1 Corinthians Episode 21: Raised From the Dead in Accordance with the Scriptures

Wes

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Now, on to today’s episode. This is Episode 21 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. This episode is entitled, Raised from the Dead in Accordance with the Scriptures, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:1-19. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?

Andy

Well, right away in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul reestablishes the gospel itself as central. It is of first importance, the doctrine of the gospel. And the implication of that is that Christian people, who have already heard the gospel and have come to faith in it, need to keep believing in it. And the gospel itself has an ongoing work of saving our souls that will continue for the rest of our lives here on earth. So that’s right away top priority, first importance is the gospel.

But then there’s a reason why, and the reason why, in verse 12, he said, “Some of you are saying there is no resurrection from the dead.” And so, this whole chapter is addressing the topic of bodily resurrection. The resurrection not just of Christ from the dead, but our resurrection into resurrection bodies.

And so, it’s going to be a thrilling chapter. We’ll not finish it today, but we’re going to begin looking at the centrality of the doctrine of the resurrection as a necessary connection to the gospel itself.

Wes

Well, let me go ahead and read these first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15.

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, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred 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.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy 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 toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 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. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Andy, what does Paul say about the gospel and the Corinthians in verses 1-2? And why do Christians need to be reminded of the gospel regularly even if they’ve been Christians for decades?

Andy

Well, he says that the gospel is of top priority, and he wants to remind them of the gospel or make known to them the gospel. But he says they’d already heard it, so remind would be a good way to understand this word here. He’s going to remind them of the gospel.

And its top priority.The gospel is the central, most important thing we can ever learn or cherish or proclaim. And he’s already said that in 1 Corinthians 2:2 where he says, “I resolve to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” What he means is the gospel is top priority. And he wants to go back to the gospel and remind them of it. And so, he says, “Look, you’ve already heard it, this gospel I preached. Nothing’s changed from it. I want you to know this gospel. I want to go back over it with you.”

And then the question you ask is, what’s the significance of that is, that we, Christians, need an ongoing reminder in the gospel. We will never go beyond the gospel. We’ll never graduate from the gospel. We need to hear it the rest of our lives.

“We will never go beyond the gospel. We’ll never graduate from the gospel. We need to hear it the rest of our lives.”

Now, I think some pastors with a zeal for evangelism and (seems sometimes only evangelism) effectively preach the simple gospel, what I would call the milk of the word every single week and nothing but that. Paul is not saying, “I resolve to know only the gospel and would only proclaim gospel truth to you.” He’s not saying that. He’s just saying it’s of first importance. He goes through all kinds of topics in his epistles that are not centrally the gospel, and they are important. But the most important thing is the gospel.

So, to sum up, gospel is central: Christ crucified and resurrected and faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins-most important thing we could ever learn. Secondly, we Christians, no matter how long we’ve been Christians, we need to keep hearing the milk of the word and drink in the gospel.

Wes

So, Paul says that this is of first importance. This is a priority for anyone who would be faithful with the gospel. What does that tell us about the content of verses 3-4 and the significance of these facts in human history?

Andy

Well, I think for myself as a Christian, I should get up every day and kind of go back over the basic conceptions of the gospel that God made the world, that he created human beings within it, that I’m a human being created by God for God’s pleasure and for God’s glory.

And then God gave laws, rules as a king. He gave rules to us that we should obey. And that not just Adam originally, but all of us individually have sinned and broken those laws and stand condemned before the just wrath of God, the justice of God, and we have no hope. Apart from God saving us, we would be condemned. But God sent his Son Jesus into the world, and Jesus lived a sinless life. He died on the cross and was raised from the dead, which we’re going to talk about in this chapter, huge. He was raised from the dead on the third day. And then if I repent of my sins and believe in Him, I have eternal life.

Since I have repented and since I have believed in him, the most significant thing that could ever happen to me has happened. I have received the greatest gift that could ever occur in this world. There is no treasure, there’s no honor, there’s no accolade, there’s nothing I could pursue in life that’s more significant than the salvation of my soul through faith in Christ and, therefore, I should be content with that. I should be joyful in that. It’s the basis of Christian contentment. Has Christ crucified and risen done enough for you today or does he have to do a little more than that? That’s a convicting question.

And so, for me, going back over the gospel so I can get myself, as George Muller did with his quiet times, every day into a happy state in Jesus, and what’s the basis of that happy state? The finished work of Christ at the cross and the empty tomb. So yeah, we go back over that gospel.

And then he says in verses 3-4, “What I received, I passed onto you as of top priority,” and I love that. He says, “I received it. I didn’t make up the gospel.” He says that in Galatians 1, “I didn’t craft it. It’s not my own invention. I received it from heaven. I received it from God.” This is a gospel that was delivered by God through the prophets and through the apostles to the people of God. “What I received, I passed on to you.” I get the picture of a relay race. “It was handed to me, and I handed it off to you. I didn’t make it up.”

And then he goes over the facts of the gospel. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Those are the central facts of the gospel.

Wes

Now that phrase that Paul uses, “according to the scriptures,” he uses twice in verses 3-4. What is the significance of that phrase and how does it teach us the role of scripture in our own salvation?

Andy

Scripture is everything when it comes to Christ. We know, literally, nothing about the second person of the Trinity, literally, nothing about Jesus Christ apart from scripture. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John certainly, but we learned a lot about scripture in the 39 books of the Old Testament.

The prophets wrote about Jesus. Jesus said, “Moses wrote about me.” So, we can, if we know what we’re doing, preach the entire meticulous gospel just from the Old Testament. And those are the scriptures that Paul was referring to here because the New Testament was in the process of being written. Even this epistle of 1 Corinthians is part of the New Testament but hadn’t been formed yet. The canon hadn’t been established, the New Testament canon. The Old Testament, 39 books of the Old Testament, are sufficient written testimony to Jesus.

And Jesus proved that because, after his resurrection, he went through everything written in the law, the prophets, the writings about himself, the things that Moses wrote, the things that were in the Psalms, the things that were in wisdom literature, and definitely in the prophets. All of those things were laid out. For example, Isaiah 53, which clearly taught that Christ died for sins, that Jesus, the suffering servant of God, was led like a lamb to the slaughter and all the sins of Israel were put on him and he died and also rose again. So, all of these things, Christ died for our sins according to scriptures.

Or again, when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane and Peter wanted to rescue him and he drew his sword and swung it, and it cut off Malchus’ ear. Jesus said, “Put your sword away.” He said, “Do you think I could not call on my father and He would at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matthew 26:53-54) So, Jesus said the scriptures clearly laid out Jesus’ death and his resurrection. “So, what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.”

Now, you may say, “What scriptures?” And there are a number I could point to, but let’s start with the animal sacrificial system. All the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament and all of the Levitical priesthood, the tabernacle worship, all of those things pointed to Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Christ died for our sins. Isaiah 53, “Christ died in our place.” Psalm 22, his hands and feet were pierced, and he died under the wrath of God saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22:1).

“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried,” and then it says, “He was raised from the dead on the third day, according to the scriptures.” Again, Psalm 16:10, “You’ll not let your holy one see decay,” and again like Jonah, three days and three nights in the fish, so the Son of man Jesus would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and many other prophecies. So, all of it is tied to scripture.

And here’s what I would say. When we preach the gospel, we must quote scripture because the people we’re seeking to reach need to know that these things were written down long before any of us were born. They were established in the scriptures.

Wes

You know, Andy, it’s striking to me, I think a step that many of us may omit when recounting the basic facts of the gospel is the burial of Jesus, which Paul specifically mentions here in this passage. Why is that so vital for Paul’s specific purpose as he writes to the church at Corinth?

Andy

That’s a good question, and it’s not something we usually mention. In my summary, I usually talk about the cross and the empty tomb. And the empty tomb, by that, it’s not so much that there was a cave somewhere in Palestine and no one was in it. It was that it was Jesus’ burial place.

And so, I think the idea of him being buried just points to the evidence of His resurrection and the physicality of it. Jesus had an actual corpse that was wrapped up with linen sheets and with myrrh and spices and other things and was laid in a tomb with a big stone in front of it, and then he was gone. He was out of that tomb. So, I think it points to evidence and bodily resurrection, which is vital, the burial of Jesus.

Other than that, how can we know? They went and looked at the empty tomb. The angel said, “Come and see the place where he lay” (Matthew 28:6). Jesus’ enemies went and had seen the empty tomb. They tried to prevent it by marking the stone with a seal, basically the death penalty if anyone should move this stone and break the seal. Well, an angel did that and wasn’t too worried about the high priest’s death penalty, et cetera, because God told him to move the stone.

So, at any rate, the burial, I think, points to evidence of the resurrection and to bodily, the bodily nature of the resurrection.

Wes

What role do the eyewitnesses play in Paul’s argument, and why is eyewitness testimony to the bodily resurrection of Jesus essential to our apologetic to an unbelieving world?

Andy

Yeah, it’s vital, and it was one of the prime job descriptions of the apostles. They were with him from the beginning, from John the Baptist’s baptism, Jesus being baptized by John and then through his, most scholars think, about three-year ministry and then eyewitnesses of his death and eyewitnesses also of his resurrection. And so, the eyewitness testimony, it’s legal. Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses so it’s proof of a historical event.

What else can we do? I mean because history is one of a kind. Every day is like a unicorn, to some degree. It’ll never be repeated. So how do we know it even happened? “I was there, I saw it, I testified.”

That’s how historians do their work. They talk about people who are actually at the Battle of Gettysburg. That they go to those guys in the 1870s, 1880s on into the turn of the century. The old soldiers that were there, and they were 18 or 19 years old at the time, and they talk to them. “Where were you?” “I was in the Devil’s Den” or “I was on Little Round Top” or “I was in this unit” or whatever. “What was your experience there?” No one soldier had the full experience. They had their own experience, the part of the battlefield they were at, and they fought on the first and second, but not on the third day, something like that.

That’s how the historians do their work. Every matter in history is established the same way by eyewitness testimony.

Wes

And it wasn’t just one or even 12, who could testify to these facts. We’re told that hundreds saw Jesus after His resurrection. How should the fact that, at that time, most of them were still alive be conclusive proof to skeptics?

Andy

Right. Well, Paul’s appealing to them and we’re getting to this, working our way to it, but the problem here that he’s seeking to address is stated in verse 12, “How can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead?” So that there are people who had a philosophical predisposition to disbelieve resurrection. It’s impossible and it’s not desirable.

And so, he’s addressing them and he’s saying, “How is it possible that some of you, members of the church at Corinth, say there is no resurrection from the dead?” And he’s going to walk through in verses 12-19 the ramifications of that, we’ll get to that. But fundamentally, he’s establishing the most important resurrection from the dead ever was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, defeating death.

And so, God doesn’t do anything by half measures. It’s like, “You want some eyewitnesses? I got 500 of them for you.” Imagine a court trial in which 500 witnesses testified materially to the same thing. “I saw Jesus after his crucifixion. I saw him alive.“ After one or two or three saying that, you’d be like, “I got it.” “No, no, no, we’re not done. We’re going to be here for the next three days listening to the 500 eyewitnesses.” Even if each of them had just 10 minutes to tell their story, think of how long that would take. And so it’s a lavish amount of proof. And I think that’s the whole point, is that they are physically alive, and you can talk to them.

Now, we can’t and that’s where John 20 comes in where you got the physical evidence, the empty tomb, you got the grave clothes and the head covering folded up by itself and all that’s written. And then John says he saw and believed. He was an apostle; he was an eyewitness, he saw and believed (they still did not understand from scripture that Christ had to rise from the dead).

And Jesus did the same thing with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. You need to believe this from scripture, not from a physical manifestation, which he was about to do, to some degree, by disappearing. But they realized, “Wait a minute, that was Jesus.” And then he physically appeared to the disciples in the Gospel of Luke 24:39 and said, “Touch me and see. A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

But they were all specially chosen eyewitnesses. That generation was going to die out. Their great, great, great-grandchildren were not going to be able to touch Jesus’ wounds. They would believe from scripture or not at all. So fundamentally, it comes down to eyewitness testimony that’s recorded for us in the New Testament scriptures, and we can read them for centuries to follow.

Wes

Now, what’s the significance of the fact that Jesus actually did appear to Paul after his resurrection, how is that a vital part of his case here that there is such a thing as resurrection from the dead?

Andy

Well, I think he’s identifying it as proof of his apostleship because you had to be an eyewitness of the resurrection. It was one of the requirements. And Paul was, as he calls himself, “one untimely born. I was kind of out of order. I came in later, but I’m an eyewitness of his resurrection. And if you’re telling me there is no resurrection from the dead, then you’re calling me a liar because I saw the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus.”

So, he includes himself there, specifically because in both 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul’s authority as an apostle and the authority of his words and his judgments that he’s rendering on various cases is tied to his status as an apostle, which is tied to his eyewitness of Christ in his resurrection glory. And so that’s why he says concerning himself, “I am an apostle. I saw Christ raised from the dead.”

So, he’s doing a couple of things here. He’s establishing himself as an apostle, although he calls himself the least of all the apostles, still he’s an eyewitness. And he’s the one writing these very words to them. “So, you can’t tell me, there is no resurrection from the dead because I saw a man who had been dead, alive.” And so, he’s establishing his authority, but he’s going back very soon in verse 12 to the real point, which is, “How can some of you say there is no resurrection?”

Wes

Now, what’s the power of Paul’s statement in verse 10, “By the grace of God, I am what I am.”

Andy

Well, he’s zeroing in on the phrase, “I don’t deserve to be called an apostle,” and he says because he persecuted the church. “He was a blasphemer and a persecutor, a violent man, and he dragged off men and women, threw them in prison. He was a bad man in terms of the church. He was an enemy of the church. And he himself wrote in this very epistle, “If anyone destroys God’s church, God will destroy him” (1 Corinthians 3:17).

Well, he was a destroyer of God’s church and should have been destroyed, but God spared his life. Christ spared his life. And so, he said, “Look, I don’t deserve that. I deserve to die. I deserve to be in hell right now. But by the grace of God, I am an apostle. By the grace of God, I am what I am. It is God’s lavish grace to me that I am drawing breath right now, it’s by God’s lavish grace that he’s actually given me a ministry to do. And so God, by God’s goodness and kindness, by the grace of God, I am what I am.”

And beyond just that he became an apostle, God’s grace continued to work in and through Paul. He said, “His grace to me was not without effect. I worked harder than anyone” (1 Corinthians 15:10) And this is typical of Paul where he makes these kind of comparative statements, but they are true. He was an incredibly hard worker. And so here we have the combination of sovereign grace and human agency or free will, you could say. “I worked harder than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

So that’s a collaboration or cooperation between Paul’s effort and work and diligence and God’s sovereign grace in his life. It’s a beautiful picture of the combination of the two. God’s grace to me was not without effect. I worked harder, but not I, God’s grace in me. In the end he gets the final word.

Wes

Now, before we turn to verses 12-19, what does verse 11 mean and why is the Corinthian’s faith so important to Paul?

Andy

Well, no matter who you heard it from, one of the 500 witnesses or me, or whoever it is that preached or Apollos or any, this is what we preached-is this gospel I’ve been proclaiming from the beginning of this chapter. The gospel and central to it is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. So, this is what we preached, and this is what you believed. “Now how can some of you say there is no…” That’s the transition then to verse 12.

Wes

That’s right. So how does verse 12 then reveal this problem that we’ve been alluding to, but that Paul is addressing in this chapter?

Andy

Okay. So now we get to the issue that he’s writing the whole chapter about, and that is the bodily resurrection from the dead. And specifically, not just Jesus’s resurrection, but the resurrection of all his followers. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, he who believes in me will live even though he dies” (John 11:25). So that’s resurrection. “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). And Paul, in this very chapter uses this statement, makes this strong assertion. “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). He is the first fruits of a vast harvest of people who will be, in the future, resurrected just like him, made like him. Like him, we will rise. And so, the fundamental concept here is bodily resurrection from the dead.

Now, there is a problem in Corinth because Corinth is not far from Athens, and Athens is the center of human philosophy. And Paul addresses man’s wisdom and human philosophy. And the Greek philosophical systems that were prevalent in that day spoke passionately against resurrection from the dead. The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers that Paul debated against in Mars Hill, both of them did not believe. They disbelieved bodily resurrection, and they sneered. “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered” (Acts 17:32). They mocked it.

Plato, again, taught a kind of a purity of the spirit and a corruption of the physical. And so, the idea of being in the flesh was repugnant to Greek philosophy. And so, the idea would be, first of all, we don’t think it can happen and, second of all, we don’t want it to happen. Why would we want to be in these flea-bitten carcasses forever and ever and ever and ever and ever? It makes no sense whatsoever.

But they’re thinking, as they predictably would be as Greek philosophers, not in a Hebrew way of thinking. God made the body, and God made everything good. So, when God gave Adam and then Eve bodies, that was very good. And so, God’s creation of the body was good, and then the incarnation proves that the physical body is good, apart from corruption of sin. Jesus, the Son of God, took on flesh. The word became flesh. If flesh were evil, why would he have done that? And then again, the resurrection. He had a chance to be rid of it forever, but instead took it back up again. This is the very doctrine we’re debating here. And so, the fundamental predisposition of Greek philosophy was purity of spirit and then the repugnance of the flesh.

Many of these systems also taught effectively annihilation or end of existence at death like atoms. So basically once your atoms dissipate, your soul dissipates with it. They do not necessarily teach the immortality of the soul. And so, he’s dealing with Greek philosophical systems that considered the resurrection impossible and undesirable.

Wes

Now, what’s the biggest problem with saying that there’s no such thing as resurrection from the dead, according to Paul in verse 13?

Andy

Okay. He says the biggest problem is if there can be no resurrection from the dead and if it truly is not desirable, but repugnant, then Christ hasn’t been raised. So, if what you’re saying is true, then Christ has not been raised from the dead because there it is. If it can’t be done, then he didn’t do it. But then we’ve got all kinds of ramifications if Christ has not been raised.

So, he goes through seven devastating consequences if resurrection is impossible. First and foremost, as you said, Christ himself has not been raised. Then secondly, all Christian preaching is useless, then all faith in Christ would be useless, including yours, O Corinthians. And then all witness to the resurrection is false. Every witness, every eyewitness that saw the resurrected Jesus are lying. All of them are lying. All human beings are still in their sins. There actually is no gospel. All dead Christians are eternally lost. You’ll never see them again. And all suffering Christians here on earth, including me, are to be pitied above all people because we are wasting our lives. We should eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow, we die. We should not be in prison for the gospel. So those are seven devastating consequences if resurrection is impossible.

Wes

And that’s really the heart of what he unfolds for us in those verses, 13-16, giving this devastating critique of their position if they believe that the resurrection is impossible or doesn’t happen.

How does verse 17 then show the link between Christ’s resurrection and the forgiveness of our sins?

Andy

Fundamentally, death came into the world through sin, through Adam’s original sin, and then also confirmed by our choices to sin. And the remedy is Christ, the atoning sacrifice. Our sins were laid on him, and he died under the wrath of God.

And then it says in Romans 4:25 that “he was raised for our justification.” And what that means is the resurrection is part of the vindication of not just Christ, but us who have believed in him. What it means is God is saying, “I accept. I accept what Jesus did.” It’s proof of God’s acceptance. So, if Christ has not been raised, we’re still in our sins, then. God has not accepted the sacrifice. We’re still under the wrath of God.

“The resurrection is part of the vindication of not just Christ, but us who have believed in him. What it means is God is saying, “I accept. I accept what Jesus did.”

Wes

What further grief comes in verses 18-19 from the teaching that there is no resurrection from the dead?

Andy

Yeah. He says those who have fallen asleep in Christ, you’ll never see them again. They’re gone forever. And so therefore, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, he says, “We do not weep like those who have no hope.” What’s the reason that we don’t? Well, we believe that Christ died and rose again. And so, we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. We’re going to see them again.

I remember years ago, I’ll never forget this, my son Calvin was screaming in the night. He was having a nightmare. And so, Christi and I went in, it was about three in the morning, and he was just sobbing. He was only partially awake. His face was wet with tears, pillow was wet. And then when he woke up, he saw me and just grabbed hold of me like he never wanted to let me go. And he had dreamed that I had died. That was the nightmare, is that I had died. His dad died, and so Christi and I prayed with him.

And then Christi left us, and I sat and just talked with him, and we talked for a while, and he calmed down. And I said, Calvin, I want you to know three things if I should ever die. I can’t promise I won’t die. That’s in God’s hands, all right? But there are three things I want you to remember if I should die. Number one is I will be perfectly, infinitely happy, happier than I can possibly even put into words. Secondly, you’re going to have a very hard time without me there, but God will be faithful to you and get you through that hard time. And third, we’ll see each other again.

So, if Christ has not been raised, you can’t make that third statement. You’ll never see that person again. They’re lost forever. But Christ has been raised, so can’t go on with that very much longer. He’s got this whole condition, contrary to fact thing. He’s like, “If, if, if, if, if.” It’s like, “Let’s play with it for a while,” and then finally he just can’t stand it anymore in verse 20. He’s like, “Christ has been raised.” But anyway, go ahead.

Wes

No, we’re looking forward to verse 20 and beyond as we continue this conversation next time because that is where Paul turns the corner and says, “Listen, I’ve been making a lot of assertions about what it would be like if this were not the case, but in fact, Christ has been raised,” which is where we’ll head next time, but-

Andy

Yeah. Let me say one thing also about verse 19, “And Christ says, we are of all men to be pitied.” It’s a tricky verse. I don’t think it’s necessarily true of all Christians, but it should be.

I think the more you invest in the gospel, the more you’re going to be persecuted, the harder life you’re going to have. And we know that from church history, some just make maximum investments. The martyrs make the most investment.

But others are incarcerated for the gospel. They suffer greatly, and those that suffer greatly for the gospel are to be pitied above all men because they’re really foolish. They’re just absolutely, they just invested hugely in a stock that went belly up and they got nothing for their investment. So, they should have been wise enough not to follow Christ and the martyrs and all that down a dead-end road that was worthless. That’s what verse 19 is saying. We are above of all men to be pitied.

I worry about materialistic American Christianity, which doesn’t suffer much for the gospel and takes up this verse, verse 19, thinking that it applies equally to all Christians. In some sense, it does. True Christians, it’s true. But I think it most especially applies to those that have paid a great price for the gospel. They are above all people to be pitied. But if Christ has been raised, they’re above all people to be honored and esteemed, because they will be rewarded greatly in heaven for their suffering.

Wes

Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us today on these first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15?

Andy

Yeah. I think basically these 19 verses tell us we need to go back over the basics of the gospel again and again and derive great joy and power from it.

And then the last exhortation from verse 19 goes all the way up to verse 58, “Be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” So, invest more and more in the gospel. Don’t be afraid of ramifications or consequences. Cast all of those concerns out so that you can serve him fully. So, look forward to the rest of the chapter.

Wes

This has been Episode 21 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 22, entitled, Christ Is Risen, the First Fruits from the Dead, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:20-34. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.