#37 -Saints Need Gods Grace?
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(English Standard Version)
1Cor 14 - Prophecy and Tongues - Orderly Worship -
1Cor 15 - The Resurrection of Christ - The Resurrection of The Dead - The Resurrection Body - Mystery and Victory
1Cor 16 - The Collection for The Saints - Plans for Travel - Final Instructions - Greetings
COMMENTS and QUESTIONS
by J Neil Evans:
The church in Corinth was clearly a troubled church. Paul addresses a variety of issues with them including their moral failures, their relationship problems and their doctrinal misunderstandings. The church would have easily made negative headlines in our modern news. It is valid and important that Paul addressed these issues that both misrepresented the God they claimed to follow and severely hindered the Peace they could have known. These facts make it doubly curious why and how Paul could begin and end his letter with these words:
“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace rom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” …….
“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.”
What did Paul know and see in them that so readily escapes our attention?
“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) This verse characterizes most of the Old Testament, certainly the church in Corinth, and probably too much of the modern Christian church. They gave lip service to having Jesus as their Head, their King, but they, like I am prone to do, move through life doing what is right in our own eyes. They were divided on nearly everything about living their lives as followers of Jesus Christ. In Revelation Jesus told the church of Ephesus that they had “lost their first love.” Paul could have said the same thing to the Corinthians. They loved alright, but they loved their own way more than they loved God and each other.
Some people say that correct doctrine is not important, that it only divides people. Except, it is correct doctrine that is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness …” (2Timothy 3:16) And this is just what the Corinthians needed, and what Paul gave them, and we have the privilege of reading for our similar needs. In pointed conclusion Paul reminds them of the core things he had been teaching them from the time they first met. It was these fundamental truths that they had received and depended on. It was these fundamental truths that were saving them. Importantly, there were some who needed to ask themselves if they had really believed or were just on a religious bandwagon. What was it that qualified the Corinthian Christians (and me) to be called “saints;” for them to be declared “sanctified in Christ Jesus?” Paul reminded them (and us) that “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4)
The Corinthians, like all followers of Jesus Christ, tend to forget the essence of the Gospel is not the rules we keep, the gifts we have been given or the group we belong to, but the fact that even though we are undeserving, Jesus died for our sins and lives to give us His LIFE. It is this fundamental truth, that has the power of God’s Grace to motivate us to love God and each other before ourselves.
Paul knew that even these simple truths were, and would be, distorted and denied so he camped on them a bit. To those who denied there was such a thing as resurrection he chided them with the contradiction of some who apparently thought that being baptized for dead people would win them a resurrection that they didn’t believe in. But on a more serious note, Paul stated the obvious fact that if there is no such thing as resurrection, then Jesus was still dead, and His predictions of His own resurrection were false along with all His other words and deeds. If this was the case everything the Bible teaches and Christians believe is foolish and futile, and most of all we all have to pay for our own sin. BUT, Jesus did rise from the dead. Every form of human proof points to the truth of it. And if this Amazing, Unbelievable fact is true then the rest of what Jesus said and did is true, AND our sin IS paid for; forgiveness and new LIFE is available to anyone who accepts it as a gift by the Grace of God.
This Amazing gift is the motivation the Corinthians (and all who claim to follow Christ) need to love God and others faithfully. Paul described it this way:
“… Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:54–58)
God knows death and resurrection is a mystery to us now. For this reason He inspired Paul to describe it briefly. But even the description is confusing. “The perishable put on imperishable, the mortal put on immortality.” The truth that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” is indeed a mystery. It is all familiar but unfamiliar. But then if an Eternal, Omni Creative and Powerful God planned it all could we expect it to be clear to our fallen hearts and minds?
It is in these Amazing things that God has done, and will do, for us that Paul leaves the Corinthians, and us, to stand and know that our letting God alone be our True love will not now or ever be in vain.
After a few comments about his plans for future ministries, Paul closes with one last familiar reminder that it is by God’s Grace that those who receive and stand in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are saved, sanctified, saints, even though we often struggle to mature in this amazing LIFE.
(English Standard Version)
1Cor 14 - Prophecy and Tongues - Orderly Worship -
1Cor 15 - The Resurrection of Christ - The Resurrection of The Dead - The Resurrection Body - Mystery and Victory
1Cor 16 - The Collection for The Saints - Plans for Travel - Final Instructions - Greetings
COMMENTS and QUESTIONS
by J Neil Evans:
The church in Corinth was clearly a troubled church. Paul addresses a variety of issues with them including their moral failures, their relationship problems and their doctrinal misunderstandings. The church would have easily made negative headlines in our modern news. It is valid and important that Paul addressed these issues that both misrepresented the God they claimed to follow and severely hindered the Peace they could have known. These facts make it doubly curious why and how Paul could begin and end his letter with these words:
“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace rom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” …….
“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.”
What did Paul know and see in them that so readily escapes our attention?
“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) This verse characterizes most of the Old Testament, certainly the church in Corinth, and probably too much of the modern Christian church. They gave lip service to having Jesus as their Head, their King, but they, like I am prone to do, move through life doing what is right in our own eyes. They were divided on nearly everything about living their lives as followers of Jesus Christ. In Revelation Jesus told the church of Ephesus that they had “lost their first love.” Paul could have said the same thing to the Corinthians. They loved alright, but they loved their own way more than they loved God and each other.
Some people say that correct doctrine is not important, that it only divides people. Except, it is correct doctrine that is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness …” (2Timothy 3:16) And this is just what the Corinthians needed, and what Paul gave them, and we have the privilege of reading for our similar needs. In pointed conclusion Paul reminds them of the core things he had been teaching them from the time they first met. It was these fundamental truths that they had received and depended on. It was these fundamental truths that were saving them. Importantly, there were some who needed to ask themselves if they had really believed or were just on a religious bandwagon. What was it that qualified the Corinthian Christians (and me) to be called “saints;” for them to be declared “sanctified in Christ Jesus?” Paul reminded them (and us) that “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4)
The Corinthians, like all followers of Jesus Christ, tend to forget the essence of the Gospel is not the rules we keep, the gifts we have been given or the group we belong to, but the fact that even though we are undeserving, Jesus died for our sins and lives to give us His LIFE. It is this fundamental truth, that has the power of God’s Grace to motivate us to love God and each other before ourselves.
Paul knew that even these simple truths were, and would be, distorted and denied so he camped on them a bit. To those who denied there was such a thing as resurrection he chided them with the contradiction of some who apparently thought that being baptized for dead people would win them a resurrection that they didn’t believe in. But on a more serious note, Paul stated the obvious fact that if there is no such thing as resurrection, then Jesus was still dead, and His predictions of His own resurrection were false along with all His other words and deeds. If this was the case everything the Bible teaches and Christians believe is foolish and futile, and most of all we all have to pay for our own sin. BUT, Jesus did rise from the dead. Every form of human proof points to the truth of it. And if this Amazing, Unbelievable fact is true then the rest of what Jesus said and did is true, AND our sin IS paid for; forgiveness and new LIFE is available to anyone who accepts it as a gift by the Grace of God.
This Amazing gift is the motivation the Corinthians (and all who claim to follow Christ) need to love God and others faithfully. Paul described it this way:
“… Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 15:54–58)
God knows death and resurrection is a mystery to us now. For this reason He inspired Paul to describe it briefly. But even the description is confusing. “The perishable put on imperishable, the mortal put on immortality.” The truth that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” is indeed a mystery. It is all familiar but unfamiliar. But then if an Eternal, Omni Creative and Powerful God planned it all could we expect it to be clear to our fallen hearts and minds?
It is in these Amazing things that God has done, and will do, for us that Paul leaves the Corinthians, and us, to stand and know that our letting God alone be our True love will not now or ever be in vain.
After a few comments about his plans for future ministries, Paul closes with one last familiar reminder that it is by God’s Grace that those who receive and stand in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are saved, sanctified, saints, even though we often struggle to mature in this amazing LIFE.
Check out these LINKS:
Watch Bible Project summary of 1Corinthians
Read "Bible Words to Ponder" related to this week study
Read "The Gospel"