1 Corinthians - Week 25

0:00 Thanks, David. We are in our final season of our walk through Paul's letter to the church in Corinth, the first one, 1 Corinthians, and we have arrived at the majestic chapter of chapter 15. It is one of the most brilliant passages, and I'm excited to spend three weeks in that chapter. We're going to get into it and just go through the first 11 verses of that, just the beginning of Paul's argument in it this morning. So let's read those first 11 verses together. 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. By this gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

0:54 For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the twelve. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born. 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. 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 whether then it is I or they this is what we preach and this is what you believed. Who do you think you are? I'm not trying to start a fight. I'm referring to the BBC TV program where celebrities are followed as they look into their ancestry, as they look into their roots.

2:25 And quite often they find some amazing things in their past. If we put up the next slide there, there's a few here. We've got the rower, Matthew Pinsent. He found out that he is directly descended from Henry VIII's fifth wife, Catherine Howard. Interesting. We've got Boris Johnson. Believe it or not, you probably believe it, he is actually descended from a German prince, Prince Paul von Wittenberg, in fact. I'm sure you would believe that.

2:54 And then Danny Dyer at the bottom there of EastEnders fame, he found out that he's actually related to a direct descendant of not just William the Conqueror, not just Edward III, but Thomas Cromwell as well. And as you can see, he decided to celebrate that by dressing up in regal garb. Now, I have been doing some of my own family research recently. My boys bought me one of those DNA heritage kits. It was actually two Christmases ago. I forgot about it, put it in a cupboard, didn't remember. Got it out again just recently. Did the little swab, very meticulously.

3:33 You'll be glad to know that's the only time I've ever had to do that. Did the little swab, sent it off, came back a couple of months later with information on the app which told me my heritage. This is what I got. So this is my DNA heritage. I'm not sure whether I'm more excited that I'm 30% Scandinavian or more disturbed that I'm 50% English. I'm not sure which one. But I continue to do a little bit more research, and I did find going back into the past, one of my Viking descendants, I'd like you to meet him. This is Christofferson the Friendly, just in case you're wondering, not like all those other nasty Vikings.

4:16 This is just talking about us finding our roots, getting to know our roots, understanding where it is we come from, understanding the big story to which we belong, and even more so then understanding where it is we're going, what our ultimate future is, and how all of that massively impacts how we live and how we think of ourselves in the here and now, right now, here, today. And that's what this chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, is all about, really. It's about who the Corinthians think they are, their roots and God's overarching story, and it's about who they think they will be in the future. This chapter is the climax of Paul's letter. He's left the most important thing to the very end. This is like the last five minutes of his talk. You imagine this letter would have been read to the whole church, a big audience, and what he wanted them to go away with in their heads as they left that reading was what he's talking about here in this chapter so magnificently. And the question that sits at the very heart of this chapter is actually asked by Paul in verse 12, just the next verse after where we've read from this morning.

5:35 And that question is this one. But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can you say that there is no resurrection from the dead? This is the main issue in the church in Corinth. At least some of them, at least a faction of them, were saying that there is no resurrection of the dead. There's no resurrection of believers. They're denying what Paul has clearly taught them in the past, that there will be this future bodily resurrection of all those who are in Christ. And this group were deeply, deeply influenced by the prevailing worldview around them, the Greek Platonic worldview. you.

6:19 And it's perspective on the human body, a perspective that, and we've talked about this before in previous chapters, that the body was crude and corrupt and temporary and totally insignificant compared to the real you of your soul. And like I say, there've been clues throughout this letter. Think of the slogan that Paul quotes back to them in chapter six, food for the body and the body for food, and God will destroy them both. According to that platonic way of thinking, the body was this shell that one day they'd be released from to be their true selves. So what they did with it now, whether that's who they had sex with or what they ate or anything else to do with their body, was of no moral or spiritual significance whatsoever. And it appears then that this perspective and the body was getting into their thinking, was influencing some of the church to deny that there would be such a thing as a bodily resurrection of believers because they found that very idea crude and unsophisticated and unspiritual and embarrassing even. And to be quite frank, horrifying to these sophisticated, hyper-spiritual, intellectual Corinthians, the idea of corrupt bodies being raised from the dead, that was more the stuff of horror than it was the stuff of hope. And so some in the church have chosen to deny that this bodily resurrection is or has to be part of what they believe as Christians.

7:54 They've jettisoned it. If we use modern terminology, they've deconstructed this part of their faith. And that deconstruction, as we've seen throughout the letter, has had major consequences in the church when it comes to their sexual morality, when it comes to food and what they eat, when it comes to the Lord's Supper. Think of all those things we've gone through. All of the messed up thinking that's behind that is to do with this denial of the resurrection. And what Paul is doing here is being 100% clear in his overall argument across the whole chapter, and we'll see it build in the coming weeks, in a way that he's alluded to throughout the whole letter in dealing with these issues. When it comes to the Christian gospel, resurrection is not an optional extra. It is fundamental.

8:44 It is core. He's asserting that you cannot be a true Christian without accepting and believing that Christ was physically raised from the dead and that we too, those who are in him by faith, will certainly be physically raised as well. But in these first 11 verses, this is where he begins his overall argument. He lays its foundations. He takes them back to their roots and reminds them of what the gospel that saved them actually is. That's what we've read and that's what we're going to go through now. When everything is stripped back, what is it? What is it that is at the bedrock of the Christian gospel?

9:29 So let's just go through it step by step. Now, brothers and sisters, he says, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you. Now, the fact that he wants to remind them makes it very clear that he thinks there's something serious that they have forgotten or lost sight of or lost hold of that is absolutely vital to the good news that he has preached to them when he was with them five years before. And it's more accurate here to translate the beginning of verse two as by this gospel, it says here, you are saved. It's actually you are being saved. It's a present continuous tense. It's ongoing.

10:13 By this gospel, Paul is saying, Not by any other gospel, not by any redraft or any reimagination or any rewrite of this, but by this gospel, you are saved just in the first place, but in an ongoing basis, being saved day after day after day. And the, if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you, suggests very strongly that some of this church are not doing that, are not holding firmly. specifically in this case when it comes to the resurrection. And as one commentator puts it, those opening two verses are almost like Paul building up a drumroll to what the true core gospel is. And then just before he moves into the content of that, he adds this very interesting line at the beginning of verse 3. He says, For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance. Paul's using what is technical language here to state. This core gospel that I'm about to remind you of, it didn't originate with me.

11:29 I received it and I passed it on to you. This is Paul quoting an oral tradition gospel creed. a creed that has been carefully guarded, a creed that's been carefully preserved, that he has received as carefully passed down tradition and that he is then passed on carefully as a guardian of that tradition. We need to remember the context that Paul is writing into here. These guys don't have any of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. This is before that. They have the Old Testament Scriptures and then they have oral tradition. And many commentators agree that this creed that we have here probably dated all the way back to just somewhere between one and three years after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

12:25 This is what has been passed on from the very earliest stages of the fledgling Christian church. This is the core of the core of what the gospel is. It's short and it's sweet. There's not a lot in this, is there? There's maybe things that we would expect to be in the core of the gospel that actually aren't here. But even though it's short, nothing in it then can be set aside as some sort of later addition or speculation, and every word and every phrase in it is carefully chosen. And as Paul says, of first importance. Let's look then at what he says, because just like many in Corinth need reminded, we too, as forgetful people, need reminded as well.

13:13 First of all, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. The first thing of first importance, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. And I said every word is important, and even that first one is important. It's not Jesus died, it is Christ died. As we've said before, if we have any confusion that Christ was Jesus' surname, we've maybe got that wrong. Christ doesn't mean that. Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, meaning anointed one of God, chosen one of God, the one prophesied about in the Old Testament who would rescue, who would ransom his people. Think of places like Psalm 22, where we see that the gospel going all the way back into those roots.

14:03 They pierce my hands and feet. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. Or Isaiah 53, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. This has been prophesied about. This is the fulfillment of God's big plan. Christ died for our sin.

14:34 I think this is worth us noting in what is possibly the earliest carefully guarded and passed down Christian creed of first importance. our sin is highlighted as our fundamental problem, our core predicament. It feels maybe at times today that many Christians and many churches seem to want to airbrush both the word and the concept of sin out of existence, and instead only go so far as to speak in terms of things like brokenness and so on, which are absolutely valid, of course, but to leave out sin. We've got to acknowledge in the earliest creed, it is our sin that is identified as our problem, and Christ, our Messiah, died for our sins. Now, our English word for, Christ died for our sins, is very broad ranging. It's a catch-all word, but the Greek word it's translated from is hyper, And that really means benefit on behalf of. It captures this idea of in our place, of Christ as our substitute. Christ, the Messiah, the God-man, God become flesh,

16:01 willingly took our place in order to pay the price. I love how John Stott in his book, The Cross of Christ, describes this concept of substitution. The concept may be said to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation, he says. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be. God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone. God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.

16:55 The first fundamental part of the gospel, the first root to take hold firmly of, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Second then, that he was buried. And by the way, every time we hear the word in this passage, that, the word that is almost like virtual quotation marks in this. It's showing that this is a carefully passed on tradition. This is something that has been passed down and is being quoted. that he was buried. That's an important part of the gospel, that Jesus actually definitively died. He didn't swoon.

17:43 It wasn't some sort of metaphorical death. It wasn't some sort of spiritual death. He was actually carefully wrapped in grave clothes and placed in the tomb. This was an undeniable bodily, physical death. Third then, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. This is the one that Paul's really getting at with this group in Corinth. Of first importance, he's saying, at the very bedrock of the gospel you received, Christ was raised by God on the third day according to the scriptures. This, just like Christ's death for our sins, is the powerful and the glorious fulfillment of God's overarching plan of grace.

18:34 It's according to the scriptures too, in the same way that it was that Christ died for our sins, that he would also be raised on the third day. Think back to what Peter says in Acts, in Jerusalem, in Pentecost, preaching that God to raise Christ from the dead in fulfillment of Psalm 16. Words like this that he quotes, therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one, your holy one, see decay. That's just one of the passages you could look up many more. Maybe you go home today, you can look up Psalm 110 or further on in Psalm 22 or further on in Isaiah 53. The resurrection too happened according to the scriptures. It's not an optional extra.

19:34 And the reality is this, that the gospel is no gospel. The gospel is not good news if the actual historical supernatural event of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his death did not actually take place. Because without the resurrection, there is no defeat of sin. There is no defeat of death. There is no guarantee that what Christ actually did on the cross actually achieved what it was meant to achieve. And Paul will go into that in much more detail over the next couple of weeks in the remainder of the chapter as he builds on this foundation to challenge the denial that's taking place in this church. But he goes on, and that he appeared to Cephas and then to the 12.

20:31 See what he's doing here is just pushing back at them, pushing back at them. If you're questioning, he says, if you're denying the resurrection as court of the gospel, he says to this group of people in Corinth, then you have to come up with a viable alternative explanation. Not just in my testimony, he's saying, but for the testimony of the following people that are quoted here or mentioned here, and not just their testimony itself, but also the completely and utterly transformative impact their claims of seeing and meeting the risen Christ had on their lives. Cephas, Peter, the denier, heard about him recently, of course, in our Messiah series, turned fire starter of the early church. He testified that the risen Christ had appeared To him, the twelve, that ragtag bunch who scattered at Gethsemane, but who became the apostles, the messengers and the pillars of the early church. The risen Christ appeared to them, 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living. In other words, Paul is saying, please feel free to go and look them up and ask them What their experience is. What their testimony is.

21:59 And then James. Jesus' younger brother who all throughout Jesus' ministry didn't believe anything about his older brother being the Messiah. But then the risen Christ appeared to him and he of course would ultimately go on to be a core leader in the early church. And even beyond that would go on to be a martyr. To lose his life. witnessing to the reality that Christ was risen from the dead. All these witnesses, what's your alternative viable explanation for that, Paul's saying to them, if you're denying resurrection? And then to this wide and combined variety of people, of places, of occasions, of situations, think about it.

22:54 In a garden, in an upper room, in public places, single individuals, large, large groups. Paul then can't help himself. I love this. He can't help himself, but he needs to add his own story in there as well. He's just bursting to give a little bit more of his own unique testimony. Let me tell you my story again is almost what's happening here. And last of all, he says, He appeared to me also as to one abnormally born. Paul is testifying here to his own story of the grace of God in his life, initiated by God in the risen Christ appearing to him on the Damascus road.

23:43 Just as the resurrection was the life-transforming event for Peter, just as it was the life-transforming event for the twelve, It is to the life-transforming event for Paul. Yes, absolutely, he says. His story is very different to those who saw the risen Christ in the time between his crucifixion and resurrection and then his ascension. This reference here that Paul makes as to one abnormally born, It's actually very graphic imagery of an aborted fetus. And it might have actually been that in using this term, this had actually been a derogatory term thrown at Paul by his detractors for his weak and his unimpressive physical appearance, all tied up with their derision of him because they didn't see him as a true apostle in the way that Peter was. And he alludes to some of that criticism in 2 Corinthians 10 and 2 Corinthians 12. But Paul now seems to turn that imagery around, this derogatory term that's been applied to him, and use it as this beautiful and powerful picture of the utterly undeserved gift of grace in his life. This life, most of us will know the story of a brutal, violent persecutor of the Christian church, now completely transformed by the reality of an encounter with the risen Christ.

25:29 By God's grace, undeserved, unmerited grace, I have seen him. By God's grace, I have encountered him. By God's grace, my life has been turned totally upside down. By the grace of God, he says, I am what I am. What a stunningly beautiful phrase that Paul uses here for us to reflect on. Is it a phrase we ever say about ourselves? is it a phrase we ever remind ourselves of a reality with his grace has not been without effect paul goes on there's an understatement for someone if you ever had one he was he has taken he says my ugly my twisted my rebellious my hate-filled wretched state and graciously transformed it into beauty and into glory and into purpose and into hope.

26:37 All stemming from this encounter with the risen Christ. And so Paul finishes this opening part of his argument. And like I say, we'll pick up on the development of that over the next couple of weeks with this summary. Here's where he finishes. Whether then it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you have, this is what you believe. What Paul's saying here is this, it doesn't matter who you heard this gospel from, it doesn't matter whether it was from me, it doesn't matter whether it was Peter, it doesn't matter whether it was from anybody else, it's the same gospel. It's exactly the same, it's the same carefully guarded, passed on, and received tradition from the same source. Of first importance,

27:30 a non-negotiable core part of the gospel from the beginning is this, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Of first importance, non-negotiable that he was buried. Of first importance, non-negotiable that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And then of first importance, non-negotiable, that he appeared to witnesses, to Cephas and the Twelve and all of the others. This is the gospel of grace and the gospel of salvation and the gospel of transformative power that they received and believed. And anything different to that is no gospel, no good news at all. This is the firm foundation on which they stand, nothing else. So Paul begins to build his argument to challenge the belief of this group within the Corinthian church who are denying the resurrection.

28:32 And he starts by reminding them then, and that's what we've looked at today, of their gospel roots that travel far back into the Old Testament scriptures. but as I said earlier just like the Corinthians we too can be a very forgetful people and so what does this passage what do these words have to say to us this morning it might be slightly different perhaps in some cases like this group in Corinth there may be a few here that there's something in this gospel laid out in front of us that over time we have come in some way not to like or or be uncomfortable with or we'd rather it wasn't there I've talked about them a lot with them it was the resurrection that they had a problem with perhaps with us perhaps with us in our prevailing worldview in our cultural the cultural time that we live in we might have as I mentioned a difficulty with the concept of human sin and responsibility or we might have a real difficulty in telling people

29:55 as the gospel says that they are actually sinners or it might be that this idea that Christ needed to die on our behalf as this as this substitutionary sacrifice, that this was the only way for God to save us, to heal us, to fix us, to ransom us, whatever it is that we struggle with something in that. And if that's the case, we need to look at this again, and we need to be challenged by this, the core gospel, everything in here, in this short summary, is, as Paul says, of first importance and it has been since the beginning of the church. And if we try and remove or edit or do anything with that, it all begins to unravel. But I would imagine for most of us, that's not our issue. We need the reminder of this passage not so much because we've forgotten or we've lost hold of what it says. I think most of us here in this room would say, yes, I do believe all that Paul says here.

31:12 It's not that. I think, and I put myself into this category, we need reminded of this truth again and again because, not because we forget the words or the doctrine, but because we forget to live in the light of it. we forget to live in the light of it I've been keeping a close eye on the master's golf this weekend I would imagine a few others might be as well because as I do every year I live in the vein and forlorn hope that a certain golfer from Northern Ireland might actually pick up a green jacket after many many years of trying it's not going to happen this year either but in Rory McIlroy's pre-tournament interviews this week which are always focused on the pressure on him to win after so many years of missing out he talked about how he needed to remember his roots how he needed to cast his mind back to his bouncy 18 year old self playing at Augusta for the first time and the excitement and the wonder and the joy and the privilege that he felt as he walked up Magnolia Drive for the first time and got to play in this amazing golf tournament. And he said, I think, referencing the famous pink flowers that he's trying to chip out of, I think, in this picture, one of the most important things he said is to actually enjoy it and smell the azaleas. Those are those pink flowers.

32:59 I think one of the most important things is to enjoy it and smell the azaleas. And I don't know about you, but that little quote grabbed me because that's me. So often when it comes to this gospel, But when it comes to this amazing gospel, I need to smell the azaleas. I know this gospel. I believe this gospel, but so often I forget to live in the light of it. I let other things get in the way. I let other things take over my thinking and my being. I let the pressure and the guilt or whatever it is sort of seep in.

33:41 I let other things in life take over the place of first importance. I look at Paul I've got to go Paul was an Azalea's smeller every day he preached this gospel to himself he preached it to himself every day in the midst of all of the trials and the struggles and the persecution and the difficulties in life that he faced He remembered and he gave thanks for the glorious story he'd been brought into. Every day he reminded himself of his Christ-transformed life. Every day he said to himself first and then to anyone else who would listen, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. And just like Paul, by the undeserved, unconditional, sacrificial grace of God.

34:49 Notice that in this gospel summary, there's nothing in it of anything that we do. It's all the initiative of God. Every single part of it, the gracious initiative of God, unconditional, sacrificial. And as a result of that grace, I am what I am, and you are what you are. and we need to smell the azaleas of the grace of God, the fragrance of that, the beauty of that. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. We are completely forgiven. Are we living in the confidence and the freedom of that today?

35:36 We're reconciled to God. We're loved by God. We're adopted children of God. Are we living in the welcome? Are we living in the invitation? Are we living in the warmth and the joy and the assurance of that today? No condemnation, no pressure, no need to perform, no burden. Christ was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.

36:04 He has defeated sin and death, and he has brought us, not bringing us, he's already brought us into eternal life in him. We will yet live with him in new resurrected bodies. Are we living in the light of that reality? Are we living today as if we're gonna die? Or are we living today as if we're gonna live? Are we living as if this life is our entire story? And the end comes when we're 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 or whenever it might be. Or are we living that this is only the preface, this is only the beginning of a grand story that God is writing that we are going to be a part of.

36:54 By the grace of God, I am what I am. Let's take this reminder of the gospel. let's hold firmly to it let's live in light of it and embrace it and enjoy it and revel in it and respond to it let's for today at least smell the azaleas of the grace of God in our lives let's pray and the band can come back up Father thank you for your word thank you for this gospel, this gospel that we receive, this gospel on which we have taken our stand, this gospel that saved us, this gospel that is saving us today and tomorrow and the next day into eternity. Father, thank you for your grace poured out for us in this gospel. help us to hold firmly to it to see that it is our firm foundation help us to live in the light of it help us to smell that fragrance of your grace

38:28 and in whatever our circumstances are as David prayed for earlier that we would press into your grace and that we would build our lives on that firm foundation of your gospel we pray in Jesus name, amen