1 Corinthians 15:1-22
"Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,
by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you--unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.
After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.
After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles.
Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.
For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen.
And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up--if in fact the dead do not rise.
For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen.
And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!
Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable.
But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has became the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

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For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive."

Ephesians 1:15—23
Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all."

If Jesus had lived a lovely life and died an heroic death, and if that had been the end of Him, He might have been numbered with the great and the heroic, but He would simply have been One among many. His uniqueness is guaranteed forever by the fact of the Resurrection. The others are dead and gone, and have left a memory. Jesus lives on and gives us a presence, still mighty with power!
The historic Resurrection of Jesus transformed predictions into reality and became the core of Christian preaching and the foundation of our glorious faith!
The Book of Acts preserves in condensed and sometimes fragmentary fashion, sermons delivered on strategic occasions, which provide for us evidence of the importance of the Resurrection to the new preachers of the Christian faith.
The crowds have dispersed back into the hum-drum of daily living...the stores and merchants count their profits from the extra sales of Easter season...and the church choir await another year to sing their cantatas and musicals, but, after the Resurrection, what happened?
What was the effect of the Resurrection upon the early disciples and how did it influence their lives and their

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preaching? What is the doctrinal significance of the Resurrection?
First of all, we know that a Resurrection party was held in Galilee soon after this glorious event took place. Immediately following the Last Supper with His disciples, Jesus said: "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: 'I will strike the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.' BUT AFTER I HAVE BEEN RAISED, I WILL GO BEFORE YOU TO GALILEE." (Mark 14:27-28)
John tells us: "After these things Jesus showed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and this way He showed Himself." (John 21:1) The disciples had gone fishing, and Jesus prepared breakfast for them on the seashore. It was at this party that Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to make up for the three times he had denied Him when He asked Peter the question..."Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?"
There were many who said that the appearances of the Risen Christ were nothing more than visions which the disciples had. Many would admit the reality of the visions but insist that they were still only visions. Some would go further and say that they were not visions but hallucinations. The gospels go far out of their way to argue that the Risen Christ was not a vision, not an hallucination, not even a spirit, but a real person. They insist that the tomb was empty and that the Risen Christ had a real body which still bore the marks of the nails and the spear thrust in His side. THE PARTY WAS HELD TO PROVE TO ALL THE DISCIPLES THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION. A vision or a spirit would not be likely to point out a shoal of fish to a party of fishermen. A vision or a spirit would not be likely to kindle a charcoal fire on the seashore. A vision or a spirit would not be likely to cook a meal and to share it out. And yet, as this story has it, the Risen Christ did all these things. When John tells how Jesus came back to His disciples when the doors were shut, he says: "He showed them His hands and His side" (John 20:20). Ignatius, when writing to the Church at Smyrna, relates an even more definite tradition about that. He says: "I know and believe that He was in the flesh even after the Resurrection, and when He came to Peter and his company He said to them: "Take, handle Me, and see that I am not a bodiless demon." And straightway they touched Him and they believed, for they were firmly convinced of His flesh and blood...And after His Resurrection He ate and drank with them as One in the flesh." The Risen Lord was not a vision, not a figment of

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someone's excited imagination, nor the appearance of a spirit or a ghost; it was Jesus who had conquered death and come back! Now, their testimony and preaching would be preached with deep, personal conviction concerning the reality of the resurrection...they had personally seen him. John writes: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life--the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us--that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:1-3).
This personal time with the risen Christ deeply affected their preaching.
The first sermons recorded in Acts were spoken by Peter in Jerusalem and were intended for Jewish hearers. Their main objective was to show that God had reversed the verdict which the national leaders had passed on Jesus.
Peter drew a sharp contrast between the Jewish attitude and the divine purpose! "Ye killed Him, God raised Him." This is the constant refrain.
The reaction was immediate--a sense of guilt resulting either in repentance or in hostility. "When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:38) "The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the Resurrection of the dead.
They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day" (Acts 4:2-4).
THE PREACHING OF THE RESURRECTION PRODUCED RESULTS...repentance or hostility!
And notice! Neither skepticism nor indifference marked the attitude of Peter's audience, neither did they impugn his basic statements as illusory. The apostle's defense was always the same: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging Him on a tree. Him did God exalt with His right hand to be Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. And we are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them that obey Him." (Acts 5:30-32).
THE APPEAL TO THE JEWISH AUDIENCE WAS SIMPLE AND DIRECT, CONFINED CHIEFLY TO THE VERIFICATION OF JESUS' MESSIAHSHIP AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL GUILT IN

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REJECTING HIM.
Stephen stands before his accusers about to become the first martyr of the early church. Listen as his final testimony verifies Peter's earlier sermon. Stephen, having reviewed the historical rejection of God's appointed leader by the people of Israel, accused them of having betrayed and murdered the Messiah. For him the Resurrection marked the end of one revelation and the beginning of another. "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers; you always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered Him—you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels have not obeyed it? (Acts 7:51-53).
STEPHEN'S SPEECH WAS PIVOTAL. The worship patterns of the early church remained very similar to that of Judaism. They still worshipped in the synagogue or the Temple and participated in the observations which their ancestors had followed. Stephen's closing message throws a totally new light on worship! He declared that God is not confined to temples (7:48), but that with the advent of Jesus a new revelation had begun. The message of life through faith in Christ could not be restricted to any one race or ritual; it was destined to be a faith for all mankind! THE TRANSITION FROM JUDAISM TO UNIVERSAL CHRISTIANITY COMMENCED AS THE PERSECUTION PRECIPITATED BY STEPHEN'S SPEECH AND THE CONSEQUENT DISPERSION OF THE CHURCH PRODUCED A NEW TYPE OF PREACHING! Christian theology began developing and the central foundation of the fact of the Resurrection became the main truth of all their proclamation to the world!
Let us consider the doctrinal significance of the Resurrection.
(1) CHRIST'S RESURRECTION INSURES OUR REGENERATION. Peter says that "we have been born anew to a living hope through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3). Here he explicitly connects Jesus' Resurrection with our regeneration or new birth. When Jesus rose from the dead He had a new quality of life, a "Resurrection Life" in a human body and human spirit that were perfectly suited for fellowship and obedience to God forever. In His Resurrection, Jesus earned for us the new kind of life just like His! We do not receive all of that new "Resurrection Life" when we become Christians, for our bodies remain as they were, still subject to weakness, aging and death. But in our spirits we are made alive with new Resurrection power! "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells

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in you. He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you" (Romans 8:11). Thus it is through His Resurrection that Christ earned for us the new kind of life we receive when we are "born again." This is why Paul can say that God "made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him" (Ephesians 2:5-6). When God raised Christ from the dead He thought of us as somehow being raised "with Christ" and therefore deserving the merits of Christ's Resurrection! Paul says his goal in life is "that I may know Him and the power of His Resurrection...(Phil. 3:10). Paul knew that even in this life the Resurrection of Christ gave new power for Christian ministry and obedience to God. For Paul the Resurrection was not simply a past event in history, however amazing. It was not simply something which had happened to Jesus, however important it was for Him. It was a dynamic power which operated in the life of the individual Christian!
Paul connects the Resurrection of Christ with the spiritual power at work within us when he tells the Ephesians that he is praying that they would know "what is the immeasurable greatness of His power in us who believe, according to the working of His great might which He accomplished in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and made Him sit at His right hand in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:19-20). Here Paul says that the power by which God raised Christ from the dead is the same power at work within us! Paul further sees us as raised in Christ when he says, "We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life...So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:4,11).
(2) CHRIST'S RESURRECTION INSURES OUR JUSTIFICATION. In only one passage does Paul explicitly connect Christ's Resurrection with our justification (or our receiving a declaration that we are not guilty but righteous before God). Paul says that Jesus "was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25). When Christ was raised from the dead, it was God's declaration of approval of Christ's work of redemption. Because Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death on a cross, "God has highly exalted Him..." (Phil. 2:9) By raising Christ from the dead, God the Father was in effect saying that He approved of Christ's suffering and dying for our sins, that His work was completed, and that Christ no

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longer had any need to remain dead. There was no penalty left to pay for sin, no more wrath of God to bear, no more guilt or liability to punishment--all had been completely paid for, and no guilt remained.
In the Resurrection, God was saying to Christ, "I approve of what You have done, and You find favor in My sight!" If God "raised us up with Him" then by virtue of our union with Christ, God's declaration of approval of Christ is also His declaration of approval of us! When the Father in essence said to Christ, "All the penalty for sins has been paid and I find You not guilty but righteous in My sight," He was thereby making the declaration that would also apply to us once we trusted in Christ for salvation!
In this way Christ's Resurrection also gave final approval and proof that He had earned our justification.
(3) CHRIST'S RESURRECTION INSURES THAT WE WILL RECEIVE PERFECT RESURRECTION BODIES AS WELL. The New Testament several times connects Jesus' Resurrection with our final bodily Resurrection.
"And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by His power" (1 Corinthians 6:14). Similarly, "He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence " (2 Cor. 4:14). The most extensive discussion of the connection between Christ's Resurrection and our own is found in 1 Corinthians 15:12—58. There Paul says that Christ is the "firstfruits." Paul uses a metaphor from agriculture to indicate that we will be like Christ. Just as the "firstfruits" or the first taste of the ripening crop show what the rest of the harvest will be like for that crop, so Christ as the "firstfruits" shows what our Resurrection bodies will be like when, in God's final "harvest," He raises us from the dead and brings us into His eternal presence. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:1-2).
After Jesus' Resurrection, He still had the nail prints in His hands and feet and the mark from the spear in His side (John 20:27). People sometimes wonder if that indicates that the scars of serious injuries that we have received in this life will also remain on our Resurrection bodies. The answer is that we probably will not have any scars from injuries or wounds received in this life, but our bodies will be made perfect,

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"incorruptible" and raised in glory. The scars from Jesus' crucifixion are unique because they are an eternal reminder of His sufferings and death for us. The fact that He retains those scars does not necessarily mean that we shall retain ours. Rather, all will be healed, and all will be made perfect and whole.
Paul also sees that the Resurrection has application to our obedience to God in this life. After a long discussion of the Resurrection, Paul concludes by encouraging his readers, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." (1 Corinthians 15:58). It is because Christ was raised from the dead, and we too shall be raised from the dead, that we should continue steadfastly in the Lord's work. This is because everything that we do to bring people into the kingdom and build them up will indeed have eternal significance, because we shall all be raised on the day when Christ returns, and we shall live with Him forever.
Paul encourages us, when we think about the Resurrection, to focus on our future heavenly reward as our goal. He sees the Resurrection as a time when the struggles of this life will be repaid. "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory" (Colossians 3:1-4).
The Resurrection places on us the obligation to stop yielding to sin in our lives. When Paul says we are to consider ourselves "dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" by virtue of the Resurrection of Christ and His Resurrection power within us (Romans 6:11), he then goes on immediately to say, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies....Do not yield your members to sin" (Romans 6:12-13). The fact that we have this new Resurrection power over the dominion of sin in our lives is used by Paul as a reason to exhort us not to sin any more.
AFTER THE RESURRECTION, THEN THE ASCENSION. After Jesus' Resurrection, He was on earth for forty days (Acts 1:3), then He lead them out to Bethany, just outside Jerusalem, and "lifting up His hands. He blessed them. While He blessed them, He parted from them, and was carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:50-51). Christ is now in heaven with the angelic choirs singing praise to Him...WORTHY IS THE LAMB WHO WAS SLAIN...WORTHY IS THE LAMB! © Copyright 2003 Church of the Highlands