The Reality of Resurrection, 1

I’m really looking forward to spending a series of Sunday nights with you on the subject of resurrection, resurrection; and we’re going to build that around 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, and we actually will get to 1 Corinthians 15, but not right away, a little later tonight. I want to give you an introduction, a kind of reason why I’m doing this. I know you all believe in the resurrection or you wouldn’t be here, because to be a Christian, as we hear it in the testimony and baptism, you must confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. That is God’s vindication and validation of the atoning work of Christ on the cross. So we are believers in the resurrection.But as much as we believe in the resurrection, as much as we affirm that as part of the set of convictions which govern our thinking and our lives and give us hope, the centrality of the resurrection tends to fade away; it tends to fade away, even from believers, but not just from believers, from unbelievers as well. So I want to begin at the beginning, if I may tonight, and lay down a foundation for the importance and the urgency of this study...