Latest / Reformed Thinking / Of First Importance: Christ Died, Was Buried, and Has Been Raised—According to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

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Of First Importance: Christ Died, Was Buried, and Has Been Raised—According to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking, the deep dive where we take core
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  truths and really unpack the grammar, the history, the
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  theology that makes them the non negotiables of the Christian
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  faith. Glad to be here.
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  Today we're tackling something absolutely central.
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  We're doing a micro focused look at the, well, the very heart of
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  the New Testament message. It's that creedal summary Paul
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  gives in First Corinthians 15 specifically versus 3 and 4.
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  This short, powerful bit often called the Apostolic deposit.
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  Exactly. And our mission, our goal today
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  is to examine those specific clauses.
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  Christ died, was buried, and has been raised.
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  We've got some specialized research that looks, I mean,
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  microscopically, at the structure Paul used.
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  Yeah, it really forces you to see how these aren't just ideas,
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  they're fixed historical facts, the bedrock.
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  They are the anchor for Christian life and belief.
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  OK, let's unpack this. This is our way in our shortcut
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  to understanding the structure that governs well everything
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  else we believe and do as Christians.
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  And that governing structure is precisely what the Corinthians
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  were missing, wasn't it? They desperately needed it.
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  Oh, absolutely. Can you set the scene for us?
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  What was going on in Corinth when Paul wrote this?
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  Well, chaotic might be putting it mildly.
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  The church in Corinth was, frankly, a mess.
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  An ethical and doctrinal train wreck, right?
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  You've got serious moral scandals going on, believers
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  suing each other in Pagan courts.
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  Their worship services were disorderly.
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  And maybe most critically for this chapter, some folks were
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  outright denying the future resurrection of the dead.
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  Denying the resurrection, that's fundamental.
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  Totally fundamental. And Paul sees all these
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  symptoms, all these problems, and traces them back to 1 root
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  failure. They'd stopped letting the
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  gospel itself define and govern their thinking, their practice,
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  everything. So this restatement in chapter
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  15 isn't just Paul adding another teaching point.
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  No, not at all. He's addressing that root
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  failure head on. He's not giving them some new
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  technique or a clever program. He's reminding them forcefully
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  of the essential structure they already confessed when they
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  first believed. And the research we looked at
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  really highlights this. His effort was designed to shift
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  the church away from what they were stuck in, which was
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  described as a personality driven spirituality.
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  You know, following favorite teachers.
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  Right. The Apollo's faction, The Paul
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  faction. Exactly that he wanted to move
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  them away from that and towards confession driven stability.
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  The point is, the gospel isn't just the entry ticket, it has to
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  be the essential framework, the operating system for the entire
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  life of the church. OK, so framework operating
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  system, Paul signals this right away in verse three with some
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  very precise language. He says for I delivered to you
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  what I also received. He uses text icoca paraduca for
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  delivered and text pirate toko for received.
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  Why frame it like that? It sounds almost formal.
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  It is formal, and deliberately so, that phraseology is key.
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  In the 1st century world, both Greco Roman and Jewish context.
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  Those specific Greek verbs, text out toko and text porgo were
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  basically technical terms. Think official handover
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  language. Like passing on a formal
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  tradition. Precisely.
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  It's the language you'd use for transmitting an authoritative
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  tradition, like a legal deed or a sacred trust, or maybe
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  rabbinic teaching passed from master to disciple.
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  When Paul uses these words, he's positioning himself not as an
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  inventor, but as an authorized link in a chain.
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  An agent, not the originator. So he's not saying.
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  Here's my take on things. Definitely not.
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  If Paul had just presented this as his own theological insight,
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  his brilliant idea, you can bet his opponents in Corinth would
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  have just dismissed it all. That's just Paul's opinion,
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  right? Another philosophy to consider
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  alongside all the others swirling around that city.
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  But by framing it clearly is something he first received and
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  then faithfully delivered. He's signaling that the core
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  content, the death, burial, resurrection, isn't his private
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  insight. He wasn't cooked up for the
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  Corinthians. He's telling them, look, this
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  isn't up for debate. It's not mine to change and it's
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  not yours to tweak. It's a fixed deposit.
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  A fixed deposit. I like that term.
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  Yeah, it's common to all the apostles.
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  It was handed on, not innovative and received, not invented.
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  It grounds everything in something objective.
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  That distinction, handed on versus invented, feels crucial
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  for stability, doesn't it? Especially given how volatile
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  that Corinthian church clearly was.
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  It roots their faith in shared, objective history, not just in
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  Paul's, you know, charisma or authority.
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  Absolutely. It takes the focus off the
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  messenger and puts it squarely on the message.
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  And Paul reinforces this even before he lists the core facts.
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  Right at the start of verse three, he adds a priority
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  marker. Ah yes, the phrase of first
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  importance or text in pro toys in the Greek.
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  Text toys. Now, on the surface, that sounds
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  like it could just mean OK, The first thing I told you when I
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  arrived was this gospel message. Is it just chronological or does
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  that Greek carry more weight? It definitely carries more
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  weight. The scholarship on this suggests
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  text in pro toys signals rank, not just sequence.
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  It means this content is fundamentally first in status,
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  in importance, not merely the first thing he happened to
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  mention chronologically. OK.
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  So like top priority foundational, Foundational is a
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  good way to think about it. Like we said, the operating
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  system, the gospel is the core code.
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  Everything else the church does, it's worship practices, it's
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  ethical standards, how it handles disputes, even how it
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  understands spiritual gifts, all those are like applications
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  running on top of that core code.
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  And if the code gets corrupted or ignored.
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  The applications crash, which is exactly what's happening in
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  Corinth. So this priority marker text
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  dittos, it governs everything. It dictates that the gospel
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  message defines the scope, the boundary, the very essence of
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  everything else in the Church's life, Doctrine, worship, ethics,
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  the lot. So by calling it a first
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  importance, Paul's doing more than just listing facts.
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  Oh, much more. He's disciplining their focus.
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  He's pulling them back from all the distracting peripheral stuff
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  that was consuming them. You know, the arguments about
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  which preacher was best, the showy spiritual gifts, the
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  lawsuits, the moral compromise. And he's directing them straight
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  back to the non negotiable center, the word of the cross
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  and the risen Christ. The message is basically stop
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  obsessing over your preferences and personalities and start
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  living out the implications of this core confession.
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  That's a strong internal critique against chasing
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  novelty, which feels, well, pretty relevant today too.
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  It always is. But Speaking of novelty, Paul
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  himself had a pretty unique experience, didn't he?
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  Seeing the risen Christ on the Damascus Rd. long after the
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  others and the way he positions himself in the list of witnesses
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  later in chapter 15 is quite striking.
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  He puts himself last of all in verse 8, yes, and uses that
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  really jarring term to describe himself as to 1.
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  Untimely born or dextoma in the Greek.
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  What's going on there? Yeah, textoma.
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  It's a startling word, almost shocking.
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  It literally means something like a miscarriage or an
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  abortion, something born outside the proper time or manner.
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  Why would he use such a graphic self deprecating term?
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  Well, it powerfully underscores how abnormal, how violent, how
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  out of sequence his own encounter with the risen Christ
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  was. It happened after the Ascension,
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  not during that initial 40 day period.
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  Like the others, it was unique. But theologically, putting
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  himself last of all serves a critical function for the
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  stability of the Church's faith going forward.
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  His appearance acts as a terminus, a definitive endpoint,
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  a full stop to that specific era of unique commissioning,
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  resurrection appearances that establish Apostolic authority.
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  OK, so the appearances didn't just trail off.
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  Paul's was specifically the last one.
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  That's the significance. And why does that matter for us
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  centuries later? Because Paul's experience being
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  the last ensures that the Church rests entirely on the once for
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  all revelation given to those initial commissioned
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  eyewitnesses, the ones who physically saw the risen Lord
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  during that foundational period. It's sort of locks down the
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  source material. Exactly.
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  It locks down the source of revelation.
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  This closure guards the Church against constantly seeking
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  ongoing revelations or charismatic novelties in the
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  sense of new foundational Apostolic level truth.
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  It protects us from the modern craving for supposed new
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  commissioned sears or fresh words that try to amend or add
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  to that original Apostolic deposit.
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  The era of direct post resurrection authority
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  conferring appearances is closed done.
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  The Church's stability rests on what was delivered and received
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  then. OK, so the authority is fixed,
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  the priority is clear, the revelation is closed.
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  Now let's dive into the actual content of that fixed deposit
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  clause number one, that Christ died for our sins according to
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  the scriptures. This is the core saving design
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  right here, and we really need to focus on that tiny but
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  massive phrase for our sins. Texte amati hypertune
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  hamartischin Hamchen. Yes, Techstop, That preposition,
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  especially in this context, is packed with meaning.
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  It clearly signals the penal nature of Christ's death.
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  The scholarship overwhelmingly shows it carries A vicarious
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  substitutionary sense here. Meaning in our place.
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  Precisely. Christ died in the place of
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  sinners and on behalf of sinners to deal with their sin.
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  He didn't just die as a noble martyr or a moral example to
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  inspire us, or even just to make us feel bad about our
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  wrongdoing. He died specifically to deal
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  with sins by bearing their penalty, the penalty demanded by
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  God's justice. It sounds like that one act, his
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  death achieved 2 really critical things at once.
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  Our sources talk about propitiation and expiation.
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  Can you unpack those? Why did his substitutionary
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  death need to accomplish both? Yeah, this is where the
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  precision of the gospel message really shines.
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  We need to slow down here. When Christ died for our sins,
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  He secured 2 vital outcomes. First, propitiation.
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  Propitiation that relates to God's wrath, right?
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  Exactly. Propitiation means his
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  substitutionary death satisfied God's just holy wrath against
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  sin. Sin isn't just a mistake.
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  The Bible presents it as cosmic treason, a violation against the
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  very nature of the holy law. Giver justice demands
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  satisfaction. A penalty must be paid.
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  Christ's death appease that divine demand.
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  It's satisfied justice. This is crucial because it
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  allows God to remain perfectly righteous while he deals
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  mercifully with sinners who believe.
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  OK, so God's justice is satisfied.
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  What about expiation? 2nd Expiation.
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  This refers to the removal, the cancelling, the bearing away of
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  the guilt and pollution of sin itself.
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  The penalty is paid propitiation and the burden of guilt is
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  simultaneously lifted and carried away Expiation.
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  Why do we need both? Think about it.
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  If we only have propitiation, God's justice would be
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  satisfied, but we might still feel crushed under the weight
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  and shame of our sin. If we only had expiation, our
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  sins might be gone, but the holiness of God wouldn't have
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  been properly vindicated. We need both.
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  By securing both propitiation and expiation, Christ ensures
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  the believing Sinner is both fully forgiven and justly
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  reconciled to a holy God. That makes sense.
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  It's a complete solution. It is.
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  And this whole substitutionary transaction, paying the penalty,
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  removing the guilt, establishes the necessary ground for our
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  justification by faith alone. It ensures, as the Westminster
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  Confession points out based on Scripture, that God remains
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  perfectly just. While he freely justifies the
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  one who has faith in Jesus, He doesn't compromise his justice
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  to show mercy. And bringing this back to
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  Corinth, the absolute necessity of this kind of substitutionary
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  death must have hit their ethical chaos like a ton of
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  brick. It should have.
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  If sin was just, you know, a minor lapse, poor etiquette, or
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  a social mistake, as the Corinthians seem to treat it,
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  then the cross is a bizarre overreaction, grossly
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  disproportionate. But the declaration Christ died
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  for our sins insisted sin is cosmic rebellion.
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  It's treason against the King of the universe.
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  It's not A trifle. This directly confronts the
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  moral laxity, the arrogance, the ethical sloppiness Paul
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  documents throughout First Corinthians.
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  So it. Serves A humbling purpose too.
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  Oh, absolutely crucial. It makes it crystal clear that
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  human effort, human doing, cannot atone.
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  Your best intentions, your attempts at self improvement,
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  your religious observances, none of it can deal with the
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  fundamental problem of sin against a holy God.
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  Faith simply receives the payment the substitute already
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  made. It reminds us we come to God as
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  beggars receiving an unearned gift, not as workers clocking in
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  to earn a wage. And the final stamp of divine
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  authority on this whole saving design comes with the last
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  phrase in this first clause, according to the Scriptures text
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  Katit katit tutskatit graphus. Why is it so important for Paul
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  to attach this canonical proof directly to Christ's death?
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  Because Paul is making an enormous claim.
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  Christ's death wasn't a tragedy. It wasn't a Plan B.
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  It wasn't a martyrdom that went wrong.
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  It was a scripture scripted achievement of atonement.
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  It happened exactly as God had planned and predicted in His
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  written word. So it connects the event to the
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  Old Testament story. Absolutely.
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  This phrase, Texecox goyus, anchors the cross firmly within
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  the Old Testament's covenantal storyline.
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  This was vital for both Jewish and Gentile listeners.
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  It showed this wasn't some new disconnected religion, but the
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  fulfillment of God's long standing promises.
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  Which specific scriptures might Paul have had in mind?
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  Well, the most obvious connection is to explicit
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  prophecy, especially Isaiah 53. Paul's effectively saying you
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  want the theology of the cross. Read Isaiah 53.
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  That chapter provides the explicit penal substitutionary
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  grammar. The suffering servant who is
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  pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, the
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  one upon whom the Lord laid the iniquity of us all.
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  But it's not just direct prophecy.
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  It's also Old Testament typology.
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  The entire sacrificial system, with its principle of life for
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  life, atonement through shed blood, provided the vocabulary,
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  the lexicon for understanding the cross.
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  And the Passover with the slain spotless lamb whose blood
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  averted judgement provided the paradigm, the model for
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  deliverance through a substitute.
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  So the gospel isn't an invention, it's a fulfillment.
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  Exactly. It fits God's written promises
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  like a hand in a glove. It rests an entirely on the
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  revealed written Word of God, not on private feelings,
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  mystical experiences or philosophy speculation.
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  OK, that leads us right into the second clause of this creed,
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  which our materials intriguingly call the indispensable hinge.
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  And that he was buried. Texito fat Now this is often the
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  bit that gets skipped over, isn't it?
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  We focus on the death and the resurrection.
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  But why is the simple fact of burial, listed here as a
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  coordinate essential? Why is it just as necessary as
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  the death and the resurrection? That's a great question because
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  it can seem like a minor detail, but it's absolutely crucial.
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  The burial textative. The history certification that
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  the death was real. Unequivocally real.
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  Certification. How so?
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  We'll think about it. Without the burial, the
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  resurrection claim hangs in the air, lacking concrete historical
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  footing. The verb Paul uses text to Tito
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  is an aurist passive. It states a completed pass
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  action. He was buried.
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  This isn't just saying he died, it's asserting that a genuine,
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  physical, non breathing heavy corpse was handled, wrapped in
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  linens and placed in a tomb. And we know who did it.
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  Yes, by identifiable historical figures Joseph of Arimathea and
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  Nicodemus, both members of the Sanhedrin.
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  Interestingly enough, they handled the body, they performed
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  the burial rites. This wasn't done in secret, it
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  was a known event involving known people.
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  So what does that historical certification achieve?
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  Specifically, what errors does it counter?
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  It powerfully counters 2 major evasions right off the bat.
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  First it demolishes any hint of Docedic make believe.
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  Dosatism was an early heresy that claimed Christ only seemed
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  to be human, only appear to suffer and die because they
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  argued divine spirit couldn't truly interact with corruptible
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  matter or experience death. So Christ was like a phantom.
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  Something like that. But burial makes that idea
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  impossible. Handling a dead body, wrapping
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  it, putting it in a cold tomb that's intensely physical.
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  It's messy, concrete evidence of genuine physical finality.
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  You don't bury a phantom. OK, so it counters dosatism.
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  What's the second evasion? Second, it collapses all those
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  later pseudo historical attempts to explain away the resurrection
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  like the swoon theory. The idea that Jesus didn't
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  actually die on the cross just fainted.
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  Exactly that he just passed out from exhaustion and blood loss,
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  appeared dead, but then revived in the cool air of the tomb.
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  The gharial account makes that utterly implausible.
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  Nobody survives being wrapped tightly in grave clothes, sealed
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  in an airless tune for hours, let alone days.
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  Burial certified that a real corpse, not a swooning man, was
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  placed in a specific known location.
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  Checkable geography, as one source put it.
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  A known tune sealed with a stone.
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  So the burial acts like history's final seal on the
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  death. It proves the atonement payment
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  was fully made through actual physical death.
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  Precisely. It closes the door on attempts
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  to spiritualize away the physicality of it all.
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  That covers the historical proof aspect, but what about the
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  theological side? Is the burial necessary for the
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  fullness of Christ's humiliation, or is it just sort
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  of the inevitable consequence of dying?
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  No, it's theologically essential as well.
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  It's necessary for the completeness of his humiliation.
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  The burial confirms that Christ fully entered the state of the
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  dead. He didn't just die and
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  immediately zip back to heaven. He went into the grave.
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  He remained, as the Westminster Larger Catechism puts it, under
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  the power of death for a time, specifically until the third
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  day. He experienced the grave just
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  like we do. He fully experienced it.
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  If he hadn't been buried, he wouldn't have completely
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  identified with our human condition and death.
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  He wouldn't have fully entered that dark silence of the grave,
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  the place appointed for fallen humanity.
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  And there's another layer too. The burial deepens the curse
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  motif associated with the cross. Deuteronomy 21 has that specific
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  law. Someone executed by being hung
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  on a tree is considered a curse by God, and their body must not
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  remain hanging overnight. It must be buried that same day.
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  So his burial fulfills even that aspect of burying the curse.
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  Yes, by being taken down and buried, Christ perfectly aligns
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  himself with that statute. It confirms that the one who was
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  made a curse for us, as Paul says in Galatians, fully bore
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  the penalty demanded by the law, right down to the stigma of
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  being cast out, executed, and then put away in the ground.
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  The burial is that necessary, terrifying dark vestibule, as
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  someone called it, through which he had to pass before the glory
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  of the resurrection could burst forth.
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  That progression, real death certified by burial, is so
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  important, and it seems crucial for how we as believers are
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  supposed to apply the gospel to our own lives too.
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  The burial actually becomes a pattern for our sanctification.
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  It absolutely does. Paul explicitly draws his
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  connection elsewhere, particularly in Romans 6.
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  The burial signifies our union with Christ and his death.
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  He says we are buried with him through baptism into death.
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  That burial imagery provides the pattern, the template for what
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  the illusions call mortification, the daily active
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  putting to death of sin in our lives.
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  When we wrestle with pride or greed or lust or any ingrained
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  sin, we aren't just called to try and manage it better.
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  We're called through the Spirit's power to reckon that
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  old self, that sinful nature, as being crucified with Christ dead
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  and buried. So it's not just about stopping
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  bad behavior. No, it's about treating it as
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  dead. The burial metaphor is powerful.
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  You don't take your garbage, tidy it up, and put it back in
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  the living room shelf, right? You take it out, you get rid of
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  it, you bury it. We are to actively put away play
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  the deeds of the old life, consigning them to the grave,
• 19:32
  because we have been united to Christ in His burial.
• 19:35
  It really forces us to learn daily to put off what belongs to
• 19:39
  the grave, to bury that old life because Christ was buried for
• 19:42
  us. Ethically, then, this burial
• 19:44
  clause grounds the seriousness of Christian obedience.
• 19:47
  Completely, it confronts any kind of moral or spiritual
• 19:51
  flippancy. Think about it, if the sinless
• 19:53
  Son of God went all the way into the grave, submitted to burial
• 19:57
  to deal with sin and its consequences, then sin is
• 20:00
  definitely no slight matter, and our participation in his death
• 20:04
  through mortification or sanctification is certainly no
• 20:07
  optional adornment for the Christian life.
• 20:09
  It's essential. And maybe there's comfort here,
• 20:11
  too, for those struggling with the fear of death.
• 20:13
  I. Think so?
• 20:14
  The research suggests this clause offers deep pastoral
• 20:18
  comfort. Our Lord didn't bypass the
• 20:21
  grave. He entered it.
• 20:22
  He experienced it, and by doing so, he effectively sanctified
• 20:26
  it. He transformed that place of
• 20:28
  ultimate dread from a final prison to merely a temporary
• 20:31
  passageway for those who were in him.
• 20:34
  He went through it so we don't have to fear it in the same way.
• 20:36
  OK, so we've covered the penal substitutionary death, the
• 20:40
  historical certification of that death through burial, and now we
• 20:43
  arrive at the absolute climax, the linchpin of the entire
• 20:46
  gospel. And that he has been raised on
• 20:49
  the third day according to the scriptures and the critical
• 20:51
  insight here, the thing that just electrifies the whole
• 20:54
  statement is hidden in plain sight.
• 20:56
  In the Greek grammar, Paul chooses for the resurrection
• 20:58
  verb text and your type. What's special about that
• 21:01
  particular form of the verb to raise?
• 21:03
  Paul uses the perfect passive tense here.
• 21:06
  This is hugely significant and clearly deliberate.
• 21:09
  He could have used the simple Aoris tense text Agurthy that
• 21:12
  would have simply stated a historical fact in the past he
• 21:15
  was raised like saying he died or he was buried a completed
• 21:19
  event. OK, a snapshot of Easter
• 21:21
  morning. Exactly.
• 21:22
  Just a past event, but the perfect tense text does
• 21:26
  something more. In Greek, the perfect tense
• 21:28
  describes an action that was completed in the past, but whose
• 21:31
  effects or results continue right into the present time as a
• 21:35
  biting consequences. So not just he was raised, but
• 21:38
  he stands risen or he remains raised.
• 21:41
  That's it, precisely. The perfect tense proclaims not
• 21:44
  merely that God raised him back then on the third day, but,
• 21:47
  crucially, that he remains the Risen One.
• 21:49
  His resurrection isn't just an event we remember.
• 21:52
  It's a status he currently holds and will hold forever.
• 21:55
  It signifies a divine act with ongoing, abiding, permanent
• 21:59
  consequence. Wow, that grammatical choice
• 22:02
  carries a lot of weight. It carries enormous weight.
• 22:05
  It ensures our faith rest not just on a historical memory, but
• 22:09
  on a living, present reality. It undermines any attempt to
• 22:13
  reduce the resurrection to just a spiritual metaphor, A myth, or
• 22:17
  a subjective feeling inside us. No, Christ is risen and that
• 22:21
  state is permanent. He's alive now.
• 22:24
  And the present consequence of this permanent risen status,
• 22:27
  this texture reality, is absolutely central to our
• 22:31
  justification, isn't it? Yeah.
• 22:32
  How does that perfect tense connect specifically to our
• 22:35
  standing before God? It's the Father's ultimate
• 22:38
  sovereign seal of approval on Christ's work.
• 22:41
  The resurrection is God the Father's public vindication of
• 22:44
  the Son. It serves as the undeniable
• 22:47
  proof, the divine receipt showing that the substitutionary
• 22:50
  atonement offered on Good Friday fully accomplished exactly what
• 22:53
  it claimed to accomplish. The payment was accepted because
• 22:56
  the work was perfect and complete.
• 22:58
  God accepted the sacrifice. Yes, and when Paul says later in
• 23:02
  Romans 4.25 that Christ was delivered up for our trespasses
• 23:06
  and raised for our justification, it connects
• 23:08
  directly to this perfect tense. Because Christ remains raised,
• 23:13
  because He's alive now and ascended to the Father's right
• 23:15
  hand, He is the living guarantor of our justification.
• 23:19
  So our right standing isn't just based on a past event alone.
• 23:23
  Right. It's not just a past verdict
• 23:25
  written on fading paper somewhere.
• 23:26
  Because he is risen, our justification is a present,
• 23:30
  living, priestly reality. The perfect tense confirms that
• 23:34
  He always lives to make intercession for us.
• 23:36
  As he Drew says, he is actively applying the benefits of his
• 23:40
  sacrifice to us now. So if he only been raised a
• 23:43
  prestorist, we might worry. Is he still active?
• 23:45
  Is it still valid? Exactly.
• 23:47
  We might worry about his present capability or his ongoing
• 23:50
  advocacy, but because he remains the Risen One, our assurance
• 23:54
  isn't fragile. It rests securely on the
• 23:56
  objective reality of the living, interceding Christ, who
• 23:58
  conquered death and cannot die again.
• 24:00
  That makes the perfect tense the absolute bedrock of Christian
• 24:04
  assurance. It stops us from constantly
• 24:06
  checking our spiritual pulse, basing our hope on shifting
• 24:09
  feelings, that inward temperature the sources
• 24:12
  mentioned, and anchors it firmly on the objective Risen Lord who
• 24:16
  is actively working for us right now.
• 24:18
  Absolutely. It shifts the focus from our
• 24:20
  subjective state to his objective status.
• 24:23
  And the implications don't stop in the present.
• 24:25
  They stretch powerfully into the future as well.
• 24:28
  This resurrection clause, particularly with the perfect
• 24:30
  tense, is the ultimate eschatological guarantee.
• 24:34
  How so? The guarantee of our own
• 24:36
  resurrection. Precisely the risen Christ,
• 24:38
  because he remains risen, is called the first fruits of those
• 24:41
  who have fallen asleep and death.
• 24:42
  First fruits like the first sample of the harvest.
• 24:44
  Exactly like that. What happened to him?
• 24:47
  The transformation from a perishable human body to an
• 24:50
  imperishable glorified resurrection body is the down
• 24:53
  payment, the guarantee, and the exact pattern for the full
• 24:57
  harvest to come. His resurrection guarantees the
• 25:00
  believers future bodily resurrection.
• 25:03
  Paul argues this explicitly later in First Corinthians 15.
• 25:06
  If Christ remains risen, then so will those who belong to Him.
• 25:09
  It's the ultimate hope. It's the ultimate hope.
• 25:11
  The resurrection of Christ is the definitive in breaking of a
• 25:14
  new creation right in the middle of old creation history.
• 25:17
  Power is broken, it's sting is drawn, and the graves boastful
• 25:20
  claim on humanity is silence forever for those in Christ.
• 25:23
  And just like the death and. Burial.
• 25:25
  Yes, just like. The death, this triumphant
• 25:28
  resurrection also happened according to the Scriptures.
• 25:31
  It fulfilled specific prophecies like Psalm 16.10.
• 25:35
  You will not append in my soul to shield or let your holy One
• 25:37
  see corruption and typological patterns.
• 25:40
  Maybe like Jonah's three days in the belly of the fish
• 25:42
  foreshadowing Christ's three days in the earth, the whole
• 25:45
  gospel narrative, death, burial, resurrection, is presented as
• 25:49
  God's sovereign, fixed plan, executed precisely as foretold
• 25:53
  in his Word. Now Paul doesn't.
• 25:55
  Just state these three incredible facts, death, burial,
• 25:57
  resurrection, and leave them hanging as abstract theology.
• 26:01
  He immediately follows the creedal summary in verses 3 and
• 26:04
  4 by grounding it in concrete history.
• 26:07
  He provides that catalog of eyewitnesses in verses 5 through
• 26:10
  8. Why is that eyewitness testimony
• 26:12
  so crucial right after stating the core deposit as it anchors
• 26:15
  the entire? Message in verifiable public
• 26:18
  reality. It ensures the Gospel isn't
• 26:20
  mistaken for private revelation, subjective experience, or some
• 26:23
  kind of mystical secret. The fixed deposit is
• 26:25
  corroborated by public, checkable history.
• 26:28
  He names names he. Named specific.
• 26:30
  Identifiable people and groups. He starts with Cephas, That's
• 26:33
  Peter the leader, then the 12 acting as the official Apostolic
• 26:38
  body, then significantly, James, the Lord's own brother, who was
• 26:42
  skeptical during Jesus's earthly ministry but was clearly
• 26:46
  converted by a post resurrection appearance, then all the
• 26:50
  apostles, perhaps a wider group, and finally himself.
• 26:54
  But the most stunning? Claim is that appearance to the
• 26:57
  large group right, He appeared to more.
• 26:58
  Than 500 brothers at one time. And then Paul adds that killer
• 27:02
  detail. Most of whom are still alive,
• 27:05
  though some have fallen asleep. That's almost like a challenge.
• 27:08
  Go ask them. It's absolutely a challenge.
• 27:10
  It's. Incredibly bold, almost
• 27:12
  aggressive fact checking. Paul is essentially saying to
• 27:15
  the Corinthians and to anyone reading this letter then or now.
• 27:18
  Look, this isn't some rumor or legend that grew over time.
• 27:21
  This happened recently. There are hundreds of
• 27:23
  eyewitnesses still around. If you doubt my word, go find
• 27:25
  them. Ask them yourselves.
• 27:27
  This insistence on public, checkable history directly
• 27:31
  counters any tendency towards private mysticism or the kind of
• 27:35
  secret knowledge, esoteric gnosis that was popular in
• 27:38
  places like Corinth. The Christian faith rests on
• 27:42
  objective events witnessed by named noble people who saw the
• 27:46
  risen Lord with their own eyes. That public attestation provides
• 27:50
  immense stability against deception or doubt.
• 27:53
  OK, let's try and weave all these.
• 27:54
  Threads together now we've established the Gospels
• 27:57
  authority. It was handed on, received, not
• 28:00
  invented. We've seen its priority texting
• 28:03
  first in rank. We've examined the core content,
• 28:06
  the substitutionary death for our sins, the certifying burial
• 28:09
  and the abiding resurrection, all according to the scriptures.
• 28:12
  And we've seen it grounded in eyewitness testimony.
• 28:14
  So how does this whole package, this fixed deposit secure,
• 28:18
  secure Christian living, how did it help the Corinthians and how
• 28:21
  does it help us today? It secures our Christian.
• 28:23
  Lives in, I think, 2 absolutely fundamental ways.
• 28:26
  It secures our assurance and it secures our sanctification.
• 28:28
  OK, assurance first. How does this fixed deposit give
• 28:32
  us assurance? Our assurance is secured.
• 28:34
  Because it's not based on anything subjective or internal.
• 28:36
  It doesn't rest on how spiritual we feel today, our inward
• 28:39
  temperature, or the strength of our faith.
• 28:42
  It rests entirely on objective historical facts outside of
• 28:45
  ourselves. The substitutionary death that
• 28:49
  fully paid the penalty for our sins, the empty tomb certified
• 28:52
  by the burial which proves God accepted that payment.
• 28:55
  And crucially, the present reality of the interceding high
• 28:58
  priest whose living status is guaranteed by that perfect tense
• 29:02
  text stick. We look outward to Christ's
• 29:04
  finished and ongoing work, not inward to our fluctuating
• 29:07
  experience. That's incredibly grounding.
• 29:09
  OK. What about sanctification?
• 29:11
  How does the deposit secure our growth and holiness?
• 29:14
  Sanctification is. Secured because the gospel
• 29:16
  provides not only the motivation but also the means for growth
• 29:19
  rooted in our union with Christ. In these events, like we
• 29:23
  discussed, mortification, the putting of sin to death is
• 29:26
  empowered by our union with Christ.
• 29:28
  In his burial we reckon the old self dead and buried with him,
• 29:32
  and vivification. The power to live a new
• 29:34
  righteous life flows from our union with Christ.
• 29:37
  In His resurrection we walk in newness of life, because He is
• 29:40
  risen, so the living Christ. Isn't just our justification,
• 29:44
  He's the power source for our daily obedience.
• 29:46
  Exactly. He is the.
• 29:47
  Source of all resurrection power, perseverance and hope.
• 29:50
  This tight doctrinal structure, Death, burial, resurrection,
• 29:55
  isn't just abstract belief. It studies our consciences when
• 29:58
  we fail, fuels our motivation to obey, and gives us power to
• 30:02
  actually change. It's intensely practical.
• 30:04
  And finally thinking about. The Corinthians context, and
• 30:06
  maybe our own. We have to appreciate the, well,
• 30:09
  the polemical value of Paul's incredibly precise language
• 30:13
  here. It seems designed to counter
• 30:15
  specific errors. Oh, definitely.
• 30:17
  If you're honest, we often struggle with the same
• 30:20
  tendencies as the Corinthians, don't we?
• 30:22
  Chasing after spiritual fads, trying to water down difficult
• 30:25
  doctrines, getting lazy in our ethics, focusing on
• 30:28
  personalities. Guilty as charged.
• 30:30
  Yeah, me too. But Paul's careful structure
• 30:33
  acts as a corrective. This substitutionary language
• 30:38
  for our sins directly corrects moralism, the idea that we can
• 30:42
  earn God's favor, or that Christ was just a good example.
• 30:45
  No, Paul insists, it was substitution, not merely
• 30:48
  inspiration. If you try to pay for your own
• 30:50
  sins through good works, you're effectively rejecting the
• 30:54
  sufficiency of the cross and the burial counters.
• 30:56
  The insistence on real. Death certified by the Burial
• 30:59
  corrects any philosophical evasion that tries to
• 31:02
  spiritualize Christianity and disconnected from real history
• 31:05
  and real bodies. It reminds us our faith deals
• 31:08
  with concrete events in time and space, not just lofty ideas and
• 31:11
  the combination. Of according to the Scriptures
• 31:14
  and Paul being the last witness that addresses our modern
• 31:17
  temptation to write the desire for new words or ongoing
• 31:20
  Apostolic level revelation precisely.
• 31:24
  It guards against that contemporary craving for novelty
• 31:27
  by tethering the gospel firmly and finally to the sufficient
• 31:31
  closed Canon of Scripture and the foundational Apostolic
• 31:34
  witness. The entire structure of Paul
• 31:36
  lays out here acts as a vital defense mechanism for the
• 31:39
  Church. A defense against what?
• 31:41
  Against substituting anything else, whether it's social action
• 31:44
  projects, impressive spiritual gifts, political agendas, or
• 31:49
  allegiance to charismatic personalities for the absolute
• 31:52
  core content of the fixed deposit.
• 31:54
  Christ crucified for our sins, buried and risen according to
• 31:58
  the Scriptures. If we drift from this fixed
• 32:00
  point, we lose the essential theological guardrails.
• 32:03
  Paul gave the Corinthians his core structure so they could
• 32:05
  stop being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by every
• 32:09
  human cunning, by every passing fad or personality cult.
• 32:12
  It was meant to stabilize them. So to sum it all up.
• 32:15
  Paul delivered a fixed. Deposit non negotiable.
• 32:18
  It's of first importance Tex. Tex.
• 32:20
  The period and it's a cumulative historical argument.
• 32:23
  The penal death paying sins penalty, the certified burial
• 32:28
  proving the death was real and complete, and the abiding,
• 32:31
  vindicating resurrection guaranteeing our present
• 32:34
  justification and future hope. All three are coordinate
• 32:38
  essentials, and all happened according to the Scriptures,
• 32:41
  proving God's sovereign plan from beginning to end.
• 32:44
  This is the bedrock that guarantees the stability of the
• 32:48
  entire Christian system. That's incredibly powerful.
• 32:50
  Well, concludes this whole chapter, chapter 15, by urging
• 32:54
  the Corinthians and by extension, urging you listening
• 32:56
  based on this resurrection reality, to be steadfast,
• 33:00
  immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing
• 33:03
  that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
• 33:06
  The stability this fixed gospel provides is what enables that
• 33:09
  kind of perseverance. So here's a thought to take away
• 33:13
  if the resurrection's perfect tense, the fact that Christ
• 33:16
  remains the Risen 1 guarantees the final success of His work,
• 33:20
  and therefore the ultimate significance of our work done in
• 33:22
  His name. What specific area of your life
• 33:25
  or service right now feels fruitless or futile?
• 33:29
  Where do you feel like your labor is in vain?
• 33:32
  And how might Paul's rock solid assurance grounded in the risen
• 33:35
  Christ change your perspective, your motivation, maybe even your
• 33:38
  actions this week, knowing that ultimately your labor is not in
• 33:42
  vain in the Lord? It's a great question to ponder.
• 33:44
  Something to think about. Thank you for diving deep with
• 33:46
  us today on Reformed Thinking.