A Momentary Yet Miserable Hope
How Does Christ's Resurrection Shape Our Hope?
Dr. Joel R. Beeke ●Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1–28, 42-44, 50-58 ●Psalter 267: all ●Psalter 364: all ●Psalter 28:3-5 ●Psalter 31:1, 4, 6, 7 We all live by hope. If you are an unbeliever, you put all your hope in this life.
You get some satisfaction out of life, due to God's common grace, but ultimately
your hope is vain, for it will perish. If you are a believer, you build your hope on a
different foundation: you build your hope on the sure, unchanging foundation that
Christ has been raised from the dead. For you, life is like a long trip or a spiritual
pilgrimage to reach Christ and to be with Him in glory. Everything about your
hope depends on Christ being alive and almighty.
Let us look more closely at how our hope is affected by Christ's resurrection. In
the process, we will examine our hope, our life, and our attitude to the resurrection.
We will pursue this theme via various portions of 1 Corinthians 15, which is
Scripture's most profound, doctrinal defense of the church's confession, "I believe
in the resurrection of the dead." Let us specifically focus on verses 19-20: "If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is
Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept."
With God's help, we wish to address the question, How does Christ's
resurrection shape our hope? We will consider three points: a momentary yet
miserable hope, a magnificent yet moderate hope, and an unmovable yet moving
hope.
1. A Momentary Yet Miserable Hope The Corinthian Christians did not deny the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, for
as Paul says in the opening part of 1 Corinthians 15, hundreds of living witnesses
testified (v. 8) of the resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection was already part of the
apostolic tradition.
Some Christians at Corinth, however, had difficulty believing in a general,
physical resurrection of the dead. They could not believe that all believers would
be raised like Christ and that their bodies would be reunited with their souls and
become like the glorious body of the Lord Jesus.
These Christians were influenced largely by Greek philosophers who believed
that, when we die, our souls enter another world but our bodies perish forever.
Unlike many philosophers today, they believed that though the body perished, the
soul was immortal. Plato, for one, taught that the body is imprisoned by the soul.
When someone dies, Plato said, his soul escapes the body like a bird escapes from
its cage. For Greek philosophers, the soul was everything; the body, nothing. It was
even less than nothing; it was the soul's prison.
Influenced by this Greek philosophy, some Christians at Corinth did not view
the bodily resurrection as a privilege. For them, resurrection was purely spiritual.
Today, many modern theologians embrace a parallel error. They say Christ's
resurrection refers only to the resurrection of the spirit or the teaching of Christ.
They claim that the body of Jesus still sleeps in the tomb, but His soul goes
marching on. Only Christ's teaching, doctrine, and spirit are still alive, they say.
They believe only the doctrine of Christ is immortal. That doctrine, not the Person
of the resurrected Christ, will one day overcome evil and Satan.
This theology is altogether mistaken in denying the bodily resurrection. It
defies the express teaching of the Bible. When Paul instructs the Christians at
Corinth about the resurrection, he first strongly asserts that Christ died, was buried,
and rose again, all according to the Scriptures (vv. 3-4).
Under the Spirit's enlightening wisdom, Paul then tells the Corinthians the
consequences of disbelieving in the bodily resurrection of Christ. In verse 13, he
says, "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen." The
apostle basically says: If you do not believe in a physical resurrection and deny that
the saints will once receive a body like Christ's, then Christ has not been raised, for
He is the head of the body, and believers are members of His body. You cannot
separate Him from His church. If the church will not be raised, then Christ is not
raised, either. If we believe only in a spiritual resurrection after we die, then we can
only believe in a spiritual resurrection of Christ.
The consequence of this denial, Paul says, is the absence of hope and salvation:
"And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God
that he raised up Christ" (vv. 14–15). If Christ was not raised from the dead, there
is no gospel to preach to the lost. There is no gospel of salvation, of deliverance
from death, and of eternal life. If Christ was not raised, we have no message of
forgiveness, no message of victory over death and hell, no message of eternal life.
If Christ was not raised, we have only a momentary hope, which will not carry into
eternity Christ's resurrection from the dead proves that His sacrifice has been accepted.
It proves that His sacrifice has met every requirement of the justice and holiness of
God, that God was satisfied by the work of Jesus. If Christ was not raised, the sin
question is not settled, the devil is not defeated, atonement is not made, and there is
no salvation for lost sinners. F. F. Bruce says, "If Christ had not been raised from
the dead there would be no New Testament, no Christian faith, no Christian
church, and the story of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified under Pontius Pilate would
never have been told. The disciples, in their mourning after Christ's crucifixion, in
their perplexity and unbelief, would have wandered off and found some other
pursuit."
If Christ was not raised, our preaching is nothing but a lie, and your faith is in
vain. All your trust and reliance upon Christ is an empty hoax. You trust nothing
more than a bruised reed. You will be deceived in the end.
We recently witnessed the space shuttle docking with the space station. After
they docked, everything in the space station could come into the shuttle, and all the
supplies from the shuttle could come into the space station. A remarkable union
brought the two together in the darkness. This was Paul's idea of faith: it docked
the sinner with Christ. In the midst of the darkness and hopelessness of sin, we
look to Christ and dock with Him by faith. As a result, all that is in us is transferred
to Him, and all His righteousness and good works come through the channel of
faith and are credited to us.
The space shuttle brought new batteries and sources of energy to the space
station, which had lost much of its power. Likewise, when Christ and the sinner
come together, the power of Christ gives the sinner power over sin. It enables us to
fight against sin and brings power into the heart. What a blessed docking this is
between a hell-worthy sinner and the living Christ! As soon as that connection is
made, life purges the sinner's bad record and gives power to the sin-fatigued heart.
Paul says here, in effect, that if Christ was not raised, we have no one to dock
into. We have no hope of union. We become like any pagan in the street, trying our
best to get to heaven by our own efforts. Then we are still sinners in the darkness,
wandering further and further into outer darkness, with no hope of union with
someone who can save us. What a terrible consequence!
Your only hope, Christian, of having your abhorrent records blotted out and all
that Christ did written in its place and credited to you is burned into ashes if Christ
was not raised! Your hope of gaining power over your habits that are so
self-destructive and of getting power from above is gone! It is dashed into pieces!
You are still mired in your sins.
Paul goes on to say in verse 18 that those who have fallen asleep in Christ have
also perished, if Christ was not raised. In other words, those who died hoping in
Christ were deceived in their hope. They have not entered into the place of eternal
bliss.
Paul concludes in our text: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of
all men most miserable" (v. 19). If Christ was not raised from the dead, He can
only help us believers while we are alive. He cannot be our Savior in death and our
Redeemer after death. We can expect nothing from Him after this life if He cannot
lead us through the dark valley of the shadow of death into the kingdom of His
Father. If that is so, we are of all people most miserable. We believers are the most
pitiable and unhappy people in the world, for we have placed all our hope upon the
Savior's redemptive work—in vain. We have given up the world with all its
pleasures and follies and friendships—in vain. We have exposed ourselves to the
hatred, the reproach, and the persecution of the world—in vain. We have been
chastised by God—in vain. We have been harassed and tempted by the devil—in
vain; we have fought against the world, sin, and Satan—in vain. We have
prayed—in vain.