1. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we continue our sermon series on Defending the Christian Faith is taken from 1 Cor. 15.1-20, it’s entitled, “The Fact’s for You!!!” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Before everyone had her or his own cell phone, people might answer a ringing telephone and discover that the caller wanted to speak with someone else in the family. Then you’d hand the receiver to the callee and say, “It’s for you.” The last couple of sermons in this series dwelt on the stubborn fact of Jesus’ resurrection. This fact’s for you. In fact, it’s of such large importance that it goes before you again in this sermon. This time we will approach Jesus’ resurrection by way of epistle testimony from St. Paul, who wrote to the Church at Corinth: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared” (1 Cor. 15:3–5).
3. Today, we’ll trace what’s been called a “minimal facts” case for Jesus’ resurrection. This approach restricts itself to a minimum set of undisputed facts, hence the name “minimal facts.” The minimal facts approach reaches the main point quickly. Critical scholars raise all sorts of questions about the Gospels, but they agree that there was an apostle Paul and that he wrote letters. They all accept as genuine 1 Corinthians, which includes our text, and Galatians, which will come into our view shortly. The minimal facts approach uses data that virtually everyone recognizes.
4. Paul stands out as vital to the minimal facts approach. This scholar Paul, who wrote letters in the mid-first century, occupied the right place at the right time. Paul was a convert to Christianity after having been its bitter opponent, so he had a lot invested in these matters. He reported seeing the risen Christ for himself and he risked his life over the truth of this report. Also, he met and talked with others who’d seen Jesus alive after he had died. Paul’s position as an early witness is undisputed. If Jesus died and rose in about AD 30, then by the critics’ reckoning the Gospels were all written forty or more years later. But Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in about AD 55, which would have been just twenty-something years after Jesus died and rose. And in our text from this letter, Paul recalled what he had told the Corinthians in person. It was in about the year 51 that Paul was personally telling the Corinthians that Christ died according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he had been raised according to the Scriptures, and that the Lord then appeared to many people including Paul. So undisputedly, Paul gives us a very early witness testimony of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
5. But look closely at the text, where Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 15:3: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.” Paul had carefully handed on to the Corinthians a message that had previously been handed on to him. When had Paul received that message? To consider that, we now consult Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, in which he recounted that, three years after his conversion, he visited Peter in Jerusalem. During a 15 day stay, he was able to talk with Peter and James the Lord’s brother. Picture these three. How could they not talk about Jesus? Paul no doubt told Peter and James what he had seen Jesus on the Damascus road, and he had the opportunity to ask them about what they had seen of Jesus both before and after the resurrection. In Gal 1:18, Paul characterized his conversation with Peter using the Greek word from which we get our word “history.” That is, Paul made the sort of questions on which good history is based. This formed the opportunity for Peter and James to deliver to Paul what eventually appeared in 1 Corinthians 15.
6. If Paul’s conversion occurred in AD 34 or 35, then this conversation between Paul, Peter, and James took place three years later, in 37 or 38—just a very short few years after Jesus died and rose. That’s early testimony of Jesus’ resurrection! This is not the stuff of legend. This is characteristic of testimony involving facts. But we are not quite finished tracing back. 1 Cor. 15:3-5 says, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared.” If Paul had received these words from Peter and James in the year 37 or 38, the form of the words came from earlier still. Critics today affirm that this confession goes back to a year or two after Jesus died. Unquestionably, that constitutes early witness to the resurrection. As a result, scholars of all persuasions have been concluding that the risen Jesus really appeared, and appeared in a bodily way, to his followers.
7. Saying just that much doesn’t yet proclaim the Gospel, though. The Gospel isn’t simply the fact that a dead man became alive. Rather, as the text says, the Gospel is that “Christ died for our sins” and “that he was raised on the third day” (1 Cor. 15:3, 4). The One who rose is the One who died for us. As one Lutheran scholar has said, “It’s one thing to believe that something happened, and quite another to believe that it happened for you.” With the Gospel, our text reminds us the fact of the resurrection is for you. Jesus’ resurrection can be shown with minimal facts, Yet it remains a fact with maximum importance for you.
8. 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 says, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (v 3), and “that he was buried” (v 4) and even “that he appeared” (v 5), the verb tense in the Greek denotes a completed action. But when it says that “he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (v 4), the verb indicates an action completed in the past, but with ongoing effects. The resurrection of Christ leaps off the page as an important fact.
9. The resurrection of Jesus shows that he is God. At times, it may seem that the Creator has left his human creatures to a doom of darkness and death and despair. But he decided to intervene personally for you. The Old Testament said, “He has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him” (Hos 6:1–2). When Jesus was asked to give a sign of his authority, he answered: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). This is God himself, the One who has life and gives life, stepping onto the stage to redeem and save his creation. When we tell people of Jesus’ resurrection, we can tell them what God himself did for them when he became flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone. That’s a matter of maximum importance.
10. The resurrection of Jesus shows that his teaching is the truth. It would have done us no good if God became man then merely observed our plight or perhaps stood to the side, silently shedding tears of sympathy. But he has not left us without his teaching. On another occasion, it was scribes and Pharisees who addressed Jesus as “Teacher” and said, “We wish to see a sign from you.” Jesus answered, “No sign will be given . . . except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Mt 12:38–40). And as Jonah came out after three days, so did Christ. Jesus was teaching the truth. The Old Testament had been telling the truth too. Our text reminds us that Jesus both died and rose “in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3, 4).
11. When we tell people of Jesus’ resurrection, we are giving them the truth by which God saves people: “the gospel I preached to you . . . by which you are being saved” (1 Cor. 15:1–2), Paul says. With this message, God creates saving faith in the heart. Jesus’ resurrection shows that the Father accepted his sacrifice for the reconciliation of the world. The Good News of the God-man, Jesus Christ, who gave himself as the ultimate sacrifice for our sin! The resurrection brings this message full circle by assuring us that this sacrifice worked. It was accepted by God the Father.
12. When we tell people of Jesus’ resurrection, we can point out that if there were even only one sin in all the world for which he had not paid and paid in full Jesus would have remained in the tomb. But Christ is risen. 1 Cor. 15:17 says “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (v 17), but Christ has been raised. Faith receives him and the freedom from sin that he brings. The resurrection of Jesus shows that all believers in Christ will rise to eternal life. When, by God-given faith, we are with the risen Christ, it just keeps getting better.
13. I have told my confirmation students over the years I have served as a Pastor that the most important thing the church had ever done for me was getting me ready to die. Sometimes my students have questioned that. Was that truly most important? Didn’t I want to single out something maybe more immediate? But I have always stood by my statement. Wonderful as it is to be God’s own people here and now, our text reminds us: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). For this life is not all there is.
14. When we tell people of Jesus’ resurrection, we can emphasize that in the risen Christ, life keeps getting better: “In fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). Perishable bodies will put on the imperishable, mortal bodies will put on immortality. Because Jesus lived, died, and rose again, death itself will be swallowed up in victory: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55). The fact is, Jesus’ resurrection can be shown with minimal facts, but the fact of Jesus’ resurrection has maximum impact for you and those to whom you witness. This fact’s for you. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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