This morning we come to the pinnacle of the works of Christ that is confessed in the Apostles Creed. Let’s begin by confessing the creed together.
I have a confession of another sort to make today. I confess that, even as a Baptist pastor, I have watched Soap Operas. I blame this moral lapse mostly on my wife, who introduced me to “Days of Our Lives” back when we were attending college at Auburn. We were newlyweds and had a lunch break together. I only got three channels in my trailer, so we watched “Days of Our Lives” while we ate lunch. If you know anything of Soap Operas, you know that the characters die and come back with regularity. So, Stephano will kill John, and then ten years later, John will come back on the show because, it turns out, Stephano actually faked his death, brainwashed him, and then used him as a clandestine agent while the love of his life, Marlana, moved own with her life to marry again and have kids. Oh, the drama!
Whether it is soap operas or superhero movies or sports comebacks, we love a good resurrection story. We cannot imagine that our heroes would die. I think this reflects something about our own desire for eternal life. We can’t bear the thought of our own story ending. Life is too precious. The love we share with others is too meaningful. The great work we do to build a better world, help society, and raise the next generation – it has to live on. If the secular materialist is right, then our lives mean nothing. We are just a collection of cells, organized by natural selection, chance, and eons of time to exist in human bodies. The morality, emotions, and societal structures we have are all just products of evolution and hormones. They don’t mean anything. They don’t accomplish anything. As I say that, I’m sure you wince at the thought, because to be human is to long for the eternal, for that which lasts. As Eccl. 3:11 says, “God has put eternity into man’s heart.” We long for eternity because we were made for it.
Yet, when we observe the ways of this world, we might feel forced to agree with the secular materialist. We long for eternity, and yet our bodies slowly age. We have aches and pains, suffer from diseases and cancers, wrestle with chronic disorders. And then, when we’ve suffered long enough, we die, our family buries us in the ground, and our bodies decay to dust. This hope for eternity seems to be more akin to wishful thinking. But, then we hear of a teacher – Jesus of Nazareth. This teacher comes preaching the coming kingdom of God, where the poor in spirit will be blessed and the meek shall inherit the earth. And, he doesn’t just teach about the kingdom, but he shows us glimpses. He turns back the effects of aging and suffering by healing the lame and diseased. He even raises people from the dead. We might think at the height of his ministry that we finally have reason to hope for eternity. Then, the religious leaders and Roman authorities hastily try him for blasphemy and treason. This hopeful teacher who healed many is now nailed to a cross and suffocates to death.
What would the life of Jesus mean without the resurrection? What would it mean for our salvation if he had died on the cross and his body were still in that tomb today? This morning, I want you to see that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is an undeniable and essential doctrine of the Christian faith, and so we confess that “on the third day he rose again from the dead.” To see that, let’s read 1 Cor. 15:1-28 together. From this passage I want you to see three points about the resurrection of Jesus: The resurrection is paramount, proof, and promise.
First, in verses 1-11 we see that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is paramount. Paul begins this chapter of his letter by reiterating the essentials of the Gospel that he delivered to the Corinthian church. Most scholars believe that verses 3-6 were a sort of early creed that the church memorized. Notice the importance that Paul places on the beliefs of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. He says, “I delivered to you as of first importance.” Understand that the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is the linchpin of the Gospel message. The rest of the good news of salvation hangs on this fact – that the tomb is empty because Jesus is alive! You must believe it to be saved. In Romans 10:9, Paul says, “For if you confess with your mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” There are two expressions of faith given in that verse: confession of the Lordship of Jesus and belief that he rose from the dead. Of course, confessing Jesus as Lord and belief in the resurrection are shorthand for all of the other doctrines we’ve covered in the Apostles Creed, but it’s important that Paul boils all of the doctrines of the church, all of the beliefs we should have, down into one single confession – Jesus rose again.
Second, in verses 12-19 we see that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof. Paul wrote this section of his letter to combat the heretical teachings of the Gnostics, who denied that we there would be a resurrection of the body. I’ve mentioned the Gnostics before, but just to remind you, they believed that the material world is evil and the spiritual world is good, and so to say that the body will be resurrected is to say that God will save that which is evil. So, to prove that our bodies will be raised, Paul points to the resurrection of Jesus. He says, in verse 13, “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.” If we say that the material world is evil and therefore bodies cannot be raised and perfected, then we deny even that Jesus could have been raised because Jesus was fully man. Then, Paul makes the most striking claim. In verse 17 and 19 he says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins… if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Did you catch that: if Jesus has not been raised, then we are still in our sins. If Jesus died, was buried, and rotted in the ground just like every other human who has ever lived, it means that he was just merely a man – nothing special. He was just a false prophet, a charlatan, a liar, or a lunatic. And, if he isn’t raised, then it means our faith is meaningless. Our pursuit of holiness, our commitment to the way of Christ, our willingness to face persecution – it is all useless and we are to be pitied more than any other group of people.
But, Jesus has risen, and his resurrection proves three things. First, it proves that he is the Son of God and that his teachings are trustworthy. Only the Son of God could rise again from the dead. So, we can believe what he tells us because he has risen. Second, it proves the truthfulness of the Gospel message. Every single sermon in the NT hangs on the claim of the resurrection. Even when Paul preached to Greek philosophers who had no reference to the Bible, he ended his sermon by saying, “And God has proven this by raising his son from the dead.” Brothers and sisters, this is the anchor of our evangelism. When you are telling others about Jesus, don’t be distracted by arguments over the age of the earth or the flood or the splitting of the Red Sea. Bet all your marbles on the empty tomb. Hang all your claims on the fact that twelve men faced down terrible deaths for the testimony that Jesus rose again. If Jesus has risen, then the Gospel is true. Lastly, Jesus’s resurrection proves that your sins are forgiven. If the tomb is empty, then it means that Jesus’s sacrifice has been accepted. If the tomb is empty, it means that a sinless substitute has been made for you.
That leads me to my last point: the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a promise. In verses 20-28 Paul shows us how the resurrection of Jesus is a promise of our own resurrection. In verse 20 he says that Jesus has been raised as a first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. In modern industrial farming, we don’t really have first fruits anymore because all of those crops are designed to mature at the same time. But, with heirloom crops, you will have what the Bible calls “first fruits”, which is fruit that matures earlier than the rest of the crop. So, if you are raising heirloom tomatoes (like Brandywine), there will be a few tomatoes that ripen before all the others do. That first fruit serves as an indication of how good your soil is and what kind of harvest you can expect. If the first fruit is poor, then the rest of the crop will likely be, too. But, if the first fruit is beautiful and healthy, the rest will probably be, too. So, Paul says that Jesus is the first fruit from the dead. If Jesus’s body is restored and made perfect, then ours will, too. If Jesus’s body is made eternal so that he dwells with God forever, then we will, too. Jesus’s resurrection is a promise of our own salvation. You see, your salvation, while it is guaranteed, it is not complete. We know it isn’t complete, because even though we trust in Christ, we still die. But, we have a sure hope, because of the resurrection of Christ, that our aging body is not the end of our story. We have a sure hope that our pains and suffering is not the end of our story. We have a sure hope that the cancer diagnosis, the chronic disease, the terminal illness, is not the end of our story. We have a sure hope that death is not the end of our story. Why do we have this sure hope? Because the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive forevermore!
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