Dead Men Do Not Rise?

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.

1 Corinthians 15:3-5

“Dead men do not rise?” Most intelligent people in the Western world would say they do not. These people are those whom the Scripture calls hopers in this life only. Such people say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.” They say, “Miracles cannot happen; therefore, we believe miracles never happened, no matter what the Bible declares.”

But the Bible declares the greatest miracle, the regeneration of Jesus Christ. This historical event is what we want to examine today.

The Linchpin of Christianity

The Bible says Jesus was the first person in history who rose from the dead to die no more. All four gospels declare his resurrection; it is the linchpin of Christianity. The apostle Paul spoke about this most important doctrine in the longest chapter he wrote, 1 Corinthians 15. Paul was dealing with a serious doctrinal error into which some Corinthian believers had fallen. Like Hymenaeus, these people were denying the resurrection of the body, thereby shipwrecking their own faith and corrupting the faith of others.

What is the definition of resurrection? When the Bible speaks about resurrection, it does not mean mere immortality of the soul, or reincarnation, or the transmigration of souls, or the resuscitation of a body which dies eventually. It is not speaking about raising a dead body without any changes in that body. When the Bible speaks about the resurrection of the body, it is speaking about raising from the dead whole person, body and soul, with a body that is continuous with the body that died, yet also transformed by the mighty power of God into a body that is imperishable, immortal, glorious and powerful-a body like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Corinthian Problem

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul gives us more insight into this problem at Corinth.

1. Some people in the church were declaring that there is no resurrection of the body (v. 12). They rejected the cardinal doctrine of Christianity that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and that those who believe in him will also be raised.
2. In verse 33 Paul says, “Do not be misled. . . .” Some in the Corinthian church were being led astray by the Greek intellectuals who mocked the idea of dead men rising. Like Plato, these intellectuals believed in the immortality of the soul only. For them, matter was evil, and salvation was being delivered from one’s “evil” physical body. This influence had made its way into the Corinthian church, and Paul was warning the believers against it.
3. The Corinthian believers were being corrupted in their thinking by these intellectuals, so Paul wrote in verse 33, “Bad company corrupts good character.” Because some of the Corinthians were fascinated by the sophistication of the intellectuals, they were fellowshiping with them. But as they associated with them, their faith was being corrupted. Paul’s words should serve as a warning to us as well to beware of unbelieving friends.
4. Paul told the believers, “Come back to your senses as you ought” (v. 34). Because they were associating with the “intellectuals,” these Corinthians thought they were also very intelligent and knowledgeable. But Paul told them, “You are drunk. You have no idea of reality.” We also must be careful when we drink from the well of worldly intellectualism. It can corrupt us, confuse us and keep us from the reality of God’s truth.
5. Paul also told the people to stop sinning, particularly in their minds (v. 34). The primary use of the human mind is to think God’s thoughts and believe in God’s truth. If anyone refuses to believe in the declarations of God’s word, he is sinning with his mind. So Paul told the Corinthians, “Stop sinning.” He was exhorting them to subordinate their minds to God’s truth.
6. But the greatest problem of the Corinthians was that they were ignorant of God (v. 34). Yet they paraded their intellectualism, just as modernists do when they discard “primitive” concepts such as believing that God created the universe and all that is in it out of nothing by his word and that he still actively governs it. To such people, believing in a God of miracles is not intellectual. But the truth is that such people, with all their sophisticated knowledge, are ignorant of the greatest reality-God.Jesus Christ encountered such people during his ministry. When the unbelieving Sadducees, who mocked at the very idea of resurrection, came to him, Jesus told them, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Their problem was that they did not know God. Such people are narcissists. Fascinated with themselves, they refuse to look up and see the God who gave them being. They pretend to have knowledge, yet know nothing about God’s being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, and love.

   We must contrast such people with Abraham, about whom Paul said, “He did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God.” Abraham knew God; thus, he could believe that God could give life to the dead and call things that are not as though they were.

7. Paul said it was a shame that, despite their claims of having great knowledge, some among the Corinthians did not believe in God’s word (v. 34). This is true today also. Both the intellectuals of Paul’s day and those of today glory in the fact that they do not believe in the Bible. But Paul said that unbelief in God’s word is a cause for shame, not a badge of glory.
8. Finally, Paul calls unbelievers in the resurrection fools (v. 36) The Greek word is aphrôn, “Fool!” Those who will not believe in the gospel are fools. A fool is the one who says in his heart, “There is no God.”

The Gospel Solution

How did Paul deal with this problem of unbelief in the resurrection? He declared the gospel again to the Corinthian believers: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you. . .” (v. 1). That is the translation, but it is not what the text says. Paul was saying, “I want to declare to you” or “I want again to proclaim to you what I already proclaimed to you before.” Paul had already preached the gospel to the Corinthians, but here in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 he wanted to declare the historical facts of the gospel again.

The content of the gospel consists of four clauses, historical facts, not originating in Paul, but received from God by the apostles and given to people through the proclamation of the gospel.

The first clause is “Christ died for our sins.” The promised Messiah of the Old Testament lived as God/man, born of a virgin and without sin. He died for our sins, and Paul uses the Greek word “huper,” which means for our benefit and in our place. Christ died as our atoning sacrifice. Thus, the death of Jesus Christ solved our sin problem. No other religion can give forgiveness of sin because no other religion speaks about one making propitiation by his death.

The second clause is “he was buried.” The Greek word is etaphê. This clause proves not only the death of Jesus Christ, because only dead people are buried, but also his resurrection, for the tomb was empty on the third day.

The third clause is “he was raised on the third day.” As we said, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the linchpin of Christianity. Paul preached that Jesus Christ was raised on the third day according to the promise of the Old Testament.

The term he uses for “raised” is egêrgetai, a perfect passive from the word egeirô, to raise up. What does that mean? Earlier in this passage we read Christ died. There the verb is in the aorist, denoting a once-for-all action. Then Paul said Christ was buried; again, a once-for-all action. But here, using the perfect tense, Paul says Christ was raised. This speaks about an action taking place in the past with the result continuing to the present. Christ was raised from the dead in the past and continues to live now.

Notice, also, that this verb is passive, indicating that Jesus Christ did not raise himself, but God raised him, as we read in 1 Corinthians 15:15. This term “being raised” appears seven times in 1 Corinthians 15 as a perfect passive. The wordegeirô appears nineteen times in the same chapter. God raised Jesus Christ from the dead and he lives today, as Lord and King, and will never die again.

King David predicted the resurrection of Christ in Psalm 16. Later on, Jesus Christ himself also predicted his resurrection. The angels declared the truth of it when they told the women at the tomb, “He is not here; he has risen!” In the book of Revelation, Jesus Christ spoke of the fact of his resurrection. In Revelation 1:17-18 the apostle John writes of Jesus Christ, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.'”

The fourth clause also is an essential part of the gospel message: the appearances of Jesus Christ after his resurrection from the dead. Four times the word ôphthê is used, which can be translated “he was seen,” or “he appeared.” Why are the appearances of Jesus Christ important? Because he appeared numerous times to provide proof that he was indeed raised from the dead.

In 1 Corinthians 15:5 we read that he appeared first to Peter. Here Paul is not giving a complete list of Christ’s post-resurrection appearances, for the gospel accounts tell us that he appeared first to some women and later to others beside Peter. But here Paul is giving a certain list, beginning with Peter, who had denied him. Then Paul says Jesus appeared to the Twelve and then to more than five hundred believers at one time. The idea here is that if someone was not convinced of the resurrection of Christ from the dead, he could go and talk to some of these eyewitnesses because most were still alive. Then, Paul says, he appeared to James, who was the half-brother of Jesus. In John 7 we read that James did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, so when Jesus appeared to him, James was an unbeliever. But when James saw the risen Christ, he was converted instantly and eventually became the pastor of the Jerusalem church and was martyred for his faith. Finally, Paul says, “he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Paul was an unbeliever, a persecutor of the church of Christ. There is no question he was a very brilliant, highly intellectual person. When Paul encountered the resurrected Christ, he was instantly converted. He became the battle-scarred veteran of the cross who eventually died for his faith.

Why did Jesus give so many proofs of his resurrection? Because the idea of resurrection is so unbelievable. In his speech before King Agrippa in Acts 26, Paul said, “Why should any of you think it is incredible that God raises the dead?” Paul was saying that if we believe in God, it is very credible that he would raise the dead. But if someone does not believe in God, the resurrection of the dead is unbelievable.

Even some of Jesus’ own disciples did not believe in his resurrection. The apostle Thomas, whom we call “Doubting Thomas,” and who later reportedly went to India to preach the gospel according to certain tradition, was not present when Jesus first appeared to the disciples. When he was told that Jesus was risen, Thomas said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it” (John 20:25). A week later Jesus appeared to Thomas, and Thomas confessed, “My Lord and my God!” The resurrected Christ was proving to Thomas that he was Jesus himself in a physical body. “Touch me!” he told Thomas. Later he ate and drank with the apostles as well. Acts 1:3 tells us, “After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.”

These, then, are the components of the gospel that Paul and all of the apostles preached: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and appeared after his resurrection to many witnesses.

The Centrality of the Resurrection

Third, we want to look at the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus to Christianity. To deal with heresy in the Corinthian church, Paul began to reason with the Corinthians, saying, in essence, “Let us assume your claim that there is no resurrection of the dead as a universal philosophical principle. If one thinks logically from the unbeliever’s universal principle that dead men do not rise, then one must deny also that a particular person was raised from the dead also.” So Paul worked out for the Corinthians seven implications of the general principle of their no-resurrection philosophy:

1. If the dead do not rise, then not even Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. Therefore, he does not live now and is not Lord.
2. If the dead do not rise, “our preaching is useless.”
3. If the dead do not rise, the faith of the Corinthians is in vain. If there was no resurrection from the dead, the faith of the Corinthians was resting on a lie.
4. If the dead do not rise, then all the apostles were liars because they all said God raised Jesus from the dead.
5. If the dead do not rise, then we must conclude that the Corinthians and all believers are still in their sins. If Christ is not risen, then our sins were not atoned for and forgiven; we must die for our sins and go to hell.
6. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, all believers who have died and those yet to die in the hope of being raised from the dead will instead be lost.
7. If the dead do not rise, then any unbeliever is better than a Christian. If there is no resurrection, those who hope in it are the most miserable people in the world and should be pitied. If we reject the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christianity will crumble.

The Fact of the Resurrection of Christ

After working out the implications of the no-resurrection philosophy, Paul rejected the general principle of no resurrection, and argued that one person, Jesus Christ, did rise from the dead. Then Paul gave the Corinthians the consequences stemming from that historical fact.

How do we know the facts of history? By reading eyewitness reports and critically evaluating them. (PGM) We also get our information concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ from eyewitness reports, but with a difference: These eyewitnesses were inspired by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses without error.

Thus, the resurrection of Jesus is an indisputable, historical fact, proven by eyewitness accounts of Christ’s multiple appearances after his death and burial. So in 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul wrote “Nuni de Christos egêgertai” or “But now Christ is raised from the dead.” Somebody said this is the biggest “but” in the Bible. In response to the Corinthians’ denial of the resurrection, Paul was saying, “Jesus Christ has really been raised and really lives now. It is the truth!”

Christ the Firstfruits

In 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul said Jesus Christ is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Notice the phrase, “fallen asleep.” It is a Christian idea that means that those who have died will wake up again. When will they wake up? At the last trumpet. In 1 Corinthians 15:52 Paul writes, “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

Jesus Christ was raised from the dead as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. This idea of firstfruits comes from Leviticus 23, when the people of God were instructed to bring a sheaf from the first ripe grain to the temple and offer it to God, thereby dedicating the whole harvest to God. Firstfruits is a guarantee and pledge that an abundant harvest will be coming. Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead (Acts 26:23), the guarantee and pledge of our own coming resurrection, and we are the harvest. Thus, when we deny the resurrection of Christ, we are denying our own resurrection in Christ.

In John 6 Jesus told his disciples four times, “I will raise them up on the last day.” The text says, “Christ is the firstfruits.” Therein we see the order of God: Christ as the firstfruits is raised from the dead; then, after two thousand and more years, at his second coming, those who belong to him-hoi tou Christou– will be raised up also.

In Adam all died, but in Christ all believers will be made alive. In John 14:19, Jesus said, “Because I live, you also will live.” This is a result of the unity we have with him. He is risen and now lives; therefore, we also live spiritually now and will also be raised up physically when he comes again.

How to Experience Resurrection

But we must be in Christ to experience this glorious resurrection to indestructible life. The Bible tells us Jesus is coming again to raise those who belong to him. Thus, if we have not trusted in Christ, we should ask, “Pastor, how can I be in Christ? I need to know because I may die any day. Yes, I have already taken care of all my financial obligations and everyone knows where my documents are. I secured the cemetery plot and everything else is in order. But if I understand you correctly, I have not done the one thing that is needful.”

How do we unite with Christ? First Corinthians 15:2, 11 speak about believing the gospel. We are united to Christ by faith in the gospel. The apostle John uses the expression, pisteuô eis, “believe into him.” When those outside of Jesus Christ believe in him, they will be united to him.

In 1 Corinthians 15:1 Paul says, “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and on which you have taken your stand.” Here Paul uses the perfect tense, meaning they took their stand and were still standing on the foundation of the gospel. These people were gripped by the gospel. Their foundation was not in anything else but the fact that Jesus Christ died, was buried, was raised from the dead, ascended into the heavens, and is seated on the right hand of God the Father. Such people are in Christ and belong to him, and when we belong to Christ, he takes responsibility for us, including the responsibility of raising us up from the dead.

Jesus said he is the resurrection and life for us. If you believe in him, Jesus Christ lives in you by his Holy Spirit, and if the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, he will also raise up your mortal body by his Spirit. How, then, do you know that you are in him? Your eyes will be opened and you will trust in Christ, worship him, proclaim him, and live for him. You will be a person of hope!

First Corinthians 6:14 tells us, “By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.” In 2 Corinthians 4:14 Paul wrote, “We know,” meaning he knew beyond a shadow of doubt and was thoroughly convinced, “that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.” The purpose of redemption is to bring us to God. When he raises us from the dead with a body like unto his own, the Lord Jesus Christ will bring us with all glory into the presence of the Father to live with him forever. To be united with Christ by faith shows that we will also surely be raised up with him on the last day.

The Glorious Resurrection Body

Because of the resurrection of Christ, our corpses will also be raised up in glory at Christ’s second coming. First Corinthians 15:52 tells us it will be “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” The power of God will bring about the sudden resurrection of the dead as well as the transformation of living believers in Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 15:50 Paul says, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Both the dead and the living must undergo change. The resurrection body will have continuity with our present physical body, yet it will also have discontinuity. Paul uses the analogy of a seed. When the body of a seed is planted in the soil, it dies and becomes a plant; the body of the plant is continuous with the body of the seed, but more glorious. Even so, our perishable body of dishonor and weakness will die, but it will suddenly be raised up and changed by the mighty power of God. It will still be a physical body, but one that is imperishable, immortal, powerful, and glorious-a body like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Even now there is a difference between the deaths of a believer and an unbeliever. When believers die, theirs is a “stingless” death. The Bible says the sting of death is sin, but God forgave all our sins when we trusted in Jesus Christ. When he died for our sins, he experienced the full sting of death on our behalf; therefore we can die in peace. This is why the Bible speaks of believer’s death as sleep. It is not painful; it is rest in Christ.

What about You?

What about you? Are you ready today to die the stingless death of a believer? Some of you may die this year. Have you done the one thing needful of believing in the gospel? In 1 Corinthians 15:2 Paul wrote, “By this gospel you are saved,” or “the gospel through which you are being saved.” There is no other way to be saved except through the gospel.

Have you trusted in Jesus Christ the risen Lord, or are you sinning with your mind by rejecting God and his miracles? Are you united to him, putting yourself in his care, or are you trying to take care of yourself?

Jesus Christ will come again for those who belong to him. If you do not belong to him, trust him now. Jesus still receives sinners. As you come to him and believe in him, he will forgive all your sins.

What about those who already have trusted in Jesus Christ? I encourage you to stand firm in the gospel and abound in good works, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain; the Lord will reward us when he comes. Do not waste your time seeking sinful, selfish pleasures; rather, dedicate your life in the service of the Lord so that on the last day you will have reason to rejoice. Amen.