1 Corinthians 15 - Eyewitnesses (season six, episode one)

Greetings and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason and I am

the pastor of Faith Chapel.

We are starting a new series in the podcast today called Resurrection.

We are looking at the text of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to glean information

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

about the reliability of the resurrection of Jesus and what that means for us today.

In the podcast today, we go over the first verses of this chapter and discover

in them some of the evidence we have of Jesus's resurrection.

The resurrection is the most important event in human history.

What can we know by looking at the text of scripture to see what is actual reality?

Thanks for joining us today.

Over the next seven Sundays that will culminate on Easter Sunday,

we're going to be going over one chapter in Scripture.

That is 1 Corinthians 15.

And the idea and the concept behind this is that as we get to Easter,

my hope is that we can truly understand in a deeper way what the resurrection of Jesus meets.

It is a tremendously important event in world history,

and it is also something that is attested to in the years from Jesus's resurrection until the apostles.

It was something that was continually passed along, a story where eyewitnesses

were sharing what was actually happening.

But to get to the point in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is going to start with a foundational piece.

And that foundational piece is the resurrection of Jesus.

You see, it seems that the Corinthian church wrote to Paul asking about several

things that we have in 1 Corinthians. One of those is spiritual gifts.

And Paul goes on this lengthy discussion about the use of spiritual gifts and what they mean.

And then at the end of this discussion, Paul transitions to another concern that they had.

And that is about resurrection. You see, Paul was ministering to people who were in Greece.

And in Greece, the Greek thought of the day was that there are two possibilities

of things that happened when this life ends.

One is that everything ends. There's nothing beyond the years that we spend on this earth.

The second thing that they thought in their philosophy could possibly be it,

is the concept of Hades and this shadowy, inconsequential living.

But it was only spiritual. It was only a person's spirit who was carried on

to this shadowy, inconsequential afterlife.

And so when Paul comes in to Greece and he starts to talk about Jesus and minister

to them and find converts to Christianity.

This is an issue that they really have to deal with because as they were brought

up, as they were taught what happens after this life, it is completely different

from what Paul is going to bring to them.

It is completely different than what they realize and they understand.

And what Paul is bringing to them is a Galilean concept of a bodily resurrection,

not just a spiritual resurrection, but a body that resurrects from the grave.

And Paul has this concept ingrained in him from their culture.

And the first place we're going to look at how the Jewish people thought of

resurrection is in the Bible.

It's Daniel chapter 12, verse 2. We read, Many of those whose bodies lie dead

Daniel 12:2

and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting destruction.

And so it says here, the bodies that lie dead, the bodies that are in the grave,

These are the ones that are going to come back to life again.

We can see this concept in the Valley of Dry Bones, where Ezekiel is shown this

vision of bones that signify a battle had been going on there.

And in these bones, they start to form the muscles.

They start to form, all of the skin starts to form on them.

And then they just have these physical bodies standing there.

And God uses this analogy to talk about Israel and how Israel is lying in waste

while its people are in Babylon in exile.

But he uses this concept of resurrection for the people of Israel.

This is ingrained in them. This is what they know. This is what they believe

that a bodily resurrection will happen.

And in an extra biblical book written near the first century before Jesus and

about the hundreds BC and a book called Second Maccabees, which it's a part of the Apocrypha.

And so this is an extra biblical book, a Jewish book that was written in the

hundreds BC that Jewish people held in high esteem.

They had this book in their library, but they didn't have the same authority.

It didn't carry the same authority that the rest of the Old Testament did.

And so in this book, we also see the concept of resurrection.

And in 2 Maccabees, we read, you are releasing us from the present age.

So this is a soldier who is talking to their captors, their executioners.

So you are releasing us from this present age, but the world's true king,

because we have died on behalf of his laws, will raise us up in an eternal restoration of life.

And so even before Jesus comes on the scene, we have this concept of a bodily resurrection.

And so this is how Paul is interpreting scripture.

This is how Paul understands it to be.

And even in the story we covered last week with the raising of Lazarus from

the grave, an interaction that we didn't go over, Martha, Lazarus's sister,

says to Jesus, I know my brother will rise at the last day.

This is a concept that was familiar with the Jewish people.

And so this is the concept, though, that is foreign to the Corinthians.

And as we progress through chapter 15 in 1 Corinthians over these next seven weeks,

he's going to be giving them what we know is going to happen and reasoning with

them why he is teaching this and why it is so intrinsically tied to the good news of the gospel.

But he starts with where they have common ground. He starts with where all the

believers in the church in Corinth probably have the same idea as Paul.

And that is the resurrection of Jesus.

And so as we open up scripture to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I'm going to pray.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Father, I pray that you will take this, your word, and plant it in our hearts.

And Father, I pray that you will grow it to fruition, bearing in us and through

us many, many times what you have sowed.

Father, I pray that we can reflect upon this truth.

I pray, Father, that your word changes and transforms us.

Jesus, I ask for this in your name. Amen.

1 Corinthians chapter 15, we're starting in verse 1.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the good news I preached to you before.

You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it.

It is this good news that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you.

Unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.

And so as Paul transitions from his talking about spiritual gifts and orderly

worship and all that comes before chapter 15, he transitions to the concept of good news.

And this good news is so critically important to Paul.

This is the crux, the most important concept of what he teaches.

And it's the good news that saves you if you continue to believe it.

It is the good news that he taught to the Corinthian church.

As we continue on, Paul describes this good news, picking it up in verse 3.

I passed on to you what was most important.

And what had also been passed on to me, Christ died for our sins,

just as the scriptures said.

He was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day.

Just as the scriptures said.

And so he begins in this way. He says, this is the good news that Jesus Christ

died for our sins, that he was placed on the cross for us.

And on Ash Wednesday, we used a verse from Colossians chapter two.

And in this chapter, it talks about how that written notice that we see above

Jesus and his crucifixion that says, the king of the Jews,

how we each have one of those hanging above our heads with all of our brokenness,

with all of our rebellion against God written on it and how God takes that from

us and then places it on Jesus on the cross.

This is the good news that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins,

that our brokenness, that our sinfulness is taken from us and placed upon Jesus.

But it doesn't end there.

Paul's going to later say in this chapter, if it ended there,

we are most to be pitied for following Jesus.

But it ends with him walking out of the tomb. It ends with him defeating death.

And he says something really important here on two occasions,

just as the scriptures said.

So Paul's not making this up out of thin air.

This is something that he is drawing from what we call the Old Testament,

what they called the scriptures.

This is what he is trying to get the Corinthians to see.

This isn't just make-believe.

This is what's really going to happen.

And so to see this in action, we're going to turn to Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

And in Isaiah chapter 53, we read about a suffering servant,

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

an unnamed suffering servant.

But the descriptions, I think you're going to really understand who Isaiah is talking about.

We're going to pick it up in verse 8.

Unjustly condemned, he, this suffering servant, was led away.

No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short and

midstream, but he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.

He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone, but he was buried like a criminal.

He was put in a rich man's grave, but it was the Lord's good plan to crush him and to cause him grief.

Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants.

He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord's good plan will prosper in his hands.

When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied.

And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for

many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins.

I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier because he exposed himself to death.

He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for the rebels.

And so the first thing Paul says is Jesus died to take away our sins,

just as the scriptures say.

And multiple times here in these verses, we can read that.

He was struck down for the rebellion of my people. And when his life was made

an offering for sin, that means he is put down.

It's the offering, the sin offering of the,

When all that is accomplished by his anguish will be satisfied,

my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted as righteous,

for he will bear all their sins.

Multiple times in these verses, it talks about what exactly Paul is saying.

Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins, just as the scriptures declare.

But it also talks here, it doesn't use the word, but it also talks here about resurrection.

As his life is made an offering for sin, and in the Old Testament,

a sin offering was a sacrifice.

An animal died in the place of a human. So as this suffering servant is made

an offering, as he is executed, he will have many descendants.

It's a curious thing for someone who is deceased. And I also want to warn you

against falling into a Dan Brown conspiracy here.

The guy that wrote the Da Vinci Code. It's not that he came back to life to

marry someone, but we are his descendants.

He is the first of the resurrected, and so we become his offspring in that capacity.

He paves the way for us, and he makes us go in that way when we believe in him.

But as he is made an offering for sin, he will also enjoy a long life,

and God's good plan will prosper in his hands.

This doesn't happen unless there is a resurrection. This doesn't happen unless.

This suffering servant stays dead. And then later on, God says,

I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier.

Again, this is something that is showing us resurrection here.

And so when Paul says, just as the scriptures say that Jesus was resurrected,

he's referring to passages like this or Psalm 16, 10, where Peter quotes that

in his Pentecost sermon on Acts, in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And he says that you will not let your Holy One see corruption.

David, Peter says, has been in the tomb for a long time.

You can go and you can be in his tomb, but God will not let his Holy One see

corruption. He will not let his holy one stay dead.

And so when Paul says, just as the scriptures declare about the sins being taken

away and about the resurrection of Jesus,

Paul is laying it on thick that this is what God's plan was all along.

And so he uses this as a testimony, as a witness of what God is going to do

and about the resurrection.

But he doesn't stop there. He uses a second piece of evidence, starting in verse 5.

He, Jesus, was seen by Peter and then by the twelve.

After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time,

most of whom are still alive, though some have died.

Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.

Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw And so

the second layer of evidence here are eyewitness accounts.

Not just scripture, but people that Paul says, most of whom are still alive.

If you need to verify this, go and ask them.

Go and seek them out. They're still alive.

And an important part is that 25 years later, as Paul is writing this,

they are still proclaiming the same story that Jesus rose from the grave.

It's not just that people made up a story.

This is actually what happened.

Jesus rose from the dead.

Tremendous accomplishment. This is the foundation piece that Paul is laying

here to help the Corinthians see the importance of the resurrection and what

Easter Sunday truly means when we celebrate Jesus walking out of the tomb,

because it means just more than a man coming back to life.

Again, we covered that last week. It means a lot more than when Lazarus came back from the grave.

And as we continue over these next seven weeks to go through this,

we're going to see time and time again how this is important to us today and

what this means for us today and how we can better grasp the meaning of Easter

by what resurrection truly means.

But to finish out today, we're gonna read verses nine through 11.

So after Paul has given this proclamation of, we have all of these eyewitness

testimonies, he says, for I am the least of all the apostles.

In fact, I'm not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God's church.

But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on

me and not without results, for I have worked harder than any other apostle.

Yet it was not I, but God who was working through me by his grace.

So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach

the same message you have already believed.

And so Paul says, guys, you don't have to take my word for it.

You have all of these witnesses, but you also, you can get in contact with Peter.

You want to contact John? Go and contact John.

What about James? Go and contact James.

Like all of us are going to say the same thing. We are all witnesses of this,

and we all know that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and we all know that it

means more than just one person rising.

All doing the same thing. Our messages do not waver. They are truly accurate.

This is so important for us. For me, one of the things that spurs me on to continue

to follow after Jesus is the evidence for Jesus's resurrection.

Yes, there are definitely some places where it takes faith, where it takes belief

to step out toward Jesus.

But the fact that Jesus died on the cross, which the Bible totally agrees with,

is the most attested to event way back.

It's phenomenal how many witnesses of there are to Jesus's death.

No one doubts that Jesus died on the cross.

Zero historians, zero scholarship that are in legit institutions, I will say.

No one doubts that Jesus died on the cross. And the evidence of the first century

and all the documents we have that have made up the New Testament,

most scholarship believes that Jesus' disciples believe they saw Jesus alive.

They don't go so far as to say they saw Jesus alive, but they believe that they saw Jesus alive.

Based upon all of the writings, based upon what happened in the first century,

based upon what we have surviving to this day.

Historians will routinely say Jesus died and that his disciples believe they saw him alive.

These are what they attest to. This is something that really helps me in my faith.

I talked a while ago about how much I admire people of faith,

people who can just share their testimony in simple phrases and words,

and they don't care what people think of them, and they don't care about any

repercussions that could come their way.

They are just living out their faith. For me, I love the evidence.

I love the reasoning, and I love that this book, the Bible, we can find passages

like Isaiah 53, which talk about Jesus without mentioning his name.

We can look at Daniel chapter 12, verse 2, and see how resurrection has always

Daniel 12:2

been a part of God's plan after sin corrupted his good world.

And so the testimony, the witnesses here really speak to me and they declare

to me the evidence that I have in my own life.

I should be able to share that with other people.

The evidence where I have seen God answer prayer, I should be able to share that with other people.

The evidence that I have where God, I fully believe that God has spoken to me.

I am able to share that with other people.

Because we need encouragement sometimes.

It is hard to walk a path that follows Jesus.

And Paul even says it, if what we have is for this life only,

we are the most to be pitied.

But these witnesses declare, it's not all we have because they've seen the resurrection of Jesus.

And as we grow closer and closer to Easter, I just want to encourage you to

take time and effort to grow closer to Jesus.

How can you witness about him? What would your testimony look like?

This is how we can be witnesses today.

Acts 1.8, Jesus tells his disciples, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and

Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

You will be my witnesses telling other people about me.

These witnesses declared it. so can we.

Let me pray. Father, I thank you for the examples of these witnesses.

I pray, Father, that you will raise us up.

To witness about you. So I pray, Father, that you give us eyes that see your activity in this world.

I pray, Father, that you give us ears to hear your activity in this world.

And I pray that you give us a heart and a mind that receives your activity in

this world to the point where we want to share it with other people.

Jesus, I pray for this all in your name. Amen.

Thank you again for joining us in the discussion of the resurrection of Jesus.

As we near Easter, it is an important topic to understand so that our own celebrations

of what the resurrection of Jesus means can be enhanced.

Next week, we will continue looking at 1 Corinthians 15 by studying bodily resurrection.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Have a great week.