Foundation Truths # 2

 Foundation Truths # 2

In short, the Apostle taught that the greatest miracles had been wrought, and that with such a Founder of the new faith which he came to proclaim, first dying for our sins, and then rising again for our justification, nothing was impossible and nothing lacking for the salvation of man's soul.

Such were the two great truths to which Paul assigned the first place, when he began his campaign as a Christian teacher at Corinth - Christ's victorious death for our sins - Christ's rising again from the grave. Nothing seems to have preceded them - nothing to have been placed on a level with them.

No doubt it was a sore trial of faith and courage to a learned and highly-educated man like Paul to take up such a line. Flesh and blood might well shrink from it. He says himself, "I was with you in weakness and fear, and in much trembling" (1 Cor. 2:2-3). But by the grace of God, he did not flinch. He says, "I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Nor did the case of Corinth stand alone. Wherever the great Apostle of the Gentiles went, he preached the same doctrine, and put it in the forefront of very different minds. But he always used the same spiritual medicine, whether at Jerusalem, or Antioch in Pisidia, or Iconium, or Lystra, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, or Berca, or Athens, or Ephesus, or Rome. That medicine was the story of the Cross and the resurrection. They crop up on all his sermons and Epistles. You never go far without coming across them. Even Festus, the Roman governor, when he tells Agrippa of Paul's case, describes it as hinging on "One Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive (Acts 25_19).

(a) Now let us learn for one thing what were the leading principles of that religion, which eighteen centuries ago came forth from Palestine, and turned the world upside down. The truest infidel cannot deny the effect that it produced on mankind. The world before and the world after the introduction of Christianity, were as different worlds as light and darkness, night and day. It was Christianity that starved idolatry, and emptied the heathen temples. It was Christianity that stopped gladiatorial combats, elevated the position of women, raised the whole tone of morality, and improved the condition of children and the poor. These are facts which we may safely challenge all the enemies of revealed religion to gainsay. They are facts which form one of the gravest difficulties of infidelity.

And what did it all? Not, as some dare to say, the mere publication of a higher code of duty, a sort of improved Platonic philosophy, without root or motive. No! it was the simple story of the Cross of Calvary, and the empty sepulcher in the garden. It was the marvelous death of One "numbered with transgressors," and the astounding miracle of His resurrection (Isaiah 53:12). It was by telling how the Son of God died for our sins, and rose again for our justification, that Apostles and apostolic men changed the face of the world, gathered mighty churches, and turned countless sinners into saints.

(b) Let us learn, for another thing, what the foundation of our own personal religion must be, if we really want inward, spiritual comfort. That the early Christians possessed such comfort is as plain as the sun at noonday. We read repeatedly in the New Testament of their joy, and peace, and hope, and patience, and cheerfulness, and contentment. We read in ecclesiastical history of their courage and firmness under the fiercest persecution, of their uncomplaining endurance of sufferings, and their triumphant deaths. And what was the mainspring of their peculiar characters - characters which excited the admiration even of their bitterest enemies, and puzzled philosophers like Pliny? There can be only one reply. These men had a firm grasp of the two great facts which Paul proclaimed "first" and foremost to the Corinthians, the death and resurrection of their great Head, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Let us never be ashamed of walking in their steps. It is cheap and easy work to sneer at "dogmatic theology" and old-fashioned creeds and modes of faith, as if they were effete and worn-out things, unfit for this enlightened nineteenth century. But after all, what are the fruits of modern philosophy, and the teaching of cold abstractions - compared to the fruits of the despised dogmas of distinctive Christianity? If you want to see peace in life, and hope in death, and consolation felt in sorrow - you will never find such things except among those who rest on the two great facts of our text, and can say, "I live by faith in the Son of God," who died for my sins, and was raised agains for my justification" (Galatians 2:20).

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 3)