This is the only solution. A righteousness has to come down to us, a righteousness that is alien to us. God has to come Himself to our rescue. God has to give us a righteousness that is outside of us, above us and beyond us. Welcome to another week of Bible teaching here on Grace To You with John MacArthur. On today's broadcast, John is kicking off a brand new series that answers the all-important question, what is the only path to salvation? The study is titled, The Gospel According to Paul. John, to set the context for the study, I know you've preached a series of messages and written a book called The Gospel According to Jesus, and you also wrote a book titled The Gospel According to the Apostles, today beginning a study of the gospel according to Paul. Why is it that the gospel, the foundation of the salvation message, is the topic that you've spent so much time preaching about throughout your ministry? Well, for obvious reasons, Carl, because the gospel is the message of Christianity. It is the revelation of God that saves. There's no other way to be forgiven of sin. There's no other way to escape eternal judgment. There's no other way to receive eternal life and the glory and the joy of heaven and the presence of God forever than through believing the gospel. And having said that, I need also to say, since that is true, the enemy, Satan, and all his minions work hard to confuse the gospel. Paul warns, if any comes and preaches another gospel, let him be damned, let him be cursed. The gospel is everything, and there are some people who think that the gospel that Paul preached was somehow different than the gospel that Jesus preached. So it's important to look not only at the gospel according to Jesus and then the gospel according to the apostles, but in particular, the gospel according to Paul, and see if it matches precisely the gospel that our Lord Jesus taught. We're going to find, of course, that it does. There's only one gospel, just one gospel. preached by the Lord Jesus, preached by the apostles, preached by Paul, and by every other faithful minister. So this is going to be a really wonderful brand new series on the gospel according to Paul. And I just want to remind you, it is the gospel according to Jesus according to Paul. The same gospel, the good news of salvation by faith alone, in Christ alone, through grace alone. The gospel taught by the apostles, by Jesus Himself. We're going to be looking at this glorious gospel through the lenses of various writings in the wide ministry of the apostle Paul who wrote thirteen epistles in the New Testament. It is a powerful look at the greatness of the gospel of salvation. Tremendous days ahead as we look at the gospel according to Paul. Now, friend, today and throughout the study, we're going to hear a message that, if believed, will transform your life and change your eternal destiny. It's that powerful. So, stay with us now as John MacArthur begins his look at the gospel according to Paul. First Corinthians chapter 15 is our chapter, and I'm very, very thankful for the direction of the Spirit of God to look at this chapter. All of those who love Christ will rise from the dead. Those in the church will rise at the Rapture of Christ. Those from the Old Testament and through the Tribulation will rise at the resurrection of the saints at the end of the Tribulation. But we will all rise. We will be given glorified bodies. This is the promise of the Word of God. Christians don't believe in reincarnation, some kind of endless cycle where you can come back as a human being or a bug. We don't believe in annihilation such as some religions teach. We don't believe in soul sleep. We believe that after death we will live. We will live as spirits but we will be joined to our bodies. and forever we will be like Christ, an eternal spirit living in a resurrected and eternal body. This is our hope. This was very important to the people living in the ancient world and that is why the Apostle Paul addresses the subject because in the ancient world there were all kinds of mockers when it came to this matter of resurrection because the ancient world, at least the Greek world, had become somewhat dualistic and believed that spirit was good and matter was bad and that the ultimate end of all people should be the complete deliverance from all things material so that you would end up as a floating spirit, living in a spirit world. But the Apostle Paul wants believers to know that contrary to what popular Philosophy taught there was going to be a resurrection. Ancient philosophers even talked about the horrors of having to live in another body because the only way they could define a body was the kind of experience they were familiar with and they longed to transcend the capacities of the body, the limitations of the body, the restraints of the body, and all the rest of the guilt that went with living as a corrupt person in a corrupt world. Liberation seemed to be the best possibility, the best hope for the future and they would hope that that would happen and free them from the constraints that were so much a part of life in this world. But Christianity teaches something very different than that and the message of the New Testament and that message needed to be made clear to the Corinthians is that you will live forever but you will not live as a disembodied spirit, you will live as a resurrected man, a resurrected woman. And so in the fifteenth chapter you have this very, very thorough, detailed presentation of resurrection. Now it all begins in the opening verses with a look at the gospel because our resurrection is based on Christ's resurrection. It was Jesus, you remember, who said in a verse that for me is absolutely critical, because I live, you will live also. His resurrection is the guarantee of our resurrection. He is the firstfruits. of those who slept. Philippians tells us we will have a body like unto His glorious body. And His was a body that could be touched, as we know in the case of Thomas. His was a body that could speak and socialize, as we saw with our Lord post-resurrection appearances to so many on so many occasions. And so it is that the resurrection of Christ is the beginning point of a discussion of resurrection, but it's the foundation, the rest to follow, majors on our own resurrection. This is...this is a glimpse at your glorious future. You ought to care about this because this is what you will receive from God. Now, jumping right in, fifteenth chapter. Paul talks about the resurrection gospel, that's the starting point. Let me read you the opening verses, down to verse 11. Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, in which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. And here it comes, for I deliver 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, or Peter, then to the Twelve. After that He appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the Apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also." Or I'm the least of the Apostles and not fit 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." Here is collected testimony to the resurrection of Christ. This is absolutely critical. As I said, it is foundational. Paul begins by saying, now I make known to you, brethren. This is an emphatic introduction and emphatic declaration. And what is he making known? The gospel...the gospel. I literally, he says here, gospelized you which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved. This is the starting point of any discussion about the future of our lives. It all starts with the gospel. And they had received it from Paul. He had given it to them. You remember, he was the one that God used to go to Corinth and to preach the gospel. Back in chapter 4 verse 15, he says, you may have countless paedagogues. pedagogical teachers, tutors, people who give you instruction, but you do not have many fathers, spiritual fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. What he's saying there is I was the one that the Lord used to bring the gospel to give you life. You are my spiritual children in that sense. So we begin, brethren, our discussion of resurrection by starting at the point of the gospel which you received from Me and in which also you stand. Perfect tense, you took your stand there, you still stand there. The implication is that you have received the gospel and the gospel involves the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ, therefore you already understand the importance, the foundational reality of the resurrection. You took your stand on the gospel, you received it, you still hold to it, you still permanently stand on the gospel. You are saved, you are being saved by your continuing faith in the gospel. That is a present tense. It is the gospel that continues to hold you, to give you salvation and it is a gospel of resurrection. Now this is true of you, and he throws this in because there were certainly some people in the Corinthian church who were not genuine believers. They were there but they weren't genuine. How do we know that? Because in 2 Corinthians 13, 5, writing to the same church, he says, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Paul knows what any pastor knows, that in the church there are people who are not believers. Test yourselves in that same verse, see if you're in the faith. Or do you not recognize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test? He understands that there have come into that church non-believers. They were the ones who probably initially gave a foothold to the false teachers who tore that church to shreds. The gospel, he says, has done all of this, it has saved you, you stand in it unless you believed for nothing, unless your faith was vain. And if you had a vain faith, an empty faith, you will not cling to the gospel. Endurance is always a sign. This is what we call the perseverance of the saints. You believe the gospel, you receive the gospel, you stand in the gospel and you hold fast to the Word of the gospel. So if you are among those who hold fast. the Word, that being the gospel which I preach to you and have not believed for nothing, then you already understand...this is the implication...the importance of the resurrection...the resurrection." I think the initial event in Corinth in Acts 18 was a monumental event, one of the greatest revivals, one of the greatest evangelistic responses in the record of the book of Acts. Certainly there were people caught up in that who fall into the category of hard soil, rocky soil. or weedy soil, thorny soil, to borrow the picture of our Lord, caught up in emotionalism, made a profession without really being saved. They believed literally without effect. Their faith is worthless. It is devil faith, to use James' term. It is faith without commitment. There were those who weren't clinging, but there were those who were and they would endure. John 8, if you continue in My Word, then you're My matētēs alēthos , My real disciple. There were many, you know, who had followed Jesus. There were many who appeared interested in Jesus back in John 2. He said He didn't commit Himself to them because He knew what was in their hearts. In chapter 6 of John's gospel, there were many of His disciples who walked no more with Him. walked away. But for those who hold fast, it is proof that their salvation is real. They are the doers of the Word and not the hearers. They are the ones who are genuine. And for them, there is an already committed faith in the resurrection. You believed, you received, you stand, you hold fast to the gospel as a true Christian. And that gospel, as he then says in verses 3 and 4, is a gospel that includes the resurrection. So you, by virtue of being a Christian, believe already in an actual, physical, bodily, literal resurrection. This will distance you from the common crowd. In a dualistic culture, in a culture of philosophers who disdain the idea of a physical resurrection, you stand apart. You then should have no problem believing in your own resurrection. We have here then the first area of evidence for bodily resurrection and it is really saving faith. The first area of evidence is saving faith, or if you will, the testimony of the redeemed. A true believer, not a false one, not one who believes for nothing because it is a sub-saving faith, if you're a true believer, you have by virtue of that true faith embraced a physical resurrection already. Paul is trying to help them pass this issue which was up for such discussion in their culture. The crucified Messiah would be no Messiah at all. A Messiah left in the grave would be no Messiah at all. A Savior in the grave would be no Savior at all. It was the resurrection, Romans 1, 4, which proclaimed Him to be the Son of God with power. There's no power demonstrated on the cross, the power is demonstrated in the resurrection. Kenneth Laderet, one of the great Christian history. Professor says, it was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted His followers out of the despair into which His death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation of the movement begun by Him. But for their profound belief that the crucified had risen from the dead and that they had seen Him and talked with Him, the death of Jesus and even Jesus Himself would probably have been all but forgotten." No resurrection, says Laderet, and you have a... case for the disappearance of Jesus from historical records. But He did rise and we believe in His resurrection and salvation requires that, Romans 10, 9 and 10, if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. The church then, the redeemed church is the first witness to bodily resurrection. We're not having a discussion about whether there's going to be a bodily resurrection. We know there is. To say that believers don't have a bodily resurrection is to defy the very fact that is necessary to be saved and that is to believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ who lives that we may live. Resurrection faith, by the way, is absolutely unique to Christianity, the original accounts of Buddha. which identify what Buddhism is, never ascribe to Him any such thing as a resurrection. In fact, the earliest accounts of the death of Buddha in the documents indicate that He died with that, quote, utter passing away in which nothing whatever remains. So long, Buddha. died on June 8, 632 A.D. at the age of 61 at Medina and his tomb is annually visited by hundreds of thousands of Muslims. There has never been any indication by any of them of a resurrected Muhammad. What sets the church apart is we are saved because we believe in a resurrected Christ. So the first great testimony to bodily resurrection is the testimony of the true redeemed church saved by faith in a risen Christ. The Corinthians already then believed in bodily resurrection. They shouldn't have been influenced by those who denied it. But there's more. There is the testimony of the Scriptures...the testimony of the Scriptures. Look at verses 3 and 4. I delivered to you...and you remember He had just said that...I preached to you in verse 1, I preached to you in verse 2, it's the same thing. It goes back to that gospel. I delivered to you as of first importance, priority, what I received. He had received it. by divine revelation. Look at Galatians 1, I would have you know, verse 11, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. It didn't come to me from a human source, I didn't invent it, somebody else didn't pass it on to me, for I neither received it from man nor was I taught it. This is Paul looking back post-conversion, post-Damascus road. I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. But when God who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I didn't immediately consult with flesh and blood. I didn't go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. I went away into Arabia, Nabataean Arabia and returned once more to Damascus. I didn't see, verse 19, any of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. Nobody taught me this gospel. No man gave it to me. The Lord Himself taught me. This is what I have received from the Lord. directly by revelation from Him. He says the same thing in chapter 11 verse 23, "'For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you.'" And then he goes on to talk about the Last Supper. He wasn't there. And I think when he was in those prolonged times down in Nabataean Arabia, he was getting his theology directly from heaven. The Lord was giving it to him. including giving him information about what happened on that last Passover night. So he says, I delivered you as of first priority, first of all, the principal things. What I received, here they were, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Historical facts, the two greatest facts of the gospel, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection of Christ, of course, depicted in the baptism. The death of Christ depicted in the communion. That Christ died for our sins, substitutionary atonement, died for our sins. That He was buried, proof that He was dead and that He was raised according to the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures? What do you mean according to the Scriptures? New Testament Scriptures? No, Old Testament Scriptures. Twice he refers to the Old Testament, the holy writings. Did the holy writings of the Old Testament talk about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, yes they did. Look at Luke 24...Luke 24...25, our Lord on the road to Emmaus with some of His woe-begone followers who are in severe sadness because their Lord has been crucified. And He said to them, verse 25, Luke 24, a foolish man 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? then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." Some of it was direct prophecy, some of it was type. He could have started in Genesis 22 with the sacrifice of Isaac, a picture of a substitutionary atonement. He could have gone to Psalm 22 to describe the details of the crucifixion and the very words that Jesus said on the cross. Surely He could have gone to Isaiah 53 where you have the Lamb sacrificed for sinners, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement of Our peace falls on Him and by His stripes we are healed. And it doesn't end there because God shows Him the path of life through the death, out the other side to life. It could have gone to Psalm 16, verse 10, you will not abandon...this is the prayer of the Messiah, the confident praise of the Messiah...you will not abandon My soul to Sheol, nor will you allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life." So, you have the testimony of the church to the reality of a bodily resurrection. You have the testimony of the Scriptures to the reality of a bodily resurrection. That's John MacArthur, president of the Masters University and Seminary, looking at what the Apostle Paul called life's most important message, the Gospel. Today's lesson is from John MacArthur's brand new series on Grace To You titled, The Gospel According To Paul. Keep in mind that you can have the entire study as a seven-CD album, an ideal resource to review with a small group or to study with a young believer that you're discipling. Or to download all seven messages, go to gty.org. Pick up a copy of The Gospel According to Paul as you contact us here today. To order the reasonably priced CD album, call the toll-free number 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website gty.org. Again, all seven messages from the study of the gospel according to Paul are free to download in the mp3 and transcript format at gty.org. Now, this brand-new study is just one example of our commitment to taking the gospel to folks around the world, and it's listeners like you that makes it possible to keep that commitment. You help us keep the broadcast on thousands of stations in the English and Spanish-speaking world. To partner with us, mail your tax-deductible donation to Grace2U, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. You can also donate online at gty.org or when you call toll-free 1-800-55-GRACE. Again, the toll-free number 1-800-55-GRACE. Thank you for helping us take the life-changing truth of God's Word to the spiritually hungry. For John MacArthur, I'm Carl Miller, thanking you for making the broadcast a part of your day. Please do that again tomorrow, as John continues to study the gospel according to Paul, with a look at the resurrection gospel. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.