Paul had instructed the Corinthian believers how that the world, i.e. unregenerate mankind, could never find God by its own wisdom (I Corinthians 1:21). God had ordained it so. The knowledge of God begins with receiving the testimony concerning his Son, Jesus Christ. And so, Paul writes “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (I Corinthians 1:21, emphasis added). To know God one must believe his message and trust in him.
It is from this vantage point that Paul ministered to the Corinthians when he was among them at the first. He tells them plainly that he “determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (I Corinthians 2:2). Avoiding the “enticing words of man’s wisdom” (I Corinthians 2:3), he kept his message simple and focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was done that the faith of the Corinthian believers would “not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God (I Corinthians 2:4).
Faith finds its object in a Person – nothing else – and this Person is Christ Jesus, God’s Son. It was his resurrection that demonstrated the power of God spoken of here by Paul. He wrote to the believers in Rome about this very truth when he wrote “concerning his (God’s) Son…which was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:3-4, emphasis added). His prayer for the Ephesians reflected his desire that they may know “the exceeding greatness of his (God’s) power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:18-20, emphasis added).
Paul did not want the message of the gospel which is bound up in Jesus Christ and which finds its zenith in his resurrection to be muddied up by extraneous fluff. The person of Christ is inseparable from the gospel of Christ. His work on the cross, i.e. suffering death for every man (Hebrews 2:9) and offering his shed blood for the redemption of our sins (Ephesians 1:7) is forever united with his identify as God’s only begotten Son. To preach the gospel is to preach Christ and to preach Christ is to preach the gospel.
So many churches have today abandoned this simple message. But in so doing these churches have lost their relevance. They have nothing to offer a lost and dying world burdened by sin and filled with despair. The gospel alone gives hope and peace and life. It is the message God has given us and it is the only message worth sharing. What message does your church preach? If Christ is not the central theme; if the gospel has become nothing more than a community supper; if your worship is empty of gratitude for sins forgiven, then, my friend, you are going to the wrong church and listening to a dead message.
From the Chaplain 