INTRODUCTION:
Throughout the centuries, men have tried to honor their heroes by building large and beautiful monuments. The great pyramids of Egypt were built as resting places for the Egyptian Pharaohs. The glistening Taj Mahal in India is the tomb of an Indian emperor and his favorite wife. There is Lenin’s tomb in Russia’s Red Square, and Mount Vernon is the site of President George Washington’s body. Jesus’ simple grave can’t compare with these costly tombs, but the grave of Jesus Christ excels all of these in the most important respect. It lies empty! He is not there! At the very heart of the Christian faith is the claim that Jesus Christ, on the third day, rose from the dead and is alive forevermore. No other world religion has dared to make such a claim about its founder.
Dr. Seamands, who was a missionary to India, tells of a Muslim who became a Christian in Africa. Some of his friends asked him, “Why have you become a Christian?” He answered, “Well, it’s like this. Suppose you were going down the road and suddenly the road forked in two directions, and you didn’t know which way to go, and there at the fork in the road were two men, one dead and the other one alive. Which one would you ask which way to go?” The answer to that question is obvious, isn’t it?
The most extensive treatment of the doctrine of the resurrection in all of Scripture is found here in I Corinthians 15. Verse 1 tells us that the doctrinal problem in the church at Corinth was not their disbelief in the resurrection of Christ. Their confusion was concerning their own resurrection from the dead. In verses 1-11 Paul reviews the evidence for Christ’s resurrection so that he could later show how their own hope for resurrection is tied to the fact of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Paul gives us five evidences here for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I. THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH (verses 1-2)
Paul’s first evidence for the resurrection of Christ is the Corinthian Church, the recipients of this letter. The fact that these Corinthian Christians had received the Gospel message, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and were living changed lives, is a strong evidence for the resurrection of Christ. Every group of believers across the face of the earth that meets together for worship is evidence that Jesus Christ is alive and is building His church.
Dr. George Sweeting, the former president and chancellor of the Moody Bible Institute, tells of an incident in the early 1920s when Communist leader Nikolai Bukharin was sent from Moscow to Kiev to address an anti-God rally. For an hour he abused and ridiculed the Christian faith until it seemed as if the whole structure of belief was in ruins. Then questions were invited. An orthodox priest rose and asked to speak. He turned, faced the people, and gave the Easter greeting: “He is risen!” Instantly, the assembly rose to its feet and the reply came back loud and clear. “He is risen indeed!” All that ridicule and abusive language by the Communist party leader didn’t change the people’s faith in the risen Christ one bit, did it?
II. THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES (verses 3-4)
The second evidence for the resurrection of Christ is the Old Testament Scriptures. In verses 3-4, Paul says, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He rose on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” What Scriptures? The Old Testament Scriptures, right? They clearly predicted Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. In Luke’s Gospel, chapter 24, Jesus used the Old Testament Scriptures to identify Himself as their risen Lord. For example, Luke 24:27 says, “And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He [Jesus] explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures”. That must have taken quite a while! Psalm 22:16-18 is one of the Scripture passages that prophesies Christ’s crucifixion, and Psalm 16:10 prophesies His resurrection. The prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 25:8, “He will swallow up death for all time.” We also have the testimony of the patriarch Job who said, in Job 19:25, “I know that my redeemer lives.”
III. THE TESTIMONY OF EYE-WITNESSES (verses 5-7)
The third evidence for the resurrection of Christ is the testimony of eye-witnesses of the resurrected Christ. The list given in verses 5-7 is not exhaustive, but includes those who were most prominent in the Church at that time. Peter is mentioned, as well as the twelve apostles, more than 500 brethren at one time and place, James, and all the apostles over a period of 40 days. None of these people were expecting a resurrection. The sheer number of these witnesses and the moral integrity of these witnesses validate their testimonies. To doubt the resurrection of Jesus, you would have to say that all of these witnesses were deceived or were deceivers. A prominent lawyer, Sir Edward Clarke, did a prolonged study of the resurrection of Christ. He said, “To me, the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court, I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly as compelling.”
IV. THE APOSTLE PAUL (verses 8-10)
The fourth evidence for the resurrection of Christ is the testimony of the writer himself: the apostle Paul. He refers to himself as “one untimely born”. He was too late to be one of the 12 apostles, and yet he was called by Christ to be the apostle to the Gentiles. What a turn-around in his life! What a testimony to the truth and power of Christ’s resurrection!
V. THE TESTIMONY OF A COMMON MESSAGE (verse 11)
The fifth evidence for the resurrection of Christ is found in verse 11. It’s the testimony of a common message. Without exception, the teaching and preaching of the New Testament church has been centered around the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. This message was declared as objective facts based on the testimony of eye-witnesses, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Millions of people in every century and every culture have testified to the life-changing power of the risen Christ.
As Vice President, George Bush represented the United States at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev’s wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed. She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest. There in the citadel of atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that Jesus Christ who died on the cross and rose again, might have mercy on her husband.
CONCLUSION:
But there is a sixth evidence that isn’t mentioned specifically in this passage of Scripture. That evidence is our own lives. Have you repented of your sins, turned your life over to Jesus Christ, and invited Him to be your Savior and Lord? If so, is your joy, your peace of mind and heart, and the power of the resurrected Christ obvious to those around you? If the answer is “yes”, then you are a living, visible evidence of the resurrection of Christ to the world around you. At the end of 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul closes with an exhortation to the Corinthian Church and to us today. He says, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
Let me close with a modern-day, true story that communicates the meaning of Easter. Little Philip, born with Down’s syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday school class with several eight-year-old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences. But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group, though not fully.
The Sunday after Easter, the teacher brought L’eggs pantyhose containers, the ones that look like large eggs. Each receiving one, the children were told to go outside on that lovely spring day, find some symbol of new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would share their new life symbols, opening the containers one by one in surprise fashion. After running about the Church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed the containers on the table. Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open them one by one. After each one, whether it was a flower, a butterfly, or a leaf, the class would ooh and ahh.
Then one was opened revealing nothing inside. The children exclaimed, “That’s stupid! That’s not fair! Somebody didn’t do their assignment!”
Philip spoke up. “That’s mine.”
“Philip, you don’t ever do things right!”, a student exclaimed. “There’s nothing there!”
“I did so do it.” Philip insisted. “I did do it. It’s empty! The tomb is empty!”
Silence followed. From then on, Philip became a full member of the class. He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off. At the funeral, the class of eight-year-olds marched up to the altar, not with flowers, but with their Sunday school teacher, each to lay on it an empty pantyhose egg.