Chapter IV · The Upper Room — J. C. Ryle
— 1 Cor. 15:3-41
“I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures;
“And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”—1 Cor. 15:3-4.
THE text which heads this paper is taken from a passage of Scripture with which most Englishmen are only too well acquainted. It is the chapter from which the lesson has been selected, which forms part of the matchless Burial Service of the Church of England. Of all the occasional services of the Prayer Book, none, in my humble judgment, is more beautiful than this. The good old “Book of Common Prayer,” we all know, has no form or comeliness in the eyes of some. We have seen the burial laws of this realm altered, and other “uses” sanctioned, and introduced into our churchyards at funerals. But of one tiling I am very certain. We shall never see the bodies of professing Christians committed to the ground with a wiser and better service than that of the Anglican Liturgy.
The starting-point of the whole argument of this chapter will be found in the two verses which form the text. The Apostle opens by reminding the Corinthians that” among the first things “which he delivered to them, when he commenced his teaching, were two great facts about Christ: one was His death, the other was His resurrection. The passage seems to me to open up two subjects of deep interest, and to them I invite the attention of all into whose hands this paper may fall.
I. For one thing, let us mark well the primary truths which St. Paul delivered to the Corinthians.
II. For another thing, let us try to grasp the reasons why St. Paul assigns to these truths such a singularly prominent position.
I. What, then, were the things which the Apostle preached” first of all,” that is, among the first things, at Corinth?
Before I answer that question, I ask my readers to pause awhile and realize the whole position which St. Paul occupied when he left Athens and entered Corinth.
Here is a solitary Jew visiting a great heathen city for the first time, to preach an entirely new religion, to begin an aggressive Evangelistic mission. He is a member of a despised people, sneered at alike by Greeks and Romans, isolated and cut off from other nations, in their own little corner of the earth, by their peculiar laws and habits, and unknown to Gentiles either for literature, arms, arts, or science. The “bodily presence” of this bold Jew is “weak,” and his “speech,” compared to that of Greek rhetoricians,” contemptible” (2 Cor. 10:10). He stands almost alone in a city, famous all over the world, even in the estimate of the heathen, for luxury, immorality, and idolatry. Such was the place, and such was the man! A more remarkable position it is hard to conceive.
And what did this solitary Jew tell the Corinthians?
What did he say about the great Head and Founder of the new faith which he wanted them to receive in place of their ancient religion? Did he begin by cautiously telling them how Christ lived, and taught, and worked miracles, and spake “as no man ever spake”? Did he tell them that He had been rich as Solomon, victorious as Joshua, or learned as Moses? Nothing of the kind! The very first fact he proclaimed about Christ was that He died, and died the most ignominious death- the death of a malefactor, the death of the cross.
And why did St. Paul lay so much stress upon Christ’s death rather than His life? Because, he tells the Corinthians, “He died for our sins.” A deep and wonderful truth that, a truth which lay at the very foundation of the whole religion which the Apostle came to preach! For that death of Christ was not the involuntary death of a martyr, or a mere example of self-sacrifice. It was the voluntary death of a Divine Substitute for the guilty children of Adam, by which He made atonement for ” the sin of the world.” It was a death of such mighty influence on the position of sinful man before God, that it provided complete redemption from the consequences of the fall. In a word, St. Paul told the Corinthians that when Christ died, He died as the Representative of guilty man, to make expiation for us by the sacrifice of Himself, and to endure the penalty which we deserved. “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” “He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” “He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (1 Pet. 2:24, 3:18; 2 Cor. 5:21). A great and stupendous mystery, no doubt! But it was a mystery to which every sacrifice from the time of Abel had been continually pointing for 4000 years. Christ died “according to the Scriptures.”