I am glad you have joined us for Series 5 in our discussion of this amazing letter,1 Corinthians, that Paul wrote to the Corinthians in a time of crisis and difficulty. I have divided the book into five series to represent the main themes that Paul follows in the book. He moves quite quickly from one theme to another.   

Recap and Background 

 Series 4 was about public worship which was a major concern for Paul. There were many problems with public worship, and he tried to deal with them very clearly in the material of 1 Corinthians chapters 11 to 14. Paul is thinking of the most positive way to end this letter. if ever a letter needed a positive end, it was 1 Corinthians. There have been some very difficult discussions in the letter about all sorts of problems in the church. Yet Paul is committed to the Corinthian church because he believes so passionately in the power of the gospel. He has already explained the power of the cross very clearly in chapters 1 and 2, but now he discusses the resurrection of Jesus. This is the confirmation of the gospel; this gives us hope for our future as individuals. We live not just for this life, but for the next life. The whole of 1 Corinthians 15 is taken up with the discussion of the resurrection. This letter was written roughly 20 years after Jesus died and was written almost certainly before any of the Gospels. Therefore, this passage, particularly the first 11 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, is the earliest account of Jesus' resurrection written down anywhere. It is a passage of enormous importance for Christians and helps us to know how to defend and explain our faith to people who do not believe that Jesus rose again from the dead. One of the reasons for going back to the resurrection is to encourage the Christians. Secondly, later in this series, Paul deals with questions that the Corinthian Christians had about when the resurrection would take place for us. What kind of a body would we have in the resurrection?   

Paul Received the Gospel 

 The focus of this episode is not our resurrection in the future, but Jesus’ resurrection in the past, as an historical fact.  

“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:1 – 2 NIV

How did Paul ‘receive’ the gospel? He didn’t know Jesus, and as far as we know, didn't meet Jesus. Paul was not converted by Jesus during his earthly ministry so, how did he receive the gospel? He received the gospel in two different ways. First of all, he received the gospel on that amazing occasion on the Damascus road when he, as a firm opponent of the church, encountered Jesus in the form of a vision, as he was heading to the city of Damascus. It was such a powerful encounter that he became temporarily blind.  He heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him and suddenly realised that Jesus was alive, that he was the Messiah; that he had risen from the dead. Paul suddenly believed the gospel. It was a completely miraculous circumstance. The story of the Damascus road conversion is well known and is told three times in the book of Acts. If you go to the Collection, ‘The Spreading Flame’, you can find those three remarkable occasions for yourself.  He also received the gospel in a different way. Paul was a Christian on his own when he was converted. He was with unbelievers at the time. He went into Damascus and met a few believers there, and then he spent three years in Arabia, in the province around Damascus. We don't know what he was doing during those three years, but we do know that he was rethinking his whole understanding of the Old Testament. He was a Jew who had been trained in the Jewish faith and had studied the Old Testament. He was well-educated. He had to rethink everything. But after the three years, and before he started his main mission, something very interesting happened, he went to Jerusalem, where the Apostles lived, which is quite a long way from Damascus. He went there for the first time as a believer, and stayed for 15 days with Peter the Apostle. This occasion was very important for Paul, because he had never met, until this point, any of the original Apostles or any of the original converts from the time of Jesus' ministry, as far as we know. He had been in another country, in Arabia. He had been away from Judea and the Jewish population there.

“Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter or Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.” Galatians 1 verse 18 NIV

During that time, undoubtedly, Peter would have explained to Paul more clearly all the events that had happened in Jesus’ life, and particularly his death and resurrection. Peter, as an eyewitness, would have explained to Paul how Jesus appeared to different people at different times after the resurrection day. Jesus stayed on earth for six weeks after his resurrection before he ascended into heaven. During that six-week period, there were many different people who experienced meeting the risen Jesus, and this is what Peter communicated to Paul. Paul first received the gospel by a vision from Jesus, and secondly, an explanation of the events from Peter. The visit to Peter was probably about 5 or 6 years after Jesus had died - very shortly after the events.  

The Resurrection – a Historical Fact 

 In the next few verses, Paul explains to the Corinthians what he had told them verbally in the past, but he is now writing it to them - all the evidence that Peter and the other Apostles gave him about the early resurrection appearances of Jesus. This is the earliest account of the resurrection. The source of this information is almost certainly Peter the Apostle, who was an eyewitness of all these events, always right in the centre of the events, and to whom Jesus appeared in a private appearance. If anyone says to you that Christianity made up the story of the resurrection many years later, you can know for certain that that is not true. These events took place very shortly after Jesus rose again from the dead. Peter was an eyewitness. He gave that information to Paul, who passed it on to the Corinthians and the others. This is the summary of what the church taught about the resurrection, in simple terms. The source of this is the Apostles, and mostly from Peter himself. 

 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, (or Peter), and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” 1 Corinthians 15: 3 – 8 NIV

There are several important statements here that Paul makes. Jesus ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures’. This was a saying from the Early Church and it means that Jesus’ death on the cross fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament. The ‘Scriptures’ referred to here are the Old Testament scriptures. It was the teaching of the Apostles, Peter and the others, from the very beginning, that Jesus' death fulfilled the predictions of the Old Testament about the Messiah. In particular, what the Apostles had in mind, was a passage that was frequently quoted by them, especially the Apostle Peter himself in his letter 1 Peter, which is Isaiah 53.Speaking of the Messiah, this is what it says:

"3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4 Surely he has taken up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we have been healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.’  Isaiah 53:3 – 4 NIV

What Paul is describing here, when he says, ‘according to the Scriptures’, is that Jesus didn't die on the cross just by accident, or because people didn't like him, or because the Roman authorities thought he was a threat, or because the Jewish authorities wanted to get rid of him. No, he died by God's plan and purpose, as a substitute and as an atonement for us. He literally took our sins on the cross. 

Secondly, Paul goes on to say, ‘he was buried’. That might seem a very obvious thing to you, but the burial of Jesus is very important. His body went into the ground. This is clearly described in the Gospels, most clearly: in Matthew

“57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself been a disciple of Jesus. 58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. 59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, 60 and placed it in his own tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. 61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.” Matthew 27: 57 - 61 NIV

This is as specific as you can get. Jesus was buried in a tomb and his body stayed there for a long time. The importance of this is that it proved that he died. This death was not a pretence; it was an actual event. The Early Church taught that he was buried in the ground, outside Jerusalem in a rich man's tomb and the rich man was Joseph of Arimathea. A big stone was placed in front of the tomb that had been carved out of the side of the hill.  

Then, most important of all, ‘he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures’. The resurrection took place, according to the Early Church, ‘on the third day’. Friday was the day of death and burial, Saturday was the second day, and Sunday was the third day in which Jesus rose again from the dead. Paul says, it is ‘according to the Scriptures’. The Apostles believe this fulfilled also what was said in the Old Testament. If we go back to Isaiah 53, we find just a few verses later in verse 11, it says: ‘After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;’ After he suffered, ‘he will see the light of life’; he will come back to life. The Early Church taught very clearly that Jesus rose again from the dead. 

Not only did he rise again from the dead, the most important thing here, in conclusion to this statement, is that ‘he appeared’. Peter told Paul about some of these appearances, because Paul wasn't involved in any of those initial events. Although he was in Jerusalem at the time, he didn't believe. Jesus didn't appear to him then. He received an appearance on the Damascus road a year or two later and then he became a believer. He had to go back to Peter to find out what the original events were. Paul wished he had been there, wished he had been involved, and had an appearance himself, but he wasn't involved.  Peter told Paul, “He appeared to many people.” Notice here, “he appeared to Cephas” or Peter. So, there was an appearance of Jesus to Peter himself personally. That is remarkable. It is referred to in the Gospel of Luke 24:33 - 35. We don't have any details. Peter said that Jesus had appeared to him first, and then he appeared ‘to the Twelve’. The Twelve means the original Apostles. We know from the Gospels that this happened in an upper room in Jerusalem, and it happened twice. It happened on the day that Jesus rose again in the evening when Jesus appeared and came into the room. They looked at him, touched his body, and they were able to see that this was his physical body. Then, a week later, he appeared again in the same upper room. One of the Apostles, Thomas, had been missing the first time and he was there the second time. Then, very remarkably, Peter told Paul, and Paul told the Corinthians, and I am telling you, “he appeared to over 500 people at the same time, some of whom are still living, some of whom have fallen asleep”, which was an expression for death, used in their language. Paul is writing 20 years after Jesus died. He said that some of those 500 people had died during the last 20 years, which is what you might expect in a crowd, but many of them were still living. 20 years isn't a long period of time. If you were 25 when you had that experience, you would be 45 when Paul was writing: you would most likely still be alive. Who were these 500 people? We don't know who they were, but probably this was a crowd of disciples of Jesus in Galilee, gathered on a hillside. There is an account in Matthew 28 of the Apostles gathered on a hillside when Jesus gives the Great Commission, and it might be that a crowd of 500 was there on that occasion. Paul is telling the Corinthians, that many of them are still alive, maybe 300, and they could go and ask them if they ever went to Galilee, or Judea, because they were still living there.  Fourthly, he appeared to James, the half-brother of Jesus, who became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. I tell the story of James very fully in ‘The Spreading Flame’, because he appears significantly in the book of Acts. Then fifthly, he appeared to all the Apostles. That means all the 12 Apostles, plus a few others that Jesus had appointed to become Apostles in the period of his resurrection. That would have included people like Barnabas. There was a group of Apostles who were going to be the founders of the Church and were going to go and preach to all the nations. Then Paul says, “last of all, he appeared to me”. We know why this was last of all - because it happened a year or two later. All these other appearances happened in a 40-day period. A couple of years later, Paul had a unique, extra resurrection appearance, and he considered it the last resurrection appearance of its kind.  Something unusual and surprising happened to Paul because he received an extraordinary calling to serve Jesus and preach the gospel to the Gentiles. 

  

Paul – ‘the Least of Them’ 

 9 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. 10 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. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.” 1 Corinthians 15:9 – 11 NIV Paul knew that he didn't deserve to be an Apostle. He didn't deserve to be saved. In fact, we find in Acts 8:3 that he was a persecutor of the church, an opponent of the church, and strongly opposed to the gospel. (You can read that story more fully in the Collection, ‘The Spreading Flame’). Yet Christ reached out to him on the Damascus road and saved him. So, he said, ‘I'm the least’, I am less important, less significant, less worthy than all the other Apostles and all the other Early Church members and all the people that Jesus appeared to, all those 500 on the hillside. But, he said, because of the grace of God ‘I am what I am’. God had made him an Apostle. He justified Paul, freed him of all his sin, and set him free from his evil past. Isn't that a wonderful message for us today? It will be a message for some people listening to this talk now - that same grace is there for you.   

Reflections 

 This passage is vital for us to explain the faith to unbelievers and to defend the teaching about the resurrection of Jesus. It is the earliest account of the resurrection, and it shows the importance of eyewitness testimony.  

Secondly, in this passage, it affirms the physical nature of Jesus' resurrection. Some people say that it was just a spiritual experience or a hallucination, or that Jesus was like a ghost who appeared and tried to convince people that he had really been raised again from the dead. These things are all untrue. What Peter and Paul agreed, in terms of all the experiences that everyone had had, was that they saw Jesus physically present. In fact, people touched him. They saw his wounds. They saw him eat food; he ate fish on one occasion, for example. As they looked at Jesus, it was a physical body. This is different from a ghost or spirit appearing, as many people had had these experiences. This is something different. This is a physical resurrection.  

The significance is that the tomb was empty; the body had disappeared. The body was no longer in the tomb. It had not been stolen. Jesus had risen from the tomb, physically. His body had been completely renewed and restored by God, miraculously. This is the basis for our Christian faith that we have that when Jesus returns, we also will have a physical resurrection body like Jesus' body. Paul goes into detail on this doctrine in the next episode. We can be confident that the physical resurrection of Jesus really did take place. There is strong evidence for it. Paul explained that evidence clearly to the Corinthians in this beautiful passage.  Do stay with us in the next episode as I explain more fully the doctrine of the resurrection and the hope and expectation that we can have as believers for our future resurrected life.  

 

 



am glad you have joined us for Series 5 in our discussion of this amazing letter, 1 Corinthians, that Paul wrote to the Corinthians in a time of crisis and difficulty. I have divided the book into five series to represent the main themes that Paul follows in the book. He moves quite quickly from one theme to another.

Recap and Background

Series 4 was about public worship which was a major concern for Paul. There were many problems with public worship, and he tried to deal with them very clearly in the material of 1 Corinthians chapters 11 to 14. Paul is thinking of the most positive way to end this letter. if ever a letter needed a positive end, it was 1 Corinthians.

There have been some very difficult discussions in the letter about all sorts of problems in the church. Yet Paul is committed to the Corinthian church because he believes so passionately in the power of the gospel. He has already explained the power of the cross very clearly in chapters 1 and 2, but now he discusses the resurrection of Jesus. This is the confirmation of the gospel; this gives us hope for our future as individuals. We live not just for this life, but for the next life. The whole of 1 Corinthians 15 is taken up with the discussion of the resurrection. This letter was written roughly 20 years after Jesus died and was written almost certainly before any of the gospels. Therefore, this passage, particularly the first 11 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, is the earliest account of Jesus’ resurrection written down anywhere. It is a passage of enormous importance for Christians and helps us to know how to defend and explain our faith to people who do not believe that Jesus rose again from the dead. One of the reasons for going back to the resurrection is to encourage the Christians. Secondly, later in this series, Paul deals with questions that the Corinthian Christians had about when the resurrection would take place for us. What kind of a body we would have in the resurrection?

Paul Received the Gospel

The focus of this episode is not our resurrection in the future, but Jesus’ resurrection in the past, as an historical fact.

“Now, brothers and sisters, 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 are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”

1 Corinthians 15:1-2, NIV

How did Paul ‘receive’ the gospel? He didn’t know Jesus and as far as we know, didn’t meet Jesus. Paul was not converted by Jesus during his earthly ministry so, how did he receive the gospel? He received the gospel in two different ways. First of all, he received the gospel on that amazing occasion on the Damascus road when he, as a firm opponent of the church, encountered Jesus in the form of a vision of Jesus, as he was heading to the city of Damascus. It was such a powerful encounter that he became temporarily blind. He heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him and suddenly realised that Jesus was alive, that he was the Messiah; that he had risen from the dead and Paul suddenly believed the gospel. It was a completely miraculous circumstance. The story of the Damascus road conversion is well known and is told three times in the book of Acts. If you go to the collection, ‘The Spreading Flame’, you can find those three remarkable occasions for yourself.

He also received the gospel in a different way. Paul was a Christian on his own when he was converted. He was with unbelievers at the time. He went into Damascus and met a few believers there, and then he spent three years in Arabia, in area in the province around Damascus. We don’t know what he was doing during those three years, but we do know that he was rethinking his whole understanding of the Old Testament. He was a Jew who had been trained in the Jewish faith and had studied the Old Testament. He was well-educated. He had to rethink everything. But after the three years, and before he started his main mission, something very interesting happened. He went to Jerusalem, where the Apostles lived, which is quite a long way from Damascus. He went there for the first time as a believer and stayed for 15 days with Peter the Apostle. This occasion was very important for Paul, because he had never met, until this point, any of the original Apostles or any of the original converts from the time of Jesus’ ministry, as far as we know. He had been in another country, in Arabia. He had been away from Judea and the Jewish population there. He hadn’t met any of the Apostles and yet for 15 days he stayed with Peter. It says this in Galatians 1 verse 18:

“Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter or Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.”

During that time, undoubtedly, Peter would have explained to Paul more clearly all the events that had happened in Jesus’ life, and particularly his death and resurrection. Peter would have explained to Paul, as an eyewitness, how Jesus appeared to different people at different times after the resurrection day, because Jesus stayed on earth for six weeks after his resurrection before he ascended into heaven. During that six-week period, there were many different people who had experienced meeting the risen Jesus and this is what Peter communicated to Paul. Paul received the gospel by a vision from Jesus, and secondly, an explanation of the events from Peter. The visit to Peter was probably about 5 or 6 years after Jesus had died, very shortly after the events.

The Resurrection – a Historical Fact

In the next few verses, Paul explains to the Corinthians what he had told them verbally in the past, but he is now writing it to them - all the evidence that Peter and the other Apostles gave him about the early resurrection appearances of Jesus. This is the earliest account of the resurrection. The source of this information is almost certainly Peter the Apostle, who was an eyewitness of all these events, always right in the centre of the events, and to whom Jesus appeared in a private appearance. If anyone says to you that Christianity made up the story of the resurrection many years later, you can know for certain that that is not true. These events took place very shortly after Jesus rose again from the dead. Peter was an eyewitness. He gave that information to Paul who passed it on to the Corinthians and the others. And this is what he passed on.

1 Corinthians 15: 3 - 8

This summarises what the church taught about the resurrection, in simple terms. The source of this is the Apostles, and mostly from Peter himself.

“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 that he appeared to Cephas, (or Peter), and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though 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.”

1 Corinthians 15:3-8, NIV

There are several statements here that Paul makes, and they are all important. Jesus ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures’. This was a saying from the early church and what it means is that Jesus’ death on the cross fulfilled prophecies in the Old Testament. The ‘Scriptures’ referred to here are the Old Testament scriptures. It was the teaching of the Apostles, Peter and the others, from the very beginning, that Jesus’ death fulfilled the predictions of the Old Testament about the Messiah. In particular, what the Apostles had in mind, was a passage that was frequently quoted by them, especially the Apostle Peter himself in his letter 1 Peter, which is Isaiah 53. Speaking of the Messiah, this is what it says:

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he has taken up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we have been healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53:3-6, NIV

What Paul is describing here, when he says, ‘according to the Scriptures’, is that Jesus didn’t die on the cross just by accident, or because people didn’t like him, or because the Roman authorities thought he was a threat, or because the Jewish authorities wanted to get rid of him. No, he died by God’s plan and purpose, as a substitute and as an atonement for us. He literally took our sins on the cross.

Secondly, Paul goes on to say, ‘he was buried’. Now, that might seem a very obvious thing to you, but the burial of Jesus is very important. His body went into the ground. This is clearly described in the Gospels, most clearly in Matthew 27: 57 - 61, where it says: ‘As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself been a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.’

This is as specific as you can get. Jesus was buried in a tomb and his body stayed there for a long time. The importance of this is that it proved that he died. This death was not a pretence; it was an actual event. The early church taught he was buried in the ground, outside Jerusalem in a rich man’s tomb and the rich man was Joseph of Arimathea. A big stone was placed in front of the tomb that had been carved out of the side of the hill. ‘He was buried’.

Then, most important of all, ‘he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures’. The resurrection took place, according to the early church, ‘on the third day’. Friday was the day of death and burial, Saturday was the second day, and Sunday was the third day in which Jesus rose again from the dead. Paul says, it is ‘according to the Scriptures’. The Apostles believe this fulfilled also what was said in the Old Testament. If we go back to Isaiah 53, we find in verse 11, just a few verses later, it says: ‘After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;’ After he suffered, ‘he will see the light of life’; he will come back to life. The early church taught very clearly that Jesus rose again from the dead.

Not only did he rise again from the dead, the most important thing here, in conclusion to this statement, is that ‘he appeared’. Peter told Paul about some of these appearances, because Paul wasn’t involved in any of those initial events. Although he was in Jerusalem at the time, he didn’t believe. Jesus didn’t appear to him then. He received an appearance on the Damascus road a year or two later and then he became a believer. He had to go back to Peter to find out, what the original events were. Paul wished he had been there, wished he had been involved, and had an appearance himself, but he wasn’t involved.

Peter told Paul, “He appeared to many people.” Notice here, “he appeared to Cephas” or Peter. So, there was an appearance of Jesus to Peter himself personally. That is remarkable. It is referred to in the Gospel of Luke 24:33 - 35. We don’t have any details. Peter said that Jesus had appeared to him first, and then he appeared ‘to the Twelve’. The Twelve means the original Apostles. We know from the Gospels that this happened in an upper room in Jerusalem, and it happened twice. It happened on the day that Jesus rose again in the evening when Jesus appeared and came into the room. They looked at him, they touched his body and they were able to see that this was his physical body. Then, a week later, he appeared again in the same upper room. One of the Apostles, Thomas, had been missing the first time and he was there the second time. He appeared ‘to the Twelve’. Then, very remarkably, Peter told Paul, and Paul told the Corinthians, and I am telling you, “he appeared to over 500 people at the same time, some of whom are still living, some of whom have fallen asleep”. That means they have died. That was an expression for death, used in their language. Paul is writing 20 years after Jesus died. He said, some of those 500 people have died during the last 20 years, which is what you might expect in a crowd, but many of them are still living. 20 years isn’t a long period of time. If you were 25 when you had had that experience, you would be 45 when Paul is writing: you would still be alive most likely. Who were these 500 people? We don’t know who they were, but most likely this was a crowd of disciples of Jesus in Galilee, gathered on a hillside. There is an account in Matthew 28 of the Apostles gathered on a hillside when Jesus gives the Great Commission, and it might be that a crowd of 500 was there on that occasion. Paul is telling the Corinthians, that many of them are still alive, maybe 300, and they could go and ask them if they ever went to Galilee, or Judea, because they were still living there.

Fourthly, he appeared to James, the half-brother of Jesus, who became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. I tell the story of James very fully in ‘The Spreading Flame’, because he appears significantly in the book of Acts. Then fifthly, he appeared to all the Apostles. That means all the 12 Apostles, plus a few others that Jesus had appointed to become apostles in the period of his resurrection. That would have included people like Barnabas. There was a group of apostles who were going to be the founders of the church and were going to go and preach to all the nations. Then Paul says, “last of all, he appeared to me”. We know why this was last of all - because it happened a year or two later. All these other appearances happened in a 40-day period. A couple of years later, Paul had a unique, extra resurrection appearance, and he considered it the last resurrection appearance of its kind. Something unusual and surprising happened to Paul because he received an extraordinary calling to serve Jesus and preach the gospel to the Gentiles.

Paul – ‘the Least of Them’

“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 is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.”

1 Corinthians 15:9-11, NIV

Paul knew that he didn’t deserve to be an apostle. He didn’t deserve to be saved. In fact, we find in Acts 8:3 that he was a persecutor of the church, an opponent of the church, and strongly opposed to the gospel. (You can read that story more fully as you go to the collection, The Spreading Flame), Yet Christ reached out to him on the Damascus road and saved him. So, he said, ‘I’m the least’, I am less important, less significant, less worthy than all the other Apostles and all the other early church members and all the people that Jesus appeared to, all those 500 on the hillside. But, he said, because of the grace of God ‘I am what I am’. God had made him an Apostle. He justified Paul, freed him of all his sin, and set him free from his evil past. Isn’t that a wonderful message for us today? It will be a message for some people listening to this talk now - that same grace is there for you.

Reflections

This passage is vital for us to explain the faith to unbelievers and to defend the teaching about the resurrection of Jesus. It is the earliest account of the resurrection, and it shows the importance of eyewitness testimony. Secondly, in this passage, it affirms the physical nature of Jesus’ resurrection. Some people say that it was just a spiritual experience or a hallucination, or that Jesus was like a ghost who appeared and tried to convince people that he had really been raised again from the dead. These things are all untrue. What Peter and Paul agreed, in terms of all the experiences that everyone had had, was that they saw Jesus physically present. In fact, people touched him. They saw his wounds. They saw him eat food. He ate fish on one occasion, for example. As they looked at Jesus, it was a physical body. This is different from a ghost or spirit appearing, as many people have had these experiences. This is something different. This is a physical resurrection. The significance is that the tomb was empty; the body had disappeared. The body was no longer in the tomb. It had not been stolen. Jesus had risen from the tomb, physically. His body had been completely renewed and restored by God, miraculously. This is our Christian faith. It is the basis for the faith that we have that when Jesus returns, we also will have a physical resurrection body like Jesus’ body. Paul goes into detail on this doctrine in the next episode. We can be confident that the physical resurrection of Jesus really did take place. There is strong evidence for it. Paul explained that evidence clearly to the Corinthians in this beautiful passage.

Do stay with us in the next episode as I explain more fully the doctrine of the resurrection and the hope and expectation that we can have as believers for our future resurrected life.