Welcome from all of us at Albuquerque Reformed Church, a particular congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church located in New Mexico. We thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about Albuquerque Reformed Church or to contribute to its ministry, visit abqreformed.org. And now, we invite you to open your Bible and listen to the preached Word. Today most Christians in the world are celebrating Easter. For many this is a time of eating good food, sending emojis, traveling to visit our loved ones and saying Jesus has risen and some fun time. All of this is good in a sense. It's not bad. It's good to wish people. It's good to eat some good food. All of this is good. But ultimately we can miss the point of it if we forget the significance of Easter. Easter is significant because not because the church celebrates this as a festival or something else but it is significant because it is celebrated to commemorate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is one of the greatest events in the history of mankind. It's one of the greatest events in the history of mankind. This is a historical truth. The resurrection of Jesus also shows us that death will not have ultimate victory. People across the cultures have been afraid of death. But the resurrection of Jesus shows us that death will not have ultimate victory over mankind. One day it will be completely defeated and death will be no more. If the resurrection of Jesus is true, then those who have died in him will also be raised from the dead at the end of the age. And that is the hope of all believers. Now the Apostle Paul is focusing on this doctrine because there were some in the Corinthian church who were saying that there is no resurrection from the dead. We are going through Book of Acts and before that we have gone through the Gospel of Luke and we know that Sadducees did not really believe in resurrection. And look at verse 12 in this chapter. Some are saying now, you know, Paul is saying here now, if Christ is praised that he has been being raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? From the beginning, the Christian message included the message of resurrection from the dead, but there were some who were confusing the mind of believers. And this was jeopardizing the whole gospel message and the confidence of believers. For the Apostle Paul further says in verse 13, 13 to 19 onwards, But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty, and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we are testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up, if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. You see, if you take the resurrection out of the message, then there is no gospel. That's the end of Christianity. There is no Christianity without the message of resurrection. Other religion would survive whether it is Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism or any other religion but Christianity would come to nothing if there is no resurrection. If Jesus did not rise and there is no Christianity, the resurrection from the dead is a cardinal doctrine of Christianity and if this doctrine is denied then that's the end of Christianity. Further, there is no impetus to live a righteous life or to labor for the kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul in verse 30, he says, and why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm by the boasting in which in which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If in the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. You see, if Jesus is not truly risen, then there is no reason for us to come to church or us to suffer for the sake of Christ or for people in the Middle East to die for the name of Christ. People die there in North Korea, in Middle East and in other places. People die for the name of Christ. But if Jesus has not risen, then all the people who are dying for him, suffering for him, all of those things are just futile. We can just eat, live, drink, do whatever we want to do, live our own life. But see, that is problematic according to Paul, that that runs counter to the Christian message, counter to the Christian gospel. And this is the context to our passage today in verses one to 11. So what we are going to see today from this passage is this. The historical resurrection of Jesus Christ serves as the ultimate guarantee of a future resurrection and eternal life for all who believes the gospel. The historical resurrection of Jesus Christ serves as the ultimate guarantee of a future resurrection and eternal life for all who believe, believes the gospel. The passage in front of us gives us four reasons why we should believe the resurrection of Jesus as an historical event. Four reasons why the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event. First, the testimony of the church. The second, the testimony of the scriptures. Third, the testimony of the eyewitnesses. The fourth, the testimony of a transformed anti-Christian. So we have four testimonies which demonstrate the fact that Jesus rose again from the dead and it enables the reality of life after death and hope for believers. Look at our first reason that why we should believe the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. First, the testimony of the church. Look at verses 1 and 2. Paul says, I declare to you the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel is that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures. This is the gospel. Christ died for our sins. This is the purpose of his dying. That means he did not die for his own sins or for his own crime. He did not die as a martyr. He didn't die for humanity in general, but he died for our sins. He suffered in his body in your place. Not only did he die, but he was also buried, and then he was raised from the dead on the third day. The Christian church preached the resurrection gospel from the very beginning. It was not an innovation in third century or fourth century or after some time, after Jesus ascended to heaven, they did not come up with this kind of message. This is the collective testimony of the church from the very beginning. Luke in the prologue to his gospel writes in as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us It seemed good to me also having had perfect knowledge of all things from the very first to write to you an orderly account Most excellent Theophilus that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed Then he writes in the in his prologue to to the acts of the Apostles the former account I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up and after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments and to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." So Luke, the historian of the church, shows us that Jesus rose again from the dead. And this was the message of the ministers of the church, the evangelists, the pastors, the elders from the very beginning. This is the message which they were preaching and teaching from the very beginning. Then Peter, on the first day of the church, preaches to the Jews, quoting from Psalm 16, saying, Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried. And his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sown with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. Then and now in verse three, Paul says, for I deliver to you, first of all, that which I also received. So Paul is saying that he didn't come up with the message of resurrection on his own. What he preached to them was the message which he himself received from Lord Jesus Christ himself and from then the other apostles of the Lord. It was not his own concocted message. And the Corinthians will do well if they hold fast to the word which Paul preached. He's saying that if they do not hold fast to this word, the word which says that Jesus rose again from the dead, then they will perish. And now we also see that the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead was the faith and confession of the church. That means you cannot be a Christian unless you confess that I believe in Lord Jesus Christ, that he died for my sins and he was buried, but he also rose again from the dead on the third day. You cannot be Christian. You cannot deny the resurrection and be Christian at the same time. Romans chapter 10 verse 9 shows us that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has Raised him from the dead you will be saved There are people who say who profess to be Christian, but deny the resurrection. But you cannot deny the resurrection and be Christian at the same time. Believing in the resurrection of Lord Jesus is the basic element of the gospel, which was preached by the apostles and held by the church from the very beginning. And Paul exhorts the Corinthians to hold on to this truth unless they believed in vain. In verse 11, he says that this was the common message, whether it was he or other servants of the Lord. In other words, this was the common message which was preached and believed by the Christians from the very beginning. The testimony of the church from the very beginning shows us that Jesus rose again from the dead on that Sunday morning. So the first thing why you should believe in the resurrection of Jesus is that it is the testimony of the church. It is the testimony of the church of Lord Jesus Christ, the church which Lord Jesus established. And he said, I will establish my church and the gates of hell will never prevail against it. So the church has testified from the past 2,000 years that Jesus rose again from the dead. So that's the first reason why you should believe in the resurrection of Jesus. The second thing is the testimony of the scriptures, the testimony of the scriptures. Look at verses three and four. First, he says that Christ died according to the scriptures. What scripture is he talking about? He is talking about the Old Testament scriptures which predicted the death, burial and resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ. There are numerous prophecies and types in the Old Testament which speaks about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament animal sacrifices pointed to the ultimate sacrifice of the Messiah on behalf of his people. All of those sacrifices pointed to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. It foreshadowed that the Messiah will die as an atoning sacrifice for his people for their sins to be wiped away. Then prophet Daniel predicts predicted that the Messiah will die but not for himself for he says in Daniel 9 26 saying after the 62 weeks Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself. Then the famous passage in Isaiah 53 reads like this. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent. So he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my people. He was stricken and they made his grave with the wicked. but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Jews even today when they read this passage, they talk about the nation of Israel, the nation suffering for the sins of the nation of Israel. But that is irrational. That's not how it sounds like. And we don't even see in the scripture nation suffering for its own nation in a vicarious manner. But that's not what we see in Isaiah 53. It is talking about a person who is innocent, but who is dying for the sins of others. Then Paul says that he was buried. Burial shows that his death on the cross was real. He did not hang there for a time and later was resuscitated. Ancient Romans were expert in killing. If someone knew how to kill a person, they knew how to kill a person. They were a killing machine. That's what they did. They made sure that their victims died on the cross. The Roman soldiers present at the scene made sure that Jesus died on the cross. John chapter 19 verses 32 to 34 shows us, then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him. Why did they broke the legs? They broke the legs so that the victim would not rise to breathe again, so that he would eventually die because he was not getting enough oxygen. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out. So the soldiers made sure that Jesus died on the cross. Then later Pilate made sure that Jesus died on the cross when Joseph of Arimathea came to him asking for the body of Jesus to be buried. Roman soldiers made sure Jesus died on the cross. Pilate made sure that Jesus died on the cross before his body was delivered to his disciples. That means Jesus not only died on the cross, but he was also buried and that his death and burial was real. But then Paul again says in verse 4 that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. In other words, he's saying that scriptures not only predicted his death and burial, but also predicted his bodily resurrection. Isaiah 53 the famous chapter first shows us that the servant of the Lord will die for his people. But then it also says he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days. Then again it says he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. How can the servant of the Lord see his seed if he is dead? He can see his seed because he will rise again from the dead. Then David says in Psalm 16, Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices. My flesh also will rest in hope, for ye will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Jews thought that this psalm is talking about God sustaining David in his death, and still they think so. But it shows that God will not leave his Holy One in the Sheol, nor will allow him to see corruption. And Paul commenting on this passage in Acts 13 says that David died and his body saw corruption. As it is true with all of us, we all die and our bodies see corruption. But then this psalm is fulfilled in Jesus, in Christ, because God raised him from the dead. He did not see corruption. Jesus did not see corruption. Jesus died, was buried, but that's not all. He also rose again on the third day for our justification. And this is the testimony of the holy scriptures. We looked at the testimony of the church. We looked at the testimony of the scriptures. Why we should believe the resurrection. And now look at the testimony of multiple eyewitnesses who saw and heard the resurrected Jesus. The testimony of the multiple eyewitnesses. In any court of law, the testimony of reliable eyewitnesses form the most basic and powerful evidence for a case. So think about all of this, a court case, and we are looking at multiple evidence in support of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We looked at the testimony of the church. What what did church proclaim from the beginning? we are looking at the testimony of the We looked at the testimony of the scriptures and now look at the testimony of multiple eyewitness If the eyewitnesses are reliable competent and numerous then the argument in favor or against becomes undeniable and If the eyewitness is only one, and if he's not reliable, then that's a different thing. But if there are multiple eyewitnesses, and if they're competent, then the case is stronger. Now Paul lists multiple eyewitnesses who saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ with their own eyes and heard him with their own ears. First he mentions Cephas, that is Cephas is Aramaic for rock and Greek for rock is Petros, which is pronounced as Peter in English. Peter was the first one who confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God. But he also was the same one who denied Jesus if he knew him. Then he wept bitterly indicating his repentance from his sin of denying Christ. And Luke shows us in his gospel that it was to Peter that Jesus first appeared out of all other apostles. For in Luke 24, verse 34, the disciples were on the road to Emmaus said to the rest of the apostles and disciples saying, the Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. So that was Luke. You know, that's what Luke said in the gospel of Luke. concerning Peter that Lord first appeared to Simon. Peter became one of the first of eyewitnesses beside women who went to visit the tomb on that Sunday morning. Peter further testified to the Jews on the day of Pentecost that this Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses. All, that means all of the apostles and other disciples who were there with them. The apostle Paul then refers to the twelve after mentioning Peter. Even though there were officially 11 disciples after the fall of Judas by transgression, Paul refers to them as 12, denoting the name of the group rather than number. Even after the addition of Matthias and Paul, the name of the apostolic group remained 12 instead of 13. Scripture shows us that one of the primary requirements for someone to be an apostle was their experience of seeing risen Jesus. When it came to choosing the 12th apostle after Judas fell by transgressing from his office, Peter says in Acts 2 verse 21 onwards, Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to the day when he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection. So one of the primary requirement for someone to be an apostle was that he had to be a witness of his resurrection. Hence an apostle by definition is one who has seen the resurrected Jesus. Acts chapter 1 verses 1 and 3 shows us that Jesus was seen and heard by the apostle for 40 days after his resurrection from the dead. In these 40 days he appeared to them. They saw him. They heard him. He spoke to them. And then we see other appearances. First he appeared when Thomas was not present with the rest. Then he appeared when Thomas was present with the rest. Then he appeared again to the disciples when they were at the seaside trying to catch a fish. John chapter 21 verse 14 shows us that it was the third time Jesus showed himself To the twelve as a group after he rose again from the dead We looked at Peter who was eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus, and then we looked at the twelve who were witness witnesses of his resurrection But then Paul says in verse Verse six After that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remained to the present, but some have fallen asleep. Paul says that the resurrected Jesus was seen by over 500 people at once. Even though we do not have a clear verse in the Gospels which says that more than 500 people saw him at once, but most likely it was at Galilee where more than 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus. Matthew chapter 26 shows us that Jesus said to his disciples before he went to the cross that he will go to Galilee after he rises from the dead. Then the angel at the tomb says to the women at the tomb on Sunday morning that Jesus is going to Galilee. So most likely they saw the resurrected Jesus in Galilee. But the Apostle Paul further qualifies this verse by saying to the Corinthians believers that the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. So what is the argument here? He is writing this letter to the Corinthian church. So what Paul is saying is this. that what I am saying, if it is not true, what I am saying is false. If I am telling a lie, just go and meet those people face to face. Go and talk to them. Those who were the eyewitnesses of Jesus's resurrection. Some have died. Yes, by this time, most likely Paul wrote this letter around AD 50 or 55, around that time. Some of them might have died, but there were more than 500 people. And even if some have died, why don't you go and talk to them? Ask these multiple eyewitnesses if Jesus has not risen from the dead. That is the argument of Paul here. He's saying that you could verify for yourself if Jesus has risen from the dead. Next, we see James, who was an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus. This is not the apostle James, but the brother of Lord Jesus Christ who did not believe in him During the earthly ministry of Jesus during three and a half years Mark chapter 6 verse 3 shows that James was a brother of Jesus and marks and shows us that You know, they did not believe in his works and that and they said that he is out of his mind or in other words They were saying that Jesus is out of his senses. But Galatians 1.18 shows us that Paul met James, the Lord's brother, when he went to Jerusalem. Then Acts 12.17 and Acts 15 shows us that James, the brother of our Lord, was a prominent leader in the church. So before Jesus went to the cross, James did not even believe in Jesus. For him, Jesus was just out of his mind. So he did not have any kind of motivation to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. But here we see that James came to be known as one of the pillar of the New Testament Church, pillar of the Jerusalem Church. And Paul shows us that James, the brother of our Lord, was one of the eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ. Perhaps James became a believer when he saw the resurrected Jesus with his own eyes, when he saw Jesus with his own eyes, even he became a believer. The Apostle Paul then continues in his line of eyewitnesses. In verse 7, he continues by saying, then by all the apostles. Now, what is he trying to say here? It sounds like a contradiction. He just mentioned about that. He just mentioned that all the twelve seen him. Paul is not referring here to the 12 Apostles with the capital A. He is referring to the Apostles with the lowercase a referring to the early disciples of Jesus who had witnessed the resurrected Jesus. The word apostle literally means the sent one or the bearer of a message. In that sense, all ministers of the word and evangelists are an apostle with the lowercase a. Luke chapter 10 shows us that Jesus sent out 70 of his disciples to every city and place where he himself was about to go. In Acts chapter one, we see that there were about 120 disciples who had been gathered together for prayer. and electing an eyewitness to replace Judas Iscariot. Hence, there were many who had seen the resurrected Jesus. Barnabas in the New Testament is called an apostle. So, the resurrected Jesus was seen by many other people and all of the 500 people and some of whom were kind of preachers and teachers sent out by church. But what is what is Paul doing here? But what is Paul doing here? From verse five onwards, he's giving details of eyewitnesses who had seen the resurrected Jesus. He is giving details over details who had seen Jesus after he rose again from the dead. And what is he trying to prove? He is established in the fact that Jesus rose again from the dead. And this is an historical fact. Law requires the testimony of two or three competent, reliable and trustworthy witnesses. And we have the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses here. The Corinthian believers could meet so many of them in their own day and age. Now the critics of Christianity try to dismiss these witnesses by saying all kinds of silly things. Some say that the disciples just made up or hallucinated about the resurrected Jesus. They were there with Christ for three and a half years and now their Messiah had gone. They just couldn't bear this and they start having dreams about the resurrected Jesus. But people do not see dreams in group. And what we are reading and what we read so far doesn't explain how different people could see the same things together. How 10 of his disciples could see him at one single point of time or 11 at other time when Thomas was present. And how more than 500 people could see him at once. Then there were how 500 people could see him at once. So we looked at the witness of the early church. We looked at the testimony of the scripture. We looked at the testimony of the eyewitness. And now look at one of the most unlikely eyewitness of all time. It is Paul himself. Now Paul, verses 8 to 10, he says, But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed. He was someone who persecuted the church of Lord Jesus Christ. So that means he was a terrorist in the eyes of Christians. He was, you know, we think about terrorism coming from the religion of Islam. But even before that, someone was a terrorist, and that was Paul himself, because he persecuted the church of Lord Jesus Christ. When Stephen was stoned, he was present there. He was present there and he was consenting. He opposed the Christian faith tooth and nail and did everything in his power to destroy the Church of Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul refers to himself as one born out of time. The Greek ektroma refers to a stillborn child or a child born abnormally before term or a miscarriage. He refers to himself as someone who was not even supposed to come to faith in Lord Jesus Christ. He is something like an anomaly. But God had mercy on him. When he was on his way to Damascus to arrest men and women who profess faith in Lord Jesus Christ, he was met by the risen Christ. Acts 9 shows us that he was converted in an instant when the risen Savior met him on his way to Damascus. Then the disciple of the Lord, Ananias, met him and said to him in this way, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Confirming to him that the Lord has received him, and what he saw was not an illusion, but he saw the risen Savior himself. And Paul speaking to the Corinthians asks, am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Last of all, he is also the witness of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. And he says that the grace of God was not in vain towards me as he labored more than many others, but even that is by the grace of God working in him. The one who formerly persecuted the church became one of the most vocal champions of the church. The one who tried to destroy the church became one who wrote most of the New Testament books. The one who traveled once to Damascus to bind Christians who profess faith in Christ became one of the most widely traveled evangelists. What changed him? Seeing the resurrected Christ changed him. That meeting with Jesus transformed him. We looked at the testimony of the church. We looked at the testimony of the scriptures. We looked at the testimony of the multiple eyewitnesses. And now we looked at the testimony of one who formerly persecuted the church. Testimony after testimony, evidence upon evidence. All of these things prove one undeniable fact. And that fact is that Jesus rose again from the dead on that Sunday morning. He rose again, never to die. And now he's seated at the right hand of God, the Father. And because he lives, you will live also. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead and you believe this in your heart, then you are saved. He is the first fruit of what is to come. First fruit of what is to come in the future. That means if you have believed in Jesus, you don't have to fear. You don't have to live in fear. And neither you can be sad or depressed if you lose your loved ones who have died in Christ. You cannot be sad and depressed in a way which is akin to the people of this world who sorrow as if there is no future. For us Christians, those who believe the gospel, there is a future. There is a future. There is a life. But then this also shows us that we are not going to float in the air as some spiritual beings. We are going to have the same body. It will be a resurrected body, but it will be a body. You will recognize your own hands and legs, your face, your eyes and nose. You will recognize your own body. I would say we would recognize one another. So that means our body is sacred and God is going to transform this body. Our body is sacred. God is going to transform this body. One day we will have a body which will not decay, which will not suffer. we will not need to take medicines again and again for the sickness of our body because we are going to have resurrected body because Jesus rose again in his own body. If you are trusted in Lord Jesus Christ, place your trust in him, believe the gospel, Then one day we will all follow suit and we will all rise again from the dead, never to die again with a glorified body. And you will also see those who have died in Christ. And this is the hope which you can have even now. This is a good hope for you to have. And this is the hope of Easter. May the Lord continue to strengthen you through his word as you meditate on it as we pray. Our most gracious and holy father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the hope of resurrection which we have in Christ Jesus. What a wonderful thought it is for us this morning that because Jesus rose again from the dead on that Sunday morning, even if we die, we will rise again from the dead. But Lord, that's not the end of it. Lord, it brings great pleasure to our heart when we think that we would have a glorified body. That means now we may be suffering in our body. Our body is not perfect. We all suffer in our body some or the other way, but one day our bodies will be made perfect. So Lord, we look and long for that day. And Lord, as we live in this fallen world, we would continue to have this hope and we would continue to believe in Jesus and his resurrection and he living for us. to intercede on our behalf so that He could present us perfect before His Father. So thank you, not only for the hope which we have in Christ Jesus, but also for the continuing work of Jesus on our behalf, who sustains us and upholds us. We ask this prayer in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you for joining us. If you were blessed by this sermon, we invite you to visit us at abcreformed.org, where you'll find more information about our ministry. We look forward to you joining us again, online or in person. Until then, may peace, comfort, and grace be given to you through our Lord Jesus Christ.