Tawa Baptist

The Consequence of Resurrection

Scripture: 1st Corinthians 15:12-20 & 29-34

Video Link: https://youtu.be/axBZHOQ-Bd0

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Logical consequences of resurrection
  • Moral (& practical) consequences of resurrection
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Imagine, if you can, a world without gravity. It would make life very difficult. Even if you managed to get to sleep on the floor, you would wake up on the ceiling. You wouldn’t be able to take a shower very well. Trying to keep your food down would be tricky and going to the toilet would be a nightmare.

But really, you wouldn’t be able to do any of those things because, without gravity, life as we know it would not exist. The earth would disintegrate. 

Today we continue our sermon series in 1st Corinthians 15. There were some in the church in Corinth who were saying there is no resurrection of the dead. In chapter 15 Paul corrects this mistaken thinking.

To say there is no resurrection of the dead is like saying there is no gravity. Without the resurrection of the dead the Christian faith disintegrates.

Last week we heard how the death and resurrection of Jesus is the heart of the gospel. In today’s passage, Paul invites us to imagine the consequences of denying the resurrection. From 1st Corinthians 15, verse 12, we read…  

12 Now, since our message is that Christ has been raised from death, how can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life? 13 If that is true, it means that Christ was not raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe. 15 More than that, we are shown to be lying about God, because we said that he raised Christ from death—but if it is true that the dead are not raised to life, then he did not raise Christ. 16 For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins. 18 It would also mean that the believers in Christ who have died are lost. 19 If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more,then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world. 20 But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.

29 Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the dead are not raised to life, why are those people being baptized for the dead?  30 And as for us—why would we run the risk of danger every hour? 31 My friends, I face death every day! The pride I have in you, in our life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord, makes me declare this. 32 If I have, as it were, fought “wild beasts” here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.” 33 Do not be fooled. “Bad companions ruin good character.” 34 Come back to your right senses and stop your sinful ways. I declare to your shame that some of you do not know God.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

The more observant among you may have noticed that part way through this reading we skipped from verse 20 to verse 29. We missed out eight verses. We will look at those eight verses next week. Our focus today is on the consequence of saying there is no resurrection of the dead.

Broadly speaking, verses 12-19 deal with the logical consequences of no resurrection and verses 29-34 deal with the moral & practical consequences. Let’s start with the logical consequences.

Logical consequences:

ACC have a series of TV advertisements which are aimed at preventing accidents. In one scenario a young man has the idea that he will jump from the top of a waterfall. Before he does though, he has a hmmm. He considers the consequences of jumping from a great height.

As he thinks it through he realises there is a serious risk that he will injure himself. Recovering from the injury would be a significant inconvenience to himself and his friends. With both his arms broken, who would wipe his bottom when he had to go to the toilet?

In verses 12-19 of 1st Corinthians 15, Paul gets his readers to have a hmmm; to think through the consequences of going along with the idea that there is no resurrection of the dead.

We could summarise the logic like this…

If you say there is no resurrection of the dead, then it logically follows that Jesus was not raised from the dead. And if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then the gospel message is false, our faith is based on a lie and our sins are not forgiven. Without the resurrection, Jesus died for nothing.

The main point here is that the integrity of the Christian faith rests on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Without a good foundation, the building collapses. Without the resurrection of the dead, the Christian faith collapses. If you remove a beating heart, the person dies. If you remove the resurrection of the dead, the Christian faith dies. Without gravity, the earth would disintegrate. Without resurrection, Christian faith disintegrates. 

Some of you may be wondering, how exactly does our forgiveness depend on Jesus’ death and resurrection?

Well, by raising Jesus from the dead God was vindicating Jesus. God was saying: I verify that Jesus was right and that he died for the sins of the world.

The resurrection of Jesus proves that Jesus did not die for nothing, that Jesus was true in what he taught about God. Logically, the resurrection of Jesus signals the triumph of love over hate, truth over falsehood, goodness over evil and life over death.  

Last Sunday we heard how the objective historical evidence for Jesus’ death and resurrection is very strong. I don’t need to rehearse that again today. Suffice to say, Paul can declare with confidence, in verse 20, But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.

Okay, so when we have a hmmm and think through the consequences of saying there is no resurrection of the dead, we can see logically that the Christian faith comes undone.

Hand in hand with denying the logical consequences of the resurrection, there are also some very real moral and practical consequences. The moral and practical consequences relate both to this life and the next.

Moral consequences:

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist who survived the concentration camps of the second world war. Viktor Frankl believed that life is the quest for meaning. Indeed, we are motivated by a hunger for meaning.

Viktor Frankl said: ‘When a person cannot find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.’

It is my observation that people search for meaning in all sorts of ways and are often disappointed. One of the things that gives a deeper (more satisfying) meaning to this life is the conviction that there is another life waiting for us beyond death. Because if this life is all there is, then death has the last word and if death has the last word then what’s the point?  All you are left with is hedonism, the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain.  

In verse 19 Paul makes the comment: If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more,then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world.

If we took this verse in isolation, we might misunderstand Paul to mean that the Christian faith is only good for the next life and is of no benefit for this life. But that’s not where Paul is going with this.

When it comes to being a follower of Jesus, there are costs and benefits in this life. One of the costs of being a Christian is that you can’t put your own pleasure ahead of everything else. For example, you can’t get drunk and you can’t sleep around. Nor can you lie, cheat and steal to get ahead in life. To make things even more difficult we are honour bound to forgive people when they wrong us.    

As it happens, following Jesus also comes with benefits. For example, because you don’t get drunk, you don’t suffer a hangover. Likewise, because you don’t sleep around, you avoid the shame and emotional trauma of cheap sex. Also, people are more inclined to trust you because you don’t lie, cheat and steal. What’s more, it is in forgiving others that we ourselves are forgiven and set free.

So, in many ways, living a Christian lifestyle is actually a morally and practically smart thing to do in this life. But again, that’s not where Paul is going with this.

Later, from verse 31, Paul goes on to say: My friends, I face death every day!… 32 If I have, as it were, fought “wild beasts” here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained?”

Paul is referring to the very real cost of being an apostle of Christ. When Paul says, I face death every day, he means he risks his life to preach the gospel every day. The “wild beasts” Paul fought in Ephesus are most likely the crowd that wanted to lynch him because his preaching of the gospel threatened the Ephesians’ false view of God and was bad for business.   

Paul suffered a great deal of hardship in the process of proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus. Why would he put himself through all of that suffering if he wasn’t convinced the resurrection is true? Paul found deep meaning through an encounter with the risen Jesus Christ. The meaning of Jesus’ resurrection sustained Paul as he suffered injustice for the sake of Christ.  

We are unlikely to suffer to the same degree that Paul did but we might sometimes face social rejection and misunderstanding for our beliefs. It would be fair to say that identifying as a Christian is not cool. The temptation to surrender our faith in the resurrection is strong in the materialistic society in which we live. But if we do that, we empty this life of its deeper meaning.

Paul continues in verse 32 saying: But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”

If there is no resurrection, then that means this life is all there is. And if this life is all there is, then you may as well party hard. It’s like Viktor Frankl said: ‘When a person cannot find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.’

Paul goes on to say in verse 33: Do not be fooled. “Bad companions ruin good character.”

Paul is quoting the ancient Greek playwright Menander. This is Paul’s equivalent of using a movie clip to illustrate the point. The point being, if you spend too much time in the company of people who say there is no resurrection you will end up living a dissolute, immoral lifestyle.

If you let go of your belief in the resurrection, you discard the deeper meaning of your life. And if you discard the deeper meaning of your life you become a danger to yourself and to others.

God wants us to be close with him in right relationship. Jesus’ death and resurrection enables intimacy with God in this life and the next. Intimacy with God is the deepest (most satisfying) meaning there is.

That last sentence, in verse 34, I declare to your shame that some of you do not know God, is interesting. Paul is drawing a connection between God’s character and the resurrection. The fact of the resurrection testifies to God’s goodness and power. If you say that God did not raise Jesus from the dead, then you are really saying sin and death are stronger than God’s love, which is an ignorant thing to say. The power of God’s love has no rivals.

Some of you might be thinking, what about verse 29? Well, I’m saving that for last. Verse 29 reads: Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the dead are not raised to life, why are those people being baptized for the dead?  

Baptism itself is a visual symbol of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Going under the waters of baptism represents the death of Jesus and the death of our old way of life. In the same vein, rising up out of the waters remembers Jesus’ resurrection and, at the same time, points forward to our own resurrection.

On the face of it, verse 29 seems to suggest there were people in the ancient church who were baptised on behalf of the dead. Maybe they had a friend or a family member who died before being baptised and so they went through the waters of baptism for them, to ensure their loved one’s eternal salvation.

Paul is not condoning this sort of thing. Far from it. Paul is simply pointing out the inconsistency in the Corinthians’ logic. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say there is no resurrection and then be baptised on behalf of the dead.

Having said that, experts over the centuries have come up with about 40 different ways of interpreting verse 29. I’m not going to take you through all 40 interpretations, but I will mention one alternative which seems sensible to me.

Being baptised for the dead might refer to those who are baptised and become Christians as a result of a Christian believer dying. Like when a non-Christian is baptised in the hope of being reunited with a loved one who has died. For example, a heathen husband gets baptised ‘for the sake of his believing wife’, so that he might be reunited with her in the resurrection. Or a dying mother wins her daughter with the appeal, ‘meet me in heaven’. [1]

When I was about 10, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. By the time they picked it up the cancer had spread to her liver. Nan lived with us for the last three months of her life.

During that time, we invited a faith healer to come and pray for my Nan. It was the early 80’s when NZ was in the midst of the charismatic renewal movement. The prayer did not result in my Nan’s physical healing. She still died of cancer but her death became the catalyst for our family to become Christians.    

We were not baptised for my Nan’s eternal salvation. Nan is saved through her own faith in Jesus. We were baptised as a sign of our conversion and in the hope that we would see my Nan again in the resurrection.

Who would you like to see again in the resurrection?

Conclusion:

Returning to the main point of our message today. What you believe about the resurrection has very real consequences. The resurrection is essential to the Christian faith. It is as essential as gravity is to the physical world. Christianity doesn’t have a lot of non-negotiables but the resurrection is one of them.    

As Paul says in Romans 10:9, If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Confessing with our mouths that ‘Jesus is Lord’ is not hard for most of us. Believing in our heart (in the core of our being) that God raised Jesus from the dead can be more difficult.

Intellectually, we may have no trouble accepting the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. Likewise, we can see logically how Jesus’ resurrection makes sense of the Christian faith. The resurrection of Jesus gives substance and meaning and integrity to our faith.

But intellectual agreement is not the same thing as heart commitment. Sometimes the seed of our belief in the resurrection sits just below the surface of the soil, it doesn’t go that deep. So there is a gap between what we say we believe and how we respond when our faith is tested.

Jesus told his disciples about his death and resurrection at least three times before it happened. But the reality of what Jesus was saying didn’t really penetrate the soil of their hearts at first. The disciples’ heart commitment to Jesus’ resurrection came after the fact; after they had been through the crucible of the cross. They saw Jesus’ resurrection in the rear vision mirror.  

It is the same for us. Normally we have to go through the crucible of unjust suffering, or face the death of someone we love dearly, before the reality of resurrection takes root in our heart.

In the book of Job, possibly one of the oldest books in the Bible, Job says this while he is suffering great injustice: 25 I know that my redeemerlives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yetin my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within!

Job found meaning in his life, in the face of unjust suffering, by believing in a bodily resurrection. Job believed that even after death he would see God who would redeem his suffering and make sense of it all.

That yearning in your heart that no words can describe. That deep sense of dissatisfaction you feel with the way the world is, that no amount of entertainment or pleasure can numb. That is the desire for resurrection, for eternity, for intimacy with God. It is a desire only God can satisfy.  

Over the years I have sat at the beside of a number of Godly people as they passed from this world to the next. There is a calmness, a peace, an acceptance, an absence of fear, even a curiosity, in the spirit of these men and women of faith that shows me the resurrection is real.    

The journey to deep, heart-felt belief in the resurrection of Jesus can take a life time. Don’t worry. God’s grace is sufficient for you. He will get you there in the end if you hold to Christ.     

May God’s Spirit grant you the grace and strength you need for the journey. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Why is the resurrection essential to the Christian faith? What are the logical consequences of saying there is no resurrection of the dead? 
  • Why did God raise Jesus from the dead? What does the resurrection of Jesus prove?
  • Discuss / reflect on Viktor Frankl’s thought: ‘When a person cannot find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.’ What does he mean? Do you agree or disagree? How do you find meaning for your own life in this world?
  • What are some of the costs and benefits (for you personally) of living a Christian lifestyle? Why are you a Christian? (Or, if you do not have faith in Jesus, why are you not a Christian?)
  • Has your belief in the resurrection been tested? If so, how? And what did you learn?
  • Who do you look forward to seeing in the resurrection?          

[1] Kenneth Bailey, ‘Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes’, page 450.

Tawa Baptist

The Gospel

Scripture: 1st Corinthians 15:1-11

Video Link: https://youtu.be/USnGS04z94s

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The heart of the gospel
  • The truth of the gospel
  • The grace of the gospel
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Some years ago our washing machine stopped working mid cycle, full of water and clothes. I got the repair person to come and take a look.

Turns out there was a hair clip trapped in the water pump. (Not my hair clip, by the way.) I watched to see how he unblocked it and then, the next time a hair clip went through the wash, I was able to fix it myself. (Even when you check pockets, things still find their way into places they shouldn’t.)

Although it was frustrating at the time, if the water pump hadn’t become blocked, I would never have learned how the washing machine worked much less how to remedy a blockage. Problems and mistakes usually provide a learning opportunity.

This morning we begin a new sermon series based on 1st Corinthians 15. Not the whole of Corinthians, just chapter 15. First Corinthians is a letter written by the apostle Paul to the church in ancient Corinth, which is in Greece.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul addresses a number of problems in the church. For example, some people were saying there was no resurrection of the dead, which is sort of the equivalent of a blocked water pump in your washing machine. It basically stalls faith, stops the flow of hope and kills joy. 

In chapter 15, Paul shows us the inner workings of his theology of resurrection. He pulls apart the Corinthians’ thinking, clears the blockage and puts things back together again.

As frustrating as it must have been for Paul to have to correct this breakdown, being able to read how Paul addressed the issue provides a learning opportunity for us. It shows us how to fix the same problem.   

First Corinthians 15 is over 50 verses long, so the plan is to look at this chapter in smaller pieces during the weeks leading up to Pentecost. This morning we cover the first 11 verses, in which Paul writes about the gospel. From 1st Corinthians 15, verse 1 we read… 

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. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 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, 5 and that he appeared to Peter,and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

As I mentioned before, the main theme of these verses is the gospel. Gospel is a word which simply means ‘good news’. The gospel of Jesus is the good news about Jesus Christ. In today’s message we consider the heart of the gospel, the truth of the gospel and the grace of the gospel.

The heart of the gospel:

When we talk about the heart of something we are normally referring to the core of the matter, the most important part, that aspect upon which life depends.

Paul gives us the heart of the gospel in verses 3-5. Essentially, Christ died for our sins and was raised on the third day. The death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah, is the heart of the gospel.

So what does Paul mean when he says, ‘Christ died for our sins’?

Well, there is a mystery to what Jesus accomplished in dying on the cross. So we need to approach these words with a good measure of humility.

Some people think solely in terms of punishment. For them the phrase, ‘Christ died for our sins’, means that God punished Jesus for our sins. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it makes God out to be a monster.

If you have two children and one of them does something bad and the other does something good, you don’t punish the one who did good as a substitute for the one who did bad. That would be child abuse.

In fact, as a loving parent, you are probably not thinking about punishment at all. You are more likely thinking about how best to teach your child the right way. In other words, how can I redeem this situation?

The main emphasis with this idea that ‘Christ died for our sins’ is redemption. Jesus died on the cross for our salvation. The cross is really God’s way of showing his love for us, so we can be close to him.

Kenneth Bailey uses Jesus’ parable of the good shepherd and the lost sheep to explain. When a sheep goes astray the good shepherd acts out of love for the sheep. He goes looking for the sheep and when he finds it, he brings it home so the life of the sheep is redeemed.

The shepherd does not say to himself, ‘The lost sheep has wandered five miles off the beaten track, so I must hike five miles through the bush to pay for the sheep’s mistakes’. No, what would be the point of that? The sheep would still be lost and the shepherd would be tired. When it comes to ‘Christ dying for our sins’, the focus is on the rescue, not the penalty. [1]

Or to put it another way, if we think of sin as a grenade. When we pull the pin of the grenade (when we sin), Jesus is the one who smoothers the grenade with his own body to shield us from the shrapnel. By going to the cross to die for our sins, Jesus was falling on the grenade to save us. Jesus was taking our sin upon himself so that when he died our sin died with him.

With the cross of Christ, the emphasis is on redemption, not punishment. If we put the emphasis on punishment, we end up with a warped idea of God; a God who is graceless and unfair and just waiting for us to slip up. Belief in a God like that is not sustainable.     

There’s an old Star Trek movie (called The Wrath of Khan) in which the Star-ship Enterprise is having engine problems. The core reactor is melting down and needs to be fixed before the whole ship explodes. Spock enters the reactor and fixes the problem but, in doing so, he is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation and dies. Spock gives his life to save the ship and its crew.

Jesus dying for our sins is a bit like that. Our sin is causing the whole of creation to melt down. Jesus’ going to the cross is like Spock going into the reactor to fix the problem. In the process of saving us and redeeming creation, Jesus dies.  

The writers of the Star Trek movies must have been reading the gospels because in the very next movie, Spock is resurrected. 

After Jesus had died on the cross for our sins and been buried, God raised Jesus to eternal life on the third day. That is the heart of the gospel. What about the truth of the gospel?

The truth of the gospel:

There are two kinds of truth: objective truth and subjective truth. Objective truth describes reality as it actually is, without bias from an individual. While subjective truth is reality as it is perceived or experienced by the individual.

For example, ‘the sun rises in the East’, is objective truth. That is true, irrespective of what you personally think or feel about sunrises. Whereas, ‘the sunrise is beautiful’, is subjective truth. Some people find a sunrise beautiful and others could take it or leave it; they would rather sleep in.

The good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection is objectively true and, for Christians at least, also subjectively true.

In verses 5-8 Paul gives evidence for the objective truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The risen Jesus appeared to Peter, to all the apostles (including James), to 500 others at one time and then later to Paul himself.

Paul was probably writing to the Corinthians about 20 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. So most of the original eye witnesses were still alive and therefore could provide objective testimony to confirm Jesus’ resurrection.

We know these witnesses were telling the truth because they were prepared to give their lives in testifying to the fact that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Their encounter with the risen Jesus was stronger than death itself. Indeed, the apostles were not afraid of death because they had seen first-hand how Jesus had conquered death.

Paul talks about those eyewitnesses who have died as having ‘fallen asleep’. That’s the difference the resurrection of Jesus makes. For the Christian believer, physical death is not ‘good bye forever’. Rather, physical death is simply, ‘goodnight my love, I will see you in the morning’.

Given the diverse number of witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, plus their level of commitment to what they had witnessed and the closeness of the written record to the actual events, the objective historical evidence for Jesus’ death and resurrection is very strong. 

In verses 3 & 4 Paul offers the witness of the Old Testament as further evidence to support the facts of the gospel. These things did not happen at random. They happened according to God’s plan.    

But is the witness of Scripture objective truth or subjective truth? It’s both and.

Personal experience is the lens through which we interpret the Scriptures. The early Christians who had actually witnessed Jesus’ death and met the risen Jesus, could see how the Old Testament foretold these things because their personal experience gave them the insight to recognise it.

In talking about objective and subjective truth, it’s not that one is more valid or more important than the other. When it comes to the gospel, both are needed. If we don’t receive and believe in the truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection subjectively, for ourselves, then it won’t become a source of hope or joy or comfort for us personally.

Imagine you are out on the open sea. The boat you are in is sinking fast. Then along comes another boat. The captain of the other boat can see you are in trouble and asks if you want to come on board his boat. The rescue boat doesn’t look that flash but at least it is not leaking.

Both boats and the ocean are objectively real. Whereas, how you personally feel about the situation is subjectively real. Two people on the same sinking ship might be experiencing quite different emotions. One might be in a state of happy denial and the other might be frightened for their life.

Subjective truth matters a great deal because how you personally feel about the situation influences your decision. The objective truth is that if you don’t climb aboard the rescue boat you will drown.

In verses 1 & 2, Paul reminds the Corinthians that they did in fact receive the gospel he had preached to them and that they have taken their stand on the truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection and furthermore that they are being saved by the gospel.

The gospel is like the rescue boat and Jesus is the captain. The gospel may not appear that flash at first but it is objectively true, it does not leak. What’s more, the Corinthians have accepted the gospel as subjectively true for them. They have taken their stand in the boat of the gospel and it is saving them. To change their mind and jump out of the boat would only result in their death.

The grace of the gospel:

Okay, so the heart of the gospel is Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gospel is objectively true but it also needs to be subjectively true for us personally, if we are to be saved.

Jesus embodies the truth; he is the truth. Jesus also embodies the grace of God. With Jesus, truth and grace go together. Let’s consider then the grace of the gospel.

Grace means gift. Grace is not an entitlement, like wages or the repayment of a loan. It is not earned or owed. Grace is undeserved goodness. Or, to borrow a phrase from years gone by, grace is unmerited favour.  

In verses 5-8, Paul mentions three people by name whom the risen Jesus appeared to: Peter, James and Paul. The curious thing here is that Paul does not mention Mary Magdalene or any of the female disciples by name.

The gospels of Matthew, Mark & John all tell us that Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene on Easter morning. So why does Paul leave Mary out?

Well, we can’t know for sure. Perhaps Paul was only naming individuals that the Corinthians knew and they didn’t happen to know Mary, whereas they did know Peter, James and Paul.

What we can say is that Peter, James and Paul were shown special grace by the risen Jesus. Peter denied knowing Jesus and yet the risen Christ restored Peter asking him to ‘feed my lambs’.

Likewise, if the ‘James’ Paul is referring to here is the biological half-brother of Jesus, then Jesus was reaching out in grace to James. Jesus’ brothers did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah; they all thought he was mad. Seeing the objective truth of the risen Jesus changed James’ mind.

And then there is Paul, who says of himself in verses 8 & 9…

8 and last of all he [Jesus] appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

The risen Christ appeared to Paul, on the road to Damascus, even as Paul was on a mission to kill the followers of Jesus. In his grace, the Lord gave Paul the gift of a new perspective and a whole new mission. Paul’s response to Jesus’ grace was to obey the Lord in faith.

The phrase in verse 8, abnormally born, translates more literally as ‘miscarriage’ or ‘abortion’. It’s a term of verbal abuse. Perhaps Paul was ridiculed by his critics as an ‘abortion’ of a man?

Paul graciously endures the insult and turns it into something positive, for God’s glory. Paul says in verse 10…  

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.            

One way to understand Paul’s thought here is like this: Yes, my work before I met the risen Jesus was a lifeless abortion. My attempts to please God by persecuting Christians were a miscarriage. But, by God’s grace, my work since encountering the risen Christ has been fruitful and life-giving. [2]     

We are talking about the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The grace of Jesus is greater than Peter’s denial, more real than James’ disbelief and more powerful than Paul’s persecution. The objective historical truth is that the grace of the risen Jesus is greater than human sin. 

One other thing we observe about grace. Notice how Paul says (at the end of verse 10), I worked harder than all of them – yet not I but the grace of God that was with me. Paul thought of God’s grace as a co-worker, someone working with him, alongside him. What a beautiful idea.

Have you ever felt like you’ve let God down? That might be your subjective truth (your internal reality) but it is not the objective truth. The objective truth is that you cannot let God down. You are not actually supporting God. God is supporting you, by his grace.   

When we serve the Lord we are not alone. God’s grace is working with us. Yes, we want to give our best but more often than not even our best will fall short. That’s okay. We don’t need to beat ourselves up. God’s grace is sufficient for us. God will see to it that his purpose prevails.

As you start the week, try to imagine God’s grace as a co-worker, supporting you, working with you as you serve God in your home, in your place of work and in the community.   

Conclusion: 

The heart of the gospel is Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gospel is objectively true but it also needs to be subjectively true, if we are to be saved. It is the grace of the risen Jesus which makes the truth of the gospel real for us.

May God’s Spirit of grace and truth make the resurrection of Jesus real for you and me, personally. Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • Can you think of a time when a problem or mistake created a valuable learning opportunity for you? What happened? What did you learn?
  • What is the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
  • How do we know the gospel about Jesus (his death & resurrection) is objectively true?
  • Discuss / reflect on the phrase, “Christ died for our sins”. What does this mean? Why is it important to emphasise redemption (rather than punishment) when thinking about what Jesus accomplished on the cross?
  • What difference does the death and resurrection of Jesus make for you personally?
  • What practical things can you do to remind yourself that God’s grace is a co-worker, supporting you and working with you as you serve God’s purpose in your home, in your place of work and in the community. 

[1][1] Kenneth Bailey, ‘Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes’, page 432.

[2] Refer James Moffatt’s commentary on 1st Corinthians, page 239.