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Sunday, March 16
And also we are found false witnesses of God, because we witnessed about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if dead persons are not raised. For if dead persons are not raised, neither has Christ been raised (1 Corinthians 15:15-16)
What was your earliest picture of God? Mine was of an old man with a white beard and a giant set of scales. I thought the bad went on one side and the good on the other. If the good outweighed the bad you were "in"; if not, you weren't. If you are good, go to church, try to be religious, then God likes you. If you're not, he doesn't.
Unfortunately, most people think that is true. Fortunately, most people are wrong.
I committed the first sin I can remember when I stole a pack of gum from a grocery store while my mother wasn't looking. That sin didn't start a war or end a life, but it was enough to separate me from our perfect God and his perfect paradise. The smallest cancer can kill the largest patient.
God's scale doesn't balance good and bad—the rst weight we place on the side of sin tips the scale to evil. The good news is that our Judge has found a way to remove "every weight and sin" (Hebrews 12:1) from our scale. His solution is both reasonable and gracious, and works for every person who will trust it.
Why do you need his solution for sin today?
What God's word means
Paul continues his logical exploration of the Corinthians' confl icted position on the resurrection: if Jesus was not raised, he and his fellow apostles are found ("discovered, found out, detected") to be false ("pseudo") witnesses ("those who give testimony") of God (or "about God"). The reason is simple: they said that God raised Christ. But even God could not raise Jesus if dead persons are not raised. The Greek rejection of bodily resurrection would apply in this case to divine omnipotence.
Because Jesus died and dead persons are not raised, he has not been raised. The apostle's analysis is compelling: the Corinthians must choose between Greek philosophy and foundational Christian doctrine.
Why Easter matters
"Historiography" is the study of methods by which history should be recorded. A popular historiographical approach is to assume that nothing which does not happen in our time could have happened in the past. For example, if we are convinced that unaided humans cannot not fly today, we should reject historical records which document flying humans in the past.
By this method, some scholars reject the historicity of Jesus' resurrection. "Dead bodies do not rise," we're told, so his could not have risen. Some skeptics view Easter as the "rise of faith in the disciples" or as a symbolic assertion of Jesus' abiding relevance.
This is not a new argument, as our text demonstrates. Paul's argument cuts through all such academic debate: if the dead cannot be raised, Jesus was not raised and the Christian faith is false. Our Lord predicted that he would be raised from the dead, not that his disciples would continue to believe in him or that his message would continue to be spread. Easter is truly the foundation on which Christianity stands or falls.
How to respond
One answer to Easter skeptics is logical: just because you do not experience an occurrence today does not mean that others have not. I never once encountered a blizzard while growing up in Houston. A native of Borneo might reject the plausibility of igloos.
Nor is present experience necessarily consistent with past circumstances. Seven millennia ago, the Sahara Desert was a lush and heavily settled region. A present-day historian encountering a Saharan farmer's diary from that time period would be mistaken to dismiss its records. So it is with Easter - just because I have not witnessed a resurrected body does not guarantee that others could not.
A second answer is personal: if you have met Jesus today, he must have been raised from his grave. When TIME magazine asked on its April 6, 1966 cover, "Is God Dead?" someone asked Billy Graham for a response. He smiled and said, "I can assure you he's not dead—I spoke with him this morning."
Have you given your last sin to his present grace today?
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