The Resurrection of Jesus
1 Corinthians 15
|
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. |
Over the last few weeks I’ve been studying up for our evening series on World Religions. One of the things that caught my attention was what I read about Siddhartha Gautama. Gautama is known as the founder of Buddhism. He was the Buddha. He was one who had supposedly become enlightened. That’s what a Buddha is; he is the enlightened one.
In other words, he was supposed to have reached the highest point of human existence. He attained to nirvana, which was the point of having escaped the cycle of birth and rebirth. And he did that by overcoming suffering. The whole goal of Buddhism is to escape sorrow and suffering. Suffering is supposed to be the main problem of humanity, according to them. And he was supposed to have been one who overcame it.
But there’s one thing I read about this Buddha that was quite interesting. 40 years after his having become enlightened something happened. When he was about 80 years old, we are told that he laid down. In that position he drew his last breaths. He uttered his last words, and he died.
What’s even more interesting is the way he passed away. Sources say that Siddhartha Gautama died of dysentery.
I find it very interesting that this, so called, enlightened one, who overcame sorrow and dis-ease, ended up dying. And not only did he die, but he died in a rather horrible way.
I can’t help but think that this Buddha, for all his enlightenment, still could not escape the difficulties of sorrow and suffering. Despite his claims to his gaining salvation and freedom from pain, he certainly didn’t go out in the most pleasant of ways.
I found this to be interesting, especially as this past week my mind has been filled with thoughts about the one who people regard as the founder of the Christian faith. All these concepts of death, sorrow, suffering, and salvation are floating around in my brain, and here we come to think about Jesus Christ and his resurrection.
What a difference there is. What a radical juxtaposition. The Buddha claims salvation, but dies in agony. Jesus Christ dies in agony, but he brings salvation. And he proves it --he guarantees it by virtue of his resurrection. In his resurrection, Jesus brings about the end of suffering. In his resurrection Jesus puts a terminus on sorrow.
That is why the resurrection of Christ is the premier event of history. It is the most monumental act that has ever occurred. And, most of all, it is the central point of our faith. It is the capstone of all that we believe. Because it is the declaration of life and salvation to all who belong to Christ.
That’s really what Paul wanted to drill home in this passage that we read. You see the Corinthians didn’t quite understand what the resurrection was all about. They were still very much caught up in their Greek culture, which said that there’s no such thing as a resurrection. The Greeks looked forward to an afterlife, much like the Buddhists do. And like the Buddhists, they believed we needed to escape the body. The Greeks thought the human body was a prison-house for the soul. And salvation to them was the experience of death where you would be free from the body.
So Paul needed to clarify all this for them. And so he pens this chapter on the resurrection. And in doing so he helps us to understand what our salvation is all about.
In order to do that Paul first talks about the centrality of Jesus’s resurrection.
I. The centrality of Jesus’ resurrection [1-4]
You’ll notice what he says there in verses 1-4. Paul says “I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you.” I want you to recall the good news. What is the good news? The gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day.
You know what Paul is saying there? He’s essentially saying you cannot have the gospel without Christ coming to life again. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, there is no good news. If Jesus just died on a cross and was buried, there would be nothing that separates him from the Buddha. He would be no different than any other human being. He would just be another dead guy taking up space in the earth.
So, if you want to have good news, you have to have life.
And this is why Paul says it was all in accordance with the Scripture. All through the Old Testament God’s people had been looking forward to the life that he would bring. God had promised an eternal kingdom. But everywhere you go people are dying. There’s blood being shed and there are corpses everywhere. Death marks every page. So how could this eternal kingdom come about?
Well, the only way death could be dealt with is if someone overcame it. And that’s what the Scripture foretold. Someone would overcome death. Someone would die to take upon himself that curse. He would shed his blood, but that death would not have dominion over him. He’d bring that eternal kingdom into being by overpowering death.
That’s why Paul could preach good news. That is the good news. There is life. There is salvation. There is hope in the face of death because Jesus rose again.
So that’s where Paul begins. He begins with the centrality of Christ’s resurrection. But you’ll notice that he immediately moves on to talk about the veracity of it.
II. The veracity of Christ’s resurrection [5-8]
You can imagine the Corinthians’ reaction. Yeah right, Paul. We all know that people don’t come back from the dead.
Paul knew that these Corinthians might not believe him. So what he does is point to others who could confirm it. How do we know that Jesus rose again? How do we know that it’s true? Its because it was a public event that many other people witnessed.
Just look at verses 5-8. Paul points says that this wasn’t done in a corner or in some out of the way place. First, he mentions how Jesus appeared to Cephas (who we know is the Apostle Peter) an then to the 12 disciples. But then he goes on in verse 6 to say that after that, he appeared to more than 500 people, most of whom (he says) are still living.
Now, if this had been confined to the 12 apostles, we might have had some reason to be suspicious, right? We could understand why his closest associates might make up a story about him being resurrected. But Paul says that this was not limited to some elite few. Jesus appeared to a whole host of people. There were over 500 people.
Paul is basically saying, “Hey, if you don’t believe me, you can go and check it out for yourself. You can go and talk to them about it if you want. Most of them are still alive.”
This continues to be a great confirmation for us as believers too. There are people who want to dissuade us from believing in the resurrection and they have tried to explain it away with all kinds of wild theories. One of the things that they have tried to say is that the resurrection appearances were nothing more than hallucinations of a bunch of people who were in hysterics.
The rationale goes like this: The followers of Jesus had just lost their dear Lord; they really loved him, and they were hit with a lot of grief. The emotions were running high, and you know how people get when they are emotional. And maybe through their high hopes or through the power of suggestion, they ended up having a vision. In their delirium, they ended up believing that Jesus rose again.
Now, of course, the problem with that is that such a theory is completely untenable. It is a foolish thing to postulate. We know that people do not have the exact same hallucinations. Certainly more than 500 people do not have the same hallucination all at different times and in different places. It is scientifically impossible.
What’s more, if this were true that people were being duped by a hallucination, it would be easy to shut it all down. If Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, his body would still be in the tomb. So all you’d have to do in order to put an end to the rumors was exhume the body and say, “See, here he is. He didn’t rise from the dead. His body is right here.”
This is not like Joseph Smith’s golden plates. That’s one of the biggest ways we know that mormonism isn’t true. Joseph Smith was said to have received his revelation which became the basis of the Book of Mormon on golden plates. And these golden plates were supposed to have been seen by 10 or 11 other people.
Now, you wonder why people have a hard time believing that. It’s a little suspect. And why is that? It’s because your base of witnesses is rather slim for such a magnificent claim. There are a lot of other things that go into questioning the Mormon religion. But you understand that just the very text of Mormonism is based on a couple people who say, “I seen em once.”
That’s not what you have with the resurrection of Jesus. You have hundreds and hundreds of people who did not just see him once, but saw him multiple times. They sat with him, they ate with him, they listened to him, they talked with him.
So Paul’s point regards the historicity of the resurrection. He says there’s no reason to doubt the resurrection of our Lord. It is Scriptural. It is factual. It is historical. It is central to what we believe.
But notice where Paul goes next. After pointing out its centrality and veracity, he details the efficacy of Christ’s resurrection.
We know it is important. We know that it happened. But what effect does it have?
III. The efficacy of it [12-26]
Paul lays all that out in verses 12-26. There’s a lot that is covered in these verses, but Paul really has one main point. It’s that we are going to be resurrected. Since Jesus has risen from the grave, we who are united to him will be raised to new life too.
Look at verse 12. Paul asks a rhetorical question. He says, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” You see what he’s saying? He’s saying that our resurrection is directly linked to Christ’s resurrection.
And the reason he says this is, again, because a lot of Corinthians were trapped in that Greek mindset. They didn’t believe in a resurrection.
That’s why Paul goes on to elaborate on the nature of salvation through these verses. He is driving home the point that this is what salvation is all about. Salvation is God’s having saved us from sin and death.
Look at verse 20. Paul says, “But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
What’s Paul saying there? He’s saying that salvation isn’t a running away from our bodies. Salvation is the restoration of our bodies.
That’s the effect that Christ’s resurrection has. He guarantees that all of his people (past, present, and future) will also be saved in body and soul. All of us will enjoy a glorified state.
Which leads us to the last point that the Apostle makes. It is not enough for Paul to talk about the centrality, veracity, and efficacy Jesus’s resurrection. He goes one step further to show us the potency of the resurrection.
IV. The potency of it [35-49]
When I say the potency of it, I mean the power of it. Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t just raise us up. It transforms us. The resurrection of Jesus is so potent that it causes a radical change in our nature when we are resurrected.
Down in verses 35f Paul talks about what kind of body we will have at the resurrection. That’s what makes this chapter so great. Paul doesn’t just say we are going to be saved and take part in the resurrection, he talks about what kind of body we will have when we are resurrected.
In verse 37 he compares it to planting a seed. He says, “What is sown, is not the body that will be.”
When you put a seed in the ground, it comes up as a plant. It doesn’t look exactly the same as when you put it in the ground to begin with. You have all the same properties. It’s not a different seed or a different plant. But it does look a lot different. It looks a lot better.
That’s the power that the resurrection of Christ has upon us. It not only raises our bodies, but it advances our nature. There’s going to be a change that occurs. Our bodies are going to experience something of an upgrade. It will be a rebooting into the 2.0 version.
That’s the point of verses 39f. These verses are really interesting because he tries to tell us a little about these glorified bodies.
The first thing he says is that our bodies will be heavenly in nature. He says in verse 40, “There are earthly bodies and heavenly bodies.” Later on (in verse 44-45), he compares the “natural body” and the “spiritual body.”
And the point is that at the resurrection, our body is going to be fit for our eternal dwelling. We currently have a body that is fit for this realm. But when the resurrection comes, we are going to undergo a transformation. Our body will renewed and restored. And it is going to be suited for the new world in which we will live.
The second thing he says is that our bodies will be immortal. Look at verse 42. He says, “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.”
In other words, this will be a body that cannot die. It will not be able to go through the aging process like we currently do. We will get older, but we will not age. We will have birthdays (lots of birthdays), but we will never experience wrinkles, or sore knees, or anything like that. It will be the fountain of youth because we’ll never see the effects of death.
Along with the spirituality and the immortality of our bodies, we will have profound beauty.
In verse 43 he says “what is sown in dishonor will be raised in glory.”
We know that our bodies have various defects and problems. We all have various things that we are ashamed of. It might be some odd looking toes or something much more severe.
A couple of us were talking last week about people who have gone through gender transitioning and then been converted. There’s so much damage done to the body in all that. But the good news is that the body will be raised in glory. All that sin has touched will be restored and made new.
So there is going to be a restoration of the body’s honor which will give it a new dignity. There’s going to be wholeness and beauty like we’ve not witnessed on this earth.
The last thing Paul mentions is that there will be a new vigor. He says, “What is sown in weakness will be raised with power.”
Last week we talked about the helmet of salvation and the restoration of our minds. We might see that reflected here again. Our minds will have an incredible capacity to operate once we are resurrected. Our bodies will have a nimbleness which gives it a greater ability to serve. We’ll probably still need to rest, but we probably won’t get run down like we do now. There’s going to be vigor that we’ve probably never experienced or long forgotten.
Obviously, Paul is speaking with some degree of vagueness. Again, it might be that he cannot fully express what its going to be like. But we get a sense of what’s going to happen. At the very least, we catch a glimpse. We get a glimpse of what we will be and what kind of potency Christ's resurrection will exert.
Christ’s resurrection does not just guarantee our own resurrection, it ensures that our resurrection is much greater than what we are now.
Conclusion
So we come back to the Buddha. Siddhartha Gautama understood that life is not what it is supposed to be. He understood that suffering is very much part and parcel with this life. We can all agree that there’s a lot of suffering and sorrow in this world. And we can all agree that we’d love to be rid of it.
Unfortunately, Buddha wasn’t able to rid himself of it. No matter how enlightened he was, he was still susceptible to death and dysentery.
But here in Christ we find the remedy. Here in Christ we find the promise of a new life; a life that promises the eradication of pain and suffering. In Christ we have the good news of an eternal kingdom, free from all the trappings that sin has caused.
And that’s the real point. It is salvation, not just from suffering. The salvation that Christ affords is from the problem that is deeper than our physical woes. Jesus provides a moral salvation. He brings salvation from sin, which is at the root all our suffering.
As Paul says “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In other words, he was supposed to have reached the highest point of human existence. He attained to nirvana, which was the point of having escaped the cycle of birth and rebirth. And he did that by overcoming suffering. The whole goal of Buddhism is to escape sorrow and suffering. Suffering is supposed to be the main problem of humanity, according to them. And he was supposed to have been one who overcame it.
But there’s one thing I read about this Buddha that was quite interesting. 40 years after his having become enlightened something happened. When he was about 80 years old, we are told that he laid down. In that position he drew his last breaths. He uttered his last words, and he died.
What’s even more interesting is the way he passed away. Sources say that Siddhartha Gautama died of dysentery.
I find it very interesting that this, so called, enlightened one, who overcame sorrow and dis-ease, ended up dying. And not only did he die, but he died in a rather horrible way.
I can’t help but think that this Buddha, for all his enlightenment, still could not escape the difficulties of sorrow and suffering. Despite his claims to his gaining salvation and freedom from pain, he certainly didn’t go out in the most pleasant of ways.
I found this to be interesting, especially as this past week my mind has been filled with thoughts about the one who people regard as the founder of the Christian faith. All these concepts of death, sorrow, suffering, and salvation are floating around in my brain, and here we come to think about Jesus Christ and his resurrection.
What a difference there is. What a radical juxtaposition. The Buddha claims salvation, but dies in agony. Jesus Christ dies in agony, but he brings salvation. And he proves it --he guarantees it by virtue of his resurrection. In his resurrection, Jesus brings about the end of suffering. In his resurrection Jesus puts a terminus on sorrow.
That is why the resurrection of Christ is the premier event of history. It is the most monumental act that has ever occurred. And, most of all, it is the central point of our faith. It is the capstone of all that we believe. Because it is the declaration of life and salvation to all who belong to Christ.
That’s really what Paul wanted to drill home in this passage that we read. You see the Corinthians didn’t quite understand what the resurrection was all about. They were still very much caught up in their Greek culture, which said that there’s no such thing as a resurrection. The Greeks looked forward to an afterlife, much like the Buddhists do. And like the Buddhists, they believed we needed to escape the body. The Greeks thought the human body was a prison-house for the soul. And salvation to them was the experience of death where you would be free from the body.
So Paul needed to clarify all this for them. And so he pens this chapter on the resurrection. And in doing so he helps us to understand what our salvation is all about.
In order to do that Paul first talks about the centrality of Jesus’s resurrection.
I. The centrality of Jesus’ resurrection [1-4]
You’ll notice what he says there in verses 1-4. Paul says “I want to remind you of the gospel that I preached to you.” I want you to recall the good news. What is the good news? The gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, he was buried, and he rose again on the third day.
You know what Paul is saying there? He’s essentially saying you cannot have the gospel without Christ coming to life again. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, there is no good news. If Jesus just died on a cross and was buried, there would be nothing that separates him from the Buddha. He would be no different than any other human being. He would just be another dead guy taking up space in the earth.
So, if you want to have good news, you have to have life.
And this is why Paul says it was all in accordance with the Scripture. All through the Old Testament God’s people had been looking forward to the life that he would bring. God had promised an eternal kingdom. But everywhere you go people are dying. There’s blood being shed and there are corpses everywhere. Death marks every page. So how could this eternal kingdom come about?
Well, the only way death could be dealt with is if someone overcame it. And that’s what the Scripture foretold. Someone would overcome death. Someone would die to take upon himself that curse. He would shed his blood, but that death would not have dominion over him. He’d bring that eternal kingdom into being by overpowering death.
That’s why Paul could preach good news. That is the good news. There is life. There is salvation. There is hope in the face of death because Jesus rose again.
So that’s where Paul begins. He begins with the centrality of Christ’s resurrection. But you’ll notice that he immediately moves on to talk about the veracity of it.
II. The veracity of Christ’s resurrection [5-8]
You can imagine the Corinthians’ reaction. Yeah right, Paul. We all know that people don’t come back from the dead.
Paul knew that these Corinthians might not believe him. So what he does is point to others who could confirm it. How do we know that Jesus rose again? How do we know that it’s true? Its because it was a public event that many other people witnessed.
Just look at verses 5-8. Paul points says that this wasn’t done in a corner or in some out of the way place. First, he mentions how Jesus appeared to Cephas (who we know is the Apostle Peter) an then to the 12 disciples. But then he goes on in verse 6 to say that after that, he appeared to more than 500 people, most of whom (he says) are still living.
Now, if this had been confined to the 12 apostles, we might have had some reason to be suspicious, right? We could understand why his closest associates might make up a story about him being resurrected. But Paul says that this was not limited to some elite few. Jesus appeared to a whole host of people. There were over 500 people.
Paul is basically saying, “Hey, if you don’t believe me, you can go and check it out for yourself. You can go and talk to them about it if you want. Most of them are still alive.”
This continues to be a great confirmation for us as believers too. There are people who want to dissuade us from believing in the resurrection and they have tried to explain it away with all kinds of wild theories. One of the things that they have tried to say is that the resurrection appearances were nothing more than hallucinations of a bunch of people who were in hysterics.
The rationale goes like this: The followers of Jesus had just lost their dear Lord; they really loved him, and they were hit with a lot of grief. The emotions were running high, and you know how people get when they are emotional. And maybe through their high hopes or through the power of suggestion, they ended up having a vision. In their delirium, they ended up believing that Jesus rose again.
Now, of course, the problem with that is that such a theory is completely untenable. It is a foolish thing to postulate. We know that people do not have the exact same hallucinations. Certainly more than 500 people do not have the same hallucination all at different times and in different places. It is scientifically impossible.
What’s more, if this were true that people were being duped by a hallucination, it would be easy to shut it all down. If Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, his body would still be in the tomb. So all you’d have to do in order to put an end to the rumors was exhume the body and say, “See, here he is. He didn’t rise from the dead. His body is right here.”
This is not like Joseph Smith’s golden plates. That’s one of the biggest ways we know that mormonism isn’t true. Joseph Smith was said to have received his revelation which became the basis of the Book of Mormon on golden plates. And these golden plates were supposed to have been seen by 10 or 11 other people.
Now, you wonder why people have a hard time believing that. It’s a little suspect. And why is that? It’s because your base of witnesses is rather slim for such a magnificent claim. There are a lot of other things that go into questioning the Mormon religion. But you understand that just the very text of Mormonism is based on a couple people who say, “I seen em once.”
That’s not what you have with the resurrection of Jesus. You have hundreds and hundreds of people who did not just see him once, but saw him multiple times. They sat with him, they ate with him, they listened to him, they talked with him.
So Paul’s point regards the historicity of the resurrection. He says there’s no reason to doubt the resurrection of our Lord. It is Scriptural. It is factual. It is historical. It is central to what we believe.
But notice where Paul goes next. After pointing out its centrality and veracity, he details the efficacy of Christ’s resurrection.
We know it is important. We know that it happened. But what effect does it have?
III. The efficacy of it [12-26]
Paul lays all that out in verses 12-26. There’s a lot that is covered in these verses, but Paul really has one main point. It’s that we are going to be resurrected. Since Jesus has risen from the grave, we who are united to him will be raised to new life too.
Look at verse 12. Paul asks a rhetorical question. He says, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” You see what he’s saying? He’s saying that our resurrection is directly linked to Christ’s resurrection.
And the reason he says this is, again, because a lot of Corinthians were trapped in that Greek mindset. They didn’t believe in a resurrection.
That’s why Paul goes on to elaborate on the nature of salvation through these verses. He is driving home the point that this is what salvation is all about. Salvation is God’s having saved us from sin and death.
Look at verse 20. Paul says, “But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
What’s Paul saying there? He’s saying that salvation isn’t a running away from our bodies. Salvation is the restoration of our bodies.
That’s the effect that Christ’s resurrection has. He guarantees that all of his people (past, present, and future) will also be saved in body and soul. All of us will enjoy a glorified state.
Which leads us to the last point that the Apostle makes. It is not enough for Paul to talk about the centrality, veracity, and efficacy Jesus’s resurrection. He goes one step further to show us the potency of the resurrection.
IV. The potency of it [35-49]
When I say the potency of it, I mean the power of it. Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t just raise us up. It transforms us. The resurrection of Jesus is so potent that it causes a radical change in our nature when we are resurrected.
Down in verses 35f Paul talks about what kind of body we will have at the resurrection. That’s what makes this chapter so great. Paul doesn’t just say we are going to be saved and take part in the resurrection, he talks about what kind of body we will have when we are resurrected.
In verse 37 he compares it to planting a seed. He says, “What is sown, is not the body that will be.”
When you put a seed in the ground, it comes up as a plant. It doesn’t look exactly the same as when you put it in the ground to begin with. You have all the same properties. It’s not a different seed or a different plant. But it does look a lot different. It looks a lot better.
That’s the power that the resurrection of Christ has upon us. It not only raises our bodies, but it advances our nature. There’s going to be a change that occurs. Our bodies are going to experience something of an upgrade. It will be a rebooting into the 2.0 version.
That’s the point of verses 39f. These verses are really interesting because he tries to tell us a little about these glorified bodies.
The first thing he says is that our bodies will be heavenly in nature. He says in verse 40, “There are earthly bodies and heavenly bodies.” Later on (in verse 44-45), he compares the “natural body” and the “spiritual body.”
And the point is that at the resurrection, our body is going to be fit for our eternal dwelling. We currently have a body that is fit for this realm. But when the resurrection comes, we are going to undergo a transformation. Our body will renewed and restored. And it is going to be suited for the new world in which we will live.
The second thing he says is that our bodies will be immortal. Look at verse 42. He says, “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.”
In other words, this will be a body that cannot die. It will not be able to go through the aging process like we currently do. We will get older, but we will not age. We will have birthdays (lots of birthdays), but we will never experience wrinkles, or sore knees, or anything like that. It will be the fountain of youth because we’ll never see the effects of death.
Along with the spirituality and the immortality of our bodies, we will have profound beauty.
In verse 43 he says “what is sown in dishonor will be raised in glory.”
We know that our bodies have various defects and problems. We all have various things that we are ashamed of. It might be some odd looking toes or something much more severe.
A couple of us were talking last week about people who have gone through gender transitioning and then been converted. There’s so much damage done to the body in all that. But the good news is that the body will be raised in glory. All that sin has touched will be restored and made new.
So there is going to be a restoration of the body’s honor which will give it a new dignity. There’s going to be wholeness and beauty like we’ve not witnessed on this earth.
The last thing Paul mentions is that there will be a new vigor. He says, “What is sown in weakness will be raised with power.”
Last week we talked about the helmet of salvation and the restoration of our minds. We might see that reflected here again. Our minds will have an incredible capacity to operate once we are resurrected. Our bodies will have a nimbleness which gives it a greater ability to serve. We’ll probably still need to rest, but we probably won’t get run down like we do now. There’s going to be vigor that we’ve probably never experienced or long forgotten.
Obviously, Paul is speaking with some degree of vagueness. Again, it might be that he cannot fully express what its going to be like. But we get a sense of what’s going to happen. At the very least, we catch a glimpse. We get a glimpse of what we will be and what kind of potency Christ's resurrection will exert.
Christ’s resurrection does not just guarantee our own resurrection, it ensures that our resurrection is much greater than what we are now.
Conclusion
So we come back to the Buddha. Siddhartha Gautama understood that life is not what it is supposed to be. He understood that suffering is very much part and parcel with this life. We can all agree that there’s a lot of suffering and sorrow in this world. And we can all agree that we’d love to be rid of it.
Unfortunately, Buddha wasn’t able to rid himself of it. No matter how enlightened he was, he was still susceptible to death and dysentery.
But here in Christ we find the remedy. Here in Christ we find the promise of a new life; a life that promises the eradication of pain and suffering. In Christ we have the good news of an eternal kingdom, free from all the trappings that sin has caused.
And that’s the real point. It is salvation, not just from suffering. The salvation that Christ affords is from the problem that is deeper than our physical woes. Jesus provides a moral salvation. He brings salvation from sin, which is at the root all our suffering.
As Paul says “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”