1 Corinthians 15:5-11

March 17, 2019

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

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The sermon starts at 17:52 in the audio file.

Or, Reminders of the Many Resurrection Witnesses

The death and resurrection of Christ is the center of God’s work, and the resurrection in particular puts everything that happens to us now into perspective. Without the resurrection we are hoping in vain and working in vain; preaching (and listening to preaching) is certainly pointless. In light of the resurrection we have all confidence to spend and be spent for Christ’s sake.

Resurrection dominates 1 Corinthians 15. “Some,” whoever exactly they are, had begun to question the resurrection. Paul addresses them and begins to make arguments to them in verse 12. In the first 11 verses he is reminding the church of the gospel, he’s reminding them of their common ground. He wasn’t telling them a new story, nor a make-believe story. He delivered to them as of first importance the gospel message.

I explained last week that I think the message involves two main points (verses 3-5): Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures and Christ was raised from the dead on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. There are two additional actions, He was buried and He appeared. I think both of these corroborate a respective event. He died, and was so dead that they buried Him. He rose again, and was so alive that many witnesses could testify to having seen Him alive.

This is where we left off in verse 5. There are six different witnesses to whom Christ appeared in verses 5-8, at which point Paul talks a little more about himself and his place in this list in verses 9-10, before returning to tie a bow on the reminders of the message in verse 11. The verb appeared appears four times in four consecutive verses, with two instances assumed.

I’m not planning to take us back to the Scriptural records of each of these appearances, mostly because Paul himself doesn’t do that, and also because there isn’t a Scriptural record for some of these except than in this passage. But as we are reminded about the many witnesses I do want to comment on why Paul chose these witnesses to corroborate the resurrection.

Most significantly missing from this list are the women, such as the two Mary’s, and it was some of the women who were actually first to see the risen Lord according to the Gospel accounts. That means Paul wasn’t being exhaustive, he wasn’t listing every single individual or episode of Jesus’ appearances. So there must be something important for the ones he does mention.

Christ Appeared to Peter

There is more about Jesus predicting that Peter would deny Him before Jesus’ crucifixion than there is about Jesus appearing to him after His resurrection. Peter saw Jesus later in the day of resurrection with the other apostles who were gathered together (John 20:19-23), though Peter had run to see the empty tomb earlier in the day (John 20:3-10). It may be that Christ appeared to Peter before that evening (Luke 24:34). We also know about an extended conversation that Jesus had with Peter about feeding the sheep (John 21:15-19).

Paul regularly calls Simon Cephas (1 Corinthians 1:12; 3:22; 9;5), meaning “rock,” the Aramaic name that is translated as “Peter” in Greek. Jesus called Simon “Cephas” (John 1:42). Peter was the outspoken leader of the disciples. Had Peter not seen Jesus, Peter would have been upset, and he would have raised a stink much more than Thomas did. Paul considered Peter as the apostle “entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised” (Galatians 2:7), and no list of witnesses would be complete without him.

Christ Appeared to the Twelve Disciples

Closely connected to Peter were the original Twelve. We know that actually only eleven (see Mark 16:14) of the Twelve could have seen the resurrected Ch[...]