Only by this Gospel (1 Cor 15a)

Only By this Gospel

1 Cor 15:1-11

15:2 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

Introduction: The city Corinth was city of many idols and sin. In this city a church was planted. Not long after planting the seed of the Gospel, Paul found that this church was infested with all kinds of problems. The problems of the Corinthian Church ranges from a minor argument on food sacrificed to Idols, division, law suit among themselves, and sexual immorality of its members. Sins of the society permeated deeply into Christian community. This was very serious enough to endanger the very survival of the church. So Paul took a pen and wrote this letter.

Sin is the norm of any human society. But people of God are called to be holy as God is holy. At the same time,  the people of God are to be holy while they live among the people of sin and idols. This premise was well revealed in John 17, Jesus’ prayer.

¹⁴ I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. ¹⁵ My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

There were many reasons why they got into these problems.  Whatever the reason might have been, their failure to live a godly life may disprove of the power of Christian belief. They could not be a witness of God.  Such life in sin endangered the faith of many and it distressed the apostle Paul. So he taught them how to handle each problem one by one.  At the end of his letter, Paul addressed on the Gospel-the core belief of Christian faith. It is the source of power to live as children of God. What is it? How to handle the Gospel? These are the teachings of today.  

1.       The Gospel, the foundation of our lives. (1-2-3a)

We all had something else other than Gospel as the foundation of our lives before we come to believe Jesus. Whether we are willing to accept or not, most common of those are materialism, humanism, pragmatism, and intellectualism.  These understandings do not offer or intend to offer a remedy for sins of men and its effect.  Also they do not consider God as the ultimate authority of the life and the earth. They are the mechanics of men to make better their lives on the earth.  As we see in this world of which these principles are operative, it is filled with so many problems, law suit, murder, sexual immorality and so on.  Strangely, the problems that we noted in the church of Corinth are not much different from the sins that we find in this world.  What does this tell us? Though once the believers in Corinth took Jesus as the Lord, yet the old principles of life were still at work in and among them.  Such failure lead us to think twice if the Christian faith has any meaning and power.  If faith in Christ does not bring any changes or does not yield any visible changes in life, then what is of value to have faith?  Here Paul alluded to them about three attitudes that they should have toward the Gospel.

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First, the Gospel should be taken as the foundation of their life principle. We used to live by the world principles. I mentioned four of those. These must not be commanding principle of life. Gospel of Jesus should be the foundation of life.  When we say ‘foundation’ it means that whatever we reason, decide or act on, the Gospel must be final arbiter of our decision making.  We all Christians at least once before took the Gospel as the foundational truth for life as did the Corinthians. The Gospel shall not become a maid-servant to achieve the desires of their hearts. It must be the foundation of our lives.

Second, the Gospel must be the first importance in their lives. In life the first importance bears enormous significance. Daily we prioritize what we do.  When one task is chosen as the first priority, invariably it will be done. But when one is chosen as the second priority, the chance to be done is cut in half. Even within this letter, there are so any teachings. Which one should they put into action first? Our life in God is a spiritual warfare. In warfare, there are only two outcomes, winning or losing. There is a good example of how important it is.

Once, Jesus faced two problems to solve. One was gathering of so many people around Jesus and the second was strong opposition from the Pharisees and teachers of the Law.  In order to solve these two, early in the morning, Jesus went out to a mountain there he prayed. For him in prayer, seeking his Father’s will was the first priority in facing these two challenged. Jesus surely had in his mind what to do. But before implementing his own idea, Jesus sought God’s will and His wisdom.  When he confirmed the will of God, Jesus could carry out that will swiftly without any hesitation. When we say priority, we can say priority in time, in place, and in purpose. The overarching priority of our lives shall be the Gospel of Jesus. This was what it meant when Paul said, he preached to them the Gospel as the first priority. In order to make the Gospel as the overarching priority, we may have to choose Gospel as the first priority in time, or in place, and in purpose.

Whatever we do, the Gospel must be the first importance in our lives.  For students, studying well and having good grades are important. Finding job and earning the living is important. But they cannot be the first importance in priority for life. The moment we chose something other than the Gospel as the first importance, then, we make ourselves vulnerable to lures of materialism, humanism, pragmatism and intellectualism.  The Gospel becomes just a side dish and the main dish was these ungodly and world principles. Gospel truth is not at the front seat but the world principle is. So materialism, humanism, pragmatism, and intellectualism are the driving force of such people's lives.  They offer very reasonable, practical and very plausible solutions for life. Yet, one thing we know for certain is that these principles cannot give any answer or offer solution for men's sin and they cannot do anything over the power of death. As long as these two things loom in our lives, only sin and its unrestrained force will produce bad outcomes.

Third, they should hold firmly to the Gospel truth.  Most likely it meant that the message of the Gospel must be held up high as the absolute truth in their lives. The Gospel deals with sin, and its outcome death. Also it offers victory and hope. When one does not take these as the absolute truth, then sin and its power, death, are still operative. The hope and victory become a very illusive idea.

These three ways describes what would happen if the Gospel was moved from the center stage of their lives to side or back stage of their lives. The church in Corinth made the best example of such weaknesses.

What does this tell us? How we handle or take the message of the Gospel is vital for our well being.  Knowing what the Gospel is one thing, how we apply the Gospel is another. The Gospel must be the foundation of our lives; it must be the first priority, and we must hold firmly to the Gospel.

What is the message of the Gospel? 

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Gospel that has to do with two things: first it handles the problems of sin. Second it offers true life through resurrection that leads us to the life with God in eternity.

2.       Jesus died for our sins according to the Scripture

The most profound truth, at the same time, the most enigmatic message of that truth is that Jesus died for our sins. By doing so Jesus took away all our sins. In order to understand this truth, we have to know two presuppositions;

First, Man sinned against God and God ordained men to die for their sins. Soon after Adam and eve rebelled against God's command, God sought after them and they were hiding. God told this word to Adam; because you ate the fruit from the tree of which you were not to eat from, you will labor to eat food from the ground, and you will return to the ground. Whether one is willing to accept this or not, we know by fact that all men suffer and die and return to the ground, no matter how good or great one may become. No one ever overcome this predicament and it is still the rule of life on every human being. Simply sin must be paid off by death. Each pays his or her own sin by his death or her death.  So it is said in Rom , in Adam all die.

Second, men failed to meet God's requirement of the law even with all provisions for life. In an effort to bring men back to God's blessing, God called one Man Abraham and created a nation of blessing Israel. He offered eternal blessing for them who trust him and follow him.  All the provisions that God gave to them were to pay off the cost of sin, that is death. These provisions were the law and a system where an animal sacrifice may replace the human lives as a payment for sin.  Even such a graceful and complete set up for salvation of men, in the course of time, it became clear that men's heart was still evil and ungodly and unacceptable to God as his children.  God again put Israel under punishment according to his promise-covenant. They went exile. Their failure was not theirs only. It was a demonstration that no matter how hard men try to meet up to God's righteousness, men could not meet up to God’s holiness.  This leads us a serious question; how can men be saved? As far as what men can do, hope for salvation was nil.

But in His grace God decided to offer his son as the sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins of men. 

·         Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

As we read, about 750 years before Jesus came, a prophet Isaiah came and delivered the promise of God. He would send one to offer his life as an offering for the sins of Israel.

As God promised, Jesus came and said this; Even the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as ransom for many.(Mark 10:45)  Jesus came to give his life as the payment for the sins of men.  As he said, Jesus was charged on 'blasphemy' and died on the cross. Truly Jesus died for the sins of men.  Paying off sins was the key issue since the fall of men. Men could not do it. But Jesus the Son of God came and did it once for all. How can that payment Jesus made become ours?

 ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- ⁷ because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. (Rom 6)

Jesus disciples watched their master, Lord, being crucified. They knew that Jesus was the Son of God. They knew that Jesus was innocent and did not sin whatsoever. They knew Jesus had power to destroy those who crucified them. But Jesus remained silent and prayed to God that they might be forgiven. Literally as they were watching Jesus on the cross, it was not just Jesus being crucified, but  they, themselves were being crucified on the cross because their love for Jesus as their Lord. This is how the disciples were baptized with Christ in his death. As Jesus died, they died as well in all their hopes, reasons, wills, passions, as well as their goodness and righteousness. So when we love him and accept him as the Lord, then the power of forgiveness of sin come to us. It is God's promise. By his death, the all the sins of men was paid off to God. There is no more debt of sin left unpaid.

What does it mean to us?
Hebrews 4:12 ¹⁴ Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

But the second part of the Gospel is this: Jesus was buried and was raised to life on the third day according to the scriptures.

3.       Resurrection of Jesus

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Resurrection was the most difficult thing to accept.  Resurrection was unheard of because we all know that every human being born died.  We, daily, witness death of people through news media.  So the fact that all men will die is immovable truth. Likewise no men came back to life from the dead.  There are seven billions of people on earth. But no one among the seven billion came back to life after death. This is not only in our mind but also in facts.  In this regard, it takes enormous proof to say otherwise. When the disciples saw Jesus being buried in a tomb, this was in the minds of his disciples.

But Jesus came back to life; God raised him from the dead.

vv5-7. First Jesus showed himself to Peter, then 12, then 500 people, and then to James, his half-brother.  Risen Jesus showed himself to his disciples many times and many people.  In Act 1:3, it says that for the period of forty days, Jesus was with them so that they were fully convinced of Jesus resurrection and removing any trace of doubt about Jesus resurrection.  During this time Jesus was a part of the believing community. The main teaching at this time was kingdom of God.  In this small community where Jesus was the king, and many of his followers honored him as such, the Lord, and that Lord's main talk was about the kingdom of God.  In this newly formed community, the kingdom of God was imminent. Jesus the Lord of them talked about and the followers had high hopes for this kingdom since there was nothing further to be done before fully establishing this kingdom.  What I am saying is that resurrection of Jesus was tied closely to the hope of the kingdom of God. This was what Jesus injected to the minds of these followers! Everything that needed to establish the kingdom had been done. There was nothing for Jesus to do before establishing the kingdom of God.

Second Jesus' resurrection did not end in itself as the purpose or goal. It is closely tied to his ascension. As we noted on previous paragraph, presence of risen Jesus among his followers formed a closely knit community with a clear hope and vision of the kingdom of God.  This entire community saw Jesus being ascended to heaven with their own eyes (Act 1:9).

So Jesus’ life was not understood just by a particular event or events. It was continuous from his three year ministry, his death, his burial and his resurrection and then to ascension to heaven. As he said, Jesus came from God and went to God. It was a seamless life that his disciple came to know about Jesus. Such understanding of Jesus’ life was unlocked by one event, resurrection. Death stops everything and puts life into oblivion. But resurrection made continuity of life to God. This seamless life became all too clear to the minds of his disciples; Peter addressed to the crowds, the first message that explained the entire event of Jesus death and resurrection:

Acts 2:31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. 33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

Coming of the Holy Spirit made a complete loop that started from his death. It continued to resurrection, to forty days of life among them with kingdom vision and then to heaven and then the coming of Holy Spirit as the confirmation of Jesus' presence at the right hand of God. Resurrection is the key unlock this truth to those who believed him.

What does this Gospel of resurrection tell us?

Jesus said that he is the way, the life and the truth.  Jesus’ life of complete loop back to God is to show what it means to have life. It is not just about the fact or possibility that we can overcome the power of death.  Jesus resurrection led to his ascension to the side of God. So shall we.  It cannot happen if there is no resurrection. It is unthinkable if there is no resurrection of our lives. What does this lead us to? Resurrection brings us the hope and vision of the kingdom of God. It is all about the kingdom of God where we all will be with God in his glory. There will be no more weep, no more suffering, no more death.   If there is no death, there will be no resurrection, if there is no resurrection, the no hope of the kingdom of God.   

Putting the first priority on the Gospel means that the hope of resurrection that lead us to the hope of the kingdom of God become the first priority! What is the priority of your life? Is it here, now or is it how I am going to live with God in his kingdom? There are only two choices. One is now and here. The other one is resurrection and eternity with God.

When I was at my late teens, I felt that death was only a remote possibility for me. But I am already here well over sixty. Life on earth is short and very short. But life that God offers is so good and so long. The good news in Jesus make this possible and real for us if we hold on to the Gospel firmly, and if we take the Gospel as the foundation of our life here now.

So Jesus death and resurrection brings us the resolution of our sins and gives us hope for the kingdom of God in eternity.  These are the two source of power for all those live by it. Such power was well revealed in the life of Paul:

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. (Rom 1:16 NIV) 

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1Co 1:18 NIV)

4.       What would be the mindset of those lived in this power of resurrection?

What happened to those who took the Gospel into their hearts? How did they run their lives now on earth? Did they run their lives like the Corinthians? Paul makes the best example; He preached the Gospel as first importance. He stood firmly on the Gospel. He took the Gospel as his foundation of his life. What was it like to have such forgives and to have such hope?

10 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.

Acts 23:6 Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, "My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead."

As we noted in these two passages, grace and hope are the two words that characterize the life of Paul.  

We all were under the power of sin and faced eternal death. But by the grace of Jesus, he offered his life for our sins and forgave all our sins so that we may be children of God again.  So grace is the distinctive marker of the one born in God's mercy. Another facet of grace is thankfulness. Thankfulness to God who counted us worthy of God's blessing and gave us eternal hope.  When our hearts are filled with grace and thankfulness, there is no room for selfishness and sin.

The second outcome of the gospel is hope in us. Hope for the resurrection and the kingdom of God is the source of our strength to endure all kinds of hardship and pains now. In the certainty of hope, we can smile even in the worst situation in life.

Whether one has the gospel as their foundation of life or not, whether one has hold on to the Gospel or not, and whether one has taken the Gospel as his or her first priority or not is revealed if his or her life is filled with grace and hope or not.

Grace and hope are what make believers stands out among all others. In it there is no selfishness and no room for sin!  As we read this is revealed most prominently in the life of Paul.  He was literally an enemy of God. But Jesus in his one-sided love and grace, Jesus appeared to him and saved him from the life of eternal death.   Was it only Paul's life?

11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

Here they are those who witnessed Jesus' resurrection mentioned in v5-7.  It was not just Paul but all of these witnesses of Jesus resurrection had the same understanding of the Gospel. In them is the richness of God's grace and undying hope for the kingdom of God.   All these come from the Gospel. Gospel is the source of power and wisdom to overcome sin and the Gospel only can lead men to the hope of the kingdom of God.

Only by this Gospel you are saved!