Easter is about Jesus

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,”

1. INTRODUCTION

a. I came to this sermon conclusion while talking with my daughter Gloria. Gloria was explaining to me about how excited she was waiting for Easter about how she will go on a Easter egg hunt and how she will get candy and chocolate. Her enthusiasm (열정) caused me to ask myself 2 questions. First, what is Easter truly about? Second, am I as excited about Easter as she is?

b. As I thought about these questions, I came to this text. In this text, we see clearly what Easter is about. It’s about Jesus. It’s about the Gospel. So in this text, we see 3 components of the Gospel.

2. BODY

a. The Components of the Gospel

i. Christ died for our sins (15:3)

1. We start in verse 3. I love this verse because it gives us so much insight about the Apostle Paul and his love for Christ. Look at verse 3. It says, “I delivered to you as of first importance.” For a better understanding of this, read verse 1. Paul is saying I am making known to you. I am telling you the Gospel I told you prior, I am reminding you in the Gospel that you accepted.

2. The point that Paul here is making is, listen, this is the Gospel that you know and love. This is the Gospel that you are currently standing on. And not only that, this is the single most important thing that I can pass on to you.

3. I really love Paul’s heart in this phrase “as of first importance.” It really shows us the heart of Paul’s ministry. I delivered to you the Gospel of which I received, and this is of most importance. Why and what is it? Well we see what this Gospel is.

4. The first thing is, It is that Christ died for sinners. Before we go over this point, we want to go over the means of the Gospel. If you look at the end, it says according to the Scriptures. This is an interesting phrase because Paul was not speaking of the completed canon. What Paul was referring is, the Gospel found in the OT. Up to this point, the only Scriptures Paul had was the OT. So when Paul declares here according to the Scriptures, he’s actually speaking of the totality of the OT. What Paul was teaching here is that the whole OT is a summation of this Christ. Everything in the OT was pointing and referring to Him.

5. One point that people make is that they think the OT is different than the NT. They see a God who is wrathful and angry in the OT and loving in the NT. But clearly, what Paul is stating here is, that the whole OT points to Christ. This does not mean every text is about Christ, but the whole OT is pointing, referring to Him.

6. Now we want to talk about the first tenet of the Gospel. It is that Christ died for our sins. This phrase is very interesting. The first thing we can gather about this statement is that He died because there seemed to be a disconnect between God’s people and Himself. He died for a cause. In this case, it was our sin. Because our sin separated us from God, Jesus came to die so that this separation between us and God would be reconciled. He would become the reconciliation between us and God. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 remind us of this. Christ is the mediator between us and God who died as a ransom for us.

7. How marvelous is this statement? This is the greatest statement in all of the Scriptures. The second great reality about His death is that it tells us the purpose of why Christ came. We are saddened by the fact that Jesus died for us, but because He died for us, we have new life in Him. This verse says that Jesus died, but He had a purpose. He died for our sins. If you think about this verse, it actually tells us the purpose of why Christ came. He came to die for our sins. Let that soak in. Think about this truth.

8. When I think about this statement, it moves me to think that God would die for my sins. It is an astounding truth to think about the greatness of God’s faithfulness to His promises. To think that Jesus would promise these things, that He would die on the cross for sinners and then to realize that I am that sinner that He died for, what a humbling truth. 2 Corinthians 5:21[1] God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might have the righteousness of God through Him. We would be made righteous because of Him. My sins would be cleansed because of His death.

[1]2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

9. It was His purpose in coming here was to bring to reality, to show the Gospel plan of salvation to us. It was to reveal the Father’s plan to redeem mankind, not because we are great, but because He is great. What a Gospel.

ii. Christ was buried (15:4)

1. Now we are thinking, why is Jesus being buried important? The idea of being buried is important because it verifies the fact that Jesus was indeed dead. There were many theories that stated Jesus never really died. Some people have posited the idea that Jesus never really died, but fainted. They say He was pretending to be dead and when everyone left, He got up and pretended that He was dead. Well, as we know from the resurrection account, it was clear He was dead.

2. Now, if we know and believe that He truly died, why is this important? Why is this significant? If we understand this correctly, we will understand why the death of Christ is crucial to the Gospel. We want to look at Romans 7:2. Romans 7:2 tells us that a husband or wife is bound to their husband while their spouse is alive but they are free when that person dies.

3. This is why the fact that Jesus’s true death is so important. According to the law, only death will sever an official marriage. We must first understand that before we came to Christ, we were all married to our sins. We loved our sin. But when Christ died, and we also died in Christ, because of His death, we were now free from our marriage to sin. This is how we were freed from our sins. Through His death, the marriage to our sins was broken. If Jesus was not truly dead, then we’d still be bound to our sins. But because of His death, because we died in Christ, we were freed from our old life. This is why Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15:17 that if Christ did not die, we are still dead in our sins.

4. This is also why Jesus teaches that we must be born again. We can be born again only if we die. It would make no sense to tell a person they must be born again if they were already alive. But, if that person was dead, then we can tell them, they must be born again. Death is what frees us from our bondage to sin. Jesus’s death frees us from that bondage so that we would have new life in Christ.

5. This is the Gospel, that Jesus bore the wrath that was for me. He died for me so that I would be free from this marriage and could be brought near to Him. What a Savior.

iii. Christ rose from the grave (15:5)

1. Lastly, Jesus rose from the grave. I love how it says that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Again, all truth that we know about Christ is given to us in the Scriptures. Now it seems to be a problem that the Scriptures would speak of a three day resurrection in the Old Testament because it seems like a New Testament idea. Afterall, the Gospels would record that Jesus would die and be raised on the third day (Mark 9:31).

2. But if we read Hosea 6:2, it shows that God will raise us up on the third day, that we might live before Him. Hosea 5:13-14 shows a picture of destruction, how God will display His wrath upon Israel until they return to Him. This is why in 6:1, it says He has torn us, But He will heal us. He has inflicted pain to us, but He will resurrect us up on the third day. The picture here shows us, that after affliction, God will raise us up on the third day as He has done for Jesus.

3. This idea of raising on the third day seems to have significance in that just as God will restore us after three days that Christ would also be raised on the third day. So when we go back to 1 Corinthians 15:4, we see that it is according to the Scriptures. God would show restoration on the third day. In this case, it is the resurrection of Christ.

4. As we think about the resurrection, what is the significance of His resurrection? Let’s turn to Romans 4:25[2]. Romans 4:18-22 speaks of Abraham’s faith in God and because He believed, righteousness was credited to him. Verse 23-24 tells us that this righteousness was not just credited to Abraham, but to us all, who believe in Him who raised Jesus from the dead. Then verse 25, It tells us that Jesus was delivered for our sins, and was raised for our justification.

[2]Romans 4:25 He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.

5. Why is this important? Because justification is a legal declaration. It is God’s statement that because of Christ’s death, we are free from our sins. And because of His death, it is only through Christ that we have received this salvation, that we are truly forgiven and in Christ, that we are absolutely righteous.

6. As I was studying, I was reading Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones and he wrote why this was important. He was explaining about Abraham and he wrote, “To Abraham was made the staggering promise that through his seed, the nations of the world should be blessed, and from him should come the Messiah. And he believed it. You and I have got to believe something that is equally staggering, that Christ was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

7. Why is the resurrection important? Because the resurrection tells us that salvation is found not in our belief in God, but on God’s declaration and everyone who believes in this declaration, will be saved. We have a lot of problems believing that God could and would forgive me of my sins. But He’s proved it by sending His son to die on a cross and raising Him from the dead. If God did that to prove that He is faithful in His promises, we must trust that He will do the same for us.

8. As I was thinking through this, I remembered Mark 2:9[3]. Jesus just healed the paralytic man and the scribes there were asking themselves, “who can forgive sins but God alone?” Then in verse 9, Jesus asks, Which is easier, to say Your sins are forgiven or to say get up and walk? It is then that this man got up and walked. Well this is the same example for us. God has declared that our sins are forgiven and proves it by raising Christ from the dead. I pray that we would trust Him at His word. I pray that we would not live our lives doubting in God because of our failures, but trust in God in Him because of His faithfulness.

[3]Mark 2:9 “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’?

3. CONCLUSION