From the ministry archive
Jesus the Christ
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For 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: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time” (I Cor. 15:1-8). There it is my friend, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He came from heaven and died for your sins and mine. He also came back to life three days later in the same body that he was crucified in. He was also seen by many eyewitnesses after his resurrection. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, he is still alive today almost two thousand years later. How do I know that? Because of this: “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth… He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself” (I Jn. 5:5,10). I received the Spirit of God into myself more than thirty four years ago and it is still very much alive in me today. Moreover that same Spirit will still be very much alive in me ten million years from now and beyond, because it is “the ETERNAL Spirit,” and by that Spirit through faith in Jesus I have eternal life (Heb. 9:14; Rom. 8:2; Gal. 3:14; I Jn. 5:11-13). But let me get back to our text passage and the point I would like to make today. There is one surefire way to avoid ever exalting someone in this life more than we should, and allowing them to be some kind of cult figure to us. That way is to do exactly what the apostle Paul said to do in our text passage; which is to “keep in memory” the things that he mentioned there. If we stay readily focused on the reality that
Jesus Christ is the ONLY man who was crucified and died to pay the price for our sins, and that he is the ONLY man who rose from the dead by his own power and never died again; then there is no chance we will ever be swayed by any cult following of ANY man, or woman for that matter. It really is that easy. Jesus is in a club that no one else in existence in heaven or in earth has membership to. He alone is the lamb of God. Period. I don’t care who it is or what they’ve done spiritually, they have NOT done it apart from the grace and power OF the Lord Jesus Christ. There are no other ‘Christs’ that have, do, or ever will exist other than the Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose again to remain alive forever. If we have received his Spirit into our lives, it is because we believed that Jesus died for our sins, rose again the third day, and sits at the right hand of God to grant us the remission of our sins (Jn. 7:38,39; Heb. 10:12-17). Nobody else in the history of the world came from heaven and hung on a cruel, torturous cross for six unfathomably painful hours, until their breath was finally forced to cease. He did. Nobody else did that. Neither has anyone in the history of the world risen from the dead after three days on their own power, and never died again. He did. Nobody else. And again, I know these things of a certainty, not because I read them; but because I have received that same resurrection power into myself, and it has worked wonders in my life for over thirty four years. Furthermore because I have and do believe on Jesus and on all that he has done to redeem me, I will also raise from the dead in my body that I die in, when he comes back from heaven on a white horse with the armies of heaven with him (Rom. 8:11; I Thess. 4:13-17; Rev. 19:11-16). All because he died for my sins and rose again on the third day, and has never died again. Nobody else has done these things, and nobody else will come back from heaven on a white horse and raise the dead and living believers to meet him in the air, and glorify their bodies with immortality; and to execute judgment on the wicked of the earth (Philip. 3:21; Psm. 149:4-9; Rev. 19:19-21; Zech. 14:1-4,12).
The apostle Paul understood the point I’m trying to make here today, and he tried to get it across to the confused congregation in Corinth: “Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you?” (I Cor. 1:12,13). See what I mean? Paul was probably the greatest man of God in the history of the world, and he knew full well that he was not crucified for ANYONE’S sins. In fact he was in more need of redemption than just about anyone that any of us has ever heard of, as he himself attested to (I Tim. 1:12-16). Paul was redeemed by faith in the cross of Christ and his resurrection, even as we can be today. That is why he stated the simplest and most powerful of all realities in the following exhortation to the Corinthians: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified… And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (I Cor. 2:1,2,4,5). There have been many great warriors of the faith of Christ, and none of them were crucified for my sins or yours; neither have any of the risen from the dead. Anyone who has not done these things does not qualify to be exalted to the place where people tend to exalt some men to. I can also tell you that there is a faith and power that gets generated in the soul and spirit when we dwell on the stark reality that Jesus actually chose to be tortured to death for six long hours in order to pay the price for the sins of all mankind. Think long and hard on that and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
There is also a very real fear of God that is generated in us when we consider with sober meditation how much pain and humiliation he endured on the cross, and before the cross for that matter. The scripture actually says that he was beaten and scourged so badly that he was visibly battered more than any man. Did you know that? “As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isa. 52:14). It was bad. Really bad. And he did it for us, so that we might be redeemed from our pathetic state of sinfulness and be reconciled to himself and the Father. Woe be to anyone who does not allow him to redeem them from their sins! Woe also be to any who do not REMAIN redeemed from their sins. It’s an understatement to say that nobody can afford to waste any of the monumental price that he paid for us. And he really, literally rose from the dead after all of that, providing us with the availability of having the same victory over sin and death that he had and has (I Cor. 15:52-54). If we keep these things in mind with all faith and soberness, we will never be in a position to fall away, or apostatize from the faith. Reason being that these things ARE the faith! Neither will we ever have a mindset to make someone else in effect a 'Christ’ to us. Jesus warned us that “there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat. 24:24). But they will not have died for our sins, nor will they have risen from the dead to remain alive forever. Nor will they have baptized us with the holy Ghost, and filled us with “righteousness, and peace, and joy, IN the holy Ghost” by faith in them (Rom. 14:17). It’s all about Jesus my friend, and I’m talking about the one who DID die for our sins, and who DID raise from the dead on the third day to redeem us from sin and death. Indeed, be certain to always keep these things in memory. God bless.
