The Priority of the Gospel

“Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth” (Mark1:38). Our Lord Jesus never allowed anything to supersede the priority of preaching. A corollary to the priority of preaching is the priority of the Gospel. Paul, in his epistle to the Corinthians, devoted one chapter to the doctrine of the resurrection. On the surface, Paul appears to be defending the doctrine of the resurrection, and it is evident that there were some in the Corinthian church who did not believe in the resurrection. He writes “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (1Cor. 15:12).

However, what Paul wrote is more than defending the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ; he is also applying the doctrine to the life of the Christian. He is not just telling us what the doctrine of the resurrection is, but what it does to us. He wants us to consider what the doctrine should mean to us who unashamedly affirm and declare its truth.

The Corinthian Church has a problem – a problem that afflicts more churches today. The problem is that there is a divide between our confessional theology – what we believe – and practical living.

So, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, brings us back to the Gospel. The Gospel is specific in the sense that it has a definite content. The Gospel is the work of God through His Son, our Lord Jesus, accomplished within the framework of human history.

Paul gives an outline of the contents: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1Cor. 15:3-4).

Paul adds that this Gospel is not new to the believers in Corinth. Paul says, “I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand” (1Cor. 15:1). The believers in Corinth have heard the Gospel before. They have received it. Now Paul is merely reminding them the things he had taught them.
The reason that Paul has to remind the Corinthians of the Gospel is because they have been distracted. The people need a re-focus. They need to make the Gospel the priority in their lives again.

And so do we. I think it was the late Martyn Lloyd Jones who said that we need to preached the Gospel to ourselves often. It means that we need to be reminded of the truths that are preached us, by which we are converted. This is a critical discipline of Christian living.

The gospel for so many Christians is simply that which they heard which led them to Christ. And it is just that – good news which they heard at the time of their conversion. To be sure, it is still good news, but for Christians who have been believers for a long time, it is stale. The Gospel has been left in the past.
And the reason could be that we think being a Christian is just changing a label. Before that I was a pagan worshipper, now I put on a label that says I am a Christian. Before that I thought like the world, now I put on the label that says “I am a Christian”, but I still think like the world.

Or it could be that we regard the Gospel as a rudimentary thing that we have been taught, and now that we have believed in Christ, we move on from the Gospel. But the Gospel is not something we ever move on from.

Paul says, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1Cor. 15:3). By the phrase “first of all,” Paul is speaking of the Gospel as the thing of first importance. In other words, the Gospel is of first priority. What Paul is saying is this: “I want to declare to you what is of first importance, that which is of the greatest importance – the first priority.”

The fact that Paul has to remind the Corinthians believers with these words implies that they have forgotten the Gospel. They did not forget the facts of the Gospel, but they have forgotten the priority of the Gospel; that the Gospel ought to be of first importance in their lives.

And the same can be said of us; that we too may have forgotten the priority of the Gospel; that we too may have been distracted by the things around us; that we too have been drawn away by the side issues and the peripheral matters. In reminding and reintroducing the Gospel, Paul is saying that we need to look at Christ. We need to remind ourselves of the simple yet altogether powerful and profound truths that the Scripture makes clear – what the finished work of Jesus Christ truly accomplishes, what that means for the transformation of our hearts; what it means to have life in Christ; and what that sanctified life must look like.

This truth applies to individuals as well as to the body of believers in the church. A healthy church is a local congregation of believers that desire to live out the gospel for the glory of God, in our relationships to one another, and in our witness to the world.

A healthy church is a local congregation of believers that is filled with people who understand the priority of the gospel, and apply that to our life and ministry. It is to be looking out and not looking in. It is looking at others and what they need, and not at ourselves and what we do not have. It is to be faithful to God and to the local congregation where God has called you until the church preaches another Gospel. It is to have the mind-set of a servant, and not the mentality of a consumer. It is not to be concerned about what the world thinks, but to look only to Christ alone.

Rev Isaac Ong
Adapted from Calvary Weekly, 18 June 2017