Resurrection Sunday 2025

The Preeminence of Jesus

Sunday, April 20^th 2025

1 Corinthians 15:1-28

Introduction

Keep the Gospel at the Center of Our Lives and Trust in His Resurrection

1. The Most Important Thing (v1-4)

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand…”

Paul is closing this letter with a review of the gospel that they had received and a gospel that they were standing on in the face of ridicule.

v.3 – “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

Paul is giving them the heart of the gospel, which was primary in his teaching them.

The preaching of the resurrection was a stumbling block to the Greeks in the same way that the preaching of the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews.

By including both Jesus's death and resurrection as essential elements of the gospel, Paul precluded those who denied the resurrection from claiming salvation in Jesus.

1. The Appearances of Jesus (v5-11)

“and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of who are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best attested fact of ancient history. 

Christianity has always rested on that powerful evidence of eyewitnesses who saw him alive from the dead.

“For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

• The ‘IF’ Questions (v12-19)

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not be raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”

if Christ has not been raised...

there is no resurrection at all, 1 Cor 15:13, 16; our preaching is vain, 1 Cor 15:14

our faith is vain, 1 Cor 15:14; we are false witnesses, 1 Cor 15:15;

not even Christ has been raised 1 Cor 15:16; our faith is worthless, 1 Cor 15:17

we are still in your sins, 1 Cor 15:17; those who have died have gone, 1 Cor 15:18

we are of all men most to be pitied, 1 Cor 15:19

1. The FirstFruits Promise (v20-28)

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the fristfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

 Firstfruits is a term related to the harvest. When a crop is produced, typically it is not all produced simultaneously. Some of it is ready before the rest of it. The firstfruits are that which are ready first.

 “We are more sure to arise out of our graves than out of our beds.” Thomas Watson

 Jesus is the firstfruits of those who died because Jesus is superior in every way to everything and everyone else in creation. God has placed everything under the authority of Jesus (v. 27), with the ultimate goal of one day God being “all in all” (v. 28).

 Jesus is preeminent in all of creation; the first harvest of the dead, the judge of the living and the dead, the ruler over all creation, and the gateway into our immersive relationship with God.