1 Corinthians 15:34-58
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This has been a pretty rough couple
of weeks. In fact the whole year so far has been too busy with more than our
fair share of funerals. But that is
really why I am very glad that God in his planning, has us on these
resurrection texts these past two weeks. Our best defense against the pain and
sorrow of death is to remember that it is not as final as it appears to be.
Death is swallowed up in the victory of Christ and becomes nothing more than a
necessary gateway to a new and immortal life! Our good shepherd leads us
through this valley of the shadow of death and onto glory!
Although I wanted you to hear the triumphant conclusion first, thank you Michelle, in today’s longer text we cover several more issues related to our resurrection, which is granted to those who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and live to obey him as his disciples. So let me work through this by reading a little at a time and then making a few comments with regard to what it’s telling us to understand about our eventual resurrection. I hope you will open your bibles and follow along with me as I will keep using the verse numbers from time to time to show where we are and the progress we are making as we go along today. In the first bit starting at verse 35, of 1 Cor. 15, Paul actually reveals by inspiration something that is super natural or beyond our normal ability to know.
We do of course have the question, “someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” And Paul’s first response is, “How foolish!” as if to suggest that maybe there is such a thing as a stupid question after all. But what Paul is really getting at is the foolishness of using such a question to sort of backhandedly claim that there is no resurrection. Paul has been dealing strongly with those in Corinth who deny the resurrection. We should assume the tone of the questioner is sort of like that of a doubter who only doubts because he doesn’t already know the answer. It is not an honest inquiry. It is a question designed to end the debate with the conclusion that since we don’t know what kind of body will be raised, we don’t know if there is any resurrection at all.
Then Paul goes on to say that there is an answer to the question. But the answer is not of a definite description of the type of body to come. Rather it is the faithful trust in God who has provided that when a seed is planted, a plant springs up.
Paul says, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.”
This is a wonderful analogy that tells us about the resurrection body without giving a scientific description of its structure and composition. Jesus himself said very much the same thing in John 12:25-26. He said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
You plant a seed, a little round hard dot of almost dead wood with dark, or brown, or earth tone colors goes into the ground. But oh! What comes out is so much bigger and so much more beautiful, so glorious and so full of life! That’s how these wonderfully made earthly bodies we have now compare to the glorified resurrected bodies we will have one day. This body, as amazing as it is and as a live as it is for me right now, is very tiny compared to the one I am getting later. Its capabilities are very limited compared to the one I am getting later. I am nearly dead compared to the living body I am getting later. Just think of the difference between Jesus’ normal human appearance compared to what they saw on the mount of transfiguration. It’s God’s extreme makeover!
When we plant a tiny little black poppy seed we know that it will be a poppy that grows up. When we plant a human being in the ground, we should know that one day a human being will rise up. We can study the form and structure of the poppy plant because it is here for us. But we don’t know much about what resurrected humans will look like and be like because it hasn’t happened yet as far as we are concerned, on this side of eternity. But when it happens it will be glorious! And for all that we know, since eternity is without any time at all, all those who have gone before us may already know themselves to be resurrected. Didn’t Jesus say to the thief on the cross, “This day you will be with me in paradise?”
Next Paul says in verse 39, “All flesh is not the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.”
Here he is speaking as a scientist. Isn’t it obvious that different things are made of different stuff? There will be a considerable difference between the bodies we have now and the bodies we will receive in glory. He goes on to say definitely, “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
I would just put in here that because the body we will inherit if we are in Christ is so much better than the one we have now, this is powerful motivation to go ahead and be fully committed to Jesus. As I just read, Jesus said, “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” To love your life is to serve yourself and lose it all. To hate this life is to serve Jesus Christ, giving him everything we’ve got, and then we keep a better life for eternity!
Next in verse 44 Paul talks about how we move from having already inherited the physical body that is subject to death, in order to inherit the spiritual body that lives forever. He says, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.” The earthly man is Adam and his natural descendants. The spiritual man is Jesus, the second Adam, the risen Lord who gives us eternal life when we accept on faith the testimony about him.
Whatever the spiritual body is made of, it is not a disembodied spirit. It is still a body. As we saw last week, the redeemed restored creation, the New Heaven and the New Earth will be made of matter. After his resurrection, Jesus visited the disciples in his spiritual body. It was still a body that the disciples could see and touch. They could put their fingers into the nail holes that he kept as a reminder of the work he had done on the cross for us. Jesus could eat. He made a point of proving that his return was not just spiritual, but fully physical as well.
This new spiritual body in which he was raised was a physical body, yet He could also move into the closed room, unhindered by locked doors. He was no longer limited by the natural laws of physics that still keep us out of locked rooms. But that still doesn’t mean he was some sort of ghost. It just gives a glimpse of how much more freedom we will have in our new bodies.
Paul makes this a bit harder for us when he says in verse 50, “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” This seems to indicate that our new bodies cannot be made of flesh and blood, but they have to be made of something physical, or else Paul is contradicting his teachings about some kind of physical resurrection. So nobody knows exactly what we will be made of, but assuredly we will have a material body of some kind, and some far better kind than the ones we are currently living in.
So, far from contradicting himself, what Paul is really talking about anyway is the absolute necessity of trusting in Jesus, accepting him as Lord and Savior and thus being born of the Spirit, or born again, as Jesus said in John chapter 3, so that we are enabled by God’s grace to inherit the kingdom of God. Only those who thus believe are really of the Spirit and able to inherit that spiritual body.
Notice what Paul did not say. In spite of popular notions, the Bible does not teach that people become angels in the next life. Psalm 8 says that we were created a little lower than the angels. But we also know that in Christ we are exalted above the angels! Angels are not the children of God. We are! In fact the Bible says that we will rule over the angels! We already read that in 1 Cor. 6:3. “Do you not know that we will judge angels?”
And that’s about it for Paul’s description of what kind of bodies we might have in heaven. So he moves on to speak of the end of all time. I am on verse 51. “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Now when he says “all” in this case he is not talking about all people in general. The Bible does not teach universalism. Paul is talking about all believers. We have already seen that only those who are born again of the Spirit through faith in Jesus are able to inherit the Spiritual body Paul is talking about.
There will be a day in which at some moment during that day, the last trumpet will sound from heaven and at the instant we hear that trumpet blast, if we are alive to see it, in the blink of an eye, in the smallest possible fraction of time, we will all be changed from mortal to immortal. Then we will be reunited with all the saints who have gone on before us having also been raised but who were beyond our reach or perception until we were changed.
If we are going to be resurrected in Christ, we need also to be transformed into his likeness. Only Christ-like people will be suitable for such a quality of life. So in order to stand before God and live forever in his presence Paul says in verse 52, “the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality,” That is why we, the believers, will all be changed. Now the end of verse 54, “then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul’s mention of sin and the Law, teaches us that death is not just a natural and unpleasant phenomenon. In this we can appreciate the crucial importance of rooting the meaning of Christ’s death in the need for sin to be dealt with properly. Death is the consequence of Adam’s sin and rebellion, in which we all have a part. Death is therefore an evil which exists only because of mankind’s rebellion against God. It is the punishment we all deserve for the sin in which we all indulge. This is a general judgment. We must not make the mistake of thinking that an untimely death indicates a more severe punishment for any particular person. We all know many good people die much too young. We also are tempted to say that many bad people live far too long. Young or old, we all are sinners and this sinful body must die one day.
But thanks be to God, Christ through his death has dealt with sin and in his resurrection has demolished death! Now the death of these human bodies is only a shadow of death for those who are in Christ. He had given us the victory! Thanks be to God for such grace!
Death…sin…the law—all have been broken wide open in the death and resurrection of Christ. Even now we can experience victory over this trio, but only in part, until at the last day we begin to enjoy the full benefits of what Christ has accomplished for us.
Because this is the glorious hope in front of the Christian, Paul urges the Corinthians, and us too, to be steady and unshakable in pressing on with the Lord. Here he says, in verse 58, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
And for this reason he can also say things such as in 2 Tim. 2:3-4, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.” It’s worth it! Use up these old bodies that are going to die one day anyway. I don’t mean waste them. Use good stewardship to stay as healthy as you can so that you can get the most use out of them for God. But don’t retire from the Lord’s service if you are still capable of working. Don’t settle down to say I’ve done my share.
A great Christian leader I am reading (A.W. Tozer, The Next Chapter After the Last, 9.) put it this way, “We who follow Christ are men and women of eternity. We must put no confidence in the passing scenes of the disappearing world. We must resist every attempt of Satan to palm off upon us the values that belong to mortality. Nothing less than forever is long enough for us. We view with amused sadness the frenetic scramble of the world to gain a brief moment in the sun. 'The book of the month,' for instance, has a strange sound to one who has dwelt with God and taken his values from the Ancient of Days. 'The man of the year' cannot impress those men and women who are making their plans for that long eternity when days and years have passed away and time is no more.
The church must claim again her ancient dowry of everlastingness. She must begin again to deal with ages and millenniums rather than with days and years. She must not count numbers but test foundations. She must work for permanence rather than for appearance. Her children must seek those enduring things that have been touched with immortality.” I‘ll just say it again in Paul’s words, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Amen.
Although I wanted you to hear the triumphant conclusion first, thank you Michelle, in today’s longer text we cover several more issues related to our resurrection, which is granted to those who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and live to obey him as his disciples. So let me work through this by reading a little at a time and then making a few comments with regard to what it’s telling us to understand about our eventual resurrection. I hope you will open your bibles and follow along with me as I will keep using the verse numbers from time to time to show where we are and the progress we are making as we go along today. In the first bit starting at verse 35, of 1 Cor. 15, Paul actually reveals by inspiration something that is super natural or beyond our normal ability to know.
We do of course have the question, “someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” And Paul’s first response is, “How foolish!” as if to suggest that maybe there is such a thing as a stupid question after all. But what Paul is really getting at is the foolishness of using such a question to sort of backhandedly claim that there is no resurrection. Paul has been dealing strongly with those in Corinth who deny the resurrection. We should assume the tone of the questioner is sort of like that of a doubter who only doubts because he doesn’t already know the answer. It is not an honest inquiry. It is a question designed to end the debate with the conclusion that since we don’t know what kind of body will be raised, we don’t know if there is any resurrection at all.
Then Paul goes on to say that there is an answer to the question. But the answer is not of a definite description of the type of body to come. Rather it is the faithful trust in God who has provided that when a seed is planted, a plant springs up.
Paul says, “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.”
This is a wonderful analogy that tells us about the resurrection body without giving a scientific description of its structure and composition. Jesus himself said very much the same thing in John 12:25-26. He said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
You plant a seed, a little round hard dot of almost dead wood with dark, or brown, or earth tone colors goes into the ground. But oh! What comes out is so much bigger and so much more beautiful, so glorious and so full of life! That’s how these wonderfully made earthly bodies we have now compare to the glorified resurrected bodies we will have one day. This body, as amazing as it is and as a live as it is for me right now, is very tiny compared to the one I am getting later. Its capabilities are very limited compared to the one I am getting later. I am nearly dead compared to the living body I am getting later. Just think of the difference between Jesus’ normal human appearance compared to what they saw on the mount of transfiguration. It’s God’s extreme makeover!
When we plant a tiny little black poppy seed we know that it will be a poppy that grows up. When we plant a human being in the ground, we should know that one day a human being will rise up. We can study the form and structure of the poppy plant because it is here for us. But we don’t know much about what resurrected humans will look like and be like because it hasn’t happened yet as far as we are concerned, on this side of eternity. But when it happens it will be glorious! And for all that we know, since eternity is without any time at all, all those who have gone before us may already know themselves to be resurrected. Didn’t Jesus say to the thief on the cross, “This day you will be with me in paradise?”
Next Paul says in verse 39, “All flesh is not the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.”
Here he is speaking as a scientist. Isn’t it obvious that different things are made of different stuff? There will be a considerable difference between the bodies we have now and the bodies we will receive in glory. He goes on to say definitely, “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
I would just put in here that because the body we will inherit if we are in Christ is so much better than the one we have now, this is powerful motivation to go ahead and be fully committed to Jesus. As I just read, Jesus said, “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” To love your life is to serve yourself and lose it all. To hate this life is to serve Jesus Christ, giving him everything we’ve got, and then we keep a better life for eternity!
Next in verse 44 Paul talks about how we move from having already inherited the physical body that is subject to death, in order to inherit the spiritual body that lives forever. He says, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.” The earthly man is Adam and his natural descendants. The spiritual man is Jesus, the second Adam, the risen Lord who gives us eternal life when we accept on faith the testimony about him.
Whatever the spiritual body is made of, it is not a disembodied spirit. It is still a body. As we saw last week, the redeemed restored creation, the New Heaven and the New Earth will be made of matter. After his resurrection, Jesus visited the disciples in his spiritual body. It was still a body that the disciples could see and touch. They could put their fingers into the nail holes that he kept as a reminder of the work he had done on the cross for us. Jesus could eat. He made a point of proving that his return was not just spiritual, but fully physical as well.
This new spiritual body in which he was raised was a physical body, yet He could also move into the closed room, unhindered by locked doors. He was no longer limited by the natural laws of physics that still keep us out of locked rooms. But that still doesn’t mean he was some sort of ghost. It just gives a glimpse of how much more freedom we will have in our new bodies.
Paul makes this a bit harder for us when he says in verse 50, “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” This seems to indicate that our new bodies cannot be made of flesh and blood, but they have to be made of something physical, or else Paul is contradicting his teachings about some kind of physical resurrection. So nobody knows exactly what we will be made of, but assuredly we will have a material body of some kind, and some far better kind than the ones we are currently living in.
So, far from contradicting himself, what Paul is really talking about anyway is the absolute necessity of trusting in Jesus, accepting him as Lord and Savior and thus being born of the Spirit, or born again, as Jesus said in John chapter 3, so that we are enabled by God’s grace to inherit the kingdom of God. Only those who thus believe are really of the Spirit and able to inherit that spiritual body.
Notice what Paul did not say. In spite of popular notions, the Bible does not teach that people become angels in the next life. Psalm 8 says that we were created a little lower than the angels. But we also know that in Christ we are exalted above the angels! Angels are not the children of God. We are! In fact the Bible says that we will rule over the angels! We already read that in 1 Cor. 6:3. “Do you not know that we will judge angels?”
And that’s about it for Paul’s description of what kind of bodies we might have in heaven. So he moves on to speak of the end of all time. I am on verse 51. “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Now when he says “all” in this case he is not talking about all people in general. The Bible does not teach universalism. Paul is talking about all believers. We have already seen that only those who are born again of the Spirit through faith in Jesus are able to inherit the Spiritual body Paul is talking about.
There will be a day in which at some moment during that day, the last trumpet will sound from heaven and at the instant we hear that trumpet blast, if we are alive to see it, in the blink of an eye, in the smallest possible fraction of time, we will all be changed from mortal to immortal. Then we will be reunited with all the saints who have gone on before us having also been raised but who were beyond our reach or perception until we were changed.
If we are going to be resurrected in Christ, we need also to be transformed into his likeness. Only Christ-like people will be suitable for such a quality of life. So in order to stand before God and live forever in his presence Paul says in verse 52, “the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality,” That is why we, the believers, will all be changed. Now the end of verse 54, “then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul’s mention of sin and the Law, teaches us that death is not just a natural and unpleasant phenomenon. In this we can appreciate the crucial importance of rooting the meaning of Christ’s death in the need for sin to be dealt with properly. Death is the consequence of Adam’s sin and rebellion, in which we all have a part. Death is therefore an evil which exists only because of mankind’s rebellion against God. It is the punishment we all deserve for the sin in which we all indulge. This is a general judgment. We must not make the mistake of thinking that an untimely death indicates a more severe punishment for any particular person. We all know many good people die much too young. We also are tempted to say that many bad people live far too long. Young or old, we all are sinners and this sinful body must die one day.
But thanks be to God, Christ through his death has dealt with sin and in his resurrection has demolished death! Now the death of these human bodies is only a shadow of death for those who are in Christ. He had given us the victory! Thanks be to God for such grace!
Death…sin…the law—all have been broken wide open in the death and resurrection of Christ. Even now we can experience victory over this trio, but only in part, until at the last day we begin to enjoy the full benefits of what Christ has accomplished for us.
Because this is the glorious hope in front of the Christian, Paul urges the Corinthians, and us too, to be steady and unshakable in pressing on with the Lord. Here he says, in verse 58, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
And for this reason he can also say things such as in 2 Tim. 2:3-4, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.” It’s worth it! Use up these old bodies that are going to die one day anyway. I don’t mean waste them. Use good stewardship to stay as healthy as you can so that you can get the most use out of them for God. But don’t retire from the Lord’s service if you are still capable of working. Don’t settle down to say I’ve done my share.
A great Christian leader I am reading (A.W. Tozer, The Next Chapter After the Last, 9.) put it this way, “We who follow Christ are men and women of eternity. We must put no confidence in the passing scenes of the disappearing world. We must resist every attempt of Satan to palm off upon us the values that belong to mortality. Nothing less than forever is long enough for us. We view with amused sadness the frenetic scramble of the world to gain a brief moment in the sun. 'The book of the month,' for instance, has a strange sound to one who has dwelt with God and taken his values from the Ancient of Days. 'The man of the year' cannot impress those men and women who are making their plans for that long eternity when days and years have passed away and time is no more.
The church must claim again her ancient dowry of everlastingness. She must begin again to deal with ages and millenniums rather than with days and years. She must not count numbers but test foundations. She must work for permanence rather than for appearance. Her children must seek those enduring things that have been touched with immortality.” I‘ll just say it again in Paul’s words, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Amen.
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