Here at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul returns to the theme of the bodily resurrection of Jesus: Christ really, physically died and rose again. You’ll probably notice that many of the hymns we sing this morning are associated with the Lenten or Easter seasons. While we typically encounter Christ The Lord Is Risen Today, Man Of Sorrows, Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed, Christ Is Risen! Hallelujah, or I Know That My Redeemer Lives in the springtime, every Lord’s day is a kind of “Easter Sunday.” As Paul says, it is of “first importance” that the Savior bled and died “for man the creature’s sin.” Because our glorious King lives again, the sting of death is taken away. Because Christ is risen, “henceforth never death or hell shall us enthrall.” Our Redeemer lives to bless us, to plead our cause, and to crush the fiends of hell. Because these simple truths are so foundational to our faith, we must be reminded of them again and again. So, to use Luther’s language in Christ Jesus Lay In Death’s Strong Bands, “let us keep the festival to which the Lord invites us.” —Henry C. Haffner
Key Words: Gospel, Preach, Received, Believe, Grace, Died, Buried, Raised, Appeared
Keystone Verses: 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.
(1 Corinthians 15:3-5)
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 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. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.