“The Body of Jesus has been discovered in Jerusalem.” That is what a 2007 so-called documentary claimed. This claim was over twenty-five hundred years old. The original story appears in Matthew 28:11–15, “Satan’s Great Commission,” when the soldiers were commissioned to perpetrate the lie that the disciples had stolen the body. But unbelievers properly understand that the historic resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is foundational to genuine Christian faith. This is the great fact standing at the center of redemptive history. Paul uses the logic of negative consequences to establish that centrality. For example, if you do not do well in school, you cannot read, write, get a job, or live well. God’s Word confronts us with the awful logic of denying the historical reality of the resurrection. These deadly denials reveal seven life-saving affirmations.

1. If You Deny the Resurrection, Then Christ Is Not Risen (vv. 12–13)

If there is no such thing as resurrection, then the primary consequence of such a denial is that there is no resurrection of Christ and thus no gospel—no good news for the nations. The concept of resurrection was foreign to the Hellenistic mind, as it is now for the modern mind, it is not among ideas that are plausible in our cultural mindset. Science and human experience have no room for such concepts—dead men do not rise. It was not essentially different in Paul’s day— “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator . . .” (Rom. 1:25). The entire gospel is based on the reality of resurrection, especially Christ’s resurrection; without it everything crumbles, there is no Christianity. Christianity is not a philosophy or a lifestyle, but rather the story of redemption by the true and living God in history—our history. An empty tomb proves nothing, as Satan’s great commission proves; Christ’s resurrection does!

Furthermore, denial of Christ’s resurrection is a denial of his lordship. To say, “He Is Risen” means “Jesus Is Lord.” Anything else is “another gospel.” This is the essence of biblical religion: God saves sinners through Jesus Christ in history. Christ’s death and resurrection are the only way. Trusting his lordship and believing in the sin atoning value of his death and final victory of the historical resurrection save us miserable sinners from sin and death.

2. If You Deny the Resurrection, Then Preaching Is Meaningless (v. 14a)

The words of gospel preachers are empty unless there is an empty tomb and a risen Christ. The apostolic message is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But if there was no historical resurrection, then the message is mere “campaign rhetoric.” Much modern preaching since the Enlightenment is “religious double talk”—Resurrection is merely a primitive superstition but represents a therapeutic help. 

Biblical preaching throughout the entire Bible is based on God acting in history, intruding into his world. Noah and the flood, Moses and the exodus, the prophets and the exile, in all of these epochs historic hope was proffered—Public proclamation of what God has done and will do in history. True preaching is not a subjective psychological tool of survival. Based on God’s Word, it is never meaningless.

3. If You Deny the Resurrection, Then Faith Is Meaningless (v. 14b)

Empty or vain preaching makes meaningless, empty, futile faith; there is nothing worse than empty promises—like bad checks, broken contracts, broken marriage vows. This is tantamount to believing in nothing. Such faith as a mere psychological benefit is just that—empty! The slogan “hope and change” based on mere wishes is a disaster.

This is biblical faith as Hebrews 11:1 teaches us: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). True biblical faith is not a subjective feeling or mood, but trust in God’s acts and promises both present and future. It is only as good as its object. True faith believes that God laid our sins on his sinless Son and raised him from the dead to be our everlasting head.

The world believes only what it can see and control. Christian faith trusts in the God we cannot see, but through the agency of his Word and Spirit. Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb. 11:3). So Paul, “we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

4. If You Deny the Resurrection, Then the Apostles Are Liars (v. 15)

The text says that if there was no historical resurrection of Christ, then the apostles are frauds, literally “pseudo-martyrs,” false witnesses. Apostles are public witnesses of a fact. If what they claim happened did not occur, then it is not fact but a falsehood, a lie, and they are “false witnesses,” like Elmer Gantry. The word “found” implies an evidentiary or judicial standard. The word for preaching describes the apostles as heralds, not orators. The herald was tasked with publicly announcing the message of the king, nothing more, nothing less. Paul is affirming that Jesus is the king whose infallible message he is proclaiming. The world wants to reinforce the official talking point of the temple officials, that the disciples stole the body while the guards were asleep (Matt. 28:13).

The lie of the elders and guards undermines the apostle’s true calling as ambassadors of good news. Objective reality is being declared in the gospel. The integrity of the apostolic message was always an issue in the ancient world, as it is in ours. Paul reminds the Thessalonians of this: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Th. 2:13). It is either true or it is not. If it is merely an “encouraging myth,” then it is bad news. The apostles were called to be truthful witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection, they “must become with us a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:22); “this Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32).

5. If You Deny the Resurrection, Then We Are Still Dead in Our Sins (vv. 16–17)

The entire purpose of the incarnation of the Messiah was to free God’s elect from the guilt of their sins and consequent eternal death. Without the resurrection of Christ there can be no atonement for sin, undermining God’s plan to satisfy the demands of his justice. The phrase, “you are still in your sins,” means that we would still remain united to the first Adam, “dead in sin,” and sentenced to everlasting condemnation.

Faith is “futile” (μάταιος, mataios, is a different word from “empty” or “vain” in v. 14, which is κενός, kenos); it is worthless, that is, it cannot take hold of the worth of Christ’s sacrifice. It achieves nothing; we remain guilty before God. But faith rooted in the historic resurrection “will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:24–25). “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption” (Ps. 16:10). The historic resurrection of Christ is absolutely necessary for the satisfaction of God’s justice.

But now we are no longer dead in sin, we are new creatures in Christ— no longer “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:1–3), but now made alive in Christ as a “new creation,” part of a new humanity (2 Cor. 5:17).

6. If You Deny the Resurrection, Then Dead Christians Are Destroyed (v. 18)

Destruction here is everlasting. Death is the end and leads to hell and outer darkness; Those who died in Christ simply perish without hope. This is contrary to God’s promise that death is the doorway into the paradise of God’s presence. Paul is assured of the glorious life to come: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Phil. 1:21–23). “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11).

7. If You Deny the Resurrection, Then Hope Is Limited to This Life (v. 19)

Without Christ’s resurrection, the church is hopeless and to be pitied; it is just like the world, “having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). We are pitiable fools, not because we could be having fun instead of denying ourselves; but because we have believed a mirage—all we have of blessings are the imperfect and temporary ones of this life. So says the apostle, “What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Cor. 15:32). In Ecclesiastes the Preacher uses this idea positively, “that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man” (Eccl. 3:13, cf. 2:24, 26; 5:18, 20; 8:15; 9:7). He commends our enjoyment of God’s temporary blessings in a fallen world as a kind of foretaste of the consummate blessings the believer anticipates. But Paul is lamenting the idea of these blessings being all there is.

The logic of unbelief makes the fallen human mind, its fallen imagination, the final judge of truth (1 Cor. 15:12). Unbelief says resurrection is impossible, unthinkable; this is the plausibility structure of unbelief. Technology makes this more credible as it focuses us on the surface of temporary realities. Control is the issue. Given enough research and development we can overcome all the maladies of living in a fallen world. But who is the master of your future if you are doomed? “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). The lie that this is all there is and that the empty tomb can be explained in human terms is the intellectual milieu in which we live.

The logic of faith is the only hope of Paul’s bold apostolic assertion (v.20), “but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,” and we long for this future, “we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). The eschatological goal of God is at stake because we seek “the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. . . . For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 11:10; 13:14).

Conclusion

Notice that Paul is addressing the church not the unbelieving world; to the Corinthian church he asks, “How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1 Cor. 15:12). Remember people of God what faith is: “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Your temptation is to believe that the only reality is the city in which you live. The atmosphere of thought surrounding us seeks to impinge on our beliefs and practices; the ubiquity of electronic means exacerbates the temptation.

All seven deadly denials are the opposite of seven faith affirmations. Listen! Because Christ is risen the preaching of God’s Word is true and can be trusted and depended upon; faith is well placed on the proper object, Jesus the risen Christ and the triune God; the apostles and their gospel message are trustworthy; your sins are covered by the pure righteousness of your Savior; and finally, dead Christians will be raised from the dead someday, and so will you.

Is this your hope? Romans 10:9 says, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” I plead with you to make it so. Christian, live like a new creature in Christ: “everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).

Gregory E. Reynolds is pastor emeritus of Amoskeag Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Manchester, New Hampshire, and is the editor of Ordained Servant. Ordained Servant Online, March, 2024.