Sermon Tone Analysis

Can you think of times in your life when someone fundamentally, totally, completely missed the point?

Example- you spend hundreds of dollars on a new toy for you child for his or her birthday, and it is one of those toys that comes in a rather large brown box.

So, you take care to hide the present, and wrap the present, and when you finally give them the giant box and they unwrap it and briefly look at what it is, and then how do they spend the next three days of their time?

Playing with the BOX!

The toy is cast to the side and forgotten about, all they want to do is play with the box.

They fundamentally, totally, completely missed the point (or maybe we are the parents are the one who miss the point?

I’m never really sure).

In I Corinthians 15 Paul is reminding the Corinthian believers about something much more important than a box or a toy.

Paul is dealing with the importance of the gospel itself.

And he is concerned that the Corinthian believers have fundamentally, completely, and totally missed out on the point of the gospel.

I believe that some of us today are living in real danger of fundamentally missing out on the point of the gospel.

The gospel was not simply meant to save us from hell- the proverbial get out of hell free card.

The gospel is meant to save us from sin.

Paul’s goal in this chapter, then is to remind the believers in Corinth of the the full hope of the gospel- or the full or fundamental point of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is also my goal, to remind you of the full hope of the gospel, and the full or fundamental point of the gospel is centered on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The first thing that Paul reminds them of is the full message of the gospel.

The full hope of the gospel is bound up in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (vv.

1-4)

Paul is going to declare or make known or remind these believers of the GOSPEL!

This passage is all about the message of the gospel.

Paul states that they received this message (aorist- point in time), and that in the gospel they stand/ hold their ground (perfect tense- action in the past with continuing results) .

The full hope of the gospel continues on, there is something yet coming in the future that is part of the gospel message.

Saved- Prest, Pass, Ind-by which you are being saved- there is a continuous action to our salvation.

There is more to come.

There is a final hope to our salvation, God is not done in His working in our lives- His plan of salvation is so much bigger than we normally think about.

And this full hope is tied to the idea of the resurrection.

This is the gospel, plainly stated.

The gospel is when one believes on Jesus Christ- who died (aor) for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried (aor), and that he rose again (per- He is still alive, in fact He is alive forevermore!)

All this is according to the Scriptures.

This is the full hope of the gospel.

It is found in not only the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins.

This is very much an incredible part of the hope of the gospel.

Because of Christ’s work of propitiation on the cross, we can be fully forgiven of our sins, and we have been credited with the righteousness of Christ.

But the hope of the gospel is just as much part of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

The truth that Jesus is risen and that He is alive forevermore, and because He has life we too have life is very much part of the full hope of the gospel.

And it is this that Paul focuses on in chapter 15.

In vv.

5-11 Paul states the eye witness’ account of the truth that Jesus did indeed rise from the grave.

He was seen by more than 500 brethren at one time, the truth of his resurrection is in accordance with the holy Scriptures.

And it is this truth, the full truth of the gospel, that Pau preached to the Corinthians and which truth they believed.

Paul is reminding these believers of the hope of the gospel and that hope includes Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

If you don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead then you have denied one of the fundamental truths of the gospel itself.

If you don’t have faith in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, then you don’t have genuine faith.

Without a resurrection, the gospel ceases to be good news, and you have no gospel at all.

The truth of the resurrection is central to the message of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is indispensable!

The full hope of the gospel is bound up in the bodily resurrection of the believer (vv.

12-23)

In the church at Corinth some were apparently teaching that there was no resurrection of the dead.

Now to understand this you need to understand what is going on in the historical situation at the church in Corinth.

One of the main problems in the Corinthian church was a misunderstanding of what it meant to be “spiritual.”

They were not truly spiritual, instead they were arrogant and puffed up.

They were a spiritually gifted church and they most likely measured their spirituality by the spiritual gifts they were given.

They thought that they could speak with the tongues of angels, they thought they had reached the height of spirituality when in reality they were proud, selfish, and divisive believers.

One of the other problems caused by their misunderstanding of spirituality was that they cared little about the physical body.

Even though they had physical bodies they considered themselves to be primarily spiritual- they considered themselves already as the angels.

Out of this bad theology came a teaching that the physical body was eschatologically insignificant.

In other words they denied a future bodily resurrection of believers because, in their own estimation, they had already arrived.

They already were like unto the angels, so a future resurrection was unnecessary.

How poorly they understood the full hope of the gospel.

So Paul writes to remind them of the gospel and to teach them the theological necessity of a future bodily resurrection for believers.

Statement #1-

Argument- if you say that there is no resurrection of the dead (of believers), then you are also saying that Christ is not risen.

Think about that.

If you deny the bodily resurrection of believers you deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ- in other words, you deny the gospel itself!

These two resurrections are so closely bound together, that to deny one is to deny the other.

And it doesn’t stop there.

What else happens when one denies the bodily resurrection of the dead?

If you deny the bodily resurrection of the dead, then you also deny

The resurrection of Christ

The very preaching of the apostles, the preaching of the gospel itself- the apostle’s preaching becomes vain

The faith upon which you claim to believe that very gospel- you faith becomes vain

The domino effect doesn’t stop there either.

If you deny the bodily resurrection of the dead then,

4. Paul and the apostles end up being false witnesses of God (God cannot be the liar here), the apostles (and over 500 witnesses) have testifies that God has raised up Christ from the dead- but if the dead rise not- then it is impossible that Christ too was raised.

Statement #2-

Whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

Argument- if you say that there is no resurrection of the dead (of believers), then you are also saying that Christ is not risen.

Statement #3-

Argument- if you say that there is no resurrection of the dead (of believers), then you are also saying that Christ is not risen.

AND!

What is the terrible logical conclusion of this argument?

If you deny the future resurrection of the believer, then Christ is not raise and your faith is vain, and you are still in your sins!

Or there is no possible way for sin to be fully and finally dealt with- sin and all of its consequences primarily death will not and cannot be finally and forever vanquished.

Then-

Since sin will never be fully vanquished, those who are already dead have no future hope and have no choice but to perish in their sin.

AND

Christianity is nothing but a miserable, pitiful, hopeless religion.

And notice why- because we would only have hope in this life.

If you deny the future resurrection of the believer you deny the full hope of the gospel.

You are missing out on the very purpose of the gospel.

You understand what a fundamental is don’t you?

A fundamental is something so vital to the makeup of a thing, that if you do away with it, the thing cease to exist.

For example- Someone comes into a Culvers and they order a cheeseburger- excuse me- a butter burger with cheese.

The say, “I would like a cheeseburger with no cheese.”

Did they just order a cheeseburger?

No they ordered a hamburger.

Cheese is fundamental to the makeup of the thing.

If you take it away you no longer have a cheeseburger.

The bodily resurrection of the believer is fundamental to the gospel.

In fact, to deny the future bodily resurrection of the believer is to deny the faith.

You end up denying the very gospel itself and you are left with no faith at all.