WWUTT 1617 Christ Died for Our Sins, According to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)

The True Gospel and the Call to Endure

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true. Jesus really died for sins. He really rose from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians, this week looking at chapter 15, those first 11 verses. So, I'm going to begin by reading verses 1 through 11 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, the word of the Lord. Now, I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed as good news to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I proclaimed to you as good news, unless you believed for nothing.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

After that he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all as to one untimely born he appeared to me also.

For I am the least of the apostles, and not worthy 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 toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed. And what did the Corinthians believe? They believed the message of the gospel. They stand in it. They are saved by it. If they hold fast to the word which was first proclaimed to them as good news, Paul says in verse two, unless you believed for nothing.

And again, as I mentioned yesterday, another way that's translated, and you may have a translation that says this, unless you believed in vain. Vain means nothing. It means it's empty. It didn't accomplish anything.

So if a person claims they believe in the gospel, they claim it, but they don't really. They don't endure in it to the end. It's just a passing opinion, or it was a phase in their life for a time. Then it turns out to be that their faith was in vain.

It was nothing. It's not enough that at one time you prayed a prayer, or that you were baptized and dunked in water. You must endure to the end. Jesus said this to his own disciples in Matthew chapter 10, he who endures to the end will be saved.

It's not enough that you ran the race at one point. You must get to the end. You must get to the finish line. As it says in Hebrews chapter 12, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

So not jogging along for a little bit and then, oh, I feel too tired, or this is just too hard. I can't do it anymore. We run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who doesn't just stand there cheering us on, but he has run this race before us.

For as the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, who endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. So thereafter, having done the will of the father, he sits at the right hand of the father, that we may look unto him as we continue in this narrow way until we cross the finish line and reach the eternal life, the heavenly kingdom of God that is promised to us who are in Christ Jesus.

But we follow Christ. We walk that path, that way that has been marked out for us through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Endure in it to the end unless you believe for nothing. In verse three, Paul gets more specific as to what this gospel is.

For I delivered to you as of first importance. This is it, everything else that we've been reading in first Corinthians, it all flows from this, the message of the gospel that was proclaimed to them. Now Paul doesn't lead the letter with that.

And the reason why he doesn't is because he's already said it to them. That's what he's saying here at the beginning of 15, I make known to you the gospel, which I proclaimed as good news to you. So he doesn't start with it, but he has heard about some things that are going on there in the church in Corinth, things that need to be rebuked, things that are out of alignment, out of step with the gospel that was first proclaimed to them.

It begins with the gospel and understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And it is only through Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a sacrifice, an atonement, a propitiation by his blood that satisfies the wrath of God.

That's what propitiation means. So that all who believe in him by faith, our sins are atoned for. They're paid for by the precious blood of Christ. So we first need to know that we've sinned against God.

We need a savior. Jesus Christ is that savior. That's what Paul delivers to the Corinthians at first. They've come to believe it. And then everything else that flows from that is supposed to be growing us in godliness and Christ likeness.

But the Corinthians are out of step with that. Hence why Paul says to them at the start of chapter three, I could not speak to you as mature, but I had to speak to you as infants. And he's even coming back to them with some of those basic things that had proclaimed to them at the first.

Things that they've forgotten, that they've let go of, this disunity that has taken place, these factions that have been stirred up in the church in Corinth. This is a result of having lost their focus on the gospel.

So Paul comes back to the gospel again. He doesn't lead with it because they've heard it, but he comes back to it again here in chapter 15 so that they may know it. All of this that has been spoken to them has been in light of the gospel.

Without the gospel, everything that Paul has said for them to do is just moralism. He set them up to do or accomplish things that they cannot accomplish without the power of the Holy Spirit. And a person does not have the Holy Spirit of God without faith in Jesus Christ who gives us his spirit, that we may live in such a way that is pleasing unto the Lord.

As it says in Romans 8, he who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. So the only way that we can do these things in a way that is pleasing unto God is if we have the gospel and then in light of the gospel, living in a manner that Christ has commanded us to.

He said to his own disciples, you'll show me that you love me when you obey my commandments. So there are things for us to do, but we cannot accomplish those things without Christ. If somebody has presented Christianity to you as a better way to live, like this is the best moral standard, so that's why you need to choose Christianity, then you haven't really heard the gospel.

You've actually just heard law. You just need to live this way and things will be better for you. That's behavior modification. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is in light of knowing that we cannot accomplish it.

We can't be better. We can't make ourselves better. It is Christ who makes us better. And you repent of your sin. You turn from worldliness. You turn from thinking that you have the ability to do it right.

I can get this right. If I just clean myself up, then I'll be good to go. You got to turn from that thinking because it's self-righteousness. You're worshiping the God of self instead of the holy one and true God.

He who alone, he in whom alone dwells righteousness. If you still think that you can be righteous on your own, then you don't know the gospel. And if the way that Christ has been presented to you is you just need to do all of these things and you're saved, then are you sure you know the gospel?

I'm working on a video right now for The Purpose Driven Life. So this is the next what video at the time that I'm recording this devotional. That's the what video that I'm working on. You may not be aware of this, but 2022 is the 20th anniversary of The Purpose Driven Life, which came out in 2002, one of the best selling Christian books of all time.

So in less than its first two decades, the book sold over 50 million copies. So more than 2 million copies a year on average. That's in multiple different languages. It's 80 something languages or something like that.

That's how many copies The Purpose Driven Life has sold. Is the book any good? No, it's not. There is no clear presentation of the gospel in this book. And because there's no presentation of the gospel, Rick Warren says nothing to his readers about repenting of sin, turning from sin or worldliness or their own preconceived notions of how good they need to be.

You know, there's nothing like that. He doesn't tell anybody to repent and turn to Jesus Christ. In fact, it's on day seven because the book is written is like a 40 day spiritual journey. It's on day seven.

He presents a prayer. If you pray this prayer, then you'll be saved. And it's just something like, Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you. And that's it. That's the extent of it. It's a false conversion prayer.

And it's led to many false conversions. Now, if somebody were to tell you, if somebody were to give you a summary of the book, The Purpose Driven Life, and they were to say, well, it's all about being a Christian, it's all about, you know, going to church and discipleship, you know, I take it back.

I don't know that he actually talks about in the book, the importance of community or assembly gathering in the church. He talks about an importance of being in community. But I don't remember him actually talking about that as being regular church attendance on a Sunday morning.

You just need a community to be a part of. But he doesn't tie that into regular Sunday morning attendance, which is actually what Christ has commanded. He doesn't say anything about you need to be in a community.

It's that you need to go to church. We need to be gathering together, as we've read in 1 Corinthians 11, in the instructions about the Lord's table. We gather together to be at that table to celebrate the body that was broken for us, the blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of sins that's represented in these elements.

That happens at church. Discipline happens at church. Paul's talked about church discipline in this particular letter, talking about baptism and all these other things. This happens in the church assembly.

Rick Warren, in The Purpose Driven Life, he talks about baptism. He talks about discipleship. He talks about the need for evangelism and all these other kinds of things. There's no presentation of the gospel.

There's no understanding of the judgment of God is coming upon you, and you need a Savior. See, that's exactly why we need a Savior, because without Christ, we're under the judgment of God. What does Jesus save us from?

He saves us from sin. Yeah, that's true. He saves us from death, which is the wages of sin, right on. He saves us from the judgment of God that is coming against sinners. All who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3 .16. That's what that means there. It says, all who believe will not perish. We won't perish under the judgment of God. But Rick doesn't ever talk about that. The understanding of the gospel is never there.

The gospel cannot be good news then. If you don't understand what Jesus has saved you from. So if you take away the purpose of the gospel, then what's the purpose of the purpose-driven life? It's an empty book.

It's vain. So just as Paul has been saying here, unless you believe in vain, right, well, that's the purpose-driven life. It's vanity. It's nothing. It doesn't ever amount to anything. So therefore, all of the things that he puts in that book, all the Bible references, all the instructions about being in community and loving one another and showing mercy and anything else that he has in there like that, it's all moralism.

It's not actually growing in godliness because you don't have the gospel. Can a person who doesn't follow Jesus be merciful? Yeah, sure they can. But is it honorable in the sight of God? Not if you don't have the gospel.

If you don't have the gospel of Christ, if you don't have Jesus, then all your best deeds are as what, according to Isaiah 64, six, your best deeds are as filthy rags before a holy God. You're being self-righteous.

You're thinking that you can be good on your own. Look how good I can be without Jesus or even having a moralistic sense of Jesus. He gave me this good moral code to live by, and if I live by this, then I'll be saved.

No, it's by faith in Jesus Christ that you'll be saved. You would think with all of the outcry against legalism and stuff like that, you would think that this would not be a common thing in the church.

Oh, it's very, very common. There's often rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be saved. In fact, the seeker-sensitive movement, the easy-believe-ism, all of that is based on your works, not God's work.

Easy-believe-ism is just do a bunch of things right, and then you'll be saved. People will go after that because they feel like they have something tangible. I did all of these things, and therefore, boom, going down my checklist, I can see that I've accomplished everything that is necessary for me to gain eternal life.

But as Jesus said to the rich young ruler in Mark 10, I hold this against you. Give up all that you have. Give up your checklist. Everything that you say is your righteousness. Follow me, and you will have treasure in heaven.

So the Corinthians needed to come back to an understanding of the basic gospel, and many of us, many churches in America do today as well. They've lost the plot. They have lost the sense of the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the thing that was first proclaimed to them, that they received, and by which they are saved if they hold fast to the word which was proclaimed to them as good news.

Many churches have given that up, and you have to wonder if God is even present in that church at all. So in verse 3, I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

He was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Where do we have this in the scriptures? Where does it say all of this? Well, you could take the very broad view and you can say that even the sacrificial system in the Old Testament was pointing to ultimately Christ, who was going to be our sacrificial lamb, and that would absolutely be true.

So you have the sacrifices in the temple, and all of this was in anticipation of one who was to come, who would be that ultimate sacrifice, and it would not be the blood of goats or lambs or bulls that would save us, but it would be by the blood, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, as it says in the book of Hebrews.

You would certainly be true in saying so, but we also have statements in the Old Testament that point directly to this Christ who would come, and by his sacrifice, we would be healed. Isaiah 53, 4. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, but he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our peace fell upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

That's Isaiah 53, verses 4 through 6. All of that being spoken of 700 years before Christ would come. Then we also have Psalm 22, this of course being a psalm that Christ prayed from the demonstrating that he was the fulfillment of the things that were written in this psalm.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my groaning. Oh my God, I call by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest. As we read about in Matthew chapter 27, these were words that Jesus prayed from the cross.

Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And even the very way that Jesus would die was prophesied there in Psalm 22. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws, and you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me, the Romans that were around the cross.

A band of evildoers has encompassed me, as they cast lots for his garments. They pierced my hands and my feet. I count all my bones. They look, they stare at me. As Jesus' back was flayed open, you would have been able to see his ribs.

They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing, they cast lots, just as I mentioned a moment ago. The Romans casting lots for his garments. All of that right there in Psalm 22, a thousand years before Jesus would be crucified.

It was prophesied right there in the scriptures. I delivered to you as of first importance, Paul says, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Verse 4, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

Back to Isaiah 53 again, verse 9, his grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death. Who was that? That was Joseph of Arimathea. It was his tomb that Jesus was buried in.

We also have in Psalm 16, verse 10, you will not forsake my soul to Sheol. You will not give your holy one over to see corruption. And Peter pointed out in Acts chapter 2, that Jesus' resurrection from the dead, his bodily resurrection from the grave was in fulfillment of this in Psalm 16.

Jesus also said, no sign will be given to this generation except the sign of Jonah. For just as he was three days and nights in the belly of the big fish, so will the son of man be in the heart of the earth.

So Jesus pointing out that as this had happened to Jonah in the Old Testament, so it would be with the son of man, that when he died, he would be three days in a tomb, buried on a Friday, there on Saturday, rose again Sunday morning, according to the scriptures.

He was buried. He was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures. Verse five. And then he appeared to Cephas and then to the 12. And we have that account in the gospels and all, all four gospels.

There is an account of a witness to Jesus' resurrection and that he had shown himself to his disciples. Now, some will argue that Mark actually doesn't end that way. Mark 16, verse eight is the conclusion of Mark.

And then you have the Mark appendix, which was added sometime later. So if that's the way that Mark ends, it concludes with the angel appearing to the women and telling them to go tell the disciples that he is risen.

So we don't actually have the account in Mark of the disciples having witnessed Christ, not explicitly in the narrative, but it is implied. So yeah, I take that view as well, that the Mark and appendix was added later.

We'll talk about that another time. But yeah, so all of that to say at the conclusion, it's still implied. The women go and tell the disciples and they did see Jesus risen from the dead. Matthew, Luke, and John all recorded that the disciples saw him alive.

Cephas being Peter. We've seen that name previously in first Corinthians. It's a reference to Peter and then to the 12 to Peter. He saw the risen Lord and then all of them at once. So it's not Peter and then 12 others, but the 12 Peter, including Matthias, who is the disciple that was added in Acts chapter one to replace Judas.

He also would have seen the risen Lord. That was one of the qualifications to become an apostle, to become one of the 12. They had to have been there from the time of Jesus' baptism to the time of his ascension into heaven.

And Matthias fit that criteria. So he became the guy after casting lots that had replaced Judas. So anyway, all that to say, Paul talking about these witness accounts, eyewitness accounts to Christ's death and resurrection.

He was raised on the third day bodily out of the tomb. It's empty. He's appearing to Cephas and to the 12. And there were many others who saw him alive as well. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Heavenly father, we thank you for the good news of this gospel.

This is historical fact that we're reading about here. We can be more sure of these things that were prophesied and came to fulfillment and were witnessed. We can be more sure of this than we can be that we will see the sunrise tomorrow.

God be with us. And may your gospel be real to us. May it be alive in our hearts. And it changes us. It demands a response that our lives would be transformed according to Jesus Christ in whom we have put our trust and our faith who rose from the dead, who is promised us a place with him on his throne in his eternal kingdom.

We don't believe these things in vain. Let it not be a passing opinion, but we live our lives for it in anticipation of that glorious eternal kingdom that is to come. Jesus reigns. May we show that with our whole lives that we believe Jesus is Lord.

And we ask this in Jesus name.

Amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .wutt .com.