Sabbath: The Power of Christ’s Resurrection
Daily Lesson for Sabbath 15th of August 2026
Image © Pacific Press
Read for This Week’s Study
1 Corinthians 15:1-58; Luke 24:44-47; Revelation 20:5-6; Colossians 2:12; 2 Timothy 1:12; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17.
Memory Text:
“And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. . . . And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” (1 Corinthians 15:14-17, NKJV)_._
How fascinating that, even in his time, Paul had to deal with those who denied the resurrection of the dead. After all, people back then saw what death did to the human body. They knew how the corpse liquifies, then dries up into dust, and then becomes almost nothing. And they knew that people have been dead for a long time, too. In fact, most people have been dead a lot longer than they were alive.
The resurrection of the dead seemed no more plausible to them back then than it does to us now, at least from a human standpoint. And that must have been an issue that Paul was addressing.
And it was crucial, too. If Jesus is not risen, He is not who He said He was, the Cross had no effect, and our sins have not been paid for. Despair is really all we would have remaining. But our Lord is risen, ascended into heaven, and will return to take us home!
This week we will focus on 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 and its teaching on the resurrection of Christ. Influenced by the surrounding pagan worldview, some in Corinth were saying that there is no resurrection. In response, Paul affirms the resurrection of Christ as our only hope of salvation.
In our modern world we struggle to prove that Jesus rose from the grave. I have read the book “Who moved the Stone?” and saw the film, “The Case for Christ” and while both provide credible arguments, it remains a pretty hard task to convince a non-believer. My comment to the family after we saw the film was that it was a good film for believers. That is not a criticism of the film but rather a comment on the way human minds work. To be fair, I have also read Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln’s, “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”, with its account of Jesus and Mary Magdalene moving to France and starting a line of descendants that still exists today. That account is a classic examples of cherry-picking the bits and pieces that support their story and ignoring the rest.
My point is that in a secular and skeptical world, any talk of a resurrection, a supernatural event, is going to be disbelieved and derided. We face the problem of starting with two different axioms and as we mentioned some time back, when two groups have different axioms, it is rare for those who hold them to change sides. What then, is our most effective argument?
The most effective witness for the truth of the resurrection is a life spirit-filled life reflecting the self-sacrificing love of the Jesus. Our lives should be a loud trumpet, persistently declaring the truth of the resurrection.
Interestingly, “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” was the basis for the fictional novel “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. The authors of “Holy Blood” sued Dan Brown for plagiarism, only to lose the case. They were forced to either claim their literature being fictional in which they can claim damages from Dan Brown but loses all their credibility , or claim their literature is historical to which cannot claim damages from Dan but retain their ‘credibility’. They chose the latter.
Either way, “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” is erroneous and nothing but a fictional controversy designed to shakes the foundations of Christianity. So far, it failed to do so.
Another work related to the issue of natural explanations is Barbara Thiering’s work, which has a similar explanation but the reasoning is quite different. It did create a bit of a stir at the time of publication but was largely debunked as a fabrication by most scholars.
Just as an aside, Thiering did her work at the University of Sydney and published it in 1992. That same year I commenced my PhD at the same university. And, no I did not meet her. The Department of Computer Science is a long way from the Theology Department and the University of Sydney had a student population of 30,000 at the time.
The interesting thing is that most people do believe in life after death. You don’t have to spend that much time around them to realize that, especially if someone you know dies. There are some very committed atheists who believe this life is all you have, but a lot of secular people believe that life carries on.
Two examples from my experience with two colleagues.
– The first had an upbringing in the Lutheran church but since adulthood has not been interested in Christian things and declares herself “spiritual but not religious”. Yesterday we were talking about a former principal who passed away. I was not able to attend the service and she said “Wherever he is, he noticed you weren’t there”
– My second colleague friend declared herself an atheist very early on when I first met her, though I did see some signs that that might be cracking. However, she is definitely not religous, though she respects me. Despite being an atheist, she told me last year she is “ghost chasing” as a hobby and visiting schools that are supposedly haunted.
These are both educated people but they definitely believe in life after death in some way. And I think the majority of people around me in Canada where I live have similar sorts of beliefs. Maybe the resurrection is not something that is completely inaccessible.
Thank you for that interesting observation, Christina. I see it as relevant to 1 Cor. 15:29, where Paul apparently refers to baptism on behalf of the dead as evidence of belief in a resurrection. (That is one interpretation, but I don’t think it’s the only viable one.) The writings of the early church fathers attest that such a practice was ongoing in their day, although there is no direct evidence that it occurred in Paul’s day. So I favor a different intepretation.
The whole Christian faith hangs on one episode. It is not God creating the heavens and the earth. It is not Jesus coming and dying for our sins. It is Jesus rising to life from the grave. The event of Jesus coming back to life from the tomb is what gives our faith genuine meaning and purpose. The power that overcame death and brought Jesus forth from the grave, “the power of his resurrection.” (Philippians 3:10). This is the power of God which will also call us into life. This very event, powerfully proclaim Jesus to be the Son of God. This very episode profoundly declares that Jesus has power to conquer and forgive sin. On this premise there is hope beyond the grave. Knowing that eternal glory awaits us, we look at our current tribulations as small and temporary.
“For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (2 Corinthians 4:17, NLT).
What possibly gave Job the audacity to remain strong regardless of what he went through? He knew “the power of his resurrection”.
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!” (Job 19:25-27, NLT).
Job’s declaration is profoundly important to all those who are going through terrible pain to the point of death not to give up.
“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” (Romans 8:11, NIV).
Hi people I think a great starting point for our daily resurrection and our vision to spiritually redirect others is insight into our own ignorance. Emily Dickinson illustrates this well in this poem…..we learned the whole of love…the alphabet…the words…a chapter….then the mighty book…then … revelation closed…but in each others eyes an ignorance beheld…diviner than the childhoods…and each to each a child… attempted to expound what neither… understood…alas that wisdom is so large…and truth…so manifold! Blessings people.reneanne Anderson.
A knowledge of Jesus rightly understood leads not merely to changed emotions and affections, but to a transformed life through the power of His resurrection. When we truly encounter the risen Christ, we are not left arrogant, critical, or feeling superior to others; instead, the resurrection humbles us and awakens within us a deeper hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus declared, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6), because the risen Christ continually draws us toward more of God. Paul reminds us that Christ “became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). The power of the resurrection, therefore, is not simply the power that raised Jesus from the grave—it is the power that raises us from spiritual pride, self-righteousness, and indifference into a new life of holiness, humility, love, and an ever-deepening desire for God.
The entirety of Christianity rises or falls on the veracity of the resurrection of Jesus. Paul excellently summarizes the conumdrum in 1 Cor. 15:14-17. In short, there is no power in a dead Savior. The resurrection sets Jesus apart from other holy men who have lived and died and are in their tombs. The fact of the resurrection changed the disciples into fearless witnesses for Christ. All except John died martyrs deaths. No one is going to die for a fable, a man made myth that they know isn’t true.
The truth of the matter is this, “Muhammad is still in his grave. Buddha is still in his grave. Confucius is still in his grave. But Jesus is alive, he rose from the dead—and He offers that same eternal life to anyone who will believe. He said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” That’s not being narrow-minded—that’s being realistic that there’s only one person in history that has conquered death. Jesus is the only way to Heaven.
There are over 4,200 world religions but only one has an empty tomb. Only one Man in all of history claimed to be God, died for the sins of the world, and then proved it by rising from the dead. His name is Jesus. He didn’t come to start a religion—He came so that people could have a relationship with the God that created them. He conquered sin, death, and hell and made a way for us to be with Him in Heaven forever.”
That my friends is the power of the resurrection.
Amen brother Tim.Boy that was like listening to a powerful sermon.
Brother Tim, exactly. 👍
Thanks for a brief, concise points. Praise be to God.
I much appreciate Omwenga’s comment. It highlights the importance of having a good understanding of the spiritual things regarding our faith. Based on his comment, I want to pose a few questions:
What is the Power of His Resurrection that overcomes death?
What is the Power that caused Jesus to rise from the grave?
What is that which made Jesus to be the Son of God?
I think it important to properly understand the answers to these questions. Should we not be fully informed what or who causes us to be able to have life in this body and to be raised from the dead?
Omwenga included Rom.8:11 which points out – ‘the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead and is living in us, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in us.’
We learned about God’s Spirit and His Love to be synonymous in the previous lessons. Jesus, expressing the Father’s Love to us, trusting the Father unconditionally, gave His life that we can live. This selfsame – exactly identical – Spirit which filled Jesus Christ resides in us wanting to fill us with the Father’s Love – Luke 22:42.
The question then becomes: “How much of His Love do we allow Him to manifest within us since Love is essential for our resurrection?”
At that time, Lazarus’s resurrection must have been noticed by many people. If his resurrection occurred, why couldn’t Jesus’s? We have the same choice as those back in Jesus’s time: we can choose to believe or not.
Without the blessed hope, we would be miserable. The hope of the resurrection keeps us sane when we lose our loved ones, when disaster strikes and there is nothing left in this world to hold on too. The hope of the resurrection keeps us sane. Without that hope life would have no purpose.
Resurrection! Forever young! Ellen g. To thee.. Christ’s object lessons…things new and old..in those who possess it the religion of Christ will reveal itself as a totalizing principle..a living working spiritual energy. There will be manifest freshness and power and joyousness of perpetual youth. Blessings all. Reneanne Anderson.