1 Corinthians 15; Job 14
Amen. Turn to Job, Corinthians and Luke all at once. So we’re thinking about the resurrection and Job in various places gives a tip of a hat to the resurrection. I think in chapter 19, he speaks of the coming of Jesus. I know that my Redeemer lives. That’s made famous and handles Messiah and that one day he will stand upon the earth.
Here in chapter 14, he mentions what happens when a man is laid low, what happens when a tree is cut down. We know from the other prophetic passages that what can God raise up from a stump? A shoot will come from the stump, the shoot of Jesse, right? God is always able to take what is laid low, even dead, and raise it. And of course, first Corinthians, which we’ll land on in our sermon series around Easter, is the big resurrection passage. And then Luke is one of the accounts of Jesus raising someone from the dead.
So first Job 14 says, man who is born of woman is a few days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers. He flees like a shadow and continues not. And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. Since his days are determined and the numbers of his months is with you and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass. Look away from him and leave him alone that he may enjoy like a hired hand his day.
For there is hope for a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again and that it shoots will not cease. Though its roots grow old in the earth, it stump, die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant.
But a man dies and is laid low, man breathes his last, and where is he? As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again till the heavens are no more. He will not awake or be roused out of his sleep.
Oh, that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be passed, that you would appoint me a set time and remember me. If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service, I would wait till my renewal should come. You would call and I would answer you. You would long for the work of your hands. For then you would number my steps. You would not keep watch over my sin. My transgression would be sealed up in a bag and you would cover over my iniquity.
But the mountain falls and crumbles away and the rock is removed from its place. Its waters wear away the stones. The torrents wash away the soil of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man. You prevail forever against him and he passes. You change his countenance and send him away. His sons come to honor and he does not know it. They are brought low and he perceives it not. He feels only the pain of his own body and he mourns only for himself.
And then first Corinthians 15, this is perhaps the best of Paul on the resurrection. So we, we, we know lots of Corinthian problems and wouldn’t, you know, at one of the Corinthian problems is some have quit believing the resurrection. And if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re in big trouble. So, 1 Corinthians 15, beginning at verse one.
Paul says, now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.
Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is No resurrection of the dead. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise. If it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life we have only hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But each his own order. Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule, every authority and every power. For he must reign until all his enemies are under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for God has put all things in subjection under his feet.
But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he has accepted who put all things in subjected under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Why am I in danger every hour? I protest, brothers. By my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day. What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right. And do not go on sinning, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
But someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel. perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen to each kind of seed its own body.
For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly one is of one kind and the glory of earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars. For stars differ from star and glory.
So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is 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.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are born of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, Nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, Then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
And then back to Luke. Luke 16 verse 19. This is the rich man and Lazarus. Luke 16 verse 19 says, there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day and at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table.
Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried and in Hades being in torment, He lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus and like men are bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us. And he said, then I beg you father to send him to my father’s house for I have five brothers so that he may warn them lest they also come into this place of torment.
But Abraham said, they have Moses. They have the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, no, father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to them, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead. Amen. Lots of wonderful scripture.
May God bless us with it. So the question we have, how does the resurrection benefit you? How do we put that in colloquial terms? What’s in it for me? That’s normally inappropriate, but not tonight. You can say what’s in it for me tonight on the question of the resurrection. What’s in it for me?
He died for you. That’s a good thing. And there’s benefits. He rose again for you and there’s benefits. And there are three benefits given. We share in the righteousness that Christ won for us. That’s a big deal because we’re unrighteous. We get new life in Jesus. This is the big one, I think. And then it’s a pledge of a blessed resurrection to come.
There is not agreement within, let’s just say, American Christianity about the supernatural, about things like the resurrection, about things like miracles and healings. If you bump into liberal Protestant theology in America from the last 150 years, you will hear people say that Jesus was not raised from the dead, but his spirit lives on in his teaching. Oh, doesn’t that just warm your heart? His spirit lives on in his teaching.
Well, they’ve not read Ezekiel. Can these bones live? They’ve not heard the old spiritual, them bones, they can live. They’ve not read of the widow’s son raised by the prophet. They’ve not read the stories of Jesus with eyes to see and ears to hear and seen that people like Lazarus, the other Lazarus, do get raised from the dead. The big story of the Bible, you could say, is creation, fall, and redemption. Or you could say it’s creation, and new creation.
We understand that in the beginning, God speaks and out of nothing, something comes to pass. But we also understand that in recreation, we who are lost, dead in sins and trespasses, We also hear the recreating voice of God, and he brings into us a life-giving spirit. He regenerates us. He makes us born again from above. And so we can think of the scripture, creation, fall, and redemption. We can think of our own lives as creation and recreation. Those are simple and easy terms or themes to remember. Our souls experience resurrection in this life.
What does Ephesians tell us? We have been raised up with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places. We live on a different plane than unredeemed people. We are not dead men walking. We are spiritually alive in Jesus and we see the big picture. We see the long look, we see the heavenly realities. And so our souls in this life experience a foretaste of glory divine. And then of course, our bodies and souls at the resurrection experience the full and wonderful thing. Our bodies and our souls will one day be fully remade.
Think of the order of salvation. We have talked about this so many times over the years. I’m thinking of the letters predestination and effectual calling and regeneration and faith and justification and adoption and sanctification and perseverance and glorification. I think of all those letters, all those words, and I think For tonight, regeneration is a big one, born again. Sanctification, being given new life in Christ, but also glorification, getting safely home to heaven. Resurrection is one of the big realities of the Christian life.
That’s why we shouldn’t just say, you don’t wanna go to hell, now do you? Do you wanna have a blessed life, this life, and a blessed, everlasting life? Okay, so on to the three profits, the three benefits. What’s in it for us? What’s in it for those of us who put our faith in Jesus? What does the resurrection get us?
Okay, first, by his resurrection, which really did happen, he has overcome death. He has overcome death that he might make us partakers of that righteousness. He purchased for us by his death. What are the things Jesus accomplished in his death? What are the things Jesus accomplished in his resurrection? What are the things Jesus accomplishes in each of us when in real space and time, the spirit applies redemption to us? Well, we are made partakers of the righteousness that he has purchased for us by his death.
I’m thinking of the end of Romans 4, I think I’ve got this right, Romans 4, 25, he was delivered up for our transgressions and he was raised up for our justification. And so in Jesus’ death and in his resurrection, there is a major component of righteousness for us.
We who knew no, or he who knew no sin became sin for us in order that we might become the righteousness of God. We being born in Adam with original sin are held accountable for that original sin, but we are also held accountable for our actual sins that proceed from that inherited sin and sickness from Adam. And so when Jesus went to the cross, our sin hadn’t even committed them yet, but our original and actual sins were imputed to Jesus at the cross. So in real space, time, salvation, history at the cross, your sins were laid on Jesus. And then when we come to faith in him, his obedience, his righteousness is credited or imputed to us.
And how does the Heidelberg say it? He sees us as if we never, and as if we always obey, there’s two wonderful sides. to Christ’s work and righteousness for us. So he purchased this for us. You get the redemption words. We were enslaved and needed to be bought. We needed to be redeemed. We needed to be rescued from our sin. We needed manumission. We needed freedom.
And so you come to places in the scripture, I think of first Peter. I’m going to flip there and just read what Peter says at the very beginning of his first letter. He greets the scattered Christians. I’m Peter. I’m an apostle of Jesus. I’m writing to you elect exiles of the dispersion.
And he says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. kept in heaven for you who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And so Peter, numbnut, numbskull Peter, right? He’s finally got it. And he gives that hope to us. By the resurrection of Jesus, we are able to be partakers of the righteousness purchased for us. by his death.
Can you do anything to merit salvation? You can’t do works because you have a marred image. You have a rotten heart. You could not begin to do right things and merit salvation. But Jesus could. You have original sin. He didn’t. Adam was tempted and tried and failed and lost that original righteousness. Jesus went through the wilderness and all his whole life tempted and tried.
And guess what? Never once failed. And so his perfect righteousness is ours. And that’s a wonderful thing. Now think for a moment about the resurrection. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, if there’s no resurrection, we’re in big trouble. If there’s no resurrection, he’s wasting his apostle time. If there’s no resurrection, I might as well go sell used cars, right? If there is no resurrection, then this whole church business, this whole cemetery business, all this is of no use.
But there is indeed the cross, there is indeed the grave, and there is indeed the resurrection. And because of Jesus, we are no longer still in our sins and in our misery, but Christ has dealt with sin, he’s dealt with death, and he has dealt with the devil.
He’s conquered and they have lost. Now we still face death. Remember last time, whenever that was, three weeks ago, what does death do for us? It ends our sin. and it gives us entrance into heaven. All right. So the resurrection prophets us first, made partakers of that righteous. Now, second, we are also now by his power raised up to a new life.
Now I brought this book here. This is a New Testament biblical theology, and this is one of the most wonderful books. There’s about three or four I look at every week to make sure I’m not missing something. In C.S. Lewis, I don’t know if he understood this reality by his power were raised up to a new life. I don’t know if he understood it quite the way biblical theologians do to this day.
But in his story of the voyage of the dawn treader, there’s the boy Eustace, who’s a real pain in the neck. He’s spoiled and he’s enamored with the dragon. the dragon’s treasure and it turns Eustace, this little boy, into a dragon and he gets the scaly skin and he looks like a dragon. And so this picture of new life in Christ is on display as Eustace, towards the end of the story, bumps into Aslan, the god-like figure. And so Aslan tells Eustace, he tells him to lay down and he’s going to remove his dragon skin once and for all. And Eustace tells that the very first tear he made, Aslan made, was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. Aslan began pulling the skin off and it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The Christian life is painful, isn’t it?
Well, he peeled that beastly stuff right off just as I thought I’d done. And there was lying on the grass only ever so much thicker and darker and more knobbly looking than the others had been. Then he caught hold of me and threw me in the water. There’s baptism. And after that, I turned into a boy again. And after a bit, the lion took me out and dressed me, clothed him in righteousness.
Eustace comes back to his friends who were probably worn out with him. He apologizes for his bad spoiled behavior. He says, I’m afraid I’ve been pretty beastly. That’s how he puts it. And then C.S. Lewis concludes the story of Eustace, it would be nice. Fairly, nearly true to say that from that time forth, Eustace was a different boy. To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome, but most of those I shall not notice, for the cure had begun.
And that’s what is meant, I think, by this second benefit. We are now, by his power, raised up to a new life. The present reality of believers is that you have gone through a resurrection. You have gone through an experience of new life. The old man and new man is a big theme in the Apostle Paul. We put off the old man and we put on the clothes of the new man. We have died to sin and we have been raised to righteousness. We look at this sometimes through the lens of indicatives imperatives. What is indicative? What is true? What has God done for us and how does that change our lives? We have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.
And we could go on and on through all the wonderful pictures in the Pauline epistles, the Hebrews and all, where we see the present realities of believers, but also the present obligations of believers that we are now able to meet. So before Jesus, we could not do anything right or righteous. Now in Jesus, we can do right and righteous things because we have a new heart, but also like Eustace, we can have relapses and be rather beastly, right? But what the Christians do, as Lewis said, we can overlook it because the cure has begun.
That’s a wonderful way to see it. But there are all these wonderful pictures in the letters of the New Testament that tell us what we once were and what we now are. and our present obligations or to use the Heidelberg, there’s guilt and there’s grace and there’s gratitude. What are our duties of gratitude? It’s worship, it’s prayer, it’s good works, serving the Lord and serving others.
And so phase one of our resurrection is resurrection now. Phase one of our new life in Jesus is we quit being pesky Eustace. I can remember one time going to the General Synod meeting. It was early on in my ministry, and we were, I think, at Cracker Barrel, and I was eating with a fellow that had been the pastor of the church, where I was now the assistant pastor. And he was asking me how it was going, and I was saying this, that, and the other. He said, who are your elders and deacons? And so I began to tell him.
Well, it got to the deacons, and he just gasped. You mean he’s a deacon? And I knew this man’s past. He had been troubled with alcohol and been troubled with a lot of other things, even attempted to take his life at one time. And he said, you mean he is a deacon? I said, well, he’s a Christian and he is displaying the character and the change of God. And yes, he has become a deacon.
And he could not believe it when he was there. Uh, that man was never in church and that man was always causing, uh, quite a bit of trouble in the world, but he had been, under the spell of the resurrection of Jesus, you can say. And so he had been raised up to new life.
Maybe you go back to your high school reunion and you want everybody to know, I’m not who I used to be. I’m not that same old idiot, right? Doing those foolish things. But I think the longer we are in church together, the longer we grow together. And as people really see us warts and all, we begin to see the power of the resurrection. in each of us. And that’s a wonderful and sweet thing. So phase one of our resurrection is by his power being raised up to a new life. And that’s in this life, we experienced those things. So keep reading your Bibles, keep praying, keep letting the spirit work, keep letting the, the, the master jeweler, you know, shave off those rough edges of, of you, the diamond, let them burn off the dross, uh, and continue to refine you.
Well, the third blessing, the third benefit of the resurrection is a sure pledge of our own blessed resurrection. We’ll get new bodies. We will be raised up at the last day. We will be united again with our souls at the resurrection. God will raise up our dust. He’ll raise whatever is left in the grave. He will raise it up and the dust of the earth will have a glorious resurrection body in heaven.
Now, there’s a lot we don’t know. There’s a lot we don’t know about the specifics, but here’s just a little roadmap. You hear the gospel. You come to faith in Jesus. You are justified. God sees you as if you’ve never sinned and as if you’ve always obeyed. And that new life in Christ is a lifelong work of the spirit of God at work in you to hate evil and love good. And you’re fighting the spirit and the flesh battle.
And finally, when you die, you are glorified and your body will be laid in the grave in some shape, form or fashion. Your body will be laid in the grave, but at your death, your soul is immediately raised up into glory and in the presence of God. We sang, who are these like stars appearing? And it speaks of the souls around the altar, the souls around the throne of heaven, bodies still being united to Christ, resting in the grave. And we call this the intermediate state, that until the resurrection, the dead and Christ are buried and in the grave. But their spirits, their souls are raised up into heaven and do experience the present reality of God in heaven.
But at the resurrection, our bodies will be raised up. And if we are not believers, our bodies will be united with our souls already experiencing what the rich man and that story in Luke’s gospel experienced. But our bodies will be united to our souls and experience that everlasting torment. But also at the last day, Christians, believers, Their bodies will be raised up, united with their soul already enjoying heaven. And our resurrection body and our already redeemed soul will be in the presence of God.
But also what does the Bible tell us? There will be a new heavens and a new earth. The old earth will have passed away. And so if you die before the resurrection, your body will rest in the grave. Your soul immediately will go to glory. And when the resurrection happens, body, soul reunited. and oh happy day and all the rest.
But when we go to the graveside, when we go to the cemetery, when we perhaps whatever way, shape or form we experienced death, I think of parents who go to the airfield when their son or daughter’s body is being brought back from the battlefield where they lost their life and they received the casket draped in the flag and you know, There’s that as solemn ceremonies.
All we have in those moments, if we’re believers, unbelievers have no hope, but all we have in those moments is the sure pledge of the blessed resurrection. Now that’s enough, isn’t it? That’s a plenty. That’s a mighty great thing. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection.
So we know that if he has been raised from the dead, it is a sure thing that we will be raised. from the dead. What joy the saints experience now, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has perceived. But we will have that wonderful and blessed experience.
So we stand at the graveside. I always like to say the shorter catechism, the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness to immediately pass into glory and their bodies being united to Christ. And you know, there’s the casket. are still united to Christ, rest in the grave until the resurrection. That’s a big final moment to bury your dead. But the souls of believers do enter the presence of God and enjoy him in his glorious presence. What’s that we sing around Easter time? Made like him, like him we Rise, hallelujah, we sing. And so these are the wonderful blessings.
So what’s in it for you? Resurrection life now, because you’ve been made partakers of his righteousness, but also a sure pledge of your own resurrection. You know, lots of people say, I’m not, I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of dying. But one of the blessings we have with Jesus is when we are united to him, he is with us in every aspect of our Christian walk, including that transition from this life to the next. So let’s give him thanks for these truths.
Lord, we thank you for the resurrection. Without it, there is no hope. Without it, mission has not been accomplished and we are still dead in our sins and our hope is futile. But we thank you for your power to speak and create and your power to speak and raise the dead. And we long for the trumpet sound. We long for our return to the garden, our return to where life works best and help us on our journey. We ask and pray in Christ’s name. Amen.