Why I believe in the Resurrection

But I would like to introduce him to you. Doctor Bockham is a Reformed Baptist pastor from Grace Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, which is one of the suburbs of Houston, Texas, which is the fourth largest city in America. He holds several degrees, so this is actually going to take a moment to read, but I'm just going to share this. He's from He has a Bachelor of Arts in Christianity and Sociology from the Houston Baptist University. He's got a Master's of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and as Doctorate of Ministry from the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an additional an honorary degree from Southern California Seminary. What is that one in it's a d D. I'm not sure what that meant. Doctor of Divinity and an additional postgraduate study at the University of Oxford, England as well. Recently, he spoke at the twenty twelve Shepherd's Conference with John mccasson Carthur and the recent Ligandeer. Conference with R. C. Sproul, which was an absolute blast. You mentioned to me, Yeah, who here has actually read one of Verdie's books. He's got several books he co authored with John Piper and Justin Taylor, The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World. He recently wrote a book, Joseph and the Gospel of Many Colors, which I'm looking forward to reading. And my favorite books are his ones on family. So he's got family driven faith, family of shepherds, and probably my favorite one of all, which is what he must be dot dot dot if he wants to marry my daughter. I love that, And so we were talking about this today. One of your passions that I haven't mentioned is you like to yell at men. Yes, yes, So we're not going to have that tonight though too much though are There's too many women? So okay, well, I'm going to hand over to you. Thank you so much for coming to Australia. We look forward to hearing what you have to say on resurrection. Yeah, good evening, Shall I say good eye? All right? M h. It's good to be here. I am excited about I've been excited about the whole trip. We had the privilege of being in Perth. So we've been here about a week already, been in Perth, and then had a couple of days in Sydney to sort of recuperate from that, and here and then back in Brisbane, and then a couple of days in Melbourne, and I'll preach on Sunday and Sydney and and then head back home. And sleep for a week. But it is it is a privilege to be here. I am. I'm honored that that I was invited. I'm honored that you have decided to come and share this time. If you have your bibles, you open them with me to One Corinthians, chapter fifteen. And as we look in First Corinthians chapter fifteen, we'll examine the clearest presentation of this doctrine, of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of the importance of this doctrine. Because there are those who believe that this doctrine is not important. There are those who deny the doctrine. Obviously we understand that that there are people who deny the resurrection, but there are also those who deny the importance. Of the resurrection. There are those who would argue that the resurrection is not really all that central, a doctrine that is really not all that necessary to Christianity. And that you can have Christianity just fine without having the resurrection. We'll examine that tonight as well. Look in First Corinthians, chapter fifteen, Paul makes what I see as three different types of arguments for the resurrection. One is an argument from authority, the other is an argument from evidence, and the third is an argument from logic. And he uses all of these things, blends these things together well in order to lay his foundation for this crucial doctrine. Not only that the resurrection occurred, but why the resurrection is central to Christianity, and I would argue central to all of human existence. Believe it or not, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most tested fact in all of ancient history. Let me say that again. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most well attested fact in all of ancient history. It has been argued, and I agree that if we cannot believe in the resurre direction of Jesus, then we need not believe anything else that happened in ancient history. If we cannot believe the resurrection of Jesus, we need not believe in Julius Caesar and his Gallic wars. We need not believe Aristotle's poetics. We need not believe anything else that has happened in ancient history. Nothing, because nothing that has happened in ancient history has as much at a station as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is crucial because there are people who believe that Christians hold to the resurrection by blind faith, when the fact of the matter is the rest of the world holds to ancient history by blind faith in comparison to the foundation upon which the resurrection rests. With that in mind, let's look at Paul's arguments. First, there's an argument from authority. Look with me at chapter fifteen, beginning of verse one. Now, I would remind you, brothers of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. Now we'll move a little bit into the second argument in order to sort of contextualize this, because we don't know what he means here by this gospel. For I delivered to you, as a first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. So the resurrection is an essential doctrine here in the gospel that Paul proclaims. But notice what he says here about this message. He reminds them of the gospel that he preached, and he pointed to himself in the beginning of this letter as having apostolic authority. Paul is an apostle. The gospel that he preached, the gospel that you received, the gospel in which you stand, the gospel by which you are being saved. If you hold fast the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. Now that phrase there, if you hold fast to what I preach to you, it doesn't mean you know that somehow. You know here we are as Christians, that we're authentically saved, that we're born again, and that somehow will stop being born again if we're not grasping firmly enough to this teaching. The point that he's making here when you look at the context the First Corinthians, chapter fifteen, is that we must receive the gospel as it was proclaimed by the apostles. That's the statement that he's making first and foremost. Paul doesn't teach anything anywhere that would give us the idea that a Christian could lose his or her salvation. I'm quite the contrary. He makes it very clear that that's not possible. The New Testament presents the Christian as having, for example, eternal life. If you could lose your salvation, then you could not have eternal life as a present possession. If you could lose your salvation, then what you have is potentially eternal life. But you don't have eternal life. But Jesus makes it clear, and the apostles make it clear that as believers we possess eternal life. Jesus also makes it clear that we are in his hand, and that that is in the Father's hand, and that nobody can remove us from the Father's hand. So we have a two fisted promise from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that our salvation is secure. Paul makes it clear in Ephesians chapter one that when we heard this gospel, we were sealed with a guarantee or an earnest. Until the day of redemption. We still had this, We still had this concept all across the world. This idea of an earnest money contract or a guaranteed contract. An earnest money contract goes like this, I sign a contract and make a promise that I'm going to buy something from you, often property, and I will not only give you the contract but a check. It's called an earnest money contract. The check is my earnest money. The check is a promise, It's a guarantee. What's the guarantee. The guarantee is that on closing day I will return with the rest of the money. And if I don't return on closing day with the rest of the money, you get to keep the property and my check. That's the guarantee. So in eph Asians chapter one, Paul is saying that God has given the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, as a guarantee as an earnest against that day of redemption, so that if God does not on that day of redemption redeem those whom he has saved, he would lose his earnest money, which is the third Person of the Trinity. In other words, the only way that a Christian could stop being a Christian is if God stops being God. It's not possible, well, then well usually think about, well, what about people who do ABC or xyz. John answers that. He answers that in first John, chapter two and verse nineteen, they went out from among us because they were not all of us. If they had been of us, what does he say? They would have remained with us, but they went out so that it might be shown that they are not all of us. In other words, John says, one of the evidences that a person is a Christian is that they endure, that they persevere. That's one of the evidence, says that they're genuinely saved. And one of the evidences that a person is not genuinely saved is that they don't persevere. And he says they didn't stop being of us. He says, they were not all of us. That's why they went so that they could be demonstrated that they were not all of us. So I say all that to say that Paul's not making an argument here about a person no longer being a Christian. He's making an argument here about the authority of the gospel, about the authority of the gospel that we preach Christ and him crucified. It's interesting, you know, when he says we preach Christ and him crucified. The statement that he's making there, and the Greek is very clear, we preach Christ, meaning we preach Christ here and now we preach Christ as alive. Right, so we preach Christ and him crucified. The one whom we preach as alive and powerful and active is the same one who was crucified. So inherent in that phrase is we preach the resurrected Christ. It is essential to the Gospel. If we do not hold to the resurrection, we do not hold to Christianity pure and simple. If we do not believe the resurrection, we are not Christians. You cannot be a Christian and deny the resurrection. If you deny the resurrection, you never believed the Gospel. That's Paul's point here. Now we don't like that, we don't. It makes us a bit uncomfortable, it really does. It just doesn't seem fair that he would just say that, right, because what if somebody just really wants to be a Christian but they really don't want that resurrection stuff. Surely they can follow Jesus without believing in the resurrection. I mean, how awful is it to be so closed minded, so narrow minded and so exclusive. That's just terrible. Really, how about this. I come to Australia and I really like Australia. In fact, I want to be an Australian. And I just declare myself an Australian and I go down to the passport office and I say, I need you to give me an Aussie passport. Well, why because I'm an Australian. Well, really, yes i am, because you know there's kind of rules about that. Just you know, one or. Two things that you need to do in order to become an Australian. How many of you know I won't just walk in and get a passport that day. Here's what's interesting, though, no one would say, oh, that's just terrible. It's so narrow minded of Australia to make a determination as to who its citizens will be. You see, we get that when it comes to a sovereign nation, but we don't get that when it comes to a sovereign God. You and I don't get to determine what Christianity is. The Gospel has come to us. We don't invent the gospel. We receive the Gospel. Amen. We respond to the Gospel. And if we respond by saying I like this, but not that. Then our response has been a rejection of the Gospel. And if we reject the Gospel, we are not Christian. And this time of year is always very interesting because we have individuals who want to embrace Christianity at this time of the year, and they want to embrace Christianity because of the great symbolism of the resurrection. And you hear that, the great symbolism of the resurrection, the great symbolism that says, no matter how dark it gets, there is still always hope, there is still always possibility. That's the idea of the symbolism of the resurrection. The resurrection is not a symbol. The resurrection is a fact, and it is a fact that we have to deal with one way or the other. So there's his argument from authority. If we reject the resurrection, we have rejected Christianity. Essentially, we have a rejected Christ, no matter how much we say we love Christ. There's the second argument, and there's the argument from authority. First, their scriptural authority. We've looked at the first part of this I delivered to you as the first importance. What I also received that Christ died for sins, in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephus or Peter. Then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. That's important. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all, as to one untimely born. He appeared to me also, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me is not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me, Whether then was I or they. So we preached, and so you believed the argument from authority, first of all, the authority of scripture. I want you to notice the order that he puts this in. First there's the scriptures, then they're the eyewitnesses, and then there's him, his own personal witness by the way, we go the other way around. Not only do we go the other way around and start with ourselves, but we go the other way around and leave the other bits of evidence off. And ultimately, most Christians today believe not in telling the gospel story, but in telling your own story. We believe that you know, to really witness to someone, what you do is you tell them your story. You tell them about how your life has been changed. And they can listen to us talk about our story for half an hour and hear thirty nine seconds of Jesus and the rest of the time it's just our story. I've heard testimonies like this. I've heard people give their testimonies and I'm sitting there waiting for Jesus and I'm hearing this story and I'm hearing this life story that's like riveting and all of these things that have happened, and they keep you on the edge of my seat, and I'm thinking, all of this stuff is wonderful. And I even mentioned God, you know, I was this and I was that and no da da da dah and the you know God and now I'm this and now I'm that, And so I'm riveted. I'm on the edge of my seat because of how bad their life was. And then I'm on the edge of my seat because of how good their life has now turned out to be. And I hear this because of Jesus. But who's Jesus? What did Jesus do? Folks? The gospel is not your story. The gospel is God's story of redemption through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Listen, my story can't help you. My story won't help you. My story may interest you, but my story won't help you. The story that you need is God's story and his story of redemption in Christ. That's what you need. And so Paul puts his own personal testimony at the end of the line here, and he begins with the authority of the scriptures that this happened, and it happened in accordance with the scriptures. First and foremost, he doesn't even begin with the eyewitness authority, with apostolic authority. Why does apostolic authority mean anything? Because God revealed himself. God said beforehand what was going to happen. He said beforehand that Christ would be crucified and that he would be raised again. We know from Isaiah fifty three over seven hundred years before Jesus was born. From Psalm twenty two, over a thousand years before Jesus was born. Psalm twenty two has the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in painstaking detail, written by a man who never once saw crucifixion in his life. Well, how do you know David never saw a crucifixion because crucifixion was not invented when he wrote Psalm twenty two. No one had ever seen a crucifixion before. No one. The Romans brought us crucifixion long after Psalm twenty two was written, hundreds and hundreds of years later, and so we have the authority of the scripture. By the way, Psalm number twenty two, you know, has a title, and the title of Psalm twenty two would have been the first line of Psalm twenty two. We've only had chapters and verses for a few hundred years. We haven't had chapters and verses all that long. The Bible wasn't written with chapters and verses. I'm glad we have chapters and verses because now we can all turn to the same page and get there and everything has It's great, it's wonderful. But if I wanted you to turn to Psalm number twenty two, then I would not have been able to say, to turn to Psalm number twenty two. That was the song that we were going to sing in worship. So I would have to call out the title of that song. And if we were talking about that song in the first century, I might call out the title in Aramaic, and I might say, please open to Eli la masabaktani, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Does that sound familiar to anyone? That's what Christ screams out while he's being crucified, the title of a song. Now, if you were to pass by a man who was dying, and you were witnessing this traumatic event of a man being put to death, and all of a sudden he said, amazing grace, I'll sweet the sound. What's the next thing that comes to your mind that saved a rest like me? And you think about the rest of the song. Jesus is being crucified, he cries out the title of Psalm number twenty two, and the rest of it is details about how he's being crucified that day, written a thousand years beforehand. So first and foremost, there is the authority of the scriptures that the Bible foretells this. The Bible foretells that he would be pierced in his hands in his feet in Psalm twenty two. Not everyone who was crucified was pierced in the hands and the feet. The Bible foretells that there would be gentiles surrounding him. Roman soldiers are gentiles. The Bible foretells that he would be encompassed by evildoers, one on his right and one on his left. The Bible foretells that people would mock him and say he believed in God, let God deliver him. That's exactly what was being said to Jesus while he's being crucified, as foretold in Psalm twenty two. Psalm twenty two foretells that he would have a dry mouth, which is why he would say I thirst. Two foretells what would happen to his heart, and he's pierced in the pericardia and blood and water rush out. Psalm twenty two foretells that they will divide his garments and they will cast lots for his clothes. And it's written a thousand years before the criscifixion. So the first layer of authority is the authority of the scriptures. Psalm sixteen makes it clear that his son will not experience decay, that there would be death, but no decay. How do you have death but no decay through the resurrection. He didn't stay in the tomb. I've been there, I stood there, I looked in. He's not there, He's risen. So now we have the authority of the scriptures. But not only the authority of the scriptures, but the authority of eyewitnesses. It says he a Peter to Peter or Cephis, then to the twelve. You know. I have the privilege from time to time to speak on college campuses back in the US, and it's one of my favorite things. I love to preach to college students. And there's a number of things that I love to talk to them about, but this being one of them. And I love when we talk about the resurrection, mainly because again, you can stand there and you can say to college students in the midst of professors oftentimes who don't believe Christianity, hate Christianity, hate the fact that I'm on campus, and I'll say something like the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most well attested fact in all of ancient history. And we'll talk about this evidence that we have here just in the scriptures for the resurrection, and they hate it, but they can't deny it. And I love to encourage them, you know, go to your history professors, go to people, go to people who teach antiquities or whatever, and ask them if there's a fraction of the evidence for anything else that we have for the resurrection. They have to admit that it doesn't exist. But then you come to place like this and you don't appeared to see for us or Peter. And then he appeared to the twelve. And as always an individual, either a professor or some student, someone who thinks, oh we've got him now, Well, why the hand goes up? Yes, Well, I just had a question, just just wanted to ask you. You read there that he appeared to Peter, and I understand that, and then you're ready to appeared to the twelve. And well, there seems to be a bit of a contradiction there. Really, whyever would you say that? I know exactly why they say that, but I want him to tell me, why ever would you say that? Well, because Judas had already hanged himself by the time Jesus was resurrected. Therefore, Jesus could not have appeared to the Twelve. He would have appeared to the eleven. I've never thought of that. Actually, wait a minute, I'm sorry I did, because in Acts Chapter one, Matthias replaces Judas, and one of the requirements for one who would replace Judas in the twelve is that he had been an eyewitness to everything from the beginning on, including the resurrection, which means that the Twelve, including Matthias, would fit this criteria. So I'm afraid that your little contradiction actually doesn't exist. Thanks for playing. There are other ways that people try to deal with these eyewitness accounts. Let me just deal with a few of them. There are books written on these things. I'm not making these up. There were PhD dissertations written on these ideas, because you have to explain this resurrection to deny the evidence. It's just there. Just to the scriptures. Again, you have to remember that the Bible is not one book. There's sixty six books that make up the Bible. So we actually have a collection of evidence in the New Testament that validates the resurrection. It's not just one guy. There are a lot of guys writing about the resurrection. And now we're talking about eyewitnesses to the resurrection. By the way, if you do the math, there are over three hundred eyewitnesses to the resurrection still alive when First Corinthians is written, if you do the math of all of the people to whom Jesus appeared and Jesus was after his resurrection, between his resurrection and his ascension. Was over a month, So for over a month. People saw Jesus resurrected. For over a month, there were thousands of eyewitnesses to the resurrection. So this list could be expanded. But even if it's not expanded, there are over three hundred individuals who are still alive, which means that Paul's claims were falsifiable. In other words, there were individuals who could step forward and demonstrate that what he was saying was false. That's important. That's important. It's kind of like, you know, when you see all these crime dramas and there's a crime that's committed and the police come after someone, and what do they ask him? Do you have an alibi? What's the worst thing you could say yeah, I was all by myself watching television, because that's not falsifiable, which means it's not verifiable, which means it's not a very good alibi. But if you say, yeah, actually, you know, I was hanging out with some friends watching watching, you know, watching a little footy whatever y'all call it over here, and they were about twenty five of us. Now what can happen. I can go talk to those individuals and they can say, Nope, never saw him. I can prove you wrong, or I can verify the truth. Paul could have been proved wrong, and he wasn't. There is nothing anywhere in existence that falsifies the claims of First Corinthians fifteen. Nothing anywhere in existence anywhere. So the fact that people can't falsify the claims means that they have to explain what the witnesses saw. That's powerful in and of itself, and so scholarship that denied the resurrection couldn't deny that these claims were made. What they had to deny was that what was claimed was actually a resurrection, and what are some ways that they did that. One was called the swoon theory. I wish I was making this up. What's the swoon theory that Jesus didn't actually die, he just he swooned, he passed out, and then actually what happened was they saw him and he wasn't really resurrected. He just never died. So, according to the swoon theory, Jesus in the garden of gath Simone on the night before was praying and he sweat drops of blood. It's happened rarely to the human body, but it has happened. One of the things that he would have been suffering from at that point was low blood pressure because of this experience. Then he was beaten, flogged until the skin was ripped from his flesh with a cat of nine tails, which is basically you know, strips of leather with pieces of bone and metal and glass and the like, beaten until the skin was ripped from his flesh. After this, he had been marched around for miles, by the way, in his condition of low blood pressure, because he goes from the mountain Volives the garden of Gasimine over to Caiphus, you know, and then he goes over to Anis, and he comes back to Kivus, goes over from there, you know, up the western wall to the fortress of Antonio the Pilot, you know, all in any scent, and he's flocked. That's when the flogging and everything else happens. And he actually goes to the cross. He's nailed to the cross through his wrist and through his feet, and he hangs there having been beaten within an inch of his life, and his chest cavity is basically caving in on itself. You see, you don't bleed to death on the cross. You suffocate under the weight of your own upper body. You suffocate. He couldn't even carry his own cross, but now he has to hold himself up and there's no way. And then just to make sure, he is pierced through the side by professional executioners who did this regularly, and we know that they made their mark because they pierced the pericardium surrounding the heart, and blood and water rusht out. Having verified his death, he was placed into a tomb and a stone was rolled in front of the tomb, and according to the swoon theory, he just woke up, stood up, hopped over to the door, moved the stone. That took several men, frightened the guards, and then convinced his disciples that this is what resurrection looks like, and you want this when you die, and was able to live like that for nearly two months. Small problem. We would still have a body and no one could survive that. There's another theory. This theory is actually the hallucination theory, and the hallucination theory basically says that these authors really did believe that they saw Jesus. They believed that they saw the resurrected Christ. And so the women they run to the tomb and they hallucinate, and then Peter and John run to the tomb. One makes it before the other and hallucinates, and then the other joins him in the hallucination that they now share with the women. They go when they tell the other disciples about their hallucination, and the other disciples hallucinate, but Thomas is not with them during the hallucination. So eight days later they hallucinate again and Thomas joins in on the hallucination, and then over five hundred witnesses at once share in the hallucination. But while they're hallucinating, it never dawns on the Romans to open the tomb and show them the body and prove that they're hallucinating, because if this was a hallucination, there would still be a body in the tomb. Then there is the conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory says that they stole the body. So, according to the conspiracy theory, what happens is these men come with Jesus to Jerusalem, and as he is taken from the Mount of Olives, they are run away, that is except the three Peter, James, and John, and the eventually James and John they can't hang in there anymore because they're terrified, along with the rest of the disciples. Peter hangs in as lung as he can, and then all of a sudden there is that whole rooster crowing thing, and he's afraid of a little girl, so he lies to her about knowing Jesus, and then he lies to some soldiers about knowing Jesus, and ultimately they've all run away, but the hallucinet. But the conspiracy theory says that one day, having witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the brutal death of Jesus Christ, and been so afraid that they all ran away, one of them decided, you know what, we should make up a story and we should say that he was resurrected, And all of the rest of them said, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. So somehow they go and steal the body without the guards recognizing it, and then one by one they're killed off, run through with a spear, beaten to death, with a tree branch boiled and hot oil, crucified upside down, beheaded. This is the way that the. Apostles died, and not one of them gave up the conspiracy. These are the theories that have had to be put forth. Why because the evidence is overwhelming, And if the evidence is overwhelming, you have to have another explanation. And the other explanation is, yes, these men really fought they saw something, or these men lied about what they saw. But most of them leave the little pesky problem of a body that's still in the tomb, when the fact of the matter is Christ rose from the dead, and he was seen by thousands and hundreds of those eyewitnesses were still alive when this letter that we're reading right here was written. He has risen. It's the only thing that could explain how cowards became as bold as lions, even to the point of death. It's the only thing to explain the consistency and coherent nature of the Gospel as it is proclaimed. Men who hallucinate don't write like this. It's the only thing that explained the last two thousand years. By the way, it's the only thing that explains why hardened seventh day Sabbatarian Jews. They are a hardcore. Seventh day Sabbatarian Jews, and they begin to meet on the first day of the week. What explains that the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Nothing else, nothing else? Beyond his argument from evidence, he shares an argument from logic. I'll notice what he says, beginning down at verse twelve, Now is if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead. Now, it's interesting. These are individuals who are arguing against the resurrection of Jesus because they don't believe in red as a concept. Okay, this is very important to grasp. These are not individuals who are saying Okay, I doubt all of those witnesses. I think they're crazy. I think these are not people who are saying that. These are individuals who are saying, you know what, resurrection does not fit into my worldview. Therefore, I can't believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead because I don't believe that kind of thing happens. It just doesn't fit my worldview. Now there are individuals who continue to make this kind of argument. I want you to hear from one of them. His name is John Shelby spaung. There's a bishop in the Excuse me, he's a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States. Excuse me, which would be the American version of Anglicanism. Listen to bishop's spawn. Very popular individual in the US, waning in popularity, a bit, very powerful individual in the Episcopal Church. He writes, I do not believe that Jesus into this world by the miracle of a virgin birth, or that virgin births occur anywhere except in mythology. I do not believe that a literal star goided literal wise men to bring Jesus gifts, or that literal angels sang to hillside shepherds to announce his birth. I do not believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, or that he fled into Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. I do not believe that the experienced Christians celebrate at Easter was the physical resurrection of the three days dead body of Jesus. Nor do I believe that anyone literally talked with Jesus after the resurrection moment, gave him food, touched his resurrected flesh, or walked in any physical manner with his risen body. And he's a bishop. He's a bishop. There are professors at Christian universities and seminaries we share this same idea. And I want you to note that he denied all of the essentials of the Christian faith in that one statement, from virgin birth all the way through the resurrection. None of it's true. I mean, why does he not believe that any of it's true. I do not believe that the Bible is the word of God in any literal sense, says the Bishop, and so basically I don't believe that this is God's word. Therefore I cannot believe what it says. I don't believe that things like virgin births or resurrections happen in real life. They're part of mythology, and because they're only part of mythology, I must reject them. So he rejects the resurrection of Jesus Christ because his worldview cannot allow for rejection as a concept at all. And this is precisely when Paul is addressing in One Corinthians, chapter fifteen. If Christ has proclaimed is raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead, some of you who again, this is to the Church at Corinth. So there are individuals who are associated at least in some way with the Church at Corinth, who are denying the very concept of resurrection and therefore denying the resurrection of Jesus. And what Paul does is he gives them seven truths that must follow as inexorably as night follows day. If there's no such thing as resurrection from the dead. Number one. But if there's no resurrection from the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. There's one. If there's no such thing as resurrection, Jesus hasn't been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain. Here's what's interesting. Not only do people not want to say to us that our preaching is in vain, but spung. Remember I said he's a bishop, which means he's a preacher. Why preach if there is no resurrection? What do we preach? We preach Christ and him crucified. If there's no resurrection, what am I preaching? What am I preaching? Do good? Be a good person? Why? Why should I do good? Why should I be a good person? Please explain to me. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then why why should I be a good person? Why is it better for me to be a good person? If there is no rhyme or reason to life, If there is no God who has created me, then why If there is no such thing as sin, If sin really doesn't exist, then why should I be good? In fact, what is good? If there's no such thing as sin? What is good? And why are you preaching about good? If there's no such thing as sin and there's no such thing as God, our preaching is vain. Christ is not raised, Our preaching is vain, and your faith is vain. This man stands up at people's funerals and tells them to have hope. This man talks to people who are sick and dying and tells them to believe, to believe what to believe based on what, because if there is no resurrection of the dead, then what is my faith based on. My faith is in Christ. My faith is in the God who has raised Christ from the dead. And if there is no God who raised Christ from the dead, then the very object of my faith is nonexistent, which means my faith is useless. It's interesting. I shared an illustration about this on at an event, and a young man came up to me because I talked about the idea of a chair. You know, if there was a chair behind me, and I believe that there was a chair behind me, and you know, it was there when I stood up, but somehow it had been moved. Somebody just sort of, you know, came back there and moved I didn't know that they had moved it. I would have complete faith that the chair was there, complete faith. I would have not one inkling of doubt. And yet when I went to sit down, nothing would hold me up because the object of my faith is non existent. And a guy came up to me afterwards that he said, really, did you hear about what happened to me today? I said, no, Why? So we were out, you know, when we were talking, and I had this chair and I stood up and you know, to talk about something or whatever. And he said this, this lady, you know this, you know, saw the chair and she grabbed the chair. Didn't know I was sitting in a chair and I was, you know, continuing to talk, and I kind of backed up and I kind of sat down, and great was my fall. You know, we talk about faith as though faith in and of itself can do things. It can't. It's the object of your faith that matters. And if there is no such thing as resurrection, then the object of your faith is non existent. Because there is no God who raised Christ from the dead. There is no victory over the death over death. Four. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified that about God, that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised, for if the dead are not raised, even Christ has not been raised. Here's number four. And this is what a God like Spong would never want to do. He would never want to look at me and say you are a liar, You're a blaspheming liar. And he wouldn't want to do that, Not just because I could crush him. But he wouldn't want to do that because he doesn't believe that. He believes that preachers are good people and they're trying to do good things. And listen, if there's no such thing as resurrection, I am not a good person. I am a liar, and I'm the worst kind of liar because I'm a blaspheming liar. I am lying on none other than God himself. I'm saying that God did something that he never did. That is not a good man. Good Men don't do that. Good Men don't attribute to God things that are not true about God. Liars do that, Blasphemers do that, and they should never be called good men. And yet we live in this world where there are people out there, and you know it, there are people out there who deny Christianity, They deny the resurrection, they deny it all. And yet they want to pack Christians on the head and say no, no, no, no, no, you're good people, you're sincere people, you do good things. It's okay. Oh it's not okay. Every preacher who preaches Christ and him crucified is a liar. And if you don't believe in the resurrection, intellectual honesty demands that you call them liars and blaspheming liars at that, because they are attributing to God something that he never did. Number five. And the Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. If there has been no resurrection, there is no forgiveness of sins. If there has been no resurrection, you have not been washed clean. If there is no resurrection, you have not been made right with God. If there is no resurrection, Christ was payment, but there was no receipt. As Paul says in Romans, he died for our sin, and he rose for our justification. If he did not rise, we are not justified, and we have no hope of ever being justified. Number six, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If there is no such thing as resurrections from the dead, then those who've gone on before us have just simply perished. They have not gone on to a better place. They are not absent from the body and present with the Lord. They are merely dead. They might as well be a dead kangaroo on the side of the road. They're gone. Their life was meaningless, Their death was meaningless and there is no hope, then you'll never see him again. They truly are lost. Finally, if in Christ we have hoped in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. If there's no such thing as resurrection, we're the most pitiful lot on the face of the earth because our entire lives are based on this hope that does not exist. Our entire existence is based on this hope that does not exist. Not just our religion, not just our worship, but everything that we are and all that we believe. We are a pitiful lot. But here's what's interesting. What's interesting about this argument from logic is that Paul makes these seven points after he has demonstrated through authority and evidence that Christ has been resurrected. Well, because he's already demonstrated through authority and logic that Christ has been resurrected, then that means every one of these things is the opposite of the truth. So here's how it goes. Here's what he's saying, because he negated it with his first argument. There is such thing as resurrection, and we know that there is such thing as resurrection. Why because Christ has been raised, he is no longer dead. He is alive. He has risen. He has risen. Indeed, in fact, he right now sits at the right head of the Father forever making innercession for us. Jesus is alive, and he's the first born from among the dead. Secondly, our preaching is not in vain. Our preaching is powerful. We preach the Gospel, and we're not ashamed of the Gospel because it's the power of God and the salvation. To all those who believe that you first, and also. To the Greek, your faith is not in vain because you are placing your faith and the one who raised Christ from the dead to may I ask you, what is it in your life that you are facing that is bigger than a dead Jesus. The answer absolutely nothing. God is able Number four. I'm not a liar. I'm a truth teller, and I'm telling the most important truth and the truest truth that man has ever known, and that is that Christ died for sin, once for all the just, for the unjust, in order that he might bring us back to God. He was dead, but he. Rose again with all power in his hand, demonstrating who he is and the hope that we have in him. Fifthly, I am no longer in my sin. I am forgiven, I am washed, I am clean. There is a fountain filled with bloe blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stings. That is me, I am forgiven of my sin. I stand before God is justified. He presents me before God as faultless. The God of the universe, holy and righteous though he is, looks at me through the blood of Christ, and sees me as clean. I am redeemed, justified. Fully, those who have died have not died in vain. They are absent from the body, and they are present from the Lord. And they are not lost, because you can't lose something if you know where it is. We will rise with them. And finally, we are not to be pitied. There is absolutely nothing pitiful about one who has come face to face with the reality that we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, to quote Jonathan Edwards, and that God has provided a way for us to be forgiven. That, as Isaiah says, all we like sheep and gone astray. Each of us had turned to his own way, But God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us, all that our sins were crushed and punished fully in Christ, that God was fully satisfied, as Christ propitiated for our sins, and that, being fully satisfied, he exchanges our sinfulness and Christ's righteousness. And in that double imputation, He who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. I am not to be pitied, not at all, because I have come to God in repentance and faith, and am living in the hope of the resurrection and life everlasting. And I'm doing this based on the most well attested fact in all of ancient history, the resurrection of the God Man, Jesus Christ. See, if you've come into this place tonight and you've looked at Christianity, perhaps just as some outward performance, just as something that's important during this week and perhaps during Christmas, something that's important for social reasons, something that's important for family reasons, then please may I say to you you must reconsider because there is something much more significant going on here. God is real, your need for Him is real, because your sin is real, and you know this God's provision is real because Christ is real. His life is real, his death is real, his resurrection is real, his return is real. And there's nothing more real than your entire life. If you are here and you have not come to grips with this, if you are here and you are trusting on your own goodness, you're here in your somehow walking around under the delusion that Christ would be crushed and killed by his father on behalf of sinners who could have made it another way. And God help you turn from your sin, turn from your self reliance, turn from your empty religion, and flee to Christ. Flee to the foot of the cross. Flee to the only place where there is hope for you. Flee to the only one who has ever asked answered rather that question that every human being is forced to ask, what happens to me when I die? And how can I be sure? And how can I have hope? Christ is our hope. Flee to him. Let's pray, Father, as we bow, we confess that we are sinful men, selfish men, self reliant men, and ask that you would grant, by your grace that we would see and forsake that reality, and that in doing so we might flee to Christ, that in him we might have hope. Thank you for tonight and for this opportunity to be reminded once again of the person and work of your majestic son and our overwhelming need that he meets and satisfies completely. Grant by your grace, that we might embrace this truth, that we might run to it, that we might flee to it, that we might walk in it, and that we might proclaim it. This is our prayer, and we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right? The first question is true that there are many stories who are embarrassed about the smooth theory. If we are not from the soldiers and our ruder mutation. Yes, you don't hear much of the swoop theory anymore. It was very popular in uh, you know, we had a period of notice the sort of the infolk thing to do, to call a lot of question and to find various ways to explain the Bible in naturalist sort of terms. So you know, this series not Justice with Theory, but all of these series with much more popular back then. Much were said back then, but I mean exactly in light of our knowledge of the way Romans carried out their executions. And in light of what we have in the biblical account concerning Christ and his particular crucifixion, because there are many things that happened to him that didn't that didn't normally happen. So, yes, how do we receive our resurrection bodies? In? Uh? In what form will God make us? Like the way he makes Adam? Since we have all returned to dust? You know, interesting, our our resurrection bodies will be like Christ's resurrection body. In Christ's resurrection body was able to eat and and talk and and you know, and and and do a number of things. But it was also able to do a number of things that ours can't, like a like a like. Apparently walls weren't a problem for him when. The disciples are in a room and it's locked. So our our bodies will be our bodies will may be made perfect. And the rest of one. Corinthians chapter fifteen talks in great detail about our about our bodies the way that they're they're sown versus the way that they're raised. As of course there will be a difference, you know, those who remain will be changed, you know. But but uh, you know, but those those who die, we we don't know how, but it won't be a problem for the God who spoke the world into existence to reconstitute people's bodies that if that have returned to the dust. So what you say to those who say you can't use the Bible to prove biblical things? What did you say to those who say you can't prove the Bible to prove biblical things? Well, I would say that they're mistaken because uh, yeah, what well, why why would we not use the Bible to prove biblical things? I mean, you have to remember the Bible is a collection of documents. That's one very important thing to keep in mind. The Bible is not like other books in that regard, and that it is a collection of documents. So you actually have corroboration within the Bible. And so part of the problem is that when people say that, you know, you can't use the Bible to prove biblical things, what they're trying to say is you have to have some other corroboration beside the Bible. But they're not recognizing the fact that the Bible is made up of sixty six books, so there's corroboration everywhere. The corroboration within the Bible that that can't be ignored, you know, but there are there are also opportunities that we have to verify and validate things that we find in the Bible. For example, for a long time, people you know, denied that there was a man named Ponscious Pilot because we didn't have any records of a man named Pontius Pilot. And so they said, you know, that's one of those areas where the Bible has historical you know, factual errors. And then all of a sudden there are excavations at Cessarea by the Sea, not to be confused with Cesarea Philippi. And during the excavations at Cesarea by the Sea, law and behold they find a plaque with the name of none other than Ponscious Pilot. Now the irony, of course, is when individuals, you know, are making these kind of arguments the Bible has these internal inconsistencies, they have these historical errors. We never heard of Punches Pilot. Well, then we find a plaque with Ponnches Pilot's name on it. How many of you know that. People don't then go, oh, I was wrong, I believe the Bible. They just move right onto something else because their problem is not their problem. Do you follow that their question is not their question? But most of the time their question is not really their question. And you discover that when you answer their question and immediately they just have another question. It really doesn't matter. They just have another question. They just want to ask questions, they want to justif their doubt. And so, you know, we if the Bible is making claims, you know, the first thing that we do is we look at scripture, and we look at other parts of scripture because again we have a collection of documents in the Bible. It's very important, you know, to remember. And then if it touches on other things, uh, there are ways to verify, to verify those as well. So if we really return to dust, is there any biblical reasoning against cremation? Yes, there is biblical reasoning against cremation. Number one, because we have the example of burial throughout the Bible. Number two, because cremation is a pagan practice and it's always been a pagan practice, and the Pagans cremate because they do not respect the body. Uh. They believe that's what's really important is the spirit, and that the body is kind of this cage in which the spirit finds itself. So Christianity has always been about the respect of the body because we're made in the image of God. Only Paganism has promoted cremation, and Christians, Christians are Christians, are buried, you know. The idea of the resurrection of the body uses language of you know, being being raised from the ground. The idea of baptism. Baptism is about being buried and then being raised again, you know, from the ground. So yes, uh, our respect from the body. Is based on a biblical ethic, and cremation is based on a pagan uh, pagan ethic that does not respect the human body. How do you respond to Job's witness who says that Jesus rose as Michael the archangel, I respect by saying, there's absolutely no biblical evidence for that. You know, it's it's contrary to all all biblical evidence. You know that. That's how to respond to that. People don't just get to make up what they want. Remember that first point, the argument from authority. I go back to the argument from authority. Right, we received the Gospel as it was proclaimed to us by the apostles, you know, so whether they whether it's you know, their argument that he wasn't crucified on the cross, you know, or whatever. You know. We we read. The scriptures, and our answers have to come from scriptures. And this is not an answer that comes from the scriptures. It contradicts, but comes from the scriptures. It's very clear in the New Testament that Jesus died and Jesus rose. It's very clear, you know, when he sees his disciples out there on the boat there on the Sea of Galilee, and tell and toss their their nets out and they bring in that big catch of fish. You know, they come in and and and run and join him, and he eats with them when he's walking with you know, on the road to a manage, and eventually reveals himself. This is Jesus. It's the same Christ, even up to his ascension. And the Angel speaking about his ascension, this is Jesus, he says, this same Jesus that you see is ending well. Likewise, also it's Jesus. Period is not the denial of the resurrection. An attempt to maintain self autonomy. Sometimes sometimes it's an attempt to maintain self autonomy, you know. Sometimes it's an attempt to rationalize and be consistent with a secular human worldview. You know, sometimes it's that. You know, there can be a lot of reasons, but yeah, this is at the heart of much of it. Then, you know, the denial of the resurrection is because if there is a resurrection, if Christ is raised from the dead, then all bets are off. I mean that changes everything. He is who he says he is, There is a God, and he has revealed himself, and you know everything else that we find in the gospels is true because of the resurrection, because of the resurrection. So yeah, that people are. People are motivated, you know, in a number of ways and for a number of reasons to deny the resurrection. With the regard of the battery quoted, what does he believe if he does not support the resurrection? Is there some alternative theory or that one's broken off? I can't see the bottom? Can we can we fix that? Can we? Or is it better up here? He isn't support of No, he's not in supportive and alternative theory. He doesn't believe the Bible. He believes, like many in the Jesus Seminar, that there is the Christ of history and then there. Was the Christ of of myth you know. And so what we try to do is you try to separate all the myth and get down to the Jesus of history. And the Jesus of History just becomes a sage. He just becomes a teacher who said some important things and their good life lessons and so on and so forth. But that's all that, that's all he is. That that that's all that matters. You know, I was looking at another. Hold on, come on, come on, come on, that's what it's important. This is another one. Marcus Borg is another one. He's a member of the Jesus Seminar. Gets me with the Jesus Seminar. Jesus Seminar a this group of scholars who basically deny everything supernatural in the scriptures. And they get together and they use marbles to vote. You know, there's red marble and a white marble and a black marble, and so there'll be a passage of scripture, and if they all believe that this is really the Jesus of History, then they'll cast their red marble. And if there's enough red marbles and they say, okay, this is a Jesus of history, and then there's a black marble and says, this is not the Jesus of history, Jesus myth and then there's a white marble. It's the I don't know marble or whatever, and yeah, they have lost their marbles. Yeah, but anyway, they're very well respected and you'll find them in you know, Time magazine and Life magazine and all these other magazines at Christmas in Easter, you know, mainly because that's the time when they are either denying the virgin birth or denying the resurrection or whatever, and really helping the secularist because the secularist. The secularists don't want to be anti religion. The secularists really want to be pro religion, but they want the religion to be a secularist religion. And so these guys give them a secularist version of Christianity. But listen to Marxist Board talking about his time in seminary. There I learned that the image of Jesus from my childhood, the popular image of Jesus as a divine savior who knew himself to be the son of God and who offered up his life for the sins of the world, was not historically true. That I learned was not what the historical Jesus was like, I learned that the Gospels are neither divine documents nor straightforward historical records. They are not divine products inspired directly by God, whose contents therefore are to be believed, as I had thought prior to this, nor are they eyewitness accounts written by people who had accompanied Jesus and simply sought to report what they had seen and heard. Their argument is that basically all of these supernatural things come late, and so one of the things that these guys have to do is they have to have a late dated canon. The New Testament has to be dated very late. And it's amazing because on the one hand, you have these guys making their arguments based on the idea that the New Testament is dated very late and that early things wouldn't have had all the supernatural stuff in them. And on the other hand, we have, you know, documents like p. Fifty two, which is a portion, you know, a portion of. You know, one. Of the epistles that dates back to a. D. One twenty, which is long before these guys are arguing that the New Testament is is completed. But they get away with it, and they get away with it because there are people out there who are very keen to have a secular version of Christianity. By the way, you you know that there was a bishop, you know, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States, happened on the East Coast in New Jersey. And he's sorry, I just completely lost his name. Yeah, Gene Robinson. And Gene Robinson was an alcoholic who left his wife and children for his homosexual lover. So you know, even if the homosexuality thing wasn't enough to disqualify him, he had plenty that that would have disqualified him. But one of the individuals who paved the way for Gene Robinson was John Shelby Spang. Spang not homosexual himself, but you know, his view of scripture is absolutely necessary if you're going to promote homosexuality within the church. So anyway, Yeah, what is the Raised Jesus doing now? He is ruling and reigning at the right hand of God the Father. He is interceding for us. He is sustaining and upholding the universe because in him all things hold together. So yeah, he's busy. Yeah, Paul shed flesh and flesh and blood cannot eturn, and Paul said, flesh and blood cannot inherit eternal life. How does this tie in with the resurrection. Remember, in the resurrection we are change changed. Okay, in the resurrection we receive new resurrected bodies. We find that there in First Corinthians chapter fifteen. So and and there's also the idea here that Paul's talking about our our our spiritual lives as well, that that that we are, that we are born again of the spirit, which is what Jesus talks about in John chapter three. Is death the absolute last chance of salvation? No, no, it's not. It's too late, amen. That's yeah, that's that's too late. That death is death. Death is death is too late. And if you're asking about, you know, are there chances after death? The answer is no, it is appointed. And the man wants to die and then face the judgment. Okay, Hebrew's nine twenty seven. So no, no hope once we're dead. Okay, are you a linebacker? No? No. Any words of encouragement the Christians who wanted to share the gospel in their workplace, community, et cetera. Yeah, you know, my encouragement to you is that you would not be ashamed. My encouragement to you is that you would recognize that we have a reasonable faith. You know, ours is the most reasonable religion the world has ever known, because it's the only one that's based on the God of truth. And so don't let people, you know, convince you or shame you into the thinking that somehow, you know, we don't belong in a rational conversation, and that somehow you know we don't have anything to bring to the table because we do. And don't let you know, by all means, don't let people make you think. This kind of goes back to, you know, the first question, or so, don't let people make you think that somehow you need to leave the Bible behind. You know, well, people don't believe the Bible, so we need to meet them on some other neutral ground. No, we don't. There is no neutral ground. Jesus said, you're either for me or against me. So if I agree to meet someone on neutral ground, I'm blaspheming Christ. I'm saying that Jesus lied when he said there's no neutral ground. I can never agree to meet someone on neutral ground. So I can never, never, ever agree to leave my Bible out of the discussion. You know. Yeah, it's like a it's like a warrior, you know, who pulls out his sword and his enemy doesn't believe in his sword. Well, do you put your sword back away? Or do you cut him with it until he starts to believe. You? Hack away? Right? You know, this is what we do. We have the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Well, I don't believe in the Bible, hack away right, use it because it is the power of God unto salvation. What do we want what we want to see people to be these people to be saved? Well, if the Gospel is the power of God on the salvation, why would I leave the Gospel out of a discussion that I hope to end in someone's salvation. That makes no sense whatsoever, none at all. Okay, none at all. And by the way, they're not going to leave their source out of the conversation, right, So why should you leave your source out of the conversation? You know, don't don't do that. Don't do that, especially when the best things that they'll say are things that they stole from the Bible. Really, really, it's true, the. Best things that they'll say are things that they stole from the Bible, and they'll say they'll say things like, well, you know, you, you Christians and you religious people, all these wars, you know, because of religion. It's just terrible. There shouldn't be any religion because all these wars. And I'm just going, okay, so why do you think it's bad for people to die in wars? If you have a worldview that doesn't value man has made in the image of God, what possible moral, ethical, or philosophical foundation which you have to build an argument against people dying needlessly in war? You see? The answer is you stole that sentiment from the Bible or people who say, well, you know, you know, you just you know, you try to force your religion on people, and you know, and you don't respect people, and you're trying to force your views on them. Well, it's interesting because on the one hand, you want to force on me your view that it's wrong to force views on people. But on the other hand, where do you get this idea of man being respected like that, if not from the biblical idea that he's a rational soul made in the image of God who's free. Right. See, their best ideas are going to be the ideas that they have stolen from Christianity. So not only do we not leave our Bible behind, but we remind them every time they steal from our Bible that were it not for our Bible, they wouldn't have their best arguments, their best hopes and dreams. So that would be my encouragement, Amen,