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| John Piper |
When Paul says, “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and
drink,” he does not mean, “Let’s all become lechers.” He means, there is a
normal, simple, comfortable, ordinary life of human delights that we may enjoy
with no troubling thoughts of heaven or hell or sin or holiness or God – if
there is no resurrection from the dead. And what stunned me about this train of
thought is that many professing Christians seem to aim at just this, and call
it Christianity. Paul did not see his relation to Christ as the key to
maximizing his physical comforts and pleasures in this life. No, Paul’s
relation to Christ was a call to choose suffering – a suffering that was beyond
what would make atheism “meaningful” or “beautiful” or “heroic.” It was a
suffering that would have been utterly foolish and pitiable to choose if there
is no resurrection into the joyful presence of Christ… Judge for yourself. How
many Christians do you know who could say, “The lifestyle I have chosen as a
Christian would be utterly foolish and pitiable if there is no resurrection?”
John Piper
Desiring God, 1996, p. 219
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