In places like Oldham, where life can be a bit of a slog, it’s easy for faith to feel like just another burden. But what if the very heart of our Christian belief isn’t some wishy-washy theory, but a historically verified truth that completely reshapes everything?

The Undeniable Foundation

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says the gospel he preached, the one that grabbed the Corinthians and still saves us, hinges on this: Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day. This is a hard, undeniable historical event. Paul wasn’t shy about it, noting over 500 eyewitnesses, many still alive when he wrote. He wasn’t encouraging blind faith; it is faith grounded in evidence.

Paul insist the resurrection is ‘of first importance.’ If Jesus didn’t physically rise, everything else crumbles. Deny His bodily resurrection, and you simply don’t believe the gospel. It’s that basic.

The Stark Reality

If Jesus didn’t rise, there is no grounds to expect future resurrection. Paul lays bare the consequences: no resurrection means Jesus is still dead, our faith is pointless, the Apostles were liars, and you’re still trapped in sin. Those who died in Christ? Lost.

If our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are to be pitied more than anyone.

If there’s no resurrection, then “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” is the only logical view. Why deny yourself for nothing? But because Jesus was raised, there is a payoff, a future glory. We are not the pitiable ones; a world lost in futile philosophies should be. This truth ought to cause us to grieve over the world and sharpen our urgent gospel mission.

The future promise

Paul insists Jesus the “firstfruits” of resurrection – the absolute guarantee of our future resurrection. This isn’t just history; it grounds our future hope. It’s why we can confidently anticipate a New Creation, where every wrong is righted, and death, the most wrong thing of all, is conquered forever.

Experiential sense

Finally, our Christian experience itself falls apart without the resurrection. Why bother with Christian practices? Why endure suffering for Christ if this life is all there is? Self-denial and sacrifice only make sense when there is some future benefit.

If you deny these foundational truths, attempting to live as a Christian makes absolutely no sense. This isn’t about minor debates. It’s the bedrock of the gospel. Deny the resurrection (or Jesus’ deity, or sin, or salvation by faith alone), and trying to live as a Christian makes absolutely no sense.

There is an old episode of the sitcom Yes, Minister in which a brand new hospital is built. A hospital that is lauded as a triumph. It is the cleanest, most efficient and well run hospital in the country. The only problem: it doesn’t have any patients. As great as the civil servants insisted it was, the minister kept highlighting that there was no point to topping the tables on these other measures if it wasn’t fulfilling its most basic purpose of treating patients. Trying to live the Christian life and have the trappings of Christianity without the most basic elements of belief in the actual gospel of Jesus Christ is just like that. It’s an empty, valueless charade.

Living a Christian life – with its joys, its challenges, self-denial, and pursuit of eternal glory – only makes sense if we truly believe the gospel as revealed in Scripture. Jesus was raised. Do you believe in Him? Do you trust in that historically grounded gospel?