What If Christ is Only Our Hope in This Life?
A closer look at 1 Corinthians 15:19.
19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. - 1 Corinthians 15:19 (ESV)
Introduction
There is a saying that goes “if you don’t think you need to be saved, you have no need for a savior.”
This makes sense.
When life is easy and times are good we tend to think like this. And we want things to stay this way.
But when things go wrong, or when we are having a rough time, we are looking for help. We want out of our situation. We need to be saved. And, obviously, during these times we are more likely to seek a Savior.
Today’s passage causes us to reflect on our situation and our relationship with Jesus. And if we are in this relationship solely because of what it brings us in the here and now, we have a problem.
Let’s dive into 1 Corinthians 15:19.
“If in Christ we have hope in this life only”
The main subject of chapter 15 in 1 Corinthians is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This issue is brought to a head in verse 12:
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? - 1 Corinthians 15:12 (ESV)
This is definitely an issue worth arguing over.
The message of Christianity is a simple one. It is so simple that even a child can understand it and it can be summarized easily in verses like 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.” - John 3:16 (ESV)
In this iconic passage we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. God loves us so much that He sent His only Son. And if we believe in His Son, we won’t die, but will instead have eternal life.
This is good news. We don’t have to perish, we don’t have to die, we can have eternal life. And all we have to do to receive this eternal life is to believe in what Jesus did for us.
This is simple. Again, so simple that even a child could hear, understand and “believe.” But just because God has graciously made the process simple, that does not mean that there are not some incredibly important theological points that must be in place and upheld.
Two of these are the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and His resurrection three days after His death.
When we are younger, it is easier to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and that after He died, He rose again three days later. But as we get older, there seems to be a part of us that becomes more and more skeptical. Maybe it is because we are more concerned about what others think, or perhaps it is because we have experienced more of life and simply have a harder time believing the message.
However, without these two important parts of Christianity, Christianity does not exist.
We are reminded in Romans 5:12 that “sin came into the world through one man.” Of course, this is speaking of Adam and Eve’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden and from that point onward, sin and death were in the world and mankind was separated from God because of this sin.
If Jesus came into the world in the normal fashion - i.e. as the regular offspring of a man and woman from the line of Adam and Eve - He would have arrived with a sin nature. And, therefore, He would not have qualified to be our perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He would have arrived into the world tainted, the same way that we arrive.
But as it happened, Jesus was born of a virgin, just as the Bible tells us. Mary, His mother, had not been with a man and her pregnancy was caused by the Holy Spirit. And because of the way this happened, Jesus was not tainted with a sin nature like the rest of us have. The Apostle Peter describes our perfect Savior in this way:
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. - 1 Peter 1:19 (ESV)
But not only did Jesus arrive untainted by sin - i.e. holy and righteous - He also lived His life perfectly and as Hebrews 2:10 tells us:
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. - Hebrews 2:10 (ESV)
Jesus is God and He came from Heaven. He is holy and righteous. Yet, as this passage reminds us, He also had to go through process of living on earth as a man and He did this perfectly. He proved His perfection through the suffering He endured. He went through living on earth and dying on the cross and did so without sinning. What a Savior!
But had He not also been resurrected, He would have gone down in history as accomplishing an amazing feat - living a whole life perfectly and without sin - but we would have needed someone else to do the same thing over and over again.
The Bible tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) This means that given our sin nature - we are born sinners and we are bound to sin - the logical steps of our life will include sinning and, therefore, being separated by death from God. This is why the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so important.
No only did He pay for our sins by suffering and dying on the cross, but via His resurrection, He broke the power of death. As Romans 6:9 says:
9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. - Romans 6:9 (ESV)
“Death no longer has dominion over him.”
Through the resurrection Jesus broke death. The logical path described above as our sin nature producing sin and the inevitable separation has been broken. Death no longer has the power it once held over us. As the Apostle Paul reminds us,
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?” - 1 Corinthians 15:55 (ESV)
Jesus lived a perfect life. He did not sin. He perfectly fulfilled the law. Therefore, He fit the requirement for being the perfect sacrifice for our sins. And after atoning for our sins through His death on the cross, He was buried and lay dead in the grave for three days. But after those three days, He rose from the death. Through His resurrection He triumphed over death. Death no longer held the power it once had. And because of this triumph, it was not necessary for this atoning work to ever be repeated. As Hebrews 10:14 tells us:
14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. - Hebrews 10:14 (ESV)
In Heaven, things are perfect. Things down here are messed up by sin. Jesus arrived into this world with perfection intact via the virgin birth. He lived a perfect life and met every requirement of the law. When He died, He did so willingly and He gave Himself up so that a sin debt He did not owe could be paid. And three days later, He broke the power of sin and death when He was resurrected.
“We are of all people most to be pitied”
The truths of the virgin birth and the resurrection underpin our faith.
As Paul reminds us, if these things are not true, that if our hope in God and the work of Christ ends when we die then “we are of all people most to be pitied.”
If these things are not true, we are believing lies and none of the promises that we cling to hold any value. If these things are not true, then God and Jesus are liars. And if they are liars, they are not holy and perfect. If these things are not true, they are frauds.
If these things are not true, then the words of the Bible only bring us limited value and whatever that limited value might be, it is only good while we are alive. Maybe following the tenets of Christianity as explained in the Bible would produce some positive effect on our lives or upon humanity while we live, but that would be all we received.
And even if God was right about everything else, but somehow was wrong about Jesus, because of our sin separating us from God, we would be bound for hell for eternity.
All of our hope is in Christ and because of this Satan and the world attack ferociously. The Bible is attacked, Jesus is attacked, His birth and resurrection are attacked, and our faith is attacked. This is to be expected and not outside of God’s control. If we are His, we rest in His hands and cannot be snatched away. (John 10:29) All of His promises hold true in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20) and one day we will dwell forever in the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for us. (John 14:3)
“I believe; help my unbelief!” - Mark 9:24 (ESV)