In a few weeks we will celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord. This is the focus and pinnacle of our life as Christians. The fact that Christ was raised from the dead gives everything that he says priority. Paul preaches to the Corinthian church in this way,
“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?… if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Cor. 15:12, 17-20)
The resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact. It doesn’t take saving faith to believe this. Just as it doesn’t take saving faith to know that you were born or that we had a presidential election this last year. The devil and all the demons know that Christ was raised and yet they are not saved. These are historical facts. So, what is it that takes faith?
Paul begins Corinthians 15 instructing us, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”
In these few verses beginning Cor. 15 Paul lays out what our faith grabs hold onto. The crucifixion and resurrection were a historical facts but the results of those facts are what we receive by faith. “Christ died FOR OUR SINS.” That is what requires faith.
To know that everything Christ did was For You is what our faith holds onto, receives and even grasps, that is what faith does. To believe that for Christ’s sake God does not hold your sins against you, that is what requires faith.
Then what we confess in the creed, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead…” also requires faith. However, we are already given promises by God even in the Old Testament.
Paul was a student of the Old Testament so God’s people have always believed that Christ’s resurrection is proof that we too shall rise from the dead. A few verses from the Old Testament show that the resurrection of the dead is a faithful doctrine.
In Dan. 12:2 God told Daniel, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
Hosea 13:14 God says “I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?”
God says through Isaiah the prophet in chapter 26:19, “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy.”
Job says “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another”
Finally in Ezekiel 37 “And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, 14And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live”
The resurrection of the body is not a new idea. Paul is continuing to faithfully proclaim the resurrection from the dead that we confess so that we may have something to believe and give us hope. The events recorded in the scriptures are historical. There are many reports and historical records outside the scriptures that give witness to their historicity. However, there are greater “facts” that can never be ruled untrue.
The “facts” that are greater and even more trustworthy than history itself is that Jesus was crucified for your sins and raised for your justification. The blood of Jesus cries out in testimony and further, the Holy Spirit is our witness.
Not only the Holy Spirit but also your baptism assures you that Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension were for you! Your baptism, a historical event. As Romans 6 testifies, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
See you on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025
In Christ,
Pastor Ottmers