Furnishings of the Tabernacle

Confirmed Hope Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 15:20 I. Life without hope is worthless. A. Hope must be grounded upon something, for baseless hope is the product of an irrational mind. B. It should involve not only this life, but also the life that follows death (1 Cor. 15:19). C. If we hope only for what death will eventually terminate anyway, we are more miserable than all men. This means that we as believers must have hope beyond the grave. II. Christ is not only for this life. A. Certainly, Paul’s concern was that Christ be magnified in his body (Phil. 1:20). B. However, to be absent from the body meant that he would be with Christ (Phil. 1:23) in an even greater state of existence. III. Christ’s resurrection is the foundation of our hope. A. Paul gave historical proof of Christ’s physical resurrection (1 Cor. 15:4–11). B. He also countered the possible objections to Christ’s resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12–18). No such argument can stand before the historical fact of Christ’s resurrection. “But now is Christ risen from the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20). The perfect middle deponent verb egḗgertai means that Christ raised Himself and He is alive today. Christ is God who became man, yet never ceased to be God (Phil. 2:6–8), who died, and who rose again. Thus, He became “the firstfruits of them that slept,” or who have died (1 Cor. 15:20). IV. Because He raised Himself, He will also raise us. A. The word aparchḗ means the firstfruit, the beginning fruit, one who starts. Because He rose, He will raise us too. B. His assertions about our resurrection are trustworthy (John 5:25; 11:25; 1 Thess. 4:13–17). Spiros Zodhiates, Sermon Starters : Volumes 1-4 (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 1998).