Introduction
All right, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. It’s always good to be back with you folks. And today I’d like to deal with a very fundamental question. And that is simply, what is the gospel? What is the gospel? 1 Corinthians chapter 15. I will read verses 1 through 8:
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered to you, as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though 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.
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we would have a difficult time finding a more important subject, a more important question than this one. We are thankful that you have brought the good news to us by your Son. We are glad and we are thankful that you have explained it for us in your Word. We pray now that you will help us to understand it and understand it well. And by it, I pray that you would work in us a greater faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who alone can save. In His name we ask, amen.
It was not that long ago when we could assume among any type of evangelical Christian that there is a common understanding of what the gospel is. And in just about any church of any evangelical flavor, if we could ask the question, “What is the gospel?” it wasn’t that long ago when we would get pretty much the same answer everywhere. It’s not the case today. There is a lot of muddled thinking on the question, and it is always worth our time to go back to basic passages like this that answer it.
You ask the question today, “What is the gospel?” and you’re liable to get all kinds of answers. God wants to show you His incredible favor. Let Jesus into your heart. Jesus wants to be your friend. Jesus can fix your problems. Jesus can improve your home life. Jesus is King. And in all of these, there’s a degree of truth—wonderful truth that’s somehow entailed in the gospel—but it is not the gospel.
And to answer the question, “What is the gospel?” we have to ask the previous question: what is the fundamental need of humanity according to the scriptures? What is the basic problem of all problems? What is it that we need the most? And of course, to answer that, the whole Bible’s been written. And the whole storyline of the Bible is given to answer that question. Here we are, created in God’s image, responsible to God, accountable to God, responsible to reflect His image, to obey Him; we have rebelled and we have fallen under condemnation. We’ve been ruined, we’re alienated from God, and we have fallen under His condemnation. We deserve His wrath and judgment because of our sin. That’s, in a sense, the storyline of the Bible—the beginning part of it. That’s our fundamental problem.
And the nature of Christianity then is to answer that question and that problem. And that is to say that Christianity is here to proclaim a message. First and foremost, before we are here to do anything else, we have a message to proclaim. It’s called good news. It’s called the gospel. And it is good news because it answers that fundamental problem of our relationship with God—that we, through our sin, have been alienated from God and have fallen under His condemnation. And that’s why Paul says in verse three that this is of first importance. “I delivered to you as of first importance.” This is basic. This is what we are here for, is to proclaim this message. This is the good news: Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
This is what Christianity is all about. This is the purpose of the Christian faith. This is why Christianity has come into the world to proclaim this message, good news, to answer this fundamental problem of man’s predicament before God. We’ve got all kinds of other problems. We’ve made all kinds of problems on the horizontal level, but all of those are secondary. The first problem is our problem with God. Christianity has come into the world to tell us the good news that there’s an answer to that problem. And Paul explains that answer here in verses 1 through 8.
In verses 3 and following, he gives us a brief summary of the gospel message. And I want you to notice here, and if you’re one that underlines in your Bible, you might want to underline the “that” in verses 3 and 4 and 5. I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:
- That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
- Verse 4, that he was buried.
- That he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
- And that he appeared to Cephas and to the twelve and to a whole lot of other people as well.
Four “that” statements. I delivered that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised the third day, that he appeared to many. And I think if we understand this correctly, I think we can reduce these four “that” statements to two. And I think you’ll see that, first of all, he delivered this message that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture and that he was buried. That second one, that he was buried, is sort of an entailment of the first—sort of a confirmation of the first. He’s preaching that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures and that he was buried. So the second is confirming the first.
And then we have the third “that” statement, which is I suppose in a sense the second proposition: that he was raised the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And then again this next “that” is in confirmation of this one: that he appeared to Cephas. So the message is basically twofold: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried—that’s one—and then two, that he was raised from the dead and was seen of many. So here in a nutshell is the good news that Christianity has to offer. Now let’s work our way through that.
Christ Died For Our Sins
First of all, that Christ died for our sins. Notice it does not say the gospel is that Christ died. It’s a theological statement, not just a historical one. He died for our sins. The idea there is of substitution; that He came and took the place of sinners and died in their place bearing the curse of sin against us so that we would be saved.
Now there’s actually an Old Testament background to the phraseology of “dying for sins.” And it’s interesting, the more you search of substitution. So for example, in the Old Testament, what does it mean to die for sins? I’ll give you just a few examples here. Numbers chapter 27 and verse 3, the daughters of a man who died said, “he died for his own sins.” He was not just caught up in the general judgment, a collective judgment against Israel at the time, but he died for his own sins—that he died as a consequence of his sins or simply he died as punishment for his sins. In Joshua chapter 22 in verse 20, there’s a reference to Achan who died for his sins. That is, he died in punishment for his sins. Because he sinned, God punished him, and the punishment was death. In 1 Kings chapter 16 verses 18 and 19, King Zimri, it says, died for his sins which he committed.
So the idea there is that to die for sins is to die as a consequence of, and specifically to die as punishment for sins. And that becomes standard language in the Old Testament. It’s found several times, like in Ezekiel chapter 3, Ezekiel chapter 18, and other places as well: “the wicked will die for his own sins,” and “the wicked will die for his sins.” That is to say, the soul that sins, it shall die. God will punish the sinner because of the sin, and that punishment is death. Dying for sin means dying in punishment for sin.
Now the difference here in 1 Corinthians 15 is stark. “He died for our sins.” You see that? It’s still the idea of substitution. I mean, it’s still the idea of punishment, but this idea of substitution is put in. He died in punishment for sins, but it was our sins for which He died. Christ came as the substitute for sinners to bear the curse and the penalty of their sin. Paul speaks of this all the time in his letters. One of the most famous is 2 Corinthians chapter 5: “For God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” Surely some of the most awful words in the entire Bible. God made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us. That Jesus was constituted sin, the representative, the substitute sinner. God made Him the sinner and punished Him that we might have the righteousness of God in Him.
Paul says it in Galatians chapter 3: “He has redeemed us from the curse of the law.” There it pictures the idea of God’s wrath against sin, that we must be punished for our sin; the curse of the law must come. But Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? By being made a curse for us. That He stepped in, He took the curse, and in our place bore the penalty and the judgment of sin. Peter speaks of it as well: “He bore our sins in his body on the tree.” He takes our place, bears the wrath, so that we are saved.
The idea is that of substitution, and not just substitution, but as theologians like to say it very precisely, penal substitution. The penalty involved is what He takes. And in our place bears the penalty of our sin. Jesus Himself said the same: “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” How? How is He going to serve? “Giving his life a ransom instead of many.” Or as Jesus says in John chapter 10, the Good Shepherd shows His goodness—that He is a good shepherd just in this, that He gives His life for the sheep.
For centuries the Christian church has tried to capture all of this with the language of “the great exchange.” It’s a wonderful expression: the great exchange. We give Jesus our sin. In exchange, we have His righteousness. He takes what’s ours, we take what’s His. In our place, Jesus, as Paul says here, Christ died for our sins. This is the heart of the heart of the gospel. The sin bearer, standing in the place of sinners, bearing the curse and the wrath of God against sin.
This is what was so troubling to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane—the prospect of bearing the wrath and the judgment of God against sin, not His sin, the sins of His people, made His. And this is what makes the gospel good news. The good news is our hope lies in something entirely outside of us. The good news is that we may be saved by the actions of someone else entirely. The good news is not a good command: “Do well enough and God will have you.” It’s good news. It says Christ has borne the penalty of sin and you may be saved in Him.
This is the background to the biblical idea of faith as trust. Faith as trust in Christ. Believing into Christ because He is the one who took the sin. And so the gospel doesn’t come to us saying, “If you do well enough, if you can make the grade, and if you try your best, and if you’re sincere enough, and if you something enough, God will have you.” The gospel comes to us saying, “Christ has done it all, and we may rest in Him.”
The reformer Martin Luther loved to say it this way: the gospel is outside of us. And that’s what makes it such good news. God has us not because we’ve done well enough, not because we’ve sinned little enough. God has us because of what Jesus has done for us and in our place. The gospel is outside of us. It has nothing to do with us. It has to do entirely with what Jesus has done in the place of sinners.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, not the best thing about me. I wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
I have standing before God in grace because of what Jesus has done. That’s the good news. This is the heart of the heart of the gospel: Christ died for our sins. Tied up with all of this, of course, is notions of God’s holiness, notions of the ill effects of human sin and the consequences of it, the nature of death as the penalty of sin—that death is the penalty of sin imposed upon us by God Himself in judgment for human sin. That God is holy and cannot tolerate sin, and He cannot excuse sin. His justice demands that sin be punished. All of that is caught up into this. And Christ stood in our place. He took our sin. He bore the judgment and the just wrath of God against sin.
And all of this, he says, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. That is, this was not some secondary thought that we have made up, but long ahead of time, the scriptures told us about all of this. It’s not a story that we’ve manufactured. It’s not an accident of history. God told us about it ahead of time so that we would understand it when it came, and looking back we would have no question that He told us He would do this, and He did it. And we can see now that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, just as God had promised.
Now I don’t know what particularly Paul might have had in mind when he said this, “that in accordance with the scriptures.” He might have had in mind prophecies like Isaiah chapter 53: “All we like sheep had gone astray, who turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He bore our transgressions. He bore the sin of many. He bore the transgressions of many.” Isaiah 53 is one of the mountain peaks of this subject in the Old Testament. He might have had in mind the Old Testament ceremonial law. Leviticus chapter 16, the Day of Atonement. The sacrificing of the animal and the letting go of the other animal, all to picture the atonement that would be worked out. And of course, the animals couldn’t do it—all of it pointing to a greater sacrifice that would come.
I suspect that Paul, when he says this was in accordance with the scriptures, he’s just speaking in a broad swath, that the Old Testament is filled with this. The very storyline of the Bible demands this. When God, way at the beginning, pronounced judgment on humanity for sin, God promised a champion who would come and defeat the tempter and fix this whole mess. And the rest of the Old Testament is drawing this out for us, where God promises over and again and shows us in picture over and again how God will do this. And Paul is saying, look at the Old Testament. What does that anticipate? It’s a book that doesn’t have an ending unless you come to Jesus. The scriptures point us to that.
Paul can say in Romans chapter 3 that the Old Covenant itself, with all of its rigorous demands—do this and live, do this and live, do this and live, do this and live, don’t do it and you die, don’t do it and you die, don’t do it and you die—the Old Covenant with all of its rigorous demands by that points you away from itself to someone who can do it. The New Testament comes to answer that question and says in Jesus we have one who does for us everything that God has required of us, and the great anticipation of the Old Testament scriptures is fulfilled in Jesus. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and he was buried. An essential detail by way of emphasizing and confirming the reality of Jesus’ death. This was no mere illusion. Jesus really died and he died in the place of sinners, bearing the judgment of sin.
Raised On The Third Day
Next, that he was raised on the third day. This too is a gospel essential. It’s not a mere detail that Christ was raised from the dead the third day. He died for our sins according to the scriptures, was buried, and was raised from the dead on the third day. I think how important that is with regard to Jesus Himself. On several occasions Jesus said that He would die, He would be put to death by His enemies in Jerusalem, and that He would be raised the third day. Disciples would scratch their heads and wonder what in the world He meant by all of that, but He said it and He made it plain.
So plain was it that after He died and was crucified, you remember it was His enemies that recalled it and said, “He said he would rise from the dead, let’s make sure we seal the tomb so that his disciples don’t come and create an illusion.” Let’s lock them in there—as though they could. This is an extremely important thing. Here Jesus says this and he says it and he says it again. What would it say of Him if He remained in the tomb? Would we have cause to believe anything He said? Makes a stupendous claim like that and can’t pull it off. And if He says He’ll rise from the dead and doesn’t, what then about the other things He said, like, “I lay down my life for the sheep”? Do we have any reason to believe it? How can we believe Jesus if after all of that He remained in the tomb?
I want you to glance down to verse 17 of the same chapter here. And notice Paul—he’s been arguing for the resurrection of the dead. If you’re familiar with this passage, you remember he’s talking in this passage about the consequences of denying the resurrection. So verse 12: “If Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there’s no resurrection of the dead? But if there’s no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith is vain. We’re found to be misrepresenting God.” Verse 16: “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
Now, what’s the logic there? What’s his reasoning? “If Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins.” There’s something about Christ’s resurrection that’s essential to the gospel. If Christ is not raised, you’re still in your sins. Well, in dying for us, did Jesus, in fact, exhaust the curse? Did He really exhaust the curse against us in dying? Was He successful or not? Did God accept His sacrifice? Was He really the righteous one, suffering in place of the unrighteous? Was He or wasn’t He? And if He was, could death continue to hold Him? If He had exhausted the curse against sin in His death, must He not be raised from the dead?
And in fact, the Bible speaks exactly that way, that this is God’s announcement that He has accepted Jesus’ death for sinners. There’s a sense in which Jesus’ resurrection is first of all His own vindication, His own justification. This is God’s declaration that this is a righteous man, and it’s reversing the penalty against Him by humanity. It’s His vindication; that’s what Paul says in 1 Timothy. It’s Jesus’ justification, His resurrection. But He is raised from the dead in union with all of those who are His. And we share in His justification. So that Paul can say in Romans chapter 4, He was delivered over for our offenses and He was raised for our justification.
This is why the preaching of the resurrection was so dominant, such a dominant theme in the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts. It is to emphasize the work is finished. He successfully exhausted the curse and God has announced that to the world by raising Him from the dead. We have in the resurrection of Christ God’s public pronouncement of the sufficiency of Christ’s work for sinners.
And this too, he says, was in accordance with the scriptures. He was raised from the dead the third day in accordance with the scriptures. This isn’t a surprise either. Well, it was a surprise. But on second thought, looking back, it’s just what the scriptures would have anticipated. Now maybe Paul here is thinking in terms of Psalm 16 that the Apostle Peter expounded in his Pentecost sermon. Maybe he’s thinking in terms of Isaiah 53 again, where God said He will prolong His days after He is crucified.
But it’s an interesting comment in John chapter 2, where Jesus says, “destroy this temple in three days, I’ll raise it again.” John writes in the comment after that, John chapter 2, the disciples didn’t have a clue what Jesus was talking about until He was raised from the dead. And then the comment is interesting: “And then they believed the scriptures.” Looking back, this was in accordance with the scriptures as well. Not just His death, but His resurrection also.
And in fact, he was seen of many. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and he appeared to Cephas, the twelve, appeared to more than five hundred at one time, to all of the disciples and then he finally appeared to me too. Now this is a tremendously important ingredient in Paul’s summary of the gospel. It is not some insignificant kind of detail. It’s an essential point by way of emphasizing and confirming that he really was raised from the dead. There are many eyewitnesses who can testify, and here in one of Paul’s earlier letters, he can write and say, “He appeared to me, to Cephas, to James, to all the apostles, and to more than 500 people at once, and you can go talk to them and see and hear what they have to say.” Eyewitness credibility.
He was crucified, he was buried, and then he was seen by lots of people. What a problem this was to Jesus’ enemies—the problem with the empty tomb. The problem that he was seen by many. What do you do with that? Friday, finally we got him; he’s done. Saturday, good job. Sunday, you start hearing these rumors. Everybody goes out and checks and the tomb’s empty. Where in the world is he? “I saw him, I saw him, I saw him, we all saw him.” If they just could have paraded the body of Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem that Sunday, Christianity would have died on the spot. It had nothing to offer. But they couldn’t. He had risen from the dead and was seen of many eyewitnesses. This is such an important detail. The stubborn fact of the empty tomb and of the eyewitnesses, the people that saw him afterwards.
So here then is a summary of the gospel: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and was buried; He was raised the third day in accordance with the scriptures and was seen of many.
Observations On The Gospel
Now let me give a few observations here before we close about all of this, just to sharpen our understanding of the gospel.
Number one, and this is just so obvious, it’s just on the face of it: the gospel is a message. The gospel is not good advice. The gospel is news. It’s good news. It’s not good advice. It’s not good counsel. It’s good news. It looks back and makes a declaration of what has happened. You might have heard the famous line from a monk back in the Middle Ages. “Preach the gospel always,” Francis said. “Preach the gospel always. Use words if necessary.” And I think that if the Apostle Paul had heard something like that, he would have said that is just incoherent. There are lots of entailments of the gospel: doing good to people, doing better yourself, resolution to problems of all kinds. There are entailments of the gospel that are never-ending: holy living, godliness, goodness to others, and all of that. There are entailments that come along. But the gospel is not doing all of that. It’s not doing any of that. The gospel is not doing. The gospel is not good advice. The gospel is an announcement of a message. The church has been placed here, first of all, for this responsibility of proclaiming a message of what God has done in Jesus. He died for our sins according to the scriptures, was raised again from the dead according to the scriptures. That’s the message we have to preach. That’s the gospel. It is a message.
Number two. The gospel is not about anything we do. The gospel is about what Christ has done for us. The gospel is not about anything we do. The gospel is about what Christ has done for us. The gospel is not “let Jesus into your heart.” The gospel is not “God loves you.” The gospel is not “try harder.” “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” The gospel has this Christological redemptive focus. The gospel is about what Jesus has done. Jesus took our sins, went to the cross, bore the punishment of God in our place, and God raised Him from the dead, testifying to the sufficiency of His work. That’s what the gospel is about, and because of that—because the gospel is an announcement of what God has done in Christ, outside of us—because of that, this word grace becomes such a big word in the New Testament. Salvation comes to us freely. Why is it free? Because Jesus did it all. The gospel is not about anything we do. The gospel is outside of us. The gospel is about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.
Third observation, and again this is just right on the surface of the text: the gospel saves. That’s verse two. That’s Paul’s point all through these verses. God’s saving act in history—this is what makes it good news. God has acted in history through Jesus in His death and resurrection to bring about the resolution to man’s most fundamental need. We can be reconciled to God because Jesus has stood in our place. The one, the one person who was qualified, stood in our place, bore the judgment of God in our place, exhausted the curse, and God raised Him from the dead, and in that message and in the believing of that message we are saved. This is again the importance of faith. This is what points up faith as trust. Faith by the nature of the case isn’t doing anything; it’s resting in the work of Jesus Christ who did the saving work in our place. Because the gospel saves, this is what drives the urgency of evangelism and missions in the New Testament. People are lost. And there’s one message that saves. And we’re here to take this good news to them. You’re out of sorts with God. Condemnation is real. And it is coming. There’s a remedy, and it’s Jesus.
Number four, just to emphasize again what we’ve said already: the gospel is in accordance with the scriptures. This is not a story originated by the apostles. It was very important to them to say, “This message that we preach to you is grounded in revelation that God has already given in centuries past.” He told us He would do this. Look in the scriptures and see how He said it. And now look at Jesus and see if that’s not the same. All along God has been promising. Drama of the centuries, drawing it out in promise and in picture, showing us the unapproachability of God and the ceremonial law and the law of the tabernacle and the priesthood—”you can’t go in, you can’t go in, that’s only for the priest, you can’t go there, there must be atonement.” And now suddenly the curtain is torn and we can go in because of the work of Jesus. It’s in accordance with the scriptures.
Number five, I’ve been saying this all along as well: the gospel is grounded in history. The gospel is grounded in history. There’s one thing that is unique about Christianity among the religions of the world, and that is we ground everything in history. It’s not just an idea. It’s not a philosophy. It’s not a moral code. It’s good news grounded in history. And Christianity, in theory, is very easy to repudiate. All you have to do is disprove its historical claims. If you could prove that Jesus never lived, if you could prove Jesus didn’t die, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, you’d be done with Christianity. We rest all of it on historical events. And that again brings us back to the matter of the gospel as news. “Hey, news! Look what God has done!” God has entered into history in His Son, Jesus, and He has offered Himself in place of sinners, and God has accepted His sacrifice and raised Him from the dead. It is all grounded in historical events. And that again is to tell us the gospel is not good advice, it’s good news. It does not come to us and say, “Here’s what you must do.” It comes to us saying, “Look what God has done.”
Number six, and let me summarize it this way—our sixth observation: the gospel revolves around two distinct issues. This is very important for you to remember in your own thinking, regarding your own faith, and very important for you to remember in witnessing as well. The gospel revolves around two central issues, and those two issues are sin and grace. Sin and grace—that’s the pointed issue. My sin has separated me from God and in grace, not by works, but in grace, I can find God’s favor again. The gospel offer always has these issues in focus: I’m a sinner and God in grace has fixed the problem.
Now, we have to fill that in. Sin and grace. This sin and grace thing breaks down into more parts, doesn’t it? And so, I guess I could make this our last observation.
The Gospel Message May Be Shaped Around Four Considerations
It’s been popular to do this in the last 20 years or so, and I think it’s very helpful. The gospel message may be shaped around four considerations, and that is: God, Man, Christ, and then response.
- God, our creator. God who has just claims over us.
- Man, we are accountable to God, responsible to Him. We’ve sinned against Him, we’ve fallen under His condemnation. How do you fix that?
- Christ, Christ has stepped in and done for sinners what God requires of sinners.
- And so the response—the gospel offer is: believe in Jesus Christ and you may be saved.
Christianity has not come into the world to tell people that they can do better. Christianity has not come into the world to throw us back on our own strong arm and say, “Here’s how you do it.” Christianity has come into the world to proclaim a sacrifice for sins that has been made in the person of Jesus. And that in Him, we have the answer to the problem of sin. And it’s in Him alone.
Is your faith in anything less? Anything else? Did you think maybe there should be something prettier? Something you ought to be able to demonstrate? Produce something better to make yourself look good before God? The whole Bible is written to say, forget it. If the work of Jesus can’t satisfy God, you’re lost. But the good news is, He has made sacrifice for sin, and God has accepted it and raised Him from the dead. We may be saved through faith in Him. Amen.
Let’s pray. What a wonderful yet simple message this is. How grateful we are that you have accomplished for us in your Son everything you require of us. What a wonderful word this word grace is. Through Christ alone, made ours by grace alone, through faith alone, you will accept us. Lord, we thank you for Jesus. May every heart here be drawn in faith to him more firmly. And may we, as a result of understanding this more clearly, have a greater love for him and greater desire to serve him to your glory until he comes again. In his name we pray, amen.