T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 2
The Human History of Tragedy
"Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you" (1 Cor. 15:1,2).
With these words the greatest apostle that Jesus Christ ever had draws his mantle together over his shoulders and sets himself to gather everything that he has been saying into a climax and a consummation. We can almost hear him breathe a sigh of relief that he has got through all the unpleasant business that was imposed upon him in the writing of this letter, and, having got through it, he says: "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you."
The Conditions at Corinth
He had been compelled to write about a whole lot of unpleasant and difficult matters. He was at the time in Ephesus, about to conclude a very wonderful time of ministry there. Then his fellow-labourer, Apollos, had arrived and told him of the state of things at Corinth, and three other people, probably slaves of the household of Chloe in Corinth, had also arrived and had poured out the story of a very deplorable state of things in the church there. It was a sad story of divisions, schisms, quarrels, disorders, moral evils, social wrongs, spiritual immaturity, of Christian unkindness one to another, and so on; it is all here. By either Apollos or these others they had sent a letter to Paul, asking him to answer a number of questions on a lot of matters about which they were troubled, and, as you know, this letter is his answer to that whole situation and of all those aspects of it.
A laborious thing! You cannot read it without feeling how the apostle was labouring with this situation. Well he might be! Troubled, heartbroken, deeply moved, he passed on from point to point, covering the whole, and then, with what is the end of chapter fourteen, he finished it, and finished it gladly. And he said in effect, "Having dealt with all that, I am not prepared just to leave it there. Let me take you back, brethren, right to the beginning of your life and history as a company of the people of God, and remind you of that basis upon which you came to be a church and a company of God's people; what I preached unto you and you then believed, and upon which you stand, the basis of your very existence and by which you are saved." Having written all the rest, with a sick heart, he concluded that he must restate the 'gospel', as he called it, which he had preached and which was the ground of their existence as a church.
Now, while all the conditions at Corinth may not obtain today in many churches - thank God! - there are some things that persist and are, at least, the peril of companies of God's people. In any case, there is something that comes out of this final resolve of the apostle which is of inestimable value to the church, and the church in all ages. We are not glad that the Corinthians were what they were, but here is the wonderful of God: He takes hold of a most deplorable situation and makes it the means of drawing out some of the most sublime things in divine revelation. And who would be without what we call the fifteenth chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians? Thank God for His power to use the darkest background to bring forward the most glorious revelation!
Well, you notice that this chapter, or this section, is a summary, and is a consummate restatement and a climax. Paul uses this word 'preach', as you see, several times, in verses 1, 11, 12, 14; the thing 'preached'. And if you look to see what was the heart, the essence of that preaching, you have only got to underline one word: 'Christ'. You will find yourselves right at the beginning, in the presence of a mention of Christ no fewer than thirteen times! I say 'at the beginning' to show what the foundation really is, what the preaching really is. Now into this consummate restatement the apostle gathers a revelation which is well- unparalleled in Holy Scripture.
(If I may make this parenthesis: you read through this long chapter and you are amazed. You hold your breath and you say, 'Where did the apostle get that? How did he come by that?' The things that he is telling you here about glory, and the differences in glory, and the resurrection body, and what it will be like, and so on! You say: 'Well, this is something that no man ever concocted. This never arose in a man's brain. There is something here of unparalleled revelation.')
