If Christ has (not?) been raised | 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 (Mark Evans)

Paul is preaching from 1 Corinthians 15 and discussing the importance of the resurrection of Christ. He argues that if Christ has not been raised, then preaching and faith are in vain, and believers are still in their sins. He emphasizes the connection between Christ's resurrection and the resurrection of believers, and the consequences if there is no resurrection. However, he then proclaims the good news that Christ has been raised from the dead, giving believers hope for this life and the life to come. Well, if you have your Bible, do feel free to make your way to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Our sermon this morning will come from Paul's letter to Corinth, and specifically our text for this morning is 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 12 through 20...verses 12 through 20. And these are the words of the true and the living God. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is 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. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. For the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. Believing Christ, we have hope in this life only. We are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. And the grass withers and the flower fades. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we praise You for what You have revealed unto us. How dreadful if the Lord Jesus Christ has not been raised. How awesome that the Lord Jesus Christ has been raised. And so we do pray You would give us eyes to see, You would give us ears to hear. You would even give us a meekness of heart to receive Your Word and respond in joy at the truth of what it is to confess He is risen. In His name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Well, in 1971, a musician named John Lennon, a member of a little rock band known as The Beatles, released what would become one of the most enduring and successful songs in all of rock and roll history. And the theme of this soon-to-be-famous song was rather simple, it was one of hope and happiness for all mankind. And the way to achieve this happiness was simply to imagine. In fact, that is the title of the song, Imagine. And Lennon goes on to say, imagine a world without countries, maybe then there would be no more war. Imagine a world without possessions, maybe then there would be no more stealing. Most of all, Lennon says, imagine a world without religion, because, Lennon said, it is religion, after all, it has some of the most divisive and deepest forms of disunity to it. And so the opening lines of the song, you may well know, go like this, imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky, imagine all the people living for today. And there's a sense in which Lennon is exactly right, and that your beliefs, your convictions about now and eternity absolutely shape the way that you live for today. But long before Lennon, long before the Beatles, it was actually the Apostle Paul who wrote what we could call the first, the authentic version of Imagine. And so what we have in our text this morning is Paul's plea to the Corinthians to just imagine, because like Lennon, Paul invites them to use their imagination. But unlike Lennon, Paul's lyrics are not sugary, sappy, sentimental, no, no, no, he's going to say, imagine there's no resurrection. Imagine that the dead stay dead. In fact, imagine that Jesus Christ Himself has not been raised from the dead. What kind of world would that be? And so we're going to follow along as Paul leads us through, and he teases out for us the consequences of what it would be if Christ has not been raised. But thankfully for us, Paul does not put down his pen after teasing out that gloomy hypothetical as he goes on to proclaim this glorious truth that the Savior is risen and the tomb is empty. And so you could mentally picture this section of Scripture like Paul is taking you on a hike. And then suddenly he's leading you down into this deep, dark, depressing valley. And then from there he's leading you up this great ascent, up to the very mountaintop in order to behold the glory of the risen Christ. And so we'll walk through the valley and then through the peak and we'll look at the despair of a dead Christ, and then we'll look at the joy of what it is to say Christ is risen. And so the main point is simply this, that an empty tomb calls for a full faith. An empty tomb summons the Christian to have an unreserved, full faith in the risen Christ. But first, we go down into the valley because we see immediately from this text that if there is no resurrection, it would have this cascading effect of doom upon doom, like one domino of despair falling over and knocking the next domino of despair. And you see, Paul introduces that very idea in verse 12. He says, he poses this question, if Christ is proclaimed risen from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection? And we're not entirely sure why, but at Corinth there was this opposition to the resurrection. You know, perhaps saying, oh sure, Jesus of Nazareth was raised, but that doesn't mean that everybody else is going to be raised. Or perhaps Corinth held to a kind of figurative, non-literal, non-physical version of the resurrection. You know, God just really cares about my soul, He doesn't so much care about my body. And you should know, our modern day is no exception to that whatsoever. A very recent influential theologian, once passionately denied the physical resurrection of Christ, denied that it was a historical event, but he said, no problem, because the important thing is not so much that Jesus has risen physically, the important thing is that Jesus has risen in my heart. That's the kind of view that Corinth would have sympathized with, but Paul will have none of it. He is out to demonstrate that Christ's resurrection and your resurrection are inseparably bound together in an unbreakable union. And that's right where he goes in verse 13, you see he says there, if there is no resurrection of the dead in general, then not even Christ has been raised. See, Paul is going to say, you cannot separate the two. It is all or nothing. If Christ is raised, then all those who are in Christ are also raised. Because He is the head, wherever the head goes, so goes the body. So, so what? Christ has not been raised. And so let's just watch Paul's argument unfold, watch the dominoes begin to fall as he carries out those consequences to the furthest extent possible. And so, kids, you can think of this section as kind of a giant, so what, or what if section. What if there's no resurrection? Get along well with Paul. He wants you to use your imagination in this section. And so with that said, let's ask Paul, okay, well, so what if Christ has not been raised? Paul says, here's the first consequence, verse 14, our preaching is in vain. Paul is saying, if Christ is not raised, then His message, His preaching, all apostolic preaching. In fact, the very gospel that led to their conversion is in vain. A Greek word, kinos, literally meaning empty. And you see why. His message would be a message of a Messiah whom death swallowed up, heralding a Messiah who claimed to be the author of life, who as in fact under the power of death. And consequently, that means that right now, my preaching is in vain and empty. And of course, that means by extension, what you're doing right now is empty and a vain exercise because you're wasting your time listening to empty words. Paul would say, go do anything right now. Go collect stamps, go rearrange your sock drawer. Preaching would be better than doing what you are doing right now because you're listening to a message that is as hollow as it is shallow. Second domino of despair. But still in verse 14, Paul gets uncomfortably personal here. He says, not only will there be nothing to preach, there will be nothing to be believed. For he says in verse 14, your faith would be empty. We're reminded so clearly of what makes faith so precious, it's not so much the faith in and of itself, but the object of faith. And so Paul says, okay, upon whom is that faith of yours resting? And Paul says, your faith is resting upon a dead man, of the God of dead promises, who abandoned his son to the grave if Christ has not been raised. And this leads him right to the next link of the chain reaction in verse 15, that whether we're talking about the greatest missionary organization ever, or the meekest evangelist, he says, everyone would be misrepresenting God, literally false witnesses, and that every time you say, come, come and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says you would be giving a false testimony, lying about God himself if Christ has not been raised. But he's just getting warmed up. Notice verse 16, he reminds them of this unbreakable connection between Christ's resurrection and everyone else's resurrection. And then verse 17, he strikes a blow right to the heart, and he says, your faith would be futile. In other words, not just empty, like we saw in verse 14, he follows that jab up now with a right hook and says, in terms of the benefits of your faith, it would actually be fruitless, useless, like putting water into a pail with a hole in the bottom to drink from later. This gospel is not good news, but is, in fact, a great hoax, a colossal fraud, nothing more than wish fulfillment for the most ignorant and benighted of persons. That's what you can see readily. The way Paul deals with faith is at complete odds with the world's concept of faith. The world so often trumpets a kind of generic faith to have value. I remember the first time I was walking through a hospital, ventured outside into the courtyard, for the first time stumbled upon an, quote, interfaith garden. And the plaque leading to the interfaith garden gave one the impression, look, all faiths are equally valid. Just believe in something. Just believe in anything larger than yourself, whether it's Buddha or Brahma or Allah or Abraham. Just believe in something and you'll be all the better for it. And see, Paul exposes what a deceptive lie that is. That faith is only as good as faith's target. And indeed, you see, Paul explains his reason why he would say something so outlandish that their faith is futile in verse 17. He explains it by saying, because you are still in your sins. Now maybe you can imagine a Corinthian objecting at this point, raising up his hand in protest, saying, no, Paul, you completely misunderstood me. I don't deny that Jesus was real. I don't even deny that he died on the cross to pay for my sins. I believe all those things. I confess those things. Paul says, yes, friend, I hear you. And if Christ is not raised, then your life would still be one dominated by the power of sin, under the curse of sin, still a child of Adam with a heart as hard of stone, because every blessing from the life and death of Jesus Christ would all be for naught, vain, if Christ has not been raised. And then in verse 18, perhaps as they are starting to groan, saying, Paul, we can hear no more. We've heard enough. No more sadness. He then goes on to say, no, those who have fallen asleep, the dearly beloved who have died. He says they would be just like Christ, dead and perishing if he has not been raised. You see, it's a thought that gives full expression, full bloom to the gospel. So often the gospel is reduced to the expression that, quote, Jesus died for my sins, end quote. I think we could say yes and amen to that. That is the very heart of the gospel, that his death upon the cross was the once for all sacrifice, the perfect atonement for our sins. But Paul says in the same breath, oh, that would be a woefully incomplete gospel if you stopped speaking there. That would be a gospel in which death still wins and you are still in your sins. That would be no good news at all if we stopped at the crucifixion, because the crucifixion and the resurrection can never be separated. As Paul says in Romans, that Christ was delivered over for our transgressions, but raised up for our justification, that it was our sin that held him there on the cross. It was for our sin that he bore the wrath of a holy God, pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, that he dies the agonizing death of a condemned sinner. Let us ask, but why does he not stay dead? Why cannot he stay dead? Many reasons, but as Romans says, he was raised up for your justification, for my justification, that we sinners could become the righteousness of God that could only come from the risen Christ, vindicated by God the Father to be the perfect son of God. But we're not to that good news just yet, because we're still going down into the valley, as Paul's not quite done. He has one final nail in the coffin. As you look at verse 19, he writes, if in Christ we have hope in this life only and not hope in the life to come, we should be pitied above all people. So to the person, to the idea that says, well, Christianity at least offers some good practical tips, some good morality on how to get along in this life, even if it's not all quite true, it still has some cash value. Paul says, no, we'd be deserving of most pity. Think of the most miserable, misguided person worthy of all pity for just how delusional they are. And he says, no, you outdo such a person. You are the peak of pity with a wasted life built upon a house of stands. And you can see why, for it would mean that every affliction that the Christian has endured, every temptation overcome, every sacrifice made, every prayer of hope, every moment of tested faith, all of it would be all for naught. And so Paul has just taken the Corinthians on this downward hike into this deep valley of despair to show them, here are the consequences of a dead Christ. And hopefully we too have descended into this deep, dark valley, because what comes next is this great ascent. And Paul is now going to tell them perhaps the sweetest of words to their ears in verse 20, literally translated, but now, but now, but now Christ has been raised from the dead. And so we do well to ask, why did Paul put them through this agonizing exercise of despair? The principal reason we know is because everything that Paul just said negatively, everything he just stated negatively is that much more gloriously true. Every single consequence he rattled off is overturned by the reality of Christ's resurrection. And you see this phrasing in verse 20, Christ has been raised. You hear that past tense phrasing, as in it's been done. It's been accomplished. See, Christianity is a thoroughly historical, this world kind of faith. It's saying that God actually acted in history, in time and space. And you compare that with Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, spiritualism, atheism, any other number of religions would say, here's what man can do. Here's how man can exalt himself. But Paul says, no, here's what God has done. Here's what God has done by the working of his great mind. Because if the hypothetical is as bad as we just saw, and it would be, how much greater is the reality? If the valley is that deep, how much higher is the peak, the mountaintop that is Christ's resurrection? And so let us trace over our steps as we now make the ascent. Because firstly, we can confess from verse 14 that preaching is not empty or in vain, because preaching is heralding the risen Christ. And more significantly, one of the most fundamental convictions of the Christian church from age to age is that Christ himself speaks to his people through the mouthpiece of a flawed preacher. That right now, that means that Christ is preaching here in Allen, all the way to Australia and everywhere else on this terrestrial ball. And the only way he can do that is if he is the risen King. Secondly, we see that our faith is not in vain, because it's faith in the one whom death could not hold down, that his resurrection certified that his sacrifice was acceptable. You might remember from the book of Numbers, the Israelites are wandering through the wilderness and God sends those fiery serpents and bites them with the sting of death and they cry out to Moses, we're dying, we're dying. And Moses makes that bronze serpent and lifts it up. And how simple was that command? Just look up, look up, look up and you will be healed. And that is the essence of faith. Look up, look up to the risen Christ, look up to him and you will be saved. Thirdly, out of verse 15, we see that we do not bear false witness, that the gospel is the very power of God. Kids, how would you describe God's power? What would come to your mind? I know for me, I would think of God's power to create all things of nothing, or maybe God's power to uphold everything, that even right now, the very fact that you are breathing is a sign of God's power. But kids, you know when Scripture speaks of the gospel, it says the gospel is the power of God to everyone who believes. And we see here what makes the gospel so powerful, it's the gospel of the risen Christ, that in it God flexed His might in raising up His Son from the grave. And fourthly, we see not only is our faith not empty, our faith is not futile because it's faith in the one vindicated by the Spirit. Again, you'd be absolutely right to think, well if Christ is not raised, if He was not raised, that's a sure sign that His sacrifice was insufficient, it was ineffective, my debt not paid for fully. But that Christ is raised means that His sacrifice was most pleasing and acceptable to the Lord. The resurrection is that God is preaching a sermon and the tomb is His pulpit and He is declaring before the world, what my Son has done is the perfect once for all sacrifice for sins, which is why in verse 17 we are to confess that we indeed are no longer in our sins. Now what does it mean to be in our sins? It's a somewhat antiquated expression now in our time, but there was once this common phrase that so and so was said to be, quote, living in sin. They were having a particularly scandalous sin, maybe they were living together before marriage, something like that. They were said to be, quote, living in sin. But living in sin is much more profound than just one particular sin because Scripture tells us that apart from Christ, man is living in sin and he could do nothing other than live in sin. Sin has full dominion over him, full power over him, his thoughts, deeds, motives, his words, his actions, everything dominated by the power of sin and he knows no other way to live. But Scripture says to the Christian that you are to consider yourself dead to sin but alive to God, dead to sin but alive to God. My children, as children often do, they'll put on a costume and play dress-up. It was not too long ago they put on these cowboy costumes and everything from their swagger, the drawl and the accents, the way they walked was that of a cowboy, right? It's as if they're saying, I consider myself to be a cowboy. And that is the Christian's lot, only a reality that you are to consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God, all because Christ has been raised, He has been raised up and we too have been raised up to walk in a newness of life. The fifth thing we are to confess out of verse 18 is that those who have died before us, our beloved departed saints, have not perished but are actually present with the Lord. Long before evolutionary biology made the claim that when you die you are worm food, the Stoics of Paul's day taught with great influence that we must meet death with great indifference because there is no such thing as an afterlife. The Scripture reveals to us, though, what is called the intermediate state, that it is in fact better to die, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord, to be present with the risen Lord. And that leads us to overturn this final point of verse 19, that the Christian has hope not merely in this life but also for the life to come, for all eternity to be with the risen Christ. And maybe we could put that hope into the form of a question. Do you really think Christ would be raised without you? Do you really think Christ would live the resurrected life without His bride? Indeed, this was His very promise to His disciples, I'm going before you to prepare rooms for you, that you might be with me, that as He had the Lord's Supper, what did He say? I will not drink this again until I drink it new. So I hope you can see, Christian, that every single one of Paul's bleak hypotheticals is not simply neutralized, but it is overturned, overpowered, outstripped by Christ's resurrection, that you see just how much sin has lost its sting, how much death has lost its power, that even right now, already, the Christian has been raised up with Christ to walk in a newness of life. That's why if you're here this morning and not a Christian, you must know that you will face an enemy, and it's an enemy that every one of us will in fact face. It's an enemy so powerful that all of humanity will face this enemy and all of humanity will lose against this enemy. And this enemy's name is death, and we know that death comes because it's a consequence of our sins. And this death is so strong, this enemy is so strong, that there's already a sense in which you are living in death, walking in death. But hear those words of Paul, but now, but now, but now Christ has been raised, that here is the full provision, here is the conquering of death in this risen Savior. There's one final matter, though, for us to unfold this morning, and that is what is the relationship between Christ's resurrection and my resurrection? And maybe you've never really put it in those terms, you never quite asked that question before, but that's a great way to think of it. What does Christ's resurrection have to do with my resurrection? And in that vein, you can see in verse 20, Paul proclaims something quite special, quite unique about Christ, and you see it in that term, quote, firstfruits, that Christ is the firstfruits. And what does that little term mean? Well, I could get us started with this statement. Jesus Christ is the first person to be resurrected. He's the first person to be resurrected. Now hopefully the anxious Bible scholar in you says, wait a minute, no, he's not. There were many resurrections before Christ, right? Lazarus was raised from the dead, Jairus' daughter was raised from the dead, we could go back to Elijah, even in the Old Testament, and see resurrection there. And of course, all true, but the difference is what? Lazarus would rise only to die again. Jairus' daughter would rise only to die again. All of them would rise to fall once again. So you see, Paul is saying that Christ's resurrection is of a quality, an excellence, a power, entirely its own, expressing this idea of firstfruits. What does it mean to say firstfruits? And as an analogy, a few years ago in our home, we started a garden, did all the work necessary to prep the garden and till the soil and plant the seeds, and around harvest time we said, well, we'll start a tradition, we'll have someone pick the first crop of the harvest. And so in this case, we elected my wife to go out and pick the first crop of this harvest. And she picked, I believe it was in this case, a carrot. And you never saw people more excited over a carrot. And why? Well, for many reasons, but one reason would be that that carrot is like the token, it's like the pledge, it's like the symbol that there's going to be a full harvest to come. That carrot is not in isolation, you could say it's the captain of the carrots. That carrot is saying, no, there's going to be a harvest after me. It's quite literally organically connected to the rest of the harvest. And so as we read earlier, the Israelites did this feast, giving the first of their crop as a way of saying, it's all yours, the harvest is all yours. And that's Paul's point here. The resurrection of Christ is the firstfruits. It confirms, it anticipates that you too will be raised, that His resurrection is special. It's not like Lazarus's. It's not like Elijah's in the Old Testament. No, this is of the powers of the age to come, the kind of which death has no claim on, a full endowment of the spirit and of eternal life. And so firstfruits summons you, Christian, to say that because Jesus Christ has been raised, I, too, shall be raised. His resurrection is my resurrection. And so hear the good news once again this morning. Right now, Christ has been raised from the dead. And so as we begin to close, let us lay up in our hearts four uses of this great section on the truth that Christ is risen. Firstly, an increased faith, an increased faith. Paul's been so clear, right? If there is no resurrection, then your faith is empty, it's pointless, it's futile, it's useless. So let's make a full reversal that Christ has been raised means that no point is your faith vain, is it futile, is it foolish? At no point will you look back and say, oh, why did I trust him so much? I should have reserved a little. I should have held a little bit back. I had so much misplaced faith. No, the resurrection is a clarion call for an increase of faith in the risen Christ who has trampled death by his life. Secondly, not just an increased faith, but a confidence in defending, sharing the faith. Again, Paul has been so clear. If there is no resurrection, then your witness is a false witness. You are lying about God. So again, let's make a full reversal that he is risen means at no point is the Christian bearing false witness. And at every point he is bearing the true witness of the God who cannot lie. He is bearing witness to the work that God has fully accomplished in raising up his son. And not only that, that Christ himself said, when I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself that his resurrection. It's like the Kickstarter, the catalyst to start drawing from Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth and making his kingdom advance. And thirdly, an endurance in suffering, an endurance in suffering. Again, Paul has been so clear. If no resurrection, then you enduring trials, you suffering, you bearing any kind of infliction is a waste, is a delusion, is hopeless. And so let us take the full reversal. Now, certainly the resurrection life does not mean the end of suffering in this age, but it absolutely means the redemption of our sufferings. What was it that Job could say? What was it that Job could say with his heart broken, bearing affliction upon affliction, his soul crushed, his life shattered? What was the one thing he could say? I know, I know my redeemer lives. And you know that this morning, that your sufferings, your trials, your tribulations are not in vain because you can say, I know my redeemer lives. And that leads to our final point, which would be an abiding hope, an abiding hope. There's this great scene in the Lord of the Rings where that faithful hobbit, Sam Ganji, comes to the wise Gandalf and he asked Gandalf this question. Gandalf, is everything sad really going to come untrue? Will everything sad come untrue? And surely you've had that thought before that you look out on this beautiful world, this beautiful creation that God has made, and you see that contrast of wickedness, of evil, of sadness, of mourning, of death. I'm sure at some point you've asked the question, will everything sad come untrue? And what is Scripture's answer? Scripture says, yes, not only will everything sad become untrue, but God himself will wipe away every tear and there will be no more mourning, no more crying, no more sickness. Not even death itself will be any longer. And not only will that be, there's a sense in which it has already become untrue. And why? Because Christ has been raised from the dead. And so, Christian, you are to be ready to give reason for the hope that is in you. And so maybe a question to ask is, do I have that hope within me? Is that hope spilling out of me as one who knows the risen Christ? Well, let us start here. Let us start with the words of the angel at the tomb. Why are you looking for the dead among the living? He is not here. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Well, let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly father, we do praise you that you have raised up your beloved son, that you have vindicated him. Indeed, it is proof positive that every sin has been paid for. Every debt has been canceled. Every transgression has been wiped away. That we could consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, that our faith so far from being futile or useless or wasted or having hopeless expectations, it is the full reverse, that our faith is not in vain. It rests upon the one who has conquered death, who has risen on high because death could not hold him down because it could not hold him down. It has lost its victory over us. We praise you in Jesus name and amen.