Have You Seen the Risen Jesus?
Tom Shrader works through 1 Corinthians 15, examining Paul's list of post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to Peter, the Twelve, more than five hundred, James, and Paul himself. Drawing on John 20 and Luke 22, he explores Peter's denial and restoration to show that Christ appears not to those who deserve Him but to those who need Him most. The sermon concludes with Paul's testimony of being the least of the apostles, pressing listeners to understand that genuine conversion—like Paul's—involves brokenness over sin and recognition that salvation is entirely the work of God's grace.
“There is no sin that you can commit that separates you so far from God that His grace doesn't reach you.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2002 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: resurrection, grace, forgiveness, brokenness, salvation, restoration, sin, gospel, feeling unworthy, new believer, struggling with shame, doubting faith, recovering from failure, young adult, seeker, questioning salvation
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1-10, 1 Corinthians 15:12, Job 4:4, Genesis 3, John 20:1-20, Luke 22:24, Luke 22:33-34, Luke 22:54-62, John 7:5, Acts 9, Acts 18:9-10, Acts 23, 1 Timothy 1:15
Theological Themes: resurrection appearances, soteriology, substitutionary atonement, grace alone, conversion, apostolic witness, repentance, justification
Full Transcript
The Gospel Facts
First Corinthians chapter 15 is the chapter we would most commonly identify with the resurrection. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth about the resurrection, and the point we have tried to make all through this study is that Paul is writing both to correct and to instruct. To put it in context, in verse 12 Paul writes this: "Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?" It was not that they did not believe in the resurrection of Christ — they did. Otherwise Paul would not have considered them brothers and sisters, and on six different occasions he identifies them that way. So they believed in the resurrection of Christ. They were confused about what happens to their life and their body when they die.
Paul deals with that question in verse 12 and following, but before he does, he talks about the gospel. He tells them first in verses 1 and 2 what the gospel does: they received a gospel, they stand in the gospel, and they are saved by the gospel. It is the thing that gives them stability in a world. Job 4:4 says, "Your words have kept men on their feet." It gives us firmness in our life. It is the gospel by which we were saved.
Then Paul says, here is what the gospel is — here are the gospel facts. He says first that Christ died for our sins. This is really important: that Christ died is not anything anybody argues about. Everyone who acknowledges that He lived acknowledges that He died. What Paul links together, and this is really significant, is our sin and His death. He died — why? For our sin. They are linked together. You should never be able to look at the cross without thinking of your sin.
Now, I have heard people say it was your sin that put Him on the cross. That is not true. It was God's love that put Him on the cross. It was your sin that He suffered for. He went to the cross as an act of love. I had not been a Christian very long when you start hearing all these little platitudes — almost like bumper sticker comments — and one of them was this: if you were the only person who ever lived, Jesus would have died for you. When I first heard it, I thought, how can you say that? I took it too literally, broke it down, and probably missed the point entirely. But I did start to think about it, and here is what came out of it for me.
Let us assume for a second that that is true. If I were the only person living and Jesus died for me, then it means I would have had to take that crown of thorns and shove it on His head. I would have had to beat Him. I would have had to spit on Him, hurl insults at Him. I would have had to take Him out, and I would have been the one who held His arm and pounded the nails. I would have taken His feet and driven the nails through them. I would have propped Him up on that cross. I would have taken that spear and shoved it in His side. That idea takes on a whole new meaning. In spite of all that, Jesus died for my sin.
The Gospel and God's Sovereign Plan
This is the good news of the gospel — that you and I can have life, not in ourselves, nor does He give us what we deserve or what we earn. The wage of sin is death. What you earned is death, but He gives you grace and He gives you mercy. So the gospel facts are: He died for our sin, He was buried, and then He rose — and all of this was done according to the Scripture.
There are two points there. First, the Jews, as they look back, should be able to look at the Scriptures and see how beautifully they foretell of the suffering Messiah. They should have no reason to disbelieve, at least from the Scripture. The Scripture is not contradictory to their orthodox teaching — the teaching we find in the Old Testament. Second, this was part of God's plan. This was not an accident. It was not that God had one plan, things careened out of control, and now He had to come up with Plan B and send Jesus to the cross.
Jesus died for our sins according to the Scripture. Jesus rose again according to the Scripture. That is the gospel. This is God's sovereign plan, revealed as early as Genesis chapter 3, that one would die for us — one would provide covering for us.
The Resurrection Appearances
After He rose, Jesus made a series of appearances, and Paul lists some of them here in 1 Corinthians 15. He says this in verse 5: "And he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit 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 did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me."
Paul lists five different appearances of Christ to others. They are: to Peter, then to the twelve, then to more than five hundred brethren, then to James, and then to Paul himself. These appearances can be cross-referenced with other passages of Scripture, though in some cases 1 Corinthians 15 is the only place we can point to them. But Jesus also, after the resurrection and before the ascension, appeared to others whom Scripture tells us about. Scripture tells us of other appearances of the Lord Jesus — to Mary Magdalene, for example, which all four of the Gospels record.
Introduction: The Appearances of the Risen Jesus
We will look at the appearance of Jesus to Mary this morning, and then others are listed as well — the other women, those at His ascension, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and in Galilee. You can do your own study as you look at those other appearances, but that is not what we are concerned with today. Today we are focusing on the appearances recorded in 1 Corinthians 15.
Let me give you three things by way of introduction. One we have already covered: this is not an all-exclusive list of the appearances of Jesus, as He appeared to others as well. Secondly, in these appearances He was never recognized until He revealed Himself. You can read and read and read, and nothing ever happens. People can talk to you about Jesus, about the truth, about your sin, but until He reveals Himself to you, nothing is ever going to happen.
We evangelize, but we know that our evangelism is never going to be fruitful unless God intervenes and the Holy Spirit opens the eyes. That is what we understand. The same is true with these people in the Gospel accounts — they do not recognize Him, even though He is right there, until He reveals Himself. The third thing is this: He appears only to His followers. You could argue that technically when He appears to Saul, Saul is not yet a follower, but he certainly becomes one. We have no record of Him appearing in His risen body to a crowd of non-believers and simply showing Himself — that does not happen. He appears only to His followers.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
So let us work our way through this. He appears first to Peter. You can set aside 1 Corinthians 15 for now, because we will not be returning to it. Head to the Gospel of John, the 20th chapter, and also the Gospel of Luke, the 22nd chapter — we will go back and forth between those two this morning.
John chapter 20: "Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark, and saw the stone was taken away from the tomb. And so she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."
It is worth spending a moment on Mary Magdalene, because all four Gospels mention her. She is on her way to the tomb — a story familiar to many of you. As she arrives, the stone has been taken away. She sees this, understands that the stone is gone, and takes off running to Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved — that is John, the very one who is writing this account.
Drop down to verse 11. Peter and John have already come to the tomb and made their investigation. Remember, the tomb would have an opening perhaps about four feet high — you would stoop to go in and then be able to stand up on the inside, in an area carved out of stone with a place to set a body or bodies. "Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping. So as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb. She beheld two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? And she said to them, Because they have taken away the Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him."
Here is the empty tomb, and still it has not occurred to her that a resurrection has taken place. All she knows is that the body is gone. "And when she heard this, she turned around and beheld Jesus standing there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? And supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away." She sees this figure and somehow confuses the resurrected Christ for a gardener. Until God opens your eyes, you will never see Him.
The Power of a Voice
She has a dialogue. She says, "Where did you take Him? Tell me, I will go." "Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, Rabboni, which means Teacher."
This is one of those texts you can read an awful lot into, and I will probably be guilty of that to some extent — I apologize up front, because I certainly do not want to play fast and loose with the Scripture. But she hears her name: Mary.
I have talked to people my age who have lost their parents, and they will talk about different things — how when they smell a certain cologne or perfume they think of them, or they smell a cigar or a pipe and think of their dad, or they smell brownies and think of their mom. But here is what they say to me, and this fascinates me: what I miss most is their voice. What they are saying is not that they want to hear a recording — they want to hear that voice speaking to them again. If I could just hear my dad's voice.
My dad, and my parents are not here this morning so I feel free to mention it — my dad has called me every Sunday since I came down here in 1975. My mom and dad call me every Sunday morning, with only a few exceptions.
Peter's Denial and the Weight of Failure
Here is Mary. Mary is so distraught. The tomb is empty. They have had the experience. Peter and John have run out there absolutely confused. She is just so frustrated, lonely, probably tired, probably hasn't slept much in those three days. "Where did you put him? Let me just go get him." And then she hears her name — "Mary" — and something about that voice.
But that is not who Paul lists first. He lists Peter first. Why Peter? I think you know the answer.
Turn over to Luke chapter 22. How do you not love old Peter? They have had the Lord's Supper, and these guys cannot leave it alone. Look at verse 24: "And there arose also a dispute among them of which one of them was going to be the greatest." They cannot stop this. So Jesus begins to teach them. He talks about His suffering, His trials, and He even says to Peter, "You need to know that Satan has demanded to sift you. I am going to pray for your strength."
Look at Peter in Luke chapter 22, verse 33. He says to Jesus, "Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death." I think he means it. I think he is absolutely certain. He is saying, "Listen, these other guys — I don't know about them. I don't know where they are. I don't know about their hearts." They have already had the discussion about who would betray Jesus. When Jesus said, "One of you will betray Me," I always thought eleven pairs of eyes would go right to Judas. They didn't. "Not me, not me. I don't know who it is." So Peter has already been through that discussion, and now he says, "I can't vouch for these guys, but I'll tell you something — you go to prison, you go to death, I'm with you. You can count on me."
Jesus says in verse 34, "I say to you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you have denied three times that you even know Me." At that point Peter is thinking, "I don't think so."
Around the Fire
Look at verse 54. Jesus has now been arrested. "They led Him away. They brought Him to the house of the high priest, and Peter was following at a distance." I think Peter goes back on his word. He said, "I'll go with you. I'll go to prison. I'll die with you." He is there, but at a distance. There is a group gathered around a fire — no CNN breaking news at that point, just the fire and people waiting to see what was going to happen.
Verse 56: "A certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the firelight, looked intently at him." She sees him across the fire. She gazes at him, and here is what she says: "This man was with Him too." That leads me to believe there was probably a discussion going on about Jesus, and now she spots one of His followers in the crowd. "He denied it, saying, 'Woman, I do not know Him.'" A little later, another saw him and said, "You are one of them too," and Peter said, "Man, I am not." After about an hour had passed, another man began to insist he was with Him: "He is a Galilean — his dialect gives him away." Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are talking about," and immediately, while he was still speaking, a cock crowed.
He had said, "I will go to prison. I will go to death with You." Jesus said, "Peter, you do not even understand — you will deny Me three times today before the cock crows." And then: "Man, I don't even know Him."
Eyeball to Eyeball
Verse 61. Luke tells us something the other gospel writers do not tell us, and I will say that I found myself swept away in the thought of this. All I can say is, imagine this, because I cannot begin to paint a verbal picture of what this moment must have been like. Here is what Luke tells us: "And the Lord turned and looked at Peter."
Imagine that. When the girls were small and I caught them in something, they would look down, and I would say, "Look at me. Look up here at me. I want to look you right in the eye." There is something about looking right into someone's eye. All of a sudden, here is Peter around the fire: "I don't know him, man." He looks up, and there is Jesus — eyeball to eyeball. I cannot fathom what that moment was like.
Yet I should be able to, because every time I sin, there is a sense in which I look Him eyeball to eyeball and say, "I never knew Him." What does Peter do? You get a sense of it. "He went out and wept bitterly." He is face-to-face with his sin.
I think there is something very healthy about this — something very healthy about knowing that you are capable of everything, up to and including the most hideous sin you can think of. There is Peter, who was so confident: "I'll die with You." Hours later: "I don't even know You."
Back to the Empty Tomb
Now back to John, because Mary has come and said the tomb is empty. Look at verse 3...
The Empty Tomb
They went forth, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together, and the other disciple ran faster than Peter and came to the tomb first. He stooped and looking in, saw the linen wrappings there, but he didn't go in.
Here is the scene: Mary comes and says to Peter and John, the tomb is empty, she has no clue where Jesus is, they have taken the body. And away they go. To me, maybe I read too much into it, but there is a little humor here.
Off they go running. John is the younger one and John gets to the tomb first. I will bet Peter was the first one out the door.
A Story About the Gym
I relate to this. It was about a year and a half ago I started working out. Some of you are new and you don't really know — it hasn't always been like this.
I remember my first day at the gym. Chuck Holmes had prepared me, because I met Chuck at the gym, and Chuck took me through and showed me one of these machines and some weights. So it was my first day on my own.
I got on the elliptical, just loosening up, and the thing comes on — push to begin, put in your weight, then choose a level. I thought, I don't know, it goes to 20, so 10 is a good level. It asked how long I wanted to do this, and I thought, 10 minutes.
So it said, begin your workout. I started, and it went to 9:59, and I'm moving along, and all of a sudden I started hurting, my mouth is watering, my stomach is gurgling, and I looked down — it said I had eight minutes and 32 seconds left. When I got to seven minutes, I just stopped it. My legs were shaking, and I thought, that wasn't very good.
I decided to do the weight circuit — the only one I knew, because that's all Chuck had shown me. Right before I get to the first station, a little girl, about this high, about a hundred pounds, gets there ahead of me. I thought, I'll let her go through, she'll fix the seat so it fits her, that'll fit me, and whatever weight she picks, that's the weight I'll do — I'll be embarrassed by how little it is, but whatever.
She gets done, I sit down, and then I'm driving home. It's a mile and a half from the gym to my house, and three times I had to stop. That's what I see when I picture this scene. Peter is running, there goes John — he's gone. Peter is doing all right, but then he has to stop for a little power bar and a Gatorade or something because he isn't going to make it. That's not in the text, but something like that.
Peter Enters the Tomb
John gets there first, and it seems to me, out of respect, he doesn't go in. Then here comes Peter. Verse 6: "Simon Peter therefore came, and he entered the tomb." He wasn't concerned about disturbing evidence — there he goes.
And he takes an inventory. He beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and John 20, verse 7: "the face cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up and put in a place by itself."
So the other disciple, who had come first to the tomb, entered also, and saw and believed. John seems to say that John at this moment believed, while Peter still hadn't gotten it. Why? "For as yet they didn't understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead." So the disciples went away again to their own homes. They just go. You can't even imagine what they were talking about, or thinking, or what was going on.
He Appears to Peter
It appears to Peter. Peter needed this. One author writes this about Peter: "In going to Peter, we understand that Peter had forsaken the Lord, but the Lord hadn't forsaken Peter. Christ did not appear to Peter because Peter deserved to see Him most, but perhaps because Peter needed to see Him most."
He Appears to the Disciples
Then He appears to the Twelve. Look at verse 19 of chapter 20: "When therefore it was evening on that day, the first day, the doors were shut where the disciples were, for the fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood in their midst."
They are gathered together, perhaps again in the room where they had celebrated the Passover, the Lord's Supper — we don't know for sure. The door is locked and bolted, they are there, they are afraid, and they are wondering: what does this mean? They killed Jesus. Will they kill us? Now the body is gone. What in the world is going to happen?
They are petrified, and Jesus appears to them and says, "Peace be with you." He shows them both His hands and His side, and the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
He appears not to the Twelve, because Judas is gone, but there is also another one missing — Thomas isn't there for this one. Thomas comes back and they say, we saw the risen Lord, and he said, there is no way. I will not believe unless I can put my finger in the hole in His hand and my hand in His side.
Thomas: My Lord and My God
A week later, Jesus appears. This time Thomas is there, and Jesus says, Thomas, here you go. And Thomas says, "My Lord and my God." That hurt all the way up here. My Lord and my God.
See, when you see the risen Christ, that is the only response you can have. The question is, have you seen the risen Christ? You are not going to see Him in a vision like they did. You are not going to see the glorified body until you get to heaven. But has God revealed to you through His Word the reality of the risen Christ? Because when He does, that is the only response you can have.
Paul's Appearance on the Road to Damascus
When Christ truly appears to you, there is only one response: "My Lord and my God." That is the only response you can have when you truly see Him for who He is.
After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to more than five hundred people at one time. We know little about this appearance beyond the fact that it happened, but Paul gives us important information about it. The most powerful witness you can have is an eyewitness, and Paul essentially says, "He appeared to five hundred at one time, and if you don't believe me, some have died, but most of them are still alive — go check it out."
Then He appears to James, who is probably the half-brother of Jesus. John tells us in John 7, verse 5, "For not even His brothers were believing in Him." We don't know the details of this appearance, but we know it happened, and we know that somewhere in that timeline James is converted. When he writes his letter, he identifies himself as "James, a bondservant, a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ."
This may be inference, but it is a strong argument for the deity and messiahship of Christ. For those of you who have had siblings, can you imagine ever considering your brother or sister God? Satan, maybe. Not God. That never occurred to me. Yet James comes to say, "My Lord and my God."
Paul: Last of All, Least of All
Paul concludes the list of resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15:8, writing, "And last of all, as it were, to one untimely born, He appeared to me." He continues: "I am the least of the apostles. I am not fit to be an apostle because I persecuted the church, but by the grace of God, I am what I am."
There are two ideas packed into the phrase "last of all." First, Paul is saying that the vision he received when Christ appeared to him was just as legitimate as the appearance to Peter, to the twelve, to the five hundred, and to James. It was a genuine, legitimate vision. Second, it was the last of all — this was it, the final appearance for the purposes of confirmation and apostleship.
Paul is unique among those who received these appearances in an important sense. The others encountered a post-resurrection Christ, but before the ascension. When Jesus appeared to Paul, He had already risen from the dead and ascended into heaven. Jesus appears to Paul three times in the book of Acts — in chapter 9, in chapter 18 verses 9 and 10, and in chapter 23.
The phrase "as to one untimely born" most likely refers to someone ill-timed, someone who came too late. Paul was too late to be one of the twelve. He may also be suggesting the hopelessness of life without divine intervention — he was ill-timed, but Christ came back to reach him anyway. In that sense, it applies to all of us.
The Foremost of Sinners
Paul is direct about his unworthiness. In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul writes to Timothy about himself: "It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all." If someone said that today, our culture would say we need to get that person into a setting where they could feel better about themselves.
We are obsessed with feeling good. There is a story about football commentator Pat Summerall asking John Madden what a struggling team needed to do at halftime, and Madden said they needed to come out and move the ball so they would feel good about themselves. No — they ought to move it to score. That is the problem with our cultural obsession with feeling good about ourselves.
What is there to feel good about when you have been a persecutor of the church, when you hate Christ and His people, when you sin blatantly? There is nothing to feel good about. There ought to be guilt, shame, remorse, and brokenness. I will never come to the good news that Christ died for me until I understand the bad news — that it was my sin He suffered for on the cross.
Grace That Reaches Every Sinner
My premise is straightforward, and I want to be clear about it. Unless your conversion is identical in nature to the Apostle Paul's, you have not been converted at all. The circumstances will obviously differ, but the substance must be the same: the radical heart change, the acknowledgment of sin, the brokenness over that sin, and the recognition of Christ for who He is.
As you read through the letters Paul wrote, one theme comes through unmistakably — he loved the church. He loved the people of the church. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he put in place the principles we still use to govern and structure the church today. Yet looking back, he says, "I can't believe it — I persecuted the church. How awful is that?"
One could argue there might even be a point where Paul wondered, "God, how can You even forgive me?" And the answer is this: there is no sin you can commit that separates you so far from God that His grace cannot reach you. Paul says it plainly — I am not fit to be an apostle because I persecuted the church, but by God's grace. It is all about Him.
At East Valley Bible Church, we preach a gospel that is different from the one the surrounding culture tends to offer. We preach a gospel that is all about God and not about man. God the Father determined —
Saved by Grace, Not by Merit
God the Son came and died on the cross for those who were God's elect. God the Holy Spirit comes and causes you to be born again. If you are a Christian today, it is not because you are smarter or because you figured it out.
I remember this from a very low point in my own life. I went to one of my friends and said, "I'm messed up. I need help." He said, "The answer is Jesus." And I said, "What else you got? Anybody else? Got any other ideas?" It was three months later when I heard "the answer is Jesus" again, and I fell on my knees and literally trembled and said, "God, save me."
What was the difference? I wasn't any different. The difference was that the Holy Spirit changed me by God's grace. If you are a Christian today, it is by God's grace.
What You Truly Need
If you are not a Christian today, here is what you need. You don't need to clean up your act. You don't need to start coming to church. You don't need to start reading this Word. All those things need to come, but what you need more than anything else is God's grace. You need to plead, "God, give me Your grace. Save me from my sin." That is the beginning of the Christian walk.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us see this truth. Help us understand that anything that is good in us is in us because of You. Apart from You, we can do nothing. With You, mighty things are done through us as we submit and obey and yield to You. God, we love You because You first loved us. Stir that love up in us. Break our hearts over our sin. And as we leave this building, God, let us understand the forgiveness and the grace and the love and the mercy that we experience because of You. God, we praise You and worship You and thank You. In Jesus' name, amen.