If there is no resurrection…then what? (Point #3)

My study on the resurrection from 1 Corinthians 15 continues after a two week pause. Not that I have not been thinking about the resurrection, I have. It’s just that I have been busy, but busy in a world where the resurrection has happened. That is encouraging.

By the way, before I go to my point today let me point out that Fyodor Dostoevsky’s masterpiece of a novel, The Brothers Karamazov ends with the good news of the resurrection. The speech at the stone given to the boys of the Russian village by Alyosha concludes with Alyosha’s affirmation, “Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!” “Ah, how splendid it will be!” shouted one of the boys. It the midst of all the sin and injustice in the novel, Dostoevsky gives the answer of God…resurrection.

Anyway, to our study. We are looking at 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 where Paul asserts the certainty of the resurrection by showing the absurdity of everything if there was not resurrection. We have covered his first two points. If the dead are not raised then Christ is not raised and therefore we are still in sin. And two, if the dead are not raised then our loved ones who have died have perished permanently.

Here is Paul’s third point. If the dead are not raised then there is no point in believing in Jesus (v.19). If there is no resurrection Paul was misrepresenting God. Ministers do the same if they preach the resurrection. There is no point in preaching Jesus if Jesus is still dead. But also, for us, there in no point in believing in him. If all he was a good guru, a good teacher, and even a great miracle worker, but stayed dead when the Romans killed him…our faith is empty and our religion really is a crutch…and people should feel sorry for us. If the dead are not raised and Jesus is not raised then Albert Schweitzer was right.

As N.T. Wright put it… “If there is no resurrection, what’s the point of being a Christian in the first place? Hated, reviled, persecuted, struggling with sin – if this is all there, surely it would be better to throw in the towel, to admit that another philosophy of life can make life easier.” If Jesus did not rise from the dead but still has our sins, if he is the Son of God but stayed dead and did not destroy sin and death, if his atoning death was not sufficient and all we have to believe in is a Messiah who died we have not hope at all! There is no point in this!

But…v.20, “Christ has in fact been raised from the dead.” Robert Chandlish: “Therefore, we as well as those who have fallen asleep in Jesus have a hope that neither death nor sin can touch. Christian’s who fall asleep before the great day of resurrection are alive and forgiven now. We also, believing, are not in our sins.”