Christ is Risen…

Date: 2 Nov 2025, 9.30 am

Speaker: Ps Luwin Wong Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11   

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TRANSCRIPT

Founding father of America, Benjamin Frankling, once wrote in a letter to his friend, remarking, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Well, in today’s America, the very rich have found very creative ways to avoid paying taxes, and the very poor are exempt from taxes. But death remain certain and universal in this world.

In addition to death, the Czech novelist, Franz Kafka would say that guilt, is also features as a universal human experience.

In his book, titled, “The Trial”, the protagonist, Josef K, wakes up one morning to find two men in his bedroom, and they place him under arrest. But they do not tell him why. They only inform him that the proceedings are underway. Initially, he protests his innocence, but over time, he begins to recognise a vague but pervasive feeling of guilt within him.

Like everyone else, he has done wrong things, bad things in his life.

He realises that the guilt was always there. It’s just that his work as a bank clerk has kept him busy enough and his womanising in his free time has keep him distracted enough, so that he never had to reckon with that sense of guilt within.

But the arrest was a wake up call. It forced him to come to terms with his guilt. A non-specific, but nonetheless real and ever-present sense of guilt worthiness.

By the end of the book, he is sentenced to death for a crime he knows nothing about by a judge he never sees. His guilt leads to his death.

The reason this short book, written 100 years ago, continues to hold such enduring power is because we can identify with Josef K. The Trial is metaphor for life. As soon as we are born, it seems like we are put on trial, for there exists in our heart the vague but unshakable feeling that if a universal judge of mankind exists, you and I have something to answer for.

We distract ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly, from this on-going trial by stuff like immersing ourselves in work, distracting ourselves with leisure: Netflix, doomscrolling, vaping, drinking, holidaying. But in the end comes unescapably and unexpectedly, for all of us, just like it came for Josef K.

There is nothing certain in this life but guilt and death.

And how do we deal with existential realities guilt and death? We try to avoid it. We say it’s impolite to talk about death. We say it’s harmful to our self-esteem to feel guilty. We pay therapists to tell us it’s not our fault. We take pills to dull our senses. All of which help to some degree, but none of which overcomes the issue.

We occupy our time and mind with work and play, with family and friends, with food and drink, so never have to think about, never have to confront head-on, our nagging sense of guilt, and our universal fear of death.

This is why religion remains ever relevant for the thinking person. Whether they be true or false, religion at least attempts to answer the existential questions we all ask. They at least attempt to tackle the existential threats we all fear.

Here is, hear ye, Christianity’s response to the universal human predicament of guilt and death: “Christ is Risen”.

Christ is the reason the Christian need not ultimately fear the judgment of guilt or the sentence of death.

Christ is Risen, and is the reason the Christian need not feel guilt and need not fear death. Not because we’re good, not because we’re guiltless, but because Christ is Risen.

And the resurrection of Jesus Christ was all according to plan.

The apostle writes:

1 CORINTHIANS 15:3-4 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

“The Scriptures” is the revelation of God’s plan of salvation for the world. The Scriptures detail’s God’s rescue plan for humanity.

Okay. But what is humanity in danger of? What do we need rescuing from?

The answer is also the reason for why guilt and death are universals in the human experience.

The Bible calls it sin.

In the Bible, mankind was created in the image of God. We created good, without sin, without a nagging sense of guilt within us.

We were also created to live forever with God.

Which means, that in the original design, both guilt and death were foreign to the human experience. We were not meant to feel guilt, and we were not meant to face death.

Then what happened? Sin happened. Sin entered the world through a man named Adam. How? Through an act of disobedience which led to separation between man and God.

Sin is primarily a relational problem.

Do you notice that even the secular society, law-breaking is framed in relational terms, it is cast as relational problem. It is always, the State vs the defendant, or the Attorney General vs the defendant, or the Public Prosecutor vs the defendant. It’s not so-and-so vs Penal Code number this and that. Because crime is ultimately relational. If there were no one else but you in this world, the word crime would have no meaning.

And so it is with what the bible calls sin. Sin is the breaking of God’s moral law which destroys our relationship with him. It separates God from man. Our sin has created a chasm between the moral law Giver from the moral law breaker.

And the problem with that is that God isn’t just the Giver of laws, he is also the Giver of life.

And so our sin has a two-fold consequence. We incur guilt, because we have disobeyed the moral law. And we suffer death, because we are separated from the source of life.

The Bible puts it this way.

ROMANS 6:23 23 For the wages of sin is death…

But God has created mankind in his image. He has created us in love. And because he loves mankind, he plans to restore the relationship with us.

But how does a guilty criminal restore his standing in society? He pays the price of his crime. That’s justice, without which the law means nothing.

So, mankind is in a bind. We have wilfully sinned against God, and we have justly received the punishment of death.

But the story end doesn’t end there. That’s not the end of the plan. The plan is to rescue men. It is to save mankind.

How is that done? Well, God sent his son.

JOHN 3:16 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

This is God’s plan, motivated by love, he gave his Son, in order to save mankind.

Now how does that work? What does the Son of God have to do with humanity?

The answer is that the Son of God represents humanity. What he does, he does on behalf of mankind.

You see, Adam was the son of God.

LUKE 3:38 38 …Adam, the son of God. That is, God made him, the first human being, and all of mankind are in that sense, sons and daughters of Adam. We are of Adam’s race. We bear Adam’s image.

Adam, the son of God, represented mankind.

When Adam fell, so did we. When Adam sinned, mankind sinned, for he is our representative before God.

So what it would take to rescue mankind from our fate is a new representative for humanity. Another son of God.

That is who Jesus is.

The opening verse of Mark states it plainly.

MARK 1:1 1 the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

But Jesus is the son of God in a different way to Adam.

Adam was created by God. But Jesus was not created, but begotten of God, he is God.

And being God, he was perfect sinless, guiltless. He was righteous.

But Jesus the son of God was also the son of man. In that he was born of a woman, like all of us. Had flesh and blood, like one of us. And died, like all of us.

Jesus died. And we have to ask: Now why did he die? If death is the sentence of guilt for our sin, why would a sinless person die?

The died for the same reason as everyone else, as the punishment for sin. The difference is that he didn’t die for his sins, but for ours.

As Paul writes:

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

It was all according to plan, and it was all for the salvation of man.

Christ died for us.

Now how does that work?

Just as Adam, the first man from the earth, the son of God, represented Mankind, so Jesus, the first man from heaven, the son of God, now represents a new humanity – all who put their faith in him.

John 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,

And because Jesus is our representative, his righteousness becomes our righteousness. His sinlessness becomes our sinlessness.

Whereas Adam’s sin infected us, Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to us. Where once Adam’s sin defined us, Christ’s righteousness delivered us.

But that’s not all, as our representative, Jesus can bear our sins. He can take our blame. What he does, he does on our behalf. And is why he died. Not for the sins he committed, for he committed none, but our sins, which he takes upon himself.

So that we do not have to pay the price for our sins. His death has paid it all. So that, in Christ, we no longer have to bear guilt, or fear death anymore.

So the bible says:

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

But Jesus rose again. Why?

Because death could not hold him. God raised Jesus from the grave as vindication of his innocence. Justice demands that he dies for our sins, but it also demands he raised for his righteousness.

In short, Jesus died and rose again, according to plan, in order to save the race of man.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:3-4 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…

Friends, this is of first importance, this is a summary of the Gospel. The Good News of Christianity.

You are saved by Christ, through faith in his good news.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-2 1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,  2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you —unless you believed in vain.

Why should you believe it?

For the same reason you should believe anything: because it’s true.

You see, when Paul delivers to them what is of first importance, that:

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

Paul knows how radical it sounds.

It’s not the case of, well, people back then could believe in such things as resurrection, but today, with our advance medical knowledge, we know that death is an irreversible condition.

Of course not. People in the first century weren’t dumb, I doubt they were any more gullible than our tik-tok brain-rot generation. But regardless, you don’t need to be very bright to figure out that the dead stay dead, you don’t need medical science to tell you death is permanent.

He knows how radical and even nonsensical the resurrection of Jesus Christ sounds, so he doesn’t expect them to take it for granted. He doesn’t say, “Christ rose from the dead, duh.”

Paul actually felt compelled to back it up with evidence.

The gold standard of evidence in those days was eye-witness testimony, the platinum standard was multiple eyewitness testimony.

So Paul continues,

1 CORINTHIANS 15:5-8 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Paul is essentially saying, “Christ died and rose again, according to the Scriptures.

But I know it sounds incredible, but you can believe it, because there is evidence for it. There are people who have seen the resurrected Jesus, most of them are still around, you can ask them, you can cross-examine them. I’ll give you names.”

Christ is risen, and friends, we can believe it. Even today. It’s the only plausible way to explain the birth of the church and the perseverance of the Christian faith.

Christianity isn’t fundamentally a system of morality, nor a code of conduct, nor a philosophy of life. Fundamentally, it is a belief in a verifiable fact, a falsifiable fact, the fact that Jesus of Nazareth died and rose again. That is central to the gospel – the good news – of Christianity.

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures 

Christ is Risen. That is the fundamental Christian fact.

If we arrived in Heaven, and there discovered that God didn’t actually create the world in 7 literal 24 hour days, we would still sing praise to our Creator and Redeemer.

If we arrived in Heaven, and there discovered that the flood in the days of Noah was a local flood, rather than a global flood, we would still sing praise to our Creator and Redeemer.

If we arrived in Heaven, and there discovered that the tongues in 1 Corinthians 14 refers to an angelic tongue, rather than a known human language, we would still sing praise to our Creator and Redeemer, perhaps in that angelic tongue.

But if we arrived in Heaven, and there discovered that Jesus Christ died and did not rise from the grave, we could not sing praise, for there would be heaven to sing in, no Redeemer to sing to, and no rhyme or reason to sing at all.

Christianity stand and falls, on the bare fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Paul acknowledges the same

1 CORINTHIANS 15:14,17 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

If Christ has not been raised, we can pack up and go home and never come back.

That’s the fact.

The reason the apostles continued preaching the gospel, the reason the church persisted and grew, the reason the martyrs died confessing “Christ is Lord”, is only because Christ is risen. There exists no other satisfactory explanation for the birth and perseverance of Christianity in the first century.

The reason for Christianity is that Christ is risen. The reason people believed that was because there was evidence for the resurrection, evidence so insurmountable, the entire first generation of believers were willing to pay the ultimate price for confessing it.

In any other scam, in any other hoax, in any other cult, the movement dies when the leader dies, especially he dies shamefully as a crucified criminal. Christianity, however, was born and blossomed only after Jesus died! Why?

because Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 he was buried, he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

and we have evidence for it. We can believe it. As the first generation of believers did. And as so many still do today. You can believe it.

Now, perhaps your reasons for doubting the good news of Christianity is not primarily historical or intellectual. Perhaps your reason for disbelief is essentially emotional.

You heard the gospel, you understand it, you see no reason to disbelief it, but there remains in your heart an emotional doubt.

You say, the son of God dying for my sins, and rising for my salvation? For me? That can’t possibly be.

Isn’t it the good people that go to heaven? Surely, God chooses the right type people to enter his kingdom.

The things I’ve done, the wrongs I’ve committed, the mistakes I’ve made. Over and over and over again. There’s no way a perfect son of God will die and rise again for my sake.

It all seems too radical to believe that even I, with all my failures and shortcomings, can be saved by Jesus. With my slate wiped clean, with my guilt washed away, with my sins all forgiven? Just like that? For someone like me?

If that is you, my friend, Paul has this to say to you:

1 CORINTHIANS 15:9-11 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy 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 toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Paul said that he was unworthy to be called an apostle. And this isn’t self-deprecating humility. This is plain honesty. He isn’t worthy. Before he believed in Jesus Christ, he persecuted the church of God.

He is complicit in the execution of Christians. He is responsible for the death of believers.

But by the grace of God he is what he is, an apostle of Christ.

He got there by grace, not by merit. It was by grace, not because he deserved it. Paul, the Church’s public enemy #1, was saved by grace.

You see, the Gospel of Jesus is for people like Paul.

Christianity isn’t for people who think they’re good, but for people who know they’re bad. Who know they are sinners in need of a Saviour. Who know they are guilty and want a clean conscience. Who know they’re sinful and desire forgiveness.

That’s why it’s good news. The good news is you can be dead and buried in you sin, but God will raise you up and make you alive in Jesus Christ.

CHRIST IS RISEN

ACCORDING TO GOD’S PLAN…

FOR THE SALVATION OF MAN.

THIS IS GOOD NEWS YOU CAN BELIEVE IN.

Yes, it still means you’ll have to get up and go to work tomorrow, it still means you’ll have to take care of your child who is having the flu, it still means there are bills to be paid, and work to be done, and family to take of.

But at the same time, the death resurrection of Christ means that the foundation of our life built on firmer ground, it means the destiny of our lives is fundamentally changed, from judgement to salvation, from guilt to glory, from death to life.

And live today and wake up tomorrow knowing that with the resurrection of Jesus, something radical has taken place – our sins are forgiven, our salvation is secured, our resurrection is certain.

We no longer live as we once did, feeling guilty and fear death. All that has died in the death of Christ, all that was erased when he was raised to life again.

And so we now live with a renewed vision of our eternal destiny, with a resurrection hope for eternal life. And so let the redeemed of the Lord rejoice.

For Christ is Risen, and we shall rise with him.

Then on the third at break of dawn

The Son of heaven rose again

O trampled death where is your sting?

The angels roar for Christ the Risen King