Part 1: Good news to be told

Welcome to the first study of this course. In the Introduction, we saw that evangelism means proclaiming good news: proclaiming to people who Jesus Christ is and what He has done, and calling them to turn to Him in repentance and faith.

But what exactly is the news? If we are going to proclaim it, we had better be sure of it.

Let us start with a simple thought. The world changes before our eyes, and the older we get, the faster it seems to change. But some things never change. Human nature has not changed: we are still the selfish, sinful people we have always been.

And so our greatest need has not changed either. We need to be forgiven by the God who made us, and brought back into a right relationship with Him.

And the good news that meets that need has not changed in two thousand years.

So in this first part we go to the passage where the apostle Paul sums up the gospel he preached everywhere: First Corinthians, chapter fifteen, verses one to eleven.

First, a little background. Corinth was a large and busy port city in Greece, on the narrow neck of land between two seas. Ships and traders came there from all over the Roman world. It had many temples, and it was known for its loose living.

Paul had arrived there alone, some years before he wrote this letter. Acts chapter eighteen tells the story.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to visit them and he stayed and worked with them because they were tentmakers by trade, just as he was. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks alike. (Acts 18:1–4, BSB)

Notice how ordinary this is. Paul earned his living making tents with a married couple, and every week he reasoned with people about Christ. A church began. Over the next year and a half, many in Corinth believed.

But by the time Paul wrote First Corinthians, some in that church had begun to say that there is no resurrection of the dead. So in chapter fifteen Paul goes back to the very beginning. Before he answers them, he reminds them of the gospel itself.

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1–2, BSB)

Look at the four things Paul says about the gospel. He preached it. They received it. They stand firm in it. And by it they are saved.

So the gospel is not only the first lesson of the Christian life, something to leave behind once we have moved on to deeper things. It is the ground Christians stand on every day. Even a church needs to be reminded of it, and so do we. If we are to proclaim the gospel to others, we first need to keep hearing it ourselves.

Then Paul adds a warning that we need to hold firmly to the word, otherwise, we have believed in vain. The stakes could not be higher. Hold on to this gospel, and you will be saved. Let go of it, and you will be lost.

Paul is not saying that God's true children can lose their salvation. True faith perseveres. A faith that is real holds on to Christ to the end, because God keeps it. A faith that lets go of Christ shows that it was never the real thing. It was believing “in vain”.

Here is a way to remember it. It is true that once someone is truly saved, they are always saved. But one of the ways God's saving work shows itself is that the person goes on believing the gospel. It is not enough to look back to a day long ago when we once believed. The question is: are we still standing on it today?

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures… (1 Corinthians 15:3–4, BSB)

Before we look at the message, look at the first words: “what I received I passed on”. Paul did not invent the gospel. He received it, and he passed it on.

That is what every Christian who proclaims the gospel does. We are messengers, not inventors. We do not make the message more attractive by changing it, and we do not leave out the parts people dislike.

Spurgeon used a picture for this. A preacher, he said, should be like a clear window that lets the sunlight through unchanged, not like a coloured window that tints the light with its own colours. We all add something of ourselves, he admitted. But the less we add to the message, the better.

And Paul says this message is “of first importance”. There are many true and precious things in the Christian faith. But this is the centre, and everything else hangs on it.

Let us take the message one phrase at a time.

Christ… The good news is about a person. “Christ” is not a surname. It is a title. It means the Anointed One, the King God had promised to send. And Paul means Jesus of Nazareth.

Died… The good news is about something that happened: a real death, on a real day, outside the walls of Jerusalem. It is history, not an idea.

For our sins… This tells us why He died. Jesus did not die only as a good man who was badly treated, or as an example of courage. He died in the place of sinners. He carried the guilt of their sins, and the punishment for it, so that they could be forgiven.

But we must be careful here. We must never think that the Father was angry and unwilling to forgive, and that the Son had to die to talk Him round. The cross was God's own plan of love. God did not start to love us because Christ died. Christ died because God loved us. The Bible puts it like this.

But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8, BSB)

“While we were still sinners.” Not after we had made ourselves better.

And Paul adds, “according to the Scriptures”. The death of Christ was no accident, and no defeat. God had promised it long before.

But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5–6, BSB)

Seven hundred years before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah wrote these words. Notice the words: He and our. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him.

And who laid it on Him? “The LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” Here is the heart of the gospel, written centuries before the cross: one taking the place of many.

This is the kind of Scripture Paul means: Isaiah fifty-three, and others such as Psalm sixteen, which speaks of God not letting His Holy One see decay.

Then Paul says, “He was buried”. It may seem a small detail, but it matters. Burial shows that Jesus really died. His body was laid in a tomb.

And then the great turn in the news: “He was raised on the third day”. Death could not hold Him.

Why does this matter so much? Paul himself tells us, a few verses later in the same chapter.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:17, 20, BSB)

If Jesus had died and stayed dead, Paul says, our faith would be futile. We would still be in our sins. A dead Saviour cannot save.

“But Christ has indeed been raised.” The resurrection is God's own declaration that the payment for sin was accepted, and that Jesus is who He said He is.

And Paul calls Him “the firstfruits”. At harvest time, the first sheaf was a sign that the whole harvest was coming. Christ's resurrection is the first of many. Everyone who belongs to Him will be raised too.

So notice what kind of message this is. It is not “try harder”. It is not “here is a way to improve your life”. It is: here is what God has done, in Christ. The good news is not about what we do for God, but about what He has done for us.

Now Paul lists the witnesses of this good news.

and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth. (1 Corinthians 15:5–8, BSB)

The witnesses are Cephas, who is Peter. Then the Twelve. Then more than five hundred people at one time. And Paul adds, “most of whom are still living”.

Why say that? Because Paul is inviting them to check. It is as if he says: I can give you their names. Go and ask them what they saw.

And think how many witnesses there were. On the very first day, the women at the tomb saw Him; so did the two disciples on the road to Emmaus; so did Peter; and so did the eleven apostles in the upper room. That is fifteen or twenty people on the first day alone. Then more than five hundred at once.

And Paul is writing only about twenty years after it happened. If he had been making it up, hundreds of people could have said so. No one did.

Many of the world's religions rest on the private experience of one person, long ago, which no one else could check. The Christian faith rests on events that many people saw. Most of what we believe about the ancient world, we believe because of documents written at the time. The documents for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are far stronger than for almost anything else from that age.

The gospel rests on facts, seen by real people. That is why proclaiming it is often called being a witness. A witness in court does not give his opinions. He tells what happened. We were not there, but we pass on the testimony of those who were, and God has kept it for us in the Bible.

People have often tried to explain the resurrection away. Let us take some of those explanations one by one, and answer each from the accounts of those who were there.

Some say Jesus did not really die, but only fainted. But Pilate was surprised that He had died so soon, and called the centurion to make sure before he released the body. Roman soldiers knew death when they saw it.

Some say the disciples stole the body. But it was the religious leaders themselves who asked for the tomb to be sealed and guarded, because they feared exactly that.

And some say the disciples imagined it, because they wanted so badly to see Him. But they were not expecting Him at all. When the women first told them, they thought it was nonsense. And when Jesus came, He ate a piece of fish in front of them. Something you imagine does not eat fish.

And one more thing. Those witnesses gained nothing by their story except hardship, prison and death. People do not suffer like that for something they know is a lie.

For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. (1 Corinthians 15:9–11, BSB)

Finally, listen to how Paul speaks about himself. He calls himself “the least of the apostles”, even “unworthy to be called an apostle”, because he once persecuted the church. He had hunted Christians down.

Acts chapter nine tells us what happened. Paul, then called Saul, was on his way to the city of Damascus, to arrest any Christians he could find there. He set out to arrest Christians, and on the way the risen Christ appeared to him.

He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” “Who are You, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” He replied. (Acts 9:4–5, BSB)

Notice what Jesus says: “why do you persecute Me?” Saul had been persecuting Christians. But Jesus and His people are so closely joined that to persecute them was to persecute Him.

“But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Everything Paul now is, he owes to God's undeserved kindness. The man who did all he could to stamp out the gospel became the one who worked hardest to spread it.

And he was not the last. In the eighteenth century, John Newton was a sailor in the slave trade. In a storm that threatened to sink his ship, he cried to God for mercy, and found it. God's work in him went on over the years. He later became a minister of the gospel, and in his old age he spoke and wrote against the slave trade he had once served. Looking back, Newton said that he was not what he ought to be, but by the grace of God he was not what he once was. And he took Paul's words as his own: by the grace of God I am what I am.

This matters greatly for evangelism. The one who proclaims the gospel is himself a sinner saved by grace. We do not speak as good people looking down on bad people. We speak as people who needed mercy, and found it, proclaiming to others where it is to be found.

And notice: grace did not make Paul lazy. “I worked harder than all of them.” Then he corrects himself at once: “yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” Grace saved him, and grace kept him working. That is still how it is. God's grace is not only the reason we have a message. It is also the strength to proclaim it.

Look at the last words again: “Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.”

Peter, James, Paul and all the apostles preached the same message. There was not a gospel for Jews and another for Greeks, or one for the educated and another for the simple. There is one gospel.

As we go through this course, we will see that the apostles started in different places with different people. But the message itself did not change. And it must not change in our hands either.

Here are some questions to think about before the next part.

Look again at the four lines of verses three and four: Christ died for our sins; according to the Scriptures; He was buried; He was raised on the third day. Could you explain each one in your own words, simply, in a couple of minutes?

Which of them do the people around you find hardest to believe? And think back: who first passed the gospel on to you? Someone received it, and then gave it to you. Now you have it to pass on.

In the next part, we will see that God has made His people His ambassadors.