the, It's a Wonderful Life chapter.
Right? George says, I wish I never lived. And then the whole movie is showing him what would happen if he had never lived. That's the same strategy Paul's using here, showing them how bad this gets. And then we get to our lowest point here.
Paul takes the hideous, blasphemous, diabolical implications of a Christ who stays dead and speaks them bluntly. He says, if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people to be most pitied. What does he mean by that? Why are we to be most pitied if we have hope in this life only? Is a Christian's life so bad, so devoid of earthly joy that unless we have something to look forward to, we're really the most miserable people on earth?
Some people kind of take it that direction. I don't think that's what Paul is saying here. We're gonna take a little closer look. I think according well I know that according to Paul, the hope that he's talking about which is a pitiable hope, a hope that leads to pity, is a hope that is solely in this life, rooted in this life only detached from a future resurrection. And I think about that and I say, okay, I want to be raised but even if I didn't have a resurrection there's a lot of things I hope in in this life.
There's a lot of good that we experience right here. I mean, think about anything good you've ever experienced that's been in this life. Right? Family and holidays, moments of quiet and content jobs, well done goals achieved. These are all genuinely good things.
I'm encouraged by them and I I really do hope in them. So how is it that even these genuinely good things are just pitiful, pitiable if Jesus is not raised? Now the answer is this. Apart from the resurrection, all the hope we have in this life is a lie. Friends, accomplishment, family, love, security, peace, laughter, they're all lies.
They're all hollow. They're all baseless apart from the resurrection. Let me explain it to you with a little analogy here. Say you're reading a story. Open up the story.
Starts with a woman on the streets. She's neglected. She's abused. She has no family, not enough food, no love, no support system, horrible existence. Then a prince notices her and they fall in love and they're married with this joyful scene of their wedding day and she finds a perfect dress, sees the prince, it's a beautiful wedding.
You're so glad. This happens about halfway through the book. As you keep reading you see the prince growing distant from this woman. Eventually he falls in love with another woman, marries her, sends this woman back to the streets and she dies there of starvation. Knowing how the story ends is going to define for you every part of that story, isn't it?
In fact, knowing that the ending is so tragic not only saps the joy from the wedding scene, but it also transforms that most joyous scene into perhaps the most pitiable scene because you know where the book is going. You read about the bride preparing for her wedding day and their first dance and the smiles and what? You pity the woman all the more because you realize that marriage scene is not communicating the truth about the story. It's functioning as a lie. The joy, the relationship fades away, goes into oblivion.
In fact, the scenes at the beginning of the book of hardship, those were telling the truth about this whole story. If however, there's an alternate ending where they live happily ever after, this also changes the way you perceive the story. Then the joy of the wedding scene you can really get into and be happy for. And also, of course, those hard scenes in the beginning of the book, you can think, well, just just get through this and there's so much joy coming. This is light and momentary.
The ending has everything to do with how we understand the story. Be it a fictional story or the actual story that we ourselves are living out that God has written for us right now. That really is exactly Paul's point. If there is no resurrection from the dead, the ending of every single story is sorrow and loss. There is no happy ending.
If Jesus' bones have decayed somewhere outside Jerusalem, not only is there no hope in the afterlife, but the foundation for hope in this life too has been erased. If Christ is not raised from the dead, every story ends in a wet and moldy and dark and decaying coffin. Every every peel of laughter is headed there. Every holiday, every grandfather bouncing granddaughter on his knee, both their stories end there. The love and joy and relationship they share, that's headed towards oblivion.
If Christ is not raised, every meaningful relationship, every last ounce of beauty, every demonstration of love evaporates, fades away, and ends in the wet and the dark and the mold. And just as the joyful scenes of our imaginary story become the most pitiable scenes because they lied about the ending, so too if Christ is not raised all the joyful moments of your life are only occasions for you to be more pitied because they are a lie. Well, what a what a terror if Christ is not risen. Not only is there no hope in the future, there is no hope now in this life. Now we can't close there.
It would be a lie to close there because verse 20, but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. Right there. There's the truth. Okay.
The the nightmare's over. All the terrible things we've discussed are not true for the Christian. Our preaching is not in vain. Our faith is not in vain. We do not misrepresent God when we say he's one who raised Christ from the dead.
All who have fallen asleep in Christ, they've not perished. They've fallen asleep and they will be joyfully raised. We are not to be most pitied because we have hope which enters into the inner places behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you. God is a God of happy endings and that ending defines your entire story such that this will be true of you.
This will be true. The bible says that. One day, you're going to look back on all your afflictions and you'll see them as light and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory that is right there standing in front of you. And you'll also look back on every smile, every laugh, every holiday, every birthday party and celebration, every moment of peace or joy or contentment and love. You'll look back on every ounce of beauty you've ever experienced and you'll say, those things were all telling me the truth.
Those were indicating to me where the story is going. Those things were telling me the truth about the resurrection. Those things were telling me the truth about what God is like. Those are the eternal things. So the dark and mold and sadness and sorrow that that will be gone.
So the joy, the victory, the life, the vitality, the gladness, the tears turn to laughter that you see when you're reading the scripture that accompany Christ's own resurrection, that's just that's just the beginning. He's the first fruits. There's a lot more where that came from. That's like one kernel compared to an entire harvest. Because Christ is risen, we will be.
Because Christ is risen, we have a legitimate foundation for hope. Because he is risen, our sins are forgiven, we know who God is, our faith is sure and our preaching is not in vain. So praise be to God and pray for us. Lord, thank you for this. I thank you that, when you come back, all those things which can be shaken will be and they will fall away and all those things which are eternal and cannot be shaken will stand, and that Lord your your resurrection joy, preserves our our joy in this life and our love in this life and our relationships in this life for those who are in you.
God, we thank you, that all the things we've heard during the sermon that are bad are not true. And then conversely, we we thank you that all the good things are true. That we really can know you and that you raise us and that you're good and kind. We thank you for the ending of our story and, Lord, we what we pray here is that we would keep these things in mind, when we're frustrated, when we're sad, when we're disappointed, when we're angry, when we're impatient, when we're unloving. Let this truth work its way out to make us more loving people because of the hope that we have in you.
Thank you, Lord, for this being true. Nothing we can do can make it more true. Nothing we can do can make it untrue. Thank you for that. Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.