The Good News

“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, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” 1 Cor. 15:1-5

The gospel means good news, and here in our verses we find the good news that...
• the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins,
• He was buried, and that...
• He rose again from the dead.
And all of this in accordances with the record that God has revealed in the Scriptures. Let us admit immediately that if these three facts are not historically true we have no gospel, and we have no Christianity.

But these are the facts - over five hundred eye witnesses saw the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 15:6). The gospel is the truth that rises out of the three great historical facts: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He rose the third day according to the Scriptures The Apostle now declares that belief in the good news of those three facts brings salvation.

It is this gospel that Paul says he is not ashamed! On the contrary - everywhere he goes, he preaches the truth of God’s word. As we are looking at verses 16-17, we see why Paul can say he is not ashamed - because of the source of the gospel...God (Rom. 1:1). The nature of the gospel - it is the power of God - “Dunamis.”

It is man who desires change, but change on the inside comes only through the power of God. It is the power of God...
▸ that sets men free from sin.
▸ that sets men free from Satan.
▸ that sets men free from judgement.
▸ that sets men free from hell.

It is the power of God that changes people’s lives.