2287. “If There Is No Resurrection, — .”

No. 2287-38:601. A Sermon Delivered On Thursday Evening, February 20, 1890, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, December 18, 1892.

Now if Christ is preached that he rose from the dead, why do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen: and if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain. Yes, and we are found to be false witnesses of God; because we have testified concerning God that he raised Christ up: whom he did not raise up, if so be that the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise then Christ is not raised: and if Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins. Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. {1Co 15:12-19}

For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 562, “Alas For Us, If You Were All, And Nothing Beyond, Oh Earth” 553}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2287, “If There Is No Resurrection, — .” 2288}
   Exposition on 1Co 15:1-20 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2287, “If There Is No Resurrection, — .” 2288 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on 1Co 15:1-32 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3286, “Fear of Death, The” 3288 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on 1Co 15 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2940, “He Must Reign” 2941 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on 1Co 15 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 66,67, “Resurrection of the Dead, The” 63 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on Re 7:9-17 1Co 15:1-28,50-58 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2659, “Fallen Asleep” 2660 @@ "Exposition"}

1. Our religion is not based on opinions, but on facts. We hear people sometimes saying, “Those are your views, and these are ours.” Whatever your “views” may be, is a little matter; what are the facts of the case? We must, after all, if we want a firm foundation, come down to matters of fact. Now, the great facts of the gospel are that God was incarnate in Christ Jesus, that he lived here a life of holiness and love, that he died on the cross for our sins, that he was buried in the tomb of Joseph, that the third day he rose again from the dead, that after a while he ascended to his Father’s throne where he now sits, and that he shall come eventually, to be our Judge, and in that day the dead in Christ shall rise by virtue of their union with him.

2. Now, very soon, within the Church of God, there rose up people who began to dispute about the fundamental and cardinal principles of the faith, and it is so even now. When those outside the Church deny that Christ is the Son of God, deny his atoning sacrifice, and deny his resurrection, we are not at all astonished; they are unbelievers, and they are acting out their own profession. But when men, inside the Church of God, call themselves Christians, and yet deny the resurrection of the dead, then our soul is stirred within us, for it is a most solemn and serious evil to doubt those holy truths. They do not know what they are doing, they cannot see all the result of their unbelief; if they could, one would think that they would recoil with horror, and restore the truth to its proper place, and let it stand where it ought to stand, where God has put it.

3. The resurrection of the dead has been assailed, and is still assailed, by those who are called Christians, even by those who are called Christian ministers, but who, nevertheless, spirit away the very idea of the resurrection of the dead, so that today we are in the same condition, to some extent, as the Corinthian church was in, when, in its very midst, there rose up men, professing to be followers of Christ, who said that there was no resurrection of the dead. The apostle Paul, having borne his witness, and recapitulated the testimony about the resurrection of Christ, goes on to show the horrible consequences which must follow if there is no resurrection of the dead, and if Christ is not risen. He showed this to be a foundational truth; and if it was taken away, much more was gone than they supposed; indeed, everything was gone, as Paul went on to prove.

4. Beloved friends, let us never tamper with the truth of God. I find it as much as I can do to enjoy the comfort of the truth, and to learn the spiritual lessons of God’s Word, without setting up to be a critic of it; and I find it immeasurably more profitable to my own soul believingly to adore, than unbelievingly to invent objections, or even industriously to try to meet them. The meeting of objections is an endless work. When you have killed one regiment of them, there is another regiment coming on; and when you have put to the sword whole legions of doubts, doubters still swarm over you like the frogs of Egypt. It is a poor business, it serves no practical purpose; it is far better to firmly believe what you profess to believe, and to follow out to all the blessed consequences every one of the truths which, in your own heart and soul, you have received from the Lord.

5. One of the truths most surely believed among us is that there will be a resurrection of all those who sleep in Christ. There will be a resurrection of the ungodly as well as of the godly. Our Lord Jesus said to the Jews, “ ‘Truly, truly,’ I say to you, ‘The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and those who hear shall live. For just as the Father has life in himself; so he has given to the Son to have life in himself; and has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this: for the hour is coming, when all who are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come out; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation.’ ” Paul declared before Felix the doctrine of the “resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust”; but his argument with the Corinthians especially referred to believers, who will rise from the dead, and stand with Christ in the day of his appearing, quickened with the life that quickened him, and raised up to share the glory which the Father has given to him.

6. I. Paul’s argument begins here, and this will be our first point, IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION, CHRIST IS NOT RISEN.

7. If the resurrection of the dead is impossible, Christ cannot have risen from the dead. Now, the apostles bore witness that Christ had risen. They had met him, they had been with him, they had seen him eat a piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb on one occasion. They had seen him perform acts which could not be performed by a spirit, but which required that he should be flesh and bones. Indeed, he said, “A spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” One of them put his finger into the print of the nails, and was invited to thrust his hand into Christ’s side. He was known by two of them in the breaking of bread, a familiar sign by which they recognised him better than by anything else. They heard him speak, they knew the tones of his voice; they were not deceived. On one occasion, five hundred of them saw him at once; or, if there was any possibility of a mistake when they were all together, they were not deceived when they saw him one by one, and entered into very close personal communion with him, each one in a different way. “Now,” says Paul, “if there is no resurrection of the dead, if that is impossible, then, of course, Christ did not rise; and yet we all assure you that we saw him, and that we were with him, and you have to believe that we are all liars, and that the Christian religion is a lie, or else you must believe that there is a resurrection of the dead.”

8. “But,” one says, “Christ might rise, and yet not his people.” Not so, according to our faith and firm belief, Christ is one with his people. When Adam sinned, the whole human race fell in him, for they were one with him; in Adam all died. Even those who have not sinned in the same way as Adam’s transgression, nevertheless, died. Even on infants the death sentence has taken effect, because they were one with Adam. There is no separating Adam from his posterity. Now, Christ is the second Adam, and he has a posterity. All believers are one with him, and no one can separate them from him. If they do not live, then he did not live; and if he did not rise, then they will not rise. But whatever happened to him must also happen to them. They are so welded together, the Head and the members, that there is no separating them. If he had slept an eternal sleep, then every righteous soul would have done the same, too. If he rose again, they must rise again, for he has taken them to himself to be part and parcel of his very being. He died so that they might live. Because he lives they shall live also, and in his eternal life they must be partakers for ever.

9. This is Paul’s first argument, then, for the resurrection of the righteous, that, inasmuch as Christ rose, they must rise, for they are identified with him.

10. II. But now he proceeds with his subject, not so much arguing about the resurrection of others as about the resurrection of Christ; and his next argument is, that, IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION, APOSTOLIC PREACHING FALLS: “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain.” {1Co 15:14} “Yes, and we are found to be false witnesses of God; because we have testified concerning God that he raised up Christ: whom he did not raise up, if so be that the dead do not rise.”

11. If Christ was not raised, the apostles were false witnesses. When a man bears false witness, he usually has a motive for doing so. What motive did these men have, what did they gain by bearing false witness to Christ’s resurrection? It was all loss and no profit for them if he had not risen. They declared in Jerusalem that he had risen from the dead, and immediately men began to hale them to prison, and to put them to death. Those of them who survived bore the same testimony. They were so full of the conviction of it that they went into distant countries to tell the story of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. Some went to Rome, some to Spain; probably some came even to this remote island of Britain. Wherever they went, they testified that Christ had risen from the dead, and that they had seen him alive, and that he was the Saviour of all who trusted in him. They always preached this, and what became of them? I may say, with Paul, that “they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented.” They were brought before the Roman Emperor again and again, and before the proconsuls, and threatened with the most painful of deaths; but not one of them ever withdrew his testimony concerning Christ’s resurrection. They still stood by it, that they had known him in life, many of them had been near him in death, and they had all communed with him after his resurrection. They declared that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, that he died and was buried, that he rose again, and that there was salvation for all who believed in him.

12. Were these men false witnesses? If so, they were the most extraordinary false witnesses who ever lived. What were their morals? What kind of men were they? Were they drunkards? Were they adulterers? Were they thieves? No; they were the purest and best of mankind; their adversaries could bring no charge against their moral conduct. They were eminently honest, and they spoke with the accent of conviction. As I have already said, they suffered for their testimony. Now, under the law, the witness of two men was to be received; but what shall we say of the witness of five hundred men? If it was true when they first declared that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, it is equally true now. It does not matter though the event happened nearly two millennia ago; it is just as true now. The apostles bore witness which could not be contradicted, and so it still stands. We cannot assume that all these apostolic men were false witnesses of God.

13. If we even suppose that they were mistaken about this matter, we must suspect their witness about everything else; and the only logical result is to give up the New Testament altogether. If they were mistaken concerning Christ having risen from the dead, they are not credible witnesses about anything else; and if they are discredited, our entire religion falls with them; the Christian faith, and especially all that the apostles built on the resurrection, must be thrown out as altogether a delusion. They taught that Christ’s rising from the dead was the evidence that his sacrifice was accepted, that he rose again for our justification, that his rising again was the hope of believers in this life, and the assurance of the resurrection of their bodies in the life to come. You must give up all your hope of salvation the moment you doubt the Lord’s rising from the dead.

14. As for Paul, who puts himself with the rest of the apostles, and says, “If Christ is not risen, we are found to be false witnesses of God,” I venture to bring him forward as a solitary witness of the most convincing kind. I need not remind you how he was at first opposed to Christ. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, one of the most intolerant members of the sect that hated the very name of Christ. He had a righteousness that surpassed that of the men of his times. He was a religious leader and persecutor; and yet he was so convinced of the appearance of Christ to him on the way to Damascus, that from that time he was completely turned around, and he preached with burning zeal the faith which he once blasphemed. There is an honesty about Paul which convinces at once; and if he had not seen the Saviour risen from the dead, he would not have been the man to say that he did. Dear brethren, you may rest assured that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. You cannot write off these good men as impostors; you cannot consider the apostle Paul among those readily deceived, or among the deceivers of others; so you may be sure that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, according to the Scriptures.

15. III. Once more, Paul’s argument is that, IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION, FAITH BECOMES A DELUSION.

16. Just as we have to give up the apostles and all their teaching, if Christ did not rise from the dead, so we must conclude that their hearers believed a lie: “your faith is also in vain.” Beloved, I speak to you who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who are resting in him with great comfort and peace of mind, yes, who have experienced a great change of heart, and a great change in your lives through faith in Christ. Now, if he did not rise from the dead, you are believing a lie. Take this home to yourselves: if he did not literally rise from the dead on the third day, this faith of yours, that gives you comfort, this faith which has renewed you in heart and life, this faith which you believe is leading you home to heaven, must be abandoned as a sheer delusion; your faith is fixed on a falsehood. Oh, dreadful inference! But the inference is clearly true if Christ is not risen; you are risking your soul on a falsehood if Christ did not rise from the dead. This is a solemn statement. I said last Sabbath, {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2269, “Impotence and Omnipotence” 2270 @@ "22."} and I repeat it, —

   Upon a life I did not live,
   Upon a death I did not die
   I risk my whole eternity.

It is so. If Jesus Christ did not die for me, and did not rise again for me, I am lost; I do not have a ray of comfort from any other direction; I have no dependence on anything else except Jesus crucified and risen; and if that sheet-anchor {a} fails, everything fails with it, in my case; and so it must in yours.

17. “Your faith is also in vain,” wrote Paul to the Corinthians, for, if Christ is not risen, the trial will be too great for faith to endure, since it has for the very keystone of the arch the resurrection of Christ from the dead. If he did not rise, your faith rests on what never happened, and is not true; and certainly your faith will not bear that, or any other trial. There comes to the believer, every now and then, a time of great testing. Did you ever lie, as I have done several times, on the brink of eternity, full of pain, almost over the border of this world, facing eternity, looking into the dread abyss? There, unless you are sure about the foundation of your faith, you are in a bad way indeed. Unless you have a solid rock beneath you then, your hope will shrink away to nothing, and your confidence will depart.

18. When you are sure that “the Lord is risen, indeed,” then you feel that there is something beneath your feet that does not move. If Jesus died for you, and Jesus rose for you, then, my dear brother, you are not afraid even of that tremendous day when the earth shall be burned up, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. You feel a confidence that will bear even that test. If Christ did not rise from the dead, and you are resting your soul on the belief that he did rise, what a failure it will be for you in another world, what disappointment when you do not wake up in his likeness, what dismay if there should be no pardon of sin, no salvation through the precious blood! If Christ is not risen, your faith is in vain. If it is in vain, give it up; do not hold on to a thing that is not true. I would sooner plunge into the water, and swim or wade through the river, than I would trust myself to a rotten bridge that would break down in the middle. If Christ did not rise, do not trust him, for such faith is in vain; but, if you believe that he did die for you, and did rise again for you, then believe in him, joyfully confident that such a fact as this affords a solid basis for your belief.

19. IV. Now I am going to advance a little further. Paul says next that, IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION, THEY REMAINED IN THEIR SINS: “If Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins.”

20. Ah! can you bear that thought, my beloved in Christ, that you are still in your sins? I think that the mere suggestion takes hold upon you, terrifies you, and chills your blood. A little while ago, you were in your sins, dead in them, covered with them as with a crimson robe, you were condemned, lost. But now, you believe that Christ has brought you out of your sins, and washed you and made you white in his precious blood; indeed, and has so changed you that sin shall not have dominion over you, for now you are by grace a child of God. Well, but, if Christ did not rise again, you are still in your sins.

21. Observe that; for then there is no atonement made; at least, no satisfactory atonement. If the atonement of Christ for sin had been unsatisfactory, he would have remained in the grave. He went there on our behalf, a hostage for us; and if what he did on the tree had not satisfied the justice of God, then he would never have come out of the grave again. Think for a minute what our position would be, if I stood here to preach only a dead and buried Christ! He died nearly two millennia ago; but suppose he had never been heard of since. If he had not risen from the dead, could you have confidence in him? You would say, “How do we know that his sacrifice was accepted?” We sing very truly, —

   If Jesus ne’er had paid the debt,
   He ne’er had been at freedom set.

The Surety would have been under bonds unless he had discharged all his liability; but he has done so, and he has risen from the dead, —

   “And now both the Surety and sinner are free.”

Understand clearly what I am saying. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took upon himself the sum total of the guilt of all his people. “The Lord has made to meet on him the iniquity of us all.” He died, and by his death obtained the full discharge of all our obligations. But his rising again was, so to speak, the receipt in full, the sign that he had discharged all of the dread liabilities which he had taken upon himself; and now, since Christ is risen, you who believe in him are not in your sins. But, if he had not risen, then it would have been true, “You are still in your sins.”

22. It would have been true, also, in another sense. The life by which true believers live is the resurrection life of him who said, “Because I live, you also shall live.” But if Christ is not risen, there is no life for those who are in him. If he were still slumbering in the grave, where would have been the life that now makes us joyful, and makes us aspire after heavenly things? There would have been no life for you if there had not first been life for him. “Now Christ is risen from the dead,” and in him you rise into newness of life; but, if he did not rise, you are still dead, still under sin, still without the divine life, still without the immortal and eternal life that is to be your life in heaven throughout eternity.

23. So, you see, once more, the consequences that follow: “If Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins.”

24. V. Now follows, if possible, a still more terrible consequence. IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION, ALL THE PIOUS DEAD HAVE PERISHED: “Then those also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” “Perished,” by which is not meant “annihilated”; they are in a worse condition than that.

25. One phrase must be explained by the other which went before it; if Jesus Christ is not risen, they are still in their sins. They died, and they told us that they were blood-washed and forgiven; and that they hoped to see the face of God with joy; but if Christ did not rise from the dead, there is no sinner who has gone to heaven, there is no saint who ever died, who has had any real hope; he has died under a delusion, and he has perished.

26. If Jesus Christ is not raised, the godly dead are still in their sins, and they can never rise; for, if Christ did not rise from the dead, they cannot rise from the dead. Only through his resurrection is there resurrection for the saints. The ungodly shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt; but believers shall rise into eternal life and felicity because of their oneness with Christ; but, if he did not rise, they cannot rise. If he is dead, they must be dead, for they must share with him. They are, they for ever must be, one with him; and all the saints who ever died, died mistaken if Christ did not rise. We cast away the thought with abhorrence. Many of us have had beloved parents and friends who have died in the Lord, and we know that the full assurance of their faith was no mistake. We have seen dear children die in sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection; and we know that it was no error on their part. I have stood by many death-beds of believers, many triumphant, and many more peaceful and calm as a sweet summer evening. They were not mistaken. No, dear sirs, believing in Christ, who lived, and died, and rose again, they had confidence in the midst of pain, and joy in the hour of their departure. We cannot believe that they were mistaken; therefore we are confident that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead.

27. VI. Once more, IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION, OUR SOURCE OF JOY IS GONE. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, we, who believe that he did, are of all men the most miserable: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ,” and we certainly have no hope of any other life, apart from Christ, “we are of all men most miserable.”

28. What does Paul mean? That Christian men are more miserable than others, if they are mistaken? No, he does not mean that; for even the mistake, if it is a mistake, gives them joy; the error, if it is an error, yields them a present confidence and peace. But supposing they are sure that they are under an error, that they have made a mistake, their comfort is gone, and they are of all men the most miserable.

29. Believers have given up sensuous joys; they have diligently given them up; they find no comfort in them. There are a thousand things in which worldlings find a kind of joy, all of which the Christian loathes. Well, if you have given up the brown bread, and cannot eat the white, then you are starved indeed. If we consider the mirth of the worldling to be no better than the husks of swine, and there is no bread for us, in the fact that Christ rose from the dead, then we are hungry indeed.

30. And, more than that, we have now learned superior things. We have learned to love holiness, and we seek after it. We have learned to love communion with God, and it has become our heaven to talk with our Father and our Saviour. We now look after things, which are spiritual; and we try to handle the things that are carnal as they should be handled, as things to be used, but not abused. Now if, after having tasted these superior joys, they all turn out to be nothing, and they must turn out to be nothing if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then we are indeed of all men the most miserable.

31. More than that, we have had high hopes, hopes that have made our hearts leap for joy. We have been ready sometimes to go immediately out of the body, with high delights and raptures, in the expectation of being “with Christ, which is far better.” We have said, “Though after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God: whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” We have been transported with the full conviction that our eyes “shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off”; and if that is not certain, if it can be proved that our hopes are in vain, then we are of all men the most miserable.

32. You will wonder why I have been so long in bringing out these points, and what I am driving at. Well, what I am driving at is this. After all, everything hinges upon a fact, an ancient fact, and if that fact is not a fact, it is all over for us. If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, then his gospel is all exploded. What I want you to notice is this, that there must be a basis of fact in our religion; these things must be facts, or else nothing can give us consolation.

33. Our eternal hopes do not depend on our moral condition; for, observe, these men in Corinth would not have been better or worse if Christ had not risen from the dead. Their character was just the same. It had been formed, it is true, by a belief that he rose from the dead; but whether he did or did not, they were just the same men, so that their hope did not depend on their good moral condition. The apostle does not say, “If you are or are not in such and such a moral condition,” but, “If Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins.” So, my beloved, the reason for your being safe will be that Christ died for you, and that he rose again; it is not the result of what you are, but of what he did. The hinge of it all is not in you: it is in him, and you are to place your reliance, not on what you are, or hope to be, but wholly and entirely on a great fact which transpired nearly two millennia ago. If he did not rise from the dead, you are still in your sins, no matter how good you may be; but if he rose from the dead, and you are one with him, you are not in your sins; they are all put away, and you are “accepted in the Beloved.”

34. Now I go a step further. The great hope you have does not hinge even on your spiritual state. You must be born again; you must have a new heart and a right spirit, or else you cannot lay hold of Christ, and he is not yours; but still, your ultimate hope is not in what you are spiritually, but in what he is. When darkness comes over your soul, and you say, “I am afraid I am not converted,” still believe in him who rose from the dead; and when, after you have had a sight of yourself, you are drifting away to dark despair, still cling to him who loved you, and gave himself for you, and rose again from the dead for you. If you believe that Christ is risen from the dead, and if this is the foundation of your hope of heaven, that hope stands just as sure, whether you are bright or whether you are dull, whether you can sing or whether you are forced to sigh, whether you can run or whether you are a broken-legged cripple, only able to lie at Christ’s feet. If he died for you, and rose again for you, there is the foundation for your confidence, and please stick to it. Do you see how Paul insists on this? “If Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins.” The inference is that, if Christ is raised, and you have faith in him, your faith is not in vain, and you are not in your sins, you are saved. Your hope must not be here, in what your hands can do, but there, on that cross, in what he did, and there, on that throne, in him who has risen again for your justification.

35. The hardest thing in the world seems to be to keep people to this truth, for I have noticed that much of the modern-thought doctrine is nothing but old self-righteousness trucked out again. It is telling men still to trust in themselves, to trust in their moral character, to trust in their spiritual aspirations, or something or other. I stand here tonight to say to you that the basis of your hope is not even your own faith, much less your own good works; but it is what Christ has done once and for all, for “you are complete in him,” and you can never be complete in any other way.

36. Here, again, I would have you notice that Paul does not say that your being forgiven and saved depends on your sincerity and your earnestness. You must be sincere and earnest; Christ is not yours if you are not; but still, you may be very sincere, and very earnest, and yet be wrong all the while; and the more sincere and earnest you are in a wrong way, the further you will go astray. The self-righteous man may be very sincere as he goes about to establish a righteousness of his own; but the more he does it, the more he ruins himself. But here is the mark for you to aim at, not at your sincerity, though there must be that; but if Christ was raised, and that is what you are resting your hopes on, then you are not in your sins, but you are accepted in Christ, and justified in him.

37. This is the place where I stand, and I pray every believer to stay here. There are many new discoveries made in science; we are pleased to hear it. I hope that we shall be able to travel more quickly, and pay less for it. I hope that we shall have better light, and that it will not be so expensive. The more true science, the better; but when science comes in to tell me that it has discovered anything about the way to heaven, then I turn a deaf ear to it. “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain; you are still in your sins.” But if Christ is risen, then I know where I am. If it is really so, that he is God in human flesh; if he took my sin, and bore its consequences, and made a clean sweep of it from before the judgment seat of the Most High; and if his rising again is God’s testimony that the work is done, and that Christ, who stood as Substitute for me, is accepted for me, oh, hallelujah, hallelujah! What more do I need, but to praise and bless the name of him who has saved me with a real salvation? Now I will work for him. Now I will spend and be spent in his service. Now I will hate every false way, and every sin, and seek after purity and holiness; but not, in any sense, as the foundation of my confidence. My one hope for time and eternity is Jesus, only Jesus; Jesus crucified and risen from the dead.

38. I do not know any passage of Scripture which, more thoroughly than this one, throws the stress where the stress must be, not on man, but on Christ alone: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen: and if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain.” Oh dear hearer, if you would be saved, your salvation does not lie with yourself, but with him who left his Father’s bosom, and came down to earth a babe at Bethlehem, and nursed on a woman’s breast; on him who lived here, for about thirty-six years, a life of suffering and of toil, and who then took all the sin of his people upon himself, carried it up to the tree, and there bore all its consequences in his own body, —

   Bore all that Almighty God could bear,
   With strength enough, but none to spare.

Jesus Christ bore what has made God’s pardon an act of justice, and vindicated his forgiveness of sin so that no one can say that he is unjust when he passes by transgression. Christ did all that; and then, dying, was laid in the tomb, but, the third day, his Father raised him from the dead as a sign that he spoke the truth when he said, on the cross, “It is finished.” The debt is paid now; then, oh sinner, leave your prison, for your debt is paid! Are you shut up in despair on account of your debt of sin? It is all discharged if you have believed in him who was raised from the dead. He has taken all your sin, and you are free. That handwriting of ordinances that was against you is nailed to his cross. Go your way, and sing, “The Lord is risen indeed,” and be as happy as all the birds in the air, until you are, eventually, as happy as the angels in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

{a} Sheet-Anchor: A large anchor, formerly always the largest of a ship’s anchors, used only in an emergency. OED

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {1Co 15:1-20}

1, 2. Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and in which you stand; by which also you are saved, if you keep in memory what I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain.

Paul preached the gospel, his hearers received it, and also stood in it: “in which you stand.” It is essential to salvation to hear the gospel, to receive it, and then to stand in it.

Now, what was this gospel? Paul is going to tell us; and instead of making a list of doctrines, he mentions a set of facts.

3. For I delivered to you first of all what I also received,

Notice that the preacher does not make the gospel. If he makes it, it is not worth having. Originality in preaching, if it is originality in the statement of doctrine, is falsehood. We are not makers and inventors; we are repeaters, we proclaim the message we have received.

3. How that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures;

This, then, is the gospel, that Jesus “died for our sins,” taking our sins upon himself. He bore the death-penalty for us, “according to the Scriptures.” There are plenty of Scriptures, Old Testament Scriptures, which teach this great truth by way of prophecy.

4. And that he was buried,

This was necessary as a proof of his death, and as the foundation of his rising again.

4. And that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures:

This is the gospel, Christ dead, buried, risen again, living for ever. We must dwell on these points, for they are the essentials of the gospel.

5, 6. And that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve: after that, he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain to this present time,

When Paul wrote, —

6, 7. But some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James; then by all the apostles.

In different places, and at different hours; sometimes by one, sometimes by eleven, once by five hundred brethren at once, Jesus was seen after he had risen from the dead. As I have often said, there is no historical fact that is so well authenticated as that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

8. And last of all he was seen by me also, like of one born out of due time.

Paul calls himself an abortion, and speaks of himself as one hardly worth mentioning; yet he had seen the Lord after his resurrection from the dead. He was not a man to be deceived, for he had persecuted the Church of Christ. He was extremely mad against the Messiah; so that if he said that he had seen Jesus of Nazareth, and that he was converted by the sight, we may be quite sure that it was so. Paul was not a man to undergo all the sacrifices he had to endure, for the sake of a mere dream.

9, 10. For I am the least of the apostles, who is not fit 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 which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

No man could be more thoroughly with Christ, heart and soul, than that Paul who, previously, had been the bloodthirsty Saul of Tarsus. His witness may well be believed: and, in connection with all that went before it, it proves beyond all doubt that he who was crucified and was laid in the tomb, certainly rose again, and was seen in life after death.

11. Therefore whether it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.

There was not a doubt about that. All the apostles, all the early Christians preached the resurrection of Christ; and the Corinthians, when they became Christians, believed it.

12. Now if Christ is preached that he rose from the dead, why do some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

What! had they gone so far as that, to call themselves Christians, and yet they doubted the truth of the resurrection of the dead? Yes, they spirited it away, they made it into a kind of myth or fable; and yet they called themselves Christians. That the heathen should not believe it, was not amazing; but that those who professed to believe that Christ had risen from the dead, yet doubted the resurrection of his people, was indeed a strange thing. Paul argues with them about this matter.

13, 14. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen: and if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain.

If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, we are preaching a falsehood. If he did not rise from the dead, you are believing a falsehood, and our preaching and your believing are nothing but vanity.

15-17. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified concerning God that he raised Christ up: whom he did not raise up, if so be that the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not raised: and if Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins.

If Jesus Christ is not risen, he has done nothing for you; you are not saved, you are not pardoned, you are not renewed. It is all a myth, all a piece of deceit. If that fact is given up, that Christ rose from the dead, everything connected with salvation is also given up.

18. Then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

All the godly saints died resting in the risen Christ; and if he is not risen, they died under a delusion, and they have perished.

19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

Those who are believers in Christ, says Paul, are miserable dupes if he has not risen from the dead. They are believing and resting all their hopes on a lie. It makes them happy, truly; but if you can take away from them that hope, by persuading them that what it is based on is not true, you have made them miserable indeed.

20. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept.

Paul has been arguing on every supposition, and now he comes back with his own positive witness that Christ is risen. You remember that Jesus died at the time of the Passover, as the one great Paschal Lamb; but he rose again on the first day of the week, and that was the feast of first-fruits with the Jews. They brought handfuls of wheat from the fields to show their gratitude to God, and in order that a blessing might rest on all the crop; and Paul uses Christ’s rising on that particular day as a type: “Now Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept.” He lives. He is the first-fruits, and the full harvest will follow. All who are in him will rise from the dead; for he is one with them, and no one can separate them from him, nor sever him from them. They died in him, and they live because he lives, blessed be his name!

{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death — Wonders Of The Cross” 289}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Resurrection and Ascension — ‘The Lord Is Risen Indeed’ ” 309}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Contrite Cries — Substitution Pleaded” 609}

Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death
289 — Wonders Of The Cross
1 Nature with open volume stands,
   To spread her Maker’s praise abroad;
   And every labour of his hands
   Shows something worthy of a God.
2 But in the grace that rescued man
   His brightest form of glory shines;
   Here, on the cross, ‘tis fairest drawn
   In precious blood and crimson lines.
3 Here I behold his inmost heart,
   Where grace and vengeance strangely join,
   Piercing his Son with sharpest smart,
   To make the purchased pleasures mine.
4 Oh, the sweet wonders of that cross,
   Where God the Saviour loved and died!
   Her noblest life my spirit draws
   From his dear wounds and bleeding side.
5 I would for ever speak his name,

Jesus Christ, Resurrection and Ascension
309 — “The Lord Is Risen Indeed”
1 “The Lord is risen indeed”;
   Now is his work perform’d;
   Now is the mighty Captive freed,
   And death’s strong castle storm’d.
2 “The Lord is risen indeed”:
   The grave has lost its prey;
   With him is risen the ransom’d seed,
   To reign in endless day.
3 “The Lord is risen indeed”;
   He lives to die no more;
   He lives the sinner’s cause to plead,
   Whose curse and shame he bore.
4 “The Lord is risen indeed”;
   Attending angels, hear!
   Up to the courts of heaven, with speed,
   The joyful tidings bear.
5 Then tune your golden lyres,
   And strike each cheerful chord;
   Join all ye bright celestial choirs,
   To sing our risen Lord!
                     Thomas Kelly, 1804, a.

The Christian, Contrite Cries
609 — Substitution Pleaded
1 The spotless Saviour lived for me,
      And died upon the mount:
   The obedience of his life and death
      Is placed to my account.
2 Canst thou forget that awful hour,
      That sad, tremendous scene,
   When thy dear blood on Calvary
      Flow’d out at every vein?
3 No, Saviour, no; thy wounds are fresh,
      E’en now they intercede;
   Still, in effect, for guilty man
      Incessantly they bleed.
4 Thine ears of mercy still attend
      A contrite sinner’s cries,
   A broken heart that groans for God,
      Thou never wilt despise.
5 Oh love incomprehensible,
      That made thee bleed for me!
   The Judge of all hath suffer’d death
      To set his prisoner free!
                  Augustus M. Toplady, 1759.