Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 | Date: January 8, 2023 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

So today, what is the gospel? If you will take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We will not go there immediately, but you’ll want to have a marker there because we will come back to it. But once you have that, turn back a few pages to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I’ll begin reading with verse 10:

“I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there’s quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ ‘I follow Cephas,’ ‘I follow Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I don’t know whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, we are grateful again to turn our attention to such a wonderful subject as your saving purpose and your saving accomplishments for us in Christ. We come today to look at this very focused question: what is the gospel? If there is any question to which we must have a clear answer, it is this one. And we pray, Lord, that you will sharpen our understanding of it, and by it, deepen our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. And we pray that through that, you will make us more effective in our witness of the gospel to others. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

I want to draw your attention to verse 17 here. Paul has addressed, as you know, the problem with divisions in the church. And he makes the point that in verses 13 and following, Christ is not divided. Paul was not the one crucified for you. You weren’t baptized in my name. And in fact, I didn’t baptize any of you except these few. And then he says in verse 17, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.”

That’s really a fascinating statement. Obviously, it’s what would be called a comparative negative, not an absolute negative, because in fact, in the Great Commission, Christ did send us to baptize. This is the first mark of discipleship: call people, men and women, to faith in Jesus Christ, and their baptism is the signal that they have thrown up the white flag of surrender, they’ve given in to the Lord Jesus, they’ve bowed to him, and baptism becomes that signal point of conversion in the New Testament. And there is no unbaptized Christian, no unbaptized believer in the New Testament. This is the mark. This is the beginning point. This is the Great Commission. And this is very important, this ordinance that our Lord has established.

So it’s a comparative negative. And yet, precisely because baptism is so important, this statement is all the more remarkable. Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. The proclamation of the gospel to Paul was absolutely central, paramount to his mission. And to those who would make more of baptism than they ought, this verse stands as something of a corrective to it. Evidently, it is not the baptism that has the saving efficacy; the preaching of the gospel does. But still, baptism is so important, yet Paul can say he didn’t send me to baptize; he sent me to preach the gospel.

This is what Paul said in effect in Romans chapter 1: “I’ve been set apart for the gospel… I’m eager to preach the gospel to you in Rome.” Well, this is what he’s saying here in verse 17: “I’ve been sent to preach the gospel.” And then in verse 18, he states the reason: “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it’s the power of God.” This is why I’ve been sent to preach the gospel, because it is the means that God uses to save. It is the means God uses to call men and women to himself. In essence, this is the same as Romans chapter 1 again: “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it’s the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.” This is the means God uses, and this then in turn becomes the reason for Christianity. This is its reason for being. The defining purpose in the world is to bring this message, this gospel message. This is what the church has been entrusted with, and this is what we are to proclaim, and this is what we are here to do.

Background on the Terminology of Gospel

I thought I’d take a couple of minutes just to do some background on the terminology here of the word gospel. As you know, the word means “good news.” It comes from a couple of Greek words that mean a good announcement or good news, something like that. It actually has some derivatives that you may not recognize in English. The word for gospel in the Greek is euangelion. If you transliterate that into English, it’s often e-v-a-n-g-e-l, “evangel.” And you’re familiar with that word. The evangel is the gospel. An evangelist is one who preaches the gospel. To evangelize is to gospelize or to proclaim the gospel. An evangelical is one who believes the gospel, embraces the gospel. So an evangel terminology is what comes from this term here, “gospel.” It means good news.

The first thing you notice about that then is that the gospel is, first of all, a message to be proclaimed. It’s not advice. It’s not a command. It’s news. It’s not ethical counsel. It’s news to be proclaimed that God has done something to save. And this gospel terminology actually has a history before the New Testament. Even in the Hellenistic world, in the Greek world, this term was used. Largely it was associated with announcements of victory in battle. You’d see the runner coming over the mountain and he’d be bringing news of victory in battle, and you have allusions to that back in Isaiah of the runner coming over the mountain to bring good news. Often this word in the Hellenistic world was associated with the pronouncements of the emperor or the king. They would make their oracles or their pronouncements and it would be proclaimed in the land as the good news from the king, that kind of thing.

Some people have suggested that in the early church, Christians sort of baptized this good news terminology to use it in reference to Jesus. And I think there may be something to that, but as I’ve already alluded to, there’s precedent for it already in the Old Testament. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this language is used of the evangel or the good news being proclaimed. For example, Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 7 portrays God’s servant, that’s the Messiah, God’s servant, as bringing good news of salvation: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'” So it uses this imagery of the runner coming over the mountain to bring good news of victory in battle. And so you have this runner coming—how beautiful are the feet of the one who brings good news, who proclaims peace and proclaims salvation. So it pictures the Messiah, Jesus, as his runner bringing good news, the ultimate proclaimer of good news from God. And as you know, of course, this verse in Isaiah chapter 52 is picked up in Romans chapter 10, where the apostle Paul applies it to preachers—anybody, any Christian who proclaims the good news of salvation to others. I’ve often told my kids when they were younger that I had pretty feet because I proclaim the good news. The Bible says so: “How beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news.”

There’s another passage actually in Isaiah that uses this language: Isaiah chapter 61. This is a very important one. This here again is the servant of the Lord speaking: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” So here this passage is looking ahead to the arrival of God’s servant, the Messiah, and he says that the Spirit of God was upon him to enable him to proclaim the good news. And he uses several figurative expressions to explain what that good news is. He refers to it in terms of the year of the Lord’s favor; that’s the year of Jubilee. So the ceremony of Jubilee under Mosaic law when debts were forgiven and the land was returned—all of that is prefigurative of the forgiveness that would be proclaimed in Messiah’s preaching when he comes.

And you remember, Jesus then picks up this verse from Isaiah 61 in Luke chapter 4. We’ve often thought—probably most of us have thought—what is that incident you would like to go back to in biblical times and see? This is high on the list for me. Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth, his hometown, and he goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he requests the Isaiah scroll to be read. He unrolls it. Dramatic moment. He unrolls it and gets to this point, in our Bibles Isaiah 61, and he reads this: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives,” and so on. Rolls it back up. All the eyes were fixed upon him, Luke says. And he says, “This day, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

And so here we have Jesus making the connection. And because this term is so explicitly then linked to the Messiah, it’s not surprising that when we come to the New Testament, those four books that are given to tell us about the life, the person, the work, the death, the ministry of Jesus are called the Gospels. This is the good news. Now, technically they should not be referred to as “the Gospels,” as though there were more than one gospel. And if you look at your Bibles carefully, even the titles do get it right: The Gospel (singular) according to Matthew; The Gospel according to Mark; The Gospel according to Luke and according to John. And each of them writing about the Gospel with their own angle and showing it in its various dimensions.

So the gospel then is, as we have it in the scriptures telling us, the message about Jesus Christ. And we have various kinds of expressions to emphasize that in the New Testament: the gospel of Christ, the gospel of the kingdom, the gospel of God, the gospel of our Savior, the gospel of God’s glory, the gospel of peace, the gospel of hope—all those kinds of terminologies associated with it because of what is accomplished in the saving work of Christ that that message proclaims.

Now, in 1 Corinthians 1 here, we have some related terminology. It’s good to notice it. Verse 17, he tells us that Christ has appointed him to preach the gospel. There’s our term. Verse 18: “the word of the cross.” So Christ has appointed me to preach the gospel. Why? Well, because the word of the cross. So there’s the link. The gospel is the word of the cross, the message about the death of Jesus. Verse 21: it’s referred to as “the message that is preached.” And then chapter 2, verses 1 and 2: “When I came to you brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God”—there’s another expression—”with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” There’s another summary of what the gospel is. The gospel is the word of the cross. It is the message we preach. It’s the message of the testimony from God. It is the message of Christ crucified. At the center of Christianity, then, is this message. It’s a message to be proclaimed—news of what God has done in Jesus Christ to save sinners through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Now, it’s characteristic—just some more background of the terminology—it’s characteristic of the synoptic Gospels that we find the proclamation of the “gospel of the kingdom.” There’s that expression that is used often in the synoptic gospels. Jesus proclaims the gospel of the kingdom. The kingdom of God has at last arrived in the coming of Jesus. I’ll just give you a sampling here: Matthew 4 and Matthew 9, Jesus went everywhere proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Luke chapter 4, Jesus says, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God, for to this I was sent.” Matthew 24 verse 14, this is the purpose of this age: “The gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as testimony to all nations and then the end will come.” We get to the end of the Book of Acts and we find Paul still, although under house arrest, proclaiming the kingdom of God, teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. So proclaiming now the kingdom, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

So here we have combined two themes that have come together: not only that of gospel (good news), but the theme of the kingdom. They have come together. That takes us back to a theme that begins back in the earliest chapters of Genesis: God the King creating the world, placing man over it, man’s failure, Satan’s usurping of that authority, God’s promise of a champion to come to defeat that tempter who has come and ruined it all and re-establish his kingdom through this champion whom he has sent. That comes to a climax, of course, in 2 Samuel chapter 7, where God promises to David that it is your son who will sit on the throne and rule. And that promise in the Psalms and the Prophets is expanded over and again, that God’s kingdom will be ruled over by David’s greater son, and it will be a kingdom that is universal over all the earth, and it will be a kingdom that is eternal. It becomes the great object of anticipation throughout the Old Testament, even in the intertestamental times, and we come to the New Testament, and the proclamation now is that the kingdom of God has come near. In Jesus, the long-promised goal of God’s kingdom and God’s rule has come to realization. And that’s the good news.

Now, just how Jesus would establish the kingdom of God is not spelled out for us in great detail in the gospels. We do have some briefer glimpses of it. It is given its fullest exposition in the epistles. But we do have one—I’ll just point you to one. Let’s take time to look back at it. Look at John chapter 12. John chapter 12. Let’s begin with verse 30. Jesus answered, “This voice has come to you.” He has just said back in verse 27, speaking to the Father. And the voice came from heaven in response. And now he says, “This voice came for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world.” That’s kingdom language. The usurper is going to be overthrown. “Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” How? Verse 32: “When I am lifted up, I will draw all peoples to myself.” What does that mean? Verse 33: “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.” So here we have it in cryptic terms: by his death the Lord Jesus will dethrone Satan and establish his kingdom and gather to himself subjects from all the nations of the earth.

Now we’ll want the epistles to unpack that, but that’s clearly the significance of it here, at least looking back at it. This is what, in essence, what Jesus proclaimed in Matthew 28 verse 18 when—notice, after his death, after his resurrection—now he says, “All authority”—there’s kingdom language—”all authority has been given to me.” He’s achieved mediatorial lordship. He now ascends to his throne, and all authority is given to him in heaven and earth, and on that ground, he says, “Go make disciples of all the nations.” He’s Lord over all. So by his death and resurrection, Jesus has established himself as universal Savior and Judge, and he alone has the authority to save. And that, in a nutshell, is the message of the church. This is the good news: that through the cross of Jesus and his resurrection, God’s kingdom has been established and God has claimed a people for himself.

Now, if we’re going to answer the question, “What is the gospel?” what I ought to do is spend several weeks working through the earlier chapters of Romans. That is Paul’s objective there. Any of those first chapters you remember—we’ve looked at that in this series, so I think I can just assume something of you and just remind you of it. In the earliest chapters, Paul speaks of the need of the gospel, the need of justification, the need for this good news, and that lies in the fact that every last man, woman, and child is a rebel against God. Whatever degree of revelation we have received, we have all… we all know better than we do. We have all violated God’s law knowingly. And each of us—and he comes to this conclusion in the middle of chapter 3—each of us is guilty before God and we stand condemned.

And then later in chapter 3 of Romans, and on through the following chapters, he gives us the means by which we may be justified before God. And here is that grand exposition of the gospel that we’ve looked at so many times in Romans 3 and following. In his substitutional death, the Lord Jesus takes the place of sinners, bears the curse of their sin, and in exchange gives them his righteousness; and God justly pronounces unjust people to be righteous because we are in the Just One, Jesus, who took our sins and gives us his righteousness. And we saw then that the gospel then answers this complex of issues. On the one hand, there are the righteous demands of God. He is a righteous God. He demands of his creatures that we reflect that righteousness in our behavior. His righteousness demands that our unrighteousness will be punished. It must be punished. He cannot surrender that. It’s a demand of his righteousness. And the gospel does not sidestep that hard issue. What it does is it tells us he has sent a Savior who has taken that punishment for us and suffered the curse in our place so that now sinners may be justified before God.

All right, all of that is background. Now look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and we’ll see Paul’s condensed statement, the summary statement of what the gospel is. 1 Corinthians 15, beginning with verse 1:

“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 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 and then to the Twelve,” and so on.

So here we have in this short statement a summary of what the good news is. This is the message that we have to proclaim. Now notice in verses three and four that this message is summarized with four “that” phrases. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, namely: one, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; two, that he was buried; three, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; and four, that he appeared to Cephas and to the others,” and so on.

Now it’s pretty clear that these four “that” clauses can be reduced to two. I think you’ll see that immediately. Verse three again: here is the good news, that’s of first importance, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures—verse four—in confirmation of which he was buried. I think that’s the sense of it. There’s the first one, verses three and four. And then second, that he was raised on the third day—verse five—in confirmation of which he appeared to and was seen by many witnesses. So Christ’s death and his resurrection. He died and was buried. He was raised from the dead and seen by many witnesses. These are the essential historical truths of the gospel. Christ died. Christ was raised from the dead.

Now be careful here. These are not just bare historical statements; these are theological statements. The good news is not simply “Jesus died.” Notice the statement: “Christ died for our sins.” There’s the significance. In his death, he took the place of sinners; he bore the curse of their sin. That language there, “died for,” to die for sins, regularly has the connotations of being punished for. Actually, we can take you through a string of passages in the Old Testament that point to that fact—that so-and-so (Achan) was punished for his sin and died for his sins. You have plenty of passages like that where people died for their sin, for their transgression. What’s different here is that Christ died for our sins. You see the difference? There’s the idea of substitution—that he took the place of sinners and suffered the wrath of God in their place. This is very simply what Paul says in Galatians chapter 3: “He has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us.”

So the first essential of the gospel: Christ died for our sins. So also with the resurrection. And both of these, verses 3 and 4—his death and resurrection—Paul goes to pains to tell us were according to the scriptures. He died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was raised again the third day according to the scriptures. These were events that were prophesied long in advance. They were announced in the Old Testament. These are not ideas that the early church made up after the fact. “Jesus was crucified. Boy, we didn’t know that was going to happen. Well, let’s just tell everybody he rose from the dead.” No, this was news that was being announced long ahead of time in the Old Testament scriptures. And so, in verses 1 and 2, he emphasizes: it is by this gospel we are saved, and it is by this gospel we stand accepted before God. And in that sense, this is of first importance. That’s what he says in verses 1 and 2.

Now, we might then back up, seeing this summary of the gospel here—we might back up now and tell the gospel in big story. And that’s in fact what the Bible does. Starting in Genesis and working its way all the way through Revelation, so is the unfolding of this wonderful, wonderfully good news. And we can start with Genesis 1: God, the King. Chapter 2: man made the vice-regent over creation. Man warned: you sin, you die. Sin brings guilt against the majesty and the justice of God. You sin, it is a capital offense, you die. Chapter 3: we have the fall, the consequences; we have Adam’s rebellion against God. And then we have that wonderful announcement of the champion who will come, Genesis 3 verse 15, who will crush the head of the tempter. The implication is he will fix this whole mess that he has brought about. And so hope is born in Genesis 3 verse 15, as anticipation of this one day a champion will come and this good news may be announced.

We have it echoed again in Genesis chapter 12 with the promise to Abraham that in his offspring all of the families of the world will be blessed. He’ll make of Abraham a great nation. He’ll bless all the families of the earth. We come to Exodus 20. We have the establishment of the kingdom of Israel and the nation in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. And although Israel failed in keeping the covenant terms, within the Mosaic law, the structures were established whereby God could accomplish this promised redemption for his people. Animals in sacrifice could never do it, but they established the structures. If an adequate substitute can be found, who could keep the law perfectly, without blemish, without spot, he could stand in the place of sinners. We come to our prophets, Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah names for us the servant of the Lord, the Messiah himself, who is going to be the guilt offering, the lamb slain in place of sinners.

And then, of course, we come to the New Testament. Jesus is that sacrifice. John the Baptist tells us he’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus himself tells us that his death is the ransom price to save us. All of this is sacrifice language taken from the Old Testament. Matthew 26, Jesus establishes the Lord’s table. And there we have it again: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for the remission of sins.” And with him then taking all the sacrificial language of the Old Testament, as well as the new covenant promise, and saying, “I establish that in my death.” And again, even in the big story, the focus becomes the death and the resurrection of Jesus. This is the good news, the message of the Savior who has come.

Four Observations

Now, all of this is broad brush, I realize. Let me make some broad observations now about what we’ve seen, particularly in 1 Corinthians 15, but in the other as well. Four observations here.

Number one: The gospel is grounded in history. The gospel is grounded in history. Unlike other religions, Christianity is not grounded in an ethic or a philosophy of life, where with so many of the religions, if you could disprove this or that of the historicity of certain parts of it, it would leave the religion intact. Christianity is grounded in history. If you could disprove Jesus, Christianity would be destroyed. It’s over. If you could disprove the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christianity would be over. Christianity rests on historical events. Christianity has a message, and that message is God has acted in history to save sinners through the death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s our message.

Number two: And this is 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4. The gospel is according to the scriptures. This is foretold us in the Old Testament. It’s not something that was originated by the apostles or the early church. All along, God has been pointing us forward to this in the great drama of the centuries. Through all of the sacrificial system and all, he was pointing us ahead to Jesus. Hebrews 9 and 10 unfolds this at some length. At the very point—the very point of the sacrificial system in the Old Testament with its veil blocking off the entrance into God’s presence in the most holy place—the very point of that veil was to show you that God is not approachable by you. The unapproachability of God; you have no right to access until the sacrifice has been made. And Jesus’ flesh—he calls it in Hebrews 10, the veil, which is Jesus’ flesh—through his torn and broken and resurrected body, he gives us entrance into the presence of God. This is according to the scriptures.

Number three: This is so obvious. Verse two: the gospel saves. This is Paul’s point throughout the verses: “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.” And then verses 3 and 4, God’s saving acts in history. God has come and in Jesus has established the salvation of sinners. This is what makes it good news. The point of all of that, then, that this gospel saves—it is in this gospel you stand—the point of that is that this message, then, is essential. There’s an urgency to it. We’ll start on this question again next time: is Jesus the only way? Here you have a hint toward it already. If you stand right before God, it is because you’ve embraced this message and not apart from it.

Number four: And I’m going to spend just a moment here, a fourth observation from all of this. Let me help you—help, I think, clarify it and crystallize it. The gospel revolves around two central issues. The gospel revolves around two central issues. And those two central issues are simply sin and Christ. Sin and Christ. The problem and the answer. Those are the two issues. The gospel is not about anything we do. The gospel is not “try your best,” “be sincere,” “do the best that you can.” The gospel is about what God has done for us in Jesus.

Let me say here, too, the gospel is not about your fulfillment. That’s a wonderful entailment of the gospel. We can talk about that some other time, but that’s not the central issue of the gospel. “You can have a happy life. Let Jesus fix your problems. Jesus can give you a better home life. Jesus can take your burdens.” That’s not the gospel. I was at a church one time and a missionary was in, church-supported. She had a ministry with children. She gave her presentation that she gives in her work. It was all about “Make Jesus your friend. Jesus will be your friend.” I was just appalled. Not a word of the gospel. Nothing about sin, Christ. I was at a Christmas Eve service a few years ago in another church. And here they were being very conscientious to preach the gospel to this crowd that had come for Christmas. And it was all about “Jesus will take your burdens. And if you have burdens, Jesus will take those burdens and you’ll be unburdened.” And however true and however implied much of that is, it’s not the gospel. The point at issue is your sin, and how is it going to be remedied? We are sinners before God. We are guilty and we are condemned. There is only one answer, and that is Jesus, who took the place of sinners.

These are the twin issues of the gospel. Now we can expand on that, and in fact we often do, and there’s a helpful thing. God… what is it? God, Man, Christ, and Response. The four. That’s a good summary of that. God, the righteous, holy God who has demands of sinners; Man, the sinner who has offended God and has become guilty and condemned before God; Christ, who comes in and takes the punishment of sinners; and then our Response, which is, of course, necessary to trust in Jesus Christ to be our Savior. We could summarize it with the solas of the Reformation: Christ alone, grace alone, through faith alone—all of that focuses on the same issue. Sin and Christ. Sin and Christ. Sin and Christ. That’s the issue. When we proclaim the gospel to others and we want to witness, we may talk all around a lot of things and it may be helpful to do that first; I’m not criticizing that. But what we must get to is this twin issue of sin and Christ. Sin and Christ. We’re sinners before God. How will that be remedied? It is Jesus in his death and resurrection.

Now that brings up one other question that comes up that really should be addressed at this point, and that is, sometimes it’s questioned whether the call to faith and the call to repentance is properly part of the gospel. If the gospel is news to be proclaimed, then the command “believe and repent” is not news; it’s not part of the gospel, or so it is said. But I think the point is just overly strained. The saving accomplishments of Christ become ours only through faith and repentance. And so implicit in this news—”Christ died for sins and was raised from the dead”—implicit in that is a call to turn from your sin and to trust in Christ for the salvation that he embodies. The gospel message and the call to faith and the call to repentance are inseparable.

And in fact, maybe it’d be helpful for us to see this. Look at Luke chapter 24 where Jesus himself ties all of this together. Luke 24. Remember, this is after the resurrection. Jesus appears to his disciples. He’s explaining the scriptures to them and helping them make sense of it all from the Old Testament. Luke 24, verse 46: “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations.” Now isn’t Jesus saying there that the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection ought to be proclaimed? Yes. But the language he uses is faith and repentance: “Repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all the nations.”

So we go to the nations then with this good news: God has sent a Savior. He has taken the place of sinners. He has borne the curse in their place. God has raised him from the dead. And God will have you if you will bow before this Savior and trust in him, turning from your sins. We come to the book of Acts, and we have then the initial stages of that gospel advance making its way through the world. And it’s interesting how in the book of Acts it is used; that mission is described in just this language of faith and repentance. I’ll give you just a couple of examples. Acts chapter 2, verse 38: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” Acts 3:19: “Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.” Acts 16:31: “What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”

And all through the book of Acts, largely it’s through the ministry of the Apostle Paul to Asia Minor, then into Europe. We find Paul at the end of the book, as I mentioned, under house arrest still ministering the gospel of the kingdom to all who would hear. Acts is just the initial stage of that. What makes the study of church history such a fascinating and captivating subject is simply that it traces the continued gospel advance from there to the rest of the world. From the beginning it was met with opposition. The gospel advanced through struggle of all kinds, beset with heresies, false teachings inside and outside, persecution of all kinds; but faithful men and women, often at great sacrifice, taking this gospel to others, sacrificing at great cost to preserve it, to defend it, to expound it, until finally the gospel made its way to us and some faithful man or woman came and told us about our sin and about Christ. And God opened our heart and we believed.

And now we meet together regularly all the time just to rehearse this message all over again in our minds, to learn its depths and to explore the various dimensions of it and to refresh our hearts in the promises that it has. Our Lord instituted two ceremonies so that we remember exactly these truths: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Christ died; he was raised from the dead. We give our monies to support pastors who tell us more about it, and then we go on our own way and everywhere we go, we take this message with us. And what we want when we meet other people—what we want more than anything else—is to talk to them about their sin and about Christ. In fact, we’ll give more money to others; we call them missionaries, support them to do the same. And that’s exactly how throughout the history of the church, this gospel has made its advance through the world.

It is the story of this age. “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come.” This is the means by which God is establishing his kingdom in this age. And I think it’s helpful for us to see that from heaven’s perspective, this is what this age is about. It’s about the advance of this message: Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead. And throughout this whole age, this is God’s purpose and this is his perspective on it—it is the advance of this message throughout all the world, to all the nations, until finally Jesus returns and brings that kingdom to its glorious climax.

Well, Paul tells us here in 1 Corinthians 15 that this message, this good news, is of first importance. There is nothing more important for you to know than this: Christ died for our sins and was raised according to the scriptures. This is the message you have to know if you will be right with God. This is the message you must embrace. Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and was raised again the third day, according to the scriptures. And after you’ve come to Christ and you’ve been saved, what you need, more than anything else, every day, is to hear this message: Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and was raised again the third day, according to the scriptures.

When you fail, you sin, what you need to hear more than anything else is that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, was raised again the third day according to the scriptures. When you have those doubts—maybe because of your sin—”Am I really saved?” what you need to hear more than anything else is that Christ died for our sins and was raised again the third day. If you have those horrible thoughts of self-merit, what you need to hear is that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, was raised again the third day according to the scriptures. If you’re haunted by feelings that “I’m not good enough, how can I be a Christian?” what you need to hear: Christ died for our sins, was raised the third day. Whether it’s doubts, feelings of self-merit, and when it comes to die, it’s the same. What we need more than anything else: Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. He was raised again the third day, according to the scriptures, and he will take us with him. And at every opportunity, we repeat that same message over and again to anyone who’ll hear it. Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, was raised again the third day, according to the scriptures.

This is what defines us as Christians. This is our whole reason for being, and this is God’s agenda for this age until he comes and brings his kingdom to glorious consummation in Christ. Amen.