The following is the insert provided with Warren’s videos. It will provide an outline for the third video which will be available on You Tube soon.

The following is the insert provided with Warren’s videos. It will provide an outline for the third video which will be available on You Tube soon.

Video #3 The Easter Hope

Reading: I Cor 15:35-58

(1)Death is “the last enemy” (v. 26). It is the pall that overhangs our lives (Isa. 25:7). Fear of death holds us prisioner (Heb 2:15). It is an enemy, not a friend. It calls in question the whole meaning of life (1Cor 15:32). It stands in the way of God’s kingdom (1Cor 15:50). But God has the answer (Isa. 25:7-8)!

(2) The only answer to death is God’s answer: resurrection (vv. I6-I8) not the survival of the human soul. This latter idea:

Makes no sense, human beings are whole persons, psycho-somatic units (1Cor. 6:15).
Is untrue, for we are “dust” (1Cor. 15:22, 47, 49). Death is cessation and silence (Ps 115:17, Eccles 9:10, Job 3:17). We must be realistic about death, in order to be wise (Ps 90:12) and put our hope entirely in God.
Is a delusion, pointing us to ourselves, not God (Psa. 39:4-7, 2Cor. 1:9).

(3) Resurrection is the true answer, God’s answer, to death (v. 22):

It makes sense. It means the whole person, in a new, glorified and immortal existence: “a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:42-49), not “being found naked” (2Cor. 5:2-4).
It is feasible. See John Hick, Death and Eternal Life, Collins, Glasgow, ch 14-15. Consider, first, the knowledge power and faithfulness of God (Psa. 139:13-16; Luke 20:27-40). Consider, second, analogies in nature (1Cor. 15:35-41).
It is a fact. “Christ has been raised” already (1Cor. 15:20, 3-11). The Easter fact is the whole basis of the true Christian understanding of future hope and judgement (Acts 17:30-31).
It is God centred. The resurrection faith is true faith (Rom. 4:17).
(4) The key to resurrection and immortality is Jesus Christ. It is He who has already been raised. He is the life-giver (vv. 45, 48). And it is at His personal return that we will be raised (v. 23) and death itself will be destroyed (v. 26). Now our nature is mortal (vv 46-49), but then it will be “changed” (v. 52) and Isa. 25:6-8 will be fulfilled (1Cor. 15:54).

Our real problem, the “Sting of death” (v56), is sin. It is not just that we die, but that we deserve to (Rom. 1:32). But here, too, Christ is the key, for He has died in our place.

“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory” (v. 57).