The foundation of our Faith

1 Corinthians 15:1-9

"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of 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, and that he appeared to Cephas, 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. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

The apostle Paul was not questioning that they believed in the soul being raised from the dead, for that, was a common belief in both Roman and Greek ideology.  They did not believe in those cultures of a bodily resurrection and so it seems many had mixed the ideology into a new teaching, and Satan loves one to bring their pagan beliefs into the church. 

So what Paul is dealing with is a distorted faith or belief system, the soul being raised but not in a bodily resurrection.  So of what value is such a faith, it has no value if Christ has not risen, it is as the apostle Peter proclaimed in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 10:39-43,  ^“And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.  To him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

 Paul is telling them that unless Jesus was raised if the accounts of those who saw, touched, and ate with Him are false we have no hope.  But not only the apostle saw the risen Jesus but more than 500 others at one time, were they and Paul having hallucinations?  So what we believe about the resurrection of Jesus is of great importance, it is the foundation of our faith, it has everything to do with our future resurrection of all true believers.

As we look at Scripture look at Zechariah 12:10, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”  Look at the accounts in Luke 24:1-53 about the witnesses who interacted with the risen Jesus, our salvation, and our glory.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice