◄ What Does 1 Corinthians 15:1 Mean? ►

The core of the saving gospel of Christ is that the perfect Son of God came to earth, died for our sins, and rose again from the dead. Both the death and the Resurrection of Christ are crucial to the salvation message, for if Christ had not died and risen again, our faith would be futile. Without a fixed foundation and secure biblical content our faith would be in vain. Without this core truth, our faith would be rendered irrelevant, for it is by Christ's death that we are forgiven and it is by His imputed, resurrected life that "we too shall live."

The prevailing perspective of the Corinthian culture rejected any form of resurrection, which caused Paul to write this vital message challenging the skeptical attitude that permeated the pagan citizens of Corinth, which was infiltrating into the thinking and practice of born-again believers - just as the same, scoffing skepticism of Christ's death and Resurrection has saturated the worldly mindset of today.

And so we discover Paul clarifying the truth of the glorious gospel of grace to this little group of believers, who were themselves starting to question the authenticity of the inerrant Word of God, and in particular Christ's glorious Resurrection.

Paul was keen to clarify the foundational truth of the saving message of the gospel of Christ that He had proclaimed to these believers on at least one previous occasion, and which they had heard with their ears, received in their heart, and personally appropriated in their lives - by faith. And we in the twenty-first century are witnesses of that same saving message of God's grace - by faith, which has its roots in the book of Genesis (when Adam fell), and reaches its climatic conclusion in the book of Revelation (when Christ rules as King of kings and Lord of lords).

When the men and women in the Church at Corinth first heard the truth of the glorious gospel of grace, their lives were wonderfully transformed which was one vital proof that the gospel of Christ was an indisputable fact and a foundational truth to be defended at all cost. Worldly pagans who were dead in their trespasses and sin and without God in the world, had been transformed into the people of God. People who were wallowing in the sordid sins of fallen man were changed into saints of God who were made rich in every way; enriched in speech and knowledge of every kind, and not lacking in any spiritual gift.

It was to these believers that Paul spoke when he started to defend the truthfulness of the glorious gospel of Christ and carefully clarified for them, that their faith must be built on the firm foundational facts of Christ's death, burial, and Resurrection.

The gospel which Paul proclaimed to the saints at Corinth is the same truth upon which we are to stand on today. This truth is grounded in the unchanging Word of God, where Christ's death, burial, and Resurrection is the anchor of our soul and the immovable foundation upon which our faith must stand.

As the floodgates of apostasy and paganism continue to pour into the lives of believers today and pollute their faith, it is important to remain securely anchored to this important message of clarification from the apostle Paul: the gospel message of salvation which we have received, accepted, welcomed, and appropriated in our hearts. It is the glorious gospel of grace by which we are saved: "That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

Heavenly Father, in a world that is seeking to undermine the very foundation of our Christian faith, I pray that Your Church would stand fast on the truth of Scripture; that Christ died for our sins according to the Bible, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day. May the gospel of grace remain foundational to our faith, even in the onslaught of those that would seek to obliterate the truth. This I ask in Jesus' name, AMEN.