First Corinthians 15:1-9 The Gospel, proof of the resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:1-9 · Mike Doyle · Aug 1, 2021
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 68
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261923477865

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. How proud this morning is is that I get through without coughing. I think I got that accomplished this week, hopefully. We had a memorial service for Norm Avery yesterday and I didn't cough one time. I was really excited about that. Okay, 1 Corinthians 15, which is really, a cool chapter in my study, I was thinking, well, everyone knows that the gospel is laid out pretty succinctly in 1 Corinthians 15, first few verses. But I didn't realize until I started studying it that the whole reason that Paul lays out the gospel was to prove the resurrection. So that put a whole nother viewpoint on it as I studied it.

So we learned in, with chapter 15 we come to what is the third main division of the epistle of 1 Corinthians. The first division which we've covered, we had the cross of Christ excluding the wisdom of the world and the license of the flesh and the worship of demons. That was the first 10 chapters. The section we just finished up was 11 through 14.

We have the free action of the Holy Spirit maintaining the order in the meeting of God's church. In other words, he appointed the people who were in the church, and it was his job to maintain the order. Now the third division, which we start in today, brings before us the resurrection of Christ, triumphing over death and the grave, and opening the way to a perfect condition when God will be all in all. It's evident that in the Assembly of Corinth there was some really interesting stuff going on. There was an allowance for moral laxity. There were disorder in the meetings, which we've talked about.

There's existence of doctrinal error, and the main error that we're gonna talk about is there were some that didn't believe in the resurrection of the body. They were saying, as we're gonna see in verse 12, there's no resurrection of the dead. And the reason for this error, if you think about it, was their low moral condition. So evil had progressed as seen in this church.

It's very solemn for us and instructive. First there's evil practices and I think the very first evil practice we ran into was the fact that people were getting drunk at the Lord's table. you know, and other practices that they wouldn't share their food and things like that. And then there was disorder in the assembly itself. There was arguing and complaining and challenging Paul's authority.

And then there was false doctrine. And that's what this chapter is about. False doctrine meaning they denied the resurrection. So what you find is, I think, is that one evil leads to another. The moral laxity opens the door to the flesh and the doctrine of the cross and denies the cross. Assembly disorder leads to clerisy. Now, this is a really interesting word. If you studied Brethren, you run into words like this and you think, what the heck does clerisy mean? The definition of it is learned persons as a class intelligentsia clergy.

And we are so used to that today that we don't even think about it. But in the early church, the way Paul wanted the church to run was the Holy Spirit was in charge. And you didn't need a highly educated clergy to lead. That is an invention of mankind. With all the problems at Corinth, they thought, well, the way to solve it is to bring in some guys that have big-time educations, and they're really smart people, and they'll discipline, and we'll give them offices, and they'll be able to fix all these problems.

Well, the Holy Spirit, in that sense, is ignored. that he's the one that's to maintain the order and to deal with the discipline within the church. And what's interesting is is that spiritual understanding is not based on human intellect. It's based on the revelation of the Holy Spirit. We talked about over these last weeks about the revelation given and gifted people given to the church. So when you have a church run by this class of people that are the intelligent ones, who all have Chevrons and drive cars with clergy on the back of them, then you have a substitute for the spiritual order that the Holy Spirit has put in place.

And that's man's solution. And that's why it's such a big issue when, to repeat this sentence, assembly disorder leads to clerisy. and human order and ignores the Holy Spirit. That's exactly what it does. That these PhD types will solve all of our problems.

A doctrinal error opens a way for the enemy to undermine the foundation of our faith and attack the person of Christ. So I think it's important here to say that these dissenters were not necessarily spreading this error that they denied the immortality of the soul, but they opposed the truth that the body would be raised again. That's what they opposed.

The resurrection teaches that what is dead is raised. That's the basic doctrine. And it has to apply to the body because when someone dies, what dies? Death means separation. The soul and the spirit leave the body. What happens to the body? We term the body as being dead. The soul and the spirit live on. And in Matthew 27, 52, Matthew quotes, many of the bodies of the saints which slept arose at the time of Christ's death and resurrection.

It's possible that those who emphasize this there had no intention of compromising any other gospel issue, and even not denying the fact that Christ rose. However, it's terrible result is that this was an aim of Satan to convince people, well, Christ rose, but you're not, which leaves the doctrine out.

So what does Paul do to deal with this snare, with this evil? The first thing he's gonna do is in the first 11 verses of this chapter, he's gonna show the effects of the gospel. And then from 12 to 19 in this chapter, he's gonna show how it attacks the person of Christ and how it attacks those who believe in him. And then the last part of the chapter, which is verse 20 through 58, he'll unfold to us some of the positive blessings that follow from the resurrection of Christ. So as we go through 15, that's what we can look forward to. So, starting in verse 1, he says, Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel, which I preached to you, which you also received, and in which you stand. While the denial of the gospel, or denial of resurrection undermines the gospel, the first thing Paul does is remind these believers of the gospel as it was declared to them Originally, he'd been the one that preached it to him. And like the message of the Lord's Table, Paul didn't get this message because he heard it from the other apostles. It was a direct revelation to him. The gospel was a direct revelation to him. He got from the Lord himself.

And he says, and you received it. You believed it. And then he says, wherein you had your standing in blessing before God. We spent 10 minutes this morning, or 15 minutes, in Sunday school talking about what's a believer's position. He's positioned in Christ. Paul says you're positioned in Christ, you're positioned in the gospel.

Chester McAuley said the first words of the gospel mean good news, in a general sense. Second, in the New Testament, it is used to refer to God's promised and provided salvation in Christ. And he wants us to notice that there's a definite article in front of the word gospel, which means this is the only one there is. There isn't any other gospel other than this one.

That's why the use of the word the. So verse two tells us by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. The means of their salvation, by which they were saved. But then he adds these words, unless you have believed in vain.

We need to talk about that a little bit. For if there is no resurrection, Let's just assume there isn't any. And he's talking to the Corinthians. If you think through that, what does it mean? That everything you've believed is a myth because part of the gospel is a resurrection. So if that's not true, then the rest of it isn't true.

However, he shows in a parenthetic remark that the reality of faith would be proved by holding fast the word that had been announced to them in glad tidings. They were gonna make it all the way through to the end. The intention of the Corinthian speculators was not to compromise the gospel or the resurrection of Christ. They were trying to compromise resurrection in general.

Now, but it is precisely Paul that reduces their question. They forgot that there was an enemy among them and behind their thinking who can take advantage of your mind no less than your body. Those whose ploy it was to carry out falsehood with a fairer clothing than the truth. A lie always comes to be addressed a lot better than the truth. Not only to gain admission to what is false, but hereby also to expel or undermine what is true. What suffers? Holiness suffers.

So to present the gospel to the Corinthians was a humbling experience, but it was wholesome for them to hear it. To have the gospel made known afresh to these saints who would rather be in fellowship of the gospel activities rather than have Paul insisting on restating it. So this, I wanted to point out what this, what is known in Greek as a copula conjunction, K-A-I, defines such consideration. recalled to them, it's a hypothetical EI, and I don't know how do you pronounce EI in Greek, I, it supposes the fact of holding fast to glad tidings, otherwise their faith was worthless. This was not presented to them that you're not holding fast, there's an assumption that you are holding fast, and by holding fast, your faith is not worthless.

So, Another interesting thing. Salvation in this epistle, as in many others, is viewed as an ongoing thing. In other words, it's presented in the present tense. It's not presented in the perfect tense like it is in Ephesians 2.5. We looked at 2.5 this morning. 2.5 says that even when you were dead and your transgressions made us alive together with Christ and by grace You have been saved. The perfect tense means that it's something that happened in the past with abiding results in the future. The tense here is it's now. It's going on right now.

Ephesians 2.8 says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourself as a gift of God. The other tense that isn't used here is the aorist tense, which is a fact tense.

Second Timothy 1.9 says, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus.

Titus 3.5 says, and he has saved us, fact. different from the way it's expressed here as an ongoing, or it's viewed as ongoing, present, right now, saved, saved, saved. Okay, that make sense? I hope it was clear. So verse three. So what's the foundation to be laid?

For I deliver to you in the first place that which I received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. So he carefully remarks that the gospel he preached, he received it, as we know from other epistles, by the revelation of Jesus Christ, Galatians 1.12. If Paul was an apostle and delivered to them the glad tidings, It was what he too had received. He declared to no more than a faithful discharge of the trust of the Lord had put in him as a witness concerning Christ himself. He had received it, as we're told elsewhere, directly from Christ. And there's no intermediate channel. but a direct revelation and a personal charge from the Lord himself.

So what does that mean? It means to reject the gospel is therefore to question the revelation of Jesus Christ and the authority of scripture and the authority of the apostle himself. That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures is not for ourselves only. Not at all for our good, not for our good ways, but for our bad ways, for our sins.

He could have said, who could have said this or had this thought but God himself. God goes right to the issue, he's gonna deal with sins, he's gonna deal with the coming short of his glory. And he has said it, not only now in the gospel, but from the Old Testament scriptures. This is not a new idea. This is something God has been talking about since Genesis.

From Genesis to Malachi, all was the preparation, or preparing the way for Christ the Messiah to die for the sins of the world. And the law itself witnessed to the sacrifices, with the sacrifices of goats and lambs. In the Psalms, they're declared that the sacrifices were but temporary and that a Messiah would come and he must come and would do the will of God. The prophets showed that he would do it by suffering and death when Jehovah would lay on him the iniquities of all of his people.

So this wasn't a mystery. From the time of Genesis, people knew. So without the death of Christ, for our sins, not only has the gospel no foundation, but the entire Old Testament has no adequate meaning or worthy end. Because this is talked about everywhere in the Old Testament.

Verse six. I'm sorry, verse four. and that he was buried, and that he was raised the third day according to Scriptures. God would give more than enough evidence, so it is added that Christ died and that he was buried. Only here there's no mention of Scripture. You know, we'd laughingly talk about, well, why is the burial mentioned like in Romans 6 it's mentioned? Well, you don't bury live people. It's the truth that Christ did in fact die, and he was buried.

Burial emphasizes the finality of the Messiah's and anyone else's death, Acts 2.29. and it attests to the reality of his resurrection. No death, no resurrection. According to the scriptures, however, that term is reserved for the immense fact of the resurrection and that he was raised the third day according to the scriptures.

This is in the perfect tense, something that happened in the past with abiding results, but it's in the passive voice that happened to him. He was raised, implied that since God raised him, he is still alive. He's still living because God raised him. Paul sums up the glad tidings under three headings. And I got this from Hamilton Smith, I thought he did a great job.

First, Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. This brings before us the great propitiatory work of Christ for all the world foretold in scriptures, for the law sets it forth in figure. The Psalms presented experimentally and the prophets announced it prophetically. Great Christian word, propitiation.

It means that what Christ did in his death for sins was accepted and did the entire job, and that's why God raised him from the dead. If it hadn't, he wouldn't have. Secondly, that Christ was buried, the complete evidence of his death, and the solemn fact that all his links with man after the flesh were severed. It's interesting.

Burial is always the final thing. We had a memorial service yesterday for Norm, but I was talking to his sister. She said, oh, well, we already had the entombment in Kansas. She said that kind of was the final thing. So we're going to have a memorial service so we can remember Norm. But burial seems to be it. If you've ever been to a funeral service at Fort Logan, It's so final, and it's somber. And when you walk away from that, it's like, well, that's over. It's just done.

Thirdly, he was raised the third day according to Scripture. The everlasting witness that the power of death is broken, the devil defeated, and God is glorified. But there's another question here. of the deepest importance I think to us and still more fundamental which Paul reserved for this last place.

The resurrection of the dead was doubted and denied by some at Corinth. It's a serious evil. But it is incomparably more so now after the ample testimony to the truth rendered here and throughout the New Testament. It's almost unforgivable ignorance then which is a far guiltier and more rebellious if you doubt the presence of the proof.

We are about to study and for much more of the same effect. God's resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is the pivotal part of this chapter. It's the display of God's glory as regards to man. It's the fullest answer to all unbelief. and it's the racket of Satan's power. In other words, takes it away, it's done with. So, there was truth which Satan sought to undermine among some at Corinth, but the result, under the grace of God, is a complete demonstration of its certainty and its all-importance.

And Paul wanted to point out not only that Christ was not only raised, but he's raised on the third day. And we don't spend a lot of time thinking about that, but he says he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The very first work of the law gave its early preparation for this. Far from beginning, even in Eden, though not till after sin entered, God had announced that the bruised seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head. And still more distinctly, we see that the father had already, the father ready to give his beloved and only son, and that the son under the sentence of death, talking about Moses, in Genesis 22, four, the third day, on the third day, Adam raised his eyes, Abraham raised his eyes, and saw the place from a distance. and when a ram in the type was substituted and Isaac was received from the dead in the figure of three days. The Psalms give their intermediate but glowing witness and Psalm 8 shows that the son of man who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death but crowned with glory and honor with all things put under his feet. the dependent one trusting in Christ and trusting God through life and death and beyond.

Psalm 16.9 says, my flesh also will dwell securely, for you will not abandon my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life.

Which words, as a whole, apply as clearly to the dead and risen Messiah, but they couldn't apply to David. They couldn't apply to any other man. It's plain that for the soul not to rest in Sheol, and the body not to seek corruption, there must not only be a raising from the dead, but it had to happen without delay, three days. His flesh therefore could rest in hope and not merely in the spirit.

Verse five says that, and that he appeared to Peter or Cephas and then to the 12. We're gonna go through a list of people that saw the Lord Jesus resurrected. The risen Lord appeared to Peter first before the 12. He confirms the resurrection of Christ by certain of his appearances, as he had the death and thereby burial. Having presented the gospel that he preached, in which the resurrection has a vital place, he confirms the truth of the resurrection by bringing these witnesses forward, to whom Christ appeared after he had risen from the dead. And we know there are other witnesses that aren't going to be talked about here, like Mary and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

But Paul selects certain ones. And the first one he selects is Peter. Why? Because Peter, of course, was the leader of the disciples. So Paul first preached the gospel to the Jews. I'll take that back. Peter, who first preached the gospel to the Jew, he was also the one that opened the door to the Gentiles.

Second, he appeared to the 12 who had accompanied him around on the earth. But nobody's more important than Peter, I don't think. especially at this moment in Peter's life when he needed to have reassurance because he had denied the Lord three times. But no individual could have the weight of the entire group which knew him best, and the 12 are therefore named after that. Then he says, and after that he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. So the third issue here is that he's seen in resurrection by 500 people at one time.

On this other occasion, Paul points out unsurpassed magnitude of testimony that Jesus appeared to so many people at one time as evidence that his resurrected body was not just a spiritual apparition. Many people had testified that they had seen him on this single occasion. Never was this truth more attested to. The greater part of these 500 witnesses were still alive then. This was 23 years later, roughly, that Paul writes this epistle. And it's reasonable to assume that a lot of these 500 people were still alive, so if the Corinthians were skeptical, they could go check with them. Did you see the resurrected Christ? Yeah, we did, we talked to him, we saw him.

Excuse me. Even if a person were prejudiced enough to accuse the Twelve of a plot, it would be unreasonable recklessness to allow such a thought if so large a body of simple disciples above all superstition of objection are office. It wouldn't make sense to do that. Holy Spirit, left Luke to record the Lord eating food with other disciples.

John, to the amazement of the apostle Thomas, only the more to strengthen the truth. Here, Paul gives us this great body of witnesses, most of them alive, if anyone wanted to choose to examine or cross-examine them. Surely had it not been the simple truth, some of that crowd of eyewitnesses must have disclosed the wickedness of conspiracy in a lie against God, but they didn't.

And after that he appeared to James, and after that to all the apostles. James is an interesting character here because he has a place of singular honor both as a leader of the church in Jerusalem and as an inspired writer in the Bible, as he was the object alone of an appearance of Christ. This is mentioned no less than his appearing subsequently to all of the apostles.

So all's in place, and each had its separate importance, and this extending over 40 days with such a variety of occasions and circumstances marks the care with which the divine wisdom and grace had made the resurrection known. But there was one more, and the most extraordinary of all, and it happened much later. And Paul says, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also.

Interesting, in order to be an apostle, one of the things you had to have, one of your credentials had to be is that you had met the Lord Jesus Christ and you were appointed an apostle by him. Paul regarded his appearance to Christ on the Damascus Road as an equivalent of post-resurrection appearance and the Lord's last one, according to counsel. It was from heaven. It was in broad daylight as he was coming towards Damascus.

Paul was not only an unbeliever, but he was the hottest of adversaries. and with him were a like-minded band of companions. All of them were struck down, all seeing the light and hearing the noise, but Paul alone seeing the glorified Christ. Paul alone hearing the words from Christ's mouth. Unspeakable grace he felt it was, with unaffected lowliness of heart.

So he describes himself as untimely born. He's using a word that means miscarriage and was used as a term of contempt. The words point to a sudden and violent transition while still in a state of immaturity. This is an apt description. of Paul's call to the apostleship, according to Macaulay. Yeah.

I've often thought about Paul and how zealous he was, and then a turnaround that happened in just the blink of an eye, because he went from being the hottest of adversaries, and when he saw the glorious Christ, it totally changed him. In the first three words, he used the word Lord, sort of as a paradigm shift right there. He stresses the appearance of the risen Christ because they proved that his resurrection was not in the form of a spiritual apparition. but a physical existence. Just as the Lord's body died and was buried, so it was raised, and many witnesses saw it, often many witnesses at one time. And then Paul begins to talk about himself a little bit.

He says, for I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. So he claims to be the least of the apostles, and it's based on his past conduct towards the church. By being the least of the apostles, I think he understands grace better than the rest. In stating that he's not fit, he focuses on a theme throughout all of his writings. His weakness is the occasion for the Lord to be all of his strength.

This appearance appears frequently in 2 Corinthians, which we're gonna get a chance to deal with. Doubting Thomas illustrates the difficulties even for believers. Saul of Tarsus is the best example of opposition on the part of earthly religious people. But he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision And the sight of a risen, ascended, glorified Lord becomes the end of his old life, which closed in the grace of God, and in the grace of God's judgment in the cross, and the beginning of what was new and everlasting. It was a turning point of his own conversion, and his piercing, comprehensive mind soon saw under the Lord's teaching that the death and resurrection of Christ were no other things than what Moses and the prophets had talked about should happen. And light through this be announced, but with the Jews and the Gentiles.

Paul probably used their view of him as a freak to comment on this view of himself in this verse and the next one. Evidently, Paul felt himself the least worthy to be an apostle. He didn't regard his apostleship as inferior to the other apostles, however. The reason for his thinking this way was the fact that while other apostles were building up the church, he was trying to tear it down.

What's tremendous about the Apostle Paul is that, number one, we get to see his whole life and how the Lord took a man who, if he had his way, would have destroyed the church. introduces himself to him on the road to Damascus, totally changes this man's direction in life, and teaches him things that without the Apostle Paul, important information that we would know, that our position is based on, that our doctrine, our hope is based on, would not have ever come into the word of God.

And that's the Apostle Paul. So when Paul starts talking to these Corinthians, and proving about the resurrection of the body, he's the one that would have the authority, not only because of his experience, but because of his intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ. And my prayer for us today is that our intimacy with the Lord Jesus would grow and grow on every moment of every day. So let's close. Father, how we thank you for your word. How we thank you for the Apostle Paul. and how we thank you for the resurrection of your dear son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name, amen.