The Gospel

Connection/Tension

I’ve been in the room with two different people as they passed away. Thankfully, they were both peaceful deaths of old age rather than violent or painful deaths. You can hear death coming in their breathing as the sound of their breath changes, slows, and finally stops. Then, you feel a sense of peace and weight as you process what just happened- an immortal soul just departed from this world.

That moment is where we are all headed towards this morning. And it is more important than anything that we are ready for it since it is the moment we step from time into eternity. No matter what we accomplish in life or achieve, we cannot conquer that moment- on our own, it inevitably conquers us. The fact that we are dying teaches us something- we need help from another world. Would you like to know how to reach out and receive help from someone who is strong enough to bring you through even this moment to the other side and preserve your life? This is essentially where Paul ends his letter to the Corinthians in one of the greatest chapters in the Bible.

Context

Paul has talked through nine major topics with this church so far. Now he is going to move onto the last one, and in this case he has really saved the best for last- resurrection.[1]

Now, in this chapter, he seems to be responding to the false belief the Corinthian’s had that there is no bodily resurrection from the dead, see v. 12,

12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

Are you following his logic? If Christ has risen from the dead, then it’s absurd to say there is no such thing as bodily resurrection for God’s people- because to say there is no bodily resurrection is to say that not even Jesus raised from the dead.

So, what Paul is going to start off by doing in these first eleven verses is showing the believers in Corinth (and us) how essential it is that the Lord Jesus emerged from the grave alive.

Let’s hop in,

Revelation

15 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

Paul begins by saying he wants to “remind” this church of the gospel. The word “remind” means to “reveal” or to “to make known.”[2]

In other words, in doubting that existence of resurrection, the Corinthian church has made a grave error and removed one of the necessary ingredients of the gospel from their beliefs. Now, Paul means to put in back in its proper place. To do so, he’s going to talk them through this vital gospel message and show how death and resurrection stands at the center of it.

Before Paul defines what he means by the word “gospel,” he describes it’s history in the Corinthian church (Acts 18:8). Yet, even though Paul waits to define the gospel for a few sentences, I would like to right now so that we have a clearer sense of what we are talking about as we walk through these few verses. My favorite definition lately comes from the SOMA family of church’s materials,

“The gospel is the good and true news that Jesus has defeated Satan, sin, and death through His life, death, and resurrection, making all things new—even us.” This is the essential message Paul means by the word “gospel.”[3]

(1)   He says that he “preached” the gospel. That is, he came and told the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to the people in Corinth.

(2)   The Corinthians “received” the gospel, meaning that they believed and responded to the message they heard.

(3)   The Corinthians “stand” in the gospel. In other words, in a hostile environment and in the face of persecution, the Corinthian believers persevere (18:9 – 16).

(4)   Most interestingly of all, the Corinthians are “being saved” by the gospel in an ongoing sense.

Going back to the definition of “Gospel” it says that Jesus has “defeated…” which is in the past tense. Then it says “making all things new…” Now, is that happening in the past, the present, or the future? Yes.

Jesus’s death and resurrection is the most significant historical event that has ramifications for all time, space, and people. It has been said before that the death of Jesus frees us from sin’s penalty (past), power (present), and presence (future). And here, Paul has in mind how Jesus frees people from sin’s power, so they get to become new versions of themselves, new creations, that is, spiritually resurrected versions of themselves in this life as they await fully resurrected versions of themselves in the future world.

And then amid all this hope, Paul adds a condition to this glorious future, “if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”

Salvation, that is, making it safely home to the presence of God, is like a chain. The link in the past is Jesus’s finished work, the link in the future is forever life in the presence of God. The link connecting them is belief and perseverance in the present life. We have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved.

Paul is saying here that successful arrival in God’s new world requires maintaining belief and allegiance to the gospel in this one. And lest that sound overly burdensome or crippling for some of you, Paul will make clear later in this passage, it’s God’s grace in us that makes us willing, surrendered, persevering, and secure. God has a condition for us, but through Jesus, moves heaven and earth to supply us with all we need to meet that condition.

And in this case, the Corinthians must believe in the resurrection of the dead- beginning with Jesus’s, if they will one day rise from the dead like he did. And now, Paul is going to define this gospel message that is of inestimable worth,

Now Paul wants to make clearer this gospel:

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Paul starts off here by passing off not what he invented, but what he received- from the Lord Jesus himself and the early Christians in Damascus (Acts 9:1 – 19). He elevates what he received to “first importance.” Some doctrines and teachings deserve different levels of emphasis and agreement, determined by their relative importance to every other doctrine. No issue of ranks as high as the gospel- it is a forever life and death issue.

He states it as succinctly as he can, “Christ died for our sins.” In that one phrase is a whole world of meaning. If we had to capture that phrase it one word it would be, “substitution.” Jesus took the place of sinners- that is, he died- so they could live! This is the core teaching of the Christian faith and the issue, as Martin Luther put it, “on which the whole church rises or falls.” We will never get beyond the wonder that Jesus died to rescue hopeless sinners like us.

And yet, that’s only part of the most crucial event in history. The other is not only the Jesus the sinless substitute died, but that he didn’t stay dead. After his burial, on the third day, God raised him back to life. Jesus not only experienced sacrifice, but victory. He descended beneath the earth yet emerged to stand above it with the grave defeated beneath his feet. It’s a wonder that Jesus would take the place of sinners and wonder upon wonder that the grave couldn’t hold him and he came forth.

And lest you think these things are too great to believe, these events do not come out of nowhere, but the book of God, the Scriptures, anticipated them for hundreds of years before they happened. This story is not only captivatingly wonderful, but relentlessly historical- as we will see even more.

So now, Paul has demonstrated that bodily resurrection is at the heart of the Christian message since Jesus’s victory over death depends on his bodily resurrection from it. What happens next?

5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Paul goes on then to add to the testimony of the Scriptures the witnesses who saw Jesus risen from death. There’s Peter, and then the other twelve disciples (minus Judas of course), then the five hundred (a broader group of Jesus’s disciples), then James, a prominent disciple in Jerusalem, and then the other Apostles outside of the original twelve.

Then and now, the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus stands as an invincible barrier to those who deny that Jesus rose from the dead. The Corinthians should have felt compelled to believe in the resurrection because of the record of God’s Word and God’s people that cannot be overcome.

These same evidence come to us, preserved across the millennia, and leave no other plausible explanation for what happened in 33 AD to reshape the whole world than that the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. All intellectually serious people everywhere must reckon with the unconquerable claim that Jesus rose from the dead.

The best-preserved historical documents from the Ancient World, the New Testament, teach nothing else. In addition, no other hypothesis can explain the sudden rise of Christianity out of nowhere, fueled by the preaching of otherwise common men, to in a few hundred years transform the entire Roman Empire, and since then continue to fill the world, overcoming every cultural and language barrier to reach the nations. Nothing else in world history comes even close to this- and among other things leads us to confess with the Apostle Paul- Christ has risen indeed. And it’s this rock-solid confidence in the resurrection of Jesus that has implications that spill over into all of life- as Paul will demonstrate for himself in this next section. Since all of the Christian life depends on the resurrection of Jesus, it must be a firm fact in our minds that we are confident in.

8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Paul became an Apostle by seeing the Lord Jesus not before his resurrection- as the other Apostles did—but after, when he appeared to him on the road to Demascus (Acts 9:5). His “untimely birth” refers to the sudden and violent process by which he became an Apostle rather than the more gradual one of the twelve disciples.[4]

His “violent” birth parallels his violent life before Christ- inflicting pain and oppression on God’s people. If any were spiritually dead, it was this man. If anyone went from spiritual death to life, it was this man, which is why he can say,

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Paul is referring now to how the gospel is “saving him” in his present life when he wrote this. Resurrection does not only happen to bodies- it happens to hearts on an ongoing basis for those who follow Jesus.

“By the grace of God I am what I am” is one of the most breathtaking statements ever written and all we need to come to terms with. The reality of the resurrection of Jesus outside of Paul has a deep effect within Paul- which he is demonstrating here, so that the same thing can happen to us.

How many of you struggle with who you are or where you are in life? How many of you feel a sense of shame or disappointment about your life?

One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I try to act intelligent around others or antagonistic to try to meet my need for attention, because I don’t particularly love or enjoy the person I am or think that me as myself will relate or connect with others. What I’m experiencing there is a sense of shame.

It seems like Paul had a sense of guilt- he despised the actions he took in his past life which would have led him to struggle with a sense of spite towards himself.

One part of spiritual death is that you are turned not only against God but against your own self, and all you have left is performance (rather than relationship) to try to meet your needs. You become a non-relational being that tries to win through control. You become hollow and empty spiritually and emotionally- as Paul almost certainly was before he met the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus road.

We need another path. When you come to Jesus, who died and rose for sin, he transforms the way we experience weakness and failure. In our natural flesh, since we are all we have, we allow our weakness to inform our sense of worth or worthiness, which leaves us with a sense of despair and self-loathing.

Yet, the whole story of Jesus informs us, “you’re not enough; I was in your place.” So, your weakness no longer should inform your sense of worth, but your sense of need. You need him. You need him to the degree you feel weak, alone, and hopeless. Now, all of a sudden your weakness and failure becomes a gift because it teaches you how desperately you need Jesus and leads you to do what you might otherwise never do- attach to him in trust. If he is worthy for us, then our deficits are no longer about assessing our value, but rather our neediness.

Paul is no longer the self-reliant persecutor of the church. He’s the dependent Apostle. His “unworthiness” propelled him to put his hope in the worthiness of another. Which is why he can say,

“by the grace of God I am what I am.” Are you able to embrace all your weaknesses and failings as pathways to trusting in Jesus rather than despising yourself and then completely attach to Jesus in trust?

When you do that, you’ve had a death and resurrection and you live out a new life script. The past no longer cripples you, but enflames your heart with worship for Jesus and drives you forward in life with hope.

Therefore Paul said, “On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.” Despair leaves you in a place of non-action. Hope drives you forward in focused action for Jesus because you know what he’s rescued you from and that if he brought you back from the dead- certainly he has purpose for you in every day he gives you life. If all your action depends on hope supplied by Jesus, then he gets all the credit for it because it comes from his “grace.”

So Paul says, “I, yet not I.” Though Paul worked harder than all, he didn’t become a bit more impressed with himself but rather more impressed with Jesus since it was Jesus’s work that changed him and kept changing him. He was magnificently productive and beautifully humble- like Jesus. Attachment to God is the key to being a flourishing human person.

11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

When you live this way, you become free from the self-obsession of our age- of emotionally and spiritually dead people trying to heal themselves by hording attention. Instead, Paul can seek simple relationship with God and others, not competing for public credit for the conversion of the Corinthians- even though according to Acts he was most responsible (Acts 18:9).

At the end of this passage is the thought that the resurrection of Jesus is a reality so massive and meaningful that it has the capacity to alter anyone’s life dramatically. Like Paul, you become a whole new version of yourself who says, “by the grace of God I am what I am.” You’re at peace with God, self, and the world. You have a sense of hope that inspires you to faithful action. And you have a humility that only grows more impressed with Jesus than self at the end of the day. Who wants more of this? Who wants this for the first time?

The first step towards becoming alive forever is to become alive within yourself right now by becoming united to the one who mastered death. In the coming weeks, we will learn about what the future holds for those who have spiritual resurrection through the bodily resurrected Christ right now.

Let’s Pray.

[1] Andrew David Naselli, Tracing the Argument of 1 Corinthians: A Phrase Diagram (Andrew David Naselli, 2023), 8.

[2] William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 203.

[3] Document is called From Meeting to Mission in 9 weeks.

[4] Calvin, John. Calvin’s Commentaries on I and II Corinthians. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Vol. XX. BakerBooks, 2009, 12.