“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? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised;and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” – 1 Corinthians 15:12-14
Have you ever stopped to think what your life would be like if Jesus had not been raised from the dead? What your faith would be like if Jesus was just a great prophet? If people memorialized His death every year but He never actually was resurrected?
According to these profound words of the Apostle Paul, if Christ has not been resurrected, our faith would be meaningless, and our hope for eternal life would be diminished for there would be an eternal penalty hanging over our heads for the sins we have committed. Death would be followed by eternal damnation.
If Christ was not raised from the dead we would not have a personal, intimate relationship with Creator God. There would be no way to overcome our weakness in the flesh and we would continue being slaves to our fleshly desires. There would be no escaping the bondage sin has on us all.
If Christ was not raised from the dead we would have no way of expressing pure, unadulterated and unconditional love to people we interact with. Our relationships would be meaningless and based on self-centered narcissistic behavior.
If Christ was not raised from the dead life would be empty. There would be no purpose for living. There would be no reason to be happy. No purpose to live for.
These conditions I’ve just laid out were the very conditions for which Paul was writing the Corinthians. Soon after verses 12-14 Paul writes in verse 32, “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” All you Greek philosophers out there quickly recognize this as the mantra of the popular Epicureans. Paul is contrasting the life of Christ (Christians in Corinth) with the life of dead souls whose eyes are blinded to the truth (Greek pagan followers of Epicurious). The contrast is eye-opening, to say the least.
Christianity is a faith-based religion if it’s a religion at all. People who call themselves Christians are people who believe, with every inch of their being, in a God who became flesh and dwelt among His people. They believe that this God-in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ, was, is and always will be the Son of the Most High God. His death, burial, and resurrection are the very embodiment of His eternal love for His people. His resurrection is the glue that bonds every believer to God the Father.
The bonds of death and hell bind every non-believer, every person who, like the Epicureans, choose not to place their faith in Jesus and His resurrection power. For it is through the very process of Jesus’ resurrection that He broke the bonds of death and hell thus giving His followers access to the throne of God the Father and eternal life. It is the resurrection that seals the story of salvation in our hearts.
The Lord has risen! He is alive! Hallelujah! He is alive!
In Christ,
Dave
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