Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve 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 to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

• 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

1 Corinthians 15:2 ‘hold fast to the gospel’: “To hold fast firmly to keep in memory. It implies continued holding and lasting possession. Paul wanted the Corinthians to hold firmly to the essence of the gospel—Jesus’ death and resurrection—lest their faith be ‘in vain,’ that is, without cause or purpose.”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Patty Comber, Pauline Epistles contributor)

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 ‘Jesus – alive forevermore’: “When Christ rose from the dead He did what no one had ever done before. We cannot imagine how He accomplished the miracle. We are not even sure exactly what wonderful thing happened there in the silence of Joseph’s new tomb. That He came forth, alive forevermore, has been the firmly settled faith of the Church from the beginning. How He accomplished it is a secret locked in the mind of God. We should remember the wise admonition of John Wesley: ‘Let us not doubt a fact because we do not know how it was accomplished.’ The resurrection of Christ is a fact. More than that we need not know.
“Our own future resurrection is even harder to visualize. To paint a mental picture of our death is not so difficult because it has been our experience that everyone goes out that way….
“The mind can visualize our departure from this earth because it has something to guide it in forming its mental picture, but the resurrection affords it no familiar stuff with which to work. And here is where anxiety and self-reproach enter. Because we cannot visualize it we are afraid that we do not believe it.
“The hope of the resurrection is a matter of pure faith. It rests upon the character of God and draws its comfort from the knowledge that God cannot lie nor deceive nor change. He has promised that all who sleep in Jesus shall be brought again from their graves to meet the Lord in the air and be with Him forever. The New Testament is filled with this joyful expectation. How God will bring it all to pass is not for us to l<now. We are not called to understand, but to believe.
“Though a detailed knowledge of the mysterious ways of God in accomplishing the resurrection were possible for us, I wonder if we would be any better off for it. We honor God more by believing Him to do the impossible. And after all, nothing is impossible with God.”

• A. W. Tozer, The Price of Neglect

1 Corinthians 15:3 ‘what matters is the cross’: “Maybe you’ve gone through the acts of religion and faith and yet found yourself more often than not at a dry well. Prayers seem empty. Goals seem unthinkable. Christianity becomes a warped record full of highs and lows and off-key notes.
“Is this all there is? Sunday attendance. Pretty songs. Faithful tithings. Golden crosses. Three-piece suits. Big choirs. Leather Bibles. It is nice and all, but … where is the heart of it? …
“Think about these words from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3. ‘I passed on to you what I received, of which this was most important: that Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say.’
“There it is. Almost too simple. Jesus was killed, buried, and resurrected. Surprised? The part that matters is the Cross. No more and no less. “

• Max Lucado, No Wonder They Call Him the Savior

1 Corinthians 15:3 ‘Christ died for our sins’: “There were many things that Paul could have spoken about to the Corinthians when he first visited them. What did he tell them? What had he himself received and passed on to them? What was it that he considered most important?
“First, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. The reason these facts are so significant is because of who Christ is and what his death accomplished. Jesus Christ is the God-man. He is the Word of God who became flesh (John 1:14). He is the Son of God, the second Person of the Godhead, who became a man without giving up his deity (see Phil 2:5-8). He is the one and only per-son with both a divine nature and a human nature, unmixed forever. Therefore, he could serve as a perfect substitutionary sacrifice for sinners because as God he is without sin, and as a man he could die in our place. By bearing our sins on the cross, he suffered the wrath of God that we deserved so that we might be forgiven, receive eternal life, and be saved (see, e.g., 2 Cor s:21; 1 Pet 2:24).”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 15:4 ‘Christ’s resurrected body’: “The resurrection body of Christ had these characteristics: he could pass through shut doors (Jn 20:19, 26); he could vanish from view (Lk 24:31); his body was real and could be touched (Lk 24:39; Jn 20:17, 27); he was able to eat (Lk 24:42–43).”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Patty Comber, Pauline Epistles contributor)

1 Corinthians 15:4 ‘buried and raised to life’: “Second, he was buried. Jesus didn’t merely swoon on the cross; he died. The Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would give his life as a sacrificial offering (see Isa 53:4-12), and the New Testament record as-sures us that this was indeed true of Jesus (see John 19:33-42; Phil 2:8).
“Third, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Jesus suffered and died on our behalf; he made payment for our sins. Was this payment accepted? We can be certain that it was because God raised him from the dead. This is the clear and consistent testimony of the early church (see, e.g., Acts 2:24-32; 3:15; 5:30; 10:39-41; 13:29-37; 17:31). Jesus has risen from the grave, and the apostles and many others were eyewitnesses to this. The resurrection, then, is your receipt that God accepted Christ’s payment for your sins and mine. And all of this happened ‘according to the Scriptures.’ The Old Testament not only foretold the Messiah’s death but also his resurrection (see Ps 16:10). As Paul essentially says later in this chapter, without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no Christianity (see 1 Cor 15:13-19).”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 15:5-8 ‘Then Jesus appeared to many people’: “The risen Lord Jesus wasn’t seen by merely one or two people. On the contrary; Paul assures the Corinthians that there were numerous eyewitnesses to the resurrection. He appeared to Cephas (Peter) and the Twelve (the apostles) (15:5). One of the qualifications of being an apostle was to have seen the risen Christ (see Acts 1:21-22). Besides this, he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time-most of whom were still alive and could verify this claim. This was no conspiracy concocted by a small band of people, then. Hundreds saw him! He also appeared to James (15:7), the Lord’s own half-brother. Though he didn’t believe in Jesus during his earthly ministry (see John 7:3-5), when he witnessed the resurrection, James believed, became a leader in the early church (see Acts12:17; 15:13; 21:18), and wrote the New Testament letter bearing his name. Finally; Paul says, he also appeared to me (15:8). The persecutor of the church had been called by the risen Lord Jesus himself to be an apostle (see Acts 9:1-22).
“These are the essential truths of the gospel. Through the sacrificial substitutionary death and resurrection of the God-man Jesus Christ, all those who place their faith in him are forgiven of their sins, reconciled to God, adopted as his children, and receive eternal life. Sinners can be saved. This is the good news that the church is called to proclaim to the world.”

• Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

1 Corinthians 15:10 ‘labored more … they all’: ”In terms of years and extent of ministry, he exceeded all those named (vv. 5-7). John outlived him but did not have the extensive ministry of Paul.”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

My Thoughts

We should make a big deal out of the resurrection, but after I finished copying the quotes for the entire chapter, I determined that this is just too much to cram into one post.  So, I am breaking it up into logic segments.  We will start by looking at how the resurrection is essential to the Gospel.

Paul starts by exhorting those believers in Corinth to remember what he had taught them.  Acts 18:11 states that Paul had been there 18 months.  He had time to ensure the essentials of the Gospel were being taught and repeated.  But then anything and everything can happen once you leave and others begin to teach.

Paul said that essential to the Gospel was that Jesus lived.  Jesus died and was buried.  And on the third day, Jesus rose again.  He appeared to a variety of people, the Disciples, who were then the Apostles, were among the first but Jesus appeared to one group of people, at least one, with over 500 people present.  While some had died by the time of Paul’s writing, there were people who could be called upon to give testimony that they saw Jesus very much alive after death and burial.

Whether in the quotations above or in a future segment of this chapter, the Corinthians had the aversion to anything that comes back from the dead as being repugnant.  After four days, the body starts to decay rapidly.  That adds to the resurrection of Lazarus, in that when they unsealed the tomb of Lazarus, the people were expecting a horrible stench.  This is what the Corinthians were thinking, and then a new teacher might argue that the resurrection was not a central part of their beliefs.

Thus, Paul was trying to get them back to this basic belief, or as he says, they have believed in vain (verse 2).

Of all those to whom Jesus appeared, Paul listed himself last.  Not out of humility, but in a way out of shame.  The others were believers who saw Jesus before He ascended, but Paul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus as Paul was going there to persecute believers.  Thus, Paul claims the title of Apostle to the Gentiles, but not out of bragging.  His life prior to meeting Jesus on that road was a horrible one.

We could all paint the same picture, even if we sat in a pew and obeyed our parents.  Those of us that were “good boys and girls” had enough naughty thoughts to send us to the Lake of Fire without doing anything.  Even if the naughty thought was that we were better than those heathens outside the church that are smoking and drinking on Sunday morning.

But the title of Apostle was a high position, and Paul felt his past was against him.  Yet, Jesus told Paul directly that He had a mission for Paul, and Paul accepted the mission with the title that went along with it.

Paul understood that a church leadership position was one of service.  Those church leaders today that stand over the others and demand respect, but never lifting a finger toward service, should never have been elected.  And they are in part why many of the major denominations are crumbling today.  I have heard a report that more churches in the USA have closed their doors in the past year than in any previous year.  We need the attitude of Paul.  Regardless of what we are called to do, we should be tireless servants.

But whether you were taught by one preacher or another, the Gospel must include that Jesus lived, died, buried, and rose again.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 The Resurrection of Christ 1. If you had to explain four facts of the gospel to an interested friend, what would you say? How would you counter those who ‘explain away’ the resurrection naturalistically?
“2. Where would you be now if not for God’s grace?

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

First Corinthians 15 has one set of questions for this segment.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.