TUESDAY February 6th
1 Corinthians 15:1-5
‘Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, 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. 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, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.’
I have been to these verses a few times while preparing the devotions and we come to them again, the reason being, because they are the first things that Paul has to say in this chapter, and they are the first things of importance in regard to the gospel and they are the first things that we need to come to accept and believe to be able to enjoy the things that Paul continues to unveil to us concerning the resurrection to eternal life.
In a nutshell, without the gospel as Paul defines it here, there would be no resurrection!
So, how does he define the gospel? In a simple sentence, ‘that Christ died for our sins . . . was buried . . . was raised again on the third day . . . appeared to many, and all in accordance with the Scriptures’.
Our sin required a sacrifice, it was made on our behalf by Christ, who as a result of his atoning work has become our Saviour, and as the remainder of this chapter shows us the guarantee of our own future resurrection to eternal life.
We spent some devotions defining what Paul saw as being the gospel, which he proclaimed, and of which others have proclaimed so that as a result we have come to believe and be saved.
In these opening verses are some as Paul calls it, important, essential truths concerning the gospel, the first being that Christ died for our sins. This is the doctrine of the atonement, Christ became the One who laid down his life as a sacrificial lamb, taking upon himself our sins, and taking onto himself the punishment for those sin, and bearing toward himself the wrath of God for those sins so that as we come to believe by faith we can be forgiven and reconciled to God.