Thursday
March 3, 2011
What is the Good News that The Bible claims to offer?
“I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve” 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 (NLT)
“If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. . . . . if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins . . . . . And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.
But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died." 1 Corinthians 15:14-17-20 (NLT)
Pastor’s Reflections
Verses 3 and 4 may be the most significant in the entire Bible for assessing the reliability of what the Bible teaches.
Almost all scholars, left and right, agree that this “creed” was received by the Apostle Paul at latest when he traveled to Jerusalem shortly after his conversion or as early as his stay in Damascus right after his “Damascus road experience”. This places this “creed” in the the 30’s. Furthermore, it is written in the style of a creed to have been memorized and passed on. This means that it was circulated as a fact to be remembered and repeated beginning right after the resurrection. Those who find the dating of the biblical teachings way too late, too many years after the fact to be reliable historical accounts, will have to deal with this passage.
The rest of the passage simply states in Paul’s own words the bottom line of Christianity. Its center is the historical bodily resurrection of Jesus. The crucifixion shows God’s passion for world and accomplishes the defeat of evil and the removal of sin, but the resurrection is a demonstration in real time of what God is doing in the world right now and will have done one day. What God did for Jesus he will do for all of creation including you and me.
This is the Good News!!!!!!
Unless Jesus was bodily raised from the dead we have no Gospel. If Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, then what could possibly be beyond hope?
How, in a nutshell, if someone asks, would you define the Good News the Bible teaches?
How hopeless and meaningless life would be to me without understanding there is someone who loves me more than life itself and desires that much to be in relationship with me. To think that this life held everything we could ever hope for and enjoy for its short span of time is enough to put me into deep depression. Maybe others can be satisfied with life by climbing over top of each other to attain their greatness, wealth, and social status or just consider themselves happy by their own definition of being a good person. This is not enough to satisfy me that our life consists of being born, living life as a party or social status goal or just being good, then die. Something inside me says there has to be more to life. The Hope I have in being the King's daughter here and now, then being received into the real life that I was created for gives me such energy to live out this temporary "cacoon" stage. That Hope has caused me, opened me, to experience, in the amounts that are appropriate for the body that was given me for this world, glimpses of what is to come. To imagine living in those glimpses full time is exhilerating and life giving, enough to run the race which I now face daily in this world. Otherwise, I couldn't see why I would even bother getting out of bed.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Sister!
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, that Jesus is the "Risen Living Lord" Who is today keeping "all things in existence" (Col 1:17) basically means that Pure Goodness is in control of every event in our lives aswell as throughout earth so we can live without fear or worry.
The true gospel is the good news that God saves sinners, that means people.
ReplyDeleteThe world, meaning this planet earth, is not included in salvation.
Read 2 Peter 3 as an example.