Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 15

Today's reading: Ezekiel 5; 1 Corinthians 15

"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."

This might be a bit of a controversial stance in the church today, but I believe Paul means what he says in these opening verses of 1 Corinthians 15.

Throughout chapter 15 Paul is dealing with the question of resurrection, and the fact that some, evidently enough to be worth writing about in his letter to them, were being led astray by a teaching that there is no resurrection of the dead. His point, at first, is that such teaching entirely invalidates the gospel, since the forgiveness of sins is rooted in the death and resurrection of Jesus. He also makes the point that, if there is no resurrection, there is no reason to concern ourselves with Christianity in the first place, but that's a separate issue. The fact of the matter is, some number of Christians among them were being led away from the gospel by this teaching.

Into that situation, Paul does not say, "Thank goodness, brothers, that you prayed to receive Christ back when I was with you so that you will still go to heaven even though you have stopped believing in Jesus' resurrection, and thus in His ability to pay for your sin." Nor does he say, "Don't worry about the people who are turning from the gospel, they were evidently never really believers to begin with. If they had been believers, they would never be led astray from the gospel." No, Paul says he is reminding them of the gospel, "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."

Paul acknowledges that their previous belief was genuine, but also that it could be in vain. How? If they don't hold fast to the word he preached to them. Clearly, Paul has a category for a genuine believing Christian who abandons, or is led astray from, the faith, not continuing in it, and thus losing the salvation they previously had.

But I want to be clear, since I see these categories way too often confused, this is nothing to do with sin, and everything to do with faith. Yes, lack of faith is sin, but I mean that Paul is not warning that if we sin too much, or commit too big, important, or grave of a sin, we lose our salvation. There is also no hint that we should be walking around wringing our hands, fretting about whether we are in the faith or not. If we believe the gospel, that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, and that we can get to heaven by no other means, then we will go to be with the Lord when we die; if we don't we won't. It's as simple as that.

So yes, I believe that Paul means what he says in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, and I don't think we need to try to worm our way around it, or figure out how he might actually mean something different in order to try to preserve a once-saved-always-saved theology of salvation.