6 PROOFS OF THE RESURRECTION
1 Corinthians 15:12–19
As I grew up I rejected all possibilities of God. I accepted science into my heart, and trusted in the secular trinity of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye the Science guy for salvation.
One day while a couple people were questioning my disbelief, I got angry and barked: “I don’t know God. I don’t even believe in God. For me to believe in God I would have to hear Him speak to me or something.”
IF JESUS IS DEAD, DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME.
Time is insanely valuable to me. I can’t stand it when people waste it. I’ll pay money to get back time.
Slow drivers in the left lane
Meetings that should have been emails
Indirect communication. I’m a D on the disc test. Just say it!
Customer service loops over the phone
The DMV! C’mon somebody!!!!
It’s the most precious commodity. You can always make more money. We don’t have forever and I won’t let you rob me of it. Are you like that?
1 Corinthians 15:14-19 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. [15] We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. [16] For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. [17] And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. [18] Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. [19] If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Some of Paul’s opponents were saying there is no resurrection. In Greek philosophy bodily resurrection was considered undesirable, and the state of “pure spirit” superior. Paul is responding to their flawed conclusion with logic: If there is no resurrection then Jesus' resurrection isn’t true, and the bottom falls out of Christianity altogether. The whole structure of our faith collapses.
If Jesus DID NOT rise:
Preaching is pointless.
Christian faith is stupid.
Christians are liars.
No one is forgiven.
The dead are completely gone.
The joke is on Christians for living a lie.
1 Corinthians 15:32 If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Shakespeare “Life’s but a walking shadow… it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
But if Jesus DID rise:
Preaching has power.
Christian faith is a no brainer.
Christians were right all along.
Anyone can be forgiven.
The dead are coming back.
The joke is on the Christ-denying world.
Paul makes it clear that the resurrection is a huge claim upon which all of this hinges. It’s therefore worth looking int. This is is not waste of my time or your time.
→ So the question is how do we know the resurrection is true?
THE EVIDENCE POINTS TO A RISEN JESUS.
1 Corinthians 15:20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead…
Bill Maher “Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking.” “BLIND FAITH”
The earliest Christians actually didn’t have faith in the resurrection of Jesus…they SAW Him resurrected…
6 Reasons why the Resurrection remains undefeated:
01. The message exploded in the city where they killed him.
You might think: The Resurrection could have been easily pushed because it was a legend they told far away from where it allegedly took place.
For instance, I’m from Oregon and I often try to convince my friends of how bad it was there. And I can basically make up insane things about what it was like. Things like “Yeah man we had to move because bro the homelessness problem got so bad one camp had its own HOA.” “I saw a tent with solar panels and thought, ‘honestly that guy’s doing better than me.’” or like “Yeah man you guys think it’s wild we have to spray for scorpions or had rattle snake season but up there we were spraying for sasquatch.”
I can almost get away with that stuff because it’s far enough away it’s hard to fact check me. But here’s what’s crazy, the claim that Jesus rose from the dead took off in the same place in the same town that he was crucified!
Preaching about the resurrection began in Jerusalem, the very city where Jesus died and was buried. This would have been impossible if Jesus' body was in the tomb. All they would have had to do was produce the body.
02. The resurrection erupted in the face of Jewish and pagan opposition.
Jews were not predisposed to believe that one man would rise from the dead in the middle of history, ahead of everyone else, before the final resurrection. Pagans were even less prepared for it, since most of them did not believe in bodily resurrection at all, but at best in some kind of shadowy afterlife. So the resurrection was not a natural conclusion flowing out of either worldview. It was a shocking claim at best– even untenable–to both.
03. Too many people claimed to see him alive.
A common argument…one scholar said“...the followers of Jesus believed he was raised from the dead for one and only one reason, that some of them (I don’t think we know how many) had visions of him after his death…”
But this is incorrect. These were not privatized visions by a slim or unknown selection of fanatical disciples. Jesus was seen by countless people. If not, Paul would not have gotten away with writing what he did in verses 4-9
1 Corinthians 15:4–9 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, [5] and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. [6] Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. [7] Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. [8] Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. [9] For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Paul argues, that in actuality, the resurrection is a fact. In his mind, a provable one. In earlier verses he claims, in this passage alone, that 514 people were eye-witnesses to the resurrection.
Cephas, then the Twelve, then more than five hundred brothers at one time, then James, then all the apostles, and last of all Paul—not as a vague spiritual impression, but as a chain of named and public witnesses that begins almost immediately after the crucifixion. That does not read like a private hallucination story whispered on the margins; it reads like a public claim thrown into the marketplace of history.
04. Jesus' own mother and brothers worshipped him as God.
John 7:5 “For even his own brothers did not believe in him.”
Mark 3:21 When his family heard this, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind.’
If I got up here and claimed I had never sinned, died and rose, and was god in the flesh, my brothers and parents would jump in the chat and disprove all of that with video evidence.
Jesus' own mother and brothers ended up worshipping Him as Savior, Lord, Christ, and God. That would require nothing short of a resurrection from the dead.
Acts 1:14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Two of his brothers became leaders in the early church and wrote books of the New Testament:
Jude 1:1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James…
Galatians 1:19 James, the Lord’s brother who wrote the book of James.
05. The monster was conquered. (Paul)
Our author was well documented as the primary prosecutor of the church.
21 Christian migrant workers were kidnapped in Libya by ISIS and executed on a beach near Sirte on February 15, 2015, because they were identified as Christians.
Could you imagine the leader of this terror group, repenting, becoming a church planter?
But that’s a very similar intensity to the testimony of the man we’re reading every time we open a letter of Paul. I’m teaching from his book this morning. What would it take for a guy of this zealousness to repent and switch his jersey around?
06. Nearly all the disciples willingly died brutal deaths for this claim.
Dance Gavin Dance “Inspire the Liars”
So let's start a religion
They'll believe in what we say
Let's start a religion
We can blind their eyes with faith
A new religion
We'll tell them where our spirits go
Start a religion
I need my ego to explode
The problem with this reasoning is that the disciples of Jesus stood to lose everything with next to nothing to gain if they invented the resurrection as knowing liars.
It believed according to tradition that nearly every disciple suffered brutal deaths. Peter was crucified upside down, Andrew was crucified, James son of Zebedee was killed by the sword, John was exiled to the Island of Patmos, Philip was crucified or hanged, Bartholomew was flayed and beheaded, Thomas was speared, Matthew was killed by the sword, James son of Alphaeus was stoned and/or clubbed, Thaddaeus was killed with arrows and/or an axe, Simon the Zealot was sawn in two, and Matthias was stoned and then beheaded.
I’ve presented some of the most powerful evidence for the resurrection. Let me ask you something:
If the resurrection were true, and all of Christianity with it, would you follow Jesus?
For some people, I think some people really aren’t sure. Maybe you don’t see the beauty of it. I want to take a mount and tell why Christianity is such good news.
So, since it’s true what do you gain?
IF JESUS ROSE, DON’T WASTE YOUR ETERNITY.
1 Corinthians 15:20–26 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. [21] For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. [22] For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. [23] But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. [24] Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. [25] For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. [26] The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
The dead will be raised–including you. (v. 20-22)
Our sin–which brought death–can be forgiven. (v. 20-22)
Real justice for all evil will be made at Christ’s return.
Death itself will be destroyed.
After saying “I don’t know God” I sat in this student service and heard “I’ve always known you.” That changed everything. Astro van etc.
What is God saying to me? Let’s take time to listen.