1 Corinthians 15:12

For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried and rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

If Jesus truly rose on the third day, then every promise of God is signed and guaranteed—and we are invited to share in His resurrection life.

The Most Important Doctrine

This morning we get the privilege of discussing what is arguably the most important doctrine in the Christian faith. Without it, everything else falls apart. We have to talk about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The reason we've been going through the Creed all summer is that it's important for us as Christians to know what we believe and why. The Creed takes what's in the Bible and makes the primary doctrines clear. All true Christians believe what the Creed says, because it's drawn directly from Scripture. And the Bible tells us to always be ready to give a defense for our faith. As Christians, we ought to get better at reasoning out our faith—not merely saying, "I just believe in Jesus."

With our youth this summer we've been doing an apologetics series, answering the real questions junior high and high school students have. One of those questions is exactly what we're talking about today: How can somebody be raised from the dead? How can you really believe that someone 2,000 years ago rose from the grave? It's a good question. We can take the resurrection for granted in the church, forgetting how staggering it is to say that Jesus actually rose.

God Keeps His Promises Precisely

The Nicene Creed doesn't just say that Jesus died; it says precisely that "on the third day he rose again according to the scriptures." Why so precise? Because God always keeps His promises—down to the very day, down to the very hour. Three times Jesus told His disciples, "I'm going away, I'm going to die, and three days later I'm going to rise again." Three times they didn't quite get it. So if you don't fully understand the resurrection, you're in good company.

Every world religion believes there is some form of life after death, that death is not the end. There are good reasons for that. In our lives we pursue wealth, but once we have it, it isn't enough. We pursue pleasure, but its gratification wears out. We long to be loved, and even love doesn't finally satisfy. The conclusion is that there has to be something more than what we can see, touch, or buy. Scholars have called this a God-shaped hole—only God can truly satisfy us, because we were made for eternal life with Him.

Liar, Lunatic, or Lord

When we look at Jesus in the Gospels, He makes very bold, distinct claims about who He is, including power over death. C.S. Lewis famously argued that these claims leave us with only three options. Jesus is either a liar—a fraud who conned us into believing He was God; a lunatic—a madman who genuinely believed crazy things about Himself; or He is Lord.

There is no comfortable middle ground where we can simply call Him a good moral teacher. When a man claims He will die and rise again on the third day—and says so three different times—you cannot dismiss Him as merely a good moral teacher. (Yes, there's one more "L" option, and I'll get to it at the end.)

Here is why this matters: if we can't trust Jesus with power over death, how can we trust Him with power over our lives today? Death is the greatest enemy of mankind. There is a one hundred percent chance that we will all die. If we can't trust Jesus over death, we can't trust Him over our lives—and if the resurrection didn't actually happen, everything in the Christian faith falls apart.

Without the Resurrection, Everything Collapses

Let's open to 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul speaks of the resurrection.

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, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. (1 Corinthians 15:12–14)

Point one: without the resurrection, preaching is useless, faith is futile, and believers are still in bondage to their sin. If the resurrection didn't happen, what I'm doing up here is pointless, and what the church has done for 2,000 years is pointless. We would still be in bondage to sin, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But praise be to God through Jesus Christ, who bore all our sins upon Himself as the spotless Lamb, so that we might not experience the wrath of God.

Paul's logic is that without the resurrection Christianity doesn't just become weak—it utterly collapses, like a house of cards. Every sermon ever preached would be powerless. Our faith—Paul's word literally means empty—would be in vain. And a dead Jesus brings nothing but false hope. But this morning we have a real hope in Jesus Christ.

I believe the resurrection is God's receipt that the payment for our sins was accepted in full. When Jesus died, went into the grave for three days, and rose again, the angel told Mary and the disciples, "He is not here, He is risen. Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" The risen Christ is God's confirmation that the punishment for our sins was accepted. Christ was raised on the third day, exactly as He promised, in accordance with the Scriptures.

The Vindication of Everything Before

Point two: the resurrection of Christ is the vindication of everything that came before and the guarantee of everything that follows. All of Scripture, Old and New Testament, points to Jesus. Where was the resurrection prophesied?

You will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay. (Psalm 16:10)

David wrote that a thousand years before Christ, yet it cannot be about David, because David is dead and has not been raised. It is a prophecy about the risen Savior, fulfilled on the third day.

When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. Because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all of their sins. (Isaiah 53:11)

Written 700 years before the cross, this declares that the suffering Servant would not merely die—He would see life again. The resurrection validates every prophetic word about Jesus. Without it, all the Old Testament prophecies are void.

God even prepared His people for a resurrected Savior through Jonah. Jesus said that just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, the Son of Man would be three days in the ground—but He would not remain there. Just as Jonah was delivered from the whale, Jesus was raised from the dead. (Honestly, Jonah is one of the first people I want to meet in heaven—heaven is going to be far better than we can imagine.)

The Guarantee of Every Promise

If God was faithful to raise Jesus on the third day exactly as promised, what does that mean for every promise He's made to us? It means they are all guaranteed. When He promises never to leave or forsake us—guaranteed. When He promises to be near to the brokenhearted—guaranteed. When He promises to work all things together for the good of those who love Him—guaranteed, even when we don't see it right away.

Often we don't see it, because being made in God's image, we tend to act like gods and must be humbled to get ourselves out of the way. Sometimes we have to be brought low and to points of pain so that we will look up and see the author and perfecter of our faith. When He promises eternal life to all who believe—guaranteed. The resurrection is God's signature on every promise in Scripture. That is the God we serve.

How Do We Know It Happened?

You might still ask: how do you know the resurrection actually happened? Consider the transformed lives of the disciples, my own life, and the life of the church. Eleven men—fearful and hiding after Jesus died—became bold proclaimers of a risen Savior. How do you make that change? Because it actually happened.

I've been reading Lee Strobel's book Seeing the Supernatural, which investigates angels, demons, mystical dreams, and near-death encounters. He makes a fascinating point: in recent history we have made science the gold standard of truth, so that as a culture we've written off anything supernatural we cannot test by the scientific method. But the statement that "science is the only source of truth" is itself not scientific, because it cannot be tested by the scientific method.

Science should not be thrown out, but there is more to life than what we can see, feel, or touch. We are fearfully and wonderfully made—not just a body, but a soul and a spirit. Near-death testimonies, where people clinically dead later report things they could not otherwise have known, point to one truth: we are more than our bodies, and the soul is eternal.

There are many things we cannot scientifically prove yet know to be true. We cannot prove in a test tube that torturing babies is wrong, yet we all know it is. We cannot scientifically measure that our spouse loves us, yet we know they do. We can't put justice or beauty in a test tube, yet we recognize them and long for them because God built that into us.

History and Eyewitnesses

The resurrection operates in the realm of history, not a repeatable laboratory experiment. Jesus made the one claim no other religious figure ever made—that He would die and rise again specifically three days later. No historian denies that Jesus existed, lived 2,000 years ago, and died; those are verifiable facts. The real question is whether He rose.

In a court of law, eyewitness testimony is king.

For I delivered to you first that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve... and that he was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present. (1 Corinthians 15:3–8)

Paul is saying 500 people saw the risen Jesus at once, and most of them were still alive—you could go talk to them yourself. This was written close to the time of the resurrection. If it were a man-made myth, it could easily have been falsified. Instead you have the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the fish breakfast by the lake, and doubting Thomas, who refused to believe until Jesus said, "Look at the scars in my hands."

A Bodily Resurrection That Redeems the World

Jesus was not raised merely in a spiritual sense; He was raised bodily, which guarantees us a bodily resurrection hope. The material world and our bodies are not all there is; God is planning to redeem and restore all creation that fell due to sin. Here is the beautiful irony: by rising bodily—able to be touched, able to eat fish—Jesus validates the physical world that modern materialism claims to champion, even as materialism dismisses the supernatural.

Point three: the resurrection validates the material world and promises its ultimate redemption. God is not calling us into escapism, fleeing this world through death. He is going to redeem everything—our physical bodies and this physical world. For those who care about our planet, God will remake, renew, and restore it. When God created everything in Genesis, He called it good; sin brought death and the curse, but God plans to restore it all.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42–44)

Christ said, "I came to make all things new... write these things down, for they are true and faithful." And in John 10:10, "The thief came to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly." Our bodies are not yet in their final form—they are a project, and they are decaying—but they are part of God's good creation that will be raised and renewed. The work of our hands, the things we create, the relationships we build—none of it is meaningless.

Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:21)

So the empty tomb is not just about Jesus going to heaven; it's about heaven coming to earth. It begins with His resurrection body and culminates in the new heavens and new earth, where we will live forever with Him in glorified bodies on a renewed creation.

God Desires for You to Share in His Resurrection

Point four: God desires for you to share in His resurrection. It wasn't just for Jesus. When He appeared in His glorified body to the 500, to the disciples, on the Mount of Transfiguration, He was showing them the reality they would inherit by following Him.

Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)

How many of us need new life today? We need that resurrection power that turns fearful disciples hiding in the upper room into bold proclaimers of the truth. Our greatest enemy has been defeated. When you trust in Christ, you share in His death to sin and His resurrection to new life, and the same power that raised Jesus is at work in you—breaking chains of addiction, restoring broken relationships, giving hope in despair, providing strength every day. The undeniable transformation of lives is itself a reason to believe. What God desires for us is not just eternal existence, but eternal existence with Him.

Liar, Lunatic, Lord—or Legend?

I promised you C.S. Lewis's full answer. The fourth "L" for all our internet skeptics is legend—the claim that the Jesus of history is not who the Gospels depict. But Lewis argued that the genre of the Gospels is not legend; that is not how they are written. And we now have manuscript evidence Lewis didn't have: copies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John dating back to the very early church, among the oldest documents ever found, showing that the Word of God we read today has not been changed in 2,000 years. This is not a legend. Therefore Jesus must be Lord.

Sharing in the Resurrection at the Table

How do we share in the resurrection of Christ? It begins right here at the Lord's Supper. Communion is not just remembering that He died; it's a celebration of the resurrection life He offers to share with you. The broken bread reminds us His body was broken—but more importantly, raised and renewed. The cup reminds us His blood was shed and made eternally effective by His rising. When you take communion, you participate in what He continues to do through His resurrection life.

Two exhortations. First, for believers: the resurrection matters for your life today.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Because Jesus rose, you have resurrection power in your life. Stand firm. His Word does not return void.

Second, for those still skeptical: two weeks ago I welcomed my son Henry into the world—one of the most miraculous experiences there is. But more miraculous still is seeing people receive new life in Jesus Christ. Henry has a temporary life; the gift Christ offers you is eternal life. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved"—and you can partake of communion with us this morning.

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me." In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." (1 Corinthians 11:23–25)

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, I thank You so much that You offer us resurrected life—new life in You. I thank You that Jesus came to this earth from heaven, lived a perfect life, and then gave Himself willingly for Your purposes to redeem mankind and to redeem all of this fallen creation. Father, I pray that there would be new people here this morning who would experience Your resurrection life, who would be born again, who would put their faith and trust in You. Father, may we experience Your resurrection life in a whole new way. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.