Well, I invite you to turn tonight to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians 15, that's found on page 1142. As you know, this is a very long and large chapter dealing with the resurrection of the body and the resurrection of Christ, and we're just taking a little bit of it tonight: the first 11 verses. That we will look to actually we'll read through verse 12 tonight. 13, 14 I'm looking at it. We need to keep going. 14. 1 through 14 Let's give our attention tonight to the word of the Lord.
"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold fast the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, than to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believe. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there's no resurrection of the dead? But if there's no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain."
And there we'll end the reading of God's Word.
Well, I thought tonight it would be a good follow-up from this morning's message to continue to think about the resurrection of Christ. Did you notice in Psalm 16a in that fourth verse where it said, "So clearly I shall not be moved. My heart is therefore glad. My tongue will sing; my body too. I want you to think about that tonight. My body too will rest secure in hope unwavering." The body. I want us to think about the body tonight.
As you know, the church in Corinth had a lot of problems. Where would I begin to rehearse all of the problems that took place in this church? And it still was a church of Jesus Christ, but they sort of broke everything, it seems. and it was one problem after another. That's why the church is typically called the Church of First California. At least that's how it's labeled, because all the worldliness that had filled the church is very similar to kind of where we live in California. But you'll notice here that the problem is captured in this chapter. The heart of the problem is captured in verse 12: "Now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say there's no resurrection of the dead?"
It's hard to get the effect of this for the apostle. You don't get the emotion behind it sometimes when you read the scriptures, but I think he was deeply concerned. I think this took him over the top. This was something he couldn't have imagined having to deal with in the church, that the church was embracing this idea that there was no resurrection. So I think it went something like this: "If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead that's the heart of our message, beloved, and that's what animates this, this is what drives this, that he's risen! He's risen indeed! How in the world could some of you even suggest, among you, and let this thing like cancer spread and and and start adopting it: that there's no resurrection?"
So that that's that's the heart of this. That's the heart of the chapter. And Paul's addressing throughout this chapter the great proof and to help them understand the importance of confessing and believing from the heart the doctrine of of of the resurrection. It was being tampered with in Corinth in such a terrible way.
And essentially, Paul says tonight, "Listen, if there's no resurrection, then you know, you might as well just go on and eat and drink and live to the fullest, whatever you want to do, because life has no meaning." And that's really how a lot of people live, you think about it. They live as if there's no resurrection. Remember, the resurrection is not just a resurrection to life; there's also a resurrection to condemnation. So that's what John 5 said: there will be those who are raised to life and those who are raised to condemnation. There is a resurrection for all on the last day.
And Paul's having us think about this tonight. He wants the church to be reminded of this, the crucial article of their faith by mentioning here the gospel that they confess together, by which they have been saved, the gospel that they've been delivered by, and the gospel that must be believed. This gospel must be believed. You can say there's no salvation without this.
So you see how crucial of an issue the resurrection is for Paul, and he wants them to remember the whole gospel of Christ, the whole objective work of Jesus, everything that he did for us. You can't ax off the end and think you have a gospel, right? That's essentially what's happened.
And so Paul, notice he says in verse 3, there are issues in the Christian faith of first importance. When Paul said, "Woe is me if I don't preach Christ and him crucified! Woe is me if I don't preach the gospel, there were matters that were of first importance in the faith. That means there are matters of second importance and third and so on. But there are certain cardinal truths of the Christian faith that are of first importance that can never be tampered with.
And so he says this: "I remind you, brothers." You'll notice there in verse 3, "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received." "I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel verse 1, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and by it, which you stand, and which you are being saved if you hold fast the word I preached to you, lest you believed it in vain."
"I," Paul says, "I labored to preach this gospel to you. I gave myself as the heart of the message. The heart of my goal in preaching was to always preach the gospel. That's first importance." That's why the ministry, is as its central message, Jesus Christ, as Jesus showed us from Luke 24 this morning, as he made himself known from all the scriptures. That's the heart of what we're doing that would lead us to repentance and faith.
But notice here, I openly, I have an open conscience on this matter. Paul would say elsewhere, "I declared the whole counsel of God." And Paul has a clear conscience on this deposit that was given to him, the apostolic ministry passed to him, that he has been faithful by grace, he said, you'll notice there, to work hard to deliver that. to give that. I don't want to miss what he's saying here. It's one thing if sort of a pastor's sort of derelict in his duty of preaching the gospel and doesn't preach the gospel and preaches self-help and worldly ideas and worldly things, that that would be considered abusive from the vantage point of the scriptures, because this is a first importance core to what we do as pastors. But a great tragedy for Paul was, is when an apostolic ministry, Paul himself preaching to them, faithfully labored to do that, and then they turned away from it. That's similar to the Galatian era in that way, where he marveled that they turned to a different gospel that was no gospel at all, but a gospel that said one is justified by their works.
So this is Corinth. Welcome to Corinth, a church with these kinds of problems.
And he says so clearly, "Brothers, it's the gospel by which you stand. It's the gospel by which you are saved." It'd be interesting to survey people today: "How do you think God saves people?" And I wonder what kind of answers we would get. I think Paul would come right here: If you were to say, sum up the Christian gospel and sum up the Christian faith. If you're talking to somebody out there, you could come right here tonight to the beginning verses of 1 Corinthians, which he does that for us.
Paul is concerned to preach the gospel according to the scriptures as we looked at this morning. And that gospel is so clear: that God sent his son, and that in his son's life and in his death and in his resurrection, that single great deposit of the truth of the gospel is the message by which God saves people. That's the message. He saves people, and he creates faith in the heart as they believe this message and trust in this work of Christ for them.
And Paul says, "You received that as a church." You kind of see why we always have to be vigilant in the preaching of the gospel, because churches can move. Churches can shift. Churches can go in different directions. And he says, "At one time, you stood in this, and you stand now in this as a church. This is the only way a church stands. By it, you're saved. Through this message preached, the foolishness, chapter one, he said, of the gospel preached, God takes delight to save people, and that means you're not going to face judgment. You're going to escape the wrath to come. You are turned to God's favor, and through it you have peace as was announced this morning by Jesus himself. "There's no more enmity with God. You have friendship with him. You are forgiven."
Well, what happened in Corinth? Well, the church in Corinth became confused over the resurrection and why it's important to believe it. And Paul's writing under the inspiration of the Spirit to bring them back to orthodoxy on the matter. It was no little matter. What Paul is doing here is showing them that this crucial article of the Christian faith, I believe in the resurrection of the body," which we confess and we say in the Apostles' Creed. He's saying, "You can't deviate from that and be Christian. You are not a Christian if you don't have this."
Paul labored there, but obviously some groups, some ideas seeped in that undermined this great truth. So we're always fighting a battle to protect the church from error and to help the sheep and clarify these errors. And I can't imagine the discouragement for the apostle. I think this is why he said in 2 Corinthians, all those woes he faced: "I was beaten, I was shipwrecked, I was stoned, I was beaten with rods," and he goes through a whole list. And then at the end is, you know, it was my biggest burden. It's the concern I have daily for the church. That's my biggest concern," because this stuff happens.
So Paul had labored there. And what was happening in Corinth? Well, they were saying that death is a kind of expelling of the body. Since they believe that the body does not have the same value as the soul. So what they believed is that at death, the body is shed like a snake sheds its skin. They believe that the soul, the immortal soul, as was being taught in many of the philosophers, is finally freed or unlocked into a pure spiritual existence when you finally get out of these bodies.
Socrates said, "Death is a release from the body. The soul is entirely fastened and welded to the body as in a prison bar." Plato said, "Death is the separation of the soul from the body. We get liberation of the soul at death to depart into eternity into its own abode." The body, in Greek thought, was viewed as a prison house of carnal desires and bad habits. So you see the thinking here. The best thing that can happen is really to get rid of the body.
Corinthians believe that the believer is just sort of assumed at death up into heaven, transported right there. By the way, that's Mary Baker Eddy's language. When we say "passed away," we don't even like the word "death" anymore. You notice how awkward it is to say that so-and-so died? We don't like it. So we just say "passed away." We kind of jumped over it. That's very common language today that they say the body, the soul is just sort of transported up there right through, whisked up into the heavenlies to float in some kind of spiritual existence, and that's the goal. That's the goal of this.
So you can appreciate the concern: If the body is a prison house of bad things, why would we want a resurrection? Why would you want a resurrection? And then why would we want to say that Jesus was raised or has a body and was raised back and given a body?
Docetism was another common heresy of the time, and that Christ's body was really not human, you know, sort of a celestial substance, a phantasma, and therefore the sufferings were just sort of apparent. But Jesus only appeared to be a man, but he didn't really have a body. This was a common view of the time.
Now, some of that might sound familiar. Some of that, it's sort of a default position. My time as a pastor, there's been this sort of default position among Christians. And it's hard to step on this because it's very sensitive, and I understand this. I tell you to bear with me because you do as a pastor have to address these kind of things.
But I can't tell you how many times I've heard well-meaning Christians. And I think we've been trained by the culture on this. I get it. Well-meaning Christians get to the grave and say, "You know, I'm just comforted. I'm just comforted that that's not so-and-so. They're not even there. Their body, they finally just kind of shed it like a skin, and now their real self is in heaven." I hear that almost all the time. That is a version of the Corinthian air.
What do I mean? Well, we're we are made of body and soul. Soul existence is important. When we die, the soul goes to be with the Lord. But your body's important. Your body's really important. Your body is made in in body and soul we are made in the image of God.
My first exposure was uh to death was my um my grandfather and I remember um my father as we walked in. This was I was how old? it was 86, so I was nine, And it was my first exposure to death, and we walk into the mortuary, And my father brings me up to the casket, And it was open casket, and he says, Chris, "I want you to grab his hand." And I was. scared to death. I want you to grab his hand, and I remember holding that hand. How cold it was People would think this was insensitive today. Hear me. It was one of the best things for me It was one of the best things for me to face. It formed me as a child to recognize all of a sudden, "Life is not rainbows and butterflies. Something was wrong. Grandpa died. And I had to stare it in the face."
We live in a society that has denied this. Again, I'm not being insensitive. I just want you to understand what we're in to think through it. I think we have to. We've been programmed. In my time, in those days, we would have never had sort of the "celebration of life." We always had funerals. So it was a funeral. Caskets were open. And then the caskets went closed. And then we removed them from the services. And then we went to celebrations, right? Or memorials, and then to celebrations of life. So there's a shift. There's a shift.
I was reading on a mortuary site, and it said, this is interesting, from a non-believing mortician. He was lamenting, he says, "I want people to remember that funerals are still meaningful, whether we're looking at a casket or an urn. When we have gathered together to say goodbye, society has lost the art of being allowed to grieve. He says, after COVID, this has really happened in a traditional way, and the importance of the final goodbye." Okay, that's a very good perspective of maybe a non-believer.
But a Christian even has more of a perspective. When I saw the body of my father go down into the grave, it wasn't just a goodbye. What affected me was the thought that God promised me He has faith. God promised me that body right there will get up. He created us out of the dust of the ground. He can raise us out of the dust of the ground. That's not a problem for him. And so while it was a goodbye for a moment, it was also a recognition: "I will see him again." For the Christian, that is hope. You can't shove that aside.
Paul's dealing with this kind of low view of the body in Corinth. Because of your view of the body, you've made the chief article of your faith void. This, I think, is why the resurrection can have little meaning for us and not take on the meaning that it should because we've been trained this way. We've been programmed this way in our society that wants to make everything delightful. Death's awful.
Paul says to deny the resurrection is to deny the Christian faith and to deny the gospel. He's emphatic here as he says this at the end of verse two. "Unless you believe this all in vain, you need to hold fast what I preach to you. You need to cling to this. It's the gospel by which you stand, and the gospel by which you're saved."
And notice the word for saved, it's not a past verb, it's a present. Meaning it's the power of the gospel that continues to keep you in this life. It's the power of the gospel, confessing the gospel, believing the gospel, that has actual present power to uphold you.
So the heart of this then comes with the issue of death. The Corinthians, in their views, were essentially running right over this problem and not taking serious what the gospel was saying to them. The gospel is the solution to the problem of sin and death. And so Paul defines the gospel for us.
Notice verse 3: "For I delivered to you of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, and this is what he's aiming for, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures."
"I am simply passing on the baton on this," Paul says here. "What was passed to me, I'm delivering to you, and this is of first importance." Again, first important stuff in the Christian faith. This is the stuff we can't ever, ever take any sort of concession on. Here is the gospel. Here's the objective gospel: Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried, and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
Did you see what he just did? That sound familiar to you? That's the earliest form of the Apostles' Creed. What we confess according to the scriptures is that Christ had to die to pay for our sins and forgive us; that he was buried his burial testifies, heidelberg that he really died and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture.
So the practice in the early church is that the church would get together, and They in creedal form they would say the gospel. They would they would speak the gospel they would summarize the gospel this way. It's as Hebrews says: this is a way of maintaining the confession of our hope without wavering.
Corinth stopped at the last article and wouldn't say it anymore. So he wants to capitalize on this so it has great meaning for us. We can say we believe in the resurrection, but it may not have any bearing on us because we confess it has of little importance to us. I think it's important to say that it's a fundamental article of our faith. B.B. Warfield called it the cardinal doctrine of our system. Machen said the weapon that the disciples of Jesus used to conquer the world was the message: "He's risen." How could you stop confessing it? Paul says you'd lose everything. You have no gospel without it. It's so crucial to the faith.
"If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile." Verse 18: "We are of men the most pitiable. We are still in our sins if he's not risen." The resurrection is like the stamp. It's like the receipt. It's done. They have no idea what the resurrection secured for them, and that's sad.
Think about the importance of what we believe. Think about what our Heidelberg said tonight when it asked the question, "How does the resurrection of the body comfort you?" "Not only my soul will be taken immediately after this life to be with Christ its head, but this is the part that's the problem for us. But even our flesh, our bodies, will be raised by the power of Christ to be reunited with our souls, and we will be made like Christ's glorious body."
I don't know how we're going to die, when we're going to die. We know we're going to die. But Christ's resurrection says, "That's not the last say. Your body matters." Our bodies matter. God made our bodies. And I know they break down and they fall apart, but that's what makes the resurrection doctrine so great.
I don't know what the first Adam was like before the fall, but I bet he was awesome. And she too. I wouldn't doubt Because of this problem, that most Easter sermons are not really about the resurrection of the dead. Because that's just so off-putting. But that most Easter sermons are just about transformation. Are just about personal transformation. That's all they are. Because we don't have a good view of the body.
Paul's saying the gospel is an objective presentation of facts, of historical realities, of events of what Christ did for you. And this last article is so crucial. The gospel is not essentially my personal transformation. That is an implication of the gospel. But the gospel is that 2,000 years ago, Christ went to Golgotha, and he died for me, and he atoned for my sins. He took on the bloody death of the cross. He said, "It is finished." He was buried to show that he really died, and he triumphed over death by rising from the dead. That's the gospel. That's the heart of it.
Now, Paul testifies of this. It's important. We saw him. In the first century, you'll notice here, unlike this morning, our challenge is a little bit different. I said this morning, "I don't know these 500." They did. They did know these 500. He said, "Some of them are still here. You know them." James, James and the apostles, and he says, "All the 500 brethren, you know, they saw them." Even though some have already died, some are still here. And then me, look at verse 8, the last of them, of all he was seen by me as one born out of due time." He's testifying, "We saw him." First generation, we're people who, you know, credible testimonies. "I'm one born out of due time, was changed by seeing the risen Christ on the road to Damascus myself." It was his resurrection glory and body that I saw. It was the definitive moment of my new birth.
So Paul views the resurrection as a source of great encouragement and power to us and hope for us. The resurrection of Christ turns back death, and it makes the victory over it complete. That's what we're celebrating.
I've reflected on that as a pastor. I've seen so many of you, and in my ministry, so many people suffer in the body. Awful things. And I've kind of come to realize that, you know, when you're younger as a preacher and you're not facing any of those things, it's just so easy. It's sort of a maturity issue to not make it a central point of your confession. But as you get older and then you see your brothers and sisters suffer, you start really thinking about how important this article is.
Growth and being saved by the gospel is an understanding of what is accomplished for us in the resurrection. That, beloved, we're going to gain a body like Christ's. Did you hear of Heidelberg? "Like his glorious body." Now, we're not sure what we shall be, but we know this: "We shall be like him. We shall be like him." If I had time, I'd go through 1 Corinthians, which gives so much beautiful teaching on this to encourage us about the resurrection body and its glory, the life-giving spirit of the last Adam, who gives us this great hope.
But you'll notice in verse 51: "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment. In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet for The trumpet will sound. The dead will be raised imperishable." Now go back to this morning. You go back to the cemetery. They're going to get up. They're going to be raised imperishable. "And we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. We're going to be clothed with immortality in our bodies."
"When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: death, is swallowed up in victory? O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?
See, that's what's coming. That's what's promised to us. That's what we receive as the death benefit in the resurrection is actually a brand new body reunited with our souls.
Well, I've read this, I don't know how many times, but somebody probably needs it tonight. And it was the greatest testimony of somebody who was dear to me who, when he was dying, wrote it out. And I just think it was John Rainbow. He was a teacher at Central Valley Christian, dear mentor to me. And I'm going to read it to close.
He said: "When I learned that I had cancer, it meant that what I needed is the resurrection of the body. I knew this already, but now I knew it immediately, sharply, brilliantly, and gloriously. The world that God created is ours to possess, to enjoy. Right now it's blighted by our sin, but 2 Peter promises that it will be cleansed and made new. We keep it not the godless. We get to enjoy it not the godless. They get the lake of fire and outer darkness. We get the world, the creation, the beauty, the light, the resurrection body. So I I want the world. I want the physical world. You realize it's a new heavens and earth, right? I want the physical world that is mine in Christ. I want the new heavens and the new earth, and I want the resurrection body as part of its glory. I don't just want a soul or even a soul floating in a heavenly cloud. I want my body back. I want the earth back. I want the spiritual and the physical presence of Jesus Christ forever and ever. I want to be with him. I want to see him with my risen eyes. I want to hear his voice with my glorified ears. I want him physically and spiritually and emotionally. I want to encounter him. It's called the beatific vision. Body and soul in the new creation. I want to touch him in the body. I want direct encounter, body, soul, spirit, emotions with the risen Christ. I want the wicked gone forever. I want my sin gone forever. I want pain and weariness gone forever. Right now, since cancer, the overwhelming reality is weariness, but I want power, explosive, unending power of body and soul and emotion. I want to never be tired again. The body aches and hurts, and all around is sickness and pain and weakness and longing for life. But the hope of being absent from the body and present with the Lord is not the hope. The hope is the sound of the trumpet. The hope is the resurrection and victory. The hope is the possession of the world. The hope is not to be left behind. The godless will be left behind. The hope is to win, to conquer. The hope is the resurrection of the body Christ's body and mind and all who belong to Christ by faith and predestination. I want my body. I want the world. I want the new heavens and the new earth."
What a tragic thing the apostle had to deal with: with a denial of the resurrection of the body in Corinth, when what is held out for them was the great news. Your bodies will be raised just like Christ's glorious body. And in that hope we stand. We should rejoice in this. We should celebrate and think differently about the resurrection of the body as a chief article of our faith, an objective gospel work of Christ for us. That's what he secured for us. That's what's coming. And so we celebrate in the resurrection: Christ is risen indeed. And what that means is we too shall be risen indeed.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for such comforting words, but also showing us the errors that are so common. We pray, Lord, that we would think so profoundly more about this gospel that's been delivered to us, what is said to us, and the hope that is held out for us. Thank you for encouraging us with these words tonight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.