コリントの信徒への手紙一15:12-19
そうだとすると、キリストを信じて眠りについた人々も滅んでしまったわけです。この世の生活でキリストに望みをかけているだけだとすれば、わたしたちはすべての人の中で最も惨めな者です。 （一コリント15:18-19）
本日の箇所で、使徒パウロは「死者の復活などない」と主張する立場に立って、そこから演繹的に推論を重ねていくと、どのような結論に達するかということを明らかにしています。そして、そのような結論で果たしてよいのですか？ということをコリント教会の信徒たちに問いかけているのです（13-19節参照）。
これはどういうことかと申しますと、もしキリストが復活しなかったとすれば、私たちクリスチャンは、ありもしない救いがあると言って信じ込んでいる「最も惨めな者」になるということです。これを読んで、皆様はどのように思われるでしょうか？「ああ、そうだ、自分はありもしない救いを信じ込んでいる『最も惨めな者』かもしれない」と思われるでしょうか？確かに、そのような疑いの思いが、ときには私たちの心に忍び込むことがあるかもしれません。しかし、冷静に考えてみましょう。特に自分以外のクリスチャンのことを冷静に考えてみましょう。そうすると、クリスチャンの魂の中にあるものが、空しい思い込みのようなものではないということがわかるでしょう。
まず、キリスト教の約2000年の歴史のことを考えてみてください。ありもしない救いを信じ込むのがキリスト教だったとすれば、キリスト教は2000年にわたって世界の人々の魂を養い続けることができたでしょうか？また、皆様をキリスト教の信仰へと導いてくれた信仰の先輩たちのことを考えてみてください。その先輩たちの信仰が空しい思い込みではなく、確かな認識に基づいたものであったからこそ、皆様もその先輩たちを通して養いを受け、信仰の道へと導かれたのではなかったのでしょうか？さらに、皆様の後に続く信仰の後輩たちのことを考えてみてください。その方たちは、皆様の信仰と生活が確かなものであると認めているからこそ、キリストを信じる信仰の道を歩もうとしているのではないでしょうか？言い換えますと、イエス・キリストが、人類の救いのために十字架の上で死んで復活したという認識が確かなものであるということが、クリスチャンの信仰と生活において客観的に認められるからこそ、キリスト教は約2000年の間多くの人々に伝えられ、受け継がれてきたのです。そして、私たち自身も信仰の道に入ったし、私たちの後にも信仰の道に入る人々が存在するのです。
（3月31日の説教より）
Happy Easter 2024! Easter is a festival commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his death on the cross. Easter was established by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD as the first Sunday that comes after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. As for Christmas, which celebrates the Nativity of Christ, there was no such Church Council decision, and it gradually came to be celebrated on 25 December in many parts of the world. So, as a church festival, I think it is safe to say that Easter is more authoritative than Christmas.
The resurrection of Christ who died on the cross is the core of Christian teaching, and yet it is a teaching that is far removed from common sense. Therefore, in countries where Christianity is not widespread, Easter is not as accepted as Christmas. Whether the true meaning is understood or not, Christmas is celebrated by many people in our country Japan. Easter, however, is rarely mentioned by the general public in our country. Even within the Christian church, the importance of Easter and the resurrection of Christ is in danger of being forgotten or downplayed. It is sad to say, but even some so-called Christians deny that Christ’s resurrection is a historical fact. Such deniers of Christ’s resurrection would not understand the true meaning of Easter and its joy.
But if you think about it, it is not only in modern times that there are so-called Christians who deny Christ’s resurrection. In the first place, even Christ’s direct disciples could not believe in his resurrection at first. When the disciples heard from the women who went to Christ’s tomb on Easter morning that the tomb was empty and that angels had told them that he had risen, they thought the story was an idle tale and refused to believe it (Luke 24:11). On the afternoon of Easter Day, the two disciples, who were travelling from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, initially refused to believe in Christ’s resurrection, even though they had met and walked and talked together with the resurrected Christ (Luke 24:16-24). When Thomas, one of the Twelve Disciples, heard about Christ’s resurrection from the other disciples, he said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25). Even the disciples, who had lived at the same time as Christ and heard the foretelling of the cross and resurrection from his own lips, could not believe in it when he actually rose.
It is not so surprising, therefore, that there were those among the church that was born in Corinth, Greece, as a result of the Apostle Paul’s mission, who denied that Christ’s resurrection was a historical fact. In verse 12 of today’s Bible passage, Paul asks the congregation, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” There are several theories about the kind of people in the Corinthian church who were saying that “there is no resurrection of the dead.” First, that they were those who did not believe in life after death at all; second, that they were those who claimed that the resurrection was a spiritual thing and that for spiritual believers it had already happened; third, that they did not believe in the resurrection of the “body,” even though the spirit was immortal. In any case, what was common to those who claimed that “there was no resurrection of the dead” was the idea that “resurrection of the dead” was an impossibility in terms of human experience. We would therefore like to consider this point a little more deeply.
We derive certain laws of our own based on our various experiences. We then apply these laws to our daily life in reverse, reasoning that this is what would happen in this case. It is called “induction” to derive laws from individual observed cases that are generally applicable. An example of this is to derive the general law that tobacco is harmful to health from individual cases of people who smoke cigarettes being more likely to get cancer. Next, it is called “deduction” to draw a conclusion from a premise through a series of logically correct inferences. An example would be a city, town or village deciding that smoking in public places is not allowed, based on the premise that tobacco is harmful to health and logically inferring that smoking in public places has a negative impact on the health of the people gathered there. Our everyday decisions are based on a complex combination of induction and deduction.
However, the decisions we make by combining induction and deduction are not always correct, and we can make mistakes. For example, we think about the various people we know and inductively derive a law that “people from Kansai region are pragmatic” or “people from Tohoku region are patient.” Then, when we meet someone new, we ask them “Where are you from?” and from their answers such as “I am from Osaka” or “I am from Aomori,” we may deductively infer that “this person is pragmatic because they are from the Kansai region” or “this person is patient because they are from the Tohoku region.” However, that is not the correct way of reasoning. This is because, in the process of inductive reasoning to derive the law, we only take into account a limited number of examples that we know. We cannot say that “people from Kansai region are pragmatic” without having studied all Kansai people, and we cannot say that “people from Tohoku region are patient” without having studied all Tohoku people. Therefore, it is also wrong to draw inferences from such uncertain premises and conclude that a newly met person is pragmatic or that a newly met person is patient.
Now let us apply this to the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection of Christ means that Christ died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day and received eternal life, no longer dying. We experience human death by witnessing the death of people close to us and attending the funerals of various people. And we know that the body of a dead person is cremated and buried. From such experiences, we derive inductively that there is a law that says, “When a person dies, he/she returns to dust and becomes nothing.” Then we try to apply this law, “When When a person dies, he/she returns to dust and becomes nothing,” deductively to the case of Jesus Christ. Then, we conclude that Jesus Christ did not rise because “when we die, we return to the dust and become nothing.” However, this conclusion is in direct conflict with the Christian teaching that “Christ has risen from the dead.” Therefore, one of them is wrong. The question is whether Christ was in fact resurrected or not.
In today’s passage, the Apostle Paul tentatively takes the position of claiming that “there is no resurrection of the dead,” and then makes it clear what conclusion he reaches when he deductively infers from it. And he then asks the believers of the Corinthian church, “Can such a conclusion be acceptable?” First, in verse 13, Paul states that “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.” Then, in verse 14, he follows this up by saying, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” And in verse 15, he states, “We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.” He then shifts the perspective to the issue of the forgiveness of the believers’ sins, saying in verse 17: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins,” indicating that without the resurrection of Christ, there is no deliverance for the Christians from their sins. This is a very important point. Then, in verses 18 and 19, he states a conclusion saying, “Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
What this means is that if Christ had not been raised, we Christians would be “of all people most to be pitied” believing that there is a salvation that does not exist. When you read this, what do you think? Do you think, “Oh, yes, I might be the “most to be pitied” who believes in a salvation that doesn’t exist? Certainly, such thoughts of doubt may sometimes creep into your mind. But please think calmly, especially about Christians other than yourself. Then you will see that what is in the soul of Christians is not a kind of empty assumption. First of all, consider the nearly 2,000-year history of Christianity. If it were Christianity to believe in a salvation that never existed, could Christianity have continued to feed the souls of the world’s people for 2000 years? Also, think of the seniors in the faith who have led you to the Christian faith. Was it not because their faith was not based on empty beliefs, but on solid perceptions, that you were nourished through them and led to the path of faith? Furthermore, think about the juniors in the faith who will follow you. Aren’t they those who are walking the path of faith in Christ because they recognise the certainty of your faith and life? In other words, it is precisely because the certainty of the perceptions that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again for the salvation of mankind is recognized in the faith and life of Christians, that Christianity has been handed down and passed on to many people for about 2000 years. And we ourselves have entered the path of faith, and there will be others after us who will also enter the path of faith.
We must then consider whether the original premise of the reasoning in verse 19, which deductively drew the conclusion that Christians are “of all people most to be pitied” was wrong in the first place. That premise is the general law that there is no resurrection of the dead. Needless to say, this general law is a general law drawn inductively from countless ordinary human cases. It goes without saying that the case of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was not taken into account in deriving this general law. It then follows that since this law was only inductively derived from the case of ordinary people, it cannot be applied to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Therefore, it is not possible to deductively infer that Christ has not been raised from the premise of the law that there is no resurrection of the dead. In a word, to conclude that since there is “no resurrection of the dead,” “Christ has not been raised,” is simply a logical error that has been made repeatedly from New Testament times to the present day. However, in order to understand this, our thinking itself needs to be shifted from the narrow framework of everything that happens to ordinary human beings to the wider framework of accepting the events that took place in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is true God and true man. This change of frame of mind is only possible when the eyes of the heart are opened by the works of the Holy Spirit. And it often happens in our lives that our hearts are opened through the experience of suffering.
There is a pastor of the Japan Holiness Church, Rev. SAKAKIBARA Hiroshi, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 79 after completing his earthly life. Rev. SAKAKIBARA lost his six-year-old son, Yoshiya, in a traffic accident. When Yoshiya came home from school, he said he was going out to play, but was run over by a dump truck, crushing his head and face to death. In his grief at the instantaneous loss of his beloved son, Rev. SAKAKIBARA wanted to close his church, stop being a pastor, and even stop being a human being. However, as he took time to accept his grief, he gradually changed his way of thinking. He told us the following story.
My son’s life was only six years, but it was six years that had a huge impact on our family. Because he may have been a child, he invited his friends to church, went to tract distribution together, and praised together at home meetings. Anyway, he was very pure, that’s for sure. It is important for a person to live a long life, but I think it is more important how a person lives his/her life rather than how long a person lives. And eventually, no matter how long a person lives, death is inevitable. If there is no hope of eternal life in God’s Kingdom, then what is the purpose of life? Just to be happy and healthy, to work and earn money and provide for one’s family… of course that has a wonderful meaning too. So, if it were true to be “death is the end” in this world, I think it would be so empty and unfair. But God has prepared a path to eternal life for all of us human beings in a fair way. And I think it’s wonderful that it is given to “those who believe in Christ” without merit of their works. (The Gospel for a Million, April 2006, p. 23, translated by MIYOSHI Akira)
Through the suffering of the death of his beloved son, he recognised for himself that the premise that death is the end of a person does not apply to Christians who believe in Christ. He recognised that, in the case of Christians who believe in Christ, they have to think about their way of life from a different premise: that Christ has risen from the dead. Now, what about us? Let us abandon the old premise that death is the end of all things, and let us go forward, step by step, on this earth, with the certainty that there is resurrection, aiming at the resurrection beyond death.