Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 194, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1912 — The Denial of Christ’s Resurrection and Its Results [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Denial of Christ’s Resurrection and Its Results

By Rev. William Evans,D.D.,

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TEXT—I Cor. 16:14-18, 28-82—“ And If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also rain. Tea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ; whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then Is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith Is vain; ye are yet in your sins.”

In the last address on this subject we saw that the denial of Christ’s rea-

urrection made our prea<Alng vain, our faith vain, and left us still In our sins. We now proceed to set forth some further results of such denial. IV. If Christ be not risen from the dead then we are found falee wltneaeee. " v;. ■■' The word “found” means to be detected or dfs-

covered in the prepetratlon of m fraud. It Is a word used for judgments regarding moral character and conduct; -and conveys the idea of discovering and detecting forgery and falsity. In using this word, the apostle would say that in proclaiming to the Corinthians the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ, he and the other apostles had been guilty of perpetrating fraud upon them. If Christ be not risen, then the apostles are false witnesses; not witnesses deluded, mistaken, deceived, the victims of an hallucination, which was the result of an over-wrought brain and imagination, but false witnesses. Deluded! say tbe apostle, we cannot be; victims of an over-wrought imagination, innocent but deceived enthusiasts —all this im impossible, we are down-right deceivers; we have willingly, knowingly perpetrated e fraud upon the church in claiming that Christ rose from the dead; we are down-right deceivers. The strange thing about the apostle’s statement la that the idea of delusion or hallucination is wholly absent from his argument. It does not seem to have occurred to him to mention it. Even the possibility of it is too remote to be spoken of. To tbe apostle, the resurrection of Christ is a truth or a falsehood, a reality of a fraud, a thing of sincerity or of deceit, a fact or a mistake. There is no loophole of escape—the resurrection is either a fact or a falsehood, a reality or a sham, and such persons as the apostles were guilty of perpetrating it. Paul feels that the stigma of falsehood has been put upon him. He feels that he has been stung by an insult. Somebody has not believed him—has made him out to be a liar. His testimony in effect is this: I have sees the risen Christ; I have talked witlfc him;' I have received my commission from him. To challenge my statement is to challenge my character, my veracity, my understanding, my resson. * V. If Christ be not risen from ths dead then we have no God who is worthy of our trust To attribute to a person a good pr glorious act, which it is well knows that he never performed, Is to cause that person to be suspected of having prompted tbe false assertion. So the testimony of the apostle would lead men to think that God had inspired men to tell Res about him. Many think that they can still havs faith in God, that they still have left a God whom they can trust and In whom they can repose their faith, even though they do not accept ths resurrection of Jesus Christ. The apostle says plainly, This is not so; if we have no risen Christ, neither have we a God in whom we can trust. Note the serious point here. “Paul preached God, he commended God, and the justice of God as shown in raising his holy son from the dead. But if Jesus Christ is not risen from the dead, then we have no such God. If one like Jesus Christ is still left dead, if one be so good as Jesus was and still be deprived of life, what kind of a God have we? 'We have no God In whom we can trust; it is no use trying to be good. Tbe end is a skull and a few ashes. ‘We have testified of God,” says Paul, ‘we have justified God, but we are found false witnesses of him If Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead. Have yon considered what that point means? The modern man often assumes that he is already In possession of a God with a reliable character, whatever yon make of .Jesus Christ But there is something in the career and in the issue of the career of Jesus Christ that makes a good God In this tragic world incredible unless Christ be risen from the dead. Jesus went through the worst sufferings that any man ever suffered. He sounded the depths of the world’s tragedy. Now If he has been raised