Context.
What is the Gospel Paul is talking about?
1 Corinthians 15
15 Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast [
a]the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you [
b]
as of first importance what I also received, that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;7 then He appeared to [
c]James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as [
d]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, [
e]and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.11 Whether then
it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
12 Now if
Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found
to be false witnesses of God, because we testified [
f]against God that He raised [
g]Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For
if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
THAT is the Gospel Paul talks about. Christ died for our sins, was buried, raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and appeared to men. There is a Resurrection of the dead to come. Christ was raised, we will one day be raised, we do not utterly perish when we die.
If you deny those things, your faith is vain. It's not the minute details, whether you get every single jot and tittle right with zero error, never encounter a single moment of doubt, eradicate every tiny sin from your life. We do have to consider all of Scripture, and understand it all in context. Yes, God expects us to repent of sins, seek forgiveness, follow Christ's commandments. But we don't "purchase" our salvation in this way.
Actually, such questions as yours have my compassion. I guess I can understand how a line here, a verse there, like statistics, can be cobbled together to make the Scriptures seem to say almost anything. If that is your only source of understanding, and hearing a thousand different opinions, it's enough to confuse anyone, and this is the most important thing to most of us, that one thing we most desire NOT to be confused by. And it would take years to sufficiently sift through early Church writings on our own (as well as needing to read Greek for many of them).
