EASTER | Without It, There is No Hope

Without It, There is No Hope |  1 Corinthians 15:1-19Sine Qua Non. “Without something, something else won’t be possible.”
Warren Wiersbe “Corinth was a Greek city, and the Greeks did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.”
Warren Wiersbe “Most Greek philosophers considered the human body a prison, and they welcomed death as deliverance from that bondage.”
Is the resurrection of Jesus true?

3 Key Pieces of Evidence

Exhibit A – Salvation
1 Corinthians 15:1 “Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.” 

Key Point: The resurrection is the linchpin of the Gospel.

linchpin “something or someone that holds all the pieces of a complicated structure together.”

A dead Savior can’t save anybody.

Exhibit B – The Old Testament Scriptures

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”

Romans 6:10a “The death he died, he died to sin once for all;”

Psalm 16:10b “You will not allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.”

Acts 2:29-32 “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.”

Exhibit C – Jesus was seen by Numerous Witnesses

Paul’s list: Peter, The Disciples, James, 500+ brothers & sisters, Paul

All of the apostles were martyrs, except for John.

John R. W. Stott “Perhaps the transformation of the disciples of Jesus is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection.”

Adolf Harnack “The firm confidence of the disciples in Jesus, was rooted in the belief that he did not abide in death, but was raised by God.”

The reality if there is No Resurrection:

1. Jesus is still dead. (v13)
2. Preaching that Jesus rose from the dead is meaningless. (v14)
3. Our faith in Jesus would have no meaning. (v14)
   1 Corinthians 15:15 “More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.”
4. We are frauds when we testify about Jesus.
   1 Corinthians 15:17 “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
5. Our faith is futile.
6. There is no hope for those who have died believing that Jesus. (v18)
   1 Corinthians 15:19 “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” 
7. Everything that the early church went through would’ve been pointless. 

Key Point: The resurrection is the linchpin of the Gospel.

Did the resurrection really happen?

Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”