What If?

This week, as the wonder of Jesus’ Resurrection Victory reverberates through our hearts and minds, I’m gripped by the Apostle Paul’s “if-then” argument in 1 Corinthians 15.  He explores a monu­mental IF:  What IF Jesus Christ had never been raised from the dead?

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied (15:17-19).

It would be hard to exaggerate how much passion Paul brings to this issue.  He’s saying that if you take away Jesus’ resurrection, Christ­ianity completely implodes:  our faith is senseless, our sins are not forgiven, believers who’ve died are obliterated forever, and carrying on as a Christian is simply pitiful!  How foolish and tragic it would be, then, to ruin our hope by centering it on “this life only.”

If you want to boil down the Gospel to its core elements, no doubt the resurrection—i.e., Christ’s and the future resurrection of all who trust in him—would be right there front and center.  In fact, Paul says as much in this chapter:  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,… (15:3-4). Jesus’ atoning death (“for our sins”) and resurrection victory are primary concerns, spiritual non-negotiables, matters “of first importance”:  bedrock for Christian belief!

So, then, it’s not enough just to highlight the cross.  We often empha­size how Jesus went to the cross and died for us—and that’s true, but it’s not the whole story:  when Scripture refers to his death it’s in connection with his subsequent destruction of death by being raised to life (“Death is swallowed up in victory” (15:54)).  Only a cross linked to an empty tomb gives a basis for our hope.  Jesus’ death without his resurrection would leave us “still in our sins”—dreadful thought!

Or as it’s put in Romans 4:25:  Jesus our Lord “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”  Do you see how it’s the total event of Jesus’ clash with death—both his endurance of it and his conquest over it—that saves us and grounds our hope?