“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”  –  1 Corinthians 15:3

“According to the Scriptures”! Everything that happened to Christ was foretold thousands of years ahead of time!

In essence, the apostle Paul is anchoring the Gospel to something older, deeper, and unshakeable – words spoken, written and told throughout the generations.

That my friend, changes everything about how we read our Bibles.

From the very first pages of Genesis, God was laying a trail.

When He spoke to the serpent in the Garden; “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head” (Genesis 3:15), the promise of a Redeemer had already been planted in the soil of human history.

That was not poetry for its own sake. That was prophecy.

Every lamb slaughtered under the Levitical sacrificial system whispered the same truth: blood must be shed; sin has a cost; and one day, Someone will pay it completely.

Every sin offering at the temple altar, every scapegoat sent into the wilderness – these were not mere religious rituals. They were dress rehearsals for Calvary.

The Psalms ached with it. Psalm 22 opens with the cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – the very words Jesus would speak from the Cross a thousand years later.

The psalmist described pierced hands and feet, garments divided by lot, bones on display.

He had never seen a Roman crucifixion. He was simply writing what the Spirit placed within him.

Nothing in the Old Testament prepares us more directly for the cross than Isaiah 53.

Written seven centuries before Jesus walked into Jerusalem, it reads like an eyewitness account:

“Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows.” (v. 4)

“He was pierced for our transgressions… and by His stripes we are healed.” (v. 5)

“The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (v. 6)

“He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” (v. 12)

This is not coincidence. This is a God who knows the end from the beginning, who speaks before things come to pass so that when they do, His people will recognise His hand.

“…from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” – 2 Timothy 3:15:

This is the pastoral word I want to leave with you: the Gospel you believe is not fragile.

It is not built on wishful thinking or the enthusiasm of first-century disciples.

It is built on centuries of divine preparation, prophetic announcement, and precise fulfilment.

When Paul says Christ died “according to the Scriptures,” he is handing you an anchor.

He is saying that the same God who kept His word to Abraham, to Moses, to David, and to Isaiah – that God keeps His word to you too.

The promises of God do not expire. The faithfulness that ran like a golden thread from Eden through the Prophets and into the empty tomb is the same faithfulness that meets you in your situation today.

So, when you open your Old Testament, do not read it as ancient religion with little to say to your Monday morning. Read it as preparation.

Read it as promise. Read it as the opening chapters of the timeless story that reached its climax at the Cross and continues in you to the next generations.

Christ’s death for our sins was not a tragedy that God scrambled to redeem.

It was the plan — announced in a garden, rehearsed at altars, proclaimed by ancient prophets, and finally accomplished on a hill outside Jerusalem.

And because it was always the plan, you can trust that everything God has promised you is equally certain.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:15: “…from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

Embrace the Scriptures. Memorize them. Share them.  

They were written for our faith today and for all time.