A Dead Man Claimed to Be Alive
On Christmas Day, 2015, a Presbyterian minister in Austin wrote that he does not believe in a literal resurrection. In an Easter sermon in 2023 he said it to his church: “It’s very possible that Jesus rose from the dead. It’s also possible the body was stolen.” Then he asked, “Do you want to live your life based on a maybe?”
If the resurrection is not literal then what is it? His answer was a symbol… a picture of coming out of the dark. More like a poem than an actual event. The problem, he says, with making the resurrection literal is that it makes the resurrection only about Jesus.
We have seen week after week how the resurrection of Jesus has power over our lives. In fact, if Jesus is not resurrected then we should all find something better to do on Sunday mornings.
There is a Roman governor in Acts who did not believe a word of it either. Festus had a prisoner he could not explain. The whole dispute, he told King Agrippa, came down to “a certain Jesus, a dead man Paul claimed to be alive” (Acts 25:19).
Not a symbol. Not a feeling. A body that was dead and is not. Literal resurrection.
A governor who does not believe Jesus is alive said it more exactly than a lot of people who do.
Jesus is not a symbol… he is a dead man who is alive… and because he lives, you will live
I know some of you might be thinking, “Of course Jesus’ resurrection is not a symbol, we believe it is true.”
No. We would never call it a symbol. We believe Jesus died for our sins and walked out of the grave.
Here is our struggle: We have made Jesus the exception… instead of the beginning. We believe he rose… we just leave our own resurrection out of it. His resurrection is about this body we inhabit today!
Making Jesus the exception is a quieter way of saying what the man in Austin said. It is just about Jesus.
So ask yourself: when you think of the gospel, does it have anything to do with the resurrection? Most of us say he died for my sins, and stop there. A Roman governor who did not believe a word of it got further than that… a dead man, alive.
Paul wrote to a church with the same problem. They believed Christ was raised, and some of them still said, “There is no resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:12). Corinth is not as far from Benton as it sounds.
King Agrippa, the last of the Herods, comes to Caesarea with his sister Bernice. Festus has a prisoner headed to Caesar and no charges to write up. So he lays out his case for the king.
Acts 25:18-20, The accusers stood up but brought no charge against him of the evils I was expecting. Instead they had some disagreements with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus, a dead man Paul claimed to be alive. Since I was at a loss in a dispute over such things, I asked him if he wanted to go to Jerusalem and be tried there regarding these matters.
Festus expected a crime. What he got was a dispute about a dead man. That much made sense to him. Dead men stay dead… but Paul claimed this man to be alive, and Paul kept saying it. Festus is not grappling with a teaching but a literal resurrection. A claim about a body.
Jesus’s resurrection is not a symbol… It is not like a poem meant to stir our feelings and encourage us. He literally died on the cross for your sins and the Father raised him, and he is alive. The literal resurrection is central to our faith because no circumstance or feeling of fear can put him back in the grave.
The next day, King Agrippa and his sister Bernice arrive with great pomp, and Festus admits… “I have nothing definite to write to my lord about him” (Acts 25:26). A room filled with power and nothing definite to write.
Luke specifically wrote his gospel “so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed” (Luke 1:4). Festus had nothing certain to write and yet we have been given it in writing. We are not living on a maybe.
King Agrippa allows Paul to speak, and Paul stands on a promise. “And now I stand on trial because of the hope in what God promised to our ancestors… Why do any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” (Acts 26:6, 8).
The promise Paul is speaking about is the one God made to the fathers… a Messiah with a kingdom that does not end. And a hope that had a graveside in it. “Your dead will live; their bodies will rise” (Isaiah 26:19). The body we leave in the grave does not stay there. God has kept that promise by raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 13:32-34).
A Messiah who stays dead keeps no promises… a symbol cannot carry your sins out of a grave. If God is the one doing the raising, why would it be incredible?
That is why the literal resurrection is not just about Jesus. The promise was made to a people, and first kept by God in Jesus. This was foreshadowed in the Old Testament… Israel brought the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest while the rest of the field was still standing (Leviticus 23:10). Jesus is the first sheaf. His people are the harvest.
The resurrection has your name in it. God raises the dead… not somebody else… you. Most of us believe it about Jesus and we leave ourselves out of the promise.
If you belong to Jesus you are inside of his resurrection. He died for your sins and rose to bring you into his family. Our bodies are not discarded when we die. They are part of the harvest that is still standing. Standing and held by the promise revealed in the first sheaf, Jesus.
And if you have never let his resurrection be about your own body, you are telling him it was just about him. Which is exactly what the man in Austin said.
Israel waved that sheaf before the Lord the morning after the Sabbath (Leviticus 23:11). The women came to the tomb the morning after the Sabbath (Luke 24:1). A priest in the temple lifting the first of the harvest… and Jesus walking out of the grave. God kept his promise on the morning they were already carrying the sheaf in.
Paul took that sheaf and put it on the man Festus called dead.
1 Corinthians 15:17-20, And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone. But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Festus called him a certain Jesus… a dead man. He was dead because he died for your sins… the record none of us can clear and that cut us off from God… Jesus took it. And God raised him. A body that was dead and is now alive.
Jesus is the first sheaf, not the whole harvest. He did not rise instead of his people. He rose ahead of them. The one you buried this year… if they belong to Jesus, that body is part of the coming harvest. And if you are his, the rest of the field is you.
Jesus’s resurrection is not a symbol… he is a dead man who is alive… and because he lives, you will live
Now make his resurrection about you too. Say it: He was dead for my sins… he is alive… and because he lives, I will live… I did not earn that… I receive it. Say it Monday. Say it at the graveside. Say it when the doctor calls.
If you cannot say it yet, he is the one to say that to. He died for people who could not say it… and a dead man who is alive does not turn away anybody who comes to him with nothing.
Source: the sermon “A Dead Man Claimed to Be Alive” (Acts 25:13-26:8) preached at Red River Baptist Church on October 18, 2026.