Transcript

Now look at 1 Corinthians with me. Let’s renew our study through this book this evening. And I’m going to start with chapter one and not do an exhaustive, but just sort of a running comment on the themes that Paul has touched on in writing this letter to the church at Corinth. We can’t nearly go in or even mention all of them, but every single theme or area was a problem. They were messing, or an area rather they were messing up. Something they were blundering upon and there was a lot of error and a lot of sin in this church. He begins in the first chapter there exhorting them to unity. They had a party spirit, one was following one group, one was following another. And I believe part of that problem is that there were not elders upon it. As far as we know at this point in this church. And the Apostle Paul, from a distance was functioning as an overseer. Continuing in chapter one, they would glory in human wisdom. They come out of the Greek culture and the Greeks just marveled over new learning. And somebody had a new thought and a new philosophy, and they gloried in that. And Paul was saying, all that is nothing before God. The true wisdom is Jesus died, he was buried and rose again. And that was an astonishing thing.

You going into chapter two. And let’s see, he rebukes them for their general spiritual immaturity and exhorts them to spiritual maturity. You continue. He talks to them about being God’s workers and get to work for God. He talks them about God’s temple, and they ought to be holy because they had lots of sin in the church. Were just moving very quickly on chapter five, little problem of a man who has instituted a corrupt, sexually immoral relationship with his mom or stepmother, had to deal with that. Chapter six. There, regularly wasn’t a rare occurrence regularly there, taking one another in the church to court and suing each other in the church. It’s kind of like, see you in court tomorrow. You know, just was a common thing in this church. Another problem. Then he goes into marriage. All kinds of problems on their views of divorce, their views of singleness, their views of remarriage. He goes on into the chapter eight and talks about idolatry and things sacrificed to idols and how they some were using their connotation of eternal security as a license for sin. He has to rebuke that. We get on over into the communion, let’s see chapter probably that’s on into, ten or eleven. They’re getting drunk at the Lord’s table. And, some of the poor folks would show up for the love feast, which would happen before the Lord’s Supper, and they’d eat everything up, and there’s nothing left when the guys, the common laborers, had to come in a little bit later. And then he come to his the most exhaustive area, the area they’d made the biggest mess of, and that was the sign gifts of the spirit, particularly the gift of tongues. They were enamored with that gift and used particularly that one, among other outward manifestation gifts as a statement of maturity. And Paul thoroughly deals with that.

Now chapter fifteen, he comes to the last major theme he’s going to deal with before he gives his closing remarks. And that theme is the resurrection. But we’re going to notice he doesn’t just jump right out and say, okay, now I’m going to talk about the resurrection. He very suddenly and in one sense slyly gets into the issue. And I think he doesn’t want to alert the enemies. There probably were not the majority, but there were some in the church beginning to teach that there’s no resurrection from the dead. So he’s got to correct this heresy, and that’s what he’s purposing to begin doing. But he slowly gets into it and we won’t get into it much. So let’s read our text, and then we’ll get into this thing where Paul begins to speak about the resurrection.

1 Corinthians fifteen, beginning in verse one. “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold fast the word which 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 according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the Apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the Apostles, and not fit 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 did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

Now, first of all, he defends the resurrection of Christ. He’s going to begin with his defense of the resurrection of Christ. He uses two things here. First of all, he uses the testimony of Scripture and then the testimony of the saints, the saints that is, that saw him after the resurrection.

Let’s talk now about the testimony of Scripture in verses one through four. He doesn’t get into it right away, as I mentioned earlier. But notice how he begins there. In verse one. He says, “Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you.” I know of no other place in the Scripture where the writer of Scripture says, all right, are you listening? Now listen up. Here’s the gospel so we can look at this text. Settle once and for all what the gospel is. All right? It’s right here, very clearly. He says, “I just want to make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand.” Now where’s Paul going? Here’s what he’s doing. He says, I want to reiterate to you, I just want to lay out again the common, essential truth of the gospel. These are not new truths. This is not new information. He’s thoroughly laid out this gospel for them. He’s just saying, just as a matter of review, let’s just set this thing forth again. I’ve already preached it to you. Verse one. I preached it to you. Another verse. You’ve received it and embraced the gospel. It’s already been laid out for you. You’ve stood in it. You’ve had for weeks and months. You’ve just stood in it and believed it. It’s settled with you. There’s nothing new. Now notice where he’s going. He’s going to come back and say later. The resurrection has always been an essential component of the gospel. I’ve preached it. You received it. You’ve been standing in it. Why would you go back and question it now? It’s already settled in your church and in your doctrine.

Don’t be afraid of the word doctrine, folks. Doctrine means teaching. If you teach anything, you teach a doctrine. If you teach that you don’t stand on doctrine, then you’re saying, I don’t stand on teaching. Everybody teaches something. Everybody believes something.

Verse two he says, “by which you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you,” the word “if” there in the Greek is the first class condition of the word, “if”. It means it’s an assumption of truth. You could put “since” you hold fast. He’s talking to the church collectively, and he’s saying, you’ve received this true gospel. You’ve stood in it. There’s evidence that you’re truly saved. Now, they had lots of problems, but they were saved people. “If you hold fast the word” that means the word I preach to you, that means that gospel truth I gave you, if you really believed it, the last part, “unless you believed in vain.” That phrase “believed in vain” literally means: to no purpose. Here’s what I think he’s getting at. If you’re one of them in the church and you are rejecting the resurrection of Christ, then it’s obvious you believed to no purpose. You believed in vain. You had mental assent, intellectual assent to some of the facts I preached. But there was no heart, conviction, or embracing of the gospel I gave you. So he’s not talking about some sort of works thing here. He’s saying that there’s some of you who had intellectual assent to the facts I preached, but there was no heart, belief and trust in those facts that I preached — the facts of the gospel. What’s Paul’s point? He says, generally, thus far, you’ve embraced that gospel I shared with you. You’ve stood on it. You believed it. You held it as as a cardinal doctrine. And I’m stating this thing that we all commonly believe. And what he’s doing, he’s saying, and I want to settle this before I get to the main thrust of my point, which is the actual defense of the resurrection, and he’ll look at that thoroughly in a moment.

Look at verse three, “For I delivered to you as of first importance” doesn’t necessarily mean the very first thing he said. He just means the primary thing, the preeminent thing. The primary thing is what I gave you. What is that? He said, well, it’s what I received. He says, the primary priority, preeminent thing that I shared with you was something that I didn’t come up with. The primary, prominent, most important thing I shared with you is not of me, and it’s not of man. I received it. I’m not the author of it. That’s interesting. That phrase “I received” there in in verse three is identical to the phrase that he refers to in eleven twenty three when he talks about receiving the truth about the first Lord’s Supper. Paul is making a strong statement that I’m not building churches on my philosophy or my learning, or my intellect or my understanding. I’m giving you divine, authoritative revelation that I myself have received. There is authority to what I’m telling you, because it’s not of me. It just came through me.

Okay, Paul, what is this primary, most important, essential thing that’s not of you. You received it from somewhere else. Well, he begins the last part of verse three, and this is the description of the gospel, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Now, let me back up. There’s a quote here I want to share with you about this. Having received the truth of God, because the water is exceedingly muddy out there in evangelical circles today about what is truth and what is revelation, and what is authoritative and binding and what is not. Listen to what Oscar Coleman said. He said “all that the church knows about the words of Jesus, about the stories of his life or about their interpretation comes from the apostles. One has received this revelation, and another that. The Apostle is essentially one who passes on what he has received by revelation. But since everything has not been revealed to each individual Apostle, each one must first pass on his testimony to another and only the entire tradition, the entire collection to which all the apostles contribute constitute the tradition or the total truth of Christ”.

That’s why we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. That’s why we have Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, and all the way through to revelation. That’s why we have the collected New Testament, because God, in his sovereignty, in a direct way, revealed truth to those early Apostles like he is not revealing truth to any man, any woman, anywhere today. And they, under the superintending power of the Holy Spirit, wrote, Holy, authoritative, sufficient sacred Scripture. And we have it as God’s finished revelation until he appears again in his coming. And that’s a very, very, very important truth. Because if you hold that men are today receiving revelation the same way and of the same type the Apostles received, then you are saying Scripture is still being written. And that is exactly what Joseph Smith says, the heretical founder of the cult, the Mormon Church. That is exactly what Judge Rutherford and others say the heretical founders of the cult Jehovah’s Witnesses. That is exactly what Sun Myung Moon says when he says, “God’s given me revelation”, and I would just exhort the Christian community to be extremely cautious about using this thing of saying, God directly speaks to me like he spoke to the early church. I’m sorry, but I categorically refute that and reject that because God is not writing scripture today. If he speaks to you with divine revelation as he spoke to the early Apostles, then we need to give you a pen, a piece of paper and write it down and publish it to the entire Christian church in the world and say, this is binding, authoritative scripture. I’m not saying God doesn’t speak to people. I’m not saying God does not guide people. I’m not saying the Holy Spirit doesn’t give you sensations and impressions. I’m just saying it’s not authoritative and binding and absolute in the way the Apostles received revelation.

And it’s just so muddy out there. They’re just throwing those words around so loosely. But Paul wanted to make it very clear when he says he received it. What he’s saying is, only a few of us men are receiving this kind of authoritative revelation. He’s setting himself apart from other disciples and other committed Christians, because God was in that day writing Sacred Scripture, and he was using the Apostle Paul along with other Apostles, to write that whole tradition, that whole canon of truth that we would have, as Jude says in Jude three, “the faith” that means a body of doctrine, “the faith that was”, listen “once for all, delivered to the saints”. Are you listening to me, church. The faith, a body of teaching, finally settled once for all, delivered to the saints. Therefore, I spend my time as your called pastor teacher, investigating this once for all, delivered faith so that we might understand it and apply it to our daily lives.

Well, look, they’re continuing in verse three. Let’s go back to the thought I had just a moment ago. Paul says, the priority thing that I shared with you church at Corinth was something I received. It wasn’t of me. I just received it from God as as a direct revelation. Now, remember, Paul was a very highly educated man, a scholar of his day. But he said, I didn’t learn this in seminary. God directly revealed this. What is it, Paul? Well, “He died for our sins” last phrase, verse three. That word “for” means in behalf of. Or you could even say “concerning our sins”. He died because we got we have a sin problem. “He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised” Now it’s interesting. Does your King James Bible say rose. A.T. Robertson, I guess the greatest Greek scholar, one of the greatest scholars Baptist ever produced. But men of all denominations recognize his his brilliance in the original Greek. He wrote many, many great grammars on the ancient Greek language. He didn’t just study it. He wrote the grammars the other guy studied. And he says, it’s very significant that you use the phrase “was raised” here because Paul, as he uses the Koine Greek here, he doesn’t use the word for rose. It’s not just that Christ rose from the dead. Paul wants to have a more emphatic permanence here. Paul says it’s not just that Christ rose. He was raised and remains in that state and condition. That’s what Paul wants to get across. It’s it’s a new position that’s settled in permanent. You know, a person may be one, if you use the word rose, he may have rose up and then had to do it many times. But Paul will say no, pastor. He was raised and stays raised. I don’t know if that’s proper grammar, but it’s good theology. Buried. “And that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Then first part of verse five, “and that He appeared to Cephas.” Now Robertson and Plummer had a neat statement about this simple truth of the gospel that’s laid out here. And they said it this way: in death and burial He came down to our level. In His death and in His burial He came down to our level. In resurrection, He brought us up to His. Isn’t that good? That’s the gospel. That’s the gospel. Now. Notice the main emphasis of this gospel as to where it came from originally, or what. What is the testimony that lets us know that the gospel, including the essential component of resurrection? Where did that come from? Where did this basic gospel truth, including the key component of the resurrection? Where did it come from? Two phrases. Or one phrase, rather, he uses two times. Last part of verse three “according to the Scriptures,” the last part of verse four “according to the Scriptures.” Now, as Paul is getting into his defense of the resurrection of Christ and eventually the resurrection of saints and of the Savior, he begins by just saying, now let’s just reaffirm. Let’s just lay out once again what you already know, what’s already been preached. You’re already standing on it. You already saved by it. It’s settled. And he lays out those gospel facts. And then he says, as a matter of fact, we know all these are facts and cardinal truths. And they had to have happened this way because the Scriptures taught them.

Now I have three thoughts about that phrase “according to the Scriptures.” First of all, Paul says, my greatest defense is that the Scriptures teach that Christ was to be resurrected. Not history, not eyewitnesses, not anything. The Scriptures taught it.

Secondly, that that ties very close to this second thought. Paul has the utmost conviction about the absolute authority and complete sufficiency of Scripture. Now he’s writing to the Corinthians. Who couldn’t care less that there was a Moses or anybody else that wrote something called the Old Testament Scriptures. But as he writes to the church at Corinth, he says, we know it’s a fact, because the Old Testament scriptures, the sacred writings of the Jews, that’s all the Corinthians were perhaps perhaps referred to it as well. That’s the Jews sacred writings. So what? We have writings. But Paul says, no, that’s the authority I look to. If I want to know something’s really for real. He even mentions it. He mentions Scripture before he even mentions listen, the eyewitness testimonies who saw Jesus resurrected? Are you listening? That ought to tell us something. When he says we know the resurrection of Jesus is a fact, because the Old Testament predicted he’d do it. He uses that defense of the resurrection before he uses the defense of the eyewitnesses who saw him resurrected. My friend, I want to tell you, this book is more real and more true than anything you’ll ever see with your eyes. Hear with your ears and understand with your mind all the days of your life. That’s powerful. Very powerful.

Let me just mention a few of these places where the Old Testament preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ, including his resurrection. In Genesis chapter twenty two will not turn there. But you remember how Abraham was told by God to offer up in the Hebrew language is very emphatic here: “Offer up his one and only unique son” on the altar. He had another son, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t really his son. That was a son he had by his maidservant Hagar. But he only had one and only true bloodline, unique special son Isaac. And he offered up that son. And what did God do? God stayed. Abraham’s hand didn’t let him sacrifice the the boy and had a sacrificial lamb or ram, rather caught in the thicket and the ram was slain in the place of the boy. The picture of the death and resurrection of Christ is a picture of the gospel, and there’s glorious truths. And that was one thousand five hundred years before Jesus birth, recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures.

In Leviticus, the Levitical law, again, about one thousand five hundred years before the birth of Christ. One of the many, many, many, many pictures of Jesus throughout the book of Leviticus, where the instruction to the priest was that two goats were to be brought in on a certain day, and the priest would lay his hand on the head of one goat, and when he laid his hands on the head of that goat, he would confess the sins of the nation of Israel. And then that goal would be led astray out into the wilderness, never to be found again. That’s where the phrase scapegoat comes from. And then the other goat would be taken in slain picture as a sacrifice, but one going free, and also a picture of the taking away of sin. It’s the picture of the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Probably about a thousand years before the birth of Christ, in Job 1925, Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” What a statement! “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth.” Another shadowy insight from the Old Testament scriptures into the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Why don’t you turn with me real quickly over to Isaiah chapter fifty three. You say, Brother Jeff, those are some shadowy, unclear pictures. Well, the Bible teaches that. I believe in progressive revelation about everybody I know believes in progressive revelation. That means theological truths were in there, for lack of a better word on my tongue, a crude or unclear fashion illustrated in the Old Testament. And as you journey through the Old Testament and into the New Testament, they become fully developed. And the picture is there for all to see and none to be able to deny. Like the picture of Christ and the picture of his crucifixion, and the picture of his resurrection, and the picture of the church and of the glorious truths were seen in shadowy figures and types in the Old Testament, developed fully and seen clearly, though in the New Testament. Well, even in Isaiah fifty three, even though the Old Testament is full of types and shadows and figures of Christ, here’s a graphic description of his crucifixion and his resurrection. Look at verse three. “He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” and by the way, this was written about seven hundred years before Jesus was born. “And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” That’s the story of Jesus right before his crucifixion. He was repulsive to the Jews and the Romans of his day, when he was crucified. They couldn’t think, the Jews couldn’t of a king on a cross. They despised him, didn’t esteem him at all. Verse four “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,” We said, let him have it, crucify him. But a deeper insights revealed the last part of verse four. “Smitten of God, and afflicted.” We do know the Old Testament truth clearly lays out that it was the Father who took the life of the Son as the satisfactory, acceptable sacrifice for our sins. Verse five rather. “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities;” Substitutionary atonement, substitutionary sacrifice there. “the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.” Verse six. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Who else could this be but Jesus Christ?

Seven hundred years. Paul’s writing to the church at Corinth, the intelligent philosophers of the day. And he says the resurrection is a fact. How do I know? The Old Testament taught it. Period settled. Well, what confidence Paul had in the authority and the sufficiency of Scripture. Jump down to verse ten of Isaiah fifty three “But the Lord was pleased” who. The Lord God was pleased “to crush Him, putting Him to grief;” showing that it was God the Father’s plan to send his own precious Son to planet earth, to hang on a cross and take the cruel, crushing blow of judgment in our place so that he might redeem a trophy to show forth his grace for all eternity. The Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief “if He would render Himself as a guilt offering;” He took our place of guilt and was offered before God. But look at the last part of verse ten. Talk about resurrection. “He will see His offspring.” Now wait a minute. Crushed. Smitten of God. All these awful. He’s dead, but “He will see His offspring.” In other words, he’ll be alive again. He’s going to live again. “He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.” “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many,” isn’t that what he did? “As He will bear their iniquities.” What a brilliant portrait of the great theological truths such as Paul wrote in the book of Romans, and the literal truth about the death and resurrection of our Lord. Look at verse twelve. “Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great,” the Father says, after he does all this, and dies for all those sins and iniquities of his people, I’m going to lot him a great portion, “and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.”

We could go on and on. Psalm twenty two, Psalm sixteen, Psalm forty nine, and even the Lord Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry in Luke twenty four and in Matthew twelve, referred back to the story of Jonah and said, just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish and then was coughed back up, so the Son of Man will die, and on the third day rise again. Jesus said, I’m going to be resurrected. You know how I know?  This is the Son of God, God incarnate, God Almighty in human form. All of God as the heavenly Father was God. And Jesus said, I know I’m going to be resurrected because the Bible tells me so. Man that’s strong. The Son of God said, I know it’s true because the Old Testament taught it an incredible truth. So what does Paul say first to these intelligent, proud Corinthians, who were esteemed as the cultured and intelligentsia elite of the day? He says, we know the resurrection is real because of the testimony of Scripture. Scripture said the Son of God would rise again.

We’re referring to the resurrection of Christ and defending the resurrection of Christ. Not only does he appeal to the testimony of Scripture, secondly, he appeals to the testimony of the saints, the eyewitnesses who saw him. He begins there in verse five, and let’s hurry through this. It says, “and that He appeared” Now the phrase “He appeared” occurs in verse five and verse six. A lot with the Greek scholars say. They say the word there cannot mean a vision of Christ. It means the actual literal body, the person of Jesus Christ. There are folks that we hear today talk about. I saw a vision of Christ. I don’t know what they saw, and that’s between them and God. But that’s not what Paul’s talking about. He’s saying they saw him literally, actually bodily, the actual literal one who is in the grave. They saw him later walking around in his body. Nail prints in his hand and their prints in his feet. Verse five. That’s what it means when it says “He appeared to Cephas.” I don’t know why Paul mentioned Cephas first. We do know there are eleven, scriptural references of appearances of Jesus on eleven different occasions. Paul just picks out five. He’s not trying to give an exhaustive list of the appearances of the resurrected Lord. He’s just giving enough to prove his point. First, he says to Cephas or to Simon Peter. Then he says “He appeared to the twelve” still in verse five. That’s a technical name. It’s actually not. Twelve Judas Iscariot dropped out and Thomas wasn’t there. So it’s actually just ten. But “the twelve” became the technical name for that group of Apostles because of course, originally it was twelve.

Verse six “After that” means chronologically speaking later, “He appeared” not a vision, actually. Literally, the body that was in that grave walking around now “appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time.” Now we have that record of that mountaintop meeting that was that was arranged by the Lord Jesus when he came, and he met with those five hundred or so disciples. He met with all of them at one time. Now it’s about twenty five years later when Paul’s writing this, and Paul says, “most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.” He said a lot of those five hundred are still walking around. You can ask them. They saw him, but a lot of them have gone on to heaven. Their bodies sleep, but they in soul and spirit are with the Lord. Verse seven “then He appeared to James.” We know from other biblical texts this is the half brother of Jesus and actually a half brother who didn’t believe in him until he saw him resurrected. “then to all the apostles.” I believe that refers to Thomas. Remember, Thomas wasn’t there when the first ten ten of the apostles saw him, and Jesus appeared to Thomas later, individually. And that’s when Thomas said, I’ve got to see. I’ve got to see the nail prints. And Jesus showed him. And Thomas fell down at his feet and said, my Lord and my God. Now right there was. If Jesus wasn’t God Almighty, wasn’t God incarnate right there. Jesus said, now you’ve got part of that, right. But but Jesus didn’t stop that worship. He said, you’re right on target, Thomas. I am God and I’m your Lord.

Well, let’s continue on. Look at verse eight. Paul goes on to his own testimony of seeing the Lord after his resurrection. “and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” The phrase “untimely born” has been translated in other ancient writings as miscarriage by accident, an untimely birth that was not the natural process of events. What Paul means is I saw the Lord resurrected, but I didn’t have the gestation period of walking with him during his earthly ministry and then birthed out into my ministry of Apostle. Mine was an untimely thing, not a typical normal thing. I was on the road to Damascus. I was even persecuting Christians, locking up Christians, destroying churches, and God, the Lord Jesus rather appeared to me on the road, the Damascus road, and knocked me to the ground. And you know the interesting testimony after Paul fell to the ground there, he said, “who art thou, Lord?” The last thing he expected to hear was, “I am Jesu”. He knew it was some Lord, some God, some Almighty. The last name he expected here was Jesus. And he says, I know you’re the Lord. I mean, I was riding my horse. Next thing I know I’m flat on the ground and the light was so bright I can’t see you’re almighty. Who are you? He said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Paul said, So I’ve seen him too. They may have killed him, and they may have buried him, but I saw him. Knocked me to the ground. It was overwhelming experience. I was one untimely born. I wasn’t born like the other apostles. I was born later. Not. Of course it wasn’t an accident. That’s not the way Paul’s using that term. But that’s the way that term was used in secular language of the day.

Verse nine, he says, “For I am the least of the Apostles, and not fit to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Paul’s not diminishing his apostolic authority. Matter of fact, in other places he strongly defends his authority as Apostle so he can refute heretical teachings that were constantly coming into the church. But he’s just saying, I cannot get over the fact that I used to work against in a direct and vigorous and physical way, my dear Lord and his church.

Well, I hope we never get over our sinfulness before God. Paul never got over it. Paul never got over the rebellion of his heart and the sinfulness of his life before he got saved. Then he says, verse ten, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” That’s a neuter word. That word “what.” It’s not masculine or feminine. It’s not best translated “who I am”, it’s “what I am”. I just believe it adds some more specific emphasis about the point Paul is wanting to make. I am what I am by his grace. Continuing in verse ten. “And His grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them,” that means all the rest of the Apostles, “yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

Now I pastor one church, a church that by all accounts, is far, exceedingly better and easier to pastor in the sense of laity causing trouble than any other church possibly known to man. I admit that. Now this position has pressure simply because we do so much, but not because you’re a problem. And Paul, though, pastored churches like Corinth. And that was just one. I cannot fathom a mortal human being carrying the burden he had to carry. You know, one time he talks about I’m shipwrecked, beaten, left in the sea, left for dead, stoned. And then I pastor all these churches. I thought, Lord God. Got the whole thing, it’s incredible. So he really could say with accuracy, I labored even more than all of them. And Paul was a unique and special man as far as a fleshly human being goes. He didn’t have a wife. We don’t know the exact situation there, but he didn’t have a wife. He couldn’t have, his marriage wasn’t survived. He was just given that gift of singleness and sold it out, gave it all to God. I’m not giving that gift. I’m not called to do these things. Paul was unique in so many ways. Not superhuman, just special grace for a special task. It’s what I call the anointing. Special touch for a special task. And he had the anointing to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Then he ends verse ten. He wants you to know. He knows how it all happens. “yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” He says, don’t give me any credit. When I was doing what Paul could do, I was trying to murder Christians and destroy the name of Jesus. Then he goes on to verse eleven, “Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” Now he’s coming full circle. He’s talking about what we preached when we came to you, and he’s talking about what you believed when we came and preached it. What is it that you preached, Paul? And what is it that they commonly understand and believed? The gospel! What are the four components of the gospel that Paul’s laid out here? Jesus died, was buried, was raised past tense, and appeared. Throw that one in also. Paul throws it in, died, buried, raised, appeared to others. Paul said, remember, now that’s what we’ve preached. That’s what we’ve believed all the time. That’s what we’ve stood on. So why are you letting these heretical teachers come in and even doubt the legitimacy and the and the actual factual element of the resurrection?

It’s the cardinal central doctrine of the church. You see, Christianity does not rest on a set of ideas. Are you listening to me, Robert Schuller? Are you listening to me? If you’ve been influenced by anything, Christianity does not rest on a set of ideas, principles, or creeds, but on facts. The facts of the gospel. And the liberals of our day have tried to tell us the gospel is the Ten Commandments of the gospel is the sermon on the Mount? Are the Gospels the Golden rule? It’s not. The gospel is a series of historical, documented facts about a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. if Jesus did not die on the cross. If Jesus was not buried in the grave. If Jesus has not risen from the dead, if Jesus did not appear to those people, then Christianity crumbles as a lie. Spurgeon said it this way “the resurrection of our divine Lord from the dead is the cornerstone of Christian doctrine, the keystone of the Arch of Christianity. For if that fact could be disproved, the whole fabric of the gospel would fall to the ground”.

You say, well, it’s so hard to believe. Journey back with me five hundred years. Let’s go back five hundred years and let’s sit down with a common person on the streets. I guess you’d have to go back to England, to Europe. And I want you to explain to that person a television. Or maybe try a telephone. Explain to them a telephone how it works, what happens. Explain to them a personal computer that links up with people around the world. Or tell them you see that moon up there? The guy’s going to walk on it. One day they’d say. Can’t believe that. Where did you get these far out, unbelievable ideas? And as we’ll see, as we follow the text on thoroughly, as Paul goes from defending the resurrection, he’ll go to describing the resurrection.

You know, the other day I helped a fellow plant some seed. We threw all these little bitty things out there, these little bitty seeds, all different kinds of seeds. I like to get the kind that deer like to eat the best. We threw those seeds out there rye, grass, wheat, clover, different things. And we threw fertilizer out there. And it’s rained a couple of times and I went the other day and it’s just green everywhere, but it’s amazing. There’s not anything coming up of the ground that looked anything like the stuff I threw on the ground. It’s the same life, but radically and totally different from the form it had when I planted it. My friend. Every little blade of grass that springs up from this earth, from a seed, is a statement of the miracle working power of God and a picture of the resurrection. It’s not impossible. It’s just not familiar right now. It’s just not familiar right now. But it is real. And it will happen.

Three quick thoughts and I’m through. One thing, and you may just call these our CPAs. I used to do that from time to time. Our conclusions for practical application. I’ll be very brief. Number one, from this text, we know what the gospel is. Jesus died. buried, raised — past tense— Paul wants you to know that, and appeared. That’s the gospel. Now I understand what people are trying to do when they say this is the full gospel. My dear friends, Paul says the gospel Jesus died, buried, raised, appeared. That’s the gospel.

We learned something again about the absolute authority and complete sufficiency of the Scripture. That’s not just empty words to this church. We’re purposing to hold to that and walk that. Paul said, how do I know the resurrection is real? First and foremost, not because Peter’s reliable, not because I saw him on my horse, not because five hundred brethren saw him, or all those other appearances, but because the Scriptures taught it. Number three, that our Christian faith, our Christianity, and our faith is based on historical facts. Listen. And on a living person, if he’s still dead, this is all a fraud.