THURSDAY February 8th
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.’
As I have been preparing the devotions for this week, the words of a song have kept coming to mind.
In the grave God did not leave Him
For His body to decay
Raised to life – the Great Awakening
Satan’s pow’r He overcame
If there were no resurrection
We ourselves could not be raised
But the Son of God is living
So our hope is not in vain
The third part of this ‘which is of first importance’ theme is that ‘he was raised on the third day’. The resurrection, both the truth of it and the wonder of it are so essential to our Christian faith.
Why? Well Paul says later that if Christ has not been raised, then everything is in vain, we will cover this more in a later devotion, but for today, if Christ had not been raised, why then did the apostles continue in the Way, why would they have been so willing to undergo suffering in the many ways in which they did through persecution and in martyrdom? Something amazing, incredible, astonishing, (we could list so many more words) something life transforming MUST have happened to persuade them that without any shadow of doubt whatsoever, Jesus really was who he claimed to be and fulfilled all that the Scriptures had foretold about him.
He really was worth forsaking all else to follow! Now, the fourth aspect of this ‘which is of first importance’ is that Paul continues to say that he appeared, that is, the risen Jesus appeared to many, and in doing so was giving undeniable proof that the One who had died and who had been buried, really was alive.
Luke says it this way, ‘He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God’ Acts 1:3.
He Has Risen, He Has Risen, He Has Risen, Jesus is Alive!