"Why is the Resurrection Necessary?" 1 Corinthians 15
- Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this sermon on April 9, 2023.
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Audio Transcript
Foreign.
Matthew chapter 28 after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and other Mary went to view the tomb. There was a violent earthquake because an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and approached tomb. He rolled back the stone and was sitting on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards were so shaken by fear of him that they became like dead men.
And then the angel told the women, don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen just as he said. Come see the place where he lay, and then go quickly and tell his disciples he is risen from the dead. And indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there.
Listen, I have told you so. Departing quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, they ran to tell his disciples the news. And just then Jesus met them himself and said greetings. They came up, they took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus told them, do not be afraid.
Go and tell my brothers to leave for Galilee and they will see me there. Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed. Heavenly Father, as we gather today to celebrate the resurrection and its importance to us, may we once again see how it pertains to you and how it pertains to our faith and our life. And above all things, may we leave with a desire to share our excitement and our joy with others.
Those that we love, those that we associate with, those that we work with, and those that we live around, that they too might come to have a right relationship with your Father, and that we might spend eternity with you in heaven. In your name we pray. Amen. When we share the Gospel, we must not neglect the resurrection. Jesus, God’s very son, was born of a virgin, and he lived a sinless life among mankind for about 33 years.
He was crucified on a cross as the atoning sacrifice for us. In other words, his death paid the penalty that we owed for our sins. He was buried in a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers who would forfeit their life if Jesus body had been moved. And he rose from the dead on the third day and ascended to heaven to reclaim his rightful place by God the Father. When we hear the Gospel, we understand that we are sinful.
And we understand that Jesus died to pay the penalty of our sin, so that our guilt might be removed and we might not feel shame anymore. But why was it necessary for him to be resurrected from the dead? Why is the resurrection necessary? We’re going to look at four, four things today. The resurrection was necessary for the validation of Jesus.
The resurrection was necessary for validation of our faith. The resurrection is necessary for the validation of our hope. And lastly, the resurrection is preparation for eternity. If you take your Bibles and turn to First Corinthians 15, we’re going to spend most of our time there today. When we see where Paul, after telling us what the Gospel is, he explains why the resurrection was so important.
First Corinthians 15 I read verses 4 through 6. He being Jesus, was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, I.e. peter, and then to the 12. Then he appeared to over 500 brothers and sisters at one time. And when this was written, many of those 500 were still alive.
And they would attest without hesitation that they had seen the resurrected Jesus. And they were so certain about it that many of them went on to die the deaths of martyrs or they were tortured, they were thrown into jail, they were beaten, they were, because they were professing what they had truly seen with their eyes. He appeared to James and to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to Paul. The resurrection validates that Jesus is who he claimed to be. He is God in the flesh.
He wasn’t raised by a team of health professionals. There wasn’t this blue coat that went out and they all rushed in and they raised him from the dead. No, he raised himself from the dead. Imagine if you had had a heart attack in the hospital and you died and you straight lined and all of these doctors and nurses rush in and they resuscitate you and bring you back to life. That is not what happened with Jesus Christ.
He brought himself back to life by his own power. And therefore by raising himself from the dead, Jesus validated that he is the Son of God and that everything that he had told them about their need for salvation, that he would die on the cross, was the truth. We go on to read in verse 12 there Paul says, now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of of the dead? There was a false teaching that started that day, a misinformation, false news. The Sadducees who were the priestly leaders, they had always taught there is no resurrection.
What you experience here in this life, that’s it. And so they didn’t want to admit that Jesus had been raised from the dead. It went against everything that they were teaching. So Those who did not accept Jesus as God and Savior sought to discredit him. They said there’s no resurrection of the dead.
And they spread a story of disinformation that Jesus disciples had come sometime in the night and taken his body away. But is that really realistic? There were 16 soldiers stationed at the tomb to make sure that the body was not taken away. And of those 11 disciples that were so fearful that they ran that night, they couldn’t even be around when Jesus died on the cross. Do you really believe that they would have shown up and they could have done anything against those 16 soldiers?
The answer is no.
And the other amazing thing is, do you think that they could have kept a secret 11 men that they had stolen the body of Christ? I mean, somebody would have said something along the way to brag about it, but they never did because that’s not what happened. And if the story were true, certainly everyone, the Sadducees, the Romans, would have been out looking for the body of Christ somewhere and they could not find it. To prove that he was still dead and had been taken away. Paul goes on next in this chapter to tell us, if you believe this, that there was no resurrection of the dead.
What does that lead to? So it’s in the text, he’s going to present this negative side, but the opposite is what he is emphasizing is true. Let’s read in verse 13, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain. And so your thoughts faith is also vain.
Not only is the resurrection a validation of Jesus, but it’s a validation of our faith. If there is no resurrection, then Christ was not raised from the dead and our faith is vain and invalid. But instead what Paul is saying is the resurrection did happen. And it gives validity to our faith that our faith is real. Our faith is in a real Jesus who lived a sinless life, who died on the cross to take the punishment due us upon himself.
And he proved his own claims by raising himself. And one day he will come again for his children and likewise raise us from the dead. Therefore, Paul is saying, our proclamation is not vain, it’s not worthless. Boasting, it’s, it’s true. And as we profess the resurrection, we’re saying this validates our faith.
Going on to verse 17, Paul writes, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sin. And those then who have fallen asleep in Christ, well, they’ve also perished. If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only. We should be pitied more than anyone.
If there is no resurrection, our faith is worthless. It hasn’t achieved anything in regard to removing our sin. And we’re to be pitied because we’re believing a false narrative. But Paul is saying that’s not the case. The resurrection really happened.
Our hope is validated by the resurrection. Because of the Resurrection, our faith is not worthless. Because of the resurrection, we are no longer in our sins. We are no longer guilty of our sin. And because of the resurrection, we now have hope.
And we know with certainty that there is life not only for Jesus Christ, but for all of us after death if we place our faith in him. The resurrection was a validation of Jesus. It was a validation of our faith. It’s also a validation of the hope that we have for the future. Going to verse 20, Paul becomes positive.
Now, he says, but as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. For just as in Adam, all die, so also Christ, all in him will be made alive. Paul’s making a reference back to a couple things here in the Old Testament. He’s talking about the first fruits.
And you have to understand, when the harvest started to come around, there were some grapes and some grains that came on a little bit earlier than the rest. And those were taken and offered to the Lord just a small amount, but they were looking forward to the full harvest when there would be a vast amount of grain and fruit that would come in, and then again they would bring another offering to the temple. Paul’s saying that’s the picture of Jesus here. He’s that small amount that was first raised from the dead. And because of that, we know that there’s going to be a much greater harvest when all of the believers are raised from the dead one day.
Jesus is the first fruits, but we’re going to be the abundance of the harvest in our resurrection someday. Then he also refers back to Adam and the reason why he’s bringing up Adam here. Because the question is, how can just one person person brings salvation to all of us? So he goes back and he talks about how Adam, the first man, one man, what he was able to do and accomplish in regard to us, not something positive, but something negative. That one man, the first man, Adam, made a destructive choice when he disobeyed God in the garden.
And because of that destructive choice, he passed on to Adam, every one of his descendants, a deadly condition that we call sin. And because God is a holy and just God, he can’t be around sin, he can’t tolerate it, he can’t have a relationship with us when we have this sin in our life that was passed down to us from the one man, Adam. But here Paul now talks about Jesus Christ, another single man. And instead of bringing a deadly condition to us, Jesus all by himself provides a gracious cure for our sin problem. In contrast to Adam, Jesus lived a life of sinless obedience to God the Father.
He was therefore the only perfect sacrifice for our sins. And just as the lambs and the goats and the bulls and the doves are all examined in the Old Testament to make sure that they were perf. Perfect before they were brought for a sacrifice. So Jesus lived for 33 years. He was watched, he was listened to, he was examined, and he was found to be perfect.
Jesus life was so complete and perfect that in his obedience to the Father, he said, I never said a word unless the Father spoke it first. And I never performed any action unless it’s something that the Father in heaven have done.
So it is written According to verse 45, the first man, Adam, became a living being. But the last Adam, Jesus Christ, he was far more than that. He became a life giving spirit. The first man was from the earth. He was a man of dust.
But Jesus Christ far surpasses that he is from heaven. And like the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust were full of sin. But if we place our faith in Jesus Christ, we can be like the man of heaven. So are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust being Adam, we too will also bear the image of the man of heaven, Jesus Christ.
As Adam’s descendants, we are all guilty of sin. We’re unrighteous, meaning we don’t walk on the path that God wants us to follow. We have this certainty that if we place our faith in Jesus Christ when we truly believe in his death, his burial and resurrection, then we are now adopted into the family of God. Instead of being a descendant of Adam, now we are a descendant of God the Father. Our ancestry is completely changed into a spiritual ancestry of righteousness.
The resurrection is a validation of Jesus. It was a validation of our faith. It was a validation of our hope that we look forward to. But lastly, we want to see today that the resurrection is preparation for eternity. Back to First Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 50 through 53.
We read. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. Listen, I’m telling you a mystery, something that’s hard to understand. We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. If there is no resurrection, our present bodies are not capable of going to heaven and living there for eternity.
My body isn’t even capable of going to the moon, much less going to heaven and living there. You know, it’s a blessing that God kept Adam and Eve from going back into the garden and eating from the Tree of Life after he expelled them from the garden. This is what it says in Genesis, chapter 3, verses 22 through 24. The Lord God said, since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the Tree of Life, eat, and live forever. So the Lord sent him away from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from whence he was taken.
He drove the man out, and he stationed cherubim, or angels, in the flaming, whirling sword east of the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Because God knew that after having sin in their life, their bodies now were going to have physical aches and pains, and they were going to lose their hair, and they were going to have problems with aging. But more important than that, they were going to have this continual desire to do evil in their life. And if they’d eaten from the Tree of Life, they would have lived forever in these awful bodies that were now affected by sin. And the world that they would have lived in would have just become more and more corrupt as more and more sinners were born and more and more evil schemes were dreamed up.
Just imagine if our lives on Earth never came to an end. Imagine all the evil, how it would multiply if Hitler were still alive, and if Mussolini were still alive, and Mao and Jeffrey Dahmer, all these people, they just would have thought of more and more ways to make the world an evil place. God was protecting Adam and Eve from that by not allowing them to go back and eat from the Tree of Life. But because of that, we’re going to have new bodies because we need this new body to be prepared for eternity. The death of our bodies allow us to be resurrected with perfect bodies so that we can live for eternity in heaven.
And for those that do not die before Christ’s return, even their bodies are going to be changed here. As it says, in the twinkling of an eye, you know, Jesus, he took on a body at birth. He took on the limitations that we have. He got tired, he got hungry, he got older. But when we have our new bodies in heaven, we’re not going to be hindered by any of these problems anymore.
Jesus body was different after the resurrection. It allowed him to move within the spiritual world and the physical world. He was not in the room and next thing you know, he was there. It allowed him also to move from, from earth to heaven to go and be with the Father. It allowed him to stand in the very presence of the Father in heaven.
In the same way, we’re going to have a resurrected body that allows us to do those same things. We’re going to be able to feast with Jesus at the marriage feast of the lamb. We’re going to be able to enjoy the beauty of heaven and walk the streets of gold. We’re going to have relationships with those that, that are also believers. We’re going to be able to worship God and we’re going to be able to eat once again from that tree of life that’s going to grow on either side of the river.
We go on to read, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible. And the important thing is that we will be changed for this corruptible body. It has to be clothed with incorruptibility. And this mortal body must be clothed with immortality the so that we can go and live in the presence of the Lord. Then Paul asks the question that should come to most people’s minds in verse 35, he said, but some will ask, well, how are the dead raised?
What kind of body will they have when they come? Am I going to have my hair back again? Am I going to be 30? Am I going to be 20? You know, I don’t know.
We wonder these things, what kind of body will we have? Paul says, you fool, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. In other words, we’re thinking too small about what we’re going to be. We’re thinking we’re going to be a better something of what we look like now. But it’s going to be far more glorious than that.
And this is how Paul describes it. He says, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you are not sowing the body that will be but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain. So you think of one seed of wheat or one kernel of corn. Paul’s comparing our body to that little seed.
And he said it has to be placed in the ground so that it can be resurrected and it comes to life. Now, when you place that little kernel of corn in the dirt, does it look anything like what it’s going to end up being? No. And that’s how it’s going to be. The body that we have now is nothing in comparison to what we are going to be.
We’re very small, but we’re going to be larger. Not necessarily in size, but in capacity and in knowledge and understanding. We’re going to be unappealing in this world. It doesn’t matter how beautiful you are physically. The way you look today is an ugly seed compared to what Christ has prepared for us in our resurrected bodies.
Paul goes on to say in verse 42, so it is with the resurrection of the dead or sown. And he uses the word corruption here because what we are is corrupted. It’s awful compared to what we are going to be because we’re going to be raised in corruption. We’re sown in dishonor, but we’re raised in glory. We’re sown in weakness, but we’re raised in power.
We’re sown a natural body, but we’re going to be raised a spiritual body. So the words are there. We’re going to be incorruptible. We’re going to be glorious, we’re going to be powerful. Most important thing is we’re going to be spiritual.
We’re going to be able to relate to God in the spiritual way that he has planned for us for a perfect relationship. Often when we hear the gospel shared that we are separated from God because there is sin in our life. And we understand that there needs to be a sacrifice or a payment for our sins so that we can be reunited with God. And we get it that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice and payment for our sins so that we don’t have to bear that. And we understand that we need to place our faith in what Jesus has done for us.
And we have to completely relinquish and put aside every thought that we can do anything to earn our own salvation. We can’t go to church enough, we can’t do do enough good things. We can’t give enough money, we can’t have the right parentage. We have to say all those things mean absolutely nothing. I’m trusting in Jesus alone.
Scripture tells us that when we come to that point, we must also acknowledge publicly and live a life that demonstrates that we believe he is our Lord and Master, by what we say and how we live. But in presenting the Gospel that way to people, sometimes we just stop there. But on Easter, we need to remember that we’re also supposed to emphasize the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are sinful. He did die on the cross for our sins.
He was buried. But praise the Lord, he was raised from the dead. Therefore, we should never neglect the importance of and the necessity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrate every Easter. For it is the validation of who Jesus. And it’s the validation of what our faith.
It’s the validation of our hope for the future. And it’s also preparation for what we will be one day so that we can live in eternity and have the wonderful relationship with the Lord being brought back to the new creation that he’s desired ever since the beginning. Will you bow with me in prayer? Heavenly Father, we once again thank you for the resurrection that in your plan, through one man, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, your son, you provided the sacrifice for our sin that we might have a right relationship with you. Father, touch our hearts today with either the certainty that we know that we are going to heaven to be with you in eternity, Father, or that you will impress upon our hearts that maybe we haven’t truly come to the place that we’ve accepted what Jesus did for us and we haven’t truly proclaimed to others that he is now our Lord and Savior.
God, work in our hearts to bring us to the new creation, to the right relationship with you that you desire. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.