The Glory of the Resurrection
What If There Is No Resurrection?
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
We’re going to pick up our study of 1 Corinthians 15 at verse 12 in a moment, but before we do, turn with me to Acts 17. What is recorded there gives us a good setting for what we’re going to see in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
In the 17th chapter of Acts, the Apostle Paul is in the religious focal point of the ancient world of his day. He is in Athens and in Athens there are many philosophers and religions.
Notice Acts 17:16-17
We discover in verse 18 that Paul encountered various philosophers there. So obviously the city is a melting pot of religious thought and ideas. And now Paul is in the house and he walks into this plethora of religions and what he says to them is very, very important.
verse 18
What he was proclaiming was the resurrection of Jesus and for them, with all their myriad of religions and philosophies, this was a strange and new and intriguing teaching.
Verse 19
Down to verse 22
Then in verse 23 he refers to the fact that they even have an altar identified as the altar TO THE UNKNOWN GOD, just in case they missed one.
And in the midst of all that mess of religious though, He introduces them to the true and living God,
Verses 24-34
Then notice what happens in chapter 18, verse 1
Now Corinth was a city under the influence of Athens. Athens was the great religious focal point of the Greek world and Corinth was in its shadow. Whatever kinds of religion were popular in Athens would find their way to Corinth because it’s just down the road.
And what I want us to draw from this background material is that nobody in Athens, no matter how religious they were, and I think it safe to safe nor people in Corinth, no matter how religious they were, believed in a physical resurrection. It was a strange, new religious thought.
Now with that in mind, let’s turn to our text in
1 Corinthians chapter 15
Now here is Paul writing to the church in Corinth. It is a New- Testament church established in a place where people don’t believe in the resurrection.
Not only did they not believe in the resurrection of Christ. They didn’t believe in resurrection, period.
So when Paul came to Corinth preaching and teaching that resurrection was a reality and essential to the Christian faith, they were reluctant to believe that.
There were, in fact, in Corinth people who said, “Dead men don’t rise.”
That’s not to say they didn’t believe in an afterlife. Many religious affirm an afterlife. In fact, most religions affirm an afterlife. And certainly the ones familiar to the Corinthians and the Athenians would for the most part have affirmed an afterlife. But what they did not believe was in a physical or literal resurrection. This is new.
So these Corinthian believers are having to process this information now being giving to them by Paul, their trusted spiritual advisor, and here they are having been taught that people don’t rise from the dead.
And the truth of the matter is, that’s a logical conclusion to come to. Go out and check the graves of the dead, and you will that process of decay in progress. And since they didn’t have any living, breathing examples and no divine revelation to tell them about a future resurrection, it wasn’t too hard to come to the conclusion that dead people don’t resurrect.
So Paul has an uphill battle trying to make the Christian gospel clear in the sense that it is a gospel that includes eternal life, including the resurrection of the body. This is a distinctly Christian perspective.
And apparently there were some in the church who are having a hard time swallowing this and they’re saying this doesn’t happen, we reject this teaching. So Paul writes this section of the letter that we call the 15th chapter to help the Corinthians understand that the resurrection of the body is an essential component of the Christian faith.
Let’s pick up the account at verse 12.
He is referring to what he has said in verses 1-11 that we looked at this morning.
This is the heart of the gospel, central to Christian truth. We preach Christ and His resurrection. It is essential to our gospel. Romans 10:9 and 10 says that if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved.
So in order to be saved, you have to believe in the resurrection, therefore we preach that Christ has died and risen again.
So here is Paul’s question. We, that is Christians, preach that Christ has been raised from the dead. You accept that because you’ve been saved. Why are you now saying there’s no resurrection of the dead?
You’ve got a problem here. You have confessed Christ as Lord, you have believed in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, but you are denying a bodily resurrection for believers.
I think Paul’s question is an indication that some in the church were having some trouble accepting this essential doctrinal truth, even though they had become Christians. .
And if yo think about how a first century Christian without any previouis teaching or exposure to resurrection theology would have processed that, it’s easy to see why they were having a problem with it.
Literally the resurrection of the dead translates resurrection of corpses. Why are you denying the resurrection of corpses? Why are you denying physical resurrection from the dead? Why are you saying the afterlife is only spiritual?
And then Paul begins to expand that thought in this section of Scripture. What if there is no bodily resurrection? You’ve got to think through the implications of this. If you say there is no bodily resurrection, you have essentially destroyed the Christian faith.
So after laying out all these witnesses to the resurrection that we looked at this morning, he then advances this question: “What if there is no resurrection?”
Notice verse 13.
Then in the following verses he suggests seven results that come from denying bodily resurrection that ultimately lead to disaster. And by the way, as you will see, they are progressive. They build on one another.
Notice the first one in verse 13
If there is no resurrection, then
1. Christ Is Not Risen
If resurrection isn’t a reality, then it didn’t happen to him because Christ was fully human. He was a man. He died as other men die. If men don’t rise from the dead literally and physically, then neither did He.
Now that argument assumes Jesus was fully man, human in the complete sense, sinless but nonetheless human. And that is the testimony of Scripture.
This is a very important point to make because if these Greek influenced people think Jesus was some kind of spirit/man, then that puts him in a different category and they don’t have to explain a resurrection.
But if they understand that He is fully man in the complete sense, and He rises from the dead, but there is no resurrection, then He didn’t rise.
Now if they deny He is fully human, they deny the basic substance of salvation. He is confirmed as One Who is fully human throughout the New Testament.
In Acts 2:22 He is a man approved of God.
In Galatians 4:4 He was born of a woman.
In 1 Timothy 2:5 He is the man Christ Jesus.
In Hebrews 2:17 He was made like His brethren in all things.
He is identified in Mark 6:3 as the carpenter’s son.
He is identified by those who were putting Him on trial in John 19 with the words, “Behold the man.” John writes in 1 John 1:1 and 2 that we saw Him, we heard Him, we touched Him.
The details of His life indicate His humanity. He was conceived in a woman’s womb, carried full term and born, Matthew 1:18, Matthew 1:25.
He was circumcised, Luke 2:21.
He possessed a human body, John 1:14.
Like all humans, according to Luke 2:52, He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man.
In John 11 He is weeping.
In Matthew 4 He is hungry.
In John 19 He’s thirsty.
In Matthew 8 He is sleeping.
In John 4 He is weary.
In John 11 He feels sorrow and grief.
In Luke 22 He is beaten with fists.
In Matthew 27 He is whipped.
In Luke 23 He’s nailed to a cross.
In John 19 He is seen dying.
He has His side pierced in John 19.
And having died, He is buried as the gospel record tells us.
No doubt about it, He is a man in every sense a man.
And yet, He rose from the dead.
You have affirmed that with your profession of faith in Him, and if you don’t affirm that you’re not a believer.
So if Christ who is fully human rose from the dead, then how can you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
So first of all, Paul’s point is, if there is no resurrection of men from the dead, the man Christ Jesus could not have risen either and if He did not rise, then that is a death blow to the Christian faith.
That moves him to a second thought and it’s an obvious transition.
Verse 14
If Christ, just for the sake of the argument, has not been raised, then
2. Preaching Is Useless
The single message that marked the preaching of the Apostles was the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That is what they preached. They preached Christ crucified and risen again.
Now, if Christ is not raised, then why bother with preaching about it? It’s useless. If He didn’t rise, then He’s not the Savior, He’s not the Son of God, He hasn’t purchased our redemption, His sacrifice has not been accepted by God, His work was not accomplished. There is no good news to preach if Christ doesn’t rise. So our preaching is pointless.
The implications of saying there’s no resurrection are profound. If you say that men don’t rise, then Jesus who is a man didn’t rise. And if He didn’t rise, then our preaching that He did rise is pointless and our preaching of Him as Son of God and Savior is useless.
And there is a follow-up point to that.
3. Faith Is Empty
verse 14 and verse 17
If there is no resurrection, then the trust you put in Him as your Savior is meaningless. Believing in Him as Lord and confessing that and confirming His resurrection is useless if He didn’t rise. The Apostles preached a risen Savior. You believe in a risen Savior, that’s essential to His accomplished work, that’s the validation by God that His atonement was accepted.
But if He didn’t rise, then your faith is empty, gospel preachers are useless because people don’t rise. And if He’s not who we say He is, then you have believed a lie. The faith of the saints is absolutely useless.
And that leads to number four. If there is no resurrection, that means
4. The Apostles Were Liars
verse 15
As I mentioned a moment ago, all the Apostles preached the resurrection and all the apostles preached was the resurrection.
Go back to verse 11. Whether then it was I or they, going all the way back to all the Apostles that He’s named from Cephas and the Twelve and James and himself, the least of the Apostles, whether it was I or they, verse 11, we preach and you believe in the resurrection. But if there is no resurrection, we are liars, the Apostles are liars.
To be an Apostle, according to Acts 1:22, required that one be a witness of His resurrection. One of these wanted to take the place of Judas must become a witness with us of His resurrection. That was a requirement for an Apostle.
Why? Because they were going to be the first line of preachers of the resurrection, they needed to bae convinced of this one hallmark truth.
That is why Paul added to the Apostles later was given the privilege of seeing the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. They were all eyewitnesses.
But if what they say is a lie, then they’re all liars. Now we’ve got major problems because we have the people who are responsible for writing the New Testament who are nothing but liars and deceivers, false witnesses. They’re saying something that isn’t true. They’re saying they saw someone they didn’t see. They’re saying He did something He didn’t do.
And it just keeps getting worse because if there is no resurrection, not only were they liars, but Jesus was a liar. H’s the One who said, “If you destroy this body, in three days I’ll raise it up.” It was He who said repeatedly to His disciples, “I will be killed and rise again.”
So Paul has given us a very strong connected argument, but he’s not finished. He adds some more disastrous results. If there is no resurrection, Christ is not risen, gospel preaching is useless, faith is empty, Apostles are liars, and number five,
5. Sin’s Power Is Unbroken
verse 17
Now think about this: If Christ didn’t rise, then sin killed Him. Death held Him. God did not validate His work on the cross. He is Himself condemned and He certainly can’t provide salvation for you.
What is it that the gospel offers? The forgiveness of sins. How is it that the gospel offers forgiveness of sins? Because our sins were paid for in full by the death of Christ. We know it was the satisfactory offering before God because God validated His work on the cross by raising Him from the dead.
But if He didn’t rise, then there’s no divine validation. He is captive to the sphere of death and so are we. All our sins still cling to us and they accuse us before God like so many wolves waiting to tear us to shreds. We need a Savior to free us from sin. We need a Savior to satisfy the just wrath of God against sin. We need a Savior who defeats sin.
If Christ didn’t rise, then sin won. If there is no resurrection, Paul says, there is no forgiveness. There is no penalty paid. There is no reconciliation provided. There’s no justification, no salvation, no eternal life, no heaven because the New Testament says, Romans 4:25, “He was raised for our justification.”
On the other hand, if God raised Him from the dead, then that indicates that His sacrifice did satisfy God. Only because of that satisfaction and that resurrection can we in Christ be justified.
And by the way, this is pretty serious because if He didn’t accomplish our salvation, no one else can. There is no other Savior. There’s no other name under heaven given among men whereby we might be saved, Acts 4:12. Therefore, an un-risen Christ dooms all of humanity to hell forever.
When we understand the gospel, we understand that Christ died on the cross, He was the penalty for our sin, took it all on Him and won. And the reason we know that is because of His resurrection. He conquered sin for us.
Number six, if all the previous are true, then
consequently
6. The Dead In Christ Have Perished
verse 18
In other words, they’re in hell. That’s the logical connection. Their faith is vain because the gospel is not true, because Jesus didn’t rise. They’re still in their sins and if you die in your sins, the Scripture says you’re going to hell.
Peter, James, John, Paul, Stephen, everybody else are already and forever in eternal torment if there is no resurrection. And all the Old Testament saints are in hell, too, because their salvation depended on the same sacrifice. Hell holds everybody.
Satan wins universally and God loses universally if Christ doesn’t rise because men don’t rise.
That’s contrary to all that we believe.
Philippians 1:21, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is...what?...gain.”
Second Corinthians 5, tremendous hope, “We know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” “We don’t want to be unclothed,” verse 4 says, “but clothed.” We’re going to be clothed with a different body. We’re going to have a different tent, a building from God, not made with human hands, not made in the normal human way of generating bodies, children. But if Christ doesn’t rise, then everybody’s in hell. And when all the believers who had believed in Him closed their eyes in death, full of hope to open their eyes to see Jesus, they opened their eyes to see nothing, but blackness cause they were all damned.
This is a crushing argument. Paul shows the horrible consequences which occur if you just deny bodily resurrection. Christ is not risen, gospel preaching is useless, faith is empty, Apostles are liars, sin is unforgiven, and dead believers are damned.
And there’s one more.
7. Christians Are The World’s Most Pitiful People.
verse 19
If you have hoped in Christ in this life only, you are really a pitiful person. If Christ is only good for this life, if all He can do is maybe make you a better person, more ethical, more moral, you’re pitiful cause Christians have come to Christ not on the basis of what He’s going to do for them in this life, but on the basis in the promise of what He’s going to do for them in eternity.
If there’s no resurrection, we should have all been Hedonists. If there’s no resurrection, we’ve wasted our entire lives. That’s pitiful. We literally lived an illusion, all the way to death, only to end up in hell. Here we fight against temptation and struggle against sin, seek to please Christ, obeyed the Scripture, bear the cross, suffer reproach. And in the end, for what?
Let me say it’s a noble way to live. Oh, okay. But if Christ didn’t rise, then it’s only for now and it has no implications for the future...none. That is pitiful.
Well that is a very, very strong argument, isn’t it?
But I don’t want to stop at verse 19, and that’s why verse 20 comes next.
Verse 20
And by the way, you can’t deny it. Why? Because of verses 1 to 11. You can’t deny it because Scripture predicted it, verse 3 and 4, witnesses saw the risen Christ, Cephas, the Twelve, 500, James, the Apostles, and Paul.
The resurrection is a reality and if Christ the God/Man rose from the dead, then men do rise and if men do rise, the gospel is true, your faith is valid, the Apostles are preachers of the truth, you will not perish, you will have everlasting life and you are most to be envied.
Not only did Christ risen, but He is risen. He is “the firstfruits of those who are asleep.”
He’s talking about all who will ever die in Christ, sleep refers to the body and not the soul. Simple statement that we all understand, Christ did rise and He is the leader, the firstfruits, the initial one of all who will one day rise as well. And then he goes on to say. “Since by one man came death, by one man also came the resurrection of the dead.”
The act of one man affected us all. When Adam sinned, we all fell. When Christ rose, all who believe in Him rise in Him. For the child of God then, death is not the end, there is a resurrection and it’s a physical, literal resurrection.
Now, let’s go back to where we started and bring this to a close: Paul came to Athens with new information. How did they respond?
verse 32-34
The question is, how about you? What group are you in? I trust you’re among those who believe because if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.
Let’s pray
