One Thing Remains
Yay! I get to open this blog with an absolutely
blunt point. {I love being blunt when it is appropriate.} 1 Corinthians 15 begins with Paul reminding
the Corinthian people about the foundation of their salvation. Let’s be clear about this point. We are saved because Christ died on the cross
for our sins. Period. We are saved because Christ died on the cross
for our sins. There is no other
appropriate answer or explanation.
Nothing
else matters. It doesn’t matter when I
was baptized. {It actually doesn’t matter that I was baptized. I should be baptized in accordance with
Christ’s command, but if for some reason I die before I can be baptized it
isn’t like that is going to negate my salvation!} It also doesn’t matter what denomination I
belong to. Whether I am Lutheran or
Baptist – or some amalgamation of the two! – is irrelevant so long as I put my
faith in the fact that I am saved because Christ died on the cross for my
sins. It doesn’t matter which Lord’s Prayer
I say – or even if I choose not to say it!
Whether I believe communion to be just a symbol or to be the real
presence of Christ or even to actually change into body and blood doesn’t add
or subtract to my salvation. I am saved
because Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins. Period.
Gospel
Now, let’s
talk about this Gospel. First, notice
that Paul talks about the news in terms of the Corinthians having received the
Gospel. Nobody ever initiates
salvation. I am not saved because on
such-and-such a day I accepted Christ into my heart. I am saved because approximately 2,000 years
ago Jesus Christ died for me. I can say
that on such-and-such a day Christ’s death took on a new importance to me, but
that day is not the day upon which I was saved!
That is the day that I received my salvation because God initiated my
salvation a few millennia ago. The point
of this is to always acknowledge that I am saved because God comes to me and
God draws me to Him.
I do not ever
initiate with God. I always respond to
God’s initial action. I receive
salvation. I receive the Gospel. You receive salvation. You receive the Gospel. None of us initiate.
Without Result
After
talking about receiving salvation in verse 1, Paul talks about the Corinthians’
standing in the faith, holding fast, and not believing in vain. Let’s talk about that sequence a little. The Greek word for “hold fast” is katexo (κατέχω)
and it literally means “to continue in belief, with an added implication of
acting in accordance to that belief.”
Let’s combine this with the fact that at the end of the expression Paul
adds “unless you believed in vain.” The
Greek word that is often translated as “in vain” is actually eike (εἰκῇ) and it means
“pertaining to being without result.” So
quite literally, here is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:2. “… and by which
you are being saved if you continue to believe and practice in accordance to
your beliefs – except unless you all believed without result.”
Stop for a
moment and let that sink in. Paul seems
to be indicating that results are a natural part of the process. We are not saved because of the results, of
course. As I said above, we are saved
because Christ died for our sins on the cross.
But because we are saved, we believe.
And because we believe, we produce results from our belief. For those of you who love the book of James,
you should be very pleased with that last sentence! I’m not saying that a person without works is
not saved – that is for God to judge.
But I am saying that producing results is a natural part of the Holy
Spirit bringing us to the Father through the Son.
Gah! I’ve spent so much time on so few
verses. My space is almost gone and I
haven’t moved past the first section. Oh
well, this is why I love Paul. He is so
precise that there is so much jam-packed into every verse.
Raised From the Dead
Much of
the rest of this chapter is spent on Christ being evidence of being raised from
the dead. From the Greek construction of
the verb in verse 4 – that it is in the perfect tense, passive voice – we are
led to assume that the work of Christ’s resurrection is the work of the
Father. Christ was raised by the Father
as an ultimate sign of His power over death.
The really cool part is that if God can raise Christ, then we can trust
His promise! God can make good on His
Word. God can raise us, too! Christ is the first fruits, and as Paul says
the rest of us shall be raised when Christ returns!
Then Paul
gives us this beautiful means for understanding the resurrection. None of us can possibly know what the
incorruptible body of the life to come will look or feel like. But we can have a hint. Think of the seed. When we put a seed in the ground, it sprouts
roots and a stem. It grows to become
something that nobody could have guessed from the appearance of the seed. But it was within the seed the whole
time. So too it will be with us. None of us know what eternal life will look and
feel like, but we can know it is within us.
That truth, humbleness, spirituality, and faith that is within us will
grow and sprout into something amazing.
They will grow and sprout into something downright awesome. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for
all of us!
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ASIDE: 1
Corinthians 15:29-34 is a very confusing passage. We wonder, “what does it mean to be baptized
for the dead?” I cannot explain this
with absolute confidence. But I can
explain this deep enough to shed understanding.
It could
be that Paul is attempting to denounce an ancient practice that gratefully
never made it into mainstream Christianity.
The practice is called “vicarious baptism.” There were (and always have been!) sects that
believed that if a person believed but was not baptized that they couldn’t go
to heaven. Thus, people would be
baptized “in their place and under their name.”
It sounds a bit strange, and in truth it actually is. How another person assuming my name and being
baptized for me would actually mean anything to God is beyond my comprehension. But there were ancient sects that practiced
this belief and it never was accepted fully.
The reason it is never fully accepted is because it would violate the
whole “we are saved solely because of Jesus’ death on the cross” teaching. After all, if the absence of my baptism could
keep me from heaven, then Jesus’ death must not have been fully
sufficient! And that, my friends is
anathema and flat-out wrong. Christ’s
death is all I need. The doctrine of
vicarious baptism is a teaching that needs to be refuted.
There is a
second possibility about what Paul might mean.
Paul might mean that people who are baptized are taking the place of
those who were a part of the church but are now dead. In other words, suppose a new convert steps
into the church and picks up their calling from Christ. Usually, that calling is really just picking
up the mantle that was laid down by someone who died. Let me give an example. Jesus died (and then ascended into
heaven). With His absence, the apostles
had to step up and pick up where Jesus left off. But they eventually died, so others had to
step up. This pattern continued to the
point that all of us in God’s kingdom are just picking up the mantle from those
who went before us.
I don’t
have a great answer as to which of these is what Paul actually means – because
both are factual understandings of history.
So I present them to you to decide what you think Paul is talking
about. My money is on the latter
explanation, though. It seems to make a
fair amount of sense to me.
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