Now, it is important when Paul points out that Christ did not merely die, but that He died for our sins. If he had said merely that Christ died, somebody could very well reply, “Well, so what? Everybody dies.” But when he says that Christ died for our sins, he puts that in a different category altogether. People die for different reasons, such from old age or an illness. Some might even die in a heroic fashion on behalf of somebody else. Or we might die as a martyr for some noble cause.
Jesus did not die in any of those ways. He died for our sins, which means that He died in our place, as our substitute. He did not die for His own sins but for ours, and, moreover, that He did that according to the Scriptures. We deserved to perish for our sin, but God, out of His great love for us, sent the Lord Jesus Christ, His own Son, the Holy One, to die not for His own sins—because He had none—but to die in our place. And if Jesus is not who He claimed to be and did not do that, then there is no hope for any of us because if you look at your own heart, you know that you have no right to be blessed by God. You have been created to be in a relationship to God which you have violated. If you look at your own heart and answer honestly, you know that what you deserve is God’s banishment and wrath now and in the life to come.
In His mercy God did not let it go at that. Instead, He sent His Son and, moreover, God began to prepare the way for the coming of His Son by explaining what Jesus was going to do. You find that throughout the Old Testament. In time, the Lord Jesus Christ came and accomplished this work that had been prophesied, which the New Testament records. And also there you find again and again the explanation of what Jesus has done. Paul says when you talk about the Gospel core, you begin with the death of Christ for sinners.
The second thing Paul talks about is His burial. One might ask why this is even mentioned, since it would be assumed that because Jesus died He would also be buried. But this second point is important in view of what Paul is going to say next about the resurrection. By mentioning that Jesus was buried, this is a way of saying that He was really dead.
People have tried to deny this as a way to discount the truth of the resurrection. One such example is the idea that Jesus simply lost His consciousness on the cross, and people mistakenly thought He was dead. Then, when He was placed in the cool tomb, He revived, and when He emerged from the tomb, His disciples saw Him and said that He had been raised from the dead. Paul says that Jesus really had died and consequently He really was buried.
Third, Paul talks about the resurrection in verse 4. Now when we talk about a resurrection, we are not talking about an illusion. We are not even talking about a resurrection of Jesus’ spirit because, of course, this does not die in any sense. Rather, we are talking about a real resurrection, which is the resurrection of the actual body.
At this point I think of the conversation the Lord Himself had with those two Emmaus disciples who were on their way back home after the crucifixion. They had been there in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, and because of the restrictions for travel on the Sabbath, which in this particular year included the Passover Sabbath followed by the regular Sabbath on Saturday, they were still there in the city on the morning of the resurrection. They had heard reports that Jesus had been raised from the dead because they said that some of their women went to the tomb and said that they had seen angels who informed them that Jesus was risen. And yet, so far was this idea of a resurrection from their minds that they did not even go out to the tomb to investigate.
As they were making their way back to Emmaus, Jesus appeared and began to teach from the Scriptures. I think it is interesting that He did not at this point reveal Himself to them and say who He really was. A little later He told Thomas who He was, and proved it by having Thomas feel the marks of His crucifixion. But He did not do that with these Emmaus disciples. Instead, we are told that beginning with Moses and the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things that concerned Himself, how it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and be raised again.
Now at that point I suppose someone could say, “Well, it makes a very nice philosophy, this teaching about a dying and rising Savior, the kind of thing that you might find a parallel to in some of the mystery religions of the Greek world. But, you know, it really didn’t happen. And the reason we know it really didn’t happen is that resurrections don’t happen. We just don’t see that sort of thing today.” What Paul says as he continues this exposition of the Gospel core is that this great fact of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on the third day is well attested historically. There are many evidences for it. Chiefly among these evidences are the fact that He appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom were still living. And then He appeared to James and to the other apostles. Finally, Paul says in verse 8, Jesus appeared to him.
