FRIDAY February 9th
1 Corinthians 15:8-11
‘Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.’
As we continue with this theme of that ‘which is of first importance’, Paul then relates back to the moment when he encountered Jesus for himself on the road to Damascus, he says ‘Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me’.
When it comes to the resurrection of Jesus, Paul knows what he is talking about, not just because he will have heard the apostles giving witness to it, but primarily, firstly, because he himself had met with the risen Jesus!
And what a meeting it was, as we have already covered as I started this series, he was one who hated Jesus and hated all who followed Jesus, seeking to destroy the spread of the gospel and all who had responded to it, but God had a plan for him, and it was going to lead to an interruption in his scheduled journey that would cause his eyes to be temporarily stopped, but spontaneously opened again as Ananias prayed for him.
To me this speaks of what happened to his spiritual eyes, his seeing Jesus was like a cataract being removed, what he couldn’t see or understand beforehand now became very clear. The Man who hung on the Cross, really did bear his sin, really did die for his sin and was buried and rose on the third day, and he himself had seen him, encountered him and now as it seemed before as if nothing would stop him destroying all who followed in the way, this encounter now meant that nothing was now going to stop him speaking about Jesus, preaching the gospel, calling men and women to follow in the Way.
And he reminds the Corinthian believers that this was the gospel he had preached to them, the gospel in which they stood and by which they were being saved—but then he added these words (v2) ‘if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain’.
Let us all ensure that we have not believed in vain, but that we are holding fast to all that this gospel has done for us and means for us as we too are being saved. May nothing hinder or distract us, but may we be so captivated by the wonder and reality of the gospel, in all that it means to us and has done and continues to do for us that we ‘lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God’, Hebrews 12:1-2.