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Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word 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 in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

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Here's the part where I try to avoid getting sued ...

As you undoubtedly noticed, I like comics. I wouldn't call myself a "fan boy" because I don't give a flying FOOM what they are worth. That said, almost all the images on my blog are scanned from comics I own, and it would be frankly impossible to tell you where each one comes from specifically.

Many are © and/or ® Marvel Comics Group, with all rights reserved.

Others are © and/or ® DC Comics, which is an arm of Time/Warner, and not only are all rights reserved but they are a little jealous about it, so if I get "the letter" from them, those images are just going to turn into blank spots until I configure out what to do about that.

There are also the occasional images from Valiant, Image, Defiant, and some indies which I'm not sure even have a name, and they are all also © and/or ®, all rights reserved.

All other images not covered by this disclaimer are the property of their respective owners, and if you are one of those people and you see your image on my blog, tell me what you want me to do about it and I will. No sense making people angry.

Hope that helps.

Friday, June 03, 2005

[!] ... by which you are being saved [1a]

1Cor 15: 1Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ[1] died for our[2a] sins[2b] in accordance with the Scriptures[3], 4that he was buried[4], that he was raised on the third day[5] in accordance with the Scriptures[6](ESV, emph. Added)

Turns out, as I have been trying to get back to this passage and complete my train of thought here, that there is actually a [1a] component to the thesis I am advancing, and that is that Christ – we discussed Him briefly last time under this heading – died.

Jesus Himself says this about His death:

No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. (John 10:18, ESV)

That is to say, Jesus died because he chose to die. The death He experienced – which Paul attests to – was a death which Jesus chose. And consider it: Jesus says this in the context of calling Himself the Good Shepherd, the one who is not a “hired hand” but the one who does what He does for a purpose greater than merely having a job to do.

Now what has Paul compacted into this simple statement – that Christ “died” - his fellow apostle Peter expressed this way:

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know-- this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.(Acts 2:22-23, ESV)

So in what way did Jesus “die”? Peter here says that Christ died “according to the definite plan of God”. So Christ didn’t fall off a cliff (as most people know, I am sure), or catch a bad case of leprosy, or eat a bad piece of fish. Christ died because God intended for Him to die.

If you think about that for about 4 seconds you realize that this defines the purpose of Jesus’ death in a way which places it above all other deaths in human history. It defines Jesus’ death in terms of something God Himself was working out, and something in which Jesus was a willing player.

What is even more interesting in Peter’s testimony, I think, is the fact of the matter – the reality of this act. Christ didn’t just die as they heard reported on the Caesarian News Network, or read about in the Judea Tribune: Jesus died at the hands of the men to whom he was speaking, and because of their intentional action. Peter makes it clear that Jesus experienced a shameful death, an unjust death, and that the men who listened to him preach where responsible for His death – but also witnesses to His death. They knew Jesus died – there was no question that they had first-hand knowledge of the fact.

Christ died. As Paul defines the most important thing about the Gospel, he begins with the fact that Christ died – a fact which the other NT writers expand to note that He died willingly, and in gruesome reality, and for a plan which God has definitely set out.

But so what? And why did it take me 7 days to write this blog entry? Come back and visit, and at least one of these questions will be answered.

Labels: The Gospel