...from the desk of Rande Wayne Smith D.Min., Th.M., M.Div.

The Apostles’ Creed - 6

… THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD

Romans 10:9
If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved.

May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion to His glory and our edification.  Amen.

Resurrection is really a universal quest. Even among those people who don’t believe in a resurrection, it’s still a kind of driving force. We all want a second chance. We all want another go-round. We’d all like to experience a future that’s better than the present.

Right now in our world, around the globe, governments are trying to resurrect their countries. Here in the U.S. business is trying to resurrect a bull market. Republicans are trying to resurrect their party. NASA is trying to resurrect its’ Shuttle for space. This winter the Cubs and White Sox will be trying to resurrect their teams. I heard last week that Oreos are “too fattening” and Kraft is resurrecting a new Oreo.

Resurrection is important to everyone … especially to those of us in the Church. Resurrection is absolutely critical to our life, our faith, and our future.

Today we continue our study of the Apostles’ Creed, going through it phrase by phrase by phrase. Last week we focused on the cross. Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell. The cross is the central symbol of the Christian faith. Can there be anything more important than the cross? Yes! The resurrection is even more important than the cross. Paul says, “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved.” Belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is paramount to coming to faith; it is essential for salvation.

On the flip side Paul tells the Corinthians, if there’s no resurrection then we preachers are liars and you remain lost in your sins. We’re all doomed. Resurrection is absolutely critical.

It’s even more important than the cross … because God’s work is always progressive. The next step/stage is always more important than the one that preceded it. We start out with Christmas … the most wonderful time of the year. What could be more important than Christmas? If Jesus doesn’t enter into humanity and rescue us we’re all doomed. What could be more important than that?

Well, Good Friday is more important. I mean, once Jesus is here He’s got to fulfill His mission, He’s got to go to the cross. Good Friday is more important than Christmas.

So the cross must be the most important thing. Could there anything better than Good Friday? Yes, Easter Sunday is. We have Christmas, and Jesus is there. And then we have the cross, and He went there. But we’ve got to have a resurrection to cap it all off. Without Easter Sunday the rest of it is all for naught.

The crucifixion left Peter hopeless, sending him back to be a fisherman. But when the resurrection took place, it energized him and he started fishing for people. The crucifixion led the early disciples to gather in the Upper Room, cowering in fear. But the resurrection inspired those disciples, and they took the Gospel all over the world. The crucifixion kept Judaism firmly established as the religion of the day. Worship was centered on the Sabbath (Saturday). But when the resurrection took place worship shifted to Sunday. So every time we gather on Sunday it’s a mini-Easter. We’re orienting our entire lives around that particular event … Jesus rising from the grave.

Now not everyone believed in a literal, physical resurrection. From the early days of the faith there have always been those who’ve been more interested in a spiritual resurrection.

Take the Corinthians for example. They were concerned about getting the most out of life … now. They weren’t denying the resurrection of Jesus, there was too much evidence for that. But they were denying that the bodies of believers would be resurrected. They had bought into the philosophical idea that the human body is evil; a kind of prison that we’re forced to live in. But a day is coming when we will escape the body. It’ll no longer be needed. It will have served its’ purpose.

The Corinthians were like the new-agers of today, that reflect so much of Eastern religion thinking. It’s our body that holds us back. Give us a spiritual resurrection. And in the meantime, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”

To which Paul responds, “I’m talking about a real literal, physical resurrection … (and the specific word he uses means to stand up from the midst of corpses) … and if you don’t believe in it your whole faith is a delusion.” I want us to think this morning why he would say that. Why is a literal, physical resurrection so central to our faith?

Now the resurrection is certainly a major theme in the N.T., but the most thorough explanation is found in the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Listen to the opening verses. “And now I want to remind you, my friends, of the Good News which I preached to you, which you received, and on which your faith stands firm. That is the gospel, the message that I preached to you. You are saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to it – unless it was for nothing that you believed.

“I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance: that Christ died for our sins, as written in the Scriptures; that he was buried and that he was raised to life 3 days later, as written in the Scriptures; that he appeared to Peter and then to all 12 apostles. Then he appeared to more than 500 of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died.”

Paul’s saying that not only did this take place, but there are hundred’s of witnesses running around. Ask them. They’ve seen Jesus. It’s an historical reality.

“Now, since our message is that Christ has been raised from death, how can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life? “If that is true, it means that Christ was not raised; and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe. More than that, we are shown to be lying about God, because we said that he raised Christ from death – but if it is true that the dead are not raised to life, then he did not raise Christ. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins.”

4 reasons I want to give you why Jesus’ physical resurrection is absolutely critical, why it’s the central event, the most important event in all of history.

#1 … the resurrection is the vindication of our Lord.

I want you to imagine that I’m proclaiming myself to be a prophet, and I’m introducing a new way to get to Heaven. Now my new religion consists of some physical things: daily jogs, deep mediation, and a diet of vanilla chai latte, blueberry yogurt, and crispy bacon. And if you do all that you will be saved. You will free yourself from your desires and sins, and will please God.

Now as I proclaim this message many will oppose me. In fact, they’ll accuse me of being a blasphemer, maybe even being demon possessed. So how do I vindicate my life and message? How do I prove it to you? What if I said, “I’ll prove that my way is the way. You can kill me anyway that you choose, and you can bury me anyway you want, and you can seal me in the tomb the best way you know how … but if I can burst out of there and rise again, then you better be off to the store for some running shoes and chai, cause I’m right!”

And that, very crudely, is exactly what Jesus Christ did. He came, claiming a unique relationship with the Father. He said things like, “The Father and I are one.” … “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Jesus made unique claims to authority in His teachings. He said, “You have heard that people were told in the past” … (everyone else says), “but now I tell you ….” He claimed to speak with His own authority. He claimed authority over the traditional practice of Judaism, concerning the Sabbath and Sabbath keeping. “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

And not only did He claim a unique relationship with God, and sovereign authority, but He claimed to Himself divine prerogatives. Everybody knows that no one can forgive sins but God Himself. Yet when Jesus encountered a paralyzed man, He not only healed him but He said, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” And the teachers of the Law had a fit. “This is blasphemy! God is the only one who can forgive sins!”

Well, Jesus claimed to be able to say such words. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me.”

He took a central celebration of Judaism, the Passover, and said … From now on; every time you eat the bread and drink from this cup I want you to “do this in memory of me.”

He took the Temple, the central symbol of Judaism, and standing before it, Jesus said, “Tear down this Temple, and in 3 days I will build it again.” Of course, He wasn’t speaking about that stone and mortar Temple, but the temple of His own body.

How do you validate His message? Well, Jesus lets them kill Him in the most brutal way they know how. And He lets them put Him in a tomb, where people knew where He was. And He let them seal it, as strongly as they knew how, even posting a Roman guard. Stamping that grave, “do not disturb, under orders of the Roman Empire.”

And on the third day He bursts forth from that tomb, in power, legitimating His message and vindicating His Messiahship. “(Jesus) was shown with great power to be the Son of God by being raised from death.” So Paul writes to the Corinthians, “If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised.” And if He hasn’t been raised, then no atonement for your sins was made. This means that you’re still lost in your sins, and the grave has power over us all.

Belief in a physical resurrection vindicates our Lord and His message and His Messiahship. We have no faith, or hope, without it.

#2 … belief in a physical resurrection is the validation of our hope.

We all want a shot at immortality. We all want to live forever. Philosophers would argue that our whole manner of life is really based on a battle with death. We do whatever we can to try to stave off death. We inject ourselves with botox and silicon and stomach staples and slim fast. Why do we endure that stuff? It’s because we don’t want to die. We don’t even want to look like one day we’re going to die.

Well, Scripture says that we can actually have hope in immortality, in resurrection, if our lives are so bound up with Christ’s life that His life becomes our life. His resurrection becomes our resurrection; and our hope for immortality. We’re bound up in a way that’s described as “with Christ,” which is the N.T.’s favorite way of expressing what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

“But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised. For just as death came by means of a man, in the same way the rising from death comes by means of a man. For just as all people die because of their union with Adam, in the same way all will be raised to life because of their union with Christ. But each one will be raised in proper order: Christ, first of all; then, at the time of his coming, those who belong to him.”

Paul’s saying that we share our life with Christ, just as we shared our life with Adam. The fate that befell Adam, befell us. And, the fate that befell Jesus, befalls us. When Christ died on the cross … it included the death our sin nature. And, when Christ burst out of that grave and experienced resurrection … it was our resurrection too. Spiritually right now … and physically someday in the future. Your life is bound up with Christ.

Scripture reaffirms this over and over. “(Jesus) will change our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule.” “We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is.” “Listen to this secret truth: we shall not all die, but when the last trumpet sounds, we shall all be changed in an instant, as quickly as the blinking of an eye. “For when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed. For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what cannot die.”

I don’t know what we’ll look like? If we’ll be all chiseled and buffed and looking 25 again? But we will come back in a glorious resurrected body, which will move and operate just like Jesus’ resurrected body.

Resurrection is the vindication of our Lord, the validation of our hope, and it’s also the vanquishing of our great enemy, death.

Some people call death the ultimate statistic. One in one persons dies. 3 people die in this world every second. 180 a minute. A little less than 11,000 an hour. ¼ of a million a day. 95 million people a year … die. Death is chewing us up.

Death was instituted kind of like God’s penalty box. “Sin pays its wage – death.” But you go to the “penalty box”, not for 2 minutes for high sticking … you go there for eternity … for sinning against a holy, glorious God.

But the Gospel says that death need not do that anymore because Jesus took the penalty. He went in the box on your behalf. Oh, you’re going to still die one day, most likely, but you’re not going to face the eternal ramifications of death. You’re not going to face the condemnation, which you deserve … if you know Christ, and the power of His own resurrection. He paid the price for you, to vanquish your great enemy.

Listen to these verses. “Then the end will come; Christ will overcome all spiritual rulers, authorities, and powers, and will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father. For Christ must rule until God defeats all enemies and puts them under his feet. The last enemy to be defeated will be death. … Then the scripture will come true: ‘Death is destroyed; victory is complete!’

‘Where, Death is your victory? Where, Death, is your power to hurt?’”

It’s nowhere to be found because death has been vanquished, and immortality becomes our lot, our destiny.

Think about what that means. Think about the wonder of being immortal. Immortality is an attribute of God. God has many attributes and theologians typically categorize them as communicable attributes and incommunicable attributes. Communicable attributes are those that God has that we can share. God is love … and we can be loving. God is faithful … and we can be faithful. God is merciful … and we can be merciful.

But then there’s a whole list of incommunicable attributes … those that God has that we can’t. God is omniscient, He knows everything … we don’t. God’s omnipresent, He’s everywhere … we’re localized in one place. God is immortal … and, of course, we are all quite mortal, heading toward the grave.

But then, incredibly, at the end, when resurrection takes place, God’s going to take this incommunicable attribute immortality, which only belongs to Him, and He’s going to give it to us so that we too are immortal.

Have you ever worried about getting to Heaven and being the first one to screw up? You sin … and then what will happen? You’ll be thrown out. It’s impossible. You’re going to be raised immortal. Sin and death will be absolutely eliminated even as possibilities for you. And you will live, if you’re with Christ, forever, glorious in Heaven. It’s guaranteed by Jesus’ resurrection.

That’s why Paul can say, “if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins. … But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.” You have nothing but immortality to look forward to.

Death has ravaged this body, just as it has done every church around the globe. I was thinking this week of just of a few of the people who have passed from this congregation since I’ve been here: Audrey Krause, Florence Nyblin, Doug White, Helen Haynes, Fred Grindol, Elaine Werling, Willie Haynes, Hattie Andree, Elaine Grunwald, Rose Schon, Ed Garrity, Evie Peters, Ray Slaninka, Carol Kees, Harold Kees, Bill Boubal, Judy Powell, Luella Cobb, Frank Shaw, Marion Bass, Judy Scott, Bob Roeske, Emma Broadbent, Pat Tessendorf, Sue Hart, Ginny Borgardt, June Shaver.

They were all once with us, and are now gone. But do you know what resurrection says? The last enemy doesn’t get the last word. And you’re going to see these people, raised up, and glorious again someday. And you’re going to share an eternal life of community and joy in the Lord with them one day. Hold on to that hope. The resurrection is the vanquishing of the last enemy, for those you loved who have gone on before you.

One last impact of the resurrection … we can’t stop with the first 3. The resurrection is the vector of our lives. What I mean by that is that the hope of the resurrection is not just some theory that’s out there, a pie in the sky that maybe we get someday. No, the resurrection is a current reality, which directs our lives into eternity. It takes us right here, where we’re at this point in time, and it sends us, straight and true toward a future with God in Heaven. It directs our lives. It determines present course. Our destiny is resurrection, and that means something for the way we live right now.

“My friends, I face death every day! … But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.’ Do not be fooled. ‘Bad companions ruin good character.’ Come back to your right senses and stop your sinful ways. I declare to your shame that some of you do not know God.” What’s Paul driving at in these verses?

He’s saying that the hope of the resurrection is the vector for his life. He’s putting it on the line every day. He faces the possibility of death every single day. And why is he doing that if there’s no future hope for him. “Why do I face ‘wild beasts’ in Ephesus?”

And the “wild beasts” were people in Ephesus that Paul encountered daily who were trying to beat him down. So he likens his ministry to the games in the Coliseum, where believers were fed to wild beasts. Paul says, “I’m facing wild beasts here in Ephesus everyday. And if there is no resurrection, what’s the point?”

Paul’s saying that what you see out there on your horizon determines your present course and speed in your life. And in the end there’s really only 2 ways in which to live. You can focus on this horizon, or you can live with your focus on the next horizon. What do you see at the end? Do you see just death? Or do you see beyond that, to a resurrection, into an eternity with God? What you see out there determines what you’re doing today.

And there’s basically in either camp only 2 rules to live by … only 2 Commandments to guide your life.

Paul asks if life for you is like the old beer commercial says, “it doesn’t get much better than this,” if this is as good as it gets, then “eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.” Those are your 2 Commandments … eat and drink. Live for pleasure.

But, if like the Apostle Paul, you look around and think, “Truth be told, it doesn’t get much worse than this” … I mean, look at life. Look at the rich absorbing an inordinate amount of resources in an orgy of ease and pleasure; while the poor of the world try to scratch out an existence with the leftovers. Rich and poor alike, with their days focused on this horizon, living for today. Both groups are completely oblivious of God’s glory and His grace and His holiness. Look at the world today … it doesn’t get much worse than this.

If that’s what you see, well, then you don’t pin your hopes on this life. Eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die … come on, there must be something more than that. We pin our hopes on the next life. We see beyond the grave. We see into eternity. We hold onto the hope of resurrection.

And then, of course, we also have only 2 rules to live by … love and love. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

We’re headed toward a Kingdom that’s fully defined by love. We’re living as agents of a King who Himself is love. We’re on our way to that future and that destiny. We’re on our way to glory … on our way to holiness … on our way to immortality. So that vectors my life right now. I’m setting my sights on that.

Let’s suppose some fortune teller came to you this morning and told you that you were going to become the next great trial lawyer in America, would you begin to study law or not? What if he told you that you were going to become the next great Senior PGA champion … do you hit more golf balls or do you hit less? If somebody could come and tell you what you’re destined to be in this life, I dare say that you would begin to direct your life on that, and it would change your behavior. You’d actually begin to work out in the present what you’re becoming in the future. And that’s what the power of the resurrection does for us. It’s not just a “keep your fingers crossed” hope out there. It’s the thing that determines our course right now. It’s the vector of our lives. It’s what kept Paul listening for God’s voice, ready to take the next risk, prepared to die for the cause of the Gospel, because there’s an existence beyond death, and there’s something more important than our pleasure today.

I hope that you can be impacted by the resurrection in a similar way. The Gospel that we proclaim is not just a Gospel of forgiveness of sins, of God’s acceptance of us as we are. It’s a Gospel of future resurrection, of God’s transformation in us, making us more than we are.

That’s what I need, and it’s probably what you need too. I need more than a God who just accepts me as I am. I need a God who can take me as I am, and make me more than I am … so that I can be like Him, so that I can be fully equipped to enjoy life in the Kingdom for eternity.

And that’s what the Gospel does. It offers you the cross, the atonement, and forgiveness for your sins. And it offers you resurrection hope and life and power today to cause you to be and become more than what you once were. “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved.”

MARANA THA