The Good News of Jesus Christ

July 14, AD 2024
King's Cross Church
Moscow, Idaho

The Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1–11

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Introduction

What is the gospel? What is the gospel? Ask a Christian at random, and you will receive a number of different responses, summaries, and explanations. And this is for both bad and good reasons. 

The bad reason is that many people, including church-going Christians, are simply unable to articulate the gospel message in any meaningful way. Their gospels are sometimes simply anemic, “God loves you… the end” or “God has a wonderful plan for your life” (both being true but missing vital information) – or even worse, simply not good news at all, such as “Be a good person and you can go to heaven” – a very bad belief that goes against the whole point of the gospel. (You really aren’t a good person in the first place, and so heaven can’t be earned by you). //

Now the good reason why you may hear a variety of gospel summaries is that the gospel is in some ways all-encompassing. It is so big, so marvelous, and is tied up in both personal (you and God) and cosmic (God and all creation) claims – that you may have the feeling of, “Where do I even start?” The Apostle Peter says this good news is something that even the angels long to look into (1 Pet. 1:12) – so how do you explain it in five minutes? 

One of the wonderful things about our passage this morning is that here we have the Apostle Paul’s basic summary of the gospel message – a message that is at the very core of our faith and which the Spirit, through Paul, delivered to the Corinthians nearly 2,000 years ago – and is now delivering to you.

Context

Very briefly, I’d like to give you some context for Paul’s letter here to the church in Corinth. This church was planted by the Apostle Paul, and he was helped in this work by his co-laborers, Priscilla and Aquilla. The three of them spent 18 months in Corinth, and Apollos ministered there as well. Paul wrote this letter during his third missionary journey and near the end of his three-year stay in Ephesus. As we have been going through Acts with Pastor Toby, this would be during the events we just went over last week in Acts 19. Now the young church in Corinth had some serious issues. They were plagued with many sins, including scandalous sexual immorality and division, along with some theological errors concerning marriage, idolatry, spiritual gifts, worship, and the resurrection of the dead. And so Paul has responded to these various issues throughout this letter, and now here in Chapter 15, he turns his focus on the gospel and the resurrection of the dead as the most important thing for them to understand, for without these truths our faith is in vain. 

Bad News and Good News (vv. 1–2)

So Paul begins this section of his letter by reminding the Corinthians of the gospel that he had once already preached to them. He must do this, because he is concerned that they are being led astray away from the simple gospel message, and in particular, the future hope of the resurrection from the dead. 

Now the word “gospel” means literally “good news,” or as the King James says, “glad tidings.” This good news, as we will see, is regarding Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. And it is good news that the Corinthians have received, stand on, and are saved by. 

If we are to rightly understand the goodness of this news, it is important to understand the bad news. Why does Scripture talk about being “saved”? What are we being saved from anyway? 

Ever since sin entered the world with the fall of Adam in the Garden, with our first parents decision to disobey the command of God, all mankind now inherits and bears the guilt of Adam. He is our covenant head, and he represents us well. And so we are born sinners, we are born with a corrupt nature that does not love our holy God – and we sin willingly ourselves as soon as we are able. As Scripture teaches, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is no one righteous, no one that seeks God. This sin then separates us from God, and places us under His righteous judgment. We are spiritually dead and we are unable to save ourselves from this position. 

As Paul states in Romans 3, the wages of sin is death – but the good news, the gospel that we will hear this morning – is that the gift of God is eternal life. God has made a way of salvation, a way of escape, through the work of His Son Jesus Christ, for all who would believe. 

Of First Importance (v. 3a)

In verse 3, Paul states that this message he has received he has delivered to them “first of all…” By this he means that this gospel is the most important message. Other translations phrase this as “of first importance.” And this is a very crucial thing for us to remember and really believe here today.

The gospel – the simple and yet eternally profound gospel – must remain at the center of all we believe and do. This might sound obvious, but there is a real danger here that we must avoid. We live in a church community that values strong doctrine, and seeing that doctrine lived out concretely in our daily lives. So we have an interest in doctrinal and theological teaching, and also we strive to live out our faith in very genuine ways. And this is an enormous blessing, to be led by teachers who are faithful to teach the whole counsel of God from the Bible, and to be surrounded by a community of like-minded believers seeking to apply God’s teaching to all of life. But all of this thinking and doing must be tethered to the gospel message, to the crucified and risen Christ. We must never move on from the good news. 

Now what I am articulating may sound similar to a movement, or fad, that some of you were probably caught up in or followed, called the “gospel-centered” movement. There were many good things about that movement, and I believe it really did help many people grasp a biblical gospel and ultimately get on a solid trajectory toward historic, confessional Reformed theology. 

However, in other ways, that movement has shipwrecked. There are many opinions out there for what exactly went wrong, but I believe one reason is that in seeking to keep the gospel central – the gospel was actually confined. The gospel message in a sense was kept pure, but it was not one that was allowed to inform all other areas of life. And so you have guys saying, “Just stick to the gospel, brother,” while families and our culture continued to fall apart.

That is not what I’m arguing for. Yes, we must keep the gospel at the center. It must be our foundation. But to use another metaphor, we should view it as an ever-flowing waterfall, that then runs out as a mighty rushing river into every area of our lives. The gospel is the source, it is the life. All other doctrine and practices flow out of it. But its message must be always kept as of first importance. 

The gospel is the center, but as Pastor Doug has written, imagine that the gospel is at the center of a circle, and then make sure that the circumference of that circle runs out to the edges of your life. This is because the gospel speaks to everything – doctrine, relationships, childrearing, politics, education… you name it. And so the warning here is that we must never allow these good things to eclipse or replace the gospel. We must never allow our interest in Reformed doctrine, or our practice of Christian education, or our engagement in politics – take the place in our hearts and in our families, reserved for the simple good news of Jesus Christ. 

Gospel Creed (vv. 3b–7)

It is believed that verses 3–5 here form an early gospel Creed that pre-dates the Apostle Paul, meaning he is not the original author of it. There are actually a few of these in the New Testament, and here there are a few reasons that lead scholars to believe this to be one of them. These reasons include Paul saying that he “received” this sacred content, the use of a couple words largely unused elsewhere in Paul’s writings (plural “sins” and “the Twelve”), and also the repeated use of the Greek word hoti at the beginning of each of the four statements, which is simply translated for us as “that” – but can serve as a kind of virtual quotation mark when used repeatedly in this way. And so here we will take a look at each of these four claims in this concise gospel summary.

“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (v. 3b) 

First, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” This phrase, “according to the Scriptures,” occurs twice in this passage and simply means that all that Christ did – His life, death, and resurrection – was prophesied – it was foretold – in the Old Testament Scripture. In our day, this is an often-overlooked “proof” of the historicity of the gospel, but I believe it can be really powerful for people to see the ways in which Jesus fulfilled Old Testament passages that were written hundreds of years before his life. 

Pointing to the Old Testament is exactly what Jesus did Himself after the resurrection in order to explain that all that just occurred to His disciples. We see this in Luke 24 on the road to Emmaus, where Jesus expounded to the disciples all the Scriptures concerning himself (v. 27). And again later on in Luke 24 Jesus says to His disciples, “…all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me… Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead the third day…” (vv. 44–46). This means that Christ’s death and resurrection was not random – it was foretold in Scripture from the beginning. He is the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world. 

Likewise, the gospel preaching in Acts is filled with Old Testament Scripture. Consider Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 to the Jews at Pentecost, or Acts 17 from Pastor Toby’s sermon a few weeks ago, where Luke writes that Paul “reasoned with them from the Scriptures… demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead…” 

So a question for us this morning, then, is what Scriptures point to Christ’s death? There are a number of them that we could open to, but this morning we will look at Isaiah 53. The Book of Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah, 700 years prior to the birth of Christ, and in Isaiah, there are multiple prophecies regarding Israel’s Messiah – including classic Christmas passages regarding the virgin birth and child to be born who will be the Prince of Peace.

Later on in Isaiah 52, we read this, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation…” And Isaiah says that this salvation will be seen by all the ends of the earth. What does this good news entail? Isaiah prophesies of a coming Servant, the Messiah of Israel, who would suffer on behalf of His people. He writes that the Messiah would be “despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).

What did His sufferings entail? Isaiah continues, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his one way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity (the sin) of us all” (vv. 4–6). 

And so here, in Isaiah, we have both a prophecy regarding Christ’s suffering and death – that it was according to the Scriptures – but also the explanation for what His death means – what it accomplished. The Lord has laid our iniquity, our sin, on Jesus the Messiah. He bears the punishment we deserve, so that all who would put their faith in Him, who would believe in His work on their behalf, would have their sins forgiven and be healed. 

"He was Buried" (v. 4a)

The second part of this gospel is that He was buried. This seems quite redundant or obvious, a minor detail tacked on to His death. But it highlights an important doctrine and pushes back against error that quickly popped up in the early church. For there were some teaching that Christ surely did not really die. He only appeared to. This is because they thought that He did not truly become a man in the first place, but only appeared to be a man. They were offended at the thought – and could not imagine – the Son of God taking on human flesh. 

But He did. As the Apostle John wrote in his Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (1:14). If Christ was to be our true representative, if we he was going to succeed in obeying God where the first Adam failed, he had to be fully man. Likewise, He had to truly die if He were to truly bear the punishment due to our sin – the punishment of death. And so we do confess that Christ died and was put into the ground. He indeed was buried. 

"He Rose Again the Third Day According to the Scriptures" (v. 4b)

Now the third statement is this – He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Christ’s resurrection was God’s vindication of His faithful servant. He did not bear our sins and then remain under the wrath of God. And as Paul explains later on in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ was not raised – then we are still in our sins. His resurrection was as essential as His death in accomplishing our salvation. He fully satisfied God’s just punishment – and was raised unto new life for our justification.

We see this resurrection prophesied again in Isaiah 53 after the Messiah’s death, where Isaiah proclaims that the Suffering Servant will “divide his reward,” He will “see His offspring,” and He will receive prolonged days, and “be satisfied” (v. 10–11). All of which cannot be done by a Man that remains dead in the ground. 

Likewise in Psalm 22, we find that the first half is a detailed prophecy regarding Christ’s suffering and death, as He himself quoted on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (v. 1). But then in verse 19 the trembling and travail of the Messiah turns to joy, as the He cries out to God for deliverance. And we read, “You have answered me. I will declare Your name to My brethren, in the midst of the assembly I will praise You… For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; but when He cried to Him, He heard…” (vv. 21b, 24). 

Additionally, one more prophecy regarding Christ’s resurrection which specifically mentions the third day comes from Hosea 6:2 which reads, “Come, let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up…”

And so the good news is not only that Christ died on your behalf, but also that He rose again. He is the first to be raised, and all who put their trust in Him will one day be raised with Him unto everlasting life. As Jesus said to Martha as she mourned the death of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (Jn. 11:25). 

"He was Seen by Cephas and Then by The Twelve" (v. 5–7)

The fourth and last clause in this gospel creed is this – He was seen by Cephas (another name for the Apostle Peter) and then by The Twelve (a name for the apostles). This appearance of the risen Christ to people after His resurrection is an affirmation that this was a true, factual, historical event. It was not just some kind of religious experience, or a nice story to tell, or some great enduring myth. 

Jesus of Nazareth, a true historical person, was publicly executed under the rule of Pontius Pilate, and His dead body was laid in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea. He then was raised from the dead by the power of God, and physically appeared to His disciples, and then as Paul claims here, up to 500 people all at once, some of whom Paul says are still alive if the Corinthians want to call them up themselves to confirm. All of this means that the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is objectively outside of us. It is something that truly happened in history, whether we believe it or not.

Now I recently saw a video related to this claim, of the psychologist and speaker Jordan Peterson, being interviewed by a popular YouTube atheist named Alex O’Connor, also known as the CosmicSkeptic. Peterson for years has been flirting with Christianity in some ways, and has made teaching Scripture a large part of his platform – despite his reluctance to jump all the way in and call himself a Christian. 

The atheist, O'Connor, asks Peterson what should be a simple question – “Do you believe in the Resurrection of Jesus?” If you’ve seen videos of Peterson, you can imagine his response. For five minutes he hems and haws… unable and unwilling to simply say, “Yes.” What is fascinating about this interview is that the atheist O’Connor, despite not believing, seems to truly understand what Paul is getting at this morning. He says, “I have no dog in this fight, I’m not a Christian, but I know a lot of Christians are frustrated when they begin asking about Jesus, who is a much more physical entity, he’s a real human being, it’s someone of flesh and blood, it’s someone who is physically crucified by the Romans and then is seen as a physical entity by His disciples after He died… So when somebody asks you if you believe that happened… you still speak in terms of the psychological and mythological.”

In response, Peterson eventually agrees that a man really did exist called Jesus. He even says that this man is believed to have fulfilled the prophets and the law. But Peterson continues to be unable to simply say, “Yes, I believe that Christ truly died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day.” And so O’Connor (the atheist remember) then brings up this very chapter we are in this morning, and he quotes the Apostle Paul stating that if Jesus did not literally rise from the dead, then our faith is in vain and we are still in our sins. That Christianity itself is undermined if this did not truly occur in history. He presses into Peterson and brings the point to a landing, asking, “If I went back in time with a video camera in front of the tomb… would the LCD screen show a man walk out of the tomb.” And Peterson finally says, “I would suspect yes… but I have no idea what that means and neither do the people who saw it.” 

It took Peterson five minutes to get to, “I suspect yes.” And while I appreciate his humility in saying he doesn’t understand the resurrection, and while we should pray for him to come to a true understanding of the faith – he is dead wrong that the people who witnessed it didn’t understand. For our whole faith, the whole gospel, all of the New Testament writings – is explaining the monumental reality of that one historical event – and the implications of it for every person in all the world.

My reason for bringing up this Peterson interview is to highlight that the claims of the risen Christ appearing to so many eyewitnesses is meant to give men like Peterson, or people like you and me, no way around it. The gospel declares, as a historical fact, that Christ died and rose again for the forgiveness of sins. 

Paul’s Conversion (vv. 8–9)

Now in verses 8–11, Paul turns back to himself, as the final witness of the risen Christ. In this, he says that he was “one born out of due time” or “untimely born.” This phrase gives the sense of one being born prematurely. What do you think Paul means by this? Of being “born” out of due time. 

Well, consider the difference between his conversion, his experience with Christ, and the rest of the apostles. If we continue with his metaphor, you could say that the apostles had a full “gestation period.” They were able to live and grow with Christ for three years. They were taught and nurtured by him, before being sent out after His resurrection. But Paul had no such luxury. His birth into apostleship was sudden, and it was traumatic. The Apostle Paul did not walk with Christ, he was not one of His original disciples. He was quite the opposite. Instead, as he writes here, he is the least of the apostles and not worthy to be called one because he persecuted the church of God (1 Cor. 15:9). 

For anyone here unfamiliar with Paul’s story, he appears in Acts 8 as consenting to the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr (v. 1). We are told that he made havoc of the church, personally entering homes himself and dragging Christians away to put them into prison (v. 3). And so Paul was not only not part of the original Twelve – he was a zealous enemy of Christ and His people. 

In the next chapter of Acts, Chapter 9, we read of Paul’s dramatic conversion to the Christian faith. That the risen Jesus appeared to Him as a blinding light from heaven, saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Paul then obeys Jesus’ command to go into the city, and he spent three days blind. Meanwhile, the Lord spoke to a man named Ananias, telling him to minister to Paul, restoring his sight. The Lord tells Ananias that although Paul had once harmed the church, he was now the Lord’s “chosen vessel” to bear His name before the nations, kings, and the children of Israel. Paul was to be another apostle, although untimely born. Ananias prayed over Paul, and his sight was restored, he received the Holy Spirit, and was baptized. Paul then began his ministry, with the text saying he “Immediately preached the Christ… that He is the Son of God” (Acts 9:20). 

As you can imagine from these events… going from a true enemy of Christ to the man who wrote the majority of the New Testament books… Paul understood deeply God’s grace and unmerited favor for sinners. 

God’s Grace (v. 10–11)

And so Paul says, yes… I was born out of time and was an enemy of the church. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain…” (v. 10). But by the grace of God, I am what I am. This is a saying worthy of embracing as your own. Whatever sin you have. Whatever failures in life. Whatever your past… or even your present right here and now in this room. If you hold fast to this gospel, turning away from trusting yourself, turning away from your sin and looking to Christ’s death on your behalf in faith – you too can say, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” 

The Apostle Paul has a similar saying in 1 Timothy 1 which reads, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am chief…” And there he continues, and explains why the Lord chose to use him, out of all people, to be a messenger of the gospel. He says, “For this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. “To those who are going to believe on Him”… That is you. Paul’s life is meant to be a picture of the gospel, a picture of Christ’s patience in us. His life is a pattern for you to imitate and an encouragement that your sin is never too much for Christ to handle.

Now what does Paul do with this grace? With this undeserved mercy from God? He says that God’s grace toward him was not in vain because he worked harder than the rest of the apostles. “And yet not I,” Paul continues, “but the grace of God which was in me.” 

Paul works hard. He labors in the gospel. He risks his life so that strangers would hear about Christ. He loves well. He preaches boldly. He strives to glorify God in all that he does. Simply, Paul fulfills his calling with all of his might, with all of his life. Yet – and very importantly – not relying on his own strength, but God’s grace working in and through him.

Conclusion

And so a question for you to consider this morning, as a recipient of that same grace, is what has God called you to do? What duties has he called you to do? What roles as he called you to fulfill? Don’t overthink it. Look at your life right now and where God has placed you. Look at the people he has given you, the work he has placed before you. You have been saved by the grace of God, and that grace is powerful. It transforms lives, and it enables you to walk, by the Spirit, in obedience to Christ. And so as you labor for those around you, and for God’s glory, you want to be able to say with the Apostle Paul, “Yet not I, but God’s grace in me.”

And as we conclude, hear this. If you remember one thing from this passage today, remember that which Paul said was most important. The good news this morning is that Christ truly died for your sins, was buried, and rose on the third day for you. Christ loved you and gave Himself for you. 

Do you understand yourself to be a sinner? Do you know that you are not right with God, apart from Christ? Do you have the humility to recognize your ongoing need of His grace and mercy in your life? Then believe this good news too, and never let it go. 

“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). 

That is true whether you’ve been a Christian for forty years or four years. And it’s true if you’ve never truly considered Christ before now. This is the good news, this is the simple gospel, that if you stand on and continue in, by the grace of God, will be your salvation unto eternal life.