I want to talk to you this morning
out of the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 on the subject of
resurrection and righteousness. Resurrection and righteousness.
As you know, this chapter is all about Paul addressing a heresy
that had crept into the church at Corinth. where false preachers
came in and began to deny the bodily resurrection of believers,
the bodily resurrection of the people of God in the last day,
when Christ comes again, and they denied that. I don't know
exactly what they were saying, what their reasoning was, or
how they presented that, but apparently the church at Corinth
had tolerated it. They had allowed it to go on,
and look over it at verse 33. He says, be not deceived, evil
communications corrupt good manners. Now a lot of times that verse
is taken out of context and applied to every situation, and there
is some truth there that can be applied. to our daily lives,
and we know the old sayings, you know, one bad apple spoils
the whole bunch, all of that, and things like that. But Paul's
talking about something specific here related to the gospel. And I want to show you, really,
my text is verse 34, where he says, Awake to righteousness
and sin not. For some have not the knowledge
of God, I speak this to your shame." Now their shame there
was the fact that they had allowed this to go on. That's a shame
when the true people of God who are gathered together in the
name of the glory of God in Christ and they would tolerate or allow
even for a time false doctrines such as this to go on in the
church or to spread within the church. And so Paul had to address
it. Well, it's interesting how he
goes about addressing this. And that's why I entitled this
message, Resurrection and Righteousness. What he does is he takes it back
to the very basic gospel message. Look at verse one of 1 Corinthians
15. He says, Moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. I'm
telling you the gospel that I've always preached to you, which
also you have received and wherein you stand. Now that stand there
is the believer's immovable stand in the truth by the grace of
God. And he says, by which you are
saved. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, Romans
1 16 tells us, to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and
the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
And then he says, if you keep in memory Now that word keep,
you may see this in your concordance, it means to hold fast. In other
words, you never quit believing this. You know, the Bible speaks
of those who claim to believe the gospel and then they quit.
They stop or they turn away from it. And of course, the natural
man, when he sees things like that, he automatically concludes,
well, that means they were saved and now they're lost. And that's
not what it means at all. In fact, Christ taught clearly
in Matthew chapter 13 in the parable of the of the sower and
the seed, that those who received the gospel for a time and then
leave it, they never were saved to begin with. They never knew
Christ. They were never born again. Memory
speaks of the stony ground hearer and the thorny ground hearer,
how they left it. And then the Apostle John dealt
with it in 1 John chapter 2, because apparently several people
within the church fellowship that he was writing to, and there
was more than one church that he was writing to,
But several had left the gospel and turned against it unto apostasy. That is, not only did they just
leave, but they actually turned against the gospel. And of course,
in 1 John 2, he tells them that they never were of us. Had they
been of us, he said, they would have no doubt remained with us.
So when Paul says, if you keep in memory, he says, hold fast,
he said, what I preached unto you, verse two, unless you believed
in vain. To believe in vain is to never
believe it at all. To believe in vain is just a
person who has a claim of faith, but no real faith. So it doesn't
mean that they ever were saved and lost them. But now look at
verse 3. He says, For I delivered unto
you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried,
and that he arose again the third day according to the scriptures.
Now, what the apostle is doing here in order to correct this
this attack upon the gospel by these false preachers with their
heresy when they came in and denied the bodily resurrection
of believers. What he's doing is he's showing
by connection that the very gospel itself, which includes the historical
facts of the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ,
not only results in the resurrection of believers, but it demands
it. And why does it demand it? Well,
because Christ died on the cross. Now how did he die? According
to the scriptures. In other words, he died not just
an historical fact, but he died in a specific way for a specific
people to accomplish a specific thing. He died as a substitute. He died as a representative.
He died as a surety, having the sins of his people charged to
his account, whereupon he died the death of the cross, satisfying
the justice of God and establishing the only righteousness whereupon
God could be just and justify the ungodly. And that's the issue
of the gospel. It's not just three historical
facts, the death, burial, and resurrection. I'll never forget
years ago was preaching here and I don't remember the actual
text, it may have been this, but I was talking about the gospel,
defining the gospel and the glorious person and finished work of Christ
and talking about how there in the righteousness of God is revealed
and how it speaks of Christ as God-man who did this particular
work to establish righteousness for his people to put away their
sins And a lady who was visiting here, when she was going out
the door, she looked at me and she said, well, I thought, she
said, you kind of made it more complicated, she said. I thought
the gospel was just the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
And I told her, I said, well, the gospel includes the death
of Christ, the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. But
those things mean something. It's not just an historical person
came and lived a good life, and then he died, and he was buried,
and he rose from the dead. Those things mean something,
and that phrase, according to the Scripture, sets it forth.
What does the Scripture say about the death of Christ? And I'll
tell you what, from the very beginning, when the Messiah was
prophesied to be the Savior of his people, it is established
clearly that he died as a justice satisfying substitute for his
people to establish righteousness. You remember what the Lord did
after Adam fell? Adam and Eve put the fig leaf
aprons on and God took those fig leaf aprons off. Remember
what he did, Genesis 3.21? He slew an animal. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. And he made coats of skin and
put upon them. That's a type of the imputed
righteousness of Christ, whereby sinners are justified. And he
showed in that type, which I believe there what he did was establish
the sacrificial system of worship that would go all the way through
the Old Testament until Messiah came. Showing that sin demands
death, righteousness demands life. So here he is, Christ. He died for our sins. He died
as a substitute, as a surety, to satisfy justice, to pay our
sin debt. That's what the scripture says.
This person, God in human flesh, died for that purpose. And he
was buried. Now why does it include his burial?
Well, it's showing that he really did die. He wasn't faking it. You know, years ago, I think
it was back in the 70s, there was this movie that came, there
was a book that came out and they made a movie called The
Temptation of Christ. And the whole thing was setting
up the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as some kind of an
elaborate hoax that the disciples concocted along with Jesus of
Nazareth in order to fool people. And that's not what happened.
He died. Sin demands death. The wages of sin is death. What did God tell Adam in the
garden? In the day that you eat thereof
you shall what? Surely die. Literally, dying
thou shalt die. Sin demands death. So the only
way that we can escape death is to find a remedy for sin.
Now the remedy for sin is not in us, not of us, not by us,
not from us. There's no way that the wages
of sin is death. That's all we can earn. So what
is the answer? The death, the burial of Christ.
Now, in his death and burial, he accomplished something. Well,
what did he accomplish? Well, he established what God
requires for his people under the law, under justice. He accomplished
righteousness. Now, righteous, just as sin demands
death, Righteousness demands what? Life. And that's where
Paul starts with this whole thing. If Jesus Christ established righteousness
for me, then what has to happen to him as my representative? He has to be made alive. And that's his resurrection.
He arose from the dead. Now, if I'm righteous in Him,
then what has to happen to me? Life, spiritual life, eternal
life. I can't stay dead. When I die,
when this body, this physical body is dead and goes into the
grave, my spirit and so, we cannot stay dead. We have to be resurrected
because we're one with Christ. Now what Paul does in beginning
of verse five, he begins to talk about eyewitnesses of the resurrection
of Christ. You say, and then he brings us,
look at verse 12. He says, listen to how he connects
it. He says, now if Christ be preached
that he rose from the dead, and we do preach that, that's, you
can't preach the gospel without preaching the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ. To deny the resurrection. You
know, when I went to seminary in Louisville, I don't remember
one professor I had who believed in what we would call the literal
resurrection of Christ. Not one professor. I know there
were some on campus, but I didn't get them. But they didn't believe
in the literal resurrection. They thought it was just some
kind of a spiritual thing that, I don't know how they explained
it really. Well, they couldn't. But now, if Christ be preached,
if Messiah be preached that he rose from the dead, then how
say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
You can't have that. It can't go that way. If Christ
rose from the dead, the people whom he represented, the people
whom he substituted himself for, the people for whom he died,
the people whose sins he put away, the people who are righteous
in him, by the imputation of His righteousness to them, they've
got to be raised again. It doesn't make any sense, you
see, to say that He arose, but there's no resurrection of the
dead. And he goes on to prove it. He says in verse 13, but
if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not
risen. To deny the resurrection of those for whom Christ died
is to deny Christ. Now, you might notice here, that
this puts to death any notion of what people are preaching
today concerning universal redemption. It puts it to death. In other
words, people today, you know, preachers will tell them, well,
Christ died for everybody. God loves everybody, and Christ
died for everybody. Well, if that's true, then everybody's
going to be resurrected from the dead. Now, the resurrection
he's talking about here is resurrection unto glory. You know, the Bible
talks about resurrection unto death. That's eternal death,
eternal separation from God. but then it talks about resurrection
unto glory. And that's what Paul's talking
about here. He's not talking about resurrection unto death,
which those who die without Christ will stand before God at judgment
and be judged in their sins. He's talking about resurrection
unto glory. So if you deny that, then you
might as well deny that Christ arose, because Christ is our
substitute. He's our representative. He's
our surety. And if he's my surety, if he
arose, I've got to be raised. Now he says in verse 14, and
if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your
faith is also vain. Now that tells you right there
that it's all suspended upon what Christ accomplished in his
obedience unto death. Our complete salvation was conditioned
on Him. It's not conditioned on my preaching.
It's not conditioned on your believing. It's conditioned on
Christ. Now, must we preach? Yes. Must
you believe? Yes. But that's not the condition
that ensures or secures the salvation and resurrection of the people
of God. What is? Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. His blood, His righteousness
alone secures and ensures the salvation, the resurrection of
His people. Because if He's not risen, what
I'm doing to you this morning, preaching to you, is worthless. If He's a dead martyr, You know,
I think, I don't know, some of y'all may have been to what they
call the Holy Land. I've never been there. Well,
I actually have been there, but the Holy Land that I've been
to is a spiritual land. You may have actually set your
feet in Palestine. That's not the Holy Land. But
they tell me that there's probably more than one place that different
people think is the tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I guess
whatever persuasion you are, But let me tell you something.
It doesn't matter where his tomb is or was. It's immaterial. If you find it, just walk on
by. I'm telling you. Because here's what matters. That he is not in that tomb. That he came out of that tomb.
And if he didn't, then this preaching's in vain. Now, the scripture says
the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to them that believeth,
to the Jew first, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. Now that righteousness of God
is the entire merit of the whole work of redemption of the Lord
Jesus Christ as the surety and substitute of his people. So
if he's not risen preaching that Gospels in vain, it's not the
power of God in the salvation, but we know better don't and
Then if he's not risen your faith is in vain. You're believing
in him is in vain People believe in Buddha what good does it do?
People believe in themselves. People believe in false counterfeit
Christ. What good does it do? If he's
not risen, then our faith is in vain. So it's not conditioned
on my faith, it's conditioned on his death, burial, and resurrection.
It's conditioned on his righteousness. That's what that means. And so
he says in verse 15, yea, and we are found false witnesses
of God because we've testified of God that he raised up Christ.
whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." Again,
one's connected with the other. We're one with Christ. Now you
know we won't go there for time's sake. Read Romans chapter 6. The first part of Romans chapter
6, I think from Romans 6, 1 to 14, that's what it's teaching. Listen, that Christ, when he
died, I died. He was buried, I was buried. When He arose again, I rose.
In Him. Not in my own person, but in
Him. And therefore we have the fruit and the result of what
He accomplished in spiritual life through the new birth. That
verse in Romans chapter 8 and verse 10 says, this body is dead
because of sin. You know how it starts out? It
says, if Christ be in you, how is He in us? By His Spirit and
by His Word. If Christ be in you, then this
body is dead, even though this body is dead, dying because of
sin. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
is life because of what? Righteousness. Resurrection. Righteousness. That's what it's
all about. That's the heart of the Gospel. And so he says in
verse 16, he says, for if the dead rise not, then is not Christ
raised. And if Christ be not raised,
your faith is vain. You're yet in your sins. To be
in your sins is to be condemned. That means that God imputes sin
to you. If you're yet in your sins, that
means God imputes sin to you, charges you with sin. That means
you're spiritually dead. And all you can hope for is eternal
death and damnation. But you see, 1 John 3 tells us
that in Christ is no sin. Now jump across the page there
to verse 31. Now what's Paul doing here? He's going to tell them in verse
34, as we said, to awake to righteousness and sin not. Awake to righteousness
and sin not. When verse 31, he says, I protest
by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus, our Lord, I
die daily. Now what he's talking about,
that word protest, when we think of a protest, we think of somebody
standing up, holding a sign, shouting out against something.
That's not what the word protest means there. This word protest,
it would be like Paul saying, I affirm, or I declare as certain. In other words, this protest
is not standing against something, but it's actually standing for
something. Paul is saying this. He says, I'm affirming and I'm
declaring as certain your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus
our Lord. That rejoicing is glorying. You
remember that word rejoice sometimes is translated glory. God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross. That's the same word.
1 Corinthians 1, what is it? 29-31. He that gloryeth, let him glory
in the Lord. Same word. It's translated rejoice
in Philippians 3-3 when he says we are the circumcision which
worship God in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. That means we
glory in Christ Jesus. It means we have confidence in
Christ Jesus. Our boast is Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. He says, I protest, I affirm
by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus. What's he saying
there? Well, Paul's saying is I affirm
the certainty of your resurrection from the dead by our glory in
Christ Jesus. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Paul's not saying I glory in
you. There's nothing in us to glory. It's all in Christ. And
he says, I died daily. Now that dying daily is just
another way of saying how he continually puts his life on
the line for this gospel that reveals the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ. I put my life on the line, and
Paul literally did. Go back and read the history
of Paul as recorded in the book of Acts. I think I can't, I didn't
write down the reference there, but I think it's in Acts. I think
it's 19, I'm not sure, but anyway, where 40 of those Jews, those
unbelieving Jews, made a pact, a covenant, and they said they
wouldn't eat or sleep until Paul was dead. And we know the world hates the
gospel. So Paul, when he went and he
preached this gospel of the resurrection, of righteousness, accomplished
by Christ, not by the works of men, This righteousness that
Paul said that exposes that our deeds are evil. Now think about
that. You know what that's like. Every
one of you who believe the gospel, you've had to face that. We all
have. That everything that we thought before we heard the gospel
of Christ, everything that we thought recommended us to God
was nothing but dead works. Paul in Philippians 3 said, I
count it all but dung that I may win Christ. That the only thing
that we have to recommend us unto God is the righteousness
of our Savior. That's it. And so Paul says,
I die daily. And then verse 32, he says, if
after the manner of men, I fought with beast at Ephesus, what advantage,
what advantage it me if the dead rise not. We don't have any record
of Paul actually being thrown to the lions or anything like
that, like some Christians were under that tyranny of Rome and
all that. He may have and it's not been
recorded, but we know even in the Old Testament, Daniel was
thrown in the lion's den. The only record we have of Paul
in Ephesus had to do with unbelieving men and women wanting to kill
him, going after him. So I believe he's speaking figuratively
here. These beasts are unbelievers
who so hate the gospel that they went after him. And Paul had
to face that. And what he's saying is if Christ
is not risen, then I'm doing all that for nothing. You think
about this church here over the last 20 or so years, and many
of you who have separated from your former religious affiliations,
even family members, and even the friends that you used to
have religious fellowship with, which you don't have that now.
If Christ is not risen, if righteousness is not established, listen, if
what we're preaching here is not the truth, then what advantage
is all this? It's for nothing. It's for nothing. But we know better. And so he
says, well, if that's the case, let's eat and drink, be merry,
for tomorrow we die. It's almost like Paul is saying,
well, If what I'm preaching to you is not true, then let's not
turn to any other religion. Yeah, I've seen people say, well,
I'm just gonna go back to old such and such church where they
preach free willism and all that. Why? Because I can tell you right
now, this isn't the truth, that's not. We might as well eat and
drink and be merry. Tomorrow we die. And of course you know that that's
the philosophy of the heathen. I believe Paul's quoting here
from the book of Isaiah, chapter 22, where Isaiah was showing
the unbelief and the perverted views of unbelievers. Say, well,
is there anything wrong with eating? No. Anything wrong with
drinking and all that? No. If you do it unto the Lord,
do it in a way that glorifies God and honors Him, the book
of Ecclesiastes has a lot to say about that. But then he says
in verse 33, be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good
manners. Now there's a lot of applications
to that verse. But let's stick to what Paul's
talking about. What's he talking about evil
communications? Well obviously in the context he's talking about
false doctrine that denies the righteousness of Christ. Isn't
he? Isn't that what this whole chapter's
about? He's not, listen, we want our young people to know, don't
get involved with the drug community. Evil communications there will
corrupt good matters. Don't get involved with the immoral
community. That's all true. And we want
you to avoid those evil companions and all of that and their evil
ways because you won't change them, they'll change you. So
all that's true. But that's not what Paul's talking
about here. He's talking about false gospels that deny the person
and finished work of Christ. And he says they'll corrupt good
manners. Good manners there is not just being polite. Good manners
there is a way of life. It's the way of Christian life.
What is the Christian life? Look at verse 34. Awake to righteousness
and sin not. Now you know, what is it to awake
to righteousness? It is to be ever awake and alive
and aware of what righteousness really is, what it really is
now, and where it's to be found. What is righteousness? You look
at a person who is kind, charitable, tries to help people, and that's
fine. And we all should do more. We
should do as much as we can to be kind, to be charitable, to
be moral. Do you think that's righteousness?
If you do, wake up. That's what I'm saying. Wake
up. You've gone to sleep. Do you think that's holiness?
You know, people use the word holiness talking about moral
perfection. And the answer is no. That's
not righteousness. Righteousness is perfect satisfaction
to God's law and justice. That's what it is. And if you
think it's anything less, anything you do or don't do, anything
you abstain from or whatever, wake up. Because listen to me. To think and believe and act
in a way that you indicate in your mind and to others that
righteousness is anything less than what can be found and accomplished
and given by Jesus Christ the Lord is sin. Christ called it iniquity in
Matthew 7. Here's a guy, he's preaching
in the name of the Lord. Nothing wrong with that, is there?
But that's not my righteousness. And if I think it is, or you
think it is, you better wake up. We all better wake up. Because
that's sin. Righteousness is perfection to
the law. Strict adherence to the law.
And it can only be found in Christ, and anything less is sin. That's
what Paul's talking about here. If you deny the resurrection
of believers, you're denying the resurrection of Christ, you're
denying righteousness. And even in your best efforts
to worship, to pray, to do good, you're sinning. What does he
mean, sin not? He means stop denying righteousness. Something specific. Well, shouldn't
we fight all sin? Of course we should, and the
Bible deals with that in other places. We as believers are commanded
not to sin. That's our goal. We're to fight
the warfare of the flesh and the spirit. We won't be sinlessly
perfect in ourselves until we go to be with Christ. But right
now we're sinlessly perfect in him based on his blood and righteousness. Now to deny our resurrection
is to deny his resurrection. That's to deny righteousness.
That's to deny the gospel. That's to deny salvation itself.
That's to sin with a high hand. Isn't it? Awake to righteousness
and sin not. And notice how he concludes this
verse. He said, for some have not the
knowledge of God. They don't know God. Listen,
if you don't know what righteousness really is, you don't know God. Remember Romans 10? They, being
ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
their own, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness."
You see how all that's connected? And he said, I speak this to
your shame. What he's saying there is you ought to know better.
You've heard the gospel. It's been preached to you. And
you're allowing these false preachers to come in and bring doubts about
about this basic gospel issue of resurrection and righteousness,
I speak it to your shame. Now you know the Apostle Paul
is not just trying to guilt people, he's trying to recover them from
this error. And so that's what he does, okay.