Essential Resurrection – 1 Corinthians 15:12-19

I think he’s missed the boat.  At RedeemingGod.com Jeremy Myers responds to the 1980 find of an ossuary find (a bone box in which the remains of deceased family members were reinterred after burial) labeled as Yeshua ben Joseph (Jesus son of Joseph) and with other names that match Jesus’ known family members.  Is there great likelihood that this is our Jesus?  I don’t think so.  But Myers asks, what if it was true and could be proved that this was really Jesus’ bones (and, of course, that can’t be proved)?  He says nothing would change for him.  Christianity is still the best way to live available.  Does this fit with Paul’s teaching?

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 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.  (1 Corinthians 15:12-19 ESV)

If the remains of Christ’s body were somehow demonstrably discovered would you still be a Christian?  It is tempting to say yes because we have come to know Jesus so intimately and experienced God’s blessing in him so abundantly that it would still seem that Christianity is true.  But Paul tells the Corinthians that if Jesus was not raised from the dead our faith is in vain and we are lost to God.  The resurrection was essential to our salvation.  Paul does not explain why, but the resurrection was God’s confirmation that Jesus sacrifice was accepted and that he was indeed the sinless savior of the world and its rightful ruler.

The Corinthians had been misled into believing that there was no general resurrection of the dead, only a spiritual resurrection.  This was likely a surrender to the idea that the body was evil and we didn’t need it, in fact, were to be delivered from it at death.  But if that were true, Paul argues, then Jesus was not raised from the dead, something they still believed to be true.  To depart from a belief in the resurrection was to depart from the faith once delivered and attested to by the apostles.  To remain faithful to the gospel we must proclaim Christ’s resurrection and the resurrection from the dead in general, our future hope. 

And as we proclaim the gospel it is essential that we have evidence for our faith, not faith that is blind or a leap in the dark or one not needing proof.  Faith always springs from evidence and the evidence for the Christian faith is bountiful and convincing.