Easter Sunday: The Resurrection is True, Now What?

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

In my sermon on Good Friday, I said that Jesus’ death on the cross is the most significant event that takes place in Scripture. I probably should have clarified that to read: In light of the resurrection, Jesus’ death on the cross is the most significant event in Scripture. For as crucial as it was for Christ to be the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world, would it have counted for anything if He had merely died a sacrificial lamb? If Jesus had died and stayed in the grave, what would that have meant for the world? Why does the resurrection matter so much?

Paul answers that question for us in 1 Corinthians 15:13-19 (CSB), which says, “13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. 15 Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God that he raised up Christ—whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. 19 If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.”

But Christ has risen! That means that our proclamation is not in vain- and neither is our faith.

The resurrection matters so much, because if Christ had not risen from the dead, all those fears and consequences that Paul raises would be true. But, because Christ has risen from the dead, those are fears no longer. The resurrection is of utmost importance because, since Christ rose from the dead, these three things are proven true:

·       Jesus is who He said He is

·       Sin has been defeated

·       We who hope in Christ have eternal life

Let’s look at these statements more closely, starting with the first, found in verses 13-15. Paul says, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God that he raised up Christ—whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised.”

If Christ hadn’t been raised, then us telling other people about Jesus would be in vain. It would be worthless to bother sharing the gospel, for what would the message be? ‘Jesus was a man who lived a good life and then He was killed by the religious leaders.’ Where is the hope in that story? Yet, sadly, so many people around the world believe that is the whole story.

All four of the Gospels are clear, though, that Jesus was resurrected. Just looking at one, Mark 16:1-7, it tells us: “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they could go and anoint him. Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise. They were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?’ Looking up, they noticed that the stone—which was very large—had been rolled away. When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; they were alarmed. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he told them. ‘You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they put him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there just as he told you.”’”

Because He was resurrected, we know that Jesus is who He said He is. He is not just a prophet. He is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Because of the resurrection, we can confidently share our faith with the world so they too may have faith. Like the disciples after they saw Jesus, we too can proclaim this good news with others so they can have faith in the risen Savior, too.  

The second reason the resurrection is so important is found in verses 16-17, which say, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” 

In his commentary on these verses, MacLaren says, “So, dear friends, the risen Christ gives us something for faith to lay hold of, and will make it the hand by which we grasp His strong hand, which lifts us ‘out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, and sets our feet upon a rock.’ But if He lie dead in the grave your faith is vain, because it grasps nothing but a shadow; and it is vain as being purposeless; you are yet in your sins.”

If Jesus wasn’t resurrected, then this is perhaps the most concerning consequence of all. For if we are still in our sin, how can we be saved? The only reason we are granted salvation is because Jesus, through His death and resurrection, has taken away the sin of all who have faith in Him. By His blood that was shed for our sin, we “grasp His strong hand” and we are declared holy. Colossians 1:13-14 says, “He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus was resurrected. What John the Baptist testified was true when he shouted, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The incredible news of Easter is this: If we have faith in the risen Savior, then we are no longer in sin!

Like John the Baptist, are not false witnesses about God. We can testify about the resurrection, and trust, because we have been set from sin, that we will be raised from the dead when we die.

Which leads us directly to the last reason, found in verses 18-19, which say, if there is no resurrection, “Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.”

Why do you think Paul adds, “we should be pitied more than anyone,” if Christ did not rise from the dead? Why “pitied”? I believe Paul is speaking from experience. He had suffered, been jailed, beaten, and watched fellow believers die for their faith in Jesus. He knows that if Jesus had not risen, then there is no eternal life waiting for him, and all his suffering for Christ had been meaningless. It’d be pitiful.

As Christians, this should cause us to stop and reflect. If we aren’t suffering in some way for our faith, we should ask ourselves: are we truly following Jesus? After all, like 2 Timothy 3:12 says, “In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

Jesus said, too, in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

That means, if we want to follow Jesus, we must daily pick up our cross and follow the way of Jesus. That means we will face suffering. These trials show up in different ways: social rejection, denial of our fleshly desires, abstaining from social norms, oppression, imprisonment, or even death. Not all of us have faced the sort of persecution the early church did, but we all face trials as we follow Jesus, for we all must deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily.

Paul explains this further if we keep reading in 1 Corinthians 15:30-34, which says: [if Christ hasn’t been raised, then] “Why are we in danger every hour? I face death every day, as surely as I may boast about you, brothers and sisters, in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus as a mere man, what good did that do me? If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’ Come to your senses and stop sinning; for some people are ignorant about God. I say this to your shame.”

Paul asks the rhetorical question: if Christ hasn’t been raised, then why are we putting ourselves in danger by spreading this gospel? If the dead are not raised, if this life on earth is the only life we’ve got, then why not live as the unbelievers do? Why not live this life in excess? Why not sin?

But since Christ has been raised from the dead, he emphatically states, “Do not be deceived.” Christ did rise, so “come to your senses and stop sinning.” He’s saying, ‘If you know that Christ rose, and you are still living in sin like the world is, you should be ashamed.’ If we are following Christ, we are not to live as the world lives. That’s why Paul says that without the resurrection, Christians would be the most pitiful people on earth.

But Christ has risen from the dead! And because of that, we’ve been given a new life to live. We can put our hope in Christ, and we do not need to be pitied, for whatever we suffer in this life for Christ, it’s nothing compared to the glory that we look forward to. As Paul says in Romans 8:18, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.” Because Christ has risen from the dead, we too will rise after death and live forever with Him for eternity.

Paul is making it very clear- if Easter morning didn’t happen, then Good Friday didn’t accomplish anything. Without the resurrection, there is no gospel message of hope- the cross would be a tragic ending. There would be no good news to tell, no hope to give, no forgiveness of sins, nor transformation of our life, and no eternal life with God. But because Jesus rose, everything has changed. The resurrection validates the cross. It proves that Jesus is who He said He is; sin has been defeated; and if our hope is in Christ, we will have eternal life with Him.

Now that we’ve seen why the resurrection matters so much, what should our response be? Because the resurrection is true, now what? On Good Friday, I said our response to all that Jesus has done should be one of thanksgiving and joy. That’s still true. Thanksgiving and joy must be expressed, but how should we express it?

In Philippians 3:10-14, we find the answer to the question: what should we do because the resurrection is true? Because the resurrection is true, Paul says, “My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

Paul is saying, ‘I haven’t arrived, but I’m pressing on, pursuing the goal, because Christ took hold of me, and now I’m striving to take hold of Him. I want to know Him more deeply and become more like Him.’ This should be our goal, too, and I think it’s one of the best ways we can express our gratitude and joy for what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

This goal of becoming more like Jesus is to be pursued daily. For the resurrection is not just an event we celebrate once a year. Jesus suffered so much and gave His life so we could be not only forgiven but set free from sin, and because Jesus rose from the dead, we’ve been given a new life to live. We are invited into the resurrection life, for the power of the resurrection compels us forward in our daily pursuit of Christ. This resurrection life is a life of pursuing holiness, as the same power that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in us (Romans 8:11). The Holy Spirit is at work in us, sanctifying us, making us holy.

Let me explain this a bit more. Jesus, the Lamb of God, became the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. If we believe in Jesus and repent of our sins, He forgives us and declares us holy. Hebrews 10:10 (ESV) tells us, “We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” But then verse 14 adds, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

This means that we have been made holy through Jesus’ sacrifice, and we are being made holy as we are sanctified. It is an ongoing process. MacLaren, in his commentary on Hebrews 10:14, helps explain this and, interestingly enough, he also ties this together with what Paul is saying in Corinthians. He writes, “Let us each strive to get more and more of Jesus Christ in us, that we may know Him, and the ‘power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings,’ more fully, more deeply, and may keep it more constantly. Oh, brethren! if we are not ascending the ladder that reaches to heaven, which is Christ Himself, we are descending; and if we are not growing we are dwindling; and if we cannot say that we are being sanctified, we are being made more and more common and profane.”

Why should we strive? Why should we pursue this goal of being made more like Jesus? Because Jesus really did rise from the dead. That’s why Paul says, “My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection.” So yes, we respond with thanksgiving and joy — but more than that, we respond with a life that presses forward, striving to reflect the One who rose again. Because He lives, we are to live for Him.

As we keep reading in Hebrews 10, though, we see a very somber warning. Hebrews 10:26-39, in summary says, “For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries…It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God…you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised.

For yet in a very little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back,

I have no pleasure in him.

But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.”

Considering all that Christ has done for us, we must not return to the sin from which He has set us free. We must endure, holding on to the hope we have, allowing the Holy Spirit to continue to sanctify us. We cannot deliberately or willfully continue in sin. We must press forward, leaving sin behind.  

For some people, it might seem out of place to hear so much about sin at Easter, but it shouldn’t seem strange. For we wouldn’t have a resurrection without the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. I think these two stanzas of the hymn, Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted, written in 1804 by Thomas Kelly, beautifully explain why:

Ye who think of sin but lightly,

Nor suppose the evil great;

Here may view its nature rightly,

Here its guilt may estimate.

Mark the sacrifice appointed!

See who bears the awful load!

‘Tis the Word, the Lord’s anointed,

Son of man, and Son of God.

Here we have a firm foundation;

Here’s the refuge of the lost:

Christ, the Rock of our salvation:

His the name of which we boast.

Lamb of God, for sinners wounded!

Sacrifice to cancel guilt!

None shall ever be confounded

Who on him their hope have built.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 15, in verses 54-58, Paul talks about this hope. He says: when Jesus returns, “When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Because Jesus is the Lamb of God who died on the cross for our sin, was resurrected and triumphed over sin, we who have faith in Him have hope of eternal life with Him. Let us rejoice with thanksgiving for what He has done for us. And let us press forward, striving to reflect the One who rose again, knowing that our suffering for Him is not in vain.

Pray: Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your great mercy and love that caused You to send Jesus to earth to die for our sins. We rejoice that He did not stay in the grave, but by Your great power You raised Him from the dead. Thank You, Jesus, for Your willing sacrifice to save us from our sins. Please fill us with Your resurrection power so we can live wholly devoted to You. In the name of Jesus, our risen Savior, we pray. Amen.