In the word of scripture to 1 Corinthians
chapter 15 and we'll read together verses 1
to 11 Now brothers I want to remind
you of the gospel I preached to you
Which you received and on which you have
taken your stand By this gospel you're saved
if you hold firmly to the word I
preached to you otherwise You have believed in
vain For what I received I passed on
to you as of first importance that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures
That he was buried that he was raised
on the third day according to the scriptures
and Now begins the passage that we shall
be looking at this evening And that he
appeared to Peter Then to the twelve After
that he appeared to more than five hundred
of the brothers at the same time Most
of whom are still living those some have
fallen asleep Then he appeared to James then
to all the Apostles and Last of all
he appeared to me also as to one
Abnormally born for I am the least of
the Apostles and Do not even deserve to
be called an apostle because I persecuted the
Church of God But by the grace of
God, I am what I am and his
grace to me was not without effect No,
I worked harder than all of them yet
not I But the grace of God that
was with me Whether then it was I
or they this is what we preach and
This is what?
you believe may the Lord grant his blessing
upon his word tonight and Enable us to
meditate upon these very precious truths to our
prophet Now as to the importance of the
resurrection to the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ we have Already been dwelling upon this
and saying as Paul does at the opening
of this great chapter that it is absolutely
basic What he delivered he delivered as a
first importance Not only that Christ died and
was buried and rose again, but that he
died according to the scriptures and That he
was raised again according to the scriptures and
This is the message that was proclaimed a
way back there in early Corinth This is
the gospel that brought into existence the church
at Corinth in that very Inhospitable environment speaking
morally and spiritually the gospel of the crucified
buried and risen Christ brought new creatures into
being new men and women in Christ and
Thus there emerged the community of sanctified men
and women in unholy Corinth of old Now
we move on to The list that the
Apostle gives us of those to whom our
Lord Jesus Christ appeared as the risen Lord
after his death What Old Testament writers prophetically
foresaw from their distant vantage point What by
inspiration of the Spirit they foresaw in terms
of a Suffering Messiah and in terms of
a risen Messiah Witnesses called of God and
chosen to the privilege saw a close range
For they were given as John tells us
at the beginning of his first epistle They
were given the privilege of hearing and touching
and handling The risen Lord And as Thomas
did at least Thomas did he put his
hand in the wounds and touched his side
and Only thereby was he assured of the
fact That this indeed was none other than
the Christ who had died and thus the
Messiah of God So did our Lord appear
Now that little word appear this may seem
very prosaic but I suggest to you that
it is very important This little word translated.
He appeared is really quite important here Uh
FF Bruce has a little comment on it,
which I think quite succinctly brings out the
point.
I want to make The use of the
Greek word translated appeared in our version says
FF Bruce is of some considerable significance It
marks the experience out as one in which
Christ takes the initiative He sought out Chosen
men and women To whom he would reveal
the fact that he was risen from the
dead To whom he would manifest himself and
when he discovered them He revealed himself to
them he appeared to them To quote again
from Bruce Peter and the others Saw him
in resurrection because he Manifested himself to them
or in the sense of the Hebrew tolerative
nipah, which is a form of the Hebrew
verb He he let himself be seen by
them.
He's taking the initiative He's seeking men and
women of his own choice to behold that
having Been nailed on the tree and buried
in the tomb He is now Lord over
life and over death.
He is risen from the dead Here then
we are not dealing with something that is
utterly subjective Peter didn't have a vision of
the risen Christ.
He saw him Christ appeared to him These
to whom the Apostle Paul appear refers in
this chapter.
They were not visionaries Her dream that the
Lord was risen he appeared to them.
He disclosed himself to them and They beheld
him in the reality of his lordship on
The way to his enthronement Now that brings
us to the list and this is what
I want to do tonight may sound quite
prosaic But as I've indicated already Sometimes it
is necessary for us to let these Simple
but basic truths speak to us in all
the simplicity in which they appear in the
record and I want in the prosaic way
maybe to look at at what we have
before us tonight and see how the Apostle
Paul refers to the various Witnesses To whom
Jesus chose to reveal to expose to manifest
himself Now you notice that the first is
Peter and he appeared To Peter Mark tells
us that the two Marys and Salome Went
very early to the tomb on the first
day of the week You remember Mark Chapter
16 verses 6 and 7 and when they
came to the tomb they found the stone
rolled away and There was no one inside
the tomb inside the grave that is Jesus
was not there, but there was a young
man there who appears to have been an
angel and He said to them Don't be
alarmed.
He said You are looking for Jesus the
Nazarene who was crucified He has risen He
is not here see the place where they
laid him and Then there follows these words
but go tell his disciples and Peter He
is going ahead of you into Galilee there.
You will see him Mm-hmm Excuse me
there you will see him just as he
told you Peter then was very clearly marked
out for this privilege of Beholding of seeing
with his own two eyes That the one
whom he had denied The one who has
been crucified and buried is alive again Luke
24 34 records how upon their return to
Jerusalem Cleopas and her unnamed companion were greeted
by the 11 disciples who were there and
This is what they say, this is what
is they said to Cleopas and her unnamed
companion it is true they said The Lord
has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon
to the Apostles It was most amazing most
Remarkable that their Lord was risen But perhaps
it was still more remarkable that he had
appeared first of all, it would seem to
Simon Peter This would appear to mean I
suggest that Peter was the very first person
to whom our Lord thus Manifested himself and
if so, it betokens great grace For Simon
Peter had sinned grievously and Yet it is
true as Paul says elsewhere where sin abounded
grace did much more abound and does much
more abound and Simon's penitence is now met
by this amazing privilege That he who swore
and cast and denied with all Is allowed
to see with his own eyes that Jesus
the Messiah crucified In a lie What an
electric moment so when Peter is found preaching
in the book of the Acts of the
Apostles in chapter 2 and Is saying that
God has raised this Jesus to life and
we are witnesses of the fact.
He means exactly what he said It isn't
that he'd received a vision of it he
had witnessed the reality of it He had
met with the Lord alive from the dead
and that interview and What took place in
the privacy of that interview had transformed the
blasphemer and brought him back again and set
him on the path of apostleship and the
victory and Of usefulness for the Christ to
the Christian Church.
He appeared to Peter Very wonderful to think
and very necessary to be reminded of the
fact That though saints in the making blunder
our Lord pursues his sheep into the wilderness
and he comes to lay hold of us
and to snatch us back again and carry
us back into the fold and so he
did with Peter But he did not only
appear to Peter.
He appeared also to the twelve the second
part of verse 5 then to the twelve
Now the term the twelve is here used
probably to designate the what is called the
college of the Apostles Not so much It
is not so much a reference To a
numerical number twelve as just to designate the
company of the Apostles or the college of
the Apostles as they're sometimes referred to Actually,
neither Judas nor Thomas was present at that
time But our Lord appeared to the twelve
together And this again is exceedingly important.
It wasn't only given to Peter to see
him alone That would have been wonderful If
one among them a reliable witness had proved
that their Savior was alive If the one
who was chosen to be the leader as
far as the work among the Jews is
concerned If he was given to know that
Jesus was alive from the dead but you
see our Lord's grace and his purposes were
wider than that and He appeared to the
whole community of the Apostles.
He appeared to the twelve Peter whose gifts
of leadership and was calling to the apostolate
to the Jews set him apart Was the
first to be granted the privilege but not
the only one Then the same privilege was
extended to his fellow Apostles thus confirming their
faith likewise in our Lord's Messiah ship and
Qualifying them to be witnesses as well as
preacher Witnesses of his resurrection as well as
heralds of his salvation now in verse six
We move another step ahead after that says
Paul.
He appeared to more than 500 of the
brothers at the same time Most of whom
are still living though.
Some have fallen asleep if I were to
do To follow my inclination I would stay
a long time with this verse because it
means something very precious to me However, I
shall not I shall not indulge tonight But
this is a very Wonderful verse for many
reasons here we move outside the company of
the twelve and We come to a much
larger group the composition of which we really
we really do not know But it's a
much larger group as Paul so clearly tells
us there was some individuals such as Peter
and the ten as a group They saw
Jesus Alive from the dead more than once
They were to see him once twice in
some cases three times, maybe four times or
even more but on one occasion There were
says the Apostle Paul some five hundred of
the brothers Who at one in the same
time beheld Their Lord to be risen.
Though some he says have fallen asleep As
to the precise identification of Appearance here where
it took place Really we cannot we cannot
dogmatize this was possibly indeed probably the appearance
of the Lord Which we find recorded at
the end of Matthew chapter 28 When Disciples
seem to have congregated in Galilee met on
a mountain and worshipped him Matthew tells us
both some Doubted and on that occasion our
Lord revealed to them that all authority had
been given to him in heaven and on
earth and Commissioned them to go and make
disciples of all nations teaching them whatsoever.
He had taught them Baptizing and so forth.
It was probably that occasion, but we cannot
dogmatize the fact is That there was one
occasion when over 500 people all at once
beheld the one Lord Risen from the dead
After he had been crucified after he had
been buried in Joseph's borrowed tomb Risen again,
and it is important to notice this and
particularly the fact that the Apostle here says
that most of them were alive When he
was writing Now he was writing most certainly
within 22 23 years of the event may
be much earlier than that at the most
20 to 23 years after and Within that
space of time.
He says most of the 500 are alive
today as if to say if you've got
any doubts any real doubt Then you can
you can confirm what I'm telling you You
can find out if you're prepared to pay
the price and make the journey you can
discover men and women who saw him and
Are in the true sense of the word
Witnesses to the fact but then you know,
there is a hidden little gem of Truth
here, but some says Peter have fallen asleep
Notice the difference in the complexion of death
To those who die having known that the
crucified Lord is alive again the differences between
Death in all its gruesomeness and a falling
asleep in Jesus Now Paul has much to
say about this elsewhere.
I've no time to stay with it, but
it's a very precious truth To die in
Jesus and because he is alive from the
dead is to fall asleep Until the morning
breaks Until he sounds reverie Until he calls
us back from the dead.
It is to it is to fall asleep
In Jesus the thing is taken out of
it as we shall see later and it
is something as natural as that We should
not be unduly disturbed by it It is
almost as natural as falling asleep at the
end of the day to await the morning
and the dawn But we're in the keeping
of one who is Lord of life and
Lord of death Then we have to come
to the next Then he appeared to James
Now since Paul has already referred to our
Lord's appearance to the twelve Thomas and Judas
apart and His next reference is to all
the twelve probably meaning the eleven actually numerically
with Thomas present He has evidently been including
James the son of Alpheus and James the
son of Zebedee in the numbers to which
he has already referred Now if that is
the case then He is evidently referring now
To James the brother of our Lord Now
here we cannot utterly dogmatize That it would
seem As I understand it to be reasonable
and natural to conclude that that is who
he's referring to James the brother of our
Lord Who later of course as you remember
from Galatians chapter 2 verse 9 Paul refers
to as one of the pillars of the
church in Jerusalem Now if this is so
then this is evidence again of amazing grace
When we first encounter the remainder of Mary
and Joseph's family in the gospel narratives They're
far from sympathetic towards Jesus You remember that?
I don't want to exaggerate this but I
do want to point to the facts as
they are recorded They were far from sympathetic
Whether or not they are to be included
Among the so-called friends who thought that
Jesus was to quote beside himself Mark 3
21 The friends who thought that he was
gone a little Way toward madness They are
certainly in our Lord's mind when in the
last paragraph Mark 3 verses 33 to 35
He has them in mind and he tells
us he tells us something about his relationship
to his own family Listen to what he
said He asked the question first who are
my mother and my brothers and then he
answered his own question He looked at those
seated in a circle around him and said
and these of course were his disciples Here
are my mother and brother my brothers Whoever
does God's will is my brother and sister
and Mother and notice what he's doing He
sets this little company over against Mary and
his brothers and sisters who had come down
to see him at that point in that
context and he says My family my family
Includes all those who know the will of
God and do it here They are he
says in this circle Now we are probably
justified in concluding from such a statement that
our Lord found little if any understanding Any
real sympathy among his own kinsfolk at that
stage in time?
Indeed John tells us in chapter 7 and
verse 5 even his brothers did not believe
in him.
That's unequivocal Then came this otherwise unrecorded appearance
of the risen Lord to Jane With all
that such an event would imply and in
consequence Everything was transformed for the whole family
You say to me, how do you know
that?
Well, I know that because I read in
the book of the Acts of the Apostles
in chapter 1 and verse 14 They all
joined together Constantly in prayer.
This is in Jerusalem after Jesus was ascended.
They all joined together constantly in prayer along
with the women and Mary the mother of
Jesus and His brothers We probably
have here therefore a reference to something that
was as significant as our Lord's appearance to
Peter and later to Saul of Tarsus Here
he invades his own familiar family circle the
children of Joseph and Mary and Discloses to
James But he was indeed the Christ risen
from the dead and the family were never
quite the same after that And then we
read later on and then to all the
Apostles the second part of verse 7 at
his previous Appearance to the apostolic group as
such Thomas was missing.
We have a record of this in John
chapter 20 I'm not going to refer to
it again it was the occasion when Thomas
was allowed to put his Finger in the
wounds in his hand and thrust his hand
into the side into the wound in the
master's side and In consequence upon which he
said my Lord and my God Thomas the
doubter had become a veritable believer now move
on one step again, and we come to
what Paul refers to in these words and
last of all You see in one sense
Peter was the first on the list Paul
was the last we have here recorded a
series of manifestations of the risen Lord to
chosen witnesses the first was Peter Paul was
the last and Last of all in the
series says Paul He appeared to me also
as to one abnormally born Literally what he
said was as to an abortion Now we
may not understand exactly what Paul meant when
he said that but that's what he said
Now, let's look at what we have here
Paul saw the Lord's appearance to himself As
we have indicated as the last in a
series There is no difference in kind Between
the Lord's appearance to Peter and the Lord's
appearance to Paul The same word the same
basic word for appearing refers to both Jesus
takes the initiative and he Discloses himself he
reveals himself as the risen one to Peter
and to the others and then last of
all to Paul Ff Bruce quotes dr.
Ash Hooks Statement on this and I recorded
to you.
It goes like this if Paul uses the
same language of his own experience as of
Peter and the others It is not to
suggest That their experience was as visionary as
his But rather that his was as objective
as theirs in other words Paul was not
given a vision of the risen Lord that
was subjective in his own mind in his
imagination Just as Peter just as the twelve
just as the five hundred the hell the
Lord in the reality of his risen body
So was Paul granted to see him in
the reality of his being the objective reality
of Paul's vision of the risen Lord has
of course been challenged on many many counts
and Many of you are aware of some
of the some of the arguments that have
been brought forward those who have an a
priori Antipathy to every notion of the supernatural
Find this claim wholly unacceptable But that's that
the risen one appeared to Paul when he
was already ascended from the dead How could
he the thing is impossible?
There is no such resurrection anyway, and there
could be no such manifestation of himself But
as to the importance of this issue let
me let me warn you it is a
very important issue as to whether This was
possible and Unless Paul saw the risen Christ
then it is doubt doubtful whether he had
any right to call himself an apostle Or
an apostle was essentially a witness to the
fact that Jesus was risen from the dead
Not only that there is something even beyond
that If Paul is mistaken About what he
says he saw here Then he could be
mistaken anywhere in the process of divine revelation
of truth to him and in the Inspiration
that was necessary to record what was revealed
the Apostle Paul could have been Very much
at fault there if he was at fault
here He tells us By Inspiration that Actually,
he just as Peter and the others Was
privileged to behold the Lord as he manifested
himself risen even to the arch enemies of
the church Salter now when we consider this
and consider the various Suggestions of Unbelievers and
liberal people we I think we are left
with three alternatives that we must choose from
First of all, we have the charge that
Paul's claim To have seen Christ risen was
deliberately fraudulent.
There are those who say that It was
Someone has said a planned hoax He could
not have seen Jesus Jesus was not only
dead and buried He was gone forever.
Some go so far as to say.
Well, he may have been risen and ascended
Still more reason why Paul could not say
that he beheld Christ the Lord on the
Damascus Road.
How could he see the Lord of Glory?
Well now among those who have seriously taken
this view were the deists of the 19th
century, of course There were some before them
and there have been many after them But
neither they nor anyone else can explain what
possible motive could have been for so perverse
and In terms of ordinary human reckoning so
utterly unrewarding a thing as as as to
to Undertake this kind of hoax For Paul
to say that he had seen Christ risen
from the dead.
Why on earth should he have done it?
It could not have been Because he wanted
to satisfy any worldly ambition What did Paul
get materially in terms of physical pleasure?
in terms of Material reward in terms of
social status in terms of the things that
Fallen human nature hankers after what did he
get?
By the declaration that Jesus was alive from
the dead and that he'd seen him.
What did he get?
Did somebody put a check in his hand?
Did somebody put him on the honors list
for the next year?
Did somebody did somebody write?
About him and give him a great name
Did he become popular?
Not on your life In declaring that Jesus
the Messiah was crucified Buried and risen again
and that he'd seen him Paul put his
neck down and his life on the altar
and it was the beginning of the greatest
suffering that the any man could suffer and
it was all because he insisted that The
Messiah whom the Jews have had at the
main hand in crucifying Was now by God
raised from the dead.
He'd seen him and he was serving him
throughout his life because of that Paul lost
everything a member of the Sanhedrin ceased to
be He was from henceforth an Unimportant nobody
as he tells us he was henceforth accounted
as the offscouring of the world the filth
of the world No, you don't you don't
you don't Indulge in a hoax Unless you're
going to gain something from it and Paul
was sufficiently alive Intellectually to know a good
bargain or a bad one when he saw
it He wasn't a man who would be
easily led up a cul-de-sac No,
no, no, he knew he knew from the
very beginning What would happen if he acknowledged
that Jesus was alive from the dead but
acknowledge he had to because it was true
Then we have the charge that it was
in that he was involuntarily mistaken But this
second approach may not appear to be as
aggressively militant in its character But if it
is true, it is equally devastating in its
implications If this charge is proved to be
true, then the fact of Christ's resurrection The
gospel as such and the entire writings on
the ministry of Paul become shrouded in a
mist of uncertainty How could Paul be?
unwittingly mistaken as to the claim he is
here making Well, says some people he may
have imagined that Christ was risen from the
dead Or he may and this has been
very popular in some ages.
He may have been subject to hallucinations I
know very little about hallucinations, but I know
that Paul's approach to life was generally speaking
the very reasonable approach to life and there
is absolutely nothing in all his writings in
the New Testament to Suggest that he was
subject to hallucinatory Experiences nothing whatsoever.
Not a shred of evidence on the contrary
Paul says that he beheld the Lord risen
That Jesus manifested himself to him.
This must be a reference to what took
place on the Damascus Road What did that
Damascus Road?
Disclosure of Christ in his glory in his
risen glory in his ascended glory.
What did it mean?
What did it do what it did was
the change of blasphemer into a saint What
it did was to make a new creature
of him What it did was to take
the bad blood out of his system and
pour the spirit of God into him And
what it did was to bring him into
a place of reconciliation with God This man
who knew so much about the God of
the Old Testament God Jehovah The creator of
the universe the God of his people and
the Lord of destiny and of history Now
began to know God not know about him
and He began to commune with him and
he began to fulfill the purposes of God
so much So that the tokens the evidences
of an apostleship were manifest in his life
In the second letter to the Corinthians the
Apostle Paul speaks about about the evidences of
an apostleship You have the same reference also
in Hebrews chapter 2 about Witnesses to a
genuine claim to be an apostle the Lord
grants something that confirms Apostleship the Apostle Paul
was given the privilege of knowing the presence
of God in the most remarkable Circumstances of
knowing what it was to live with God
in communion with God and the power of
God through him was such As to bring
not only a church into existence in Corinth,
but in other places as you know full
well if any man Anywhere any time knew
the power of God in very truth in
his life Here surely is the man and
it began with what some people would call
an hallucination That just doesn't make sense.
If it was not a delusion nor a
deliberate fraud Then it must have been what
Paul claimed it to be namely the appearance
of the risen Christ and here again, we
we are face to face with amazing grace
that our Lord Jesus Christ should have chosen
a rebel such as this a blasphemer a
persecutor a murderer He who had cast men
and women and children into prison for the
sake of the name he Chose this man
his enemy chose him to the highest honor
in life and in death in time and
eternity and Revealed himself to him as his
Savior and his Lord and his master and
in the experience Transformed him won him over
changed him So that the blasphemer becomes in
the past now, you know the story and
so Paul Speaks of himself here are so
utterly unworthy of this Not only was he
the last in time that he was the
lead to be to have such a revelation
of Christ risen But he was the least
worthy You notice how he puts it I
am the least of the Apostles and do
not even deserve to be called an apostle
because I Persecuted the Church of God.
I recognize this he says and so last
of all he appeared to me also as
to him Abortion, I frankly don't know what
he means by that.
I can tell you what people say what
people have suggested Calvin thought the reference was
to an apostle whose conversion was sudden and
violent one writer says that the more Probable
understanding of it is something like this All
others who had seen the risen Lord were
Apostles or at least brethren in the sense
that they were fellow believers But Paul saw
him before he had arrived at that ripeness
of spiritual rebirth Paul saw him as he
was still on horseback going to Damascus as
an enemy of the Lord appeared Greater than
the glory of the sun at midday of
the glory of the enthroned Lord and he
beheld him the lady whose words I always
listened to Suggested to me at supper time
tonight But it might have meant something else
and I think she's right The reference to
the abortion may very well be of course
to Paul's old life He was moving in
a certain direction He had his plans ready
-made with the seal of the Sanhedrin upon
them all and he was moving majestically forward
Ruthlessly forward when suddenly his plans were aborted
they were cut short By an omnipotent Lord
by a crucified reason reigning Lord of glory
whose very glory Shone into the darkness and
banished the ignorance and the man was made
Brothers and sisters, this is the Christ of
the gospel This is the Christ of the
Apostle Paul.
This is the gospel is based not not
upon the visions of Christ Risen, but upon
the fact of Christ risen as much as
on the fact of Christ crucified Now a
rising out of the fact of course there
are experiences The fact that our Lord is
risen from the dead means he lives he
lives Christ Jesus lives today He walks with
me and he talks with me along life's
narrow way But there is something which is
even greater than that behind that experience you
see is the fact the historicity the reality
of his resurrection and it's the reality of
objectivity of the resurrection that gives credence to
the experience of being in touch with him
makes it possible and Through him brings us
into Living communion with God my friends.
Do you do I do we?
Do we know what it is to be
in touch with God through a living mediator?
Do we have a Savior who communicates with
us?
whose glory floods our souls from time to
time and convinces us of God's grace and
glory and transforms God grant that as we
read the epistles of this man Paul Now
made a servant of the Most High God
Now made an apostle of Christ God grant
that as we read his words and on
into this great 15th chapter That we shall
recognize the witness for what it was and
is the only thing that Paul gained was
the most important thing of all but It
is not to be measured in monetary terms
or in worldly terms in the knowledge that
Christ was risen he gained Life eternal for
he came into fellowship with him and in
that link of fellowship Saul of Tarsus like
All the believers of the ages came to
know the life of God within his soul
May we be able to go out into
a world that desperately needs this You know
when we were with Hades singing that chorus
Because he lives I confess tomorrow.
I wonder whether we realize how How needy
the world is how great the need of
men and women to face tomorrow It's come
home with me like an upon me like
an avalanche in recent days How great the
fears how great the timidity and the anxiety
of men and women abroad?
the fear of war the fear of AIDS
the fear of cancer the fear of Coronary
the fear of this the fear of that
the fear of life the fear of death
Brothers and sisters there is only one answer
to it if there be one who bore
our sins away on his body to the
tree according to the scriptures and therefore to
the appointment of God in eternity and Having
been buried rose again as was foretold of
him.
Then he is thereby proved to be Not
a self-appointed man or so-called Savior,
but God's Anointed the only answer to the
fears and anxieties of human beings anywhere and
everywhere is to know Let us trust him
Let us witness to him Let us be
loyal to him.
Let us worship him.
Let us see him for the in the
glory.
That is uniquely his by his grace Be
loyal to him Let us pray.
Oh Lord God most high and most glorious
And we would weep with rivers of tears
as we consider How unworthy we are of
the privilege of knowing what we have been
declaring tonight and we would weep still more
tears, oh Lord In the realization that we
so Scarcely live up to what we believe
Transfer this head knowledge that is given to
us our father Into real living faith and
experience we pray and make this community of
your people associated with this place and all
the other believers of this city and Indeed
of this whole age from north to south
and east to west.
Oh make us Witnesses To the reality of
your grace that comes through Christ your son
crucified and risen We ask it in his
name.
Amen Whether it is historical