Do You Believe?

Jesus, the professed Son of God, died.

He then rose from death within three days.

This Jesus now reigns alongside God the Father in heaven.

If we believe all of this and live according to God’s will, we will one day reign with Christ. We will live eternally with God the Father and the Lord Jesus in paradise.

This is what followers of Christ are to believe. After writing to the Church at Corinth about division, sexual immorality, and more, the Apostle Paul shifts gears in his letter. He reminds them of what was initially preached to them. 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 reads, “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.”

Paul writes that after Christ’s death, Christ was also seen by five hundred people at one time, the remaining apostles, James, and himself. The entire basis of their and our faith is whether Christ rose. But apparently, some Corinthians did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. To their unbelief, Paul responded this in verse 14:

“If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.”

We need to remember that Paul wrote to confessed believers. Some of these believers doubted the resurrection of the dead, yet they were in the church. I wonder how many confessed believers today are just like those Corinthians—do confessed believers within the church truly believe that Christ died and rose from the dead?

I fear that some of us don’t really believe. Some of us say we believe because we are expected to believe. Some of us don’t want to be shunned by family, friends, or the church for not truly believing or understanding. Therefore, some confess with their mouths, but their hearts may doubt. Some confess Jesus as Lord without ever truly believing that He died for our sins—let alone rose from death.

Others don’t completely understand why Christ’s death was needed in the first place. They hear that it’s because of sin, but they don’t quite comprehend why Christ had to die for our sins. They may not know that the Old Testament perfectly illustrates how holy God is and that even naturally occurring things like a woman’s cycle or a skin disease like leprosy are viewed as unclean in the eyesight of our Holy Father. Therefore, we were bound to be continuously unclean and unholy if we did not keep the law.

The law consisted of animal sacrifices because the blood of the living is required if we sin before this Most Holy God. Death is required for sins—it is the penalty for failing to be holy in the presence of holiness. So, animals were continuously sacrificed to the Lord instead of us. Yet, no one besides Christ was able to keep the Law. And since we cannot keep the Law, death should be our penalty.

We needed a way to be right with God, a way to wash away our uncleanness and sins. Therefore, God gave us Christ, who died for our unholiness and our failure to maintain holiness through the perfect law. But He rose so that He might again take up the glory He had with the Father before the world began. No one could have saved humanity from death but Jesus. We needed the divine, the Son of God, to step in for this sinful, fallen world and praise God that He did… but some of the Corinthians did not believe that Christ rose.

I am posing this question to you: Do you believe that Jesus Christ existed and that He was the Son of God? Do you believe He died and rose again? If not, then there is no point in being a Christian. If not, your faith is in vain.

But I do not think you should feel shame if you struggle with understanding or believing. I believe some do not believe because they do not understand. Prayer is always fitting for those who may find themselves in this scenario. Ask the Lord to help you understand if you do not understand. May He lead you to scripture and the right people to bring you unto Himself. Ask the Lord to help your unbelief if you do not believe. God is able to help us understand the need for salvation. He is able to help us believe in Him.

Once we believe, we understand, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, that our belief is not in vain. We are fully persuaded that although sin entered the world through Adam, we enter salvation through Christ. We believe our current corruptible bodies will put on incorruption—we will no longer perish but have immortality. We will be changed at the sound of the last trumpet, and death will finally be defeated.

We will reign with Christ, and what a glorious happily ever after it will be. We do not believe that our faith is in vain. We believe and know that our labor will not be in vain if we remain steadfast, immovable, and abound in the work of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58). We hold fast to our belief in the resurrected Christ and our future with Him…

But if you are unsure, if you think your faith is in vain, or if you have no faith at all, may God reveal truth to you. Ask Him to make it plain to you, and I know that He will. Ask, seek, knock, and it will be given unto you (Matthew 7:7). Often, the church thinks this type of struggle of faith is only for the outside world, but Paul’s letter was written to believers in the church.

Cast all your worries unto God… even if they are worries about your lack of belief. If God can resurrect Christ from the dead, certainly He can resurrect our faith if need be. May this message encourage you, may 1 Corinthians 15 edify you, and may God bless you and keep you.

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