Dave preached from 1 Corinthians 15 on Sunday evening, an apt text for Easter Sunday, the day when we especially celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! Nowadays there are so many people who would dispute and denigrate that resurrection, but as Paul says, it is important that we hold firmly to the word preached to us (1 Cor 15:2), to the gospel of salvation.
The gospel tells us that God Himself, because of His great love, sent His Son Jesus Christ to die in the place of each of us, so that the wages of sin (which is death) could be paid on our behalf, and we know that the sacrifice was acceptable to God because Christ was raised again to life on the third day.
Jesus was crucified by the Romans, who were experienced in that form of capital punishment and who would not have been mistaken in allowing a living body down from the cross. The fact that they did not break His legs in the way that they did the other criminals’ is proof that He was already dead. His family would have known the difference between a dead body and a living body. Moreover, He was then placed in a tomb which was sealed with a large stone and guarded by Roman soldiers. When the women went to complete the burial rituals on the third day, however, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.
The burial cloths remained, but the body was gone. Moreover, Paul lists people who actually saw the resurrected Jesus, who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection – over 500 people in total – and who saw Him on a number of different occasions.
Our hope for future resurrection rests on the single fact of Christ’s resurrection. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”
The idea of eternal life is deeply embedded in humanity, in most religions, in our hearts. Ecclesiastes tells us that God has set eternity in our hearts (Eccl 3:11). Paul in this chapter loudly proclaims the truth of Christ’s resurrection and therefore we have hope! Moreover, the fact that Jesus Crhist is alive today has many proofs, not least of which is the testimony of individual Christians today that ‘He lives within my heart’.
Let’s rejoice in the fact that He’s alive and hold fast to the gospel we believe!