The Rising Son

It is not our superior intellects, but our hostility to God and His requirements that keeps us from Christ.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1-28

Sermon Notes:

1. The meaning of the resurrection is that all things are made new in Christ.
2. Apart from the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, our faith is worthless and futile.
3. Jesus is the firstfruit from the dead; the rest of humanity will follow, being raised either to eternal death or to victory over sin and death as partakers in Christ’s victory.
4. We are reborn into Christ’s world of total meaning. Jesus in His person is related to us just as He is related to God.
5. We are made in the image of God, made to be vice-regents over the earth, exercising His dominion.
6. If God is life, then to sin against God is to love death; Adam and his descendants are fallen into rebellion, sin, and death.
7. Adam (Adam 1) was born of God, made a perfect human, tempted in the garden, and brought sin and death to all.
8. Christ (Adam 2) was born of God of a virgin, took on true humanity, and gave all His adopted children righteousness, life and citizenship in the Kingdom of God.
9. We are either in Adam or we are in Christ (Adam 2).
10. Since by a man came death, so also by a man came the resurrection of the dead (Romans 5:17).
11. Those who are born of God will overcome the world by their faith (1 John 5:4-5).
12. Aside from new life in Jesus there is no path to victory.
13. Unless you are born again you will never see the Kingdom of God, you will never share the resurrection victory (Jn 3).
14. Like a baby robin confined inside its eggshell, we must shed our shell of hostility against God before we can find Him and know our true humanity.
15. All things have total meaning in terms of the purposes and plan of God.
16. It is not our superior intellects, but our hostility to God and His requirements that keeps us from Christ.
17. How do you confirm the reliability of the human eye? By using the human eye! Likewise we need to accept the Word of Christ in the Bible if we are to know and understand anything, including the Bible itself.
18. It is God Himself who has inclined our hearts to accept His testimonies. We need to humble ourselves and in child-like humility receive the Word of Christ.
19. Only Christ the second Adam can make sense of our lives and deliver us from the power of the past.
20. We are all born in the old Adam, but he does not own us. In Christ we are freed from all things that have bound us.
21. With these insights we’re to be transformed; when we shut our eyes to these things we become hardened in our sin.
22. God invites us to new life today; today is the day of salvation; do not harden your heart (Romans 10:8-11).
23. If you confess with your mouth, you will be saved.

Application Questions:

1. What is the connection between Adam, Christ, and ourselves? Compare and contrast the two “Adams.”
2. What are the implications of Christ’s resurrection power for us individually, and for the world as a whole?
3. What does it mean for us to be kings and vice-regents with Christ over the earth?
4. What is meant by “we need to be saved from ourselves?”
5. How can we find total meaning and our true humanity?
6. How can we be born again? Why is it necessary?
7. Why must we accept the Word of Christ to find the truth? 

Sermon Notes