Faith’s Reality
Text: 1st Corinthians 15:1-19
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not but our world is changing; and a lot of people would say, that it’s not changing for the better. But that it’s getting worse. And the church is changing too, even in our own denomination, the Southern Baptist denomination, there are changes taking place. Things aren’t like they used to be, and the reality is; they probably never will be again. Now despite these changes in the world, they haven’t affected the message of the gospel. But what they have affected, is man’s understanding of the Gospel. Some see the Gospel as the two greatest commandments, “Love the Lord Thy God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself.” After all these two commandments were so important that Jesus said in Matthew 22 that all the prophets and the Law hung on them. But Scripture never says that these two commandments; as important as they are, are the Gospel. A second group says that the ethical and social teachings of Jesus are the Gospel, but the problem with this view is that the elements of Jesus’ teachings on ethic and social issues cannot be rightly understood unless we discern how they flow toward and point toward Jesus’ death and resurrection. If we just study the life and teachings of Jesus without looking at His passion and resurrection, then that’s like studying the life of George Washington without reflecting on the American Revolution. If we just look at Jesus’ teachings but ignore the cross then we’ve turned Christianity into another mere religion. We’ve turned forgiveness into ethical conformity. We’ve turned obedience out of love to duty. A 4th group assumes that the Gospel is devoting creative energy and passion to other issues, issues like marriage, or happiness, or prosperity, or socio-political activity, or wrestling against false religions. This appeal to a wide variety of people, no matter where you are on the political spectrum. Whether you’re concerned with saving the planet, saving the unborn, redistribution of wealth, helping the poor, liberating the oppressed, maintaining liberty, or what have you. But this idea overlooks the fact that the people who hear these messages are only hearing what the speaker is most passionate about. Every school teacher and college professor knows that their students aren’t going to learn everything they teach them, but they are very likely to learn what the teacher or professor is most excited about. If the Gospel is only assumed, while peripheral issues ignite our passion, we will train the next generation to downplay the true Gospel and focus on periphery things.
And still another group says that the Gospel is the narrow set of teachings about Jesus and His death and resurrection, and when those things are believed and a person is accepted into the family of God through conversion, then they need not be addressed anymore, but we should move on to deeper theological discussions. But that’s not entirely right either, because the NT emphasis is that the Gospel is what holds the entire Bible together. The Bible teaches that it is the Gospel that takes us from being lost and alienated from God, all the way through conversion and discipleship, to sanctification, and finally to glorification, when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and we are given glorified bodies in order to rule and reign with Him forever.
If we correctly understand the Gospel, then it directs our thinking, and gives us the solution to all those other issues.
Now I said all of that, just to get to our text, so let’s look at it again (Read).
Now what Paul’s talking about in this passage is the Gospel, he says, “Now brothers I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you.” And it’s because of this Gospel that they are saved. And in verse 3 he goes on to say, “And this is what that Gospel is…” It is Christ! Christ crucified, dead, buried, and raised. And so the Gospel is first and foremost about Christ, it’s from Christ… it’s Christ centered. That’s why John was so eager to point out in his Gospel that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one can come to the Father but by Him and that’s why Acts 4:12 says, “There is no name but Jesus, given under heaven by which we must be saved.” Every book on the Bible points to the Son of God who became a man, Emmanuel – God with us. And in verse 3 of our text Paul goes on to say, “And this is why I preached Christ, and this is why the Gospel is Christ centered – because He is the One who died for our sins. Earlier on in this letter to the Corinthians Paul said, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
Now not only did He die, but verse 4 also tells us that He was raised from the dead. But not only did He die and rise from the dead; He died for our sins and rose from the dead. This is not just a historical event that we can dismiss and ignore; it is the most important event that has ever taken place in human history.
Why is this such an important historical event in human history? Well… because it literally changes the course of human history. You see, when you plot a course, what you’re doing is plotting a route that will get you to your final destination. And if you stay on that course, you should arrive at that destination. Well the destination for all mankind was hell. That’s where every human being throughout history was headed. You see the Bible tells us about man’s history; it tells us that in the beginning Adam, the first man, sinned, and when he sinned, sin came into the world and all of creation was affected by its curse. But not only all of creation, but also all of pro-creation. In-other-words all of Adam’s descendants would be affected by sin as well. We are all born into sin. The Bible tells us that there are none righteous, no not one, we all like sheep have gone astray, there are none who seek after God. We are all sinners by nature and sinners by choice. Our course had been plotted. Our final destination was set, we were well on our way, but despite William Ernest Henley’s Poem Invictus, we are not the master of our fate, and we are not the captain of our soul. And all of human history followed that course, every war that has ever been fought is an example of us being on that course, every crime, every murder, rape, and theft, and every case of abuse, and every atrocity, and ever act of deceit and slavery, and guile, and manipulation… all of those things, throughout human history are just the result of us being on this course, headed toward our final destination.
But God!!! God, in His mercy changed the course of human history. And what’s so amazing about this is that God is the offended party. God is the one that our sins offend. We were in rebellion to Him. We were alienated from Him. We were hostile toward Him. And so God had and has every legal and moral right to pronounce the punishment for this rebellion and disobedience against Him.
You see; God is infinitely good, and infinitely holy, and infinitely just and since God is the source of all life it is only right that when His own creation, His own image bearers spit in His face and insist on following the course that has been charted for them in their sin; it is only right then, that they be cut off from their Maker.
David in the Old Testament understood this. When he had sinned by sleeping with a married woman and then having her husband killed, he was confronted by the prophet Nathan and convicted of his sins; and so in deep contrition he wrote Psalm 51 where he said to God, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Now people hear this and say, “What a load of bull!” He committed adultery and had a man murdered. So what about the sins against them? What about the sins against his own family? What about the sins against the nation as a whole that expected him to act with integrity? But David wrote, “I’ve sinned against God, and against God alone…” How can that be? What is it that makes sin sin? What makes it so vile, and evil, and just plain wrong? The answer to that is that in all of our sinning, the most offended party is God Himself. And because it is God who is most offended by sin, it is God who will judge us on that last day. And that judgment is already set, if we stay on course.
We are like a caterpillar surrounded by a grass fire that’s closing in ever so slowly– we have no hope at all. But all of a sudden a volunteer fire-fighter steps into that blazing inferno and out of nothing less than sheer mercy, he stoops and picks up that helpless caterpillar and rescues it from the coming destruction.
You see, its Jesus who changes the course of Human history, it is Jesus who saves us from the destiny of destruction and the destination of hell. Paul told the Thessalonians that it was Jesus who rescues us from the coming wrath. Ephesians 2:3 says that we are by nature, children of wrath, and Romans 1:18 says that God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men. But Romans 3:25 tells us that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be a propitiation for our sins, and now we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1-2).
Our text in 1st Corinthians tells us that Christ died for our sins, and was then raised up. Again Romans 4:25 tells us that the resurrection of Jesus was because of our justification. The propitiation of the blood of Jesus, did its job. That word “propitiation” means to appease. In-other-words, Jesus took our punishment on the cross, He satisfied God’s justice and bore the wrath of God in our place. And because God’s justice was met, and because God’s mercy was met, God was satisfied; and because God was satisfied, we were justified. We were made just-as-if we had never sinned in God’s sight.
Paul goes on to say that the risen Lord was seen by eye witnesses. This tells us that the Gospel is historical and proven. It’s not just some wild story that a bunch of Jewish fishermen made up. It’s the real thing.
In modern court cases attorneys always want to get eye witnesses because eye witnesses strengthen the case. Well there were over 500 eye witnesses that saw the resurrected Lord. A point of history that has never been refuted. And a point that proved every single claim that Jesus had made. You see; if Christ had not been raised then our faith is in vain, but the resurrection proved what He claimed, namely that He was the Son of God, that He was God in the flesh, who came to die for your sins and mine. If Jesus was just a good moral philosopher, or just a good moral teacher, then God would not have validated His claims of being one with God and the Son of God by raising Him from the dead. But He did just that, He raised Jesus from the dead, and the Bible teaches that because Jesus has been raised from the dead, those of us who die in the Lord will also be raised up to newness of life.
This is the hope we have, and this is the Gospel message – that Christ died for our sins, and that He was buried and that God raised Him up because of our justification. It’s an undisputed and irrefutable fact; and by faith you can receive Him as Lord and Savior. God doesn’t promise you divine health and divine wealth. No, the Bible tells us that we will be persecuted, afflicted, and in this world we will have trouble. But what God does promise you is that you will be reconciled with Him, that you will be forgiven of your sins, that your life will be changed and that you will no longer be a slave to sin, but instead you’ll be a servant to righteousness. God promises that He will never leave you nor forsake you once you belong to Him, and that one day – some day, you will be with the Lord for all eternity.
