We Have Resurrection Life Through Iesous

"And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins...  If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most to be pitiable."  I Cor. 15:17,19h

The foundational truth of the New Testament Grape (Writings) is the standing up of the Iesous out from death and the grave.  Paul believed in the resurrection of the Iesous.  Paul met him on the way to Damascus, and the encounter radically changed his life.

Saul of Tarsus died on the road to Damascus and the Apostle Paul arose from the empty shallow life.  Yes, Paul too stood up out from death because the living God transferred him from death into life.

In First Corinthians Paul gives his great discourse on the resurrection or the anastasis nekron of the Iesous.  He argues cogently and eloquently for the resurrection of the Iesous.  He also offers an incredible group of eye witnesses to corroborate the reality of the resurrection of the Iesous.  Paul is relentless in his efforts to unmask the self-serving hypocrisy of unbelief in the resurrection.

He is speaking to professed believers in the Iesous.  Some of these professed believers denied the resurrection.  Does this sound familiar to you?

A long time ago a friend of mine who worked at a bank told me that employees were trained in how to detect counterfeit currency by handling real bills.  There were particular traits that the genuine bills had that could not be duplicated by the counterfeiters.  And so it is with the resurrection of the Iesous.

Paul knew the  resurrection was a real historical event.  The witnesses who saw the Iesous during his post-resurrection ministry were persons of unimpeachable character.  Their testimonies of who they saw in bodily form, and who they heard took up an unshakeable place in their hearts.  Some were even allowed to physically handle the person of the Iesous with a view to encouraging their faith in Him.

God cannot lie.  God cannot tell an untruth.  His nature is truth.  The Scriptures teach the veracity of God.  Ultimately to believe or not to believe the resurrection rests on one's view of the character of God.  Paul knows that if there is no resurrection preaching is vanity and faith is empty, and we collectively are false witnesses of God.

I know that some men have taught that Paul is only speaking of a spiritual resurrection of Iesous.  Paul will not suffer such toying with words.  Such an interpretation is not supported by this passage.  Paul speaks of the resurrection as the most powerful and compelling event in history.

I am compelled to write about the resurrection because I have been in the company of persons who believe that death is a natural process and that there is no life beyond this life.  Their approach to ministry is to believe that they support persons through the natural process of death, and then they are no more.

So why disguise such a belief as ministry or spiritual support?  It is because these persons believe the reductionist view of western medicine.  They believe that persons are merely streams of consciousness brought on by electrochemical factors inherent in the body, and that the soul is not real.

Medicine is scientific and it is good that we can have access to able medical practitioners.  I am arguing that persons are more than body.  Persons are consciousness that do not disappear at the time of physical death.  There is that other world.  The world after death that men fear because they do not want to be accountable to it in any manner.  Be that as it may, there is a world after physical death.

God rules over that world too.  Persons are finite beings who are accountable to the Infinite One.  The acts of people do follow them to and beyond the death encounter.  No one is completely autonomous.  Only God is completely autonomous.  Remember that at the beginning the Adam and his Ishah (Eve) wanted to know complete autonomy from the God.

Beloved the Iesous was raised out from the grave and death.  He is alive today.  In order to have eternal life and the assurance of life beyond this fleeting moment you must come to him and be set free from the futile lies   that seek to control your life.  God loves you.  The Iesous was raised from the grave for our justification before God.

Beloved now is the day of salvation.  Stop caring about what other will think of you and come to the Iesous for life eternal.

For more information about Dr. Rich and his teaching ministry, please follow his blog and visit his website.