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1 Corinthians 15:1-5 – Don’t Forget the Burial
I am always looking for different and deeper ways to teach on baptism: Jesus died on the cross and three days later was resurrected while still hanging on the cross. While everyone knows that is not accurate history, it is an accurate description of how many preach the gospel. But it has not always been so.
The Apostle’s Creed (AD 390) reads, Jesus was “crucified, dead and buried.” One writer observed, “In one sense, we might say that the specific mention of the burial is a bit superfluous” (ligonier.com). No, it is not unnecessarily added or assumed. But while many rightfully place great emphasis on the death and resurrection; many barely emphasize the burial. Is it of equal importance?
1) All four gospel accounts mention the tomb burial;
2) Peter’s 1st apostolic sermon sermon (Acts 2:27,29); and Paul’s first recorded sermon (Acts 13:29) mention it;
3) Paul defines the bare bone facts of the gospel by including the burial (1 Corinthians 15:1-5);
4) Jesus’s body was partially prepared for burial (Luke 23:53);
5) He was buried in a rich man’s tomb (Matthew 27:57-60; Isaiah 53:9).
According to the inspired historical record, the burial of Jesus is an integral part of the gospel. Jesus died, importantly was buried, and then resurrected.
Two other aspects which show the importance of Jesus’s burial are:
1) The tomb burial is part of the visual motif of rising. Jesus didn’t just come back from the dead; He rose from the dead (Acts 13:29,33). In this sense rising from the tomb is akin to rising from the earth (Ephesians 4:8-10); and being raised to the right hand of God (Ephesians 2:6).
2) As Mathew Henry pointed out, “In the garden of Eden death and the grave first received their power, and now in a garden they are conquered, disarmed, and triumphed over. In a garden Christ began his passion, and from a garden he would rise, and begin his exaltation.”
These two reasons show symbolic reasons the burial must be emphasized. We will observe another symbolic reason momentarily.
If the Bible emphasizes the burial, why is the burial not emphasized by some today along with the death and resurrection?
Possibly it is because the burial is an apologetic reenactment – along with the death and resurrection – seen and symbolized in immersion, that is, baptism (Romans 6). While a symbol baptism is not just a symbol. It is God’s method (Colossians 2:12).
If a preacher is not going to preach the necessity of baptism, he won’t emphasize of equal importance the burial. Now the question for us is this: Since the Holy Spirit inspired historical record emphasized both Jesus’s burial and our baptism, shouldn’t we? And shouldn’t preachers of the gospel stress both? If yours doesn’t, let’s talk about the gospel.
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