In Accordance with the Scriptures
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Opening Illustration
Opening Illustration
Beloved, what if we had each person that witnessed the resurrected Lord come up here this morning and talk for 15 minutes giving a testimony to what they saw.
Wouldn’t that be amazing?
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Now, if we listened to the testimony of all the people that Jesus appeared to, we would be here all day...
And all night...
And Monday and Monday night...
And Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday...
And sometime early Friday morning they would just be wrapping up the testimony.
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You see, Beloved, it would take over 128 hours straight just to hear, for 15 minutes each, the testimony of those that saw the Lord after He rose.
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The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most provable historical events...
The eye witness testimony is truly spectacular...
And on top of that, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is prophesied and recorded in the Scriptures.
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So, please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians.
We will conduct our study in Chapter 15 and focus on verses 1 through 8.
Our message this morning is titled “In Accordance with the Scriptures.”
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As you are turning to our passage today, please keep in mind this fact:
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in all of history...
It is also the most important doctrine of our faith...
For if there is no resurrection, then our faith is in vain...
But praise the Lord, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the surest events ever to take place.
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So, this morning we will cover three main points:
1) The Gospel
2) The Scriptures
And...
3) The Witnesses
Opening Prayer
Opening Prayer
Before we consider our text, please join me in prayer...
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Heavenly Father...
You are our mighty and awesome God...
You are patient and full of love even for those who have rebelled against You...
Your love for us led to the sending of Your Son into our wicked and broken world.
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Help us to never take that fact for granted...
Help us to share the Good News of Your Son’s sacrifice and resurrection with the lost...
We want to be used by You, Lord.
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Thank You for the gift of the Scriptures that point to Your Son...
Thank You for the gift of the Holy Spirit who also points to Your Son...
And thank You for sending Jesus so that He would take our judgement and restore our relationship with You.
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And it is in Jesus’ name we pray all these things...
Amen.
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Let’s turn to our text for today:
Reading of the Text
Reading of the Text
1 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.
So, let’s look at our first point...
1) The Gospel
1) The Gospel
Verses 1-2: 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.
The Apostle Paul starts off this passage with a reminder to the church at Corinth...
You see, Beloved, Paul wants to remind the Corinthians of the Gospel message that he previously preached to them...
And that Gospel message, aka the Good News of Jesus Christ, is the only true message that can save.
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So, Paul says that the Corinthians who truly believed in this message...
They are saved and they are truly being saved.
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You see, the phrase “you are being saved” refers to how believers experience salvation in part now (in the sense of beginning their relationship with Christ without the burden of sin standing between them and God), but this salvation will be complete when Christ returns and they are unified with God for eternity.
Thus, salvation can be broken down into stages.
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The first stage is Justification...
That is the moment one surrenders and genuinely believes in the Good News of Christ and by Grace alone, through faith alone one is found to be in right standing with God.
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The second stage is Sanctification...
That is the time from Justification until the day we draw our last breathe...
If one is truly born-again, then they will start to become more like Christ...
They will grow in their spiritual maturity...
And they will advance in their walk with Christ.
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The third and final stage is Glorification...
That is the moment one passes from this life on earth and enters God’s peace in the age to come...
And after the White Throne Judgment, all sin and pain and suffering will be removed...
And we will get resurrected bodies like our Lord had.
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That is all great...
Except if you did not truly believe and your faith is in vain...
Then we have a big problem.
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You see, Beloved, when Paul says, “unless you believed in vain,” he recognized and called to the attention the members of the church of Corinth that some of them may have had a shallow, non-saving faith.
Some believed only as the demons believed...
Meaning they were convinced the gospel was true...
They had a head knowledge of a bunch of facts...
Jesus is Lord...
Jesus is the Son of God...
Jesus is fully God and fully man...
Jesus’s death on the cross paid the price for sinners that put their trust in Him...
And the list goes on...
All true facts...
All facts that are believed by demons too...
However, there is no real love for God, Christ, and righteousness...
There is no real surrender of ones will and desires....
There is no real trust or relationship with Jesus...
Well, Beloved, that kind of faith is no faith at all...
As James 2:19 says:
19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!
But as James says in his epistle and Paul is saying now in his letter to the Corinthians...
Watch out for believing in vain.
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In fact, the “if” clause in verse 2 which says, “if you hold fast to the word I preached to you”...
That clause implies that Paul believes that many of the Corinthians are really holding firmly to the Word of God and are therefore saved.
So, the phrase “unless you have believed in vain” means that the gospel assures salvation unless the supposed faith they had was actually empty and worthless and therefore unenduring.
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Thus, if you have saving faith...
You will never lose it
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But, if you have lost your faith...
It is because you never had it.
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That faith that Paul is talking about is faith in the Gospel message...
Therefore, before we proceed any further...
We need to clarify and clearly spell out the Gospel that saves.
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First, we need to understand why God created us in the first place...
Was it be because God was lonely?
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No, that can’t be...
We believe in a Triune God...
Three persons...
Father, Son, Holy Spirit...
But only one being.
So, God was never lonely.
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So, again, why did God create us?
Beloved, look with me at Isaiah 43:6–7, which says:
6 I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
So, God made all of us for His glory...
That is also why God made us in His own image as Genesis 1:27 says:
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
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Therefore, every human being is called upon to live for God’s glory...
As 1 Corinthians 10:31 says:
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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Unfortunately, instead of living for God, we as humans chose to live for ourselves...
Adam and Eve, our parents and the first humans...
They where given Paradise...
But they threw it away so they could be like God.
Genesis 3:1-7 records:
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
But that is not all...
All of us are guilty for all of us have followed the footsteps of our original parents...
As Romans 3:23 says:
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
And as Romans 1:21-23 says:
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
The reality is that none of us has loved, trusted, thanked, obeyed or treasured God as we ought...
We all fall desperately short.
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Now, falling short and being in sin is not something that can be easily brushed off, Beloved...
We are not talking about a small thing...
For the price of sin...
Even the most minute of sins is death!
Romans 6:23 does not pull any punches:
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are not talking about just a physical death but we are talking about eternal death...
Or as Matthew 25:46 puts it:
46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
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Now if the story stopped right there is would be pretty sad and depressing...
If that was it, then we are all wasting our time this morning...
But, Beloved...
There is so much more to the Gospel!
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At the time that God say fit...
In that perfect time...
God the Father sent His Son into our wicked and broken world...
The Father sent His Son to give rebels like you and me a way to eternal life!
As John 3:16-17 says:
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Likewise consider Galatians 3:13, which says:
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
And look at the truth recorded in Romans 5:8–9, which says:
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
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Jesus was crushed by the Father for His beloved sheep who hear His voice!
The prophet Isaiah said this would happen 700 years before Jesus was even sent into our world...
Beloved, look with me at Isaiah 53:3–12 and observe this powerful truth regarding the punishment and agony Christ suffered for us:
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.
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So, to gain eternal life has nothing to do with meriting your way into Heaven...
Trust me, all the good you can accomplish in your life will never make up for all sin debt you have on your head...
But Christ...
He was perfect...
He was sinless...
He was fully man so He is qualified to take our place...
And He is also fully God so He can survive the full wrath of God the Father...
Thus we are called to surrender to Him is we are to experience eternal life...
As Romans 10:9-10 says:
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Likewise, look at Ephesians 2:8-9, which says:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
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Christ did not just defeat sin...
He also defeated death...
And the grave could not hold Him...
After three days Jesus rose form the dead which was a sign that the Father accepted His Son’s sacrifice...
As Luke 24:1–3 says:
1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.
2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
And the resurrection was absolutely critical to our faith...
As 1 Corinthians 15:14-17 says:
14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
15 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.
16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
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Then, as followers of Christ...
We are given the gift of the Holy Spirit according to John 14:26, which says:
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
And we become a brand new creation...
Our old self dies...
And we are born again!
Or as Galatians 2:20 describes it:
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
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Beloved, this is the Gospel message that Paul shared with the church in Corinth...
This truth of of the upmost importance...
And that takes us to our second point.
2) The Scriptures
2) The Scriptures
Verses 3-4: 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,
So, Paul starts off this next section by stating that the Gospel message...
Which included the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ...
Is of the up most importance...
And that truth is attested to in the Scriptures.
As the Pillar New Testament Commentary on 1 Corinthians says:
“Paul uses four key verbs to summarize the gospel:
Christ died, was buried, was raised, and was seen (or appeared).
The most prominent verbs are the first and third (died and was raised)—the two modified by ‘in accordance with the Scriptures.’
The second and third verbs (was buried and was seen) each seem to reinforce and confirm the verb that precedes.
Christ’s burial reinforces the fact that he truly died.
The fact that Christ was seen by witnesses after his resurrection confirms the fact that he had truly been raised from the dead.”
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Now the Old Testament Scriptures that Paul would have had in mind include but are not limited to:
Psalm 16:10, which says:
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
Hosea 6:2, which says:
2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.
And Jonah 1:17:
17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Now, if you are doing the math and are trying to understand why Jesus rose up on Sunday but three days from His burial seem like it should be Monday...
You have to understand Jewish thinking in that day...
According to Jewish reckoning, “three days” would include parts of Friday afternoon, all of Saturday, and Sunday morning...
That is why we can say Jesus rose again in three days.
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So, Beloved, we can build our faith on the testimony found in Scripture...
For it is Scripture that will make us wise to the way of salvation...
Or as 2 Timothy 3:14-17 puts it:
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it
15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Likewise, take a look at what is proclaimed in Romans 15:4:
4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Furthermore, we are show with the example of the Bereans that our doctrines that we hold...
The beliefs that we live by...
The worldview we subscribe to...
All of it should be built from the ground up on Scripture...
Just look at Acts 17:11–12, as it says:
11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.
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Paul does not only appeal to the Word of God...
He also appeals to first hand eye witnesses...
And that takes us to our third and final point.
3) The Witnesses
3) The Witnesses
Verses 5-8: 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.
Beloved, Paul presents an impressive list of eyewitnesses...
And his fourfold repetition of the phrase “he appeared” indicates Paul’s emphasis in this passage...
That the eyewitness serve as even further proof that Christ was raised from the dead!
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Paul here is not presenting an exhaustive list...
For example, Paul did not include the very first eyewitnesses of the resurrection...
The women!
Look with me at John 20:14–16, which says:
14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
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We need to consider Paul’s audience...
The Corinthians have challenged his apostolic office...
So, Paul puts together this list that includes himself and the other apostles...
And he starts with the leader of the apostles...
“Cephas” which is the Aramaic name for the apostle Peter.
He and John were the first of the men who followed Jesus to know that his tomb was empty.
We know this from John 20:3-9, which says:
3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb.
4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.
6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there,
7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.
8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;
9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
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Next, Paul mentions “The Twelve” which includes Judas’s replacement, Matthias...
There are many instances in the New Testament of the resurrected Jesus interacting with The Twelve, including John 20:26, which says:
26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
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Then Paul mentions that along with The Twelve, Jesus was seen by 500 witnesses...
And most of these witnesses were “still alive” and therefore able to give firsthand testimony to the truth of this tradition, “though some have fallen asleep.”
“Fall asleep” is an early Christian expression for dying.
As the Reformation Study Bible says:
“Most of those who witnessed the resurrection appearances were still living at the time Paul wrote this letter, so it was possible for anyone to check the facts.
Particularly significant is the reference to ‘more than five hundred brothers at one time,’ for it shows that the appearances cannot be explained away as mere personal hallucinations.”
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Next, Paul mentions that Jesus appears to James...
The “James” mentioned is not John’s brother, the apostle executed by Herod Agrippa, but the half-brother of Jesus...
This James eventually became the leader of the church in Jerusalem.
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Now James, during Jesus’s earthly ministry was not a believer..
Though Jesus was his half-brother, he though that that His claims to be the Messiah where crazy...
Jesus resurrecting from the dead changed all that for him.
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Paul then lists that “all the apostles” saw Jesus..
This refers to the group of apostles that is larger than “The Twelve,” and included James and Paul.
Additionally, this may also refer to the 72 mentioned in Luke, and perhaps others...
All of these people saw the risen Christ.
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Finally, Paul mentions himself as an eyewitness...
Paul speaks of seeing the resurrected Christ in his epistles and Luke records Paul’s experience on the Damascus road as told in Acts 9:3–5, which says:
3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.
4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
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There are a few key terms we need to define...
The phrase “one untimely born” refers to how Paul was saved too late to be one of the 12 apostles.
Christ had ascended before he was converted.
But through a miraculous appearance, Christ revealed Himself to Paul...
And according to divine purpose, Paul was made an apostle.
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Again the Reformation Study Bible has an informative note for us to consider:
“The Greek word rendered ‘one untimely born’ typically refers to a miscarriage or infant born prematurely, so Paul may allude to the fact that, unlike the Twelve (including Matthias, Judas’ successor), he did not experience an extended ‘gestation period’ of association with Jesus during His earthly ministry.
What the apostle means is suggested by the phrase ‘last of all.’
The appearances of the risen Lord had ceased with His ascension, and Paul was a persecutor of the church when he received his calling to be an apostle.
Although Paul had not been with Jesus during His earthly ministry, he was granted the privilege of seeing Jesus risen from the dead, and was commissioned as the last apostle, with a special ministry to the Gentiles.
Paul strongly suggests that the apostolic office was a unique, foundational gift to the church, not one expected to continue in later generations.”
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Likewise, the New International Commentary on the New Testament on 1 Corinthians say:
“Hence the risen Lord’s appearance to Paul was ‘as to one abnormally born.’
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The problem with that view is twofold.
First, Paul includes the article with the noun, hence ‘as to the ektrōma’; second, the word literally refers to any kind of premature birth (abortion, stillbirth, or miscarriage).
Thus the word comes to be used figuratively to refer to something horrible or freakish.
Since this is such an unusual term of deprecation, and since it occurs with the article, the ‘miscarriage,’ it has often been suggested that the Corinthians themselves have used the term to describe Paul, as one who because of his personal weaknesses is something of a ‘freak’ in comparison with other apostles, especially Apollos and Peter.
Others have suggested that the term is a play on Paul’s name—Paulus, ‘the little one.’
Hence they dismissed him as a ‘dwarf.’
This has the advantage of helping to explain the unusual ‘digression’ that follows, where he in fact allows that he is ‘least’ of all the apostles; nonetheless God’s grace worked the more abundantly in his behalf.”
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Paul also says he was “last of all” the apostles, and felt himself to be the “least.”
So, we must remember that one of the qualifications for apostleship was seeing the risen Lord.
Thus, when Paul says he is “last of all,” this suggests that Paul thought there would be no more apostles chosen after him.
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So, if anyone today claims they are an apostle or they are part of a line of apostolic succession...
Run the other way!
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As we have seen, the Word of God is enough...
For the Scriptures have the words of life...
The Scriptures prophesied Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection...
And the Scriptures record the over 500 eyewitnesses that saw the risen Christ.
Closing Illustration
Closing Illustration
As this message comes to a close...
I would like you to consider this:
It was the middle of the 1800s and a man by the name of Simon Greenleaf was teaching a class on evidence of law at Harvard University.
Greenleaf was considered by many to be the greatest expert on evidence of law the world has ever known.
He had been praised for his knowledge and when it comes to the question of what constitutes evidence, Greenleaf's credentials are impeccable.
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Greenleaf had one non-negotiable rule when he taught in the classroom at Harvard.
The rule was simple:
“Never make up your mind about any significant matter without first considering the evidence.”
Greenleaf set this rule in place and applied it in all areas of life except when it came to religion.
He was a Jew that did not believe in Christianity but one day in class the subject of the resurrection came up.
There was a debate on both sides of the topic and Greenleaf proclaimed to his class,
“I don't believe in the resurrection.”
One student courageously spoke up and asked:
“Yes, Professor, but have you considered the evidence?”
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At that moment, Greenleaf realized that he had not considered the evidence and from that day forward he set out to study the evidence of the resurrection with the desire to disprove it.
After much time studying the evidence with an open mind, Greenleaf came to this conclusion,
“If the evidence of Christ's resurrection were presented to any unbiased jury in the world, they would have to conclude that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.”
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Greenleaf was so convicted by the evidence that he became a Christian and wrote about his research of the resurrection in a book released in 1846 known as “The Testimony of the Evangelists.”
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Greenleaf went on to make this observation,
“According to the laws of the legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than just about any other event in history.”
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Share the truth of the resurrection with courage and confidence for it is the most important truth that needs to be shared with a dying world.
1 Peter 1:3 declares:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Now, Beloved today is a day to focus on Christ’s resurrection...
But we can’t appreciate the wonderful news of the resurrection without bringing back our focus to the cross one more time...
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And it is now about Christ’s sacrifice that we bring our attention to.
Communion
Communion
As we begin our communion service, I want to invite every genuinely born-again believer in the room to partake in this act together.
If you do not yet know the Lord and do not have a relationship with Him...
Or if you are under church discipline from this church or another church...
Then I will ask that you wait until you have resolved your issue before participating.
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As you came in, you should have picked up a communion packet if you are joining us.
This has both the bread and the juice in a convenient package.
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If you have not received one of these, please raise your hand, and someone will get you one.
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Before we join in communion together, I would like us to consider Hebrews 12:2, which says:
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
As found in the Ligonier Ministries article titled, “Looking to Jesus” which says:
By faith, the old covenant church performed mighty deeds, received many blessings, and sacrificed their lives rather than abandon the faith.
They did all these things in eager expectation of the day of Christ, the day that they never saw in their lifetimes but only greeted from afar.
The lives of these saints show us that we live in a better age since we have experienced Jesus not from afar and in shadows, but in reality.
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Because these saints were able to continue trusting in Christ despite never seeing Him, how much more then are we able to maintain our trust in Him?
These saints cheer us on, reminding us that we live in a better age, an age in which the final fulfillment of all God’s promises have begun.
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Yet, as we wait for Christ to consummate all things, we find that our situation is not entirely different from that of the old covenant saints.
We too have a race to run with endurance.
We too have to cast aside sins that hinder us so that we will cross the finish line.
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We will only be able to do this if we look to Jesus who is the “founder and perfecter of our faith.”
We must keep the eyes of faith upon our Lord and look to nothing else or we will not endure.
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These exhortations might lead us to assume that the author of Hebrews believed that those with true faith are not secure in their salvation.
However, today’s verse tells us that this is not the case.
If Jesus founds and perfects true faith, then all with true faith cannot lose it.
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Nevertheless, we demonstrate that Jesus has given us faith and that He perfects it only as we exercise this faith in the midst of adversity.
Jesus is our example of what it means to persevere, for He, looking to the joy that would come, endured the suffering of the cross and is therefore now seated at the right hand of God.
He was obedient to God in the midst of the worst suffering imaginable.
Therefore we too must be obedient if we call Him Lord.
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Jesus, however, is not only an example of persevering faith, He is also its object.
John Owen reminds us that Jesus is the one “in whom we place our faith, trust, and confidence, with all our expectation of success in our Christian course.
Without this faith and trust in him, we will derive no benefit from his example.”
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So, Beloved...
Let’s all take a moment right now in silent prayer to thank the Lord for all He did for us...
(MOMENT OF SILENCE)
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Tom, will you pray before we partake in the bread:
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The Word of God says in Luke 22:19:
19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
(TAKE THE BREAD)
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Adrian, will you pray before we partake in the cup:
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The Word of God says in Luke 22:20:
20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
(TAKE THE CUP)
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With that, we conclude the communion portion of our service.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray...
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Heavenly Father...
If anyone hearing this message right now does not know You in a saving way:
Please Lord, give them a Damascus Road experience that they will never forget...
Reveal Yourself to them in a way that they cannot deny it.
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I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
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For those hearing this message who already know You:
Remind us daily of the precious gift we have been given due t the sacrifice of Your Son...
And help us to keep the vitalness of the resurrection top of mind at all times.
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Again, I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
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It is in Jesus’ name we pray all these things...
To God be all the glory.
Amen.
