1 Corinthians 15:1-11

The content of the gospel, v3-4.

Gospel means good news.  In Scripture the term gospel applies to the news that sinful men need to hear that will tell them that reconciliation with the Creator has been provided.  There is an answer to man’s estrangement from God.  What is that good news?  Is it that God has lowered the bar so that reconciliation is now achievable?  No, because God’s holiness will not allow Him to lower the bar.  He cannot ignore nor deny man’s sinfulness.  Nor should man expect God to do so.  Man knows the definition of justice.  There are laws.  Those who violate them pay the penalty or price that has been set.

We have an interesting and tragic thing in our world.  Our courts, in the name of mercy, often do not impose the prescribed penalty for crimes.  Mercy is defined as simply showing compassion on the criminal.  But what is ignored is that this changes our definition of justice.  Our penalties are discretionary.  What makes this tragic is not simply that criminals become more evil.  It is that we have come to expect God to be just like us.

Let us be very clear.  God cannot and will not become like us.  He is the Creator and He made us to be like Him!  His justice is just; sin will always have a penalty.  The soul that sins shall surely die.  At the same time His mercy will be merciful and it will not deny His justice.  The good news is the message that declares how it is that God has done this.

·        The gospel concerns Jesus Christ our Lord, Rom. 1:1-4.

·        The gospel tells us what God did through His Son so that He could justify (declare righteous) the ungodly (Rom. 4:5) while remaining just (Rom. 3:26).

·        The gospel very clearly and simply is that Christ died for our sins … that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day (15:3-4).  His death tells us that He paid the penalty for the sinner.  His resurrection tells us that, as with Christ, so the sinner, though He/he may die yet He/he shall live (Jn. 11:25f).

·        The gospel is not simply an expression of mercy (God’s compassion or pity for mankind); it is an expression of grace (God’s gift freely offered through the cross and empty tomb).  In the context of 1 Cor. 15 the point is that there is no good news if Christ is still in the grave.  Thus every offer of the gospel in Scripture includes the declaration of the death and resurrection of Christ.

In New Testament times there were other gospels offered.  Another gospel in Gal. 1:6-10 depended on man’s own effort.  Paul wrote in Colossians against a gospel that denied that what Christ did was sufficient.  In 2 Tim. 2:16-18 some declared that the resurrection was already past, that it was too late for the gospel.  And in Corinth some denied the resurrection.  The Bible affirms only one gospel, only one way to have just standing with the Creator; it is the gospel of 1 Cor. 15:3f.  There is only one question to be asked: do you believe this?