This is Part 1 of a 7-Part sermon series titled “Easter according to Paul” preached at Mt. Gilead UMC in Georgetown, KY. The whole worship service is in the link below titled “Sermon Video,” and the sermon begins at minute marker 9:34. Click here for Part 2.

Sermon Video

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Easter according to Paul

What is the Gospel? The question sounds simple enough. Many of us would be happy to and quick to respond. But I want you to take a moment and actually think about it. What is the Gospel?

There are lots of answers to this question floating around out there today. Some of them are right, some of them are wrong, and still some of them are just partially right and incomplete. Some might say that the Gospel is forgiveness of sins through the death of Jesus on the cross. Others might say that the Gospel is that we’ve been saved from the fires of hell. Still others suggest that it is the message that God loves you; Jesus loves you. Some even argue that it is that you can have your best life now, that God will make you rich and prosperous.

But what exactly does the Bible have to say about all this? How did the early church define the Gospel? What did Jesus and Paul say the Gospel is? That’s what’s most important to us today, not what he said or she said or the like.

And so, this morning we are going to begin a new sermon series, a Lenten sermon series leading up to Easter, and preparing for Easter. I’m calling it “Easter according to Paul,” much like our Christmas sermon series, “Christmas according to Paul.” Through this, I think that we are going to discover that when we say, “Easter according to Paul,” what we are really saying is, “The Gospel according to Paul,” because for him and the early church, Easter and Gospel were indistinguishable. The Gospel and Easter were so intricately linked that you couldn’t talk about one without talking about the other. And so, Easter according to Paul is really the Gospel according to Paul. And where does Paul talk about Easter? Where does he talk about the Gospel? It is none other than his famous resurrection chapter in 1 Cor 15. So for the next seven Sundays leading up to Easter Sunday, we are going to be diving into 1 Cor 15, the resurrection chapter, the Easter chapter, the Gospel chapter.

What is the Gospel?

So what is the Gospel anyways? Well, at a very basic level, Gospel means good news, good tidings, glad tidings. In the NT, the Greek word for Gospel is euangelion, which is where we get the word evangelism from. So to be an evangelist is to be someone who shares or preaches the good news, the Gospel.

But what good news are we talking about here? What good news were the folks in the Bible sharing with the world around them? Well, before we answer that, let’s first go back to some of those definitions that people have today of the Gospel. Like I said, some are right, some are wrong, and some are partially right but just a little incomplete. In other words, let’s find out what the Gospel is not.

What the Gospel Is Not

First of all, the Gospel is not the message that you can have your best life now and that God will make you rich and prosperous. False. That is what is called the Prosperity Gospel. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that following God or following Christ will or should make you rich. Just look at Jesus. He didn’t have a mortgage or mansion or Lamborghini. Instead, he had no place to lay his head. He and his disciples were kind of like nomads, traveling from place to place, with nowhere to call home. The Prosperity Gospel is not the Gospel according to the Bible.

Secondly, the Gospel is not the message that you are going to burn in hell forever because you are a sinner and that you should turn away from your sin so that God will save you from hell. Are these true statements? Well, yes…we are sinners, hell is the place where sinners go, we should turn away from our sin, etc. etc. But is that the Gospel? No. Christian teachings? Yes. But the Gospel? No. It doesn’t sound like much good news to me. It sounds like bad news: sinners, hell, punishment, eternal torment. Lions, and tigers, and bears, O my! While hell is real and this teaching is true, it is not, however, the Gospel.

Thirdly, the Gospel is not simply the general message and statement that God loves you or Jesus loves you. Once again, yes, this is true. God loves me and you. He loves everyone, the whole world. And yes, this is good, a good message, unlike that whole message of going to hell in a handbasket. But it is not specifically how the Bible defines the Gospel. Yes, God’s love is true, and yes, it is wonderful and part of the Gospel, but it is not the whole story.

Lastly, the Gospel is not only the message of the cross, that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins. Yes, like the love of God, this is definitely part of the Gospel message, but it is not the whole story. In fact, as we look at what Paul says in 1 Cor 15 this morning, we see that the message of the cross and forgiveness is half of the Gospel message: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3).

Today, most of these things pass as being the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, Redeemer, Savior. But from the Bible’s perspective, they all fall short on account of missing one absolutely essential point. All of these suggestions leave out the most important part of the Gospel; the resurrection of Jesus.

What the Gospel Is

What is the Gospel? What is the good news? It is the resurrection of Jesus. That is the focus of the early church’s preaching of the Gospel. He died on the cross for our sins and he was raised from the dead on the third day. That is the Gospel.

In v. 3, Paul says that he received this Gospel, that it is what he handed down to the Corinthians, that it is what all of the other apostle’s proclaim as well, and that without believing in the resurrection of Jesus that they are not saved and that their believing in the cross and Christ’s forgiveness is vain, empty, and worthless. Paul here, as he says in many other places as well, is saying that the foundation of Christian faith and the essence of the Christian Gospel is that God raised Jesus from the dead. That is the Gospel. That is the good news. That is Easter according to Paul.

So for the next several weeks, we will unpack what Paul means by resurrection, why Jesus’ is so important, and what resurrection means for us now and in the future. Let’s pray.