R.C. Sproul has for many decades proclaimed and defended the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As the founder and president of Ligonier Ministries, his teaching can be heard worldwide on the program Renewing Your Mind, which is available on 230 radio outlets in the United States and in fifty countries worldwide. Dr. Sproul also serves as the senior minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., and he is the author of over sixty books including his most recent publications, The Prince’s Poison Cup, The Truth of the Cross, and Truths We Confess.
Dr. Sproul’s message was entitled Witnesses of the Resurrection — The Apostolic Message. He read I Corinthians 15:12-32.
INTRODUCTION
In 1965 we had our first son (our daughter was three years old). My mother was very happy. She had just received the dress she would be wearing to my ordination ceremony (scheduled to occur 10 days later). We talked that night, and then she went to sleep. That night she died in her sleep. I had spoken to her within 8 hours of the moment that I discovered her dead.
While Alistair was speaking, he said that the resurrection is rationale. It struck me that death is irrational.
Wherever we look at human culture we see this hope for the continuity of life — a hope that refuses to be extinguished from the human heart. But as the Bible says, without Christ we are really without hope.
PAUL’S AD HOMINEM ARGUMENT
There were those in the Christian community in Corinth who were saying that there was no such thing as the resurrection. So Paul is responding to them in this letter. Paul was extremely well educated; he had the equivalence of two Ph.D.s by the age of 21. But Paul understood that logic was shared by all humanity. And the human mind was created by God to be rationale, not chaotic.
Sometimes we think that Aristotle invented logic. He didn’t. Aristotle discovered the laws of logic.
And here Paul argues to the Corinthians in an extremely logical manner. The ad hominem abusive fallacy is when you attack the person. But there is a legitimate form of ad hominem argument, and that’s what Paul does here in I Corinthians 15. That is when you step into the shoes of your opportunity and say: “OK, let’s assume what you are saying is true. And let’s take it to the logical conclusion.” In this manner, Paul reduces his opponent’s argument to absurdity.
THE LAWS OF IMMEDIATE INFERENCE
If we say “all men are mortal.” And “this man is not mortal” — that’s a contradiction. You can’t have a universal negative and a particular affirmative. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised” (I Cor. 15:13).
And if that’s the case, our preaching is in vain. Every moment that I’ve spent in the pulpit has been a herculean waste of time. And not only has my preaching been in vain, but your faith is in vain. Hear the preacher of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” The vanity here is futility.
Jean Paul Sartre wrote a book called Nausea. He argued that man is “useless passion.” What a way to describe a human being. We all have passions. A loved one dies; we weep. But Sartre says it is a “useless passion.” There is no way to make any sense of it at all. And our culture has been drowning in this sort of atheistic nihilism for decades.
Jean Paul Sartre, Nietzsche, and Albert Camus — these folks had no time for the silliness of humanism. The humanist wants to exalt the dignity of a grown-up germ who (ultimately) has no meaning (according to the humanist). The humanist thus lives on borrowed capital; he (as Francis Schaeffer said) has “both feet planted firmly in mid air.” Human dignity has no basis in a humanistic worldview, but it has a firm basis in a Christian worldview.
JEHOVAH’S FALSE WITNESSES
Moreover, we are found to be Jehovah’s false witnesses. Why? Because we’re telling people that God has raised Jesus. But if the dead are not raised, then God has not raised Jesus. For if the dead are not raised, not even Jesus was been raised. And your faith is futile. And you are still in your sins.
That’s not all. Those who have died have perished — fully and finally. Your funeral services are hoaxes. All those you know and love who have died — they are gone. Forever. They have perished. And if in Christ we have hope in this life only then we are of all people the most to be pitied.
Sometimes non-Christians, when we discuss these things and disagree, and they get angry, I tell them: “Don’t get mad. Pity us. We’re of all people the most pitiable.”
Paul goes on to say: “Why in the world am I out here fighting wild beasts at Ephesus? I’m dying daily here. Don’t say you are a Christian and that you disbelieve in the resurrection. I protest.”
RELIGION A CRUTCH?
But if the only reason for believing in the resurrection was so that we can have something nice to hang on to, then Christianity is a chapter in Alice in Wonderland. Christianity is not a pain killer. If Christ is not raised, I’m going to sleep in tomorrow. I’m not going to spend my life preaching and teaching the things of God.
Paul is saying: “I want you to understand what is at stake here. I want to disavow you of any compromise, like humanism.” In verse 20 Paul says that Christ has in fact been raised from the dead.
Back up to the beginning of the chapter: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”
How would your life change if you knew with absolute certainty that Jesus had risen from the dead? What if it came to you from an infallible source? That’s the testimony we have — the word of God. The only infallible rule of faith and practice. No syllogism or formal demonstration could exceed the certitude of the affirmation of the infallible word of God. Remember that Jesus prayed in John 17 that God would sanctify His people in the truth — Your Word, O God, is truth.
I grew up in a liberal church. One minister said the meaning of Easter was to give us courage each day. Another minister said when you’re dead, you’re dead. But in 1957 on the way to a bar a football player told me about Jesus. And he spoke of Jesus as if He was actually alive. And more than anything in the world, I wanted what he had. That night I met the living Christ.
CONCLUSION
Paul’s conclusion comes at the end of the chapter: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
That Christ has risen from the dead makes all the difference in the world. It means our suffering is not in vain. Our cancer is not in vain. Every tear, every labor, counts forever.
Ligonier West Coast Conference – Session 3 – Q&A Begg & Horton
For Dr. Horton: “You said that we are not an extension of Christ’s kingdom. How does that cohere with our being the body of Christ? Our being the hands and feet of Christ, as it were?”
HORTON: We bear witness to the redemption that Christ has wrought. Yet we are co-workers with Christ, because we are proclaiming him. The difficulty is that sarx and soma are sometimes confused. We are not made one flesh with Christ. We are made one with Christ by the Spirit. He is the first-born from the dead. We have an organic, covenantal relationship, but there is not a fusion between the believer and Christ.
“What is our (the church’s) relationship to Israel?”
HORTON: There is a difference of opinion among Reformed believers about the relationship between the church to ethnic Israel. I myself did a “flip” on Romans 9-11. “Thus all Israel will be saved.” I don’t think we should go back to some sort of rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. I don’t think the largely Gentile church replaces Israel. The grafting in of the Gentiles is the fulfillment of the promises to Israel.
My old view is that there was no future for ethnic Israel; everything was happening now in the church (nothing more than a “remnant” of Israel being saved). But now I am more open to their being a future outpouring of God on the people of ethnic Israel. I was moved toward this view by folks like Ribberbos and Hodge.
BEGG: I agree with much of what Mike just said. And it is not a simple replacement theology.
“How does the Jewish view of substitutionary atonement differ from the Christian understanding?”
BEGG: The Old Testament people were looking forward and we’re looking back.
From Sproul to Horton: Was salvation a different economy back then?
HORTON: Paul contrasts the Mosaic law with the Abrahamic promise. The contrast is between the conditions by which the Israelites could stay in the land (Mosaic law) and how an individual can be saved (Abrahamic promise). Abraham was saved by grace alone through faith alone.
For Begg: You quoted Karl Barth. Was Barth correct when he wrote that Christ was “the elected man” and that all people are “in Christ.”
BEGG: Yes, Christ was the elect man. But not all people are in Christ.
SPROUL: Barth said he wasn’t a universalist, but he was. He said that God’s “yes” extends to everyone; although we can resist it, God will triumph over it.
“Could you please expound on what the federal vision is? It is tearing up my church.”
HORTON: Federal vision is an over-reaching against what is perceived as a baptistic tendency to see the sacraments as merely signs. And the over-reaching ends up viewing baptism as (essentially) regenerative. In contrast, Reformed theology has classically understood there to be a distinction between the covenantal community and those who are indeed regenerate.
So you go to Hebrews 6 and you see language of “tasting, participating.” But “like dry ground drinking in the rain often, it doesn’t bear fruit…..but we are confident of better things with you, brothers, things that accompany salvation.”
Federal Vision folks define justification differently. Classically, Reformed theology believes that saving faith is a resting and receiving. It doesn’t (itself) include obedience.
SPROUL: Though Federal Vision is not monolithic, there is a tendency to overlap the visible church and the invisible church. So you can be in the “invisible church” and then fall out of it.
Federal Vision is often confused with the new perspective on Paul; they are not the same. The PCA studied both of them and came to the conclusion that both of them are outside the historical norm.
“Should we be praying for material needs (our daily bread), or should we not be anxious about such things, and rather pray for spiritual needs?”
BEGG: There is a simplicity to asking God to meet our basic needs. Particularly in what we call the third world. We should not be anxious about our material needs, but rather pray about them (along with spiritual needs) and then thank God as He provides.
“How do we interact at the graveside with the death of a loved one who was not a Christian?”
BEGG: I never want to guild a lily. I don’t want to appear to have a theology for one party and a different theology for another party. My approach is to affirm for the person left behind the availability of and the character of God in relationship to them. As believers, we should enter into the heartache and the loss. Often our deportment at such times will convey more of what is useful in the moment. We may need to wait for much later to say more.
SPROUL: You weep with those who weep. But people in this country believe in justification by death. They don’t believe in hell and they don’t believe in a last judgment. Jesus talked more about hell than heaven. So somehow, even as we weep with those who weep, and while we don’t want to be harsh, we need to get that message out too.
“Should my husband and I leave our church….”
BEGG: Yes. (joking)
SPROUL: If you aren’t in a church that is serious about the gospel and the sacraments and church discipline, you need to be in a church that feeds you the truth of God.
“Why would our current church service be patterned after a covenant renewal ceremony, when that only happened a few times a year in the Old Testament?
SPROUL: It happened more than a few times a year. Joshua 24 is a good example of it. But covenant renewal was also associated with succession — with passing down the baton to the next generation.
I once suggested that the Lord’s supper was both a covenant renewal and a dynastic succession event. Jesus “turned us over” to the Holy Spirit. And Jesus used covenant renewal language when he instituted the new covenant. What do you think of that?
HORTON: Yes. And it is important to establish which covenant is being removed. There are some covenants in this world that are negotiated. But a suzerain didn’t negotiate the terms of the covenant: You obeyed or you were out.
Briefly, there is a similarity between Genesis 15 and the Sinaitic covenant. God says “I will do this…” (promise). And God (rather than Abraham) walked between the body parts (as the weaker king normally would). Then at Sinai, Israel makes a promise, and they (Israel) fail to keep it. And then at the Lord’s supper, Jesus promises to walk through the pieces on their behalf (“my blood, for you.”) Jesus pays for their failure to keep the covenant.
“Is the Mosaic covenant a republication of the Adamic covenant?”
HORTON: We all agree that there is a distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. But is the Mosaic covenant a republication of the covenant of works? Yes, and at a different stage in redemptive history. Adam was in a covenant of works individually. Israel was in a covenant of works as a nation. Israel was called to be a replica of what the kingdom of God would look like. That was why it was important for Israel to obey everything that God specified.
Ligonier West Coast Conference – Session 2 – Michael Horton
Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, and he co-hosts The White Horse Inn, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show that explores issues revolving around Reformation Theology in American Christianity. Dr. Horton is a minister in the United Reformed Churches of North America and is an accomplished writer whose many books include God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology and Putting Amazing Back Into Grace.
Dr. Horton read from Acts 1 (the sequel to the gospel of Luke), verses 1 through 11. The ascension is actually part of the gospel. It is part and parcel with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The disciples, even after the resurrection, were confused: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” They were basically thinking, “Now that He’s been resurrected, why would he leave?”
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament shadows and types, such as Moses and David. In I Cor 10:1-6, Paul even likens Christ’s cross with Moses’ Red Sea crossing. But in Jesus we have both Moses (who leads His people through the Red Sea) and Joshua (coming out on the other side to take possession of the promised land).
All of Jesus’ replies from Satan are taken from Moses’ speech in Deuteronomy 6. The goal of the Exodus was not just deliverance from Pharaoh but deliverance unto God. “I am the One who delivered you from Pharaoh….therefore, you shall have no other gods besides Me.”
Eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord is a prominent theme in the historical books and it reappears in the accounts of feasts in Luke’s gospel. Peace and joy and feasting in the presence of God.
Israel was called upon to execute the judgment of God upon the nations–the judgment that was meant to prefigure the last judgment. Yet Israel did a poor job of it. God said of them that they, like Adam, disobeyed. Israel was sent into exile. This is where we find Israel at the time of Christ’s first advent.
The Pharisees were eager to restore obedience to Torah, so that Messiah would come and restore the theocracy.
A NEW EXODUS
What we find in Acts 2 is a new exodus. Jesus instituted it Himself. God had attested to this Jesus of Nazareth by raising Him from the dead, vindicating His claims. The signs and wonders pointed to God Himself. When asked how they knew He lived, they never said, “Because he lives within my heart.” No, they knew Jesus lived because the resurrection was historical.
Looking back, recall Jesus’ foretelling that he was going to Jerusalem to be crucified. But Peter and the others thought he was going for an inaugural parade of honor. Remember the mother of the sons of Zebedee asking Jesus (as Palm Sunday was drawing near), “Lord, when you enter your kingdom, can one of my sons be on your right and the other on your left.” Jesus told her she had no idea what she was talking about. That would have meant dying on his left side and right.
A NEW WILDERNESS
Following the new exodus of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have a wilderness period between the resurrection and the ascension. Jesus was immersing, day and night, His apostles in what they needed to know to be His apostles. For 40 days they received intensive instruction about the kingdom. And now the 40 days are ended by Jesus entering the heavenly Canaan (as opposed to the promised land that Joshua entered).
Note that “while eating with them” Jesus revealed the truths of the kingdom to them. One, this was to give testimony to the physicality of the resurrection. (Remember Jesus asking for fish in one of the resurrection accounts?) But there is another reason: It is a renewal of the New Covenant promise that he made with them in the upper room (take, break and eat). Only in this case, Jesus is the meal. Jesus makes Himself the sacrifice and the substance of our salvation.
The “breaking of the bread” becomes central in New Testament worship. They heard Jesus open up the Scripture and their hearts were burning (Luke 24). But they didn’t recognize it was Jesus until he “took, broke, and eat.”
Eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord is an essential part of our participation in the new covenant. Someday it will occur bodily.
Jesus gives a charge to those He led across: To wait in Jerusalem until the promised Spirit (to be sent). Just as Pentecost came 50 days after the Passover, the true Pentecost came 50 days after the true Passover.
But the Ascension was crucial: The disciples/apostles could not enter their earthly conquest until Jesus entered His heavenly kingdom. But the disciples, in asking, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” were still thinking of an Old Testament theocracy. But it wasn’t that bad, since Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God. The disciples were wondering when the resurrection of the just was going to occur, and why Jesus would be leaving.
Jesus answer was a partial yes. Stay in Jerusalem, until you get empowered to be my witnesses. The full consummation of the kingdom would come off in the distance.
LIVING IN THE LAST DAYS
Jesus’ ascension opened a fissure in history. The second temple expectations of the Pharisees were not fulfilled. We’re living in that fissure — “these last days of this present regime.”
It is good that Jesus went, and it is good that the Holy Spirit came. Recall that Jesus called “the gospel”, “the kingdom”. But it is not a geopolitical kingdom. It doesn’t grow by political coercion or by ballots, but by God’s spirit. As prophet, Jesus reveals the Father’s Word. As priest, He intercedes for us. As King, he is looting Satan’s possessions during these last days (having previously bound the strong man).
The cloud which guided Israel in the wilderness, which filled the tabernacle…..the cloud now takes Jesus into heaven at His Ascension. That cloud will come again to empower the disciples.
In Luke 24, we have two witnesses to the resurrection (“why are you looking for the living among the dead?”). Here at the Ascension, we have two witnesses (“why do you stand looking into heaven?”). The witnesses were telling the disciples to keep their eye on the ball, the next new thing was about to happen.
Luke 24 tells us similarly that “While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.” Soon they will be thrown out of the temple — but only the earthly temple. Jesus was in heaven building the true temple.
WHY THE DELAY IN CHRIST’S SECOND COMING?
Why the delay in His coming? Peter tells us that it is because of God’s mercy, as living stones are being added to the new, the true, temple.
The conquest of Christ in this world is greater than any conquest in the Old Testament. What fills this gap? Nothing, Jesus absolutely must come back. But in the meantime, we enjoy a real union with Jesus Christ. And on the basis of that union, we are sent out. Sent out by the missionary God.
The logistical detail of replacing Judas with Messiah — what’s it doing here in the early part of Acts? They are there because the Kingdom is not entirely invisible. It is a visible, even now. The kingdom is visible in the preaching of the gospel, the sacraments, and church discipline.
Church growth in the book of Acts is described by the phrase “and the word of God grew.” We have two Advocates, in fact: One in heaven and another on earth. And we need both. The powers of the age to come has broken in. The everlasting feast has already begun.
All the outer courts of the temple have been broken down. We have immediate access to God. We are living stones in Him. No longer insiders or outsiders (as Jews and Gentiles were); no, we are one people — He has broken down the wall.
CONCLUSION
That which is unclean can (in Christ) become clean. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (I Peter 2:9-10).
Ligonier West Coast Conference – Session 1 – Alistair Begg
Alistair Begg led us off with the first session. Dr. Begg has served in pastoral ministry for over thirty years, ministering in churches in Scotland and the United States. He has served as senior pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1983, and he can be heard teaching daily on the radio program Truth for Life. Dr. Begg is a sought-after speaker and writer, and he has written many books including Preaching For God’s Glory
The topic of Dr. Begg’s message was He Is Not Here — The Significance of the Empty Tomb. He took his text from Luke 24, verses 1-27 — the powerful account of Jesus’ post-resurrection conversation with His disciples on the road to Emmaus.
INTRODUCTION
Dr. Begg began by noting that he often images people singing songs. The disciples on the road to Emmaus might have thought to themselves “it’s all over now.” They were speaking about the events of Jesus in the past tense. “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” The Old Testament pointed to the coming of a prophet par excellence. But at this point the disciples were both amazed and confused.
A CRUCIFIED MESSIAH?
The downcast faces of these disciples represented their logic: a crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms. The plot line of their story has been thoroughly turned on its head.
Going back to the women (at the beginning of Luke 24), they were going to bring spices. They were not going to witness a resurrection. They were unprepared for what they found — or rather didn’t find. They did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Then they were confronted by a strange sentence: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” But they weren’t looking for the living. They had embalming material with them. The angel asks if they remember what Jesus had taught concerning His death and resurrection. Clearly the women had not remembered.
So the ladies reported this to the disciples, who were eager to hear of it. No. They were hiding like a bunch of chickens. Eventually, Peter went to investigate the matter, but he walked away from the empty tomb confused. Either the disciples were going to need to find another Messiah or altar their expectations completely.
A NEW PETER
In Acts 2, we see a different Peter. We see Peter giving a masterful treatment of what has happened in the whole sweep of redemptive history. The dramatic transformation of the disciples was a tribute to the Holy Spirit’s new covenant ministry. The disciples were demoralized on Good Friday, bewildered on Easter Sunday…..yet just a few weeks later, we see them bold and courageously proclaiming and explaining Christ’s resurrection. Such a transformation can only be attributed to Jesus’ historical resurrection from the dead.
The disciples were eager to report the historical facts of Jesus and His resurrection. Absent the resurrection, there would be no Christianity. As F.F. Bruce said, “If Jesus had not risen from the dead, we probably would have never heard of him.” The disciples don’t provide us with detailed evidence for the resurrection — they themselves are that evidence.
We can make three observations:
1. The resurrection is historical.
Christianity is a historical faith. It is based on actual events. There was a tactile element; the disciples saw and touched the risen Lord. When Peter preached in Acts 2, he did not hold back. He said “as you yourself knows” (vs. 22-23). Later, when Paul spoke of the resurrection (I Cor. 15), he noted that many of the witnesses were still living. It was as if Paul were saying, “Go ahead and check this out — verify it for yourself.” It would be as if I wrote a book about The Beatles making up some fantastical story about who they were and where they came from. It would never fly. There are plenty of people around who remember the Beatles. They know that there were only four of them, and that now just two are left.
The Bible is either true or it is the most amazing falsehood ever spun. And to believe the latter is to build one’s lives on despair.
[Aside: The resurrection of Christ, and the believer’s union with Him, is why believers do not perish upon their death. Their resurrection and eternal life are secured by their union with Christ, who conquered death.]
2. The resurrection is rationale.
The Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, does not interact at all with the resurrection of Jesus. Dawkins writes, “Jesus probably existed, but the idea that he rose from the dead is absurd.” On what basis? He gives none.
The resurrection is the center of Christianity, because it confirms:
A) The reality of the fall and the decay which is pervasive in this world. “The whole creation is groaning.”
B) The reality of the immortality (life beyond the grave).
C) The demonstration of the truth of all of Christ’s claims and the trustworthiness of all of Christ’s promises.
D) The inevitability of our own resurrection.
3. The resurrection is empirical.
It stands up to the test. It truly fulfills man’s longing. Men like Hemingway and Shakespeare wrote that life was a journey from “nothing to nothing.” But the resurrection answers the cry for meaning. For forgiveness, love, hope, God.
And this is the story that we are called upon to take to the world. Take Sartre: “Here we are, all of us. Eating and drinking for preserving our existence, and yet there is no reason for our existence.”
But C.S. Lewis wrote, “I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun, not because I can see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
CONCLUSION
The symbol of Christianity is the triumphant Christ, risen and reigning. And men and women can call out to Him and find Him to be a Savior and Friend.