Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  2024  Day 351

December 15;      I Corinthians 15:3;            ‘First and Best’

1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

The Lord used the Apostle Paul to teach the church incredibly powerful truths. That Jesus Christ came to earth and ministered as a Man (Philippians 2). Righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). The gifts of the Spirit (I Corinthians 12). The importance of and reasons for praying in tongues (I Corinthians 14). But here in his lengthy first letter to the Church in Corinth, he tells them that the first thing he taught them was that the Lord Jesus Christ died for their sins. When we share with the unsaved, one of the first, if not the first truth we share with them is the fact that Jesus Christ died on a cross for their sins. That is love in action. We were sinners, Jesus never sinned. God is holy and we are not. Sin cannot come near a Holy God, so we had no way back to Him, since we all inherit the sin nature handed down by Adam when he sinned. Someone had to pay the price and suffer the penalty for sin. We deserved to be punished, but Jesus took our punishment upon Himself instead. All of the blessings listed in Deuteronomy 28 belonged to the Lord Jesus. He did not take the blessings, He took the curse, the penalty for sins and gave us all of those blessings. Who but a loving God would do this for us? The last part of this verse is so impactful, Jesus died for our sins according to the Word of God. It was all laid out in scripture so that we could know that it is true and that we could see in the scriptures what Jesus would do on our behalf for our sins. Innocent animals sacrificed for guilty people, countless prophecies of Jesus’ redemptive work for us and the Gospel accounts all point to the one and only Jesus.