The Resurrection Gospel
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 24 March 2024
This is the great resurrection chapter. Now, this chapter is not particularly about the resurrection of Christ, although that is foundational to the resurrection. It’s about your resurrection and my resurrection. So this is your future we’re talking about here. This will happen to you and me. This is very personal. This looks ahead to what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him.
All of those who love Christ will rise from the dead. Those in the church will rise at the rapture of Christ. Those from the Old Testament and through the tribulation will rise at the resurrection of saints at the end of the tribulation, but we will all rise. We will be given glorified bodies. We will be persons as in the cases of Moses and Elijah. This is the promise of the Word of God.
Christians don’t believe in reincarnation, an endless cycle where you could come back as a human being or a bug. We don’t believe in annihilation that some religions teach. We don’t believe in soul sleep. We believe that after death, we will live. We will live as spirits, but we will be joined to our bodies, and forever we will be like Christ, an eternal spirit, living in a resurrected and eternal body.
This was important to the people living in the ancient world, and that is why Paul addresses the subject because there were many mockers when it came to resurrection. Because the Greek world had become dualistic and believed that spirit was good and matter was bad. The end of all people should be the deliverance from material, and you would be a spirit living in a spirit world.
But Paul wants believers to know that contrary to what popular philosophy taught, there was going to be a resurrection. Christianity teaches something very different than that in the New Testament, and that message needs to be made clear to the Corinthians. You will live forever but you will not live as a disembodied spirit, you will live as a resurrected man or a resurrected woman.
And in 1 Corinthians 15 you have this thorough, detailed presentation of resurrection. It all begins with a look at the gospel because our resurrection is based on Christ’s resurrection. It was Jesus, who said in a verse that is critical, “Because I live, you will live also.” His resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection. He is the first fruits of those people who died.
Philippians tells us we will have a body like His glorious body. And His was a body that could be touched, as we know in the case of Thomas. His was a body that could speak and socialize, as we saw with our Lord post-resurrection appearances to so many people on so many occasions. And so the resurrection of Christ is the foundation of a discussion of resurrection of all people.
For believers this is a glimpse at your glorious future. You ought to care about this because this is what you will receive from God. Let me read beginning at verses 1-11, “Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you.
Unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then He appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive.
But some have fallen asleep. 7 Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, He also appeared to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.
Yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether then, it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed.” Here is collected testimony to the resurrection of Christ. This is absolutely critical and it is foundational. Paul begins with an emphatic introduction and emphatic declaration. And what does he want to make clear? The gospel I preached to you, which you received.
You are being saved by your continuing faith in the gospel. That is a present tense. It is the gospel that continues to hold you, to give you salvation, and it is a gospel of resurrection. Now, this is true of you, and he throws this in because there were certainly some people in the Corinthian church who were not genuine believers. They were there, but they weren’t genuine.
He understands that there have come into that church non-believers. They were the ones who probably initially gave a foothold to the false teachers. The gospel, he says, has done all of this. It has saved you. You stand in it, unless you believed for nothing. Unless your faith was vain. And if you had a vain faith, an empty faith, you will not cling to the gospel. Endurance is always a sign.
This is what we call the perseverance of the saints. You believe the gospel. You stand in the gospel. And you hold fast to the Word of the gospel. So if you are among those who hold fast the Word (that being the gospel which I preached to you) and have not believed for nothing, then you already understand that this is the implication and the importance of the resurrection.
And for those who hold fast, it is proof that their salvation is real. They are the doers of the Word and not the hearers. They are the ones who are genuine. And for them, there is a committed faith in the resurrection. You believed, you received, and you hold fast to the gospel as a true Christian. And that gospel, as he then says in verses 3 and 4, is a gospel that includes the resurrection.
Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” The redeemed church is the first witness to bodily resurrection. To say that believers don’t have a bodily resurrection is to defy the very fact that is necessary to be saved and that is to believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ who lives so that we may live.
Resurrection faith is absolutely unique to Christianity. The accounts of Buddha, who identify what Buddhism is, never ascribe to him any such thing as a resurrection. Mohammed died on June 8, 632 A.D., at the age of 61 at Medina, and his tomb is annually visited by thousands of Muslims. There has never been any indication by any of them of a resurrected Mohammed.
What does Baptism symbolize? They were going in the water because Romans 6:4 says, “Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” It symbolizes our union with Christ in His death, in which He bore our sin, and His resurrection, in which He raised us to life.
Just as God had reached down and snatched me on the Damascus Road and redeemed me, the Lord Himself taught me. This is what I have received from the Lord directly by revelation from Him. He says the same thing in 1 Corinthians 11:23, “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.” When he was in Nabatean Arabia, he was getting his theology directly from God.
So Paul says, “I delivered to you as of first priority, first of all, the principal things, what I received. Here they were, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” They are historical facts. The two greatest facts of the gospel are the death of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The resurrection of Christ is depicted in the baptism; and the death of Christ is depicted in the communion. According to the scriptures, what do you mean? Twice He refers to the Old Testament. Luke 24:25-27 says, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into His glory?”
27 Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted for them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Psalm 22 describes the details of the crucifixion and the words that Jesus said on the cross. In Isaiah 53 you have the Lamb sacrificed for sinners, wounded for our transgressions, and by His stripes, we are healed. Peter’s first sermon on the Day of Pentecost was on Psalm 16.
Psalm 16:10 tells us, “You will not abandon My soul to Sheol nor will You allow your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to Me the path of life.” So you have the testimony of the church of a bodily resurrection. And you have the testimony of the scriptures to the reality of a bodily resurrection. And Paul is giving the Corinthian believers a foundation for believing in resurrection.
Added to that, thirdly, you have the testimony of eyewitnesses. And 1 Corinthians 15:5 says, “He appeared to Cephas.” This is now the very day of Christ’s resurrection. Paul records in chronological order a number of post-resurrection appearances of the risen Savior. Human courts, have always based their testimony of eyewitnesses, especially those who are trustworthy, and possessing integrity.
Paul gives us reasons why. Verse 5, “And He appeared.” What’s the best evidence that you’ve risen from the dead? He appeared. He was not merely the figment of their desire. It wasn’t a mass hallucination because they wanted it to happen. We already read about His appearance on the road to Emmaus. We know about His appearance to Mary Magdalene and the other women at the tomb.
But Paul goes directly to the apostolic witnesses, the most credible witnesses of all, which is Cephas. In Luke 24:34 Peter says, “He’s alive. How amazing that He first appeared to Peter because it was Peter who denied Him. There is in that appearance all kinds of forgiving love and grace. Jesus needed Peter for a strategic ministry. Peter had wept out his heart for his defection.
He wanted to be restored. He wanted the Lord to know he loved Him. He said, “Read my mind, You know I love you,” John 21. He became an eyewitness of the resurrection. Then He appeared to the twelve, only by now they’re just eleven because Judas is gone by suicide. And the eleven went on to preach the resurrection. Read the book of Acts. They were all preachers of the resurrection.
And verse 6 says He appeared to more than five hundred brethren, most likely in Galilee. Not just the apostles but others and a huge number of others. He appeared to them on one occasion, apparently one time. This is not a mass hallucination. This is a real appearance. And the majority of them are still alive when this was written. And 1 Corinthians was written before any of the four gospels.
Then in verse 7, he adds James, probably not the apostle James. There were two in the apostles: James, the son of Zebedee, the brother of John, and James, the son of Alphaeus. But this is likely James, the brother of our Lord who became the leader of the Jerusalem church and convened the Jerusalem council. We know this is a reality because in John 7, it says, “His brothers didn’t believe in Him.”
Peter and James are unlikely witnesses because they were both deniers of Jesus. So two of His appearances were to men who had wounded Him by their unbelief and had been forgiven. Then He appeared to all the apostles. Probably appearing to the twelve is the immediate appearances after the resurrection. One on that Sunday night and again on the next Sunday night.
This is not a little band of defeated cowards. These are people who literally preached this message until their lives were snuffed out. When the apostles of Jesus, proclaimed the resurrection, they did so as eyewitnesses, and they did so with people who had contact with other eyewitnesses. There were five hundred. Their testimony was corroborated. It passes the limits of credibility.
Number four, the testimony of Paul, verses 8 to 10. “And last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also, for I am the least of the apostles and am not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me didn’t prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
Here’s the unique testimony of Paul who also saw the resurrected Christ. He’s the writer, so this is firsthand. May I say to you that the last person our Lord ever appeared to was Paul. After His ascension, He appeared only to Paul, and on several occasions. And in vision form in the apocalypse. Acts 23:9 says, “I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.”
And he says in verse 11, “Whether then, it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed.” Whether it was the apostles or the associates of the apostles, whether it was the twelve or Paul, who comes later, whether it was the men and women who made up the five, the message was the same. So we preach and so you believed the cross, the resurrection, they all had the same message. Let us pray.