Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. And right now your generous gift will have twice the impact thanks to the Proclaim the Gospel matching challenge active right now through December 31st. To give a special year-end gift, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. This is Robert Jeffress. In response to the horrific attack on Israel, I've written a brand new book called Are We Living in the End Times?
Go to ptv.org to order your copy. If Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and He has, it means those of us who are in Christ will be raised as well. Jesus Christ was just the first fruits. He was the sample of a great resurrection train that is marching toward heaven. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, for thousands of years, skeptics have been trying to prove that the resurrection of Jesus never really happened.
Because if the resurrection was a hoax, well, then all of Christianity would fall apart. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress looks at the Apostle Paul's argument for why we can be confident that Jesus rose from the grave. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Few people would refute the validity of Christmas. They agree that a man named Jesus lived and walked on this earth.
But for some, the problem is not Christmas, but Easter. And in a moment, we'll entertain the valid question, what would the future hold without the resurrection of Jesus Christ? At Pathway to Victory, we certainly affirm the orthodox biblical account of Jesus' birth and his death, burial, and resurrection. And we prepared a helpful resource for you called Jesus, the fulfillment of God's prophecies. It's a large, colorful brochure that folds out and pinpoints 37 of the hundreds of amazing Old Testament predictions about the birth, life, and ministry of Jesus Christ.
Again, it's called Jesus, the fulfillment of God's prophecies. And when you give a generous year-end gift, I'll also send you the brand new and exclusive leather-bound Pathway to Victory daily devotional. I wrote this for you to become your daily guide in 2024.
The four-screen cover with gold inlay accents is beautiful. And keep in mind, this is a limited-time offer, and I urge you to contact us right away so that you receive the daily devotional in advance of the new year. And right now, every dollar you give to Pathway to Victory will be matched and doubled because of the incredible $500,000 matching challenge.
When we receive your gift before December 31st, the amount you give will automatically be matched and therefore doubled. More about these special opportunities later. But right now, let's begin today's study in 1 Corinthians 15. I titled today's message, If Christ Has Not Been Raised. Someone has said that Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This prove it, and you have disposed of Christianity forever. Indeed, if the resurrection is nothing more than a mythical appendage to the story of a good rabbi who was popular and yet crucified by his enemies, if that's all the resurrection is, then it simply has rendered the Christian message null and void.
There is no hope for any of us. That's Paul's argument in the chapter that we've come to in our study of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 15. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn there as we look at the consequences of what it means for us if Christ has not been raised from the dead. And remember, Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth to answer questions that they had asked him. In fact, they had sent him a letter with all kinds of questions. It was kind of like we had asked the pastor, it was asked the apostle. And they had a whole list of questions. We don't have a copy of the letter the Corinthians sent to Paul, but we have a copy of Paul's response in 1 Corinthians.
And by the responses, we can pretty well determine what the questions were. Corinthians wanted to know, Paul, what should we know about divorce and remarriage? What about spiritual gifts? What about the role of women in the church?
What about suing other Christians? What about the Lord's table? All of these questions they had, Paul answers in 1 Corinthians. And when we come to chapter 15, Paul is going to answer the questions they had about the resurrection. You see, in the church at Corinth, there were some Jewish converts who had come from the sect known as the Sadducees.
The Sadducees did not believe in any resurrection because they believed in no afterlife. And so they had questions about all of this stuff about a resurrection. And then you had the Gnostics. Gnosticism is present at that time in Paul's ministry. And remember the Gnostics said that only that which is spiritual is good.
Anything that is material fleshly is evil. So their whole question of the resurrection is even if it was true, why would we want it to be true? Why would we want to inherit bodies for all eternity that are sinful? Because the body is sinful, they said. And so Paul is answering these questions about the resurrection.
And his point is very simple. He says the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead means that one day we will rise from the dead as well. And so Paul begins in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 15 talking about the case for the resurrection.
How do we know Christ was really raised from the dead? He says, first of all, look at the evidence of scripture beginning in verse 1. Paul writes, Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, by which you were saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. Paul said we're going to do a little review of what the gospel is. It's the gospel, Paul says, by which you were saved. It's the gospel which you were saved if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless of course you believed in vain. People stumble over that and they say, well, is Paul saying our salvation is conditioned upon our continuing to believe?
That's what he says in verse 2. You're saved by the gospel if you hold fast to the word I preached to you. Is our salvation conditioned upon our continued belief in the gospel?
I would say it's just the opposite. Our continued belief in the gospel is conditioned upon our genuine salvation. See, the fact is the security of the believer is a very true doctrine, but it only applies to those who are truly saved. Assurance of salvation only applies to those who are truly saved. Paul is saying that if you are truly saved, you will believe until the very end. And if you don't believe until the very end, it doesn't mean you lost your salvation.
It means you never had it to begin with. One of the tests of whether you've been genuinely saved or not is if you continue to believe until the end. That's what he's saying in verse 2 here. Paul says let's remember what this gospel is. Look at verse 3. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Here is the summary of the Christian message.
Christ died for our sins. He was buried and He rose again on the third day all as the Scripture foretold. Now by Scripture He is primarily at this time talking about the Old Testament Scripture. Obviously the epistles had not been written yet, and there were perhaps several gospels that had been penned at this point, but He's primarily talking about the Old Testament Scriptures. For example the Old Testament Scripture prophesied that the Messiah Jesus Christ would die for our sins.
Jot down Isaiah 53 verses 3-12. You know that passage well. For He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastening of our well-being fell upon Him. By His stripes we are healed. For all we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone into His own way. But the Lord has laid upon Him, Jesus, the Messiah, the iniquity of us all. The Scripture foretold 700 years before the fact in Isaiah and many other passages that Christ would die for our sins. Secondly, He was buried just as the Scripture said in Isaiah 53-9.
700 years before the case, Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would be buried in the tomb of a rich man. And thirdly, He was raised from the dead according to the Scripture. And Paul is saying the resurrection was central to the Old Testament prophecies. You say, where do you find the resurrection in the Old Testament? In Psalm 16 verse 10, the psalmist said, speaking the words that the Messiah would ultimately speak, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One, the Messiah, to undergo decay. That is, before the Messiah's body could decay, the Lord would raise it up. Or Job 19 verses 25 and 26, remember what Job said? As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives and that on the last He will take His stand on the earth.
Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I will see God. Job understood that the resurrection was a central part of the Messiah's message. The resurrection was also a part of Jesus' teaching as well. This isn't something that was tacked onto the gospel story.
It wasn't something that the apostles made up to make a good story even better. Jesus said that He would be raised from the dead. In Matthew chapter 16 verse 21, Matthew says, From that point on Jesus began to show His disciples how He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and how He must be killed and raised up on the third day. Jesus taught that there was a resurrection.
Remember, destroy this temple, Jesus said, and after three days it will be raised up. You know what is interesting is even Jesus' enemies understood that the resurrection was central to Jesus' claim. Remember what happened after Good Friday when Jesus was crucified? Remember how He was buried in the rich man Joseph of Arimathea's tomb?
Remember what happened on that Saturday? On that Saturday Jesus' enemies, the Pharisees who had been responsible for His crucifixion began to panic and they went to Pontius Pilate. And remember in Matthew 27 verses 63 and 64 they went to Pilate and said, Sir, we remember that when Jesus was still alive that deceiver said, After three days I am to rise again. Therefore, Pilate, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people He has risen from the dead.
And the last deception will be worse than the first. Those enemies of Jesus understood what He had claimed was going to happen. They wanted to make sure that grave was secure which is why they posted that Roman guard unit of 16 highly trained men to guard that tomb. They didn't want to give credence to the claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Paul said the resurrection of Jesus is proven by the evidence of Scripture but also secondly by the evidence of eyewitnesses. You know the testimony of eyewitnesses has long been considered one of the most reliable forms of evidence. Thomas Arnold a historian at Oxford University wrote, I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is better proved by fuller evidence than the great sign that God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.
What would cause such an educated historian to say there is nothing in human history better proved than the resurrection of Jesus from the dead? It is the strength of the eyewitness testimony. It's that eyewitness testimony that Paul describes beginning in verse 5. He says, and that he, Jesus, appeared to Peter. The first person Christ appeared to after his resurrection was to Peter.
Now remember Peter had denied the Lord three times just a few days earlier. And yet Jesus had selected Peter to be the leader of the apostles and it only makes sense that the first person he would appear to would be Peter. And that appearance transformed Peter forever. It gave him the courage to be a bold defender of the Christian faith, to be willing to give his life for Christ because of what he had seen in the resurrection of Christ. How do you explain that metamorphosis that occurred in Peter?
The only way to describe it is that he had seen the resurrected Christ. Not only did he appear to Peter but also to the 12. Now that's a reference to the apostles. Now literally when Christ rose from the dead there weren't 12 apostles, there were only 11. Remember Judas had already hanged himself and Matthias had yet to have been selected. But the 12 was the title that they went by so he appeared to the 12. And then after that, verse 6, he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of all who remain, that is they're alive until now, but some have fallen asleep. That is they have died. Jesus Christ appeared to 500 people at one time. We don't know the circumstances of that appearance. But Paul said that those people to whom he appeared are well known. Some of them are still alive although some of them had died 20 years after this appearance. You know every now and then, you ever stand in the supermarket line and kind of look at those tabloid magazines?
I'll confess, okay, I confess. Some of them grab my attention every now and then, you know the cover of them. Every now and then in some of the lesser known publications you'll read some of these fantastic stories. Like have you seen those?
Every now and then they crop up. Elvis has been sighted. He's back in Memphis. Somebody saw him at a Walmart or a McDonald's. Elvis has come back to life again.
Has anybody ever really fallen for that? Does anybody really believe Elvis is alive? I mean is there a movement right now that is based on the fact that Elvis Presley is alive? I mean are people willing to give their life for the fact that Elvis Presley is still alive and well and singing in Memphis?
I don't know anybody who would do that. There's people who hope he's alive, but if it came down to it, does anybody really, would they be willing to give their life for that fact? I mean you hear occasionally people say that, but on the other hand, what if 500 people all said we saw Elvis Presley? We saw him here. And not only that, it was 500 people, many of whom you had great respect for.
It's 500 people who say we believe this so much, we are willing to die for this. That would cause you to think again, wouldn't it, about whether Elvis Presley was alive or not. Here are people who absolutely said that they believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ was alive. Not only that, he appeared to James. James was the half brother of Jesus. So how did Jesus have a half brother? Well it was through Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph had many other children.
They had them the old fashioned way. And that made them the half brothers and sisters of Jesus. James was a skeptic. He turned away from the Lord. He didn't believe his half brother was the Lord until Jesus appeared to him in his resurrected form. And James became one of the leaders of the early church.
He wrote the epistle we have in our New Testament called James. And then he appeared to all of the apostles. And not only that, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also, Paul said.
One untimely born. That is, I was born too late to be an apostle. But Jesus appeared to me in his resurrected form. Not immediately after the resurrection, but weeks later when I was on the road to Damascus.
Jesus had already ascended into heaven. But he appeared to Paul and spoke to Paul and called him as an apostle. You know it's interesting the sense of humility that the apostle Paul had about that. You would think Paul would be boastful and prideful about his call to be an apostle.
The Lord speaking to him directly, but look at verse 9. And for I am the least of all of the apostles. And not fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain.
But I labored even more than all of them. Yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and you believed. Paul never got over the fact that God had forgiven him. Paul had formerly been a blasphemer, a persecutor, a killer of Christians.
I'm sure Paul was haunted by the things he had done in the past. And yet Paul said, God forgave me. In fact in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verses 15 and 16 Paul said, It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am the foremost of all. And yet for this reason I found mercy so that in me as the foremost of sinners.
Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life. Paul was saying, I am exhibit A of God's ability to forgive. When people say to me, oh pastor God could never forgive me. You don't know what I've done. You don't know the sin I've been involved in. God couldn't forgive me. I'm too great a sinner. I always respond, you're not as good of a sinner as you think you are. I can tell you somebody who is much better at sinning than you ever could think of being.
It was the apostle Paul. He was the chief of sinners and yet God saved him as exhibit A of his grace and his willingness to forgive anyone. For some of you listening tonight you think you are beyond the reach of God's forgiveness.
You're not. If God can forgive Paul he can forgive anyone. Now Paul moves from the abstract to the concrete, from the theoretical to the intensely practical as he talks about the consequences of no resurrection. He's proved the resurrection by the testimony of Scripture, by the eyewitness testimony and now he talks about the consequences of no resurrection.
Look in verse 12. He says, now if Christ is preached that he has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there's no such thing as the resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has not been raised.
Now as Dave Ramsey would say, this isn't rocket surgery here, okay? What he's saying is if there is no such thing as a resurrection, as some of you seem to think, if this life is all there is, then that means Jesus Christ has not been raised from the dead. And before you say that, consider the consequences of no resurrection.
And beginning here, Paul begins to talk about the consequences of no resurrection from the dead. Now remember again, there were some who said we do believe in a resurrection but we think it's a spiritual resurrection. You have some liberal theologians today who believe that. Oh yeah, we believe in a resurrection but Jesus was spiritually raised from the dead.
And one day we are spiritually raised from the dead. That all comes from Gnosticism. They believe that Jesus couldn't be flesh and blood because to be flesh and blood would be to be sinful because the flesh is naturally sinful.
No, it's not our bodies that are sinful in and of themselves, it's because we've been infected with the sin virus that was sinful. But Jesus Christ was blood and flesh. He ate, He drank, He was born of a woman, Galatians 4 verse 4 says. In 1 John 1 verse 1, John said, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. He said, we've touched Him, the word of life, Jesus. We know He is real, He is flesh and blood.
He said, well why does that make a difference whether Jesus Christ was flesh and blood? Because it means, among other things, that God in dwelling flesh means that God understands us. He understands you, not just intellectually, He understands you experientially. There's no heartache, there is no trial you face that God doesn't understand and sympathize with because He's also experienced it. Hebrews 4 verses 15 and 16, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but one who was tested in all points as we are and yet without sin. Therefore, let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we might receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need. When you're going through a trial in your life right now, you can go to God, you can ask for His mercy and His grace knowing that He understands exactly what you're going through because He's experienced it in the person of Jesus Christ. Aren't you glad that our God knows our pain and sorrow?
He doesn't come from a position of theory. We have a high priest who was tested in all points just as we are. This Savior, this God-man, is the one we celebrate every day on Pathway to Victory. He's the very reason this ministry exists. And when you partner with Pathway to Victory, you're impacting lives all across the country and around the world. I'm reminded of a letter I received from Mona who wrote, Pastor Jeffress, I've been struggling with a bad decision that has held me back for so many years, but when I heard you say there is hope and that God is always giving us a second chance, it was just what I needed to hear. Please, Pastor Jeffress, never quit sharing God's love for all of us.
Well, Mona, I promise to keep sharing the truth about God's love and mercy, and it's our generous listening family who allows me to do so without restraint. Remember that right now your generous year-end gift to Pathway to Victory has twice the impact because of the matching challenge that's active for a while longer. Whatever amount you choose to give between now and December 31st will be automatically matched and doubled until we reach the goal of $500,000. So don't let this opportunity slip by without giving generously to Pathway to Victory. And when you do, I'll be sure to say thanks by providing the brand new 2024 Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional.
This is a substantial book, more than 500 pages in length, so be sure to gauge the size of your year-end gift with this in mind. David will give you our contact information right now with all the details about the Daily Devotional as well. Thanks for responding today. David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you give a generous year-end gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'd like to say thanks by sending you the brand new leather-bound Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional for 2024. To request your very own copy, call 866-999-2965, or even easier, simply go online to ptv.org. Now, when your gift is $100 or more, you'll also receive this month's Christmas teaching series called The Incomparable Christ. We'll send that on both CD and DVD. Plus, you'll receive Celebrate the Savior Volume 2, a brand new music CD featuring performances by the world-class First Baptist Dallas Choir and Orchestra. Remember, your contribution right now will be doubled in impact through our Proclaim the Gospel matching challenge.
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That's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Join us again Friday when Dr. Jeffress presents the conclusion to this fascinating message on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's next time, here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You've made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
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