But this morning, I have actually several notes, so I want to get right into it. 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. You know, I've never preached on this passage on Easter Sunday. It's kind of a cliché to do that because the whole chapter is about resurrection. And I generally try to stay away from the obvious texts because I usually don't know ahead of time what John MacArthur is going to speak on. And so I've always picked sort of different sorts of texts on Resurrection Sunday. But this year I knew what he was going to speak on, and so I decided to go right for 1 Corinthians 15. This is a familiar passage. Obviously, I'm not going to cover this entire chapter. You hear this quoted all the time, the first five verses. I actually quote these verses frequently, but I don't think I have ever taught on this text. And as far as I can recall, no one has taught on it in all the 15 years I've been in Grace Life, unless maybe it was a Sunday when I wasn't here. And if you think about it, that long silence on this text in particular is amazing, considering the importance and the subject of the text, 1 Corinthians 15, verses 1 through 5. Now, as I said, this whole chapter is devoted to the subject of resurrection, so it's a fitting text for this morning. Here, Paul is defending the historicity of Christ's resurrection. He is straightening out some terrible confusion that was festering in the Corinthian church regarding heaven and the afterlife and the whole idea of bodily resurrection. In fact, he teaches us here some important truths about the future and the coming bodily resurrection, which Paul says all believers and unbelievers alike will be raised bodily. physically, in tangible flesh and blood form from the dead. I was just back there talking to John about this this morning, and he's saying he's looking forward to getting his glorified body and, you know, nursing my own knee aches and thinking the same thing. And that's one of the unique truths of Christianity. we believe not merely in an afterlife, not a disembodied spiritual life after death, but the bodily resurrection. And that's what Paul is dealing with here. His overriding theme throughout this chapter is that a right understanding of the principle of bodily resurrection is a paramount aspect of Christian doctrine. The bodily resurrection of Christ and the bodily resurrection of believers in the future is so essential to the truth of Christianity that if you don't really believe Christ rose physically from the dead, you're not even a true Christian. The truth is that important. And the hope of our bodily resurrection is likewise one of the cardinal principles of the faith. Paul starts this chapter by making the point about Christ's resurrection. that this truth is one of the essential, non-negotiable principles of gospel truth. And the main part of the chapter, which starts about verse 12, is a defense of the truth that we, you Christian and me, and every authentic Christian, we will also be raised from the dead in bodily form and spend eternity in a bodily existence. And then verse 54, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. And so our bodily resurrection at the end of the age will be the ultimate consummation of Christ's victory over death, which is the very thing we remember and celebrate today. But this morning, I want to look at just the opening five verses of this famous chapter. This is a vitally important text because it is a concise summary of the gospel in Paul's own words. His stated intention here is to declare the basic principles of gospel truth, those truths that he says are of first importance. So here is Paul's summary of the essential, indispensable, necessary, non-negotiable primary facts of the gospel. In other words, these are the first and foundational truths we must believe in order to be authentic Christians, true believers, saved people. So let me read the text, verses 1 through 5, verse 15. "'Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have received and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he was seen of Cephas and then of the Twelve." Now, I realize verse 5 there stops mid-sentence. And Paul goes on to give an exhaustive list of all the people he knew about who were eyewitnesses of Christ's resurrection. And perhaps one of these days, maybe on another Easter Sunday, we will return to this passage and examine that list of eyewitnesses in detail. But obviously, and especially the way I preach, some of you might be thinking already that I bit off more than I can chew with just five verses. Because all of that is a summary of what Paul has to say about the gospel. It covers the whole of the realm of gospel truth. Now, for those of you who are visitors or sporadic attenders, we're also, at the moment, in the middle of a series we are calling an evangelism toolbox. I've been sort of chipping away at it for about a year already, and I think in a year's time we've only managed to get about ten messages into that series. And we're studying things like how to answer people who ask questions about the gospel, how to respond to people who think they have valid reasons for not believing the gospel. And, what place does the law have in relationship to the gospel? That's one of the questions we considered. What is the gospel, and how is the best way to present it clearly? And so, this text fits perfectly with what we have been studying, and we're going to be able to add this message to that series. Here is Paul's summary, his best, briefest summary of gospel truth. And because the question Paul undertakes to answer in this short passage is this, here's the question he's trying to answer. If you could reduce the message of the gospel to its bare essence, what is it? If we were to summarize the gospel in the briefest, simplest possible outline, what are the main points? That's what Paul is doing here. Verse 1, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached unto you. He's announcing, I'm about to remind you of the gospel I've preached to you. They knew the gospel. He had preached it to them personally. He knew they were aware of it. This is just a reminder. And so it's a summary. It's a brief overview. Notice the context. Paul has just concluded several chapters, 14 chapters, of basically admonition about various problems that festered in the Corinthian church, starting chapters 1 through 3 with their divisiveness. You remember they were, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, where people claimed to have these leaders of the groups they were following, and it divided the church into little segments. And it all culminates in His dealing with the charismatic style craziness that existed in that church where people who believed they had spectacular gifts were actually turning their corporate gatherings into chaotic contests to see who could manifest the most spectacular gifting. And Paul deals with and corrects that in chapters 12 through 14. And in between, he deals with a host of other problems. And so, the verse just before our text sums up Paul's answers to all of those problems in the Corinthian church. Look at it, chapter 14, verse 40. Let all things be done decently and in order. That one bit of advice really answered every problem in that church. And that verse is the end of Paul's practical admonitions in 1 Corinthians. And here at the start of chapter 15, he tackles one last problem in that church, and this one is a huge doctrinal matter that he wants to deal with. Now, this is backward from Paul's normal pattern. Normally, when Paul writes an epistle, he first lays a thorough doctrinal foundation, and that then becomes the basis for his practical teaching, admonitions, usually. He does that, for example, in Romans, where you have well over half the epistle, the first 11 chapters are devoted to doctrinal instruction. And then he turns to the matter of practical application, starting in Romans 12, verse 1. He does the same thing in Galatians. We studied that book verse by verse a couple of years ago, over two years' time. And you remember that Paul dealt with doctrinal issues in chapters 1 through 4, and then he actually reserved all the practical admonitions for the last two chapters of Galatians. And you see the same pattern in Ephesians. where you've got three chapters of doctrine followed by three chapters of practical wisdom, and that is Paul's normal pattern. Doctrine first, then application. But 1 Corinthians is different, and noticeably different, mainly because the problems in that church were so profound and so numerous, and so Paul pretty much jumps right into dealing with practical matters right from the get-go. And in fact, if you looked at chapter 1, you'd see barely 10 chapters, or rather, barely 10 verses into chapter 1. He says this, "'I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For,' he says, "'it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you.'" And that's where he launches into the discussion of divisiveness. That's right there. He starts the long process of dealing with these massive problems that were troubling that church. Now, I should say, even though it's true that in this epistle you've got the practical matters on the front, that's what weights the front of this epistle, and the big doctrinal issue is chapter 15, still, Paul doesn't simply just jump into practical matters devoid of any kind of doctrinal foundation. One thing you'll notice as you read the early chapters of 1 Corinthians is that from the start of the first chapter, he continually refers to the gospel as the bedrock doctrinal principle upon which all of this practical advice is based. And they knew the gospel well. He knew that, so he didn't actually review it with them like he did with the Romans. He just launched in and kept referring to the gospel. He says things, for example, like chapter 1, verse 6, the testimony about Christ was already confirmed among you. And chapter 1, verse 17, Christ sent me to preach the gospel. He's reviewing how his ministry to them began. Verse 18, the preaching of the cross is the power of God. And verses 23 through 24, we preach Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And then, of course, that famous verse that starts At the beginning of chapter 2, verse 2, I determined not to know anything among you except Christ and Him crucified. Chapter 3, verse 11, other foundation can no man lay than is already laid, which is Christ, and so on. And so, throughout this epistle, he keeps referring the Corinthians back to the gospel as the foundational truth on which literally everything else hinges. And because he preached it so often to them, he simply refers to it. The word gospel appears 12 times in the first nine chapters, and the name of Christ more than 50 times, plus several scattered references to the cross. And so the theme of the gospel permeates this epistle from start to finish. And Paul's assumption that the Corinthians were thoroughly familiar with the gospel message already the reason he kind of skips the normal preliminary doctrinal section that he usually includes in most of his other epistles. just goes right to the practical stuff. Now, it is significant, I think, that at the beginning of this epistle, Paul uses the expression, Christ crucified, as a kind of shorthand synonym for the gospel. So, when he speaks of the preaching of the cross, he is likewise speaking of the gospel. That's shorthand, of course. And in other words, when Paul speaks of Christ crucified, he is not...he's talking about the whole gospel. He is not excluding the truth of Christ's resurrection from the dead. He's not saying that's not part of the gospel. In fact, he makes that fact undeniably clear in our text. So when he says, I determine to know nothing among you, But Christ and Him crucified, He didn't literally mean that He'd excluded everything from His message except for the crucifixion. Acts 20, verse 27, Paul did not shun to declare all the counsel of God. And as Christ Himself commanded in Matthew 20, 28, Paul taught people, including the Corinthians, to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded. But these references to the cross and the crucifixion are just Paul's kind of shorthand that speaks of the atoning work that is at the heart of the gospel. All the atoning work, not just the crucifixion, but the resurrection as well. And in fact, the resurrection was the culminating event that made sense of what happened on the cross. And so the resurrection is the essential climax and the glorious end of the crucifixion story. And Paul makes that fact inescapably clear here in 1 Corinthians 15, because he puts so much stress on the principle of resurrection. And so understand this, when Paul says he was determined to preach nothing but Christ and him crucified, he was most certainly not suggesting that he omitted the truth of the resurrection when he preached the gospel. He preached the whole message of the cross. explaining the full and true meaning of the crucifixion, and giving the end of the story, which was the resurrection. And just in case someone is unclear about that, Paul spends this whole chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, stressing the fact that bodily resurrection, and starting with Christ's bodily resurrection, is essential gospel truth. And he includes both the literal historical bodily resurrection of Christ and the final resurrection and glorified bodily existence of the saints in the new heavens and the new earth. All of that, Paul says, is essential to the gospel. Now, therefore, we can conclude that Paul is also using shorthand here at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15. When he introduces this section by saying, In other words, here is the gospel one more time. He is not reducing the gospel to three or four plot points in the form of these bare narrative elements. He is summarizing the truth of the gospel message, and he's making the significant events of the story as it occurred in time and history, he's making those events basically four headings that make a neat outline for all the essential truth of the gospel. And so let's look at this text here. Verses 1 and 2, notice, are where Paul introduces this section of the epistle. We're going to skim through these rather quickly, more quickly than we normally would. But as I have already suggested, this is a major transition in the flow of the epistle. Paul moves from that long section where he was basically confronting serious errors and misbehavior in the church, and he moves to this closing discussion of the principle of resurrection and the absolute necessity of that truth, the truth of bodily resurrection, and its place in the gospel. He is actually correcting here this one final massive error in the Corinthian church. But this one, this time, is uniquely a doctrinal error. Up to this point, he was basically confronting bad behavior. Here, he attacks a false doctrine. Now, apparently there were people in and around the church in Corinth who weren't convinced that the Christian message about resurrection was meant to be understood literally. You may remember from our study a few months ago of Acts 17 that the notion of bodily resurrection was a major stumbling block in Greek culture. They just didn't believe in it. And the philosophers of Athens, when Paul spoke there, were absolutely shocked and appalled that someone of Paul's obvious intelligence and learning could believe in the literal resurrection of the human body after death. That just struck them as the most bizarre notion for any intelligent person to believe. Now, think of a geography here. Corinth is just 50 miles, as the crow flies, from Mars Hill in Athens. And in fact, there was a hill just outside Corinth that was high enough that on a clear day you could actually see Athens from Corinth, 50 miles away. And so the idea, this is the same culture basically, the idea of resurrection was just as hard for Corinthians as it was for Athenians. And from what we learn here in 1 Corinthians 15, especially verse 12, it seems people had somehow come into the Corinthian church who were saying that there is no resurrection from the dead. period. And in all likelihood, these people were teaching that Christ rose spiritually but not bodily, and that believers, likewise, would rise only in a spiritual sense. Now, that idea was certainly more compatible with Greek thinking, with the Greek notion of what the afterlife is like. They didn't have a concept of bodily existence. They believed in life after death. But they considered the concept of bodily resurrection just utterly foolish. Whether those doubts about literal resurrection in the church were spreading there in Corinth because of deliberate false teaching, or perhaps they actually had some postmodernists in their midst, and some well-meaning person in the church was trying to contextualize the gospel so that it wouldn't pose quite as much of a challenge to the people in that culture, and so they tone down the idea of bodily resurrection. I don't know. I don't know which way, but either way, there was a denial of bodily resurrection that was such a complete corruption of the gospel that Paul needed to correct it here with force and with clarity, and that is exactly what this chapter does. So, bear in mind, first of all, that he is writing this to stress that bodily resurrection is essential. He's not here writing to categorize other doctrines as non-essential. He's just focusing on this one, and he says, I want to review the basics of the gospel with you one more time. Verse 1, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved." All those phrases underscore the essential need for belief in the gospel. Paul didn't believe you could be saved by Christ without any kind of conscious knowledge of Him or faith in Him. He never believed that. He says, the gospel is the instrument for salvation. It's the power of God unto salvation. And how shall they hear without a preacher? And if you've never heard the message, if you've never believed the message, you are not saved, period. And he says, so I'm proclaiming the gospel by which you stand and by which you are being saved if you hold fast to the word I preach to you unless you believed in vain. In other words, you are saved by God's grace through faith in this truth. And if you don't really believe all of this truth, he implies, you're not really saved. That's what the phrase you believed in vain means. And so he's going to review the gospel with them, and here's how he sums it up, starting in verse 3, "'For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.'" Now let me stop there and say two crucial things about that opening statement here, and I'll point them out in reverse order. First, he stresses the fact that he received the gospel. And as we learned in our study of Galatians 1 and 2 a year or two ago, remember, he is expressly claiming the same thing he did in Galatians, that he received the gospel by direct revelation from the risen Christ in person. Paul didn't learn the gospel in an apostolic seminar. It wasn't taught to him by any of the other apostles. He received it from Christ by revelation and he delivered it to the Corinthians intact. This is an explicit claim that what Paul had preached to them and what he was about to write to them was divinely revealed truth, not merely Paul's personal opinion. Second, notice this phrase, of first importance. That's what you have if you're reading the New American Standard or the English Standard Version or the New International Version. The King James Version and the New King James Version says, I deliver it unto you first of all. But this doesn't mean first in chronological order. It's speaking of the core gospel truths that are first in order of importance. That's what he's introducing. I delivered, and so it's correct to translate this, I delivered to you these things which are of first importance. These are the primary truths of the gospel. These are the most essential, fundamental, basic truths on which all other truths rest. And Paul enumerates them in four points. In fact, we'll use those four points as our outline this morning. Here are four points of gospel truth that are foundational to every other truth of Christianity. These are the four basic essential first principles of gospel truth. They are the crucifixion, the burial, the resurrection, and the eyewitness evidence of the resurrection of Christ. Four historical events that culminated in the bodily resurrection of Christ. These four events all take us back to that one pivotal weekend in Christ's life that ended, or we should say began, a whole new world with His bodily resurrection. And so let's consider these one at a time as we work our way through this text this morning. If you want to write these down, first is the crucifixion of Christ. Number one, the crucifixion of Christ. He mentions this at the end of verse 3, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That, he says, is the first fundamental principle of gospel truth, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Now, it would be a serious mistake to conclude from this verse that the actual starting point of the gospel is Good Friday and the crucifixion. The real starting point of the gospel takes us all the way back to the Old Testament, which is what Paul is referring to here when he says that Christ died according to the scriptures. The promise of the gospel goes all the way back to Genesis, the earliest chapters of Genesis. where you remember when he gave the curse, God actually promised Eve that her seed would crush the head of the serpent. That was the first hint of the gospel. And it goes all the way back to the beginning of Scripture. So, don't get the idea that because he says Christ died for our sins, that Good Friday is the starting point of gospel truth. It's not. It goes back further than that. He is concerned here not merely with the historical facts of the gospel narrative, although, as we're about to see, he's definitely concerned with the story as real history. But his focus here goes beyond the bare facts of history to the actual meaning that is wrapped up in those facts. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. There's an infinite wealth of doctrinal truth that's loaded into that simple statement. Paul was really good at this, making a brief statement that summarized a host of ideas, and this is one of those. He sweeps up into those few words the doctrine of the atonement, Christ died for our sins, the meaning of Christ's death, Christ died for our sins, the mechanics of our justification are all implied in that, the authority and accuracy of Scripture, All those doctrines, and frankly, much, much more are kind of subsumed and implied in that simple statement, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And especially for seminary students in our midst, let me say this, there's a tremendous amount of discussion and controversy these days about what academic theologians refer to as narrative theology. Narrative theology, in its simplest and most benign form, narrative theology starts out with a recognition that a significant portion of Scripture is given to us in narrative form, story form. Think of it, the Gospels, the Book of Acts, and much of the Old Testament is history, and it is told as history in narrative fashion rather than in purely didactic terms. So, for example, the entire life of Christ is given to us in four parallel narrative accounts, stories and incidents from the life of Christ, rather than a list of His attributes and doctrines about the hypostatic union and His divine and human features all enumerated on a series of PowerPoint slides, you know? We get stories. And one of the important points we draw from that fact is that God himself recognizes the power of stories as vehicles for truth. There's nothing wrong about that. It's something we all can absolutely affirm. But as narrative theology has kind of gained popularity as a fad and a buzzword in certain academic circles, you have to be more and more cautious when you hear people throwing that expression around, because it has become a shield to hide behind for people who have been bitten by the postmodern bug and think, that we need to reinvent Christianity to suit these postmodern times. And they say the story is all that really matters. The interpretation of the story can be fresh with each individual. It doesn't matter how you interpret it, the story is what is important. And they say we should be less concerned with abstract doctrines and simply embrace the narrative for its own sake. And it doesn't really matter if each culture or each individual reinterprets the story differently according to how they see it, because that's the nature of a story. We all see it from a different perspective. And the story is what's most important, not any underlying doctrinal grid. Let me say that is absolutely false. But to give a specific example, based on this very text, I have actually corresponded with people who insist that what really matters here is that Christ died for our sins, not whether His death was a substitution for our punishment, or perhaps an example for us to follow, or merely a graphic picture of the wickedness of sin, or simply Christ giving Himself as a martyr. It doesn't matter how you interpret it. And they say, it doesn't matter whether you believe His righteousness is imputed to us, or infused into us, or merely given to us as an example to follow. But if you believe the simple story that Christ died for our sins, and you can believe it in almost any fashion, but if you believe that much, then you're in, you're a true Christian, and shame on anyone who ever questions you on doctrinal grounds. That's a very popular way of thinking today. It is patently false. And Paul's statement right here proves it. The point he is making is that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. The meaning of atonement is one of the first principles of the gospel. It's not merely the historical fact of it. And Scripture clearly says that Christ died for our sins. How did He do that according to the Scriptures? By standing in our place and in our stead and taking the punishment, the full weight of God's wrath, which we deserved. Listen to the Old Testament. Isaiah 53, starting in verse 4, "'Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, but He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.'" Okay, someone says, but that says we considered Him smitten by God. It doesn't really mean necessarily that God was the one who smote Him. Well, read on. Verse 6, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Verse 10, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. What Christ bore on the cross was the penalty of sin, and Scripture is very clear about that. He bore the full weight of God's wrath against sinners. That is how He died for our sins according to the Scriptures. And if you don't believe that's the meaning of the cross, then you don't believe Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and you haven't embraced the first principle of the gospel. The cross is not just a moving narrative designed to elicit a feeling of sympathy for Christ and His sufferings. I don't care if you watched Mel Gibson's movie on the crucifixion ten times and cried your eyes out every time. You haven't embraced the meaning of Christ's death unless you believe Christ suffered all the horrors of the cross as the sacrificial Lamb of God. substitute for sinners who actually deserved not only all the pains and punishment of a Roman crucifixion, but also the full weight of God's eternal wrath against sin. And you still haven't got it if you've never seen yourself as one of those sinners who deserve that judgment. And so, when Paul says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, every word of that sentence is vital, and Paul means all of that. In Romans 3.25, Paul says Christ's blood was a propitiation. In other words, an offering to satisfy the wrath and the righteousness of God. Now, let's be honest about this. That is a crude-sounding truth, isn't it? God demanded a blood payment for sin. Are you uncomfortable with the idea that God demanded a blood sacrifice in order to make His forgiveness? possible that he wouldn't forgive without a blood sacrifice? Do you think it makes God sound severe and maybe even ruthless to require the life of an innocent victim, in this case his own son, before he would forgive guilty sinners who actually deserve the punishment Christ took? Does your mind resonate with those people who want to tone down that truth because they say it sounds like cosmic child abuse? If so, you haven't grasped the very heart of the gospel. Hebrews 9.22, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Scripture is clear about this throughout Leviticus 17.11. It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. God does not forgive apart from a full and perfect sacrifice, and that involves the shedding of the lifeblood of a perfect, flawless, sinless, substitutionary sacrifice, and God's Son is the only one who qualified. No sacrifice before Christ was ever good enough. Hebrews 10, 4, it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. And so Christ offered one sacrifice for sins forever. And all of Scripture teaches the truth of substitutionary sacrifice. Now, it's true that ideas like blood sacrifice, blood atonement, propitiation, all of these challenge the sensitivities of secular postmodern culture. Those are as hard for our culture to receive as the resurrection was for Paul's culture. There's no shortage of people today who call themselves Christians but want to refine and redefine the gospel to eliminate hard truths like those. But that is the very idea Paul has in mind when he says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That is the very first principle of gospel truth. Here's another one. This one may surprise you if you're taking notes. Number two, the burial of Christ. The burial of Christ. Verse 4, "...and that he was buried." Now, at first glance, we might be surprised to see Paul name the burial of Christ as one of the first essential principles of gospel truth. It's not that we would doubt it. I mean, although all of us who are members of Grace Church and regulars in Grace Life, all of us would affirm the truth of Christ's burial, it's a point most of us would not necessarily think of instantly if someone asked us to list the fundamental truths of Christianity. It's not something most of us even meditate very deeply on, even during Easter season when, during that time of year, we remember the death and burial and resurrection of Christ. So why does Paul put this here? Is there some secret, mysterious, doctrinal significance in the burial of Christ that Paul is trying to bring out for us here? No. Remember, these four points are Shorthand, points Paul draws from the gospel narratives to categorize bigger ideas. These are categories that include bigger truths, greater truths, and they imply actually many more truths than the bare facts themselves would suggest, from the events. What does the fact that Christ was buried suggest to you? The point Paul is underscoring here is the reality and historicity of Christ's death. It's as simple as that. He's saying Jesus did not merely appear to die. His death wasn't a charade designed to fool His enemies. It wasn't a myth devised to teach some abstract idea, but it was real. He was truly and literally dead, and that is a fact of history, the proof being that He was buried. Back to the first point, where Paul says that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. The lesson again is that the authentic gospel includes the true meaning of Christ's death according to the Scriptures. That stresses the importance of the doctrine. Here, when Paul says he was buried, he is saying that the true gospel also affirms the historical facts of Christ's death and burial. And if you don't believe in the literal, historical, biblical account of what occurred on that first Easter weekend, you haven't really believed the gospel. Now, this is vital for us because we live in an era where there are lots of self-styled religious experts, usually the guys you see interviewed on TV. including some men who have attained the level of bishop in a supposedly Protestant body like the Anglican Church, who have said they don't believe it really matters much whether the facts of Jesus' death and resurrection are literally true. It's not the historical fact one way or the other that matters to them. It's the principle. It's the idea. It's the truth it's designed to teach. Paul says here it does matter. He was buried, and Scripture says, he was buried under the watchful eye of a Roman military guard who, under Pilate's orders, in the words of Matthew 27, 66, went and made the tomb secure by setting the stone and sealing guard on the sepulcher. Roman soldiers, men from units who specialized in carrying out crucifixions. These guys knew very well how to tell whether somebody was really dead or not. And the gospel accounts all take pains to make it clear that Jesus was well and truly dead, and that He was buried, and that this was a real event in time and history, not merely a legend that can be bent and shaped to accommodate individual opinions, or contextualized to suit the beliefs of secular cultures like Corinth, and like our culture today, where people think they are just too sophisticated to take the idea of bodily resurrection seriously. But they still want to have a gospel suited to their own personal style of skepticism. Paul says, no way. The true gospel includes these facts, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that His death was real and literal, and the proof is that He was buried, buried as the Scriptures describe, spending three days and three nights in the heart of the earth according to Matthew 1240. Now, incidentally, because I know someone is going to ask about this, that expression, three days and three nights, was simply a common expression in those days. You see it frequently even in Scripture. It was an expression that signified a rather indefinite period of time. It meant basically more than one 24-hour period, but less than a week. It wasn't supposed to be a precise calculation of time. That was the reckoning that was in vogue at the time, because the marking of time wasn't as strict and formal as it is for us. They didn't wear wristwatches. So, if you take the idiom in its original sense, this is a historical fact. As well, Christ's burial fulfilled the sign of the prophet Jonah, which he foretold in Matthew 12, 39, Matthew 16, 4, and Luke 11, 29, and 30. He referred to Jonah again and again with regard to his burial. His burial over that long, dark weekend from when they took Him down on the cross until He rose from the dead on the dawn of the first day of the week, that is one of the primary points of gospel truth, His burial, because it proves so much. It proves that He was well and truly dead. It also establishes Jesus as a truthful prophet because He spoke of the sign of Jonah. And it underscores the literal historicity of the biblical account. So those are the first two essential points of the gospel narrative, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that He was buried. You've got the crucifixion of Christ and the burial of Christ, if you're writing these down. Here's point number three, the pivotal one, the resurrection of Christ. the resurrection of Christ. Number three, now this, of course, is the great event in the gospel narrative that we are celebrating today. Verse four, that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. This is the pivotal event in all of human history. It's the single greatest miracle anyone ever witnessed. It is the most important milestone in all of God's redemptive plan. In fact, it is the supreme sign and wonder in all the history of the universe, overshadowing even the original creation in its far-reaching significance. The resurrection of Christ is the exclamation point that punctuates the gospel narrative. And, of course, it's essential. Christ arose, and although he himself had foretold it on more than one occasion, you may remember his disciples were completely unprepared for it. It caught them totally, inexplicably, by surprise. Some of them doubted it till they saw him with their very eyes, touched him with their hands. But the evidence was undeniable. And Paul lists all the eyewitnesses to that evidence, hundreds of them. Every one of them, every one of the original 12, except John ultimately died, was put to death as a martyr rather than deny the truth of it. So, you know, they really believed it. They gave their lives for it. And John, even John, before he died of old age, while he was still affirming the literal truth of Jesus' resurrection from the dead, John suffered the loss of everything he held dear rather than renouncing this truth that he had seen with his own eyes and his hands had handled. And he never did renounce it. Now, we don't have a lot of time to review the biblical accounts of the resurrection, but take notice of that phrase at the end of verse 4. He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Now, it's easy to think of Old Testament passages that speak of the death of Christ. I already read from Isaiah 53 where that is the main theme. There's also Psalm 22, which I love, absolutely love, because it is filled with specific historical details about the crucifixion. Psalm 22 is an Old Testament chapter written 2,000 years before Christ that gives details about the historical facts of the crucifixion all prophesied centuries before Jesus died. So when it says He died according to the Scriptures, it's obvious what that means. But what does Paul mean here when he says Christ rose again the third day according to the Scriptures? Are there Old Testament texts that predicted the resurrection? There are. There are a few, very few, but they are there. They're subtle and, frankly, easier to understand from this side of the resurrection than they were before that first Easter Sunday. But the Old Testament did contain prophecies about the resurrection. Acts 2.27, for example, tells us that Psalm 16, verse 10, was speaking of the resurrection. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One, thy Anointed One, which is the Hebrew expression for the Christ. You won't allow Him to see corruption. Isaiah 53, verse 10, even has a hint of resurrection in it. After that great prophecy, which I already read to you, which unfolds the meaning of Jesus' atoning death, It says, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands. So the resurrection is clearly implied in that. But, back to 1 Corinthians 15, I think in this case, the phrase, according to the Scriptures, is most likely a reference to the gospel accounts themselves. And Jesus' own promises that he would spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth and then be raised from the dead. And especially, I think, Paul is referring here to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, which were almost certainly already in circulation and apparently well known to Paul when he wrote this epistle. For example, his accounts of the communion service, the Lord's words during the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, verses 24 and 25, that is verbatim identical to the accounts of Matthew and Mark saying what Jesus said that night. And even though Paul is emphatic in saying he received knowledge of those events by divine revelation, I think it is significant that he says he had told this to the Corinthians before, and here he repeats the wording exactly as it appears in the gospel accounts, so that the Corinthians could compare the records of Matthew and Mark with the account they had received from Paul, and thereby verify that what Paul had told them was true. So, all that is longhand to say, I think there's some evidence to suggest that the earliest Gospels were available already to the Corinthians and known to them. And so, when Paul says Christ was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, he may very well have had in mind Jesus' own words in the Gospels when He told His disciples He would rise from the dead. Thinking of texts such as Matthew 17, verses 22 and 23, where Jesus told his disciples, the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he will be raised on the third day. Or Matthew 16, 21, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. or Matthew 20, verses 18 and 19. See, he says, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day. And the point is, first of all, that Jesus' resurrection was indeed prophesied by Scripture. Please get this, the more important sense of those words. In 1 Corinthians 15, 4, He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures is an exact parallel to the same expression in verse 3, Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. In other words, the main point Paul is making here is not merely that this was prophesied, but that the true meaning of it is defined and determined by Scripture, not by our subjective interpretations of it. And what is the actual meaning of Christ's resurrection according to the Scriptures? Paul himself answers that in Romans 1, verse 4, where he says, Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. the resurrection vindicated Christ, who had died as a common thief between two actual thieves, alongside sinners, and on their behalf. And though He died in such ignominious circumstances, God raised Him from the dead, publicly vindicating Him. 1 Peter 1.21, God raised him from the dead and thereby gave him glory. Ephesians 1 verses 20 and 21, God raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. Romans 6.9, Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. So here is the bottom line meaning of Christ's resurrection. When God raised Him up, that vindicated Him. It demonstrated His victory over death, and it gives us an unshakable assurance of our own justification. Now, that barely scratches the surface of what Paul means when he says he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scripture, but it gives you the flavor of that truth. So, and we've got to finish this, you've got the crucifixion of Christ, the burial of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ, and now, quickly, here is the fourth essential truth of the gospel narrative, if you're taking these down. Number four, the eyewitness testimony about the risen Christ. The eyewitness testimony about the risen Christ. There is an important parallelism here. The first and the third points stress the true meaning of the gospel narrative with that phrase, according to the Scriptures. The second and fourth points stress the literal historicity of the gospel narrative alongside its true meaning. Paul is saying both things are important, the narrative and the meaning of the narrative. The doctrine and the history, both are essential. Christ did not merely rise from the dead in some invisible, intangible, spiritual, non-corporeal, or mythical sense. He arose bodily from the dead, and Scripture's clear about that, so that His glorified body could be seen and touched and handled, and the proof is in verses 5 through 8, that He appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve, and so on. And Paul cites, again, literally hundreds of eyewitnesses who could and would and did testify to the truth, the literal truth of the bodily resurrection of Christ. And that, Paul says, is another one of the first essential principles of gospel truth. Christ's resurrection, not a symbolic or allegorical idea, but the actual, historical, literal, bodily resurrection of Christ. And Paul spends the remainder of this chapter outlining the reasons why that truth is real and literal and absolutely crucial to the authentic gospel message. And what he is teaching is that if you do not believe that truth, both for its genuine, authentic meaning and in the literal and historic sense. If that is not the basis for your hope in Christ, for your expectation of eternal life, and for your own anticipation of a literal bodily resurrection, if you don't believe that, then you haven't really believed the gospel. And that's the whole reason we celebrate today. I ask you, visitors and Grace Life members alike, to examine your hearts and honestly face the question of whether you have genuinely embraced the gospel as Paul presents it in this passage. It starts with the death of Christ as an atonement for our sins, a historical event that was as real as any event in all of history, punctuated by his burial under the watchful eyes of Roman soldiers who knew death when they saw it. It includes the truth of substitutionary atonement, which satisfied the wrath and the righteousness of God. And that, in turn, implies a recognition of our guilt and our utter unworthiness, which implies that we need to repent. And then it culminates in that amazing resurrection of Christ from the dead as the first fruits of all who believe and are justified will also one day rise bodily and be glorified to spend eternity in His presence. And if you truly believe that, you're saved. And the fruit of salvation should be evident in your life. And if you've never embraced the gospel, I urge you to turn to Christ today and be saved. Let's pray. Lord, we're so grateful for these truths of all truths, the gospel, whereby we are saved, in which we stand, And we just thank you that, Lord, you've done what needs to be done on our behalf to redeem us from sin. And our role is to lay hold of it by faith. We pray that you would give us that faith, strengthen our weak faith. And may we be conformed to the image of him who now sits at your right hand in risen form, glorified body. For all of eternity and for his glory, we pray. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from our pastor. 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