A Scriptural Basis for
the Resurrection
From Lesson 144
of the Biblical Framework Series
Charles Clough
Let’s go to some of the key texts of Scripture. Let’s go to the classic one, 1 Cor. 15. First we’ll do this and then we’ll touch on a
number of other passages.
1 Cor. 15:3, this is Paul, who got this message after Christ
rose from the dead. He wasn’t around the
tomb when Jesus rode from the dead, so either Paul got the doctrine of
resurrection indirectly through the apostles or on the Damascus Road when he
saw the Lord. But let’s think about this
in the light of modern man who argues that this is a spin, this is a spin
story. Now if it’s a spin story watch
what happens here in the 1 Cor. 15 text.
Look at verse 3, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I
also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” What Scriptures? What are the Scriptures here, New Testament
or Old Testament? The Old Testament.
Aha! So in what model, what categories
of thinking is Paul approaching the whole thing in? Old Testament. He says “according to the Scriptures,” we’re
not making this up, check the Scriptures.
We will later, it’s quite a challenge to see the resurrection in the Old
Testament, by the way, and it’s going to lead us to a very interesting view of
Scripture that the Lord Jesus had.
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also
received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” of course
here he’s talking about the death of Christ, and that’s clear in the Old
Testament Scripture, but the resurrection is also there, [4] “and that He was
buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the
Scriptures.” You know, it’s interesting
in the Old Testament, why do you suppose it says there’s going to be a
resurrection the third day. If you’ve
got a study Bible you can look at the key, but it’s an interesting passage and
it’s in Hosea; it involves quite a thoughtful reflection on the prophets and
what they say.
Verse 5, “and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the
twelve. [6] After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one
time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.” Now if Paul said that, what challenge do you
think is imbedded in verse 6 to his audience?
If they doubted Paul, and he said something like that, what is he daring
them to do? Go talk to them, they’re
still around, check it out, did I make up the story. So it’s an interesting appeal using evidence,
go check it out for yourself, he’s saying they’re not dead, go talk to
them. There are over five hundred of
these people walking around still that saw this happen.
Verse 7, “then He appeared to James, then to all the
apostles.” Now in verse 5, 6 and 7 he’s carefully witnessed to a sequence of
appearances, so not only… is it not saying He appeared to James and the
apostles and Cephas and the twelve, he says He appeared to Cephas, then to the
twelve, then to this person, then to that person. So not only is he claiming that these people
saw Jesus, but he says I know the sequence, boom, boom, boom. Does this sound credible? Does this sound like a spin story? Verse 8, “and last of all, as it were, to one
untimely born, He appeared to me also. [9] For I am the least of the apostles,
who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of
God.”
So now we have this resurrection, and he goes on and gives
this whole thing, and we’ll come back to this passage [blank spot] …that’s
something you want to watch carefully as we go to this text. You’ll hear it said by sloppy people, oh
well, that’s you know, in the ancient world lots of people believed in
resurrections. Excuse me! You won’t find
a true idea of the idea of the resurrection outside of the Bible. Resuscitation is not resurrection. Resuscitation you come back in your present
body to die again; resurrection your whole body disappears and is transformed
never to die again. Two different
things! And this, the resurrection, is
not common in the pagan world.
Verse 12, “Now if Christ is preached, that He has been
raised from the dead, how do some among you” by the way, that means the Church,
that’s not the people outside the Church, the people inside the Church, how
come among you in the Church you “say that there is no resurrection of the
dead?” [13] “But if there is no
resurrection of the dead,” and watch the logic, he says okay, let’s start with
your premise, there’s no resurrection of the dead, let’s see where that one leads,
“if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised,”
right. You can’t have a resurrection,
and that’s a general principle, then you can’t have a specific instance. So if there’s no resurrection, then Jesus
couldn’t have risen, [14] “and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching
is vain, and your faith also is vain.”
And now look what he says in verse 15, we covered this when
we were dealing with inerrancy, “Moreover we are even found to be false
witnesses of God, because we witnessed against God that He raised Christ, whom
He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.” This should sound a death null to this
story. Let’s think about this, the
Church spinning up a story. What is one
of the Ten Commandments? “Thou shalt not
bear false witness.” Do you know the
context of that commandment? By the way, why it was used, why does a society
need that? What happens in the
courtroom? When somebody is being
convicted and accused of a crime, and the jury has to sit and figure it out,
you’ve got to have truthfulness in the courtroom, or you get false
convictions. Or said another way, you
can’t apply ethics if you do not have an atmosphere of truth because you can’t
correctly identify the situation to apply the ethic too. That’s why there’s a
false witness claim in the Ten Commandments.
People always think of “thou shalt not murder,” etc., but the whole
court system of the Old Testament was grounded on this “thou shalt not bear
false witness.” You don’t substantiate a
false accusation against your neighbor, that’s what it’s saying. Or conversely, you don’t cover up the crime
of a neighbor. That’s the original side
of it.
So what is happening here, Paul goes back to the Ten
Commandments and he says look, if this is a spin story, I am violating the
ethical commandments of Judaism. And I
believe this is why God had the Jews be the custodians of the Bible, because
the Jews had centuries of experience.
Jews came through history with Torah; they came through history with a
sense of right and wrong, not like the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Assyrians
and the hotten-tots and everybody else.
The Jews had a [not sure of word] ground for century after century, they
knew what it meant to have integrity.
It’s not that they all had integrity, but at least they knew the
standard of integrity. So for them to
create a spin about something that God supposedly did and He didn’t do it,
that’s bearing false witness against whom?
Against God.
So any liberal today who’s saying the Church is spinning up
the story is accusing these people against their Judaic background of violating
one of the Ten Commandments. Try that on
your friends that say I believe the Bible errors and all. It has to be all or nothing; these guys are
putting their lives on the line and here it is; this is a classic
reference. 1 Cor. 15:15 is a classic
verse to come to because it shows you the mentality of the Apostles in the
middle of the warfare of the claims of the gospel. They were willing to say that if this is not
true, I am an imposter, I’ve violated the Ten Commandments, I bear false
witness against my God.
Verse 16, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ
has been raised; [17] and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is
worthless; you are still in your sins. [18] Then those also who have fallen
asleep in Christ have perished. [19] If we have only hoped in Christ in this
life [only] we are of all men most to be pitied.” Why do you suppose he said that? Think about that one. Here’s the resurrection, in eternity, and
here’s time and here’s death. Why does
he say that we, of all people, are to be pitied if that part of the message is
false? Why are we to be pitied? Because
what’s happening over here? We are not participating in all the goody things
that the world offers. Frankly many
times we’re not really enjoying ourselves because of the priorities of our
faith. We’re denying ourselves temporal fulfillments, and how foolish if the
whole message is wrong. And more
seriously, what he’s also saying by implication is that this life in eternity
is being shaped by what we’re doing now. We’re setting up what our lives are
going to look like in eternity, a very sobering thought, by what we’re obeying
and disobeying now.
Then he says later on, verse 32, he goes through this
argument several times, then he comes down, and put this one down along with
verse 15, this is another classic. “If
from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus,” in other words, if
I’m just spinning up a story, “I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus” could be
the crowds, it could be literal animals, whatever it is it’s the offense of the
gospel, etc. “what does it profit me? If
the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” The apostles weren’t stupid. So many people have this idea that these guys
were little kooky old men or something, wandering around in the ancient
world. They knew how to have fun; they
knew what was going on all over town.
Come on, these guys weren’t born yesterday. And they said look, if this
isn’t true, then hey, I join the crowd.
Do you know who’s to be pitied? The stupid fools who think it’s false and
like it. That’s why I’ve always said if
I wasn’t a fundamentalist Christian I’d be an atheist, I certainly wouldn’t be
a liberal, what an idiot. I like all the
good things of the Christian religion but I know it’s phony. Would you accept that in any other area of
your life? I like driving my crummy car,
I like going to my house that’s falling apart, it gives me a good feeling. I believe in this old religion that doesn’t
make sense, but I like it.
That’s the importance of the historicity claims of the
gospel and central to that is the historicity of the resurrection.
I want to go to John because John is supposed to be the
spooky Gospel writer, and in spite of all that look what he does in John 20,
this is that famous section that you sometimes hear on Easter, about doubting
Thomas. Verse 19, “When therefore it was
evening, on that day, the first day of the week,” notice the day of the week,
Sunday, “and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the
Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst,” how’d He get through, it says the
doors were shut. So He appears, “and
said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”
Verse 20, “And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and
His side,” to identify Himself, [The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw
the Lord. [21] Jesus therefore said to them again, ‘Peace be with you; as the
Father has sent Me, I also send you.’” Verse 24, “But Thomas, one of the
twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.”
Then verse 25, “The other disciples therefore were saying to
him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But Thomas said to them, ‘Unless I shall see in
His hands the imprint of the nails,” notice what Thomas wanted to do, I want to
“put my finger into the place of the nails, and [I want to] put my hand into
His side, I will not believe.” Do you
think His wounds were big enough? This
shows you how big the wounds were; put your finger right in the nail hole. I want to do that. I want to put my hand, my whole hand in His
side; these are big mortal wounds that the Lord had. But Thomas says I want to do that and if I
can’t, I won’t believe. So here’s the
empiricist. But Thomas has a good point here, and the Holy Spirit used Thomas
to teach the rest of the Church something about this resurrection body, that it
was not a disembodied spirit that appeared.
There’s something new about Jesus, He’s not a ghost. Verse 26, “And after eight days again His
disciples were inside, and Thomas with them.
Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and
said, ‘Peace be with you.’” Again notice the state of the doors, notice they’re
faithfully reported in verse 26, see these little details, the Gospel writers
put them in here. The doors were shut,
and all of a sudden He’s standing there in the middle of them.
Verse 27, “Then Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Reach here your
finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side;
and be not unbelieving, but believing.’”
Now if you had been Thomas and you were sitting there, besides getting
over the shock of suddenly He was here and you didn’t believe that He did these
kind of things, what would you have thought when He turned to you and quoted
what you had said when He wasn’t around, apparently. I think that’d about spook me out as much as
just seeing all of a sudden He appears in the room, now He’s telling me what I
said the other day. Gee, I’d better
watch what I say, He’s always listening.
[28, “Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”] He says touch Me, and then He challenges the
rest of the Church Age in verse 29, “[Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen
Me, have you believed?] Blessed are they
who did not see, and yet believed.” They
don’t have a chance to touch Me, but they believe, and we’re part of those that
are blessed for believing.