If There Is No Resurrection of the Dead (1Corinthians 15:12-26)

If There Is No Resurrection of the Dead

 

1Corinthians 15:12-26

 

Today upon celebrating the life of Monet, I would like to talk with you about “the resurrection of the dead.” Long ago when I just became a believing Christian, my father opened the Bible in front of him and told me his story. According to what he said to me, when he was young, my father skimmed through the Bible partly out of curiosity and partly out of desire to get a clue to the truth. But when he encountered the story of Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection on the third day, he closed the Bible and stopped reading it. For my father at that time, resurrection of the dead was a sheer nonsense. Putting aside the Bible, my father wandered from religion to religion, from philosophy to philosophy. only after many years’ groping, he came back to the Bible, opened the Book, and read it again carefully. My father said to me, “Now I see that without the resurrection of Jesus, the Bible is not Bible, and Jesus is not Christ.” My father closed the Bible because of Jesus’ resurrection, and he came back to the Bible because of Jesus’ resurrection. The Gospel largely consists of two parts. one is that Jesus died on the cross, and the other is that Jesus rose again. If Jesus’ death is the root of the Gospel, his resurrection is its stem and fruit.

 

St. Paul preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Corinthian Church. 1Corithians 15:3-4 says, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” In the Gospel preached by Paul, resurrection was the heart of hearts. Then, some people in the church were saying that there was no resurrection of the dead. This was like a deadly poison to the faith of the Corinthian Christians who had received the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So against this lie, Paul earnestly testified that Jesus rose from the dead and we, who are in Christ, would also be raised again. In fact, it is not easy to testify to “resurrection” and to accept and believe it. Jesus’ resurrection is a historical event that actually happened. So some people tried to prove it using pieces of historical evidence, but such efforts are greatly limited in breaking down people’s disbelief. In order to believe Jesus’ resurrection and our resurrection in the future, we need to understand “God’s Truth of the Gospel” as a whole, and to look at Jesus’ resurrection from the truth. Then, we will not question “the resurrection of the dead” any longer.

 

There is a novel titled Elmer Gantry, which was written by Sinclair Lewis, the first American winner of Nobel Prize in Literature. The historical background of this novel was the early 1900s when the flying machine, which we call “airplane” today, was not invented yet. In this novel, there is an interesting dialogue between an old faculty member and the dean of a seminary. It is as follows:

 

Old Faculty Member: All the new vocations that are coming up. Medicine. Advertising. World just going it! I tell you, Dean, in another forty years, by 1943, men will be up in the air in flying machines, going maybe a hundred miles an hour!

Dean: "My dear fellow, if the Lord had meant men to fly, he’d have given us wings.

Old Faculty Member: "But there are prophecies in the Book.

Dean: "Those refer purely to spiritual and symbolic flying. No, no! Never does to oppose the clear purpose of the Bible, and I could dig you out a hundred texts that show unquestionably that the Lord intends us to stay right here on earth till that day when we shall be upraised in the body with him.

Old Faculty Member: Herumph! Maybe. Well, here’s my corner. Good night, Brother.

 

In the dialogue above, the old faculty member says that in the near future people will travel very fast using flying machines. But the dean denies this as an utter impossibility. It would be quite hard to imagine that machines of a gigantic steel body are flying in the air with many passengers on board as they actually do today. Now, however, air travel is “a natural and essential part” of people’s life. Now nobody questions, and nobody needs to prove if such a heavy iron body can fly in the air. This is also the case for “resurrection.” In the world that is confined in death and is ignorant of God’s truth, “resurrection” is a totally foreign word unintelligible and unimaginable. In God, however, resurrection is “a natural and essential part” of our lives.

 

Paul begins his testament with the conditional, “If there is no resurrection of the dead……” What would happen if there is no resurrection of the dead? In today’s passage, Paul presents three problems that may arise if one denies the resurrection of the dead. First, the Gospel of God preached by Paul becomes false. Second, we are still in our sins. And third, we don’t have the hope of the Heavenly Kingdom. All of these problems are so serious as to pull down the entire architecture of Christian faith. If there is no resurrection of the dead, everything goes futile and we should go back to the dark and dreadful dungeon of death where we had been trapped in the past.

 

If there is no resurrection of the dead, the Gospel of God preached by Paul becomes false. The heart of the Gospel preached by Paul is that “God raised Christ from the dead.” As He promised from the beginning of the human history (Genesis 3:15), God, through Jesus’ resurrection, destroyed the power of death and opened the way of life for us. Although it reaches the climax in Jesus Christ, “resurrection” is always the core theme throughout the Bible. “Resurrection” is the key device in revealing God’s powerfulness and faithfulness. Many men of faith, such as Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David and Daniel, experienced God’s raising from deadly and hopeless situations. That is, through “the resurrection of the dead,” God presents to us himself who is the Creator and the Savior. If there is no resurrection of the dead, God’s glory will fade away under the shadow of death. Along with this, all the testimonies on God in the Bible become false.

 

If there is no resurrection of the dead, we are still in our sins. In verse 16-17, Paul says, “If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” What we believe through the Gospel is that Jesus died for our sins. As Jesus redeemed us from our sins through his sacrifice on the cross, we are not “sinners” any longer. All our sins are forgiven. As we are not sinners, death cannot hold us as its prisoners. It is because death is “the wage of sin” (Romans 6:23). Romans 4:25 says, “He (Jesus) was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” Yes, he was. Without the resurrection of the dead, Jesus’ sacrifice and the forgiveness of our sins through the sacrifice don’t have any meaning to us. Without the resurrection of the dead, our life is all the same even with the invaluable offering of Jesus’ body as a ransom sacrifice.

 

If there is no resurrection of the dead, we don’t have the hope of the Heavenly Kingdom. Verse 18-19 says, “Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are pitied more than all men.” Death and resurrection is the only passage through which those in Christ enter the Heavenly Kingdom. If there is no resurrection, our passage to eternal life is closed, and our hope of the kingdom is lost. Even now, in fact, all our treasures are in heaven. Colossians 3:2-3 says, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Yes, our life is above in heaven. All of our precious valuables including our lives, we have already moved to heaven, and now we are waiting for the day when our body is also moved from earth to heaven. In this sense, if there is no resurrection, we Christians are the poorest and the most miserable in the world.

 

In order to understand resurrection and eternal life, we need to know what “death” truly means. Matthew 10:28 says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” According to this verse, there are two kinds of death. one is the death of body, and the other is the death of “body and soul,” namely, the whole being of the person. The death of body is that the soul is separated from the body and the body returns to dust. This is the death that we know. Another death is that the body and the soul are separated from God and thrown into hell. This is called “the second death” (Revelation 21:8). This is true death and the death that we should fear. In today’s passage, Paul calls the death of body “sleep,” and the dead “those who have fallen asleep.” And he declares, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” This is true and eternal life, and this is entering into eternal unity with God where there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4).

 

From the biblical perspective, we can divide people’s lives largely into two modes. one is “a life of running away in the fear of death,” and the other is “a life of running after the hope of resurrection.” The two look similar in that both are running hard, but in fact, the two modes of life are directly opposite to each other. The former is a life looking behind, and the latter is a life looking ahead. The former is a life bound to earth, and the latter is a life bound to heaven. The former is a life of flesh, and the letter is a life of spirit. The former never succeeds, and the latter never fails. The end of the former is death, and the end of the latter is resurrection and eternal life. Of course, the desirable mode of life is the latter, namely, the life of running after the hope of resurrection. Then, who can live such a life? It is “the dead.” only the dead can live in the hope of resurrection, and we are all dead in Christ in order to be raised with him.

 

For this memorial service for Monet, ICC minister Deb gave the title “Celebrating Monet’s Life.” This title is quite right for Monet who fell asleep for a short while with the hope of resurrection and also for us who died and are living only because of the hope of resurrection. Death is not an immovable truth. only God is the truth, and He gives us resurrection and eternal life in Christ. If we receive and believe the truth of God in the Bible as a whole, we will also live in His life. Then, we will realize that we have glorious future across the Jordan River where our friend Monet is now. May the Lord give us this faith of resurrection until our hearts are full of joy with our friends and our treasures above in heaven!!!