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Is the gospel something to be heard once, believed once, and checked off the bucket list as a “been there, believed that” kind of thing?
Or does the gospel of Jesus intersect the hours of our day, persuade the thoughts of our minds, and move the affections of our heart? I’m convinced it’s the latter based on what God says in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, which we will observe in this post after we review what we have already seen.
In the first post on the gospel, Paul’s statement in Galatians 1:11–12 claimed that the gospel comes from God, not humans.
In the second post, John’s vision, recorded in Revelation 14:6, taught that the gospel conveys an eternal message, not one that expires or needs updating.
In the third and last post on the gospel, Matthew recorded how Jesus began his ministry, in the thirty-second verse of the fourth chapter of his gospel, displaying that the gospel announces the reign of God and invites all who hear the gospel to enter under that benign rule.
In this fourth post on the gospel, we will read how Paul believes we should respond to that message and the core content of it.
The Corinthian Church
On his second missionary journey, the Apostle Paul entered Corinth around AD 50—about twenty years after the ministry of Jesus and about three to five years prior to Paul writing his first letter to Corinth which we call 1 Corinthians. Paul probably traveled to Corinth to plant a church there due to its size, the third largest city in the Roman Empire, its cultural diversity, and its thriving commerce.
After a few years, the Corinthians sent him a letter updating him on the status of the church and asking him some questions of how to exist as a church. As it turned out, they came dangerously close to forsaking the gospel. We have the letter that Paul sent back to them in which he addressed their questions, issues, and schisms saving for last the most significant of the problems.
Always Return the Basics of the Gospel
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you . . .” (1 Corinthians 15:1a, ESV)
Before reiterating the content of the gospel, Paul reminded them of their initial reception of the gospel. How did it happen?
Paul proclaimed the gospel. They heard him announce it. Paul entered their lives and disrupted their routines and challenged their worldviews by heralding a message from God.
That message, they received. What he spoke, they didn’t ignore or dismiss. They kept listening. Paul kept speaking. Paul continued teaching. They kept learning. They embraced the gospel, which Paul faithfully delivered, as a message personally relevant to them.
In the fifteenth chapter of his letter, Paul emphasized that they had already heard what he was about to tell them. Only, they had failed to let the gospel permeate their entire reasoning, so they began holding as true something inconsistent with the message of the gospel.
Paul brought them back to the basics of the faith in order to reshape their thinking from the core message of the gospel, which would lead them away from a false idea they had begun to believe—that the final resurrection already happened.
From Paul’s statement in this verse, it seems safe to say that returning to the basics of the gospel is an important practice for Christians today. Assumed basics all to often become forgotten basics, and forgotten basics all to often because forsaken basics.
Then different basics replace forsaken basics.
God wants us to return to the good news, to remember it in our prayers and worship, and to let it continually influence our hearts, minds, and habits. The gospel has the power to dispense life in our mortal bodies and can kill what causes death in us—evil thoughts, torqued desires, false ideas about God, and destructive practices.
Jesus Uses the Gospel to Draw Us, Keep Us, and Perfect Us
“. . . which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:1b–2, ESV)
The members of the Corinthian church first heard and received the gospel which Paul proclaimed to them. The message invites individuals to connect with God, to experience his grace, receive his forgiveness, and live with power and hope. In Paul’s mind, the corruption in the world makes obvious where it is headed—to receive judgment from God since all people have forsaken God.
But note what Paul says, “. . . by which you are being saved . . . .” The gospel delivers a person by re-positioning them from under God’s anger and placing them under his love. The gospel gives each person a new name, a divine name, with the hope of not only receiving deliverance from evil and judgment, but receiving immortality, life, peace, and joy in the eternal kingdom of God.
But the Corinthians must not turn from what Paul originally proclaimed! Paul warned them that they have begun to do so, so they should stop, think, reaffirm the gospel, and enjoy its life-giving benefits. Paul wanted the Corinthians to hold fast to the word of the gospel. Yet, if they stray, if they turn to another gospel, or turn to a different hope, or pledge allegiance to contradictory truths about God and this world, then their original belief will turn out to have been in vain.
Likewise, all Christians today must not only affirm the gospel at a point in time and embrace the gospel for a part time, but continue doing so through time—letting the gospel, the word of God, have its perfect work in us.
The Core of the Gospel Message
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures . . .” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4, ESV)
Paul did not invent, or infer to the best possible explanation, what he originally spoke to the Corinthians. He received the message as divinely originated tradition to be passed along—and that’s exactly what Paul did.
What’s of first importance in that tradition?
That Christ died, was buried, and then resurrected from the dead.
Why did Jesus die? He died on our behalf. Jesus did not deserve to die. He lived spotlessly. Bleach could not have made him cleaner. But he didn’t suit the fancies of the community. He challenged their beliefs and way of life, so they killed him. From the pairs of eyes seeing Jesus naked, in pain, dying on a cross, he just looked like an innocent man receiving a criminal’s death. But in the eyes of God, the death of Jesus carried the full weight of the curse brought by our wrongdoing and the wrath our wrongdoing deserved. In our place, he suffered, that we might not have to suffer. That’s why we call the death of Jesus sacrificial and substitutionary. He satisfied the wrath of God in our place. He bore the full weight of this world’s curse.
Jesus died, but did not stay dead. He resurrected from the dead, leaving his grave clothes nicely positioned on the slab of rock as he left the tomb. In the pairs of eyes that initially saw his new body, they simply experienced a normal man, with scars in his hands, who somehow arose from a very obvious death. In God’s eyes, Jesus conquered death, the works of evil, and the power of the curse. This victory of Jesus, Jesus now extends to others by way of invitation that all may share in his victory and live with the hope of the new world, live in communion with God, and live triumphantly over the desires that used to enslave them.
That’s the core content of the gospel Paul proclaimed. It’s good news about the works of God. God invites all to participate in that work that has already begun and will one day be complete through Jesus Christ, the lion from the tribe of Judah.