Sunday, March 31, 2013

Vital

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.

                                                              --1 Corinthians 15: 17 (NASB)
                         
In his famous discourse on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15: 12-58, the apostle Paul debunks any platitudes about the value of faith being merely intrinsic without regard to its object. Faith, to have value, must be in the truth. The literal resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave is a central truth so vital to Christianity that the believer's faith would be worthless if the Lord's resurrection had not taken place. If Christ was not raised, the believers would not be raised, in which case "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (v. 32b)." Without the resurrection, there is no point in doing church, in preaching, in evangelism.

But the good news is that Christ is risen...literally, physically, bodily from the grave. His resurrection is so certain that the apostle Peter, in Acts 2: 24 asserts that there was no other possible outcome, because death did not have the power to hold Jesus in its clutches.

He is risen indeed. And that is why our faith is so valuable.

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