Tuesday, April 11
2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:2
HOLD FAST
In 1 Corinthians 15:2, Paul continues his work of clarifying the GOSPEL (good news) about Jesus Christ.
Typically, we talk about Salvation in the past tense, as in “the Lord saved me.” Yet, God’s gospel is far more comprehensive, and we see this played out in this passage. It is right for us to believe that God saved us, God is saving us, and God will save us. The Gospel is not just that God did a work in us and then left us standing at a distance. Instead, his work of salvation is a moment, a process, and an eventual reality.
Interestingly, Paul provides a conditional statement, “…if you hold fast to the word I preached to you”. Now, this is one of those moments that our English language loses a crucial aspect of Biblical Greek. This is a “first-class conditional sentence,” meaning that Paul is stating that they WILL hold fast to the word that was preached to them. You could translate it this way, “and by which you are being saved, SINCE you hold fast to the word I preached to you. There is no room to call into question whether or not God’s act of salvation is contingent upon your ability to hold fast.
The last phrase, “unless you believed in vain” refers to a belief in Christ that is without due consideration, haphazard manner, or to no purpose. A belief in vain, is truly no belief at all. We will see later that Paul uses this same phrase to refer to the uselessness of our faith if Jesus did not rise from the dead!
The gospel saves us. The gospel redeems us. The gospel is what changes us since we will hold firm to Him.
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