I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
Notice that Paul couches the amazing Christian claim that “Christ died for our sins” in both Scriptural and historical language: “in accordance with the scriptures.”
The death of Christ was no accident, nor was the birth of Christianity a mere human movement following some new teacher. Jesus is the Christ foretold and looked toward for hundreds of years!
The Christian gospel is, above all, a Scriptural gospel.
Christ’s coming was prophesied in great detail, long before he was ever born into the world.
In fact, the title “Christ” means “anointed one” and is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word rendered “Messiah”. For thousands of years, the Jewish people looked for a Messiah, as clearly foretold in Scripture.
But notice that Paul’s chief basis for the veracity of the Christian message is “the scriptures.” The Bible unashamedly claims to be the final authority on, and standard for, truth. Which is what any final authority must claim to be. As Christian philosopher John Frame observes: “The ultimate standard must justify itself. It would be contradictory to try to justify an ultimate by something more ultimate.”
Sometimes people balk at this claim of Scripture, but the fact is that every one of us is using some ultimate standard of truth—and whatever it is, it must be self-justifying.
It cannot gain its authority from something greater, or else it is not the final authority it claims to be!
Those who claim human reason, for instance, must be the final authority must ultimately resort to human reason in order to argue for it as the final authority. Anything which claims to be the ultimate standard of truth must ultimately be self-justifying.
So Paul is consistent with his own message when he lays out Scripture as the chief basis for the veracity of the Christian message.
The Christian gospel is, above all, a Scriptural gospel.
Ultimately we are trusting in the authority and accuracy of God’s revelation.
There are—as we would expect there to be for any true claim—numerous external confirmations of the Christian message, and Paul lists several convincing ones in the context of this very passage. But chiefly Paul appeals to the authority of Scripture as the ultimate standard for truth.
We, then, should not be embarrassed to follow Paul’s example when we present the gospel today. Yes, there are good apologetic arguments for the veracity of Christian claims. But ultimately we are trusting in the authority and accuracy of God’s revelation to us in the Bible. It is the self-justifying standard for all truth.