1
Corinthians 15:1-3a
"Moreover,
brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you,
which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand: By which
(this Gospel) also ye are saved, (now that’s as plain
as you can get it) if ye keep in memory what I preached unto
you, unless ye have believed in vain. (now here’s the
Gospel we must believe) For I delivered unto you first..."
He was the first
one to reveal this Gospel of Grace buried within Genesis 1-3. So here the Holy Spirit is
absolutely true in having him write that I delivered it to you
first of all. Why? Because Paul was the one to whom it was first
revealed, and oh that’s so hard for people to swallow. Oh, they
say what did Jesus preach if that’s the case? He preached “the same
Gospel of the Kingdom”. “The Gospel of the Kingdom or the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God” was not a different message than this Gospel of Grace that was given
Paul. Also remember Jesus preached that which was still under the
Law. And because He hadn't finished His assignment He couldn't reveal everything for He told the twelve that they could not bear or carry it. They would have vomited up in other words just as the serpent ruled, in religion, church world does to this very day. Every word that Jesus taught and preached in His earthly
ministry was to the Nation of Israel under the Law. He was there to break the yoke which Satan had forged upon Israel through deception by the use of religion. It is this same religion the holds mankind and the worlds churches in darkness until now. Because the Law was
still enforce and held in effect until the death of its originator.
As a wife is held by her vows until the death of her husband at which
time she is freed from them, get the parallels? Never once did
Jesus tell someone, "Well you don’t have to go to the temple,
you don’t have to make sacrifices, you don’t have to keep the
Law, because you’re under Grace." Most people think that’s
the way it was, but nothing could be further from the truth. Read
your Bible and see what it says.
Ask
for eyes and ears to see and hear and then just do it, read in
trusting what is then revealed. Just do it, be a doer of the
word and not a hearer only, Grace is at work through Faith's
receptivity of that activity. DO IT!
On the other hand
this was Paul’s message. They didn’t have to keep the law, they
weren’t under the demands of the law, for the yoke of bondage had been broken (nailed to the tree) and the nations, the Body
of Christ is under Grace. Paul got into trouble more than once by
proclaiming that message, because he had Jewish converts that still
wanted to be under the Law, bond by religion. In fact it maybe because of this one fact
that the disciples of Christ never made the brake from Judaism's religion. Which
smothered the New Covenants ever taking effect in Israel. Now reading
on as we were about to finish the Gospel that God had given him for
us all in this Church Age.
1 Corinthians
15:3-4
"For I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received,
(and here is what Paul received. This was the revelation) how
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures (the revelation of Genesis 1-3): And that
he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to
the scriptures."
Now folks this
is Gospel! And when we believe that then God does everything else. He
has already forgiven us, The whole of mankind has been REDEEMED! So He imputes it on our behalf, He
sanctifies us, He justifies us, He glorifies us, He baptizes us into
the One Body, He does all those good things when we believe by actively receiving this
Gospel. I mean we eat and drink in all that took place from the morning of the Last Supper on through the day of Pentecost. In the fashion that the LORD spoke of when He said that they were to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood and to Love as God Loves. And this Gospel is all part of the mysteries that had
been given to Paul. These mysteries had never been revealed before,
and we’ve begged people constantly to just go back anywhere else in
scripture, "Are you going to find this message for salvation?"
Why of course not. You won’t find this message any place else. This
simply is the message of the Gospel of the Grace of God, or as Paul
says in another place "we preached Christ crucified, and
risen again." We don’t want to belabor the point, but
oh if we can just get folks to understand that these mysteries, these
secrets that God never revealed until He revealed them to this chosen
vessel to take it to the world. Now coming back to Ephesians chapter
3.
Ephesians 3:5
"Which
in other ages (generations) was not made known unto
the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and
prophets by the Spirit;"
We’ve
already alluded to them as being Barnabas, Silas, Apollos, Titus, and
Timothy, and then there were other great men that followed after
them. But it all begins with this man and his commitment to take this
Gospel to the world. "Thank you Lord, because if Paul can do
it, if he was sold out to serve You then I can be also."
This is what Paul tried to get across, that his suffering for the
sake of this Gospel was to encourage us. Because otherwise all we
have to do is be a true servant like Paul was and then everything
will go smoothly. But you see it doesn’t always work like that. Why, because the serpent has his resistance force at work within and without the church world. So no
matter how loyal Paul was to his Lord, yet he suffered, and suffered
and finally he died the martyr’s death. So this is a lesson for us,
that this is why he says, "Be followers (imitators) of me, as I
follow Christ." Remember Paul was just as human as you
and I.
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