Of First Importance
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
In life it is important to know – and pay
attention to – things of first importance. Is there anything
that typifies futility and stupidity more than being the person
who rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic? So it is in our
Christian lives.
(1 Cor 15:1-11 NIV) Now, brothers, I want to
remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received
and on which you have taken your stand. {2} By this gospel you
are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.
Otherwise, you have believed in vain. {3} For what I received I
passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, {4} that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
{5} and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. {6}
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the
brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though
some have fallen asleep. {7} Then he appeared to James, then to
all the apostles, {8} and last of all he appeared to me also, as
to one abnormally born. {9} 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. {10} 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. {11} Whether, then, it was I or they, this is
what we preach, and this is what you believed.
First Importance
Paul lays out clearly just what is 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. We can at least pay some attention to this.
Received and passed on
First please note that this is not something
of Paul’s invention. He specifically disclaims any originality
in this; He did not make it up. He did not embellish it. He
received it; he passed it on.
This carries with it a problem for the ego.
If it’s my own brilliant guesswork as to what God really wants,
then perhaps I should feel proud of my accomplishment. But if I
received it, then it is no credit to me. If I inherit money from
a rich uncle I can hardly call myself a self-made millionaire.
Perhaps this is what drives our modern critics.
The modern view is simply this: miracles
can’t happen. The Resurrection is clearly a miracle; therefore
it didn’t happen. Therefore all evidence of it must be explained
as myth, no matter how much it stretches absurdity to see it
that way. As we shall see, absurdity is indeed stretched in our
time.
Paul has the cure for such absurdity. He is
an eyewitness, and he cites hundreds of others. The “it must
have been” school of thought has great difficulty with that.
Christ died for our sins
In that statement alone there is magnificent
power.
·
He died according to the
Scripture. First, that tells us that this is indeed
God’s doing, for no society could construct so elaborate
a fraud as the Old Testament merely to lead up to the
Crucifixion. It took 1500 years. If this is conspiracy,
it is without peer.
·
He died according to the
Scripture. That also tells us that he was the sinless
man – the only acceptable sacrifice.
·
The purpose of his death:
our sins. It is by his death that we, the unholy, are
reconciled to a holy God.
·
He was buried. You don’t
bury a ghost. Thus he had a body like ours; he was man,
just as we are.
The Resurrection
Paul simply cites the facts. Jesus rose from
the grave. He was seen, in bodily form. Not just once; not just
by one group of people; not just in one place. He was seen many
times, by many people in differing places.
This is what we preach
There it is. Simple and pure, this is the
preaching of the church. For those who belong to the church –
the true, inner church composed of all God’s people no matter
what the sign on the door – there is no difference. It is the
test of the true Christian. All heresies revolve around the
person of Christ or the death, burial and resurrection.
Everything else is commentary.
This is what you believed
This, Paul reminds them, is what we believed.
It’s the solid rock on which we took our stand. “Just the
facts,” as Joe Friday used to say. We need to take the same
approach today.
Evidence today
The letter in question is about 1900 years
old. What evidence do we have today? In this lesson I can but
briefly review the evidence; volumes have been written on it.
The problem resolves itself into the
authenticity of the Scriptures, in particular the New Testament.
That problem can be broken down into three smaller problems:
·
How do I know that I have an
accurate translation? This is one I will not consider in
this lesson.
·
How do I know that this
translation was made from an accurate copy? Call it the
“Xerox problem.”
·
How do I know the accurate
copy was made from an original which is authentic, and
not something written hundreds of years after the fact?
The original manuscripts
No other ancient document has anything like
the documentary evidence of the New Testament. I can but cite a
few major areas:
·
First, there is the evidence
of the physical documents themselves. The myth is that
nothing was written down until “four or five hundred
years later.” The facts? One complete copy of the Gospel
of John is carbon dated to AD 120 – from a monastery in
Egypt. Paul’s death, remember is AD 64. Currently under
debate is the “Jesus Papyrus” – which has been dated at
AD 47. It’s a fragment of the Gospel of Matthew.
·
There is the internal
evidence as well. Paul died in AD 64. Acts ends with him
still alive; Luke was written before that. The
archeological evidence confirms Acts at every point.
How, then, was it written so much later?
·
The documents of the period
itself confirm the New Testament – for many Roman
writers derided the Christian faith from a very early
time. To do so, they quoted from the Gospels quite
liberally. There’s plenty of this from the second
century.
·
There are several other
translations of the Gospels which date from the second
through fifth centuries. How did they translate what had
not been written down? Scholars can clearly tell in many
places that these are translations, not originals.
·
Other ancient works of
Christianity are a testimony too. Iraneus wrote in AD
170; the date is unchallenged. He expounds quite exactly
the doctrines we use today.
The Xerox problem
We also hear that there are “thousands of
copying errors in the Bible.” How would you know – unless you
had an accurate original?
The reason for such a large number is this:
if one man makes a mistake, and a hundred others copy it, that
becomes a hundred errors. But in fact these errors can be
traced, often to the name of the monk who made the error. When
you have that good a trail on the mistakes, you should have good
confidence in the original.
Indeed, we even know how the mistakes were
made. The Scriptorium – the ancient equivalent of a copy shop –
checked its work as one would check a handwritten spreadsheet.
They counted the letters across; they counted the letters down;
if they didn’t match, the page was discarded. Note, please, this
is not a case of monks committing pious fraud – but commercial
copiers of the Roman Empire. They got paid to do it right.
Why the confusion today?
For 1800 years people understood this quite
well. They trusted ancient records because they were the same
kind of records they used. Today, however, we are much more
sophisticated – and untrusting. Why is it that we can’t see the
same thing today?
·
Circular reasoning.
Miracles can’t happen; therefore any document that says
they did must be a myth. This document, the New
Testament, says that miracles happened – it must be a
myth. There are therefore no documents, other than
myths, that say miracles happened. Therefore we can be
confident miracles never happen.
·
Ignorance. Most of us
have no clue what happened in history before 1776. It
therefore seems unreasonable to us that anything did.
There is more evidence for the death, burial
and resurrection of Christ than there is for the existence of
Bigfoot. And we’re more willing to believe in Bigfoot.
Effect on our lives
“On which you have taken your stand.” That’s
Paul’s point. This is all a nice historical discussion if the
resurrection means nothing in your life. What, then, is the
impact of this resurrection in your life? May I suggest (among
many others) three things which deserve your attention:
The death of sin
Paul mystically puts it that the life of
Christ in us is the death of sin in us. Look at it this way:
·
Since we know of his
resurrection, we know of his return to judge the world.
We will face the judge some day; best to be prepared
now.
·
By his grace, he will give
us all the aid we need in defeating sin in our lives.
Indeed, it is his good pleasure to do so.
·
But the decision is ours.
“Lead me not into temptation – but don’t start just yet”
is the prayer of many a sinner.
Forgiven and forgiving
By the sacrifice he made we are forgiven.
·
First, let us accept that.
Let us no longer go on carrying the burden of guilt and
fear for our past sins.
·
Instead, let us praise God
for what he has done! He indeed is worthy, because of
what he has done for us.
·
While we’re at it, let us
remember that he is worthy – not us. To be forgiven
means we had something that needed forgiveness. In our
dealings with all others, let us remember that we are
indeed sinners.
We must also be forgiving. Remember the
parable of the unjust servant? Will our Lord forgive us on that
day if we will not forgive now? His sacrifice made our
forgiveness possible; would we deny it by failing to forgive
others?
Our attitude towards death
If I could make one change in the attitudes
of most Christians I know, this would be it. He is Risen – and
we shall rise too at the last day. We need to encourage each
other in that.
Older generations understood this clearly.
Listen to the prince of preachers:
Let us not imagine that the soul sleeps in
insensibility. “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise,” is the
whisper of Christ to every dying saint. They “sleep in Jesus,”
but their souls are before the throne of God, praising him day
and night in his temple, singing hallelujahs to him who washed
them from their sins in his blood. The body sleeps in its lonely
bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass. But what is this
sleep? The idea connected with sleep is “rest,” and that is the
thought which the Spirit of God would convey to us. Sleep makes
each night a Sabbath for the day. Sleep shuts fast the door of
the soul, and bids all intruders tarry for a while, that the
life within may enter its summer garden of ease. The toil-worn
believer quietly sleeps, as does the weary child when it
slumbers on its mother’s breast. Oh! happy they who die in the
Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works do follow
them. Their quiet repose shall never be broken until God shall
rouse them to give them their full reward. Guarded by angel
watchers, curtained by eternal mysteries, they sleep on, the
inheritors of glory, till the fulness of time shall bring the
fulness of redemption. What an awaking shall be theirs! They
were laid in their last resting place, weary and worn, but such
they shall not rise. They went to their rest with the furrowed
brow, and the wasted features, but they wake up in beauty and
glory. The shrivelled seed, so destitute of form and comeliness,
rises from the dust a beauteous flower. The winter of the grave
gives way to the spring of redemption and the summer of glory.
Blessed is death, since it, through the divine power, disrobes
us of this work-day garment, to clothe us with the wedding
garment of incorruption. Blessed are those who “sleep in Jesus.”
Such encouragement! But there is more. We can
face the perils of life much more confidently because we know
the answer – we know what life is about. It is the preparation
for the return of our Lord.
Indeed, we can face our own deaths with calm
and courage for this. I know that my Redeemer lives! May our own
deaths be an example to those around us – we know the author of
life itself, and rest upon his word.
