Cancer Blog #77
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #77– Paul’s Poignant Statement
March 3, 2023
[1Co 15:16-20] 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. 20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
Here I find one of the most poignant statements of Paul. He makes the strongest contrast possible in this statement between Christians and non-Christians. If Christ was never raised, then what hope is there at all? If He wasn’t raised, we have never been forgiven our sins. I must pause here to note that most Christians focus on the death of Christ, almost to the exclusion of the importance of the resurrection (with the exception of Easter, of course). But here Paul shows the centrality of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Anyone can be crucified and die (though Christ’s death was unique as our sacrifice). But, to come back from the dead is a great and unique act of power altogether. I’m not dismissing the significance of Christ’s death as the Lamb of God. But, I think we have vastly underrated Christ’s resurrection in our faith (and statements of faith), and even in our evangelism. (Notice that in Acts 17 when Paul was preaching on the Areopagus to the Greeks that his evangelism includes only the resurrection with no mention of Christ’s death, and the Greeks were highly offended by the concept of a resurrection of the dead (verses 30-32).
The centrality of His return from the dead cannot be overstated. It is what put paid, certified, and approved by God our Father to Jesus’ life and death. Otherwise, as Paul says in vs.18, “those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.” Our hope in Christ must be grounded not only in His death, but in His resurrection. Unless we have that as certainty, “we have hope in this life only, [and] we are of all people most to be pitied.” What a dire statement. A state worse than hopelessness, but one of foolishness as well as we will waste our lives as they are pervaded by an empty belief. A people to be pitied for being so completely duped by the Christian faith.
But as Christ has been raised, He is the first fruit of those of us who have died. As I’ve mentioned before, Paul uses a phrase that he got from Jesus in the gospel narratives. “Fallen asleep” is a Christian phrase that describes how we see dead believers. Their death is not the end. They have only “fallen asleep” as viewed in this life. From the perspective of Christ’s resurrection, we who die as believers, will be a part of the harvest to life because our Savior was the first fruit of that same harvest.
And so, we who are believers and have received the verdict of a terminal diagnosis need not be afraid as we know that Christ was raised from the dead. The tomb that held Jesus’s body is empty. He came back to life as a living and breathing man, the start of a new life. When you receive that diagnosis of death, remember that Christ has been raised, so you will be too!
NEXT: The Last Enemy