The critical gospel

Good morning. Let's see, we skipped quickly past something. I'm going to go back to the beginning here just to let you know there is, as we've been announcing, a God's Intent for Your Finances elective. It will be 9 to noon on January 30th. We are asking for signups. What a surprise, right?

And one of the reasons, of course, is we have materials to prepare and pick the right location. We also need to accommodate babysitting. One of the things that will be important, we believe, is to have couples be able to attend together. That's one of the reasons for offering the babysitting, if that's at all possible. So at any rate, January 30th, nine to noon.

Now, we'll step into the passage here. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is what we're stepping into. We're going to continue on with chapter 15 through the first Sunday in February, and then chapter 16 the following Sunday, which will complete our study of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is a chapter I'm really looking forward to it.

It is full of riches. Wait a minute, not that kind of riches. Who put this thing together anyway? All right. Spiritual riches. Great riches in this passage. And as we step our way through it, we're going to be discovering these riches a bit at a time. We're going to take a brief glimpse ahead. And one of the things we're going to discover as we walk our way through the passage is, and as we'll see today, it contains the basic gospel. What is the gospel that must be believed? What is the content of the gospel that we need to present to unbelievers? It presents the basic gospel. What is it that we believed by which the Lord saved us?

He's going to spell out Christ died for our sins. He was buried. He was raised on the third day. And you believed it. He's going to spell that out. He's also going to lay out in this chapter very solid evidence for the resurrection. We're going to be taking a look at some of that here this very morning. And he presents a significant case and summary. We're actually going to be looking at some more details on that. He's also going to be talking about the essential nature of the resurrection.

You know, if you go to order some things, they will ask, well, do you want this or that option to go along with it? One of the things he's going to spell out here is the resurrection is not an option. It's not one of the things you pick up and say, well, no, I don't want that part of it. He says, no, it's basic. It's essential. You don't get salvation without the resurrection. It doesn't happen. He's even going to say, and this is in next week's passage, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins.

That's 1 Corinthians 15, 17. He's even in this chapter, this is two weeks from now, going to be presenting the identification truth about sins. And I'll put quotes around this. This is going to be the presentation of the secret identification truth. So we'll take a look at that. He's going to present the identification truths about Adam and he's going to present the identification truths about Christ, how we were identified with Christ.

Finally, he is going to have an explanation in this passage towards the end of what takes place when we are taken to be with the Lord. What's interesting is that as you look at the New Testament, It is Paul who seems to be the one privileged with explaining our going to be with the Lord. Now, he doesn't explain everything. There are certain things that the other authors explained. But he seems to be the one uniquely privileged to explain our going to be with the Lord.

And we'll be looking at one of the key passages in which he does that. This is the blessed hope, as he writes to Titus, and certainly our hope. Now, there's also something else that's going to be a lot of fun in this passage, and that's in 1 Corinthians 15, he also has a particularly puzzling passage. A very puzzling passage to some. We're going to be looking at it.

Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they baptized for them? Alright, so with that, we're going to get the baptistry out, and all of you are going to... No, never mind. Anyway, we will address this question. Now, in these first 11 verses that we're looking at today, he's going to be covering three main topics. So Paul's first topic is the Gospel. What is the Gospel to be believed to be saved?

He is also, in his second topic, going to list and give the number of witnesses that Christ was indeed raised, raised from the dead, and he's going to give a figure of more than 500. So many of the names and then the figure of more than 500. A great many people saw Christ resurrected, several of them more than once. And it's real interesting as the decades roll on, even by the end of the first century, there were still some who are still alive and could testify personally to Christ's resurrection.

The third topic will be his own apostleship. He's going to present it humbly, but in the end, what he's going to do is point to God's character that is the reason for his being an apostle, not his own. It's God's character that graciously gives him his apostleship.

Now, You might ask the question, wait a minute, these people are saved. Why are you presenting the gospel, Paul, again to these people who are supposedly already saved? Well, the believers in Corinth seem to have issues. Of course, this isn't the only issue they've got, right? We've found they have lots of issues. Some aspects of the gospel had begun to be less clear, possibly caused by a confusion of false gospels. Matter of fact, we've got that problem now, don't we? Have you ever had the idea brought across to you that repenting is when you cry a lot? And by the way, you haven't repented unless your knees are down here, right? You get real emotional and then you've repented.

Is that right? Well, that can be a false gospel. It can also be, now wait a minute, I've gone to church every Sunday. Doesn't that count for something? No. Okay. That can be a false gospel. And so they were having that problem here too. What is the gospel? It was beginning to be unclear. You can go to a great many places where people will talk about Christ and what is the gospel becomes very foggy. Very confusing. Some, it is quite apparent as we go through this passage, we're questioning the resurrection. Did Christ really resurrect? I mean, that sounds a little far-fetched. So Paul says, well, wait a minute. You don't understand. Over 500 people saw him resurrected. This isn't some little quibbling point here.

It is also, however, valuable for us to revisit the gospel. This is a picture of the crucifixion of Christ. through glass that has a little bit of a wavy pattern. It can become foggy for us, too. It is valuable for us to revisit, what exactly is the gospel?

Should we just listen to an appeal to, oh, join Christ's team? Be committed to Christ? Those kinds of things. Oh, he was such a great example to follow. Won't you follow him? Not understanding that there is an essential gospel. Paul's going to address that. It is valuable for us to know how indeed were we saved. Not just for ourselves, although certainly that, but also for the sake of what do we tell an unbeliever? What do we tell that unbeliever that they need to do to be saved? What do we say?

One of the things that comes out that's real interesting in this passage is Paul has a pattern of words that doesn't come across quite clearly in the English, is that the words gospel and preached in verses 1 and 2 are from the same family of words that basically mean good news. And so Paul wrote verses 1 and 2 emphasizing the good news. And it goes across like this, the good news noun, which I good newsed, verb, to you. The word which I good newsed to you. He is emphasizing the fact it's good news. And by the way, we're going to talk about why is it good news. Very important. But that's a key point. What he's spelling out here is, I presented you the good news, and when I did so, I good newsed you.

I gave you the good news. Now here, and you have it on your handout as well, only not in color, is the poetic pattern of the first two and a half verses. Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel, the good news, right? which I preached, or good news to you, and the gospel which you received.

I did this, you did that. Your response was to receive it. By which you stand in that position of salvation, by which also you are saved. Now here's the part that we've got to puzzlingly address, if you hold fast the word and unless you believed in vain. The gospel I preached to you, I preached to you, okay? He says it twice here. And then as he starts into the third verse, for I delivered to you, okay? He made known, he preached, he delivered, they received, that one.

And what is it? That Christ died for your sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day. The content of the gospel that must be believed. If somebody asks, what do I need to do to be saved? That's it. Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. Do you believe it? It's that simple. One of the things he says twice, according to the scriptures. Which scriptures? Now, I'd submit to you that the reference to the scriptures is almost certainly pointing to the Old Testament. Why do I say that?

We studied in Isaiah, back in chapter 52 and 53. We actually spent six weeks on it. That passage there, 700 years before Christ was born, says the exact same thing that the passage we're studying now says. That if you believe Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again, that's salvation. Isn't it interesting that Isaiah said it seven centuries before? One of the other reasons why I say that that's almost certainly what Paul is talking about is because Christ, remember when He walked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus?

He explained to them how the Old Testament Scriptures told about the fact that He must die for sins and be buried and rise again. And that's what's to be believed. And He explained that to them. So what is the Gospel to be believed? What is it? Is it this crucified and buried and raised?

Or do I have to get wet too? Does somebody have to make me wet in order to be saved? As a matter of fact, do I have to confess with my mouth on top of that? And exactly what words do I have to say? And how cold does the water have to be? When Nancy and I were in Carson City, the place that we baptized folks to make sure they were serious was Lake Tahoe. We made sure that the snow was at the edge there before we baptized them. That was just a test to make sure they're serious, right?

Now, so what's the gospel to be believed? And what kind of work do I have to do? By the way, I don't work so good, right? My works oftentimes get messed up, but just let me know. So that's important that we get figured out. He spells it out quite clearly here. You know, he doesn't get convoluted.

He says, Christ died for your sins, which means that sins are or were a serious problem. This is one reason why the gospel is not seen as needed. by many today. They don't understand the sin problem. If sins are not understood as putting a separation between themselves and God, they won't see the need for a Savior. Why'd Christ have to die? That just seems awful messy, right? They must understand that the sins put a separation between themselves and God. The sins are also a question of who pays for this. If there's an automobile accident, one of the big questions is, who pays for this? Well, guess what? Sins are a whole lot worse than any automobile accident. And there's no way we could pay for it. Christ died for our sins. When Christ died, He took the penalty that I should have paid.

It was due for me. I should have been the one there. I should have been the one taking the penalty, but he said, no, I'll take it instead. And so he died in my place. There is a song I have just put the chorus here. Instead of me, he took the blame, the misery. Instead of me, he suffered silent agony. And in that final breath, he died alone, the sinner's death instead of me. The sins are a problem. They put a separation between man and God. God steps forward and says, I'll pay the full penalty. Do you receive my payment? Do you accept my payment? I do.

Then it says he was buried. That confirms that he was quite certainly, absolutely, really, really dead. You don't take people who aren't dead and wrap them up and put all this stuff on them and put the stone over the opening to the tomb. He was most certainly dead. And finally, he was raised on the third day.

That was the essential completion which had to take place for our salvation. Oh, that doesn't mean that that's all of our salvation. But that's what must be believed. That's God's accomplishment. So what's the gospel to be believed? It must include he was raised on the third day. And that's the part that the Corinthians didn't seem to get.

Now what about these parts there at the last part of verses 1 through 4 where he says, if, unless. Does that sound like he's questioning? Are you sure you're going to be saved or stay saved? Why does he have that? I would suggest to you, he's not seeking to cause those who are saved to begin to doubt. Oh man, am I really saved? Did I really do everything? Did God pull it off? He's not causing those who actually believed to doubt it.

He's got a reason for that. We'll take a look at that in a minute. He is wanting to make certain that each one does believe the entire content of the gospel and tell the unbelievers the entire content of the true gospel. Not something that's shortcut. Not, this is the amount that I can swallow. The full, complete gospel. The whole thing. The true gospel.

The part that some of the believers in Corinth seem to have lost sight of, and we'll see this as we go through the rest of the passage, is that Christ's resurrection is essential to the gospel and our own resurrection. We talked about a blessed hope. Later on, he's talking about when we go to be with the Lord. But if Christ was not raised, then we won't be. So he says it's essential. It's not optional. As we start looking through today's passage and next week's passage, we notice this pattern. Here in verse 2, unless you believed in vain, that's where it starts to sound like he's getting them to doubt. But look at verse 10. His grace toward me did not prove vain, for nothing. And then here is the clincher, verse 12.

How do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? That's the point. Some of them were doubting it. Some of them were saying, there is no resurrection of the dead, we're not sure about Christ's resurrection, and we're not sure how important that all is. What he's saying, that's very important.

If you miss that, you miss the whole thing. Verse 14, if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith also is in vain. If Christ is not raised, you don't get the rest of the gospel, at least part of it. He said, if Christ is not raised, you don't get any of it. You need the whole thing.

Now, page 2 of your handout brings together the various testimonies to the resurrection of Christ in the New Testament. It includes the passage that we're looking at today, in which Paul brings out some very important pieces of information. But it also brings in all the other passages that testify to Christ's resurrection. All four Gospels, the book of Acts, certainly 1 Corinthians, the one we're looking at now, are included in that. One of the things that's important for us to get across in our minds, because there are many who scoff and don't understand, and that Paul was trying to get across to the believers there, is that the quantity and the quality of the testimony for Christ's resurrection is beyond impressive.

It's beyond impressive. The testimony is from six different New Testament authors in over a half dozen other books by more than 500 people over more than 60 years of time. These 500 that he wrote about here in this passage, some of them were still living at the time John wrote the book of Revelation and went home to be with the Lord.

Here is Peter. Here is Peter in Jerusalem at the temple, or in the temple vicinity, and on the very first day, Acts 2, verse 32, here he is speaking before these Jews and after saying, You crucified Him! They're going, Ah! He says, this Jesus God raised up again to which we are all witnesses.

You doubt my word? Ask these other guys here. By the way, there's hundreds of us. They'll tell you the same thing. Nobody disputed that they had witnessed the resurrection. Next chapter. The Prince of Life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. Not, we think so. Not, we'd like to think so. or we have this little story that goes around that sounds really nice. We, in fact, are witnesses to it. We know it to be the case.

Later on in chapter 10, while he's testifying to the Gentiles in Caesarea, God raised him up, Christ, on the third day and granted that he become visible to us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead. Was he for real? Yeah, we sat down and ate and drank with him. It was for real. We saw it. We know. And I'm not the only one. We.

The other point is many sacrificed their lives for the testimony that Christ was raised. We could go through the different accounts of the apostles, and there are others. We know, for example, that Matthew, according to an extra-biblical account, was killed in North Africa.

While they were staking him to the ground and driving stakes through his body, he screamed out the gospel, testifying even to the end about Christ's resurrection with his last breaths. The apostles, with John as the only exception, as far as we have any records, every one of them spent their lives testifying to the resurrection. until the very last breath. Even those who didn't believe in Christ, and you can imagine, this includes, we have the reference here, John 7, verse 5, to Jesus' brothers. Not even his brothers were believing in him. Can you imagine growing up with Jesus?

He's your big brother. He's perfect. How come you can't be like your big brother? I'm sure they got real tired of hearing that. They were so resentful, they didn't believe Him. They didn't believe Him. Can you imagine that? Here He is growing up with Jesus. You're growing up with the Messiah, the Son of God, and their thought is, I'm sick of it. I've had enough. I don't believe that guy. He's too perfect. He's unbelievable. I've had enough.

So here's this perfect brother, this perfect older brother. 1 Corinthians 15, 7 says, and then he appeared to James. James we know, author of the book of James, James we know from the book of Acts, did become a believer. And by the way, 1 Corinthians chapter 9 is brothers too. This older brother that they got tired of hearing, why aren't you like your older brother, right?

That's the one they finally realized when he was raised from the dead. This is the Son of God. By the way, my older brother is the Son of God. How about that? My older brother was raised from the dead. My older brother, where is he now? Oh, he's in the heavenlies. That's my older brother.

They didn't believe all through everything that he did. You can imagine they didn't believe after they saw the miracles. After they heard about the miracles. After their mother, I'm sure, told them about the miracles. They didn't believe. But when he was resurrected, then they believed. They had to. There was no denying it. This was the Son of God.

The disciples, by the way, did not expect the resurrection. There are so many references to that that we won't have time to cover them all. But here is Peter and John running to the open tomb, to the empty tomb. They looked in. One of them walked in. Grave clothes empty. Nobody's there. They did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead. And by the way, that's John writing these words. He's one of those who didn't understand. Then he did later. Here's Jesus with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. O foolish men and slow of heart to believe, in all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Christ, the Messiah, to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? You didn't expect it, but do you believe it now?

There was also continuing abundant testimony in writing, as opposed to those documents from ancient history The New Testament has immense testimony in two respects. One, the number of documents that we have from the New Testament, hand-copied documents, early ones. I have the number here, more than 24,000, but these figures, by the way, are a few years old. I was just reading last night that that figure should probably be changed to 25,000. Now, what I don't have listed, I'll give for you, and that's Homer's Iliad is number two for ancient documents with copies. 643 copies of the Iliad is second place compared to 25,000.

Nothing else even comes close. As a matter of fact, I'll put it this way. The evidence for the New Testament documents and for the resurrection of Christ is so overwhelming, it's kind of almost embarrassing. Almost embarrassing. Aside from the New Testament documents, there are also a number of historical sources, we'll refer to them briefly in a bit, that confirm the basic outline of what the New Testament already says. So if you didn't have any of the 25,000 handwritten New Testament documents, If you didn't have any of those, you would still be able to put together an outline of what the New Testament says from documents completely outside the New Testament within the first two centuries. We'll go over that in a bit. Outside of the New Testament, I give the cover for a book, Robert Van Voorst, who wrote a book summarizing what these evidences are.

We also covered it in our church history class some years back. I'd like to see us repeat that. Title of that was Evidence Regarding Christianity Outside of the Bible, Christianity Outside of the Bible in the First and Second Centuries. And by the way, real interesting, Craig Case was in that class, and he had become a believer not that long before. He previously was an atheist. And when I shared the information in that class, he said, you know, When I became a believer, that information was pivotal. It is extremely impressive to find out if I had none of the New Testament, I would still have the basic outline of what the New Testament says in writings from outside of the Bible altogether.

The bottom line message is don't turn a blind eye to the mountain of evidence. Paul is writing to these believers and he isn't saying just, wait a minute, you guys really need the resurrection, you better believe it. He's saying that the evidence is overwhelming. Massive evidence.

500 people, a lot of whom are still alive. You can ask them. The New Testament documents, and again, these figures are a few years old. The numbers are a bit higher now. They're at least 5,309 surviving hand-copied Greek manuscripts that contain all or parts of the New Testament. That number keeps growing. In some years, we've had as many as a few hundred discoveries of additional documents in one year.

There are more than 19,000 ancient New Testament manuscripts in Latin, about 8,000, Syriac, Armenian, and other languages. The oldest copies of the New Testament known to exist are actually not in the Greek, but in the Syriac and old Latin versions. And finally, all totaled more than 24,000, like say today approaching 25,000, handwritten copies of the New Testament have survived.

What can be done in the same way that people do genealogical studies, what can be done is to study the copies made from the original. and then the next generation of copies, and then the next generation of copies, etc. And you have this generalized family tree. And that's essentially what's been done so that we have then a consistent pattern of pointing back to what was the original. We have this in a more extended form, the chart that I showed previously, several of the ancient documents. After studying this, I put it to people this way.

If you're going to deny the resurrection of Christ, then you have to say that we know absolutely nothing about anything in ancient history. The evidence for the resurrection is that solid and abundant and profuse. If we don't know that Christ was raised from the dead, then we don't know anything about anything or anybody in all of ancient history. It's that solid.

Sir Frederick Kenyon, he is a fellow who, you might tell from the picture, lived many decades ago. He died the year I was born, 1952. He wrote this, the interval between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible and the last foundation for any doubt that the scriptures have come down to as substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established. And since then, we have discovered thousands of additional copies since he wrote this. He was able to conclude this, and a scholar of no small stature, he was the director of the British Museum. So we also have this from Dr. Edwin Yamauchi. He is still alive.

And I was born in 1937. He wrote in 1995, even if we did not have the New Testament or Christian writings, we would be able to conclude from such non-Christian writings as Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, and plenty of the younger, that Jesus was a Jewish teacher, entirely outside of the Bible.

Secondly, many people believe that he performed healings and exorcisms. Third, he was rejected by the Jewish leaders. Sound familiar? Fourth, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. And fifth, despite his shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by 64 AD. And six, all kinds of people from the cities and countryside, men and women, slave and free, worshiped him as God by the beginning of the second century. And that's all. provable, demonstrable from documents outside of the Bible.

Finally, Paul gives the Lord credit for his apostleship. He credits repeatedly God's grace to his being appointed as an apostle. While the other apostles spent time with the Lord, and yes, they were slow to catch on, but they did indeed spend time with the Lord, and were active in seeking to build up the church from Acts 2 on. Paul was at the start busy trying to destroy the church.

He even opted, as he says in the end of Acts, wherever he had the chance, he voted for death for the Christians. He says, if I have a chance, if I have any say, they're dead. We see the first evidence of that on the day in which Stephen, one of the first appointed deacons from Acts chapter 6, is stoned to death. Paul looks on as he holds everybody's coats and as they take their turns throwing stones at Stephen. Paul looked back at that and says, here are these other apostles trying to build the church. I tried to destroy them as much as I could. I tried to kill them every chance I had. So his appointment as an apostle wasn't because, boy, he was a good guy. His appointment wasn't because, well, I was faithful to the Lord from the beginning. His appointment was only by God's mercy and by God's grace. You see, as believers, God has poured on us mountains of mercy. Fountains of mercy.

As Paul wrote in Romans 521, grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is by grace, by grace, by grace. Grace that Paul was appointed, grace that we're saved. We live in an atmosphere, we breathe an atmosphere of grace as believers.

Mountains of grace, fountains of grace. Grace so amazing. See, it isn't just enough grace, just the right adequate amount. It's flooding, overwhelming grace. All grace, all the time, on into eternity. That's why I love Ephesians 2.7. It says, on into the rolling ages He will show, that is, demonstrate visibly His grace for the ages to come. You see, while we're here on this planet, He wants us to learn all we can about His grace. But you know, it is so great, so fantastic that 10,000 years with the Lord in the heavenlies won't begin to scratch the surface of His grace.

His grace is truly, truly amazing. And Paul himself could testify to that. He said, I have no worthiness at all. Not to even be an apostle, but by God's grace I am. I am what I am. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, Your grace is truly amazing.

By Your most amazing grace, You sent Your Son to die for our sins, and He was buried, assuring that He was most certainly dead, and raised again, assuring that we have new life in Him. And we thank you for that. We thank you for the marvelous, amazing grace that you showed the Apostle Paul. May we, through today, this week, the weeks to come, discover increasingly your most amazing grace. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.