That is, you should feel that there is nothing more basic, fundamental, and important to your faith or to the Christian faith than that Christ rose from the dead. Of course, this is in an important respect already clear from Romans 10:9-10. It makes your salvation dependent on it! But let me request that you turn to another famous affirmation of the foundational importance of the resurrection of Christ for the Christian religion.
1 Corinthians 15:17 says: “and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” There have been many so-called Christians who have thought that they could have Christianity without believing in the fleshly resurrection of Christ. Such people may have been raised and educated among the beautiful remnants of Christendom in the great churches, cathedrals, and universities of their countries. They could not dream of not being “Christians.” But neither could they accept as modern men an actual, physical resurrection. They certainly could not do this if they craved the acceptance of their peers in the great universities and cathedrals of their nations. They busied themselves, therefore, in trying to create and explain a Christianity that could be accepted by modern men and did not involve a physical resurrection of Jesus.
But all their labors and efforts were not a testimony to their faith, but a testimony to their apostasy. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless, you are still in your sins.” There is no Christianity worth having that does not involve foundationally the resurrection of Christ. There is no faith worth professing that does not involve foundationally the resurrection of Christ. A faith which does not confess Jesus as raised from the dead is worthless and leaves you still in your sins. Better by far to say, “I do not believe it. The resurrection of Christ is a lie. I am no Christian.” Better to say that and renounce your membership in Christ’s church, than to maintain some kind of beautiful dream Christianity which has for its only consequence deceiving you and disguising your true condition to yourself.
There are many important practical questions which this raises for every professing Christian.
- Is the resurrection vital and foundational to your understanding of Christianity? Do you see how crucial it is for people to believe in the resurrection? Do you really believe that if someone does not believe in the physical resurrection of Christ that their faith is worthless and that they are still in their sins?
- Do you have the kind of Christian faith which is not worthless? Or are you yet in your sins? It is only a heart response to the resurrection of Christ in which you actually think and feel that He rose from the dead that can save you—that can deliver you from still being in your sins.
- Do you understand that if you have such a faith, it does deliver you from being still in your sins? What does it mean to be in your sins? Cf. John 8:24 “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” Jesus told the unbelieving Jewish leaders that they would die in their sins. There is an awful foreboding in the words. To still be in your sins means to still be in the guilt of them. It means to be still under the power of them. Are you still in your sins? Are they still your lord and master? Are you still suffering under the blood guilt of them? Or have you, by faith in the crucified and risen Savior, been delivered from the guilt of your sins and rescued from the mastery of your sins?
- Do you understand that it is only entrusting yourself to a risen Savior that can deliver you from being in this awful way in your sins? There is a way to be saved from the horrible fate of dying in your sins. It is by entrusting yourself to Christ who has been raised from the dead. But you have to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead! Do you understand that only the resurrection of Christ provides the gospel with the power to save men from dying in their sins?
- Do you see that if God has delivered you from your sins, then you have genuine faith? People can get all tangled up questioning whether they have true faith. They want to believe, but they sometimes have doubts. Christian, let me tell you something. People can have faith and still struggle with doubt. Have you entrusted yourself to Christ, turned from your sins, because you believe that sin will be punished and that your sin will be punished, if you die in your sins? Do you like the man at the foot of the hill of transfiguration say of Christ’s resurrection, “I believe; help my unbelief”(Mark 9:24)? Do you pray like the disciples of Christ, “Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5)? Have you seen a change in your life resulting from such faith even though your faith is not perfect, not what you would like to see, and mixed with doubt? Then you should not lack assurance that you believe in the resurrected Jesus.
But is there good reason to believe in this foundational teaching of the Christian faith? Yes, there is, and we will take that up in the next blog.
