Resurrection 1 Cor 15:1-11

1 Cor 15:1-11

Paul says some pretty unambiguous words in 1 Corinthians 15- 

“If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. … If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (15:14, 19).

Paul is saying that Christianity can be proven false if this one point fails. Christianity stands on a main pillar. It that pillar is destroyed, then the whole complex of Christianity falls apart. Paul says that pillar is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Greek words for “the resurrection of the body” are anastasis nekron, which means “the sitting-up of the corpse”. The resurrection of Christ, according to the New Testament, is a very physical reality. The gospels tell us that the body was missing. We read there about the disciples touching Jesus and witnessing him eating. They seem to go out of their way to say that their experience of the risen Jesus was not a vision, and that Jesus was not a ghost. We are faced with the reality that the early Christians believed that their faith stood or fell on the basis of the physical resurrection of Jesus.

This seems to have become a question for some of the Corinthians. Some of their doubt may have come from the Greek philosophy that was popular at the time. They didn’t really have a problem with miracles. Their problem was that they didn’t see the body as being valuable beyond death. Physical reality wasn’t necessarily good. The philosopher Plato called the body “the soul’s tomb”. In Mediterranean culture at that time, especially among those sophisticated enough to know the Greek philosophers, it was very unfashionable and simple-minded to believe a crass reality like a bodily resurrection. It was much more sophisticated to believe that the spark of the soul would fly away from physical reality to the realm of pure ideas. … Paul, on the other hand, not only emphasized the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but elevated the bodies of believers. Paul insisted that the body is good, even if a place of temptation. For Paul, the body is a holy thing- the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). The body is the seed of something that is destined to live with God for ever. It will be the same and yet, transformed for life in eternity.

We can face a similar challenge. In our society we can have a very hard time believing in miracles in general. We are often presented with the false dichotomy that we have to choose either science or Christianity. The intellectually sophisticated in our culture might even look down on those who believe in miracles as being simple-minded, or unscientific.

So, having a problem with the physical resurrection of Jesus is not a new thing, even if the doubt has a different motivation.

How might we rationally believe in the bodily resurrection as modern people? Of course, there were no video cameras back then, so we don’t have that kind of proof. But we believe other things about that tie period. We believe Nero was emperor, for example. How can we be so confident if there was no video, or pictures? … We have to rely on a different kind of evidence. We have to rely on history. We have to rely on what was written down and the logical conclusion we can draw from those writings.

There are four historical facts that scholars tend not to consider controversial.

1. Jesus was buried
2. Jesus’ tomb was discovered to be empty
3. People reported seeing Jesus after his death
4. The disciples quickly began to believe strongly in the resurrection of Jesus 

If all of these are historical facts that are not disputed, then we need a historical explanation that accounts for all of these facts. So, for example, saying that the disciples were hallucinating when they saw Jesus after his crucifixion doesn’t explain the empty tomb. So, then they would have to say, well, maybe the disciples hallucinated, and someone stole the body. And that starts to get very complicated and unlikely because you have having to now explain why they were hallucinating and what the motivation was for stealing the body, and then you have to talk about the chances of those things happening at the same time and not getting found out.

There have been a number of theories presented over the years that try to explain what happened on that first Easter, but none of them has gained a very wide following among scholars.

The best explanation of those four historical facts seems to be that Jesus really bodily rose from the dead, but some have a very hard time accepting that and want to find alternative explanations.

First, Jesus was buried. That seems to be plain and accepted across all the appropriate documents. The Gospel of Mark might be dated as early as 7 years after the crucifixion. And Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians is dated around 54 AD. Scholars think Jesus was crucified sometime between 30 and 33AD. So that means the letter we are reading was written 21-24 years after Jesus died. Do you remember O.J. driving the white bronco? The time from now to then, well that's how much time had passed from Jesus' death to this letter we are reading today. That means that the people reading Paul’s letter could go talk to people who met Jesus and knew the events surrounding his death, who were telling these stories. And these are people who are dedicating their lives to Jesus and what he taught. The written accounts of Jesus’ burial are plain and simple and no one disputes them. They are uncontroversial.

Second, The tomb was discovered empty. A group of women seems to find it that way. I’ve said this before, but women at this time were not ideal witnesses. It wouldn’t be smart to use them as your witnesses to a controversial claim. Women were probably recorded as the first witnesses because they actually were the first witnesses. It is hard to see another motivation. This is a part of all the early reports. There are no early accounts disagreeing with this.

The authorities actually agreed that the tomb was empty, but they argued that the disciples must have stolen the body. If they could have produced the body of Jesus, that would have ended the story.

Thirdly, it is also uncontroversial that the early followers had experiences of Jesus following his death. Ed Sanders is a scholar at Duke University and he has said, 

"that Jesus followers, and later Paul, had resurrection experiences, is in my judgment, a fact. What gave rise to their experiences I do not know."

 There is agreement that he earliest followers believed they experienced Jesus.

There are a lot of people who experience a lot of different things, but that doesn’t mean their experiences match with reality. At one church I served I regularly met with a man who believed he could turn into a tiger. I don’t think his experience matched reality, but I hardly think that we can discount all our experiences because some people hallucinate.

Hallucination is usually a pretty individual experience. You might have 5 people all hallucinating on LSD in the same room, but they won’t be all seeing the same thing.

Paul gives a report of the witnesses to the resurrection in our letter. He says, 

[Jesus] “appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles” (1 Cor 14:5-7).

 If that was a hallucination, you would need multiple people seeing the same thing, and for that to happen a number of times.

Remember that this letter was written very early, so it’s not like there has been a lot of time for these stories to be embellished. People were still alive who could say if this was accurate or not. … They also didn’t describe what they saw as a vision or as a ghost. They described an embodied Jesus.

Fourthly, the last historical fact is that the followers of Jesus became bold in their faith. Their fearlessly proclaimed what they believed. They were open about stating that Jesus, who was killed as a criminal by both Rome and the Jewish authorities, was resurrected and alive again. This opened them to threat from these same authorities. And yet, instead of becoming afraid. They were bold. Their leader had died, and instead of their movement dying, it grew.

Jesus was buried; Jesus’ tomb was discovered to be empty; People reported seeing Jesus after his death; The disciples quickly began to believe strongly in the resurrection of Jesus. These are all historical facts accepted by those who work in this time of history. A theory is needed to logically explain all these facts, or we need to abandon doing history at all.

Paul says, 

“If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. … If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (15:14, 19).

 If the best explanation of these facts is that Jesus was bodily resurrected from the dead, then our faith is firmly grounded. AMEN