Rev. Don Campbell
1 Corinthians 15-16
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, DECEMBER 3, 2019
“THE GOSPEL IN WHICH WE STAND”
Paul wanted to remind the church at Corinth of the gospel which he preached, which they received, in which they stood, and by which they were being saved. If they failed to hold fast to the truth, he declared that they had believed in vain (15:1-2). The gospel he preached was Christ died for our sins, he was buried, and on the third day, he arose. In another epistle, he proclaimed that Christ will come again, “inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:8).
We obey the gospel by an act of faith in his atoning act by dying with him and being raised with him to walk in newness of life: “ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).
Baptism is not the power by which we are saved, but the point at which God unites with Christ’s death and resurrection by the same power that raised him: “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11-12).
There are at least three ways our baptism can be in vain: First, if it was not an act of faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Second, if we fail to live in newness of life (Romans 6:11-14). Third, if we do not take our stand on our union with Christ, but move away from the hope of the gospel: “…he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister” (Colossians 1:22-23).
When we stop trusting what Christ did and starting what he did and is doing, we have believed in vain.
CONNECTIONS
1. Martin Luther wrote: “Their Baptism should have been called to their minds again and again and their faith constantly awakened and nourished. For just as the truth of this divine promise, once pronounced over us, continues until death, so our faith in it ought never to cease, but to be nourished and strengthened until death by the continual remembrance of this promise made to us in Baptism” (Luther, Selected Writings of Martin Luther, “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” p. 411). Does this sound as if Luther’s Sola Faith (faith only) eliminated baptism?
2. What practice does Paul discuss in 1 Corinthians 11 that connects us to the death of Christ after baptism?
