The resurrection of Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. All evangelism should have the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as the center point of all that is said and done. God’s word teaches that we are all sinners condemned to hell because of our sins. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves from that fact. But Christ was sent into the world by the Father and by a miraculous birth was found in fashion as a human being, lived a spotless sinless life as a man, was crucified as an innocent substitute in our place, and was resurrected to save lost sinners from their sins and the eternal consequences of them. To be saved, a sinner must believe God’s word and through faith, put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone by personally accepting Him as their Savior from sin.
The scriptures of the Old Testament taught about Him and what He would do for those who believe in Him. Those like Paul, who saw the Lord Jesus after He rose from the dead, were the first ones commissioned to take this Gospel message to people worldwide. That work is still going on today. Paul didn’t have the benefit of being with the Lord as the other apostles did, so he considered himself “one born out of due time.” His testimony was unique among the apostles, but that did not prevent him from seeing the Lord and speaking to Him on the road to Damascus.
God’s grace is not limited to one way of being expressed. Every person is unique and God knows the best way His grace can be revealed to an individual. He knows best how our personal faith in Him can be revealed. The saving effects of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ are the only hope for us as sinful, mortal human beings to be able to enter the kingdom of God.
There were in the days of the apostles those who denied the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from among the dead. Some of the Corinthians were apparently questioning whether Christians would be raised from the dead. Paul’s answer affirms the fact that they will be raised when he declared the Gospel that affirms the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then links that to the resurrection of believers in Christ.
There are many today who deny that fact as well as those in the past. Their denial of a well-documented fact and their rejection of the testimony of eyewitnesses, does not change the fact that the resurrection of Christ has happened. Christ was physically raised from the dead and when He comes for His church, all believers in Him will also be physically resurrected and a bodily change will take place that suits us for the future that lies ahead for eternity.
CHRIST’S RESURRECTION: Proofs… The preaching and effect of the Gospel and the facts of the Gospel and the lives of changed Christians in the days following the resurrection of Christ have impacted the world from that day to this. Those eyewitnesses were changed people and were motivated to carry out the commission of the Lord in spite of serious opposition and martyrs' death on the part of thousands of people. The essentials of the Gospel have never changed and it still is having the same effect on believers today. Christ (a) died for our sins according to the scriptures. 14 times Paul uses this phrase giving it authority. (b) Christ was buried. He did not vanish. (c) Christ was raised again. Paul preached it in the Gospel and the Corinthians received it. The demonstration of the Gospel was living proof in the soul of the apostle Paul, and all those in this list of witnesses never looked back.
There were six appearances of our Lord Jesus Christ to disciples that are listed here. There were others that we read of in the Gospel accounts of His resurrection. The Lord Jesus was seen first after His resurrection by Mary Magdalene. Then other women, then two going to Emmaus, Peter, ten disciples in the upper room, eleven disciples in the upper room, seven disciples fishing, eleven disciples on a mountain, more than 500 people at one time, James, the disciples when He ascended into heaven, and then Paul.
The resurrection of Christ is central to Christianity. The early Christians had no difficulty believing in the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Apostles were there and saw Him and were with Him after His resurrection. They heard Him speak, saw Him eat, and watched Him ascend into heaven. These two events unleashed a world-changing power that transformed the lives of people from that day until now. Without God, death ends all hope, is the final indignity to the body, and is the final frustration of a purposeless life. Christ’s resurrection changed all that.
Christians know that Christ’s resurrection opened the doorway to eternal glory for all the redeemed. His resurrection was the promise of our own resurrection. Early Christians who had never seen Jesus (“who having not seen we love”) actually loved Him. If someone says I love Shakespeare, they really mean they love his writing or his plays. If a widow speaks of her love for her husband, she would say, “I loved him,” not “I love him.” But all Christians speak of their love for Christ as a Living Person whom we haven’t seen but we love. We sing to Him, talk to Him, worship Him, and live our lives to please Him. This is not an idealized fantasy or assumption, but are a real response to much evidence of Christ’s resurrection.
RESURRECTION: the evidence is in place. 1Pet.1:3-4, 8,21. THE EMPTY TOMB: on the Sunday after His death, the first visitors to His tomb did not find His body – only the grave clothes that were wrapped around Him, lying flat and undisturbed as if the body of Jesus came right through them. Soldier/guards started a preposterous rumor that while they slept, some disciples got past them, rolled away the heavy gravestone, stole the body, hid it, and deliberately concocted a lie that said He had risen from the dead.
THE BEHAVIOR OF THE DISCIPLES UNDER PRESSURE: people will not suffer for a lie they invent for themselves. None of the disciples under tremendous pressure broke down and confessed that the resurrection was a fraud. Even when they saw many people persecuted and executed for believing their story of the resurrection, they did not change their message. Even when they were martyred, they did not change their message.
THE BEHAVIOR OF THE WOMEN AT THE TOMB: they didn’t leave their things there so there would be a shrine and place of pilgrimage like other religions or even superstitious "Christians" do today. They, and all the early Christians, abandoned the tomb. Why? Because it was empty. No one makes a shrine around someone who is alive.