If Christ Be Not Raised

What if one claim could carry the whole weight of Christian faith—body, soul, public life, and private sacrifice? We follow Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 to the sharp edge of that question: if Christ is not raised, faith is empty; if he is, then death is a defeated enemy and the whole world opens under his reign.

We start by naming what most cultures won’t: death is not natural. It is an intruder. Drawing on Paul’s language and the story of Jesus at Lazarus’s tomb, we show why Christians have permission to grieve fiercely and still hope stubbornly. Resurrection is more than comfort for later; it is the reason tears and defiance can stand together at a graveside. From there we widen the lens. The risen Christ is reigning now, subduing dark powers and reclaiming what he made. That means families can heal, cities can renew, and entrenched evils can fall. We look to William Wilberforce as a real-world example of resurrection-shaped public courage—and ask what that could mean for our neighborhoods, classrooms, and courts.

But resurrection hope is not swagger. Paul’s honesty returns: following Jesus invites loss, smaller paychecks, harder choices, and thinner applause. Only a promised future makes that path coherent. We talk candidly about choosing faithfulness over ease—chastity, perseverance in marriage, truth-telling at work—and why those choices are radiant, not reckless, when the dead are raised. Finally, we touch the ache beneath our activism: the longing for home. Not escape, but a renewed earth where mourning ends and justice sings. That future steadies our hands in the present. We grieve with hope, labor without cynicism, and embrace costly obedience because the King is alive and his renewal has begun.

If this conversation stirred your hope or challenged your habits, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find the show. How is the resurrection reshaping what you’ll do this week?

Chapters

• 0:00 Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15
• 2:58 Setting The Stakes Of Resurrection
• 5:49 Death Named As The Last Enemy
• 10:18 Stories That Frame Our Longing
• 15:46 Grief, Hope, And Christian Realism
• 18:16 Resurrection And Renewal Of This World
• 22:04 Christ’s Reign Against Dark Powers
• 26:16 Wilberforce And Imagination For Change
• 31:08 Strength To Suffer And Choose Faithfulness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Our scripture reading today comes from 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 12. The Word of God reads 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? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And 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. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order. Christ, the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him who put all things in subjection under Him, that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day. What do I gain if humanly speaking I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. This is God's word. Thanks be to God, you may be seated, and may God add his blessing to the reading of his word. Well, we live in a divided time in our country, but I think there's one thing that we can all agree on, and it's that the greatest Christmas films ever made are Home Alone One and A Second Is Like It, Home Alone Two. And I know that it's we were in Home Depot last night, and the kids were excited to go look at the Halloween decorations because it's not yet Halloween, but they were gone, and it was in their place was Christmas decorations. So get ready for Mariah Carey and thinking about Christmas movies. But Home Alone 1 and 2, greatest Christmas movies ever made. But did you know? Do you know how many Home Alone films there are? There are there are six. There are six Home Alone films. The most recent came out as recently as 2021. So just four years ago. Straight to video. The reason that you may never heard of the other four is they're not taken very seriously. They share the name of the franchise somehow, but they lack the essential ingredients that make a home alone movie what it is. What are those essential ingredients? In order for it to really truly be a home alone film, you have to have the McAllister family. You have to have the wet bandits, you have to have goofy traps and tricks, which I'm sure I'm sure the other films have at least that. But you have to have Kevin McAllister as played by the young Macaulay Culkin. If you're missing any of those, you may call it home alone, but we all know the truth. It is simply not home alone. And why do what's my point? Why do I bring that up? Well, here at the end of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, as we reach the end of the letter, he reminds the Corinthians of the essentials, the essential elements and ingredients of the gospel that he preached. And we began to look at that last week, the non-negotiables of the Christian faith, what makes the Christian faith the Christian faith? Over the next few weeks, we're going to zero in on one of those essentials, as Paul does, which is the bodily or the physical resurrection of Jesus that actually occurred in history. Why is it so important that we hold fast to the bodily resurrection of our Lord? And here's what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 15. He is so bold as to say that without the resurrection of Jesus, the entire Christian faith collapses. The whole of the Christian faith collapses. If Jesus was not raised in the body, Paul says nothing else that we believe matters. But because Jesus was raised in the body, the way that we view the world and the way that we live in it changes in three profound ways. And this is what we're going to look at from this text this morning. That the resurrection, it's pretty amazing how balanced this is. And so that's one of the things I want you to notice between these three things. The resurrection gives us the hope of eternal life. That's number one. But the resurrection also gives us hope for renewal in the world, in this world. So the hope of eternal life, hope for renewal in the world, and then finally the resurrection gives us the strength to suffer for Christ's sake. So those three things. So first, the hope of eternal life. The resurrection gives us the hope of eternal life in the midst of loss and death. So it seems, as it's kind of hard to believe, but it seems as if some in the Corinthian church doubted or denied the resurrection. In verse 12, Paul says, Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? It's hard to know. So there was a group in Corinth that in some way doubted or denied the resurrection. It's hard to know exactly what they believed, but our best idea, based on the information that we have, is this. It's likely that they did not deny the idea of an eternal soul or eternal life, or the idea of dying and leaving this material existence to go be with God in a spiritual world. That would have been fairly normal for the Greek mind to think in that way. But what what was going on is that they denied or doubted the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus and a physical, eternal life on a renewed earth. In other words, they were fine with the idea of dying and going to heaven, but they doubted Paul's preaching about the resurrection, that heaven is breaking into this world, and that this world, including our own bodies, will be renewed. And Jesus did not come just to save our souls, but to save our bodies and our world. And this could have been the same group that we met in 1 Corinthians 6, who were engaged in sexual immorality and did not understand the importance of the body because they did not believe that what we do in the body matters. And you can read about that in 1 Corinthians 6. But the resurrection is teaching us that our bodies matter, the physical world matters, and Jesus came to save this creation and this world. Paul wants to make clear that death is not natural or good. It's not a natural part of life, but death is an enemy. Paul says in verse 26, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Death, as Paul teaches, is the consequence of sin. Paul says in verse 17, he says, if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. So Paul says, death is not a natural thing. Death reigns in the world because of the sin of Adam. Again in verse 22, he says, For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Death is not natural or good or something that we should accept or make peace with. Paul calls it an enemy, but it is an enemy that has already met its match. Because at the cross and in the empty tomb, Christ has dealt death a mortal blow. And this gives Christians a real and a profound hope of eternal life in the face of loss and death. I like post-apocalyptic stories because I think that they help us understand these kinds of things a little bit better. One of my favorites is uh the novel from Cormac McCarthy called The Road, which I think won a Pulitzer Prize. It's a fantastic novel. If you want a wild ride, it's not very thick, it's like maybe less than 200 pages. But if you pick it up, you will not be able to put it down. It was made into a movie, but I recommend that you read the novel. It's about a father and a son living in a world that has been destroyed by some nuclear event. It's never made clear. But society has collapsed into these warring tribes, natural resources are destroyed, the world itself is destroyed. The father lived in a time before this event, but the son was born after the event and sort of in the middle of the collapse of the world. So for the son, the fallen world, the destroyed world, is the only world that he knows. To him, it's normal. He's never seen anything else. He doesn't understand that the world that he lives in is a broken and a decimated version of what the world once was and what it is supposed to be. But for him, it's just normal because that's what he was born into. Or here's another way to look at it. My former neighbor, who moved away, but um when he lived in my neighborhood, he was a big fan of classic architecture. He's actually a teacher at DAP today. Um and he used to make the point that the buildings that we used to build in Cincinnati, that this building that we're in now and all of these old buildings that are around us, uh, they could not be built today for a number of reasons. Some of it we've lost the skill, um, some of it we've lost the desire, some of it we've just lost the economic situation to build these these buildings that are still standing, these beautiful, unique buildings. And he would say that in Cincinnati that we live in the ruins of a greater culture. It's an interesting thing to say. You if you look around us, that we live in in the residue or the ruins of a of a greater culture, a superior culture that could build better things, more beautiful things, and we have fallen from what we once were. The Christian view of death is that death is an enemy, an intruder into God's creation. And therefore, death is something that we should always grieve, that we should always hate, that we should never make peace with, and that we should never accept as normal because it's not. We were not intended to die, we were intended to live forever, and we die because of sin. Well, what difference does this make in the life of the Christian? I think that this view of death and also our hope in the resurrection allows us to have an appropriate relationship with death. Because on the one hand, we have full permission and even the command to grieve. The Christian can recognize that death is unacceptable, that death is tragic, and that it cannot be accepted or made peace with. As C. S. Lewis wrote, he said, Death is unnatural, and therefore its unnaturalness is the source of its horror. Death ought not to be. It is a clue that this is a good world gone wrong. It's a clue that we are living in a fallen world. And I think Christianity is unique in this regard because every other worldview has to figure out how to make death seem not so bad. To say, you know, it it's okay. It's okay because they're in a better place, and so, you know, we shouldn't grieve and we should accept that and make peace with that. Or it's okay because, you know, we really wouldn't want to live forever anyway. I mean, eventually we would get pretty bored, so it's it's it's okay that we die. Death is just a part of nature, and and things must die so that other things can live. Or death is not really that big of a deal because life is really not all that valuable. It's, you know, life isn't since life is not very valuable, death is not that big of a deal. But the Christian has full permission to grieve and to be upset with death because it ought not be so. Even Jesus, when he fully intended to raise Lazarus from the tomb, stood at his at his tomb and wept because of the enemy of death. But on the other hand, we do not grieve as the world does, because Jesus has defeated death, and his resurrection teaches us that God intends to save us from death, to renew our bodies, to restore our relationships, and to bring about eternal life on this earth. Because Christ is risen, death's days are numbered, and we can stand at a graveside grieving, with tears in our eyes, but also with defiance in our hearts, knowing that death will not have the last word. And interestingly, faith in the resurrection and the world to come should not make us care less about the present world that we live in, or shouldn't make us detached from the world, but on the contrary, it should make us more committed to this world and more involved in this world. Because the resurrection is not an escape pod from a lost cause, but a beach head of heaven breaking into and renewing this world. So let's now consider that. Point two, hope of renewal in the world. The resurrection gives us the hope of renewal in this world in the midst of evil. The resurrection means that this world matters, that this age matters, that this city matters, that this nation matters, that the life that we live in this world matters, and that Jesus came not just to save our souls and to that we would go to heaven and be with him, but to save our bodies, to save our families, to save our cities. The resurrection is God's declaration that he will not abandon his creation, that what he made, he intends to redeem. And that's why, in the very middle of Paul's teaching on the resurrection, he begins to talk about the reign of Christ. Because the resurrection is not just about life after death, but it is about it's about the renewal of all things. Listen to Paul in verse 24. Paul says, Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Paul is telling us that Jesus died and he rose and he ascended to heaven, and that he's going to come back, and we will be raised as well when he does. But in the meantime, the risen Christ is not idle, but is very active. He is reigning right now. Paul says he must reign until he has put all of his enemies under his feet. He's reigning, and his reign is advancing. So the resurrection really launched a campaign, and the enemy's retreat has already begun, and Aslan is on the move. That's what Paul is saying there. But what does Paul mean when he says that Jesus must destroy every rule in authority and power? Whenever Paul uses that language of rule and authority and power, he's usually talking about demonic forces. Consider Ephesians 6.12. Paul says, We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And that's what Paul's talking about here in 1 Corinthians 15 as well. Modern Western Christians often fail to appreciate the importance of the unseen realm. But the Bible teaches that behind all of the conflict in the world, that there is one great conflict between good and evil, between the Creator God and demonic fallen angels who have rebelled against him, and it is a conflict for authority on earth. And no human being is neutral in that conflict. Every person, every household, every city, every nation is under the influence either of the Holy Spirit or of demonic spirits, and there is no neutral ground. Every heart and every culture bends either toward Christ's reign or toward the counterfeit powers that oppose him. So between the resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection at the end of the age, Jesus is busy advancing his kingdom and defeating demonic powers that hold captive people and households and cities and nations. And this means that Christians should have great hope and great optimism for what can happen, not just for individuals, but for entire families and for cities and for nations and for cultures, because this is what Jesus is doing between his resurrection and when he returns. William Wilberforce was a British politician in the 1700s. He was a member of the House of Parliament, and he was one of the leaders of the abolitionist movement in the United Kingdom, and which then made its way to the USA. And his faith in Christ inspired him to devote his life as a politician to the eradication of slavery, along with many other social ills like child labor and prostitution, which were prevalent in England at the time. Today, slavery seems obviously wrong to us, and we find it hard to believe that anyone ever could have thought otherwise. But it was not this way in the 1700s. Slavery had been part of every culture in every nation since time immemorial. And one of the main arguments against the abolitionist movement in the 1700s was that slavery was impossible to eradicate because it had been around for so long, and no culture had ever been without it, and our economy so dependent upon it that it was actually a necessary evil that could not be undone. Listen to Wilberforce's words from a 1789 speech to Parliament. He said in response to this: never, never will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name, till we have extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country. Wilberforce believed that the world could change. He believed that his country could change, and he was right. Because Jesus is reigning, because Jesus is alive and at work, and through the work of Wilberforce and others, Jesus broke the spiritual power that kept slavery in place in the Western world. And if Jesus could overturn something as ancient and as entrenched as slavery, what could he not do in our own time? I think we are only limited by our own imagination. Wilberforce fought for righteousness and justice in the world because he believed that evil could be overcome. And the resurrection teaches us that evil will be overcome, that it can be overcome and it will be overcome because Jesus is reigning, and so we should be encouraged to struggle and to strive for real positive change in our world. Not just for the world to come, but for this world right now. So don't fall into the lie of thinking that our country can't change, that the middle class can't return, that abortion cannot come to an end in the Western world, that universities are lost, and that they can't be restored to legitimate institutions of higher learning, that we cannot have revival in America again, or that our laws cannot more closely conform to biblical principles, that we cannot recover biblical norms for marriage in our culture. If you're fooled into thinking that it cannot change, then you won't try and you won't strive and you won't be part of the world seeking to make an impact, and your faith will become a private matter. But the resurrection says that this cannot be so. Because Jesus did not just go to heaven after he died and promised to take us there, but he was raised here on this planet, in this world, in our own history. The resurrection of Jesus tells us that the opposite is true, that Jesus intends to renew the whole world. And so it's not enough for Christians to focus just on their private faith, but we must be involved in the struggle to see righteousness and justice and peace established in our world in whatever way that we can, because Aslan is on the move. So that's point two, hope for renewal in the world. Point three, strength to suffer. The resurrection gives us strength to suffer for Christ's sake. So what I've just said about renewal in the world, does this mean, or the the resurrection, does it push us to be, should Christians be, aggressive culture warriors who wish to dominate others and impose our worldview on others? Not exactly, because there is a third note that Paul sounds here that we must also hear, and that is suffering for the sake of God's kingdom. Jesus defeated death not through a show of force, but actually through suffering violence himself and evil himself with meekness. And we are called to pick up our cross and to follow him. And there's two places in this passage where we see that come up. Look at verse 19 first. Paul says, If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. So Paul says, look, the Christian life only makes sense because of the resurrection. And why is this? Because following Jesus requires us to make thousands of decisions, to sacrifice temporary comforts and temporary advantages because we believe in something bigger than just our span of life in this age. Consider some examples. For the sake of God's kingdom, we might sacrifice a career and sacrifice wealth, maybe, maybe as a family choosing to live on one income so that we can be home with our kids, so that we can homeschool our kids, so that we can be the biggest influence in their lives for Jesus' sake. I'm not saying the homeschool is the only way to go, but that's just an example of a sacrifice that we might make for the sake of the kingdom. Or we might sacrifice temporary pleasure, choosing to live a chaste life and to save sex for marriage, or choosing to be faithful in a difficult marriage for Jesus' sake, or choosing a life of celibacy in order to obey Christ. We make these sacrifices that don't make any sense to the world. Or we might sacrifice popularity, choosing to stand with Jesus and confess Jesus, even though everybody in our workplace or our classroom or our neighborhood thinks that we're crazy or thinks that we're evil and or bigoted or slanders us with these things that are just not true. In order to stand with Jesus, we might sacrifice that and make that decision. In order to follow Jesus, we must reject a life of comfort, ease, wealth, pleasure, and popularity. It's not that any of those things are bad in themselves. I honestly hope, well, I hope you in your life you get to experience some ease and some comfort, and maybe even a taste of wealth, and maybe even a taste of popularity. That would be great. But when we must inevitably choose between any of these things and faithfulness to Jesus, we choose Jesus. If the resurrection is true, sorry, if the resurrection is not true, then we have needlessly chosen a life of discomfort, of making less money, being less successful, and we of all people are most to be pitied. And then look also at verses 30 and 32. Paul says, Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day. What do I gain if humanly speaking I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Paul says that following Jesus entails worldly great worldly risk. Every day he is prepared to suffer the reproach of Christ. Every day he's in danger from those who wished to silence him. Paul was not literally thrown to beasts, but he often faced violent opposition to his efforts to preach Christ and to plant churches, and his Christian witness did ultimately cost him his life. And Paul says, if there is no resurrection, why? Why subject yourself to all of this? Why not choose a life of ease? It is the hope of the resurrection that gives us the strength to joyfully take up our own cross and follow Jesus. So the resurrection does not lead to a fragile triumphalism, nor does it lead to a retreat from the world, but a faithful endurance in the world as we strive to see Cincinnati look a little bit more like heaven as much as we can. In 1889, after the Civil War, a vast tract of land that would become Oklahoma was opened for settlement. And President Benjamin Harrison announced. What is called the Oklahoma land run or land rush. And he declared that on a certain day at exactly noon that the run would start, and anyone who could reach an unclaimed parcel of land up to 160 acres could have it for free as long as they lived on it and worked the land for five years, it was theirs, up to 160 acres. It's hard for us to imagine that in the world that we live in today. The next time that happens, it may be that it's because we're colonizing Mars. And if you can just get a spaceship and get up there, you can have a million Martian acres for free. But on that day, about 50,000 people gathered at the border, and when the cannon fired, they charged forward on horses and wagons, and some on foot, there's a movie about this called Far and Away with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Uh, if you've it's a good movie if you've never seen it. But um, some of them on foot racing into the prairie in a cloud of dust, families left behind everything. They left behind their homes and their jobs and their safety, all for the promise of 160 acres. They endured hardship and hunger and exhaustion and danger because they believed that the reward could change everything for them and for their children. People will endure almost anything if the reward is certain and if it's worth it. And in the resurrection, we have something infinitely better. Not the promise of 160 acres of land, but the promise that the meek will inherit the earth, a guaranteed inheritance secured by the risen Christ who has gone before us and is preparing a place for us. If we will only forsake the old life, the old man, and cling to our new life in Christ, we will find that every sacrifice was worth it. Julie and I dream of having land one day. To build a small homestead, a place where one day all of our children and their families and our grandchildren could gather together around one merry table. And I think some of you all are dreaming that same dream. Maybe one day we'll get a taste of that. But I suspect that what we're really longing for is heaven. More specifically, a new heavens and a new earth where we will live together forever with the Savior, where there will be no more mourning or crying or pain anymore. And I think that that's what you're longing for, too. Even though the resurrection gives us hope in the face of death and it gives us courage to work for change in the world, it also reminds us that what we're really searching for can never be found here. That our truest home is still ahead. It's further along. When Jesus returns and raises us up and fully brings his kingdom to this earth as he is doing now in bits and pieces, we will see that every longing that we had in this life was really leading us there. So don't forget, as you work for change in the world, as you deal with loss and grief and mourning here in the world, don't forget to put your mind there and to let your heart be anchored there. Because remember that here, as much good as we can do, even if we can make, by God's grace, if we can make Cincinnati look much more like heaven, you know, that would be fantastic. But still, here we have no lasting city. But we are strangers and sojourners waiting for a city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. So to this end, let us pray. Our Father, we give you thanks for the hope of the resurrection, and we confess that we we dimly understand it, and we we weakly believe it. We want to understand the resurrection better, we want to trust in it more deeply, and to rejoice in it more fully. So, God, we pray that you would help us. Help us to see the resurrection of Jesus in the midst of death and loss and pain and to be comforted by it. We pray, God, as we look out into our own culture and our own society and we see uh we see darkness and evil and decay. We pray, God, that you would help us to take courage from the resurrection, to know that you have not abandoned this world and that you are reigning and sitting on the throne, and you intend to renew all of creation, and so we should have great hope and optimism. And we pray also, God, that you would help us to prepare ourselves and to strengthen ourselves to suffer for Jesus' sake. Lord, I I we hope that none of us ever have to uh truly suffer persecution for the sake of Christ. But even if we don't, Lord, we know that we still have to deny ourselves and deny a life of ease and comfort, especially when those things get in the way of our faithfulness to Jesus. So help us to do that, prepare us to do that. All of this we ask in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Amen. Let's stand together.