The core of the saving gospel of Christ is that the perfect Son of God came to earth, died for our sins, and rose again from the dead. Both the death and the Resurrection of Christ are crucial to the salvation message, for if Christ had not died and risen again, our faith would be futile. Without a fixed foundation and secure biblical content, our faith would be in vain. Without this core truth, our faith would be rendered irrelevant, for it is by Christ's death read more...
Paul is clarifying the gospel of Christ to the brethren in the Corinthian church and in so doing, is giving the most comprehensive statement of the good news that our salvation is secured by believing on the death, burial, and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing that needs to be added to Christ's finished work on the Cross, and there is nothing we can do to make our salvation more secure than it already is - for in Christ we are saved as a read more...
The gospel of salvation is so simple that a little child can understand and be saved, and yet learned men and clever theologians have grappled with the simplicity of this beautiful message of God's saving grace and have caused it to become one of the most complicated issues in Christendom today. And unless we return to the simple reading of the Word of truth with open eyes and a heart that is unprejudiced by unbiblical opinions and unscriptural interpretations, read more...
We are Christians because we believe that Christ died and rose again, and that His death was a substitutionary death. We believe that He paid the price for sin so that all who believe on His name would be saved. He paid the purchase price for our redemption so that those who believe on His name become God's own purchased possession - for we are in Christ and accepted in the Beloved.
Our faith is not a crutch as some unbelievers read more...
Not only was the crucifixion of the eternal Son of God foretold in Scripture, but Isaiah 53 prophesied of His burial, while in Psalm 16 there is clear evidence of His Resurrection from the dead. The death, burial, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the mainspring upon which our salvation rests, and the Holy Spirit Himself inspired holy men of God to record in advance the saving message of grace, upon which our salvation rests: "That Christ read more...
Paul reiterated the gospel of Christ crucified, buried, and Resurrected in the closing chapters of first Corinthians, together with a comprehensive treatise on the certainty of our bodily resurrection and the assurance we have in Him that we too have life immortal and will rise from the grave, in the twinkling of an eye, on the day of Christ.
Without the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Christian faith would be in read more...
Paul was keen to preach nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.. and as he starts to conclude his first epistle to the Corinthian Church we once again find him reiterating the same, simple, saving gospel truth - that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures and that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
It was by the grace of God that Saul, the pathological Christian read more...
The sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus on the Cross to pay the price for our sins, is a tiding of great joy. The free, unmerited gift of eternal life to all who believe in His name is the most wonderful addition to our redemption, but His glorious Resurrection from the dead is beyond our comprehension. Through His bodily Resurrection, He broke the power of death in the mortal bodies of all who would trust His name, and because He lives we too will live, with a read more...
Despite the Corinthian Christians being saved by grace through faith in Christ, Paul had some serious concerns about their ungodly conduct, their spiritual immaturity, their argumentative behaviour, and their abuse of spiritual gifts.
When a church fellowship allows carnality to enter its gates and permits the philosophy of the world to infiltrate its ranks, it is not surprising that false doctrines begin to proliferate and false read more...
We have a future hope that is set in the immutable Word of God and His Word is fixed, permanent, established, and eternal. That hope began the moment we were born again, when we were taken from the kingdom of darkness into the arms of our beloved Saviour, but it was planned in the heart of God in eternity past and it was cemented in heaven the moment Christ burst from the tomb and broke the power of sin, and death, and hell.
We read more...
Christians have the most wonderful and blessed hope. It is a hope that is based on scriptural facts, and the Word of God can never be broken. It is a future hope that is linked to the past, and a hope that starts and ends with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul was one of many hundreds who were eye-witnesses of the risen Lord Jesus, but Paul was also unique in the encounter that He had with Jesus of Nazareth, for Paul saw the risen Lord Jesus was in His read more...
The first Adam sinned, and we discover that death came into the world by sin. Spiritual death descended on mankind the moment that Adam sinned, triggering a slow and sad deterioration towards physical death for every man.
Every man born of woman and every woman born of man's seed, is dead in trespasses and sins, for the entire human race is positioned IN Adam, rendering all mankind as sinners in need of a Saviour. All that are read more...
Soon after the creation of the perfect world and the genesis of man, Adam sinned; and the wages of sin is death. As a result of sin, death came into the world and reigns in the life of every man, for all have sinned and all fall short of God's glory. As part of Adam's race, we are all born spiritually dead in sin and at enmity with God. Fallen man is doomed to die and death is the greatest enemy of man, for no-one can escape the beckoning call of the 'grim read more...
God has set eternity in the heart of man and believing in life after death is part of our human make-up. The certainty of the resurrection of the body is a doctrine that is clearly identified in both Old and New Testaments. The 15th chapter of first Corinthians is the most comprehensive treaties on the absolute assurance that dead bodies will come out of their graves, some to the FIRST 'Resurrection of Life Eternal' and others to the SECOND 'Resurrection of read more...
The battle of the ages between God and the satanic forces of evil, has been raging since Adam sinned in the garden and God's plan of redemption was set in motion. The man, created in God's own image, who was tasked with caring for the earth and maintaining dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every living thing on the face of the earth, failed in his task, which set in motion God's perfect plan to reinstate man's original assignment: man's read more...
Much in Paul's writing relates to the here and now, but there are passages that deal with events which are over a thousand years into the future, some of which take place at the end of Christ's millennial rule on earth, and much in 1 Corinthians 15 fits into this category, including this verse which states: "For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet." But we have to find out when this event takes place!
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Sin came into the world through one man, and death resulted from sin, causing both physical death and spiritual death to spread to all men. Although born dead in sin, at salvation we are made spiritually alive, but without the resurrection of the body our salvation would be incomplete. Without the resurrection of a body of flesh and bone, the last enemy which is death, would retain its prey.
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For a whole chapter, Paul has been deconstructing the false teaching of classical philosophers and certain religious groups, who declared that there was no resurrection from the dead. But Paul is ready to answer anyone who asks the questions: "How are the dead raised?" and "with what kind of body do they come?"
The resurrection of the dead is a doctrine that threads its way throughout both Old and New read more...
The first man, Adam, was created by God from the dust of the ground, to have dominion over the earth and all God's creatures. He was not the result of some galactic accident. The first man, Adam, was created in the image and likeness of God and had His very life-breathed into him: "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." The first man sinned and fell, read more...
There are two races of man. There are two types of human-kind. There are two distinct creations of humanity, two categories of people, and though we are all born into the first creation where the first man Adam was physically made from the dust of the earth, there is a second Man: the last Adam.
He is a heavenly Man Who existed as God from all eternity, but Who was also born into this world as the second Man. And although He was read more...
As members of a race of fallen sinners, we have the indelible imprint of the first Adam on our spirit, soul, and body. We are born dead in our sins. We are born with a corrupted sin nature, which is impregnated with wickedness and is at enmity with God, and we are born in a physical body that starts the lifelong process towards death from the moment we draw our first breath.
But God in His grace purposed before the foundation of read more...
The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, must never be divorced from God's gracious plan of redemption. Christ died to pay the price for our sin, but His Resurrection from the dead is equally staggering.
It was by His Resurrection that He broke the inescapable power of death and hell, guaranteeing eternal life to all who would believe on His name - on all who would believe that His death was the sacrifice for their sin and His read more...
We have a wonderful assurance of victory over death because Christ gained a victory through His bodily Resurrection. When Jesus rose from the grave, He broke the power of death and hell in the lives of ALL who are identified with Christ and positioned IN Him, all who are saved by grace through faith in Him, all who have been born of the Spirit of God and have received a NEW and eternal life in Christ.
The fifteenth chapter of read more...
The most comprehensive and informative treaties on the Rapture of the Christian Church and the physical resurrection of believers who have died in Christ, is found in this fifteenth chapter of Corinthians.
Paul found it necessary to confirm the certainty of our bodily resurrection, and refute sceptics who refuse to believe in a physical resurrection. He detailed Christ's own glorious Resurrection from the dead, and meticulously read more...
We are baptised into Christ by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, the moment we are born from above. Being placed into His Body or 'positioned in Christ' brings with it some amazing privileges from the Lord. We are not only declared righteous by the Father and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but we become part of an entirely new creation, with Jesus as our federal Head.
In Him, we receive an entirely new and eternal life. We read more...
God has, by grace, promised those that trust in the Lord Jesus as Saviour, the most astonishing riches of His grace and inheritance in His glory; but without the death of our Lord Jesus Christ as payment for our sins we would never have experienced these joys, and without the Resurrection of our Lord, the power of death and hell would not have been broken. Christ's glorious Resurrection from the dead is the unfailing assurance of our hope of glory in Christ.
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God has an amazing resurrection programme for all who trust in Christ as Saviour, and this is linked with the permanent and total destruction of our last enemy: the final and full elimination of sin and death.
Christ Jesus was the first fruit from the dead, and His sacrificial death and glorious Resurrection broke forever the power of sin, death, hell, and the law, in the lives of all who would trust in the only begotten Son of read more...
When Christ shouted, "It Is Finished," He had paid the full price for our sins, and there is now no condemnation to all who believe on His name. When Christ burst forth from the sealed tomb, the angels joyfully proclaimed, "He is Risen!" Our resurrected Saviour broke the power of death and hell forever, and the enemy of man's soul became a defeated adversary who was bound for the lake of fire.
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The fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians provides the most comprehensive treaties on the resurrection of the body, and life eternal for the believer, in Scripture.. when this corruptible body shall put on incorruption, and this mortal frame will be clothed with immortality.
It is because of the absolute certainty of our resurrection from the dead, when we shall be clothed with a new body, like unto Christ's glorious, resurrected read more...