Paul doesn’t bury the lead.
In 1 Corinthians 15, he lays out what he calls the thing “of first importance” — the non-negotiable core of everything he preaches, everything he’s staked his life on. And it’s not a principle. It’s not a framework. It’s not a set of values or a spiritual posture or a way of approaching life. It’s a historical event.
“For 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)
Two events. The whole gospel in two events.
Why “First Importance” Matters
We live in a world that loves to add to the gospel. To make it more sophisticated, more palatable, more culturally relevant. We soften the edges, swap out the hard parts, and end up with something that sounds vaguely spiritual but has lost its power.
Paul’s answer to that drift is to go back to first importance. Not second importance. Not the thing you graduate to after you’ve mastered the basics. The thing you never leave. The thing you come back to every single morning, every time you fail, every time the weight of your own inadequacy presses down on you.
Christ died for our sins. He was buried. He was raised on the third day.
That’s the center. Everything else orbits it.
“For Our Sins” — The Part We’d Rather Skip
Notice what Paul doesn’t say. He doesn’t say Christ died as an example. He doesn’t say Christ died to show us how to live. He says Christ died for our sins.
That’s substitutionary language. It means the death wasn’t incidental — it was purposeful. It was in our place. The penalty that our sin demanded was absorbed by someone else, someone who had no sin of his own to pay for. 2 Corinthians 5:21 puts it plainly: “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This is the part of the gospel that makes people uncomfortable. Because it requires admitting that there was something to die for. That we weren’t basically good people who just needed a little guidance. That the problem was serious enough to require a death.
But here’s the thing: the depth of the problem is exactly what makes the solution so staggering. If sin were a minor inconvenience, the cross would be overkill. The fact that it required the death of the Son of God tells you everything about the weight of what was being dealt with — and the magnitude of what was accomplished.
“He Was Raised” — The Part That Proves It Worked
Paul doesn’t stop at the cross. He never does. The death of Christ is the first event of first importance. The resurrection is the second. And they cannot be separated.
Romans 4:25 says Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” The cross dealt with the debt. The resurrection proved the payment was accepted. If Jesus had stayed in the tomb, the cross would have been a tragedy — a good man executed unjustly, nothing more. But He rose. And His resurrection is God’s public declaration that the sacrifice was sufficient, the debt is paid, and the verdict of justification is final.
This is why Paul spends the rest of 1 Corinthians 15 defending the resurrection with such force. He knows what’s at stake. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17) The resurrection is not a bonus feature of the gospel. It is the proof that the gospel is true. Without it, the cross is just a death. With it, the cross is the turning point of history.
And Paul says both of these events — the death and the resurrection — happened in accordance with the Scriptures. This wasn’t improvised. It wasn’t plan B. It was the destination the entire Old Testament was pointing toward — foreshadowed in the sacrificial system, promised through the prophets, anticipated in every lamb that was slain. The God who planned it is the same God who accomplished it.
“In Accordance with the Scriptures” — This Was Always the Plan
That phrase — repeated twice in Paul’s summary, once for the death and once for the resurrection — is doing more work than it might appear.
It means the cross wasn’t a tragedy. It wasn’t God improvising after things went sideways in the garden. The death and resurrection of Christ were woven into the fabric of redemptive history from the beginning. Genesis 3:15 promised a seed who would crush the serpent’s head. Isaiah 53 described a servant who would be pierced for our transgressions and see the light of life after his suffering. Psalm 16 anticipated a holy one who would not see corruption. All of it was pointing here.
That matters because it means you can trust it. This isn’t a story that got out of hand. It’s a story that was always heading exactly here, to this death, to this resurrection, to this declaration of first importance. The God who planned it is the same God who accomplished it. And He doesn’t leave things unfinished.
The Thing You Never Graduate From
Here’s what’s easy to miss about “first importance”: Paul is writing to a church that’s been following Jesus for years. These aren’t new converts. And he’s still telling them to hold fast to this. Still reminding them that the death and resurrection of Christ is the thing they can’t afford to drift from.
Because we drift. We move on to more advanced topics. We get interested in the deeper things, the nuanced things, the things that feel more sophisticated than “Christ died for our sins and rose again.” And slowly, subtly, the center gets pushed to the margins.
Paul won’t let that happen. He keeps bringing it back. This is the thing of first importance. Not just for new believers. For everyone. Always.
You don’t graduate from the gospel. You go deeper into it. And the deeper you go, the more you find that the cross and the empty tomb are not the starting point you leave behind — they are the ground you stand on for everything else.
Christ died for our sins. He was buried. He was raised on the third day. In accordance with the Scriptures.
That’s the thing of first importance. Hold fast to it.
Go Deeper
1. Paul’s summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 includes both the death and the resurrection as “of first importance.” Why do you think we tend to emphasize the cross more than the resurrection? What does the resurrection add to the gospel that the cross alone cannot provide?
2. Paul says Christ died “for our sins” — substitutionary language that requires admitting the problem was serious enough to demand a death. Where in your life are you still tempted to minimize the seriousness of sin? How does the cross correct that tendency?
3. Paul is writing to experienced believers and still calling them back to first importance. Where in your own spiritual life has the gospel drifted from the center to the margins? What would it look like to bring it back — not as a starting point you’ve moved past, but as the ground you stand on every day?
— Todd Wallace, 4HG
Wear the thing of first importance. The Christ Died for Our Sins tee — a confession that the center holds. Shop at 4HG.
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