14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
Without the resurrection, the Gospel is empty. Jesus was not about a new approach to life or a new set of instructions. His is not a moral example of how to live. His is not a new “Ten Commandments” for us to follow. If the resurrection did not happen, we are spinning our wheels. Paul says we are to be pitied! That is because all the power of the Gospel is in the resurrection. The Gospel is about sin and its consequence. His death and resurrection show this clearly. All the Old Testament sacrifices pointed to the Cross. All the words of forgiveness pointed to the resurrection. If the resurrection didn’t happen, what does Christianity have over any other religious system? Nothing! Without the resurrection there is no power to live the new life. We are stuck trying to live up to the standard of a Holy God. Or we pull God down to our standard and we feel good about the evil that we do, at least for the moment. But the funny thing that happens with evil is the consequences can’t be avoided. Eventually the emptiness that arises from pleasure catches us off guard. Evil is OK for a season, but then we have to pay the bills. Everything in the Gospel hinges on the reality of the resurrection. Because Jesus conquered the grave, we too will conquer the grave. He was triumphant over sin so that we too can be triumphant. He resisted temptation so that we have the ability to resist. Without the resurrection, Jesus words and the words of his disciples are empty lies, nothing more than a deceptively slick sales pitch. But when the product arrives, it has no depth, no ability to actually make any difference.
The Arnold Journey 