The Resurrection Matters
Read: 1 Corinthians 15
A week ago we were celebrating Easter Sunday, and now we have moved on with our lives. The Christian year revolves around Christmas and Easter, and as I thought about Easter today, I could hardly believe we were already a week past it. And I have barely thought of it.
I could give you the song and dance about the craziness of the week, but does it really matter? This past week could have been utterly normal, and I would likely still be sitting here while I type marveling at how little I have considered the magnitude of Easter morning.
Christ’s resurrection is the very foundation of the gospel, of our faith. Without the resurrection we are fools and all we believe would be for nothing. The Corinthian church had its own issues in believing the resurrection, and the apostle Paul wrote, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). Well, no one can accuse Paul of mincing words, but he makes me think – do I actually understand the value of Christ’s resurrection?
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul relates the many who witnessed Christ after His resurrection: Peter, the twelve, over 500 people, James, and Paul himself. He further established for the Corinthian believers that many of these people were still alive (15:6) – they could verify with eyewitness accounts and not just take Paul at face value.
More than this even, Paul further establishes a logical argument based on the original sin of Adam and Eve. He writes, “For since death came through one man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man” (1 Cor 15:21). In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he explains this idea more when he says that “…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned” (Rom 5:12) and the consequences for this sin is death (6:23). Thus our guilt is thoroughly outlined – we are descended from the man who brought the first sin into our world and by doing so invited death, decay, and brokenness to an entire world. When God created Adam, he created a living being from the dust of the earth, and just as we share in Adam’s physical nature, we also share in his sin nature.
Yet this is not where the story ends.
Jesus came was born a human, died as a human, and was raised to life as more. He became the life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45) that would let us be reborn into a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). When we take our stand and place our faith in Christ and His saving grace, we become this new creation, and though we may not see it yet, we will enjoy a resurrected life with Christ upon His return. When the natural passes away, the spiritual and resurrected and incorruptible remain.
Death and sin have no more power in the resurrected Christ. Paul writes, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (1 Cor 15:56). Sin is brokenness leading to separation, and death separates as few things can in this world. Christ is not dead though. His sinless death fulfilled the old sacrificial law meaning it no longer held sway over us. We could approach God in a new way. Christ’s resurrected life means death is defeated in Christ, so we have hope.
We have hope for life after death. We have hope of reconciliation with God. We have hope for eternity with Christ. We have hope for life as we never could have imagined with Christ.
We are a week past Easter, and I am thinking the Christian calendar has it right to celebrate Easter for the 50 days following Resurrection Sunday. How could we not remember and celebrate this beautiful, miraculous gift of Christ’s for more than a few hours one Sunday morning? And how dare I ignore the magnitude of the resurrection?
