The Resurrection and the Gospel

1 Corinthians 15:1-5

The Resurrection, Scripture & Witnesses

The resurrection of Jesus is not a created legend. No legend has ever been formed in just three decades.
Still, people in every age have tried to make Jesus over into something that is acceptable to their frame of reference.

It is difficult to think of a single intellectual point in one religion that is universally recognized by all other religions to be the truth. Some argue that all religions are equal responses to a God who loves. But the notion of a God who loves presupposes theism or at least deism.

The Gospel

1 Corinthians 15:1 Moreover, brothers, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand.

The Gospel is not in the first instance about something God has done for me, but about something God
has objectively done in history. It is about Jesus, especially about His death and resurrection.

Paul emphatically stands by the message. It had brought him neither ease nor comfort. Paul had been imprisoned in Philippi, chased out of Thessalonica, smuggled out of Beroea, laughed at in Athens. He had preached in Corinth where his message was foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling-block to the Jews, and out of that background Paul declared that he was proud and unashamed of the gospel.

Christ Died for our Sins

1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

This Gospel saves us. A great deal of theology is already presupposed by these few words. In particular, what we are saved from? Embedded here are Paul’s understanding of human beings made in the image of God, the awfulness of sin, the curse of God that has separated us from our Maker, and our inability to make ourselves over. The Gospel saves us, and always we must bear in mind exactly what it is that we are saved from.

He was Buried

John 19:42 There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulcher was near at hand. John 20:2b They have taken away the LORD out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him.

He was buried so there would be no question that He died.

He Rose Again

Matthew 22:32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

1 Corinthians 15:20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.

Jesus insists that at one level his disciples should not have been surprised. He had been predicting for some time that He would die and rise again, but they had no categories for accepting His words at face value.

According to the Scriptures

1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

No one in the early church saw the significance of Jesus as something brand new, or standing in isolation from all that had come before. Rather, they saw him as the capstone, the culmination, the glorious goal, the climax of all of God’s antecedent revelation in holy Scripture.

You Believed It and Stand With It

1 Corinthians 15:1 Moreover, brothers, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand.

Paul makes clear not only the object of this saving faith (the Gospel), but also the nature of this faith: it is faith that perseveres, that holds firmly to the word preached by the apostles.

Standing, holding fast, in such a manner that a person is certain of the thing, points to the practical regard for the truth in their lives and conduct, signifying their perseverance.

Those who believe in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints and those who reject that doctrine both agree that people who do not persevere in the gospel have no true claim on its promised blessings and benefits.

Paul generally assumes that those who confess Christ will remain faithful to that confession but He also acknowledged the tragic truth that not all ended up doing so.
Remain faithful. Become faithful. Happy Resurrection Day!