1 Corinthians 15.1–22
The final talk in a series, The Man they Crucified, at Kalbarri Anglican Church 26th November 2023
Apart from Christmas, Easter, and Advent, I’ve never been much interested in the church year. In my first year at high school the minister of the local church came to teach Scripture. He drew milestones on the blackboard and gave us a lesson on the Christian seasons. I found it pointless and boring and asked my mother for a letter excusing me from Scripture. I used to go to the science lab and the teacher would give me extra experiments.
My eighteen months at Geraldton Cathedral made me a little interested. The Sunday that most appealed to me was the Sunday before Advent, the Feast of Christ the King, and today is it. It is a good instinct to end the year with a reminder of what it’s all about. Do you realize that the most powerful man in the world today is Jesus Christ. Yes, a man rules the world—the universe, in fact. Jesus came on a mission: he was born a human being, lived a human life, died, broke through death, and ascended to God, all so he could take the position of highest authority in the universe. A lot of Christians don’t understand this. They say, Jesus was God, how can you say he ascended to God? The point is, he is also now a human being. A man ascended to God. A man rules as king of the universe—and will forever—Jesus, the God-man. He gave us his Holy Spirit, and, when he has completed gathering of the citizens of his kingdom, he will return to the world, raise the dead, carry out the great judgement, and make God’s creation good again.
In these past eight talks, we have been looking at the life of Jesus. We need to be confident that his life lines up with what he claimed. If Jesus was not who he said, we are living in a madhouse. We shouldn’t kid ourselves there might be some other religion or philosophy that offers hope. Our only other prospect is to eat, drink, and be merry—if we can—and disappear into the night.
So let me come this morning to a dramatic moment in world history. The man who rode into Jerusalem last Monday claiming to be Israel’s king has been arrested and stands before the Jewish high court. Judaea was a Roman province, but the Romans interfered as little as possible in local politics. They appointed the High Priest, and his job, along with his Council, was to administer Jewish affairs and keep things peaceful. The Jews regarded him as God’s representative, and the Sanhedrin as both government, and highest court of appeal. Together they will give the final answer on the question that has gripped the nation for the past two years. Is Jesus God’s man, or an imposter?
Various charges were brought against him, and witnesses came forward. The problem was that the witnesses couldn’t agree. Did he say he would destroy the temple, or did he challenge them to do it? It wasn’t clear. Frustrated, the High Priest put the question to him. He shouldn’t have done that, but he did. “Are you the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the Blessed One?” (Mark 14) Jesus had said nothing up to this point; for most of his ministry he had avoided making a direct messianic claim. But now he broke his silence.
I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the Holy One and coming on the clouds of heaven.
Mark 14
Yes, he says, “I am the king promised by God through the prophets of old, I am the Son of God destined to sit on King David’s throne (2 Samuel 7), I am the King of Righteousness whom God will call to sit at his right hand and rule for him (Psalm 110), and I am the Son of Man to whom God will give authority over every nation (Daniel 7).” As I said last week, these are the words of a raving lunatic—unless he is speaking the truth.
What will the court decide? The High Priest tore his robe and shouted “Blasphemy,” and they condemned him to death. It was Friday, just before dawn. A plea of insanity was not considered. With the Roman governor’s help they had him on a cross by nine o’clock that morning, and he died about three. Albert Schweitzer concludes his famous book with the words, “On the fourteenth day of Nissan, when the Passover lambs were offered, Jesus died; he chose to remain conscious to the end.”[1] End of story—or it should have been.
The High Court had ruled him a sorcerer, who led Israel astray. God’s highest representative called him a blasphemer. The one who was meant to clear the country of Romans died at Roman hands; the people said he was obviously a fake. What’s more, he died by crucifixion. “Cursed is he who dies on a tree,” said the law of the Jews. He could not have been more disgraced or disqualified. There was no higher court of appeal—except to the great Judge himself, of course. Jesus last words were, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Jesus himself had called his approaching trial, “the judgement of this world.” (John 12) The world gave judgement on itself by killing the beloved Son, and God overruled the world’s verdict by raising from the dead.
The Western world has turned its back on all this: like the Jews that killed him, Western intelligentia has decided Jesus’ name is distasteful, and Christianity a bad thing—to be dismissed as “religion,” and “myth,” and “fairies at the bottom of the garden.” If it is untrue, it is the most brilliant piece of mythology ever conceived. But Jesus was a real person, and we know as much about his life as anyone you care to name in the ancient world. Who else had four biographers to tell his story when it was still red hot? I mean, the life of Muhammad was not written until 150 years after he died, and Gautama, the Buddha 500 years.
The first Gospel writer has hardly got to work, however, when Paul the missionary had reached Greece and was preaching Christ to the city of Corinth. It was about AD 50. There was a dramatic response, and a lot of people believed and formed a church. But four years later he had to write to correct a number of problems. Chief of these was a misunderstanding about the resurrection of the dead. Greek culture had a love-hate relationship with the physical world, and the idea of a body being brought to life was thought to be distasteful. All that mattered was the soul. Paul pointed out that if the physical body is not to be raised, then Christ had not been raised as his message claimed.
He starts by reminding them of this gospel.
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared …
1 Corinthians 15.1–4
The two things to note here are that salvation depends on believing this message, and the heart of the message is that Jesus died and came alive again.
We know his resurrection is no myth, says Paul, because “he appeared,” and he goes on to name some of those who saw him walking around after his very public execution.
He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
More than five hundred people saw him, most of whom were still alive when Paul wrote his letter. He mentions some of the prominent leaders, but makes no mention of the women mentioned in the Gospels, nor of Thomas, or Cleopas. He is only giving a sample of those who could vouch for the story. But he includes himself. He was the last person Jesus appeared to.
Atheists often dismiss Christianity by saying there is no proof. Atheism, they say, has evidence to support it, and they point to science. The truth is that Christianity has a lot of evidence to back it up, and atheism has none. The fact that we live in an orderly universe makes sense if God is real; it makes no sense otherwise. A recent New York Times bestseller by a prominent philosopher of science who has debated with most of the new atheists, looks at “three scientific discoveries that reveal the mind behind the universe.”[2] This is the book’s subtitle. They are the discovery that our universe had a beginning, the discovery of the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, and the discovery that the DNA molecule contains information in a computer-like code. Science doesn’t support atheism at all.
With Christianity, the main evidence is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As one professor said, “Whatever happened back there, it blew a hole in history the size of a resurrection.” People may not want to believe it, but the fact of more than five hundred witnesses is powerful evidence.
Just think about the witness of Paul as one. Here is an enemy of Christianity, who saw Jesus as a serious threat to his beloved Judaism, but then encountered him on his way to arrest Christians in Damascus. He became Christianity’s greatest defender. Listen to him reasoning with the Corinthians.
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised…
It is unthinkable to him that he would deliberately proclaim something he knew to be false!
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
It’s the certainty of Paul’s words that gets me—and not just here. This is a man who knew whether it was true or not—not like us, who believe because we have been taught, or have heard arguments. Paul knew what he had seen and heard; he knew if he was lying. He knew that if Jesus hadn’t come alive again, the whole of Christianity was a fraud, and people’s faith was pointless. But he knew for sure, because he was one of the many who had seen him alive. Being a Christian wasn’t easy for Paul, but he persisted, and carried his witness all the way to a Roman court and an execution he faced cheerfully, knowing that resurrection was real.
The Christian story that we have looked at these past eight weeks is no fiction, which means, among other things, that we are living in a world, which is shot through with meaning; it is not purposeless accident atheists would have us believe.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Death invaded the human race through our first ancestors, but there is a plan to eradicate it. The heart of that plan was a death so powerful that it would result in resurrection and a new world. Like the cannon which is fired—and we only await the fall and explosion of the shell. So is Jesus’ death, and we only wait for his return to save his people, and restore God’s creation to what he intends. This is the gospel Paul says saves us, if we hold it fast, and I urge us to do just that.
[1] The Quest of the Historical Jesus. This book is the origin of much of the skepticism of the last century.
[2] Stephen C. Meyer, Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries that Reveal the Mind Behand the Universe (New York: HarperCollins: 2021)