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20/4/03 (Easter Day)

Jesus' Resurrection, True or False? 1 Cor 15:1-58

All over the world today Christians are rejoicing over the resurrection of Jesus Christ nearly 2000 years ago. Yet not all will be of the same opinion as to the nature of that resurrection. Some will affirm, along with the apostles, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, while others, coming from a more liberal, rationalist, mindset perhaps, will find such an idea too hard to accept. They'll still celebrate the resurrection, but it'll be more the resurrection of an idea, of a faith in God, perhaps, than the physical resurrection of a man who was also God in Jerusalem in 33AD or thereabouts.

But does it matter? Would it make a difference if Jesus hadn't really risen? And if it does make a difference, then how do we know that it's true?

Well, those are the sorts of questions that you might need longer than 20 minutes to think about, but let's see how far we can get in 20 minutes, as we look at what God's word has to say on the matter.

Paul's first letter to the Corinthians begins and ends with the issue of the centrality of the cross to the preaching of the gospel. It begins with the foolishness of preaching the cross, Christ crucified, whether to Jews or to Greeks, and it ends with the critical question of whether Christ's physical resurrection really happened.

Paul begins ch15 by reminding them of the basic facts of the Gospel that were passed on to them as of first importance. These are the things, he says, that are central to the preaching of the gospel, to true faith in Jesus Christ: first, that Christ died according to the scriptures, second, that he was buried (i.e. he was really dead) and third, that he rose again on the 3rd day, a fact that's attested to by various witnesses. Now we'll look more at the evidence of those witnesses in a moment, but first let's think about the question of its importance.

The first thing we discover here is that a physical resurrection is central to Christian belief. He was buried, then he was seen alive again.

So why is this central? What difference does it make?

The first thing we find, in v14, is that the truth or otherwise of the resurrection determines whether the apostles' preaching had any meaning or was just a lot of hot air. And it affects whether the belief of the Corinthians, their faith in Christ, was worth having. The reality is that if there's no resurrection, then both his preaching and their faith have been in vain. The whole point of Jesus death was to deal with sin and death once for all. And the sign that his death was effective in dealing with sin and death was that death couldn't hold him; that he rose again.

What's more, if there's no resurrection, then they've actually been misrepresenting God, which for a Jew is tantamount to blasphemy. They claim that God raised Jesus from the dead. They claim to be announcing a message that God has given them. So are they right or are they the worst sort of con artist, the sort who try to convince people to follow them because they have a message from God? Is this just one of those sects that are based on a lie, on the persuasive ability of a charismatic leader? Well, elsewhere Paul reminds them of just how uncharismatic a speaker he is. He's no orator. The power in his preaching doesn't come from persuasive argument or eloquent wisdom, but from the Spirit of God. But that's another argument, that we'll look at in a few week's time when we come to look at the first chapter of 1 Corinthians.

Not only would they have been misrepresenting God, he says, but they would have been fooling themselves (v17,18). You see, if Christ hasn't been raised then the remedy for sin isn't there. We're still subject to the judgement of God for our sins. Sin and death still reign. What's more, those Christians who have died believing that Christ's death and resurrection had assured them of eternal life were sadly mistaken, They've now perished without hope. And likewise we have no hope for the future either. Our hope is futile.

In fact, he says, of all people we're most to be pitied (v19). Why? Well, because we've been living under an illusion. We've staked our hope, our whole lives in fact, on a lie. Later on he asks why anyone would risk their lives on something that had no truth to it. "³⁰And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? ³¹I die every day!" In fact if there's no resurrection, if this life is all that there is, let's just eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Why not just enjoy ourselves while we can?

That, of course, is the motto of most people in Australia today isn't it? There is no tomorrow. Let's just make the most of today. The great Australian religion is hedonism, enjoying yourself. Living for your leisure hours. Except of course that most people seem to be too busy working long hours to have the time to actually enjoy today.

But in fact there is a tomorrow. Death is not the end. As we'll see in a moment the resurrection has happened and it's vital to our understanding of the future. What we don't know, apart from what we see in Christ's resurrection is what the future holds for us. But this much is clear. The body we inhabit now is a physical, material body. The body we'll have in the future, in God's kingdom, will be a spiritual body. It will be connected in some way with this body, but will be of a different nature to it.

How do we know all that? Well, because we've seen what Jesus' resurrection body is like.

What do we know about Jesus' resurrection body? Well, it was a real body. And it was recognisably Jesus' body. It could be seen. It could be touched. Jesus was able to eat normal food. Yet at the same time it was different. It wasn't constrained by normal physical limitations. A locked door was no barrier to it. Jesus could simply appear in the upper room even though the door was locked. He could walk beside two people discussing the events of the first Easter weekend and not be recognised until he was ready to reveal himself. And having been recognised he was able to simply disappear from their sight.

So the resurrection body of Jesus, if indeed he did rise from the dead as the apostles reported, had some similarities to his previous body, but was intrinsically different from it.

This is important of course because it helps us to picture what our future bodies might be like, if we too are to rise with Christ. It's important because if we're to move from this perishable world to the imperishable world of God's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, from this material existence to a spiritual existence with God, then we too will need an imperishable body, a spiritual body; - one like Christ's in fact. And it's important, as John points out in his first letter (1 Jn 3:3), because if we're to inhabit a spiritual body then we'd better begin now to prepare for that spiritual existence by the purity of our lives. So this isn't just an intellectual question to be debated by the theologians in various theological colleges and seminaries. This is a question that affects our expectation, our way of life and our hope for the future.

So then what evidence do we have for the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ? Is this a hope that we can hold to with any sort of certainty? Or do we have to go on with just blind faith, faith in a dream, like the Western Bulldogs or St Kilda dreaming of finally winning another premiership?

No, there is evidence for us to base our hope on. This is a rational faith based on verifiable evidence. Look at v5. A central part of the proclamation of the gospel in the first few years of the church was the witness of those who were present in those 40 days following the resurrection. Jesus, having been killed and buried, appeared three days later, first to Peter, then to the rest of the disciples. We find the accounts of the various appearances of Jesus to the disciples in the 4 gospels. There are some differences in the order and descriptions of how he appears, but that's what you'd expect if what you have there are eyewitness accounts.

You sometimes hear people who suggest that the gospel records were created by the early church to explain their new found faith. The argument is that they'd found a new reason for living in this new community that Jesus had formed but that they needed to justify their existence and their difference from Judaism by adding a spiritual or supernatural layer to their belief system. So they wrote up the stories of Jesus as though he were more than just a man. They recorded the things he taught. They even added to the records of his teaching where there appeared to be something missing. They put in a range of sayings that justified them leaving the Jewish religion to form their own para-Jewish religion. And of course when it came to the record of Jesus' death, well Jesus death hadn't been the end for them. It had just given them a new resolve, a new appreciation of the bonds of fellowship that Jesus had created while he was alive. The whole point of his suffering had been to show them how to go on in the face of tribulation. So they made up these stories of his risen life to explain the sort of new life they'd experienced in the fellowship of the Christian church.

Now I don't want to go into the vast holes to be found in that sort of argument except to say that when you read the variety of reports of Jesus' resurrection appearances in the 4 gospels, I think you have to say that these don't read like stories that have been manufactured. There are just too many variations.

You see, if these stories been made up by the early church, you'd expect them to at least be the same as each other, wouldn't you? You wouldn't expect to have one story telling you that there were 4 or more women who found the empty tomb, and another telling you that just Mary Magdalene found it. You wouldn't expect one version to tell of Simon running to the tomb to check it was empty and another saying it was Simon and John. Let alone the fact that if this were made up you'd hardly expect to find the women given the honour of being the first to discover that Jesus was risen. It'd be Simon and John, the elders of the Church, the first among the apostles, who would have discovered the empty tomb. But if these are genuine eye witness accounts, it's exactly what you'd expect. One person sees one thing, a second person sees another. One reports what Peter has told him, another was actually there and so includes the fact that he was with Peter.

The evidence doesn't just hang on those one or two incidents either. Jesus was seen, we're told, by more that 500 men and women at the same time. What's more, most of them are still alive. In other words, if you don't believe it you can ask them. Remember that Paul is writing this only about 20 or so years after Jesus' death and resurrection. So it's a bit like us thinking about something that happened back in the early 1980s. For example, if I were to tell you about the 1980 Moscow Olympics and how the Americans and a number of other countries decided to boycott them because of human rights abuses in the USSR, many of those here would be able to remember what happened. Most would also remember how most of the iron curtain countries then boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 in retaliation. And so forth. The events are 20 years back, but the things that happened then are still remembered. And of course if I were to talk about some of the things that I was personally involved in, my children growing up, my family's move to Canberra in 1983, joining a local church there, etc, the amount of detail I could provide and it's accuracy would rise substantially.

I was listening to an interview on the radio this week with a man who's just published a book based on his experiences on the Burma railway during W.W.II. One of the comments of the interviewer was how detailed his account was, despite the fact that it's about events of 60 years ago. But it's not surprising is it? We may have trouble remembering what happened last week, but the major events of our life remain etched in our memories long after they're past.

So you can see that when Paul claims these 500 witnesses it's not something to be dismissed out of hand. There were as many people around in his day as there are today who didn't want anything to do with the idea of someone physically rising from the dead. If there was any doubt about these witnesses they could easily have proved it. But in fact these people had seen Jesus in his risen body and were still around to testify to the fact.

Finally Paul gives his own testimony. For some, this is the most convincing of all. I guess the disciples' claim to have seen the risen Christ might be put down to wishful thinking, though I think it actually takes more wishful thinking to accept such a conclusion than it does to accept their testimony. But here was Saul, on the rampage against Christians, trying his hardest to bring an end to this heretical sect who claimed a mere mortal to be equal with God, and what happens? He encounters the risen Christ, face to face, and his whole life is changed forever. There's no wishful thinking going on there. His great hope was that this new sect would fade away under his onslaught. But his new found knowledge of the risen Christ made him Christ's greatest ambassador. Here is proof as good as it comes.

So the resurrection is central, because it's only through Christ's risen life that we too can be raised to life with him forever. It's important because it's the sign for us that sin and death have been dealt with decisively, once and for all. It's important because it gives us some idea of the sorts of bodies we'll have in heaven, and assures us because such a body has already been given to Christ; and it's important because it reminds us that we need to begin to prepare now for the new life in the spiritual body that God has prepared for us.

We know that the resurrection was a physical, bodily resurrection, primarily because of the witnesses who reported it to us, but also by the evidence of lives such as Paul's and the other apostles that were totally changed by it, even to the point of being willing to risk torture and even death to proclaim it.

So let's rejoice today at the good news that we have a risen King to worship, one who has defeated death on our behalf and who reigns at the Father's right hand forever.

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	Sermon of the Week	Look up the passage
	20/4/03 (Easter Day)
	Jesus' Resurrection, True or False?	1 Cor 15:1-58

	All over the world today Christians are rejoicing over the resurrection of Jesus Christ nearly 2000 years ago. Yet not all will be of the same opinion as to the nature of that resurrection. Some will affirm, along with the apostles, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, while others, coming from a more liberal, rationalist, mindset perhaps, will find such an idea too hard to accept. They'll still celebrate the resurrection, but it'll be more the resurrection of an idea, of a faith in God, perhaps, than the physical resurrection of a man who was also God in Jerusalem in 33AD or thereabouts.
	But does it matter? Would it make a difference if Jesus hadn't really risen? And if it does make a difference, then how do we know that it's true?
	Well, those are the sorts of questions that you might need longer than 20 minutes to think about, but let's see how far we can get in 20 minutes, as we look at what God's word has to say on the matter.
	Paul's first letter to the Corinthians begins and ends with the issue of the centrality of the cross to the preaching of the gospel. It begins with the foolishness of preaching the cross, Christ crucified, whether to Jews or to Greeks, and it ends with the critical question of whether Christ's physical resurrection really happened.
	Paul begins ch15 by reminding them of the basic facts of the Gospel that were passed on to them as of first importance. These are the things, he says, that are central to the preaching of the gospel, to true faith in Jesus Christ: first, that Christ died according to the scriptures, second, that he was buried (i.e. he was really dead) and third, that he rose again on the 3rd day, a fact that's attested to by various witnesses. Now we'll look more at the evidence of those witnesses in a moment, but first let's think about the question of its importance.
	The first thing we discover here is that a physical resurrection is central to Christian belief. He was buried, then he was seen alive again.
	So why is this central? What difference does it make?
	The first thing we find, in v14, is that the truth or otherwise of the resurrection determines whether the apostles' preaching had any meaning or was just a lot of hot air. And it affects whether the belief of the Corinthians, their faith in Christ, was worth having. The reality is that if there's no resurrection, then both his preaching and their faith have been in vain. The whole point of Jesus death was to deal with sin and death once for all. And the sign that his death was effective in dealing with sin and death was that death couldn't hold him; that he rose again.
	What's more, if there's no resurrection, then they've actually been misrepresenting God, which for a Jew is tantamount to blasphemy. They claim that God raised Jesus from the dead. They claim to be announcing a message that God has given them. So are they right or are they the worst sort of con artist, the sort who try to convince people to follow them because they have a message from God? Is this just one of those sects that are based on a lie, on the persuasive ability of a charismatic leader? Well, elsewhere Paul reminds them of just how uncharismatic a speaker he is. He's no orator. The power in his preaching doesn't come from persuasive argument or eloquent wisdom, but from the Spirit of God. But that's another argument, that we'll look at in a few week's time when we come to look at the first chapter of 1 Corinthians.
	Not only would they have been misrepresenting God, he says, but they would have been fooling themselves (v17,18). You see, if Christ hasn't been raised then the remedy for sin isn't there. We're still subject to the judgement of God for our sins. Sin and death still reign. What's more, those Christians who have died believing that Christ's death and resurrection had assured them of eternal life were sadly mistaken, They've now perished without hope. And likewise we have no hope for the future either. Our hope is futile.
	In fact, he says, of all people we're most to be pitied (v19). Why? Well, because we've been living under an illusion. We've staked our hope, our whole lives in fact, on a lie. Later on he asks why anyone would risk their lives on something that had no truth to it. "³⁰And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? ³¹I die every day!" In fact if there's no resurrection, if this life is all that there is, let's just eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Why not just enjoy ourselves while we can?
	That, of course, is the motto of most people in Australia today isn't it? There is no tomorrow. Let's just make the most of today. The great Australian religion is hedonism, enjoying yourself. Living for your leisure hours. Except of course that most people seem to be too busy working long hours to have the time to actually enjoy today.
	But in fact there is a tomorrow. Death is not the end. As we'll see in a moment the resurrection has happened and it's vital to our understanding of the future. What we don't know, apart from what we see in Christ's resurrection is what the future holds for us. But this much is clear. The body we inhabit now is a physical, material body. The body we'll have in the future, in God's kingdom, will be a spiritual body. It will be connected in some way with this body, but will be of a different nature to it.
	How do we know all that? Well, because we've seen what Jesus' resurrection body is like.
	What do we know about Jesus' resurrection body? Well, it was a real body. And it was recognisably Jesus' body. It could be seen. It could be touched. Jesus was able to eat normal food. Yet at the same time it was different. It wasn't constrained by normal physical limitations. A locked door was no barrier to it. Jesus could simply appear in the upper room even though the door was locked. He could walk beside two people discussing the events of the first Easter weekend and not be recognised until he was ready to reveal himself. And having been recognised he was able to simply disappear from their sight.
	So the resurrection body of Jesus, if indeed he did rise from the dead as the apostles reported, had some similarities to his previous body, but was intrinsically different from it.
	This is important of course because it helps us to picture what our future bodies might be like, if we too are to rise with Christ. It's important because if we're to move from this perishable world to the imperishable world of God's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, from this material existence to a spiritual existence with God, then we too will need an imperishable body, a spiritual body; - one like Christ's in fact. And it's important, as John points out in his first letter (1 Jn 3:3), because if we're to inhabit a spiritual body then we'd better begin now to prepare for that spiritual existence by the purity of our lives. So this isn't just an intellectual question to be debated by the theologians in various theological colleges and seminaries. This is a question that affects our expectation, our way of life and our hope for the future.
	So then what evidence do we have for the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ? Is this a hope that we can hold to with any sort of certainty? Or do we have to go on with just blind faith, faith in a dream, like the Western Bulldogs or St Kilda dreaming of finally winning another premiership?
	No, there is evidence for us to base our hope on. This is a rational faith based on verifiable evidence. Look at v5. A central part of the proclamation of the gospel in the first few years of the church was the witness of those who were present in those 40 days following the resurrection. Jesus, having been killed and buried, appeared three days later, first to Peter, then to the rest of the disciples. We find the accounts of the various appearances of Jesus to the disciples in the 4 gospels. There are some differences in the order and descriptions of how he appears, but that's what you'd expect if what you have there are eyewitness accounts.
	You sometimes hear people who suggest that the gospel records were created by the early church to explain their new found faith. The argument is that they'd found a new reason for living in this new community that Jesus had formed but that they needed to justify their existence and their difference from Judaism by adding a spiritual or supernatural layer to their belief system. So they wrote up the stories of Jesus as though he were more than just a man. They recorded the things he taught. They even added to the records of his teaching where there appeared to be something missing. They put in a range of sayings that justified them leaving the Jewish religion to form their own para-Jewish religion. And of course when it came to the record of Jesus' death, well Jesus death hadn't been the end for them. It had just given them a new resolve, a new appreciation of the bonds of fellowship that Jesus had created while he was alive. The whole point of his suffering had been to show them how to go on in the face of tribulation. So they made up these stories of his risen life to explain the sort of new life they'd experienced in the fellowship of the Christian church.
	Now I don't want to go into the vast holes to be found in that sort of argument except to say that when you read the variety of reports of Jesus' resurrection appearances in the 4 gospels, I think you have to say that these don't read like stories that have been manufactured. There are just too many variations.
	You see, if these stories been made up by the early church, you'd expect them to at least be the same as each other, wouldn't you? You wouldn't expect to have one story telling you that there were 4 or more women who found the empty tomb, and another telling you that just Mary Magdalene found it. You wouldn't expect one version to tell of Simon running to the tomb to check it was empty and another saying it was Simon and John. Let alone the fact that if this were made up you'd hardly expect to find the women given the honour of being the first to discover that Jesus was risen. It'd be Simon and John, the elders of the Church, the first among the apostles, who would have discovered the empty tomb. But if these are genuine eye witness accounts, it's exactly what you'd expect. One person sees one thing, a second person sees another. One reports what Peter has told him, another was actually there and so includes the fact that he was with Peter.
	The evidence doesn't just hang on those one or two incidents either. Jesus was seen, we're told, by more that 500 men and women at the same time. What's more, most of them are still alive. In other words, if you don't believe it you can ask them. Remember that Paul is writing this only about 20 or so years after Jesus' death and resurrection. So it's a bit like us thinking about something that happened back in the early 1980s. For example, if I were to tell you about the 1980 Moscow Olympics and how the Americans and a number of other countries decided to boycott them because of human rights abuses in the USSR, many of those here would be able to remember what happened. Most would also remember how most of the iron curtain countries then boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 in retaliation. And so forth. The events are 20 years back, but the things that happened then are still remembered. And of course if I were to talk about some of the things that I was personally involved in, my children growing up, my family's move to Canberra in 1983, joining a local church there, etc, the amount of detail I could provide and it's accuracy would rise substantially.
	I was listening to an interview on the radio this week with a man who's just published a book based on his experiences on the Burma railway during W.W.II. One of the comments of the interviewer was how detailed his account was, despite the fact that it's about events of 60 years ago. But it's not surprising is it? We may have trouble remembering what happened last week, but the major events of our life remain etched in our memories long after they're past.
	So you can see that when Paul claims these 500 witnesses it's not something to be dismissed out of hand. There were as many people around in his day as there are today who didn't want anything to do with the idea of someone physically rising from the dead. If there was any doubt about these witnesses they could easily have proved it. But in fact these people had seen Jesus in his risen body and were still around to testify to the fact.
	Finally Paul gives his own testimony. For some, this is the most convincing of all. I guess the disciples' claim to have seen the risen Christ might be put down to wishful thinking, though I think it actually takes more wishful thinking to accept such a conclusion than it does to accept their testimony. But here was Saul, on the rampage against Christians, trying his hardest to bring an end to this heretical sect who claimed a mere mortal to be equal with God, and what happens? He encounters the risen Christ, face to face, and his whole life is changed forever. There's no wishful thinking going on there. His great hope was that this new sect would fade away under his onslaught. But his new found knowledge of the risen Christ made him Christ's greatest ambassador. Here is proof as good as it comes.
	So the resurrection is central, because it's only through Christ's risen life that we too can be raised to life with him forever. It's important because it's the sign for us that sin and death have been dealt with decisively, once and for all. It's important because it gives us some idea of the sorts of bodies we'll have in heaven, and assures us because such a body has already been given to Christ; and it's important because it reminds us that we need to begin to prepare now for the new life in the spiritual body that God has prepared for us.
	We know that the resurrection was a physical, bodily resurrection, primarily because of the witnesses who reported it to us, but also by the evidence of lives such as Paul's and the other apostles that were totally changed by it, even to the point of being willing to risk torture and even death to proclaim it.
	So let's rejoice today at the good news that we have a risen King to worship, one who has defeated death on our behalf and who reigns at the Father's right hand forever.