The Resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:1-28)

The church in Corinth had been founded by Paul, along with his colleagues Silas and Timothy, and the input of others such as Priscilla and Aquila. We may recall that Paul was given a special word of assurance regarding this church when God told him not to be afraid because he had many people in this city. It is evident from other chapters in this letter that the church in Corinth had been given special gifts by God. Given that background, we might have imagined that there would be no problems in the church in Corinth. Yet there were several problems in the church, and one of them was that some were denying the resurrection of Jesus. So we see here an example of the fact that a good start is not an indication that all will go well afterwards.

It is likely that one of the reasons why they denied the resurrection of Jesus was connected to views in society that stressed the superiority of the human spirit to the human body, and therefore death was a release for the spirit from the prison of the body. No doubt, we disagree with that suggestion, yet it raises the issue of the degree to which we as a church are influenced by the ideas of our contemporary society, and it may be the case that we are being adversely affected by them.

I suppose we can ask ourselves what difference does the resurrection of Jesus make in our daily lives. After all, today is the weekly reminder of his resurrection. Has the resurrection of Jesus been in our thoughts as we prepared to come to worship together? Did we think about it very much during the past week? Paul wanted the believers in Corinth to think about it often. So what does the apostle say?

The resurrection is part of the gospel message (vv. 3-4)

Paul gives a summary of the gospel in those verses and we can see that he links the gospel to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. In the description, he says that Jesus did something – he died for our sins, and he says that two things happened to Jesus – he was buried and he was raised. What do these points indicate?

When it is said that Jesus died for our sins, it means that his death was voluntary and vicarious. He laid down his life, but he did so with a specific purpose in view, which was to deal with the problem of our sins. On the cross, he became our substitute and in himself paid the penalty when he bore the wrath of God.

Then Paul mentions the two things that happened to Jesus and which were done to him by others. First, he was buried, and we know that he was buried by two important men, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. They buried Jesus out of love for him, but they did not bury him with anticipation. Instead, they imagined they were doing a kind action for one they admired.

Second, Jesus was raised from the dead. We have observed that he was buried by important people, but their importance reduces into insignificance when we consider the importance of the One who raised Jesus from the dead. He was raised by the heavenly Father, and one of the reasons why he raised Jesus was because he was satisfied with the offering that Jesus had made. If Jesus had remained dead, there would be no salvation. Because he is alive, there is a gospel to declare and believe.

You may be interested to know that different tenses are used to describe the death, the burial and the raising. Paul uses the past tense when describing the death and the burial because they are stages in the existence of Jesus that no longer exist. But the apostle uses the perfect tense when referring to the resurrection, and the perfect tense describes a past event with ongoing consequences. Paul does not only mean that Jesus was raised, but he also means that Jesus is still raised, and we can add that he will be raised forever.

The resurrection is foretold in the Old Testament (v. 4)

Paul asks his readers to remember what the Bible says about the resurrection of Jesus. There is a common idea that such details are only to be found in the New Testament, but Paul here means the Old Testament when he says that Jesus was raised in accordance with the scriptures. I suppose Paul means at a basic level that we should think about passages in the Old Testament where reference is made to the resurrection of Jesus. Where does the Old Testament refer to the resurrection of Jesus.

One way to answer this question would be to consider Old Testament passages that refer to his sufferings on the cross and see if any of them indicate that he would be active after he suffered and died. Psalm 22 is such a passage because in its first twenty-one verses it describes the terrible sufferings of Jesus on the cross. Yet from verse 22 onwards, the psalm mentions several activities by the One who had suffered unto death, which means that David the author was led by the Spirit to describe the resurrection of Jesus.

Another passage where the sufferings of Jesus are gone into in detail is the prophecy of the cross found in Isaiah 53. As has often been observed, one could imagine Isaiah being present at Calvary, such is the accuracy of what he says. He shows us the awfulness of the Saviour’s suffering. Yet he also informs us of events that will involve the Sufferer after his sufferings are over.

I would mention one more Old Testament passage that speaks about the resurrection of Jesus and that is Psalm 16:8-11, verses which detail the confidence that Jesus had as he faced the grave, a confidence that contained the conviction that his Father would raise him from the dead.

Of course, Paul could not point the Corinthians to the New Testament records of the resurrection of Jesus because they had not yet been written. But I suspect that if he were to write a message to us about the resurrection he would tell us to read the accounts. It is a good practice to read one of them every Sunday – we can even programme the practice into our phone calendars to remind us. If we do so, we will be amazed at what we discover about the risen Saviour.

The risen Saviour wanted to speak to people (vv. 5-8)

Paul gives a summary of several occasions when Jesus appeared to his people after his resurrection. We might wonder why Paul only mentions men in his list of six appearances (although I assume women were present at some of them), and I suspect the reason is that it was not customary in those times to use women as witnesses. This does not mean that Paul did not value the witness of women.

Who did the risen Jesus want to speak to? The first individual that Paul mentions is Peter (or Cephas), and according to the Gospels Jesus appeared to him after appearing to Mary Magdalene, to the women as a group, and to the couple making their way home to Emmaus. Why did he want to speak to Peter? We know that Peter had denied Jesus, but the risen Jesus wanted Peter to know that he was forgiven.

Then Jesus appeared to the twelve, which may be a reference to the disciples as a group, or he may be referring to the occasion a week after his resurrection when he appeared to the disciples with Thomas present. Why did he want to appear to them? The Gospels tell us that the risen Jesus wanted to convey his peace to them.

The next occasion that Paul mentions was a large gathering of disciples. We are not told where this took place, although it is usually assumed that it happened in Galilee because several references are made in the Gospels to a meeting there. I wonder if the five hundred were all the disciples that Jesus had made during his years on earth, and that he met with them to convince them of his resurrection, and even maybe to say farewell to them until they would meet together in his presence. After all, Paul mentions that some of them had already gone to heaven. Although they had died, it was the case that their death was only falling asleep because he had made death a straight path for them.

At some stage, the risen Jesus also appeared to his brother James. Why did he appear to James? No doubt one reason was to convince the sceptical James that it was all true, that his brother was the Messiah, but a far greater Messiah that even James could have imagined. And maybe Jesus told him that the days of the earthly family were over for ever, and instead James would need to trust in Jesus to enter the heavenly family. It was a great day for James when the risen Jesus came to speak to him about the things that matter.

Then Paul mentions the appearance of Jesus to the apostles, which I suspect means his time with them shortly before his ascension when he entered heaven before their eyes. That was an incredible sight, although they were also glad that they had been called by him to go as his witnesses throughout the world. They had interesting conversations with Jesus before they parted.

The last incident that Paul mentions is his own encounter with the risen Christ, except that this encounter was unique in that Jesus addressed him from heaven. As Paul indicates, this was a very gracious encounter because Paul was a persecutor of the church. Yet as with the other apostles Paul was grateful to the risen Jesus for his salvation and he dedicated his life to spreading the gospel. We could say that Paul spoke to the Corinthians because Jesus had spoken to him. By extension, Paul was urging the Corinthians to stay loyal to the risen Saviour and not allow themselves to be influenced by the alternative views of resurrection that were current.

The resurrection of Jesus and us

We might say that what Jesus did with those witnesses on those occasions was wonderful. Yet by the time Paul wrote this letter they were only memories. Are his resurrection appearances going to be limited to them? Paul assures his readers in Corinth, and us, that something wonderful is yet to happen. He spends a large chunk of this chapter dealing with it, and that is the nature of the resurrection body. We can think about it briefly through his illustration of it in verse 20 when Paul says that Jesus is the firstfruits of those who will die.

The apostle is referring to the rituals practised in Israel in connection to the harvest when a sheaf of grain was presented to the Lord in anticipation of the imminent harvest. Paul here says that Jesus is like that sheaf and his people are the harvest. In Israel, there were seven weeks between the waving of the sheaf and the harvest. Spiritually speaking, that is where we are. The real Sheaf has been waved in the presence of God and the next event in the divine calendar is the harvest.

What do we say?

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It used to be the case that when Christians met, they did not say, ‘Good morning.’ Instead they said, ‘The Lord is risen.’ Such a greeting was an encouragement for one another to remember what he had done and what he would yet do. Maybe we should say it at some stage today.

Preached on 4/12/2106