Believe in the Resurrection

April 5, 2015 Background Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1 – 22 Lesson Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:1 – 11, 20 – 22 In a few statements, the Apostle Paul declares that the entire Christian faith hinges on the reality of the resurrection of the dead. Of course his statements were not intended to elevate the event of resurrection but to show by inductive reasoning the fallacy of believing in Christ and not believing in the resurrection of the dead. The argument by itself hardly seems worth the space used to print it. However, the importance of the argument is to enlighten Christians in such a way as to affect their daily living and bolster their future outlook in order to cause tangible changes in lifestyle. It is the same today as it was then. Today, many Christians live as though this life is all that matters—or at the least it matters more than the eternal future. It is difficult to promote the advantages of delayed gratification when something is triggered in the human mind that suggests we ought to get all we can today for tomorrow may not come. Many who acknowledge a calling into the preaching ministry declare that their “specific” calling is to show Christians how to gain worldly wealth for worldly reasons. The only time that today should matter more than tomorrow for Christians is when it comes to worshiping God or ministering to people. We sing songs of faith that attest to our hope for tomorrow yet we sometimes live like tomorrow will never come. Some people justify this discrepancy between their profession of faith and their everyday walk in life by casting doubt on the reality of the resurrection. It was this type of logic that the Apostle Paul set out to refute in the Corinthian church. All of our Christian faith hinges on the reality of the bodily resurrection from the dead of Jesus. Paul’s reasoning is that if we don’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection then we are living empty lives with no hope for tomorrow. In such a case, it would be better for us to live life to its fullest because tomorrow we are going to die. But there is too much proof that Jesus was raised from the dead. Paul gave a brief accounting of the many eyewitnesses that testified to having seen Jesus alive and well after he had died. For forty days Jesus showed himself as irrefutable proof to many individuals—including one group of over 500 people at one time. Then Paul offered himself as an eyewitness long after the others had seen him. I think it is interesting to note that no one has ever offered irrefutable proof that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Historians have studied a shroud in the city of Turin, Italy since the sixteenth century believing it to be the burial cloth that Jesus was wrapped in. There are no widely known studies of skeletal remains by anyone claiming the bones to be Jesus’ remains. On the other hand, billions of Christians have proclaimed over the last 2,000 years the changes that have touched our souls after we put our faith in the risen Christ. Salvation experiences should speak for themselves as witnesses today of the resurrection of Christ. If one believes in Christ, then they should also believe in the resurrection. Robert C. Hudson March 7, 2015