Believed in Vain?

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

What if Paul had written a letter like this today, do you think he would have used the same wording that now confuses us? I don't think so, either. I think it would sound a little more like this:

My brothers, let me state clearly, once again, the good news that I brought you when I first came among you - this is the good news that you received, the good news by which you stand, the good news by which you are delivered - that is, if you retain what I said this deliverance really is, otherwise, your faith - built on what I spoke may be totally worthless - in other words, null and void.

The KJV translates this phrase: if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you

The NIV translates it: if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you

DARBY translated it: if ye hold fast the word which I announced to you as the glad tidings

The actual meaning of the word seems to fluctuate depending on how it is used. It comes from a word meaning keep, hold back, detain, retain, hold fast, restrain, hinder, get possession of, take, to check a ship's headway. You know, it's like a lot of OUR words that have to be understood by the framework they built into.

The sense I'm hearing in this is a simple communication by Paul to these people who had already heard what he had said, and had taken his words as being the very words of Christ himself. That's how Paul had put it to the Galatians and the Thessalonians as he reminded them of what he had ALREADY told them previously.

His basic message to them in this whole section was in reminding them of the logic of God (the gospel - that which he earlier called the "foolishness of God") and how the deliverance (salvation) built upon God's logic was a non-thing if the basic ingredient of the resurrection of Christ from the dead was not a fact.

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

This makes being saved sound kind of conditional, wouldn't you say?

Does this teach that one can lose their salvation? If not, why do the arguments to the contrary usually sound so lame? I propose that both sides of the argument suffer from the same basic flaw in logic - which is that they have the exact same focus. But I'll get back to that.

First, these verses suggest nothing about LOSING something, because Paul's argument puts the EXISTENCE of salvation in the balances of the Corinthians' logic, not the DURATION of it. And this leads me to my next point: Paul IS presenting salvation as CONDITIONAL. Do I have your attention? :)

Okay then, the flawed focus: ME. I got thrown off by the believed-in-vain comment because it tapped into MY fear that something was wrong with MY faith. I wondered if I had enough faith to satisfy the technical demands of God. My questions sounded like this:

• Did I believe the right things?
• Did I believe enough of the gospel?
• Was I sincere enough?
• Is my faith strong enough?
• Will I be able to hold out long enough?
• Was my faith Biblical?
• Could it be real faith if I still sin?

MY fear revolves around ME, and it is so strong that even reading the context clouded the obvious STATED reality that vain faith had NOTHING to do with ME, but ONLY with JESUS. His grace took the blinders off my eyes to see what had been written so clearly:

IF Christ has NOT been raised, THEN our preaching is vain, YOUR FAITH ALSO IS VAIN. 1 Corinthians 15:14

IF Christ has NOT been raised, YOUR FAITH IS WORTHLESS; you are still in your sins. 1 Corinthians 15:17

There's the condition! Paul never examined the believing to suggest IT might be vain, he laid it ALL on the reality of Christ's being raised from the dead.

So, why did he say, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you? For the same reason he said the same basic thing in almost all his letters: HIS message came from God, so to hell with anything that contradicted it! Paul wanted them to consider the contrary message they were hearing so they would see for themselves that it offered a WORTHLESS faith. In other words, if the message of the false teachers was true then Jesus had NOT been raised and faith itself would be absurd since faith is our dependence upon HIS life.

Because deliverance all rests on CHRIST your faith is NOT worthless. Take those new teachings that keep popping up to put it back on YOU and shove 'em where the sun don't shine. So, what kind of a worthless faith have you been offered lately?