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RESURRECTION:
THE FOUNDATION OF OUR FAITH
Christians celebrate two great events each year.
- At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, God coming to earth.
- At Easter, we remember the death of Jesus and celebrate His resurrection on the third day.
We couldn't remember Christ's death and celebrate His resurrection if He had not come to earth to live among us. But Christmas would be absolutely meaningless is Jesus did not rise from the dead.
No other doctrine is more critical to Christianity than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This great moment changed everything. Without the resurrection, the death of Christ loses its power and significance. Without the resurrection, we have no hope and our faith is meaningless.
To many outside the Christian faith, a resurrection sounds outrageous. But in 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul highlighted several key facts that point to the actual, physical resurrection of Jesus. But he didn't stop there. Paul also showed us what that resurrection means for us.
The resurrection of Christ is the singular event in history that changes our lives - for eternity.
This is a two week lesson series:
- The Truth of the Resurrection
- Why The Resurrection Matters
THE
BIBLE MEETS LIFE
For
most of us, national or global news stories are just that: stories we saw or
read in the news. It may be a once in a lifetime experience, but on rare
occasions we may be able to say, “I was there!”
Of
course, none of us were there at the momentous event that changed everything — the
resurrection of Jesus Christ — but we joyfully celebrate it every spring. But do
we embrace the resurrection as an actual historical event or simply regard it
as spiritual folklore?
Many
people favor the latter view. Others see the resurrection as an “inspiring story”
about a great teacher named Jesus, but they do not believe He is the true Messiah
who was resurrected for all mankind. Jesus is just someone unenlightened people
used to believe in.
The
apostle Paul had something to say about that! In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul made an
objective truth claim: Jesus did physically rise from the dead, and many people
could attest to that. They could say, “I was there!”
Since
Christ actually rose from the dead, His resurrection triggered monumental
implications for humanity.
WHAT
DOES THE BIBLE SAY?
1
Corinthians 15:1-3
1 Now
I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to
you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand and by which you
are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you
believed in vain. For I passed on to you as most important what I also
received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
Paul
was arguing against a culturally accepted idea that had influenced some
Christian believers in Corinth. It’s one familiar to us today: people simply
don’t rise from the dead. So, Paul began this section on the resurrection with
a clear reminder of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and its resultant
importance for the work of salvation.
Question
2:
What
makes the death of Jesus so significant?
Paul
stated that he passed on to the Corinthian believers what he first received. Verses
3-5 are considered to be a creed that was formulated between the time of Jesus’
resurrection and Paul’s writing of 1 Corinthians. This letter is dated at
around AD 55, placing it within the first twenty-five years after Jesus’
death. Knowing both the date of this letter and the time the earlier creed was
conceived is important to us today because it demonstrates that even the
earliest reports concerning Jesus included all three elements of the gospel
story; they were not a fabrication by Christians at a much later date.
In
verse 3, Paul set up his claims by declaring, “Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures.” Paul had in mind statements in the Old Testament
concerning the Messiah’s death, such as the “Suffering Servant” passage
in Isaiah 53:5-9 and the description of piercing His hands and feet in Psalm 22:16.
Paul tied Jesus’ death back to the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah.
Paul stressed that it was critical for Christ to fulfill the Messiah’s role in
atoning for the sins of the world. Yet, for Jesus’ atoning sacrifice
to matter, Jesus actually had to die.
Critics
of Jesus sometimes deny that He was a real person at all, let alone that He
died. However, too much evidence testifies to the historical nature of Jesus’
death to dismiss Jesus and claim He never was a real person. The Gospel
accounts, as well as other New Testament authors, bear witness to the truth of
Jesus’ death.
Accounts
of Jesus’ death were found by others besides the Gospel writers:
- Tacitus, the most trusted ancient Roman historian;
- Josephus, the Jewish historian;
- Lucian of Samosota, the Greek satirist; and
- Mara Bar-Serapion, a prisoner writing to his son.
None
of these people had reason to support Jesus or His followers—some, in fact,
were overtly opposed to them—which aids the trustworthiness of their comments
about Christ’s crucifixion. We might be tempted to think that corroborating
testimony isn’t that powerful, but having this much evidence concerning a
historical person who lived two thousand years ago is rather impressive. We don’t
find this quantity of written testimony even for some of the prominent emperors
of Rome, the most powerful empire in the world at that time! Because of the
compelling historical testimony to Jesus’ death, even John Dominic Crossan,
certainly no conservative scholar, has written, “That he was crucified is as
sure as anything historical can ever be.”
1
Corinthians 15:4
4 That
he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
Question
3:
Why
is the resurrection an essential element of the gospel?
Jesus
entered into the world as a human and willingly paid the consequence of human
sin: death (Rom. 6:23). He did not die for His own sin — He had no sin (2 Cor.
5:21) — He died for ours. He died as a result of a horrific crucifixion, but His
body did not decay (Acts 2:31). Rather, as Paul related to the Corinthians, Jesus
was physically resurrected on the third day. This early creed may be referring
to Psalm 16:10, a messianic prophecy in which King David declared that God’s
“faithful one” would not see decay.
Jesus
was laid in a tomb, because he was a real human with a physical body like other
humans. He was neither a disembodied spirit nor a mythological god nor a
demi-god. He was both fully human and fully God, which afforded Him the power
to lay down His own life and the authority to take it up again (John 10:18).
Jesus’ burial—the fact that He was laid in a physical tomb—reminds us He was a
human being.
Jesus’
death and burial also remind us that sin has consequences. His death stands in
stark contrast to our culture’s current trend of redefining good and evil to be
whatever each individual holds to be true. Through Jesus’ death, however, we
see that good and evil have resulting consequences and that no one escapes the
result of evil in the world. As a result of human sin, we all will die.
Yet,
Jesus, the atoning sacrifice for our sin, the One who took on death itself,
didn’t remain dead. Jesus provided the only defeat of death in history: a true
resurrection. Think about this: if you want to reverse death, what do you have
to do? You have to overcome it with life. Jesus’ resurrection was a historical event
in which the power of God reversed death.
Critics
might say the resurrection sounds like a fairy tale to soothe those who are
afraid to die. But Paul surely would not have called it a fairy tale. Far from
it. He wrote a little bit later in this passage that if Jesus wasn’t raised
from the dead our faith is useless (1 Cor. 15:14,17). His description of such a
situation was not the stuff of fairy tales, but of hopelessness.
1
Corinthians 15:5-8
5 And
that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five
hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but
some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.
Paul
continued in his line of reasoning by describing how Jesus appeared to many people
after His resurrection. This argument makes no sense if Jesus’ body was still
in the tomb, yet scholars generally agree that all evidence from the first
century points to an empty tomb. In fact, ancient sources offer no other
account of what happened to Jesus after His crucifixion.
Multiple
accounts from different people reported seeing the resurrected Christ in various
places. Paul reported that Jesus appeared to one or more of the disciples at least
twice, and then later to a group of five hundred people. Paul stated this
matter-of-fact like, and if anyone questioned the truthfulness of what he said,
they could ask those people themselves, since “most of them are still alive”
(v. 6).
Question
4:
What’s
the importance of eyewitness testimony?
The
disciples had nothing to gain from making up a story of resurrection. Indeed, quite
the opposite happened: all the apostles except John were killed because of
their proclamation of the risen Messiah who appeared to them. They went from
terrified individuals in hiding after Jesus’ crucifixion to bold proclaimers of
the good news of resurrection and salvation in Christ.
Let’s
also not forget Paul—formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee of
Pharisees—who was relaying this information to the Corinthian Christians. Saul
was a man who actively persecuted the church and gave up his entire community
and status to proclaim Jesus to the Gentiles. As a former Pharisee, Paul had
been part of the highly educated elite. He knew logic and could skillfully present
his case before various audiences. He had not been an easy convert. Yet, he
moved from persecuting Christians to joining their ranks as the most prominent
evangelist for Christ. And all this happened because he saw the resurrected
Christ (Acts 9:4-6)!
Question
5:
How
can our group be a witness for others of Jesus’ resurrection?
ENGAGE
LIVE
IT OUT
The resurrection of Jesus is the most robust answer for what
happened two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. What will you do with that truth?
Choose one of the following applications:
- Trust. Commit your life to the risen
Christ. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your
heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). Read
the inside cover of this book for more information.
- Read. For alternative theories about the
resurrection and replies to those theories, read Jim Warner Wallace, Cold-Case
Christianity (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2013), 41-50.
- Share. Think of someone who needs to know
the truth of the resurrection of Jesus. Write that individual’s name down and
pray for the person. Pray also for an opportunity to share about Christ’s
resurrection. Be ready and willing to engage in a conversation on the powerful
truth of the resurrection, an event that changes everything for us!
All of us can point to life-changing historical events on some level.
But the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ stands apart as an event that
gives us hope now and for eternity!
It's Easter - He is RISEN!!
Hope to see everyone this Sunday!
In His Love,
David & Susan
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