First Corinthians chapter 15 is our chapter, and I’m very, very thankful for the direction of the Spirit of God to look at this chapter. It is the great resurrection chapter. As you can see by a simple glance, it’s long. It runs for 58 verses, and by the time we’re done, we’ll have a great understanding of the wonder of resurrection.

Now, this chapter is not particularly about the resurrection of Christ - although that is foundational to the resurrection - it’s about your resurrection and my resurrection. So this is your future we’re talking about here. This is your story. This will happen to you. This is very personal. This looks ahead to what the Lord has prepared for them that love Him.

All of those who love Christ will rise from the dead. Those in the church will rise at the rapture of Christ. Those from the Old Testament and through the tribulation will rise at the resurrection of saints at the end of the tribulation, but we will all rise. We will be given glorified bodies. We will be persons, as we saw this morning, in the case of Moses and Elijah. This is the promise of the Word of God.

Christians don’t believe in reincarnation, some kind of endless cycle where you could come back as a human being or a bug. We don’t believe in annihilation, such as some religions teach. We don’t believe in soul sleep. We believe that after death, we will live. We will live as spirits, but we will be joined to our bodies, and forever we will be like Christ, an eternal spirit, living in a resurrected and eternal body. This is our hope.

This was very important to the people living in the ancient world, and that is why the apostle Paul addresses the subject because in the ancient world, there were all kinds of mockers when it came to this matter of resurrection because the ancient world (at least the Greek world) had become somewhat dualistic and believed that spirit was good and matter was bad and that the ultimate end of all people should be the complete deliverance from all things material so that you would end up as a floating spirit living in a spirit world.

We won’t take the time to go into all the details of that. If you’d like more information, read the 1 Corinthians 15 commentary and you’ll find all of those kinds of things indicated there. But the apostle Paul wants believers to know that contrary to what popular philosophy taught, there was going to be a resurrection.

Ancient philosophers even talked about the horrors of having to live in another body because the only way they could define a body was the kind of experience they were familiar with, and they longed to transcend the capacities of the body, the limitations of the body, the restraints of the body, and all the rest of the guilt that went with living as a corrupt person in a corrupt world. Liberation seemed to be the best possibility, the best hope for the future, and they would hope that that would happen and free them from the constraints which were so much a part of life in this world.

But Christianity teaches something very different than that in the message of the New Testament - and that message needed to be made clear to the Corinthians - is that you will live forever but you will not live as a disembodied spirit, you will live as a resurrected man, a resurrected woman. And so in the fifteenth chapter you have this very, very thorough, detailed presentation of resurrection.

Now, it all begins in the opening verses with a look at the gospel because our resurrection is based on Christ’s resurrection. It was Jesus, you remember, who said in a verse that for me is absolutely critical, “Because I live, you will live also.” His resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection. He is the firstfruits of those who slept. Philippians tells us we will have a body like unto His glorious body. And His was a body that could be touched, as we know in the case of Thomas. His was a body that could speak and socialize, as we saw with our Lord post-resurrection appearances to so many on so many occasions.

And so it is that the resurrection of Christ is the beginning point of a discussion of resurrection, but it’s the foundation, the rest to follow majors on our own resurrection. This is a glimpse at your glorious future. You ought to care about this because this is what you will receive from God.

Now, jumping right in, fifteenth chapter, Paul talks about the resurrection gospel. That’s the starting point. Let me read you the opening verses, down to verse 11. “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you which also you received, in which also you stand, in which also you are saved if you hold fast the Word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.”

And here it comes. “For I delivered to you as a of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas” - or Peter - “then to the twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

“For I’m the least of the apostles and not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

Here is collected testimony to the resurrection of Christ. This is absolutely critical. As I said, it is foundational. Paul begins by saying, “Now I make known to you, brethren.” This is an emphatic introduction and emphatic declaration. And what is he making known? The gospel - the gospel. “I literally,” he says here, “gospelized you which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved.” This is the starting point of any discussion about the future of our lives. It all starts with the gospel.

They had received it from Paul. He had given it to them. You remember he was the one that God used to go to Corinth and to preach the gospel. Back in chapter 4, verse 15, he says, “You may have countless paidagōgous” - pedagogical teachers, tutors, people who give you instruction - “but you do not have many fathers” - spiritual fathers - “for in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.” What he’s saying there is, “I was the one that the Lord used to bring the gospel, to give you life. You’re my spiritual children in that sense.”

“So we begin, brethren, our discussion of resurrection by starting at the point of the gospel which you received from me and in which also you stand,” perfect tense, you took your stand there, you still stand there. The implication is that you have received the gospel, and the gospel involves the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ; therefore, you already understand the importance, the foundational reality, of the resurrection. You took your stand on the gospel. You received it. You still hold to it. You still permanently stand on the gospel. You are saved.

You are being saved by your continuing faith in the gospel. That is a present tense. It is the gospel that continues to hold you, to give you salvation, and it is a gospel of resurrection. Now, this is true of you, and he throws this in because there were certainly some people in the Corinthian church who were not genuine believers. They were there, but they weren’t genuine. How do we know that? Because in 2 Corinthians 13:5, writing to the same church, he says, “Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith.” Paul knows what any pastor knows, that in the church there are people who are not believers.

“Test yourselves,” in that same verse. “See if you’re in the faith, or do you not recognize this about yourself, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test.” He understands that there have come into that church non-believers. They were the ones who probably initially gave a foothold to the false teachers who tore that church to shreds. The gospel, he says, has done all of this. It has saved you. You stand in it, unless you believed for nothing. Unless your faith was vain. And if you had a vain faith, an empty faith, you will not cling to the gospel.

Endurance is always a sign. This is what we call the perseverance of the saints. You believe the gospel. You receive the gospel. You stand in the gospel. And you hold fast to the Word of the gospel. So if you are among those who hold fast the Word (that being the gospel which I preached to you) and have not believed for nothing, then you already understand - this is the implication - the importance of the resurrection. The resurrection.

I think the initial event in Corinth in Acts 18 was a monumental event, one of the greatest revivals, one of the greatest evangelistic responses in the record of the book of Acts. Certainly there were people caught up in that who fall into the category of hard soil, rocky soil, or weedy soil, thorny soil, to borrow the picture of our Lord. Caught up in emotionalism, made a profession without really being saved. They believed literally without effect. Their faith is worthless. It is devil faith, to use James’ term. It is faith without commitment. There were those who weren’t clinging.

But there were those who were and they would endure, John 8, if you continue in my Word then you’re my mathētēs alethos, my real disciple. There were many, you know, who would follow Jesus. There were many who appeared interested in Jesus. Back in John 2, He said He didn’t commit Himself to them because He knew what was in their hearts. In chapter 6 of John’s gospel, there were many of His disciples who walked no more with Him, they turned their back and walked away.

But for those who hold fast, it is proof that their salvation is real. They are the doers of the Word and not the hearers. They are the ones who are genuine. And for them, there is an already committed faith in the resurrection. You believed, you received, you stand, you hold fast to the gospel as a true Christian. And that gospel, as he then says in verses 3 and 4, is a gospel that includes the resurrection.

So you, by virtue of being a Christian, believe already in an actual, physical, bodily, literal resurrection. This will distance you from the common crowd in a dualistic culture, in a culture of philosophers who disdained the idea of a physical resurrection, you stand apart. You, then, should have no problem believing in your own resurrection.

We have here, then, the first area of evidence for bodily resurrection and it is really saving faith. The first area of evidence is saving faith or, if you will, the testimony of the redeemed. If you’re a believer, a true believer, not a false one, not one who believes for nothing because it is a sub-saving faith, if you’re a true believer, you have by virtue of that true faith embraced a physical resurrection already.

Paul is trying to help them past this issue, which was up for such discussion in their culture. A crucified Messiah would be no Messiah at all. A Messiah left in the grave would be no Messiah at all. A Savior in the grave would be no Savior at all. It was the resurrection, Romans 1:4, which proclaimed Him to be the Son of God with power. There’s no power demonstrated on the cross; the power is demonstrated in the resurrection.

Kenneth Latourette, one of the great Christian history professors, says, “It was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted his followers out of the despair into which His death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation of the movement begun by Him. But for their profound belief that the crucified had risen from the dead, and that they had seen Him and talked with Him, the death of Jesus and even Jesus Himself would probably have been all but forgotten.” No resurrection, says Latourette, and you have a case for the disappearance of Jesus from historical records.

But He did rise and we believe in His resurrection, and salvation requires that. Romans 10:9 and 10, “If you confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” The church, then, the redeemed church is the first witness to bodily resurrection. We’re not having a discussion about whether there’s going to be a bodily resurrection - we know there is. To say that believers don’t have a bodily resurrection is to defy the very fact that is necessary to be saved and that is to believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ who lives that we may live.

Resurrection faith, by the way, is absolutely unique to Christianity. The original accounts of Buddha, which identify what Buddhism is, never ascribe to him any such thing as a resurrection. In fact, the earliest accounts of the death of Buddha in the documents indicated that he died with that, quote, “Utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains.” So long, Buddha.

Mohammed died on June 8, 632 A.D., at the age of 61 at Medina, and his tomb is annually visited by hundreds of thousands of Muslims. There has never been any indication by any of them of a resurrected Mohammed.

What sets the church apart is we are saved because we believe in a resurrected Christ. You watched those testimonies tonight in baptism. What did that Baptism symbolize? They were going down into the water because Romans 6 says they were buried with Him in baptism, spiritually speaking. They came out of the water because they have risen with Him in newness of life. It symbolizes our union with Christ in His death, in which He bore our sin, and His resurrection, in which He raised us to life.

So the first great testimony to bodily resurrection is the testimony of the true redeemed church, saved by faith in a risen Christ. The Corinthians already, then, believed in bodily resurrection. They shouldn’t have been influenced by those who denied it. But there’s more. There is the testimony of the scriptures - the testimony of the scriptures. Look at verses 3 and 4. “I delivered to you,” and you remember he had just said that, “I preached to you” in verse 1, “I preached to you” in verse 2.

It’s the same thing, goes back to that gospel, “I delivered to you as of first importance” - priority - “what I received.” He had received it by divine revelation. Look at Galatians 1, “I would have you know,” verse 11, “brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.” It didn’t come to me from a human source, I didn’t invent it, somebody else didn’t pass it on to me, “For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it.”

This is Paul looking back post-conversion, post-Damascus Road. “I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ for you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.

“But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I didn’t immediately consult with flesh and blood, I didn’t go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. I went away into Arabia,” - Nabatean Arabia - “and returned once more to Damascus.”

“I didn’t see” - verse 19 - any of the other apostles, except James, the Lord’s brother.” Nobody taught me this gospel, no man gave it to me. Just as God had reached down and snatched me on the Damascus Road and redeemed me, as you read about this morning, the Lord Himself taught me. This is what I have received from the Lord directly by revelation from Him.

He says the same thing in chapter 11, verse 23, “For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you,” and then he goes on to talk about the Last Supper. He wasn’t there, and I think when he was in those prolonged times down in Nabatean Arabia, he was getting his theology directly from heaven. The Lord was giving it to him, including giving him information about what happened on that last Passover night.

So he says, “I delivered to you as of first priority, first of all, the principal things, what I received. Here they were, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” Historical facts. The true great - the two greatest facts of the gospel, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ.

The resurrection of Christ, of course, depicted in the baptism; the death of Christ depicted in the communion. That Christ died for our sins, substitutionary atonement, died for our sins. That He was buried, proof that He was dead. And that He was raised, according to the scriptures.

According to the scriptures - what do you mean, according to the scriptures? New Testament scriptures? No, Old Testament scriptures. Twice he refers to the Old Testament, the holy writings. Did the holy writings of the Old Testament talk about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, yes, they did. Look at Luke 24. Luke 24:25, our Lord on the road to Emmaus with some of His woebegone followers who are in severe sadness because their Lord has been crucified.

And He said to them, verse 25, Luke 24, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary for the Christ, the Messiah, to suffer these things and to enter into His glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the scriptures.”

Some of it was direct prophecy, some of it was type. He could have started in Genesis 22 with the sacrifice of Isaac, a picture of a substitutionary atonement. He could have gone to Psalm 22 to describe the details of the crucifixion and the very words that Jesus said on the cross. Surely He could have gone to Isaiah 53 where you have the Lamb sacrificed for sinners, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of our peace falls on Him and by His stripes, we are healed.

And it doesn’t end there because God shows him the path of life through the death, out the other side to life. He could have gone to Psalm 16. Psalm 16 was the passage which Peter exposited. Peter, by the way, was an expository preacher. His first sermon on the Day of Pentecost was an exposition of Psalm 16. You know I favor expository preaching. Somebody said, “Every preacher should preach only expository preaching, except once a year, he should preach one topical sermon and then repent of it.”

Psalm 16 tells us, verse 10, “You will not abandon,” this is the prayer of the Messiah, the confident praise of the Messiah. “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life.” So you have the testimony of the church to the reality of a bodily resurrection. You have the testimony of the scriptures to the reality of a bodily resurrection.

The apostle Paul is giving the Corinthian believers and us a good, solid foundation for believing in resurrection. Added to that, thirdly, you have the testimony of eyewitnesses - the testimony of eyewitnesses. And verse 5 says, “He appeared to Cephas.” This is now beginning the very day of Christ’s resurrection. Paul records in chronological order a number of post-resurrection appearances of the risen Savior. Human courts, of course, have always based their functioning on the testimony of eyewitnesses, especially those who are intelligent, confident, trustworthy, sound of mind, possessing integrity. So Paul appears to those kinds of folks, those kinds of people.

Professor Thomas Arnold was the author of a famous three-volume history of Rome, appointed to the modern history chair at Oxford. He says this, writing way back in the nineteenth century, “The evidence for our Lord’s life and death and resurrection may be and often have been shown to be satisfactory. It is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece as carefully as every judge summing up a most important cause. I have myself done many times over, not to persuade others, but to satisfy myself.

“I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort to the understanding of a fair inquirer than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.” That’s a man who wrote a historic three-volume history of Rome.

Another writer said, “It is the best authenticated event in ancient history.” Paul gives us reasons why. Verse 5, “And He appeared.” We can stop right there. He appeared. What’s the best evidence that you’ve risen from the dead? Show up. He appeared. He was not merely the figment of their desire. It wasn’t a mass hallucination because they wanted it to happen. He appeared. We already read about His appearance on the road to Emmaus. We know about His appearance to Mary Magdalene and the other women at the tomb.

But Paul goes directly to the apostolic witnesses, the most formidable, credible witnesses of all. Cephas, or it’s the Aramaic word for rock, petros is the Greek word. You remember in Luke 24:34, Peter says, “He’s alive - He’s alive. He appeared to Simon,” the record says. How amazing that He first appeared to Peter because it was Peter who denied Him. There is in that appearance all kinds of forgiving love and grace. Jesus needed Peter for strategic ministry. Peter had wept out his heart for his defection.

He wanted to be restored. He wanted the Lord to know he loved Him. He said, “Read my mind, you know I love you,” John 21. Jesus came to him. He became an eyewitness of the resurrection. Then He appeared to the twelve, the official title, only by now they’re just eleven because Judas is gone by suicide. And the eleven went on to preach the resurrection. That’s their message. Read the book of Acts. They were all preachers of the resurrection.

When they were filling in the ranks, selecting someone to take the place of Judas in the book of Acts, it had to be someone who was an eyewitness of the resurrection. Verse 22 of Acts 1, beginning with the baptism of John until the day that he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection. They added, as you know, Mathias, and Mathias was another, filling up the twelve, who would give witness to the risen Christ.

And so you have further eyewitness testimony from these twelve apostles. And verse 6 says He appeared to more than five hundred brethren - five hundred, most likely in Galilee. Not just the apostles but others and a huge number of others. He appeared to them on one occasion, apparently, one time. This is not a mass hallucination. This is a real appearance. And the majority of them are still alive when this is written.

And by the way, 1 Corinthians was written before any of the four gospels that give the record of His resurrection. So they were giving witness to the resurrection before there was a written witness to the resurrection, although some of them had fallen asleep, some of them had died, the majority were alive.

Then in verse 7, he adds James, probably not the apostle James. There were two in the apostles: James, the son of Zebedee, the brother of John, and James, the son of Alphaeus. But this is likely James, the brother of our Lord. James, the brother of our Lord, who became kind of the leader of the Jerusalem church and convened the Jerusalem council. We know this is a wonderful reality because in John 7, it says, “His brothers didn’t believe in Him.”

In fact, according to Mark 3:21, they thought He was crazy. They wanted to go get Him out of the public because He was so crazy. But they came to believe in Him, and Jesus appeared to His brother, His half-brother, James. James had a personal post-resurrection meeting with his Savior and his brother.

Peter and James are unlikely witnesses because they were both deniers of Jesus. So two of His appearances were to men who had cruelly wounded Him by their unbelief and had been forgiven. Then He appeared to all the apostles and that’s just a sweep across - across all of them again, similar to the twelve. He appeared to the twelve in verse 5 and again it says He appeared to all the apostles. Probably appearing to the twelve is the immediate appearances after the resurrection. One on that Sunday night and again the next Sunday night.

But He appeared to all the apostles - probably refers to Acts 1 where it says He met with the apostles and instructed them concerning the kingdom of God for a period of forty days. This is plenty of eyewitness evidence. Think of the character of these witnesses. These are men who gave the world the highest teaching it has ever known. And these are men who held to that teaching and died for that teaching in the face of hatred and hostility and persecution.

This is not a little band of defeated cowards, squatting somewhere in an upper room one day and a few days later running out, disappearing in the crowd. These are people who literally preached this message until their lives were snuffed out, and they are credible. When the disciples, the apostles of Jesus, proclaimed the resurrection, they did so as eyewitnesses, and they did so with people who had contact with other eyewitnesses. There were five hundred, at least, floating around who had seen the risen Christ. Their testimony could be corroborated. It passes the limits of credibility to think that the early Christians manufactured the resurrection.

So the evidence mounts. If Paul could establish the bodily resurrection of Christ by the church, the faith that saves, the truly redeemed, by the testimony not only of the church but the testimony of the Scripture and the testimony of eyewitnesses, then he can establish that resurrection is a valid reality. That’s what he’s after. And this is a very complete argument.

Number four, the testimony of a special witness, verses 8 to 10. “And last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also, for I am the least of the apostles and am not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me didn’t prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

Here’s the unique testimony of Paul who also saw the resurrected Christ. He’s the writer, so this is firsthand. He’s the last one to see Him. He is the last one. Please notice that. And last of all, may I say to you that the last person our Lord ever appeared to was Paul - and He hasn’t made subsequent appearances to TV evangelists. Good word for those who keep claiming Jesus appears to them. After His ascension, He appeared only to Paul, on several occasions. And in vision form in the apocalypse, John saw him in a glorified form.

You need to be very suspicious - in fact, you need to discount all claims to Jesus’ appearances since He appeared to Paul. Peter says it this way. “Whom having not seen, you love,” 1 Peter 1:8.

Well, when did this happen? Last of all is one untimely born, born out of due time, ektrōmati, meaning a premature birth, an abnormal birth, out of the ordinary. Even used that word, by the way, to refer to an aborted fetus. To me, out of the ordinary, He appeared also. Paul calls himself a miscarriage. What’s he talking about? One who doesn’t come when he’s supposed to come - out of the normal, an untimely birth. And he is doing two things here. He’s saying, “I really don’t belong in the normal place of an apostle.”

And he may be also referring to the deformities of his own sinfulness. Paul, the abortion. He’s a humble man. He is a dead, vile, worthless piece of flesh in his own eyes because he’s a persecutor of the church, and the Lord appeared to him. First Corinthians 9:1, he says, “Have not I seen Christ our Lord?”

And he had other appearances of Christ. Acts 18. Acts 23, verse 9, is emphatic, “I,” “I.” This is pointing to the amazing condescension of Christ to come to him, “I am the least of the apostles, the absolute least, and not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.” He is out of time, he is unworthy, he is deformed by his own sinfulness, but he saw Christ. And it was all, according to verse 10, by the grace of God, strictly a sovereign act of unmerited love and forgiveness.

There’s no way this man would fabricate a resurrection. Right? Come on. Paul is a problem here. If you say, “Oh, well, all the five hundred and the other apostles, they just made it up.” How do you explain him? He is killing Christians. He is an unbeliever, a sinner, unworthy, an apostate, a Christ hater, and he’s just absolutely transformed. And he becomes a preacher of the risen Christ. There’s no explanation for that apart from the mighty work of God and the resurrection that Paul preached. He had no reason to preach if it weren’t true. We read it this morning, right? On the Damascus road, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you’re persecuting.”

So he says the grace of God toward him did not prove vain - did not prove vain because I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. I labored even more abundantly than all of them by Holy Spirit power. He was hard-working. Colossians 1 says that. That’s just a great testimony to his zeal. That verse is one of my favorites because it relates to ministry. He says, verse 29, “I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.”

How does the church’s greatest persecutor become the church’s greatest preacher, who labors more than others, more than all others in terms of the extent and impact of his ministry? By a vision of the risen Christ, personal encounter with Christ that repeated itself several times. He saw Him - he saw Him.

There’s a final word here. The testimony of the church, the testimony of the Scripture, the testimony of eyewitnesses, the testimony of a special witness, and then the testimony of a common message. If you’ve got this many people making something up, you’re going to have a hard time controlling the message. Wouldn’t you agree? Do we understand that? Do you know anything about a court of law? Do you know how hard it is to go into a court of law and try to pull off a fabricated defense when you have all kinds of people coming from all kinds of directions having to tell the same lie? That’s what lawyers destroy. It’s inconsistency that destroys the case.

But he has a great remark in verse 11, “Whether, then, it was I or they,” see the point? “Whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believe.” Whether it was the apostles or the associates of the apostles, whether it was the twelve or Paul, who comes later, whether it was the men and women who made up the five, the message was the same - the same. The uniformity of preaching and testimony about the resurrection. So we preach and so you believed the cross, the resurrection, they all had the same message. They were not all deceivers. They weren’t that clever to pull it off uniformly. That is a powerful evidence of His resurrection.

Well, that’s a starting point. Do you see verse 12? “Now, if Christ has preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead?” See his point? You don’t have a leg to stand on. How can you say that in a church, as a professed believer, that there’s no resurrection when your faith is based on a resurrection that is so perfectly attested to? That’s the evidence for the resurrection. And now next time, we’re going to look at verse 12, and we’re going to deal with those who would deny the resurrection of believers.

Well, it’s been a great day, right? Wonderful, rich day of fellowship and worship and study of the Word of God. Let’s bring it to an end with prayer.

Father, we thank you for the richness as again we’re exposed to your Word, of the depth of the pages of holy Scripture.

Thank you for the anointing that comes from heaven, even the Spirit of God, who teaches us all things.

Thank you for illumination. We thank you for the resurrection of Christ. We thank you for the living Christ. We thank you that because He lives, one day we will live also. We thank you that one day we’ll have a body like unto His glorious body.

Lord, we look forward to that glorious day. There’s nothing in this world that can even come close. There is no experience that can give us a taste of what it will be like. There is no examination that can do that. It can’t come experientially, intuitively, or empirically. All we know about it is what you reveal to us and still we can’t comprehend it. Eye has not seen nor has ear heard the things which the Lord has prepared for them that love Him.

We long for that day when we will enter into that resurrection glory and be like our risen Christ. May we be faithful to Him and to the truth of His resurrection. May we preach the cross and the resurrection so that others, such as those who gave testimony in the waters of baptism tonight, can come and do the same in the future.

Use us to be preachers of the gospel, preaching the same Christ, the same cross, the same resurrection, giving this uniform testimony to the world, that they may know that you live and that you have prepared a resurrection for those who love you.

Thank you. In Christ’s name. And everyone said: Amen.