Christ Died for Our Sins, 1 Cor. 15:3-5

The Mission of Good Friday

1 Corinthians 15:3-5

Good Friday Message

By Brian Lam
2023.03.12

Introduction

(Picture): When the movie, The Passion of the Christ, came out in 2004, the film was the most violent film I have ever seen. For the first time, the film provided a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of. It is not a sermon or a homily but a visualization of the central event in Christianity. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film critic website gives the film an approval rating of 49 out of 100 because The Passion of the Christ leaves many viewers emotionally drained rather than spiritually uplifted. ("The Passion of the Christ (2004)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved April 4, 2023.)

(Need): It is impossible for us to conceive of the weight of sins and the ferocity of retributive justice and righteous wrath that will sweep over those sinners on judgment day. Many of us don't like Good Friday. Good Friday is a bad Friday. The pain and suffering of Christ on the cross are depressing and unnecessary.

 

(HP): Why did Christ die such a painful death? Why is Good Friday just a bad Friday? What is the reason for such death and destruction? "What have I done?"

(Text): Our text Today is 1 Cor 15:3-5. It is a creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, which is a statement of a community's shared beliefs in a form structured by subjects that summarize its core tenets. 

1 Cor 15:3-5 is one of the earliest Christian creeds that summarizes the earliest Christians' shared beliefs.

 

Paul said, "I received it and passed it to you" (v.3a). The creed is even earlier than Paul. That means the creed became popular around AD '40s, shortly a few years after Jesus' death and resurrection. 

Paul did not invent the creed and its core tenets of faith. Instead, Paul said, "I received it and passed it to you" (v.3a). Today, atheists like Bart Ehrman say that Paul and others invented Christianity and exalted a Jewish preacher from Galilee, Jesus, to be God. 

Ehrman, who is very popular on college campuses, believes that "the whole story was a legend, that is, the burial and discovery of an empty tomb were tales that LATER CHRISTIANS invented to persuade others that the resurrection indeed happened."

No. Paul did not invent the resurrection and made Jesus God. The earliest Christians recognized Christ's death and resurrection as the core tenets of faith before Paul. Paul received it and passed it to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians was written around AD 52. Many eyewitnesses were still alive and had seen the resurrected Jesus in person. There is no way that later Christians in the third century invented the story of the death and the resurrection of Christ.

This early creed is incredible and revolutionary in recognition of who Jesus is. 

The creed has four lines (3b-5). All four begin with the conjunction, "and that (kai hoti)," emphasizing the content of each line.

L1. and that CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS 

according to the Scriptures, 

L2. and that He was buried. 

L3. and that HE WAS RAISED ON THE THIRD DAY 

according to the Scriptures, 

L4. and that He appeared to Cephas and the twelve.

There are two significant pillars of faith that this early creed confesses.

L1-2 Christ died for our sins.

L3-4 He was raised on the third day.

The death and resurrection of Christ are the two core beliefs of our faith. They are written in two nearly perfect sets of Semitic parallels. Christ died for our sins parallel with He was raised on the third day. Both are according to the Old Testament scriptures. L2 and L4 provide proof of each core belief. He really died. He was buried, is the proof. He was raised on the third day. Peter and the twelve disciples are the proof.

L1-2 Christ died for our sins is about Good Friday. 

L3-4 He was raised on the third day, Easter Sunday.

Tonight, we will look at L1-L2. Christ Died for Our Sins according to the Scripture, and that He was buried. Why did Jesus die and be buried? He died for our sins. He suffered the weight of God's wrath for the depth of our sins.

1. Christ died for our sins, L1-L2,

a. Christ died for our sins is the primary tenet of the Christian faith. You and I are Christians today because Christ died for our sins. The creed uses the divine title as a name, "CHRIST died." Christ, the Greek word for Messiah, carried messianic overtones. The creed recognized the messianic mission. The Messiah Christ came and died for our sins. The Messiah (Christ) is characterized first by the reality of His death. He died to take away our sins. Christ died for our sins is so revolutionary and contrary to our expectation of who the Messiah should be.

Ancient Jews had no expectation—zero expectation—that the future Messiah would die and rise from the dead. That was not what the Messiah was supposed to do. Whatever specific idea any Jew had about the Messiah (as cosmic judge, mighty priest, powerful warrior), they all thought that he would be a figure of grandeur and power which would be a mighty ruler of Israel. Moreover, Jesus was certainly not that. Rather than destroying the enemy, Jesus was destroyed by the enemy—arrested, tortured, and crucified, the most painful and publicly humiliating form of death known to the Romans. Christ died because of our sins. The wrath of God is upon him on the cross. It is because of our sins. Jesus, in short, was just the opposite of what Jews expected a messiah to be."

b. The mission of Good Friday: Atonement.

"Christ died for our sins" is the language of atonement. The creed presupposes alienation between God and us because of our rebellion and sinfulness. Our just penalty is death. Christ died for our sins means that He died on our behalf to satisfy the penalty and overcome the alienation. The concept of substitution is woven into the very earliest Christian creeds. 

Christ died on the cross to take our place and bore our sins. The wrath of God poured out upon his Son—Jesus Christ, as he suffered and died on the cross to save us from our sins. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16.

c. For you

The language "for our sins" directly reflects Isaiah's suffering servant. 

Isaiah 53:4

Our griefs He Himself bore, and 

Our sorrows He carried. 

Isaiah 53:5

for our transgressions, He was pierced through, 

For our iniquities, He was crushed. 

We are healed by His scourging.

The immediate connection between the death of Christ and the that his death was "for our sins" is remarkable and unprecedented. Our griefs He bore. Our sorrows He carried. For our transgressions, He was pierced. For our iniquities, He was crushed. The mission of Christ's death is for your sins. It is fair to say that whoever made that connection is the "founder of Christianity." Christ died for our sins. All the evidence points to Jesus himself. He connected that with his interpretation of his death at the Last Supper. 

"The Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is FOR YOU; do this in remembrance of Me." 1 Cor. 11:23-24. 

The angels' announcement to the shepherds: Luke 2:11 "For today in the city of David there has been born FOR YOU a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

The mission of Christ is Good Friday. Christ, the Savior, the Messiah, came and died for our sins, for you and me. For the depth of our sins, He was broken and died. Jesus died in our place to satisfy the wrath of God. The wrath of God poured out upon his son as Christ suffered and died on the cross to save us from our sins.

The burial is proof of his death. L2. And that He was buried.

d. Application

1) Today, "our sins" are hardly our biggest concern. We worry about the weather. We are concerned about inflation and the cost of a dozen eggs. We pay attention to the news and wire ourselves 24/7 to our cell phones. Our sins are not a problem we want to think about.

We never make ourselves feel that we are sinners. There is a mechanism in us because of sin that will always defend us against every accusation. We are all on excellent terms with ourselves and can always put up a good case for ourselves. So even if we try to make ourselves feel we are sinners, we will never do it.

In other words, we don't feel the weight of our sin because of our sin. If we saw with deeper clarity just how insidious and pervasive and revolting sin is, we can see that Good Friday is indeed good. We would know that human evil calls for an intensity of judgment of divine proportion. If "his wrath against sin was the fire," then "all earthly bellows would not have been able to make the furnace hot enough." There is one way to know that we are sinners, and that is to look at the cross. The pain and suffering of Christ are 100 times more devastating than the movie described. The ferocity of retributive justice and the righteous wrath of God on sinners on the cross are prices Christ paid for our sins.

Action: 1) Confess your sins to you. 2) Share the Good news of Good Friday that our sins are paid for by Christ dying on the cross.

2) Today, we see the results of our sins. The ultimate and severest consequence of sin is death. The Bible says that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). This not only refers to physical death but to eternal separation from God. Yet many want to believe that God is so "loving" that He will overlook our "little faults," "lapses," and "indiscretions." Little white lies, cheating on the tax return, taking that pen when no one is looking, or secretly viewing pornography—these are peccadillos, not worthy of death, right? The problem is that sin is sin, and the wages of sin are death.

We see death and destruction. Depression. Wars. Death. We can't get up in the morning seeing all death and destruction. 

Christ died for our sins. Not only the forgiveness of sins but the deliverance from the bondage of our sinfulness. We are healed by His scourging.

Actions: 1) Don't be afraid. The power of sins is broken. We are secured in Christ. 2) Look forward to Easter Sunday, the new life we have in Christ.

2. He was raised on the third day. L3.-L4.

Good Friday is not the end of the story. Instead, we look forward to Easter Sunday, when Christ was raised on the third day. 

Conclusion

We await the resurrection on the third day.