SUMBER KRISTEN: KOTBAH BAHASA INGGRIS
melayani jemaat dan hamba Tuhan
melayani jemaat dan hamba Tuhan
The story is told of an indoctrination meeting that was held
in the Soviet Union before the fall of communism. The communist
lecturer was addressing a large audience. He paused, then summed
up his talk as the people listened fearfully: "In conclusion,
there is no God. Jesus Christ never existed. There is no such
thing as the Holy Spirit. The church is an oppressive institution,
and anyway, the church is out of date. The future belongs to the
state, and the state is in the hands of the Communist Party."
He was about to sit down, when an old Russian Orthodox priest,
seated near the front, stood up. "May I say three words?"
he asked.
The lecturer disdainfully gave him permission.
The old priest turned and looked over the crowd. He pulled himself
to his full height and shouted,
"Christ is risen!"
There was a momentary pause, and then the crowd thundered back,
"HE IS RISEN INDEED!"
They had been confessing it every Easter for a thousand years,
so why should they stop now?
But what if that old priest and the Russian people at that indoctrination
meeting were deluding themselves with religious wishful thinking?
What if we're all whistling in the dark? What if the scriptural
records on which we base our faith are only myths and legends?
Every generation of believers in Jesus Christ for the last two
thousand years has had to wrestle with these issues. In 1 Corinthians
15:1-11 (Discovery Paper 4535) we looked
at the struggles of the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth
living some twenty years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and we surveyed the influence of their philosophical culture on
their understanding of life and death. Remember, Greek philosophy
did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. We discovered
that some of the Corinthian Christians were much more pagan in
their thinking than they were Biblical. They were afraid of being
disembodied souls or spirits after death because they had not
embraced the Christian conviction that human beings will experience
resurrection to eternal life.
Denying the reality of bodily resurrection remains a central problem
for our own culture today. Atheism rejects even the possibility
of the existence of supernatural power, often claiming support
in the findings of modern science. Some historians have proposed
alternatives to Christ's bodily resurrection: the swoon theory,
the stolen-body theory, the wrong-tomb theory. There is a theory
that all the eyewitnesses, even the "more than five hundred"
who saw the risen Jesus at one time, were just experiencing mass
hallucination or hysteria. Christian liberalism suggests that
resurrection language expresses theological truth in mythological
garb, and that the disciples had some kind of subjective experience
of faith that was transformed over time into the Biblical narratives
that claim to describe more objective realities.
Now as we come to 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, the apostle Paul continues
to address the Corinthians' confusion and our own modern struggle
by proclaiming the absolute reality of Christ's bodily resurrection.
He reinforces the central fact of the Christian faith as the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. If it all had ended on the cross,
there would be no good news to share, no bold church that would
bear witness, no New Testament to teach and to preach, no hope
for real life here or in the hereafter. Paul argues convincingly
that it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the resurrection
to our faith.
THE LOGIC OF RESURRECTION
In verse 12 we see that these Corinthian Christians did believe that Jesus Christ had been resurrected, but some of them were denying the general truth of the resurrection.
Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
Paul established the fact that Christ had been resurrected
in verses 3-8. The Corinthian Christians could not deny it. There
was far too much evidence. Almost five hundred people who were
still alive had seen the resurrected Christ; the Corinthians could
go check with those people for verification. The Corinthians,
Paul said, had accepted the fact. In verse 1 he spoke of "the
gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which
also you stand, by which also you are saved." Then in verse
11: "So we preach and so you believed." He was saying
to these Corinthian Christians, "You received the truth,
you believed it, it radically transformed your life, and now you're
grounded in that reality."
In light of the fact that they believed that, the question he
asks in verse 12 is central. Listen to how Eugene Peterson paraphrases
it in The Message:
"Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection?" (1)
They were denying that we individually, like Jesus Christ,
were going to be resurrected as well. Paul's logic is very clear
in this verse: If Christ has been raised, resurrection obviously
is possible.
Then in verses 13-19 Paul demonstrates that the resurrection not
only is possible, but it is essential to our faith. He gives us
seven disastrous consequences if there were no resurrection from
the dead.
IF NOT EVEN CHRIST WERE RAISED....
The first consequence has to do with Jesus Christ himself. Paul makes the point twice. Verse 13:
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised....
Then jump ahead to verse 16:
For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised....
There is a contradiction in the Corinthians' logic, which
Paul began addressing in verses 1-11. Now Paul is saying in essence,
"For the sake of argument, let's allow that there is no resurrection
of the dead. Then logically, no one has or ever will rise from
the dead, which means that not even Christ has been raised, because
he was a human being like you and me." Again, listen to how
these two verses are paraphrased in The Message:
"If there's no resurrection, there's no living Christ...If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't, because he was indeed dead." (2)
A FALSE GOSPEL, AN EMPTY FAITH, A CONSPIRACY TO DECEIVE
Now, if there is no living Christ, to use Peterson's phrase, what would our world be like? In verses 14-19 Paul paints a dark, horrifying picture. Look at verses 14-15, where he summarizes three disastrous theological consequences if Christ's resurrection had not taken place:
...And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 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.
First of all, without the resurrection, all Christian preaching
and teaching and other communication is vain, or empty-meaningless,
a waste of time. As we saw in the last message, Christ's death
and resurrection on our behalf are the very heart of the gospel
we preach. Look again at the four phrases that define the gospel
(verses 3-8): "...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 [many people]." But apart from the resurrection, Jesus
could not have conquered sin and death and hell, and we would
still be in their grip. The good news really would have been bad
news. Everything that Paul taught would have been smoke and mirrors.
Every Billy Graham crusade would be a colossal waste of time.
And the entire inventory of Christian bookstores would have no
value at all.
In the nineteenth century there was a Scottish preacher named
Alexander Maclaven who pastored churches in England his entire
life. He was called "the prince of expository preachers."
Listen to his observation on this issue:
"On the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is suspended everything which makes the gospel the good news. Strike that out, and what have you left? Some beautiful bits of moral teaching, a lovely life marred by tremendous mistakes about himself and his own importance and his relationship to men and to God, but you've got nothing left that is worth calling the gospel." (3)
The second consequence is in the statement at the end of verse
14, "...Your faith also is in vain." Without the resurrection,
our life of faith in Christ would be a waste of time. Our faith
is a response to the gospel message. If the gospel that we've
staked our lives on is a sham, then so is the faith it produced.
There is no point in going to church on Sunday morning, participating
in home fellowships, or serving on ministry teams.
The third consequence, in verse 15, is that all apostolic witness
is a lie. That means the Bible is totally untrustworthy. If the
resurrection isn't true, then the apostles were the world's greatest
liars, con men on a colossal scale. They claimed falsely to be
from God and witnessed falsely concerning God that he raised Christ.
To deny the resurrection is to call the Biblical writers not just
mistaken, but willfully mistaken. There is no possibility that,
as many theological liberals claim, such a mistake could have
been innocent or naive.
If Christ had not been raised from the dead, the apostles not only were not sent by God with a message from him, but they were liars who conspired together. That is because the gospel records and other New-Testament documents are amazingly consistent with one another. Those witnesses would have had to work together to come up with stories that meshed so perfectly. And if they lied about the gospel, why should they be believed about anything else? Why should we embrace their moral teaching if they falsified their teaching about Jesus and the resurrection? So all New-Testament truth stands or falls together, depending on the veracity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
UNFORGIVEN, LOST, AND UTTERLY MISERABLE
The next three descriptions of what the world would be like if Jesus hadn't been raised from the dead focus more directly on how we as believers in Jesus would be affected. These last three consequences are very personal for us. Listen to what Paul says in verses 17-19:
...And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
Without the resurrection, every person who has ever lived
would be hopelessly lost in sin. Our faith in Christ would not
save us. We would be wandering around in the dark as lost as we
ever were. All our sins from the past would still be with us,
wrapping us up in a horrible robe of unrighteousness. If Christ
was not raised from the dead, then sin would have won the victory
over Christ, and so it would continue to be victorious over all
of us. If Christ remained dead, then when we died we would remain
dead and damned-the Bible says the wages of sin is death (Romans
6:23). He wouldn't have brought forgiveness of sins or salvation
or reconciliation or spiritual life, either now or for eternity.
Again, Alexander Maclaven reflects on this:
"You have the cross rising there, gaunt, solitary. But unless on the other side of the river you have the resurrection, no bridge will ever be thrown across the gulf, and the cross remains dead, being alone. You must have a resurrection to explain the cross, and then the life and the death tower up into the manifestation of God in the flesh and the propitiation for our sins. Without it, we have nothing to preach which is worth calling the gospel. If he whom we believed to be our sacrifice by his death and our sanctification by his life has not risen, then all which makes his death other than a martyr's vanishes, and with it vanish forgiveness and purifying. Only when we recognize that in his cross explained by his resurrection we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, and by the communion of the risen life from the risen Lord possess that new nature which sets us free from the dominion of our evil. Then is faith operative in setting us free from our sins." (4)
Second, if Christ was not raised, death would still be victorious
over life. That's the point of verse 18: "Then those also
who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." If the resurrection
wasn't true, not only would we all face death without hope, but
we would live here and now tortured by the thought that our Christian
family members who have already died were lost forever.
My wife Candy's father Ted Lyons was taken by cancer fifteen years
ago in his early sixties. He had lived a life of faith, walked
with the Lord Jesus, and in the words of the apostle Paul, he
"fell asleep in Christ." The point of this passage is
that if there is no resurrection, then we will never see Ted Lyons
again. There is no hope of ever having a reunion together on the
other side of eternity. All we have is hopelessness and a few
wonderful memories of the life that he lived.
But as 1 Thessalonians 4:14 tells us, it's not true. Because of
the resurrection, we have absolute hope that we will see my dear
father-in-law and my children's grandfather again. "For if
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring
with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus." In verse
17 he goes on to talk about what will happen at the second coming
of Jesus Christ: "Then we who are alive and remain shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord
in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord."
Finally, in 1 Corinthians 15:19, if Christ has not been raised,
Christian life itself would be pitiable and miserable. Paul's
point is that if all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration
for a few short years, if he was only a good moral teacher, then
we're a pretty sorry lot. What we have committed ourselves to
is no better than any other pagan philosophy or religion. Why
waste so much time and energy and resources on a foolish dream?
Why bother investing ourselves in missions, discipleship, worship,
evangelism, fellowship, or ministry in Jesus' name? Why not, logically,
indulge ourselves in a lifestyle of consumption and hedonism?
We might as well commit ourselves to lying and stealing and sexual
immorality. If there is no resurrection, trying to live a life
of spiritual wholeness doesn't seem worth it.
My seventeen-year-old son Micah had this logic thrown at him recently
at a party. A bunch of kids that he works with and goes to school
with were asking him why he didn't do a lot of things that they
did, and he told them that he was a follower of Jesus Christ.
One young man in particular was really fascinated, and he actually
followed Micah around and badgered him about his Christian faith
and how limiting it was. At one point he said to Micah, "Let
me get this straight: As a Christian, you don't drink or have
sex or do drugs or watch porno films. What do you do all day?"
The implication in that question is, what a miserable existence!
And if there was no resurrection of Jesus Christ, with all its
powerful implications for our life, then that young man is absolutely
right. Life itself is made utterly miserable and pitiful without
Christ, so you might as well do whatever you can to assuage the
coldness, grimness, futility, drabness, and darkness of life.
We are people of the resurrection. But we live in a world in which
the majority of the people don't have a clue about the resurrection
life of Christ that is available to them. They know nothing of
the salvation or blessing that resurrection life brings. Everybody
who doesn't know the reality of the risen Lord has to live every
day of his or her life with no sure word of what is true or false,
no savior, no gospel, no forgiveness, no meaningful faith, no
victory over death, no eternal life, and no hope for any of these
things. That's why the people around us try so hard to anesthetize
themselves against the pain of an aching heart. That anesthetic
can take the form of pleasure or materialism or alcohol or recreation.
That's one reason workaholism is so rampant in our valley.
THE GLORY OF THE RESURRECTION
But Paul offers hope in verse 20: "But now Christ has
been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep."
The power of the resurrection is at work here and now. So all
the "what if" questions are answered. The foundational
reality of our life and history, past, present, and future, is
focused on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our faith is grounded
on it. As a Christian, I know experientially that my Redeemer
lives to grant me eternal life starting here and now. He is now
my life, my all in all, my peace and joy, my Savior, my Redeemer,
my Lord.
The glorious fact that Jesus rose again from the dead answers
self-doubt, recrimination, guilt, and condemnation. We all have
unfulfilled desires, dreams, and hopes, and we wonder whether
they will ever get completed. Even if they don't, the promise
of the gospel is that all those things will be satisfied in the
glorious resurrection when we are forever with the Lord. God understands
the limitations, the disappointments, the areas where we're not
fulfilled here. But we're promised a resurrection body when there
will be complete and total fulfillment.
There's a story I heard as a boy. I think my father even told
it when he was preaching. It's the story of an older man who was
telling the account of what finally brought him to the point of
accepting Christ as his Savior and Lord. He had rejected the gospel
as an adolescent. He was a successful businessman, but he became
beaten down by the work-place wars, and he was weary and worn
after many years of self-rule. At one point he was walking down
a street in Chicago during Easter week, and he saw in the window
of an art gallery a large, striking oil painting of Christ's crucifixion.
He stood spellbound, captured by the vivid detail, remembering
all the different parts of the story.
He realized with a start that a small boy had joined him in staring
at the picture. The boy was a poorly dressed, filthy street urchin
of that great city. They both stood quietly. The little boy eventually
broke the silence. "Mister, do you know what it means?"
The man couldn't speak.
So the lad began to explain: "That there man on the middle
cross is Jesus. Them others is Roman soldiers. They killed him.
I learned that in the mission Sunday school." The man made
no reply, so the boy continued, "The woman that's cryin',
that's his mother."
At that point the man turned and walked away, lost in thought.
In a few moments he heard running footsteps behind him. The boy's
voice called out, "Say, Mister!" As the urchin caught
up with him, he repeated, "Say, Mister, I forgot to tell
you somethin'. He rose again."
That is the powerful message that has come down through the ages.
It was affirmed by that Russian Orthodox priest under the tyranny
of communism. We proclaim it here as the church gathers for worship.
But I want to ask you personally, are you able to say for yourself
that Christ is risen? Do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that
his resurrection was for you personally? If you don't, you can,
just as that man did standing before that picture.
Notes:
1. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message, © 1993, 1994
by Eugene H. Peterson. NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. P. 363.
2. Peterson, pp. 363-364.
3. Alexander Maclaven, Exposition of the Holy Scriptures, Volume
13 - Corinthians, George H. Doron Company, NY. P. 22.
4. Maclaven, Ibid.
Catalog No. 4536
1 Corinthians 15:12-19
29th Message
Doug Goins
September 6, 1998
The Scripture quotations in this message are all
taken from New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963,
1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 The Lockman Foundation.
Used by permission.
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