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By Pastor Brian Bestian
Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had 10 tournament victories to his credit. Here’s what he wrote about his newfound discovery, “A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf suddenly became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live.”
And then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the PGA tour, had said to him. “Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living.”
Jesus said, “What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?” (Matthew 16:26) If it’s really possible to live forever, there’s no more relevant issue than the one we’re dealing with today—if a person dies, shall they live again? The longer you live, the more you realize that life is coming to a dead end. And it’s futile if there isn’t hope beyond the grave.
Vance Havner said, “The hope of dying is the only thing that keeps me alive.” In chapter fifteen of 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul deals with this issue in light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words, does Easter make a difference? The word gospel means “good news.” God’s good news is that the resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, provides positive answers to the three most important questions about life after death.
I. Is There Life After Death?
The definitive answer is “Yes!” Jesus’ resurrection proved it. Centuries earlier the Old Testament had predicted that the Messiah was going to die. It said that He would be led like a lamb to the slaughter. Jesus’ death was not an accidental death of a martyr. It was the deliberate death of our Savior who offered His life as an atoning sacrifice. God laid all of our sins upon Him, and He became our substitute on the cross.
Some years ago, a woman wrote a letter to J. Vernon McGee, “Our pastor said that on Easter, Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think?” McGee wrote back to her, “Dear Sister in Christ, using a cat-of-nine-tails beat your pastor with thirty-nine heavy strokes, nail him to a cross, hang him in the sun for six hours, run a spear through his side, embalm him, wrap him up like a mummy, put him in an air-tight tomb for seventy-two hours and you see what happens.”
Jesus Christ literally died and was buried and was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. He was then laid in the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Notice I said, “borrowed.” When you borrow something, you’re just using it temporarily.
It reminds me of a Sunday School teacher who showed an animated video of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ to her kindergarten students. When Jesus was buried in the tomb, one little boy, who knew the story pretty well, leaned over to his buddy and said, “He’s dead now, but He’ll be back!@
Indeed, God is back! That’s why we’re here celebrating today! It’s the undeniable, biblical, and historical fact of Easter. Hatred, cruelty, pain, suffering, even death itself, couldn’t keep God away from us. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and strolled out of that borrowed tomb. When the women went to the garden tomb early Sunday morning to complete Jesus’ burial procedures, they discovered it was empty. The angel asked, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen! Remember how He told you, while He was still with you in Galilee . . .” (Luke 24:5b-6).
Now, Paul says emphatically, “We know Jesus is alive because we have seen Him.” Peter and the other disciples not only remembered Jesus’ earlier words, but they saw Him alive, ate breakfast with Him, and conversed with Him. They were in the Upper Room when suddenly Jesus appeared and said, “See the nail prints in My hands.” In fact, the Risen Lord appeared to over 500 people at once and to the apostle James, who was beheaded for the belief that Jesus was alive. Paul said, “Last of all, He appeared to me too.” So the resurrection of Christ verifies that there is life after death.
I remember having discussions back in grade school as to whether or not mankind would ever make it to the moon. My teacher said, “Well, it’s so far away, and there’s no oxygen on the moon. The gravitational pull is supposed to be that of the earth. So, how do we get there and then get back into the earth’s atmosphere?” And then on July 20, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the face of the moon. We don’t ask that question anymore. Why? Because the demonstration eliminates the discussion.
The Lord Jesus demonstrated that there is life after death. In verse 12, Paul seems perplexed as to why people even asked the question. “If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead,” Paul said, “how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” Now, we can’t prove that Jesus came back from the grave. We can’t put our faith in a test tube or play back a YouTube video to provide evidence. Jesus won’t show up physically and preach from our pulpit so that we can see Him visibly. But there is ample evidence to believe.
We have the eyewitness testimony of Scripture. We have the testimony of millions of people whose lives have been changed by Christ over the centuries. We have the calendar and the church itself. We have the Holy Spirit convicting us in our hearts today that He’s alive. So you have the option to examine the evidence and believe it or to disbelieve it.
The former Prime Minister Winston Churchill chose to believe it. Churchill had prearranged his own funeral. There were stately hymns and an impressive liturgy in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. But at the end of the service, Churchill had an unusual event planned. After the pastor spoke the benediction, a bugler high in the dome of the cathedral on one side played “Taps”—the universal signal that the day is over. There was a short pause. And then a bugler on the other side of the dome played “Reveille”—the military wake up call.
This was Churchill’s way of communicating that while we say “Good night” down here, it’s “Good morning” up there. Now why would Churchill do such a thing? Because he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in Me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25). When a man steps out of His own grave, He is exactly who He says He is—the Son of God—and He can do anything that He says He can do.
II. What Is Life After Death Like?
In verse 20, Paul teaches that Jesus demonstrates what life after death is truly like. “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Firstfruit means if you want to know what it’s like to die and live again, take a closer look at the Risen Jesus.
First, there was a separation from the body. Right before He died, Jesus said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). Jesus’ body was buried in a tomb, but His spirit went to be with His Father. Jesus also said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). When we die, our spirits go immediately to be with God while our body goes to the grave. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:8, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
Just as a hand animates a glove, so the spirit animates a body. When the spirit departs, the body is put aside like a lifeless glove. We don’t return to a number of other bodies like reincarnation teaches, nor do we go to an intermediate place called Purgatory where we’re purged of our sins for thousands of years. We go directly to be with God when we die.
There’s a departure of the spirit from the body, then there is a physical resurrection of the body. After three days, Jesus returned to the tomb to the same body. He left the grave clothes behind. He showed them the scars in His hands and feet. In John 5:28, Jesus instructed us, “Now don’t be amazed at this. But the time is coming when all that are in the grave will hear My voice and come out.”
“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work,” Woody Allen, the American playwright, once said, “I want to achieve immortality by not dying.” Well, if God has the power to make matter out of energy, and to make Adam out of the dust of the ground, then He has the power to recreate our decomposed bodies. The Bible declares in Luke 1:37, “For nothing is impossible with God.”
In John 11, when Jesus suggested opening up the tomb of Lazarus, Martha, the sister of Lazarus, objected, “But, Lord, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Jesus said, “Martha, you’re going to see the glory of God.” “Take away the stone,” Jesus said, and He called out, “Lazarus, come forth!” And Lazarus who had been dead for four days came out of the grave. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been dead four days, four centuries, or four millennia. When Christ commands it, there will be a physical resurrection of the body.
The early Christians insisted on being buried facing east because they believed that Jesus Christ was going to return in the eastern sky. So, when they came up out of the grave, they wanted to be facing Jesus! Today, with our worldly mindset, we want an airtight crypt and a watertight casket. Personally I just want a pine box. I want get out of there as fast as it can!
Now some skeptic may say, “Aw, c’mon, that’s too fanciful to believe!” Well, let me ask you a question: If you didn’t know about conception and had never seen an actual birth, and I tried to describe it to you, would you believe it? A microscopic sperm from a man is joined with a microscopic egg from a woman, and they form a cell, and those cells begin to multiply, and nine months later, out comes this precious—yet screaming and kicking—little baby. You’d say, “No way! You’ve got to be kidding me.” But we observe this miracle over and over again, and we take it for granted because it’s so common. It’s no more difficult for God to raise the dead than it is for Him to create life.
Easter confirms that our resurrected body will be a physical one. On the evening of His resurrection, Jesus appeared in the Upper Room to His disciples, and they thought they were seeing a ghost. “He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your minds? Look at My hands and My feet. It is I, Myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.’ When He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet. While they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, He asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He . . . ate it in their presence.” (Luke 24:38-43)
Have you ever thought about eating in heaven? Can you imagine it? We’ll no longer have to worry about fat grams and high blood pressure and cholesterol. There will be no need for the South Beach Diet or a Curves or a Jazzercize in heaven. The Bible says we will sit down at the marriage feast of the Lamb of God.
Paul says, “The dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:52). Now that’s good news. If you’re 90 years old with arthritis, false teeth, and a hearing aid, you’re not going to want to pick up where you left off. Instead, you’ll have a glorified body. There’s an old song about heaven that goes like this, “Friends will be there I have loved long ago, and joy like a river around me will flow. Yet just a smile from my Savior I know will through the ages be glory for me.” And finally . . .
III. How Can We Obtain Eternal Life?
Well, Jesus purchased it. He had too, because we can’t afford eternal life. Heaven is the dwelling place of God, a place of perfection, and we have forfeited our right to be there because of our sin. The only purchase price is the blood of a perfect person, and you and I don’t qualify. No one does!
We can’t earn eternal life, and we don’t deserve it. The good news is that Jesus Christ stepped in and paid our debt of sin for us. The Apostle Paul says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:56) From His cross, Jesus cried out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) In the Greek, it’s only one word—Tetelestai—which means, “PAID IN FULL!” So, what was paid in full? Our sins and our salvation—100%!
The point of Easter is that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and therefore everything He accomplished on the cross is successful. It’s totally sufficient, and we’re no longer in our sins. We’re united to Him, and there is a future of everlasting joy for those who believe, trust, and follow Christ.
Golfer Paul Azinger recovered from his chemotherapy treatments and eventually returned to the PGA tour. He’s done pretty well since then. But that bout with cancer deepened his faith and perspective. He wrote, “I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tour, and I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I have discovered the answer to the hole in my life. Because of Jesus’ death, and especially because of His resurrection, I know I’ll spend eternity with Him. I have His promise—that as a child of God He’ll help me deal with anything . . . even cancer.”
So, if a person dies, will they live again? Behold the empty tomb! Our Risen Savior says unequivocally, “Yes!” Jesus proves it. Jesus demonstrates it. Jesus promises it. Jesus guarantees it. Do you believe His resurrection promises?
Happy Easter! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
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