1 Corinthians 15:11

THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL

‘So we preach, and so ye believed.’

1 Corinthians 15:11

According to the context there seem to be two principal reasons why the Apostle speaks in this way of the death of the Redeemer. One is on account of the place which it occupies in the redemption of man. The other is on account of the place which it occupies in the revelation of truth.

I. The place it occupies in the redemption of man.—What did the death of the Redeemer follow on the one hand? What followed it on the other?

(a) The answer to the first question is plain. The death of the Saviour ‘followed’ the act of laying on Him the sins of the world. This is the uniform scriptural explanation of that otherwise astonishing fact.

(b) Hence, therefore, next, the exceeding importance of that which followed Christ’s death, viz. of course, as here set forth, His ‘rising again.’ For not only was such a sequel to such an event a most remarkable thing in itself—remarkable as being a complete reversal of that which had previously happened—a movement in the exactly opposite direction, a passing back from death into life, a turning of darkness into light, such as never happened before; but it was still more striking, because, in the circumstances noted, it had such singular meaning and force.

II. Much the same is true when we consider, next, the place occupied by this same two-sided conflict with death—this tasting of its full bitterness on the one hand, and this total annihilation of its utmost power on the other—in the message of God to mankind. We may consider that message to consist, practically, of two principal parts. Our Bibles recognise this in their familiar distinction between the Old Testament and the New. In the one we have a sketch of what God taught the world in the ages before Christ. In the other we have a sample of what He taught the Church in the age which followed Christ’s death. The ‘goodly fellowship of the Prophets’ may be regarded as speaking to us in the one. The ‘glorious company of the Apostles’ virtually teach us in the other.

(a) With regard to the earlier of the two ‘witnesses’ in question—the Old Testament portion of the message of God to mankind—the answer is given at once in these words of St. Paul to which we have already adverted: ‘I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.’

(b) The same is true of the subsequent ‘witness’ of the ‘glorious company of the Apostles.’ Using that name in its widest sense, the New Testament is their work. By their hands, or by hands guided by them, they themselves being first taught by the Spirit of God, all its pages were written. What was their special office in doing so, according to their own account of the matter? The office of being witnesses of the fact of the Resurrection—after first dying for sin—of their Lord. So we find them recorded as doing.

III. The twofold truth, thus doubly set forth, is shown thereby to be our all in all in two principal ways.

(a) It is so, first, as being all, from a Christian point of view, which requires to be taught. Who can do more, be he who he may, than teach the essence of truth? And where else is the benefit, be it what it may, of attempting anything else? Give me the germ, you give me also the plant. Show me the ‘north,’ you show all other quarters as well. Keep the heart, you keep the life too. Just so, to teach nothing but the Crucified Risen One is, in fact, to teach all.

(b) This summary of truth is all that requires to be held.—Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, believe in the Lamb that was slain, believe in Him risen again, believe in Him really and truly, and thou shalt be saved. This follows necessarily from the kind of salvation which is implied in this truth. For it is a salvation which in fact is effected for us by the experience of another. ‘He was delivered,’ it is written, ‘for our offences, and raised again for our justification.’ ‘In that He died,’ it is written again, ‘He died unto sin once; in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.’ There cannot, therefore, be a fuller work or a completer result. There cannot, consequently, be anything left for us except to rely upon both. The simplest trust in a perfect work is perfect, too, in its way, and on that very account.

—Rev. W. Sunderland Lewis.

Illustration

‘Remember the power of Christ’s Resurrection. Take two instances almost at random: one early in the thirteenth century, the other late in the eighteenth. A certain rollicking youth in a little Italian town gives himself to Christ, and Francis of Assisi becomes Francis the great Gospel-preacher of his age; John Newton, the blaspheming, slave-dealing sea-captain, became the great evangelical preacher and hymn-writer. In each case the change was nothing short of a resurrection.’