Transcript

One author illustrated the nature of the statement that “all religions lead to God,” this way: All roads lead to heaven. Well, the sentence makes good talk-show fodder, but does it make sense? Can all approaches to God be correct?

How can all religions lead to God when they are so different? We don’t tolerate such logic in other matters. We don’t pretend that all roads lead to London or all ships sail to Australia; all flights don’t lead to Rome.

Imagine your response to a travel agent who proclaims they do. You tell him you need a flight to Rome, Italy. So he looks on his screen, and he offers, “Well, there’s a flight to Sidney, Australia, at 6:00 a.m.” “Does it go to Rome?” you ask.

“No, but it offers great food and movies.” “But I need to go to Rome,” you say. He says, “Well, let me suggest Southwest Airlines.” “Southwest Airlines flies to Rome?” “No, but they win awards for on-time arrivals.”

You’re getting frustrated, so you reiterate: “I need one airline, to carry me to one place—Rome.” The agent appears offended: “Sir, all flights go to Rome.”

Well, you know better. Different flights have different destinations. That’s not a thickheaded conclusion, but an honest one. Every flight does not go to Rome. And every path does not lead to God.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 is the one path that leads to God and to the destination of heaven. Trusting the good news declared in these verses, we have the forgiveness of all our sins, eternal life, and we are heaven-bound.

1 Corinthians 15:1 reads, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand.”

This passage tells us what God’s message of salvation is for us today and how God saves sinners. It is the defining passage of the gospel by which people alone can be saved today.

Paul address the Corinthians here as “brethren.” They were fellow believers in Christ. The term expresses both Paul’s spiritual identity with the Corinthians, as well as his love for them as his family in the Lord.

Paul wrote in Acts 20:24: “and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”

In Paul’s ministry and travels, when he initially made the trip and came to Corinth on his second apostolic journey, he had preached and testified the gospel of the grace of God to them. And here he is reminding them of that gospel.

The word “gospel” means good news or glad tidings. And as verses 3 and 4 show us, the gospel to which Paul refers is the good news concerning the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This gospel is good news from God to men.

And this is truly good news, and the best news ever made known, that we are saved from the punishment we deserve from God because of what Christ did for us.

When Paul preached the gospel of grace to the Corinthians, he states that they had received it. Paul wrote that in response to “the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received,” and then as a result, he wrote, “wherein ye stand.”

We learn 3 things in this verse about how a person is saved from all their sins. First, the gospel is made known and we hear it, and as Romans 10:17 tells us, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”

Second, we receive it. And we receive the gospel by faith alone. Ephesians 1:13 teaches, “In Whom [that is, Christ] ye also TRUSTED, after that ye HEARD the word of truth, THE GOSPEL OF YOUR SALVATION: in Whom also after that ye BELIEVED, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.”

And third, having heard the gospel and having received it by faith, we receive a standing with God. And Romans 5:2 tells us of this that “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By Whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we STAND, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

The Corinthians and all believers under grace have their eternal standing in Christ as a result of this gospel message in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

The gospel and our salvation makes us stand; it gives us a standing with God. No force that comes against us, and no sin or lack of faith on our part in the Christian life can affect this standing.

Our standing is made no better or worse by our actions, good or bad, or our lack of actions.

Our standing is who we are “in Christ.” It is the way that God sees us in Him. It is the result of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and is all by the grace of God.

In Christ, we have life and we are accepted, redeemed, forgiven, righteous, and we are sealed in Him and destined for the glories of heaven.

Our standing in Christ is established, fixed, perfect, unmovable, and unchangeable. It cannot improve or worsen; it stays the same eternally. And we can never cease to possess the blessings of our salvation that are ours in Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4 tells us both what the gospel does, and what the gospel is. And the point of verse 1 is what the gospel does and that the Corinthians were living evidence that the gospel is true.

They had received the gospel of grace and trusted it, and they had an eternal standing in Christ. That’s what the gospel does, it takes one who has no standing before God and gives them a standing, a high and glorious position in Christ by grace.

1 Corinthians 15:2: “By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.”

This verse is troublesome to many because it sounds like a qualification for salvation and that you have to continue to do something to be saved and to keep something in memory.

Here is my take on this verse. Like we must do with all Scripture we must interpret this verse by its context.

And when you take a step back to consider the whole of chapter 15, what you find is that this entire chapter is devoted to the doctrine of the resurrection, and as such it is the most extensive treatment of this subject in your Bible.

A report had reached the apostle that there was a doctrinal problem in the Corinthian church in regards to the resurrection.

The Corinthians were denying the resurrection of the dead. They weren’t denying the resurrection of Christ, but the future resurrection of the body.

In verse 12, Paul confronted this doctrinal error by stating that “how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

Paul then builds his case and shows that they must accept the truth of the future bodily resurrection of the dead, or reject Christ’s resurrection.

As Paul wrote in verses 13 and 16, “But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen…For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.”

The word “saved” means to be delivered. It does not always refer to the salvation of the soul from sin and hell.

For example, in 1 Timothy 4:16, Paul wrote Timothy: “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both SAVE thyself, and them that hear thee.”

Paul was concerned that Timothy hold firm to sound doctrine, or teaching, and to continue or remain faithful to it. In doing this, Pastor Timothy would “save” himself and those in his local church who heard him preach and teach.

Save himself and his assembly from what? should be our question. The answer is not the saving of their souls from the lake of fire. Rather, the answer is being saved from doctrinal error, false teaching, unsound doctrine.

That is what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 15:2. He told them in verse 1 that he was again declaring unto them the gospel which he had previously preached unto them, that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and that He ROSE AGAIN the third day.

The Corinthians had received and believed that gospel and thus had a standing in Christ.

Then in verse 2 he states of this gospel, “by which also ye are saved.” Saved from what? should be our question again. The answer I believe is: doctrinal error, the bad teaching that was among them concerning the resurrection of the dead.

Verse 12 tells us what Paul preached to them, “Now if Christ be PREACHED that He ROSE FROM THE DEAD, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

And laying the foundation for his argument, Paul wrote of the need in verse 2 for the Corinthians to “keep in memory what I PREACHED unto you,” concerning the gospel and Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

Keeping in memory what Paul had taught them about this would save them from false doctrine concerning there being no bodily resurrection of the dead.

The words “ye keep in memory” mean to retain, hold fast, firmly possess. It implies that false teaching, lies, and error seeks to seize and snatch truth away from us.

But in our walk with the Lord, the believer needs to hold firmly onto the truth of sound doctrine by the Spirit so we are not led astray into error.

The Corinthians that had received the gospel and believed that Christ died for our sins and rose again were saved, and thus believing that truth, Paul goes on to demonstrate in this chapter how Christ’s resurrection guarantees all future resurrections.

But then Paul raised the possibility, “unless ye have believed in vain.” He raises the thought that those who were teaching that there is no resurrection of the dead, perhaps they believed the gospel “in vain,” meaning it was empty and not real.

So the denial of the bodily resurrection of the dead might’ve been due to the fact that some of them had not really believed the gospel and that Christ rose again from the dead.

1 Corinthians 15:3: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.”

When Paul wrote “For I delivered unto you first of all,” the words “first of all” mean that what Paul had preached unto them in Corinth was of first, leading, and primary importance. And the gospel is always of primary importance.

Paul, like we should not, did not keep the gospel to himself. As believers, we have good news to share, and Paul delivered this good news to the Corinthians.

And he delivered to them “that which I also received,” he wrote. Paul brought authoritative teaching from God to the Corinthians.
The gospel of grace is something that Paul received, not something that he created, designed, or came up with himself. Paul passed on the gospel he had received from Christ, and what he trusted himself.

In Galatians 1:11-12, Paul wrote, “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Paul preached the gospel that he received directly from Christ, what was made known to him by special, divine revelation from the Lord.

Paul made it very clear in Galatians 1 that he did not receive this gospel from man, meaning he did not receive it from the 12 apostles as a whole or any of them individually, such as Peter. Even besides the twelve, it wasn’t any other man either, who made this gospel known to him.

Christ appeared to Paul, and He revealed the gospel for this age to him. The Lord delivered it directly to Paul, and Paul in turn delivered it unto the Corinthians and many others in his ministry, and even to us within the Word of God.

And this gospel saves us from all our sins and gives us a home in heaven.

Paul now wrote what that gospel is, beginning with, “how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”

Paul does not mention a word about the life of Christ in Israel. He passes over His birth in Bethlehem, over through the silent growing-up years at Nazareth, past the journeyings of Christ up and down the hillsides of Judea and Galilee, bypassing all the wonder of His teachings and mighty miracles, and this gospel goes directly to His death.

There, Paul wrote, is the first part of the gospel. The good news is Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. His death accomplished something for us. Christ’s death is good news for us. And that death is monumental and infinite in its significance in the mind, heart, and eyes of God.

Of that death, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21, God the Father “made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

God did something for us at the cross. All our sins were placed upon His Son. And Christ took the full wrath of God against all our sins and paid for them completely and perfectly.

The Cross is about Christ’s love in dying for our sins, in our place, that we might live and enter into God’s hope, glory, and freedom.

That Christ died for our sins is REALLY good news for the sinner. And all of us are sinners. In our sins, we are lost, helpless, hopeless, spiritually dead, under God’s wrath and condemnation, and headed for eternity in the lake of fire. We need to be saved.

But God sent His Son, and at the Cross, Christ, the eternal Son of God, bore all our sins. He did not die for His own sins, because He was perfect and He never sinned.

Instead, by an act of God, all our sins were placed on Christ, and He willingly died for our sins as our Substitute. In doing so, He paid for all our sins and satisfied God’s righteous justice and His holy demands against them.

In the gospel, we learn that God will now treat us in an entirely different way than we deserve on the basis of His Son’s death on our behalf.

Because when we trust the gospel and Christ as our Savior, God saves, delivers, and sets us from all our sins. It gives us life, a standing before God, and a home in His presence forever when we receive it.

The fact that Christ died for our sins “according to the Scriptures” reminds us that the death of Christ is prophesied and foreshadowed, and alluded to directly and indirectly, throughout the Old Testament.

And it started from the beginning in Genesis 3:15, when the Lord God predicted the bruising of the heel of the seed of the woman and the crushing of the head of the serpent.

Christ’s death was in types and was indicated by the many animal sacrifices under the law and the death of the Messiah was found plainly in prophecies such as in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Christ’s death had been predicted, anticipated, and fulfilled in the Cross.

As the Lord told the 2 on the road to Emmaus regarding His passion, “Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:25-27).

But the question should be asked that if 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 contains the gospel which remained a secret until Christ revealed it first to Paul, why does he state that Christ both died and rose again “according to the Scriptures”?

Speaking of the FACT of His death and resurrection, Christ did die and rise again, in accordance with the Scriptures because it was made known in the prophetic Scriptures.

But this does not mean that what Paul had to say about Christ’s death and resurrection in the revelation made known to him was a prophesied message or the fulfillment of prophecy. Rather it was according to or in accordance with prophecy. There was nothing in prophecy that contradicted his message.

And one thing Paul about this gospel that was something not made known prior to him was faith ALONE in it, that just trusting Christ’s death for our sins and His resurrection we are saved, forgiven, and have eternal life.

1 Corinthians 15:4: “And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”

The second part of the gospel of grace, according to Paul, is that Christ not only “died for our sins according the Scriptures,” but “that He was buried.”

It seems ironic that a burial or funeral is part of the good news, but it is the subsequent event that make it such good news. Christ had to be laid in the grave before He could be raised from the grave. And Christ’s burial gives further confirmation and evidence to the fact that He did die for our sins on the Cross.

Also, in Genesis when Abraham purchased the field and cave of Machpelah, he did so for the purpose “that I should bury my dead OUT OF MY SIGHT” (Gen. 23:8). When Christ died, in 1 Peter 1:24 we read that He “bare our sins in His own body on the tree.”

Thus, when the body of God’s Son was laid in that garden tomb, it portrayed the putting away of those sins out of God’s sight. And like the old hymn, “One Day,” puts it so well, “Buried He carried, my sins far away.”

The third part of the gospel of grace is “that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” Christ’s resurrection fulfilled the predictions found within the prophetic Scriptures, and He rose again according to the Scriptures.

It was prophesied that He would die; it was also prophesied that He would rise again from the dead. As Psalm 16:10 says, “ For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [or sheol, referring to the paradise section of hades in the center of the earth]; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”

The way this passage is written is the fact is given and then two irrefutable evidences are given for each fact.

First, the fact is given that Christ died for our sins. The two irrefutable proofs for that fact are the fulfillment of the Scriptures and Christ’s burial.

Second, the fact is given that Christ rose from the dead. The two irrefutable proofs for that fact are the fulfillment of the Scriptures and then the eyewitnesses. As you continue to read on after verse 4, you learn about the eyewitness testimony of Christ’s resurrection from Peter, the twelve apostles, over 500 people at once, James, and the Apostle Paul.

The resurrection makes the gospel good news. Our sins were placed upon the Savior at the Cross. If Christ failed to pay for all our sins, He would have remained in death.

If one single sin of mankind which God laid upon Christ had been left unpaid, Christ could never have risen from the dead.

Romans 6:23 reminds us “the wages of sin is death,” that death is the result of sin. But by the resurrection of Christ, the fact that He came out of that tomb on the third day, we are assured that every one of our sins was paid for by the Cross, that Christ won the victory for us, that His sacrifice for sin was all-sufficient, complete and accepted by the Father.

No sin could keep Him in the grave because He paid for all our sins at the Cross.

And now God turns to us, points us to the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, and tells us to just trust it. The gospel of grace tells us to trust that He died for your sins, was buried, and that He rose again, and when we do, immediately God saves us.

The gospel addresses our greatest need, our sins, and provides the only solution to it. It is the only way to God, the only way to be saved and have eternal life.

The story of the gospel is found in three basic, but profound truths. (1) Christ died for our sins, (2) He was buried, and (3) He rose again the third day. It is a message that even young children can understand and trust.

When we receive this message, then we stand in Christ, and nothing can take our salvation away.

The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ are simple, hard-nosed facts that occurred in history. At the core of the gospel are things that happened: actual, real, historical events.

The gospel isn’t a matter of religious opinions, platitudes, or fairy tales; it is about real historical events. And these events have changed the history of the world.

Our faith does not rest upon mere philosophy or theory but upon truth and events that have occurred and things cannot be taken away from us.

On that tragic morning of September 11, 2001, The Brooklyn Tabernacle church lost four of its members. One victim was a police officer. The officer’s funeral was held at the church building, and Rudy Giuliani, then mayor of New York City, had been asked to share a few thoughts.

Jim Cymbala, pastor of The Brooklyn Tabernacle, records what the mayor shared with the audience that morning:

“You know people, I’ve learned something through all this. Let me see if I can express it to you. When everybody was fleeing that building, and the cops and the firefighters and the EMS people were heading up into it, do you think any of them said…‘Let’s see—are these people making $400,000 a year, or $24,000, or—?’

“No, when you’re saving lives, they’re all precious. And that’s how we’re supposed to live all the time. How would you want the cops and firefighters to treat you if you were on the seventy-fifth floor that day? Would you want them to say, ‘Excuse me, but I’ve got to get the bosses out first’? Not exactly.

“I confess I haven’t always lived this way. But I’m convinced that God wants us to do it. He wants us to value every human life the way He does.”

Cymbala concludes: “The words of the mayor moved everyone who had gathered that day for the funeral. The truth of what he said penetrated my heart.

“The world you and I live in is falling apart before our eyes. We are God’s only representatives on the planet and simply cannot take time to pick and choose who needs help. They all need help. They all need the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. They all need to be rescued from the horror of an eternity apart from God.”

Every life is precious. And we have the saving message that Christ wants taken to all people and that all people need, and it is the gospel found in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4: Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He rose again the third day.

Faith alone in this good news saves anyone who trusts it.