1 Corinthians 15:1-11
March 31, 2024
preached by Pastor Ryan Bouton
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“It is very likely that we shall see the mundane bodies of the new heaven and the new earth in such a way as to see God most clearly everywhere present, governing all corporeal things – this is not as we now see the invisible things of God by understanding those things that are made, but rather as when we see men and do not merely believe, but actually see that they live.”

~ De Civitate Dei by St. Augustine (354-430), North African bishop and theologian

“To pursue unmediated, mystical knowledge of God is to announce that the person of Christ and his sacrificial work on our behalf are not necessary for the knowledge of God. Sadly, it is easy to delight in mystical experiences, enjoyable and challenging in themselves, without knowing anything of the regenerating power of God, grounded in Christ’s cross work.”

~ D.A. Carson (1946-present), Canadian-born theologian and research professor of the New Testament

“The way to God is wide open. There is nothing standing between the sinner and his God. He has immediate and unimpeded access to the Savior. There is nothing to hinder. No sin can hold him back because God offers justification to the ungodly. Nothing can keep him from Christ but his delusion that he has good works of his own that can satisfy God. All he needs is need. All he needs is nothing. But, alas, sinners cannot part with their ‘virtues’. They have none that are not imaginary, but they are real to them. So grace becomes unreal. The real grace of God they spurn in order to hold on to the illusory virtues of their own. Their eyes fixed on a mirage, they will not drink real water. They die of thirst with water all about them.”

~ John Gerstner (1914-1996), American Reformed and Presbyterian theologian, and an expert on the life and theology of Jonathan Edwards

Sermon Passage

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (ESV)

¹ Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.