You can be seated. Please turn in your copy of the scriptures to First Corinthians, chapter 15. Today, we’ll be finishing this great chapter on the theme of the resurrection of believers at the last day, one of the Many, many, many difficulties Paul is dealing with from across the water while he’s at Ephesus back at the church at Corinth is a group is denying that the dead are raised, that those in Christ who are asleep or in the grave are fully and finally lost. And so he is writing to correct that. And so in chapter 15, beginning at verse 35, Uh, we have what the apostle, uh, gives as an answer to two questions. Uh, the first question, how are the dead raised? And the second question with what kind of body do they come? And so let’s give our attention now to this, uh, great teaching from the apostle Paul, first Corinthians chapter 15, beginning at 35. 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 and 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, one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for different stars differ from star in 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. Let’s look to God in prayer. Lord, may this section of the scriptures comfort us. Every one of us wants to know what will become of us. How will we age? How will we fare, especially later in life? Give us the courage now to look beyond that to the heavenly body to the heavenly existence that which Christ now possesses In the glorious heaven above we pray all this in the name of Jesus our Savior.
Amen There’s a Good turn of phrase that I heard this week and I’m probably getting it wrong, but it went something like this the church uh, in America, uh, is dispensing salvation light. Uh, you go to a restaurant and you ask for a cup so you can go to the fountain and get a drink and you look at all the choices and there’s, uh, really no good ones. They’re all full of sugar, but if you’re watching your, your, you know, watching what your intake is, you’re going to go with a, a zero product, a caffeine free product, a sugar free product. And for some reason, the church has started dispensing that across, I don’t know, the last 50 or so years.
And you’ve heard it boiled down like this. Hey, now you don’t want to go to hell, do you? Just pray this prayer and you’ll go to heaven. It’s sort of like going down to the post office and filling out one of those change of address cards. I don’t want my mail sent here. I want it sent there.
And so salvation light is a change of address for the future. Salvation is way more than that. A lot of times we’ll hear salvation put this way. You do want all your sins forgiven, don’t you? You don’t want to face the judge of the earth, uh, in a sinful condition. And that’s all well and good as is the eternal destiny of heaven. Uh, but salvation is way, way, way bigger, wider, deeper, and more.
And Paul gives us some insight into that today. Uh, I’m not sure why it is that people have decided that salvation light is a good thing. I don’t understand why they want to say enough to get you interested, but they don’t want to say it all. And they don’t want to say too much. Perhaps they think people can’t handle it or people are uninterested. But here’s the thing.
We should say what Jesus says in the Bible about salvation. And we should want to know all that he says about heaven, all that he says that will comfort us, that will bring us hope. It will bring us joy. It will bring us something to look forward to. It will have a standing up on our tippy toes when we sing in church of redemption.
We don’t want salvation and light. We want the whole thing. We want the full thing. We want every bit of it that we can drink up and that we can take in. We are living lives in human bodies. We are the dust of the earth. We are the dust of Adam. We are born after the image of our earthly father, our earthly first parent, Adam.
And because of sin, because of the fall, Because of decay and all the things that come with a broken world, we have aches and pains, we have heartaches and hardships, we have losses and we have crosses. And in other places of the scriptures, Paul tells us that our present afflictions, our present hardships, and they may be spiritual, they may be physical, otherwise, they are nothing in light of the future glory that is to be ours.
And so one of the great hopes that we as believers have, it’s part of our understanding of redemption, part of our understanding of salvation is our salvation is not just a future address change. It is that, but it’s way more. Our salvation is not just forgiveness of sins. Our salvation includes seeing a new heaven and new earth, a cosmos that is redeemed from the brokenness of sin, but also bodies that will be resurrected at the last day. And these bodies will be fit for a heavenly existence.
Some of you may have seen on, I think it’s on Amazon Prime, the little biography piece of C.S. Lewis. I think it’s called The Most Reluctant convert and it explores his early years. I believe the death of his mother, being raised by a father. I didn’t say a whole lot to them.
They go off to boarding school, sit under a tutor, explore every chain of thought that a man or a philosopher has come up with. And he realizes to his horror that he’s coming to faith in a God. He comes to the place where he believes in theism, that a God is the one who makes sense of it all. And then to his great horror, he begins to find faith in the God of the Bible. And then he ultimately comes to faith in Jesus.
And one of the things he discovers over his Christian life is that we are not made for this world. Our longings, our desires, our hopes and our dreams are meant for another world, another realm. I think the sad part of hearing those words coming from C.S. Lewis is the reality that our world today, even the Christian world, is so enamored with this life.
We don’t think much of the next life at all. In fact, we really want to age in place. We want to live life on earth as long as we can. We want our bodies to make it a stretch longer. In fact, we’re obsessed with our bodies. We’re obsessed with what we put in them. We’re obsessed with how we shape them and sculpt them and what we put on them, how we fit, how we look, all those things. And yes, there’s a healthy a place for how we take care of ourselves, what we take in, what we do to care for our bodies.
There was a recent survey. I’m not sure who conducted it, but it went something like this. If you could live a really long time, but the end of your life had a lot of sickness, would you rather have that or live a shorter life that had no sickness at all? And most of the people in that survey said we’d rather a shorter life that was full of health, a shorter life that was full of good days, good movement, good medical living, I suppose, without all that extended care. But it’s very interesting, the world we live in really wants to live life here a lot longer.
Sometime back in the news, I think Vladimir Putin President Xi of China were chumming along side by side walking and talking and it was overheard, I suppose through translators or something, they were both talking about attempting to live to 200. Only those two. Well, I could picture a third who would be in there as well. But why in the world would you want to live to 200 under all the chaos, aches and pains hardships, uh, losses and crosses of this life when we are made for another place.
I mean, sure, there are things in this life we don’t want to miss. There are things in this life that we don’t want to skip out on, but we are indeed made for a heavenly existence in a heavenly body. And we are made to live in the presence of God and enjoy him forever. Our life here is short term. It is temporary. Uh, it is not the life that was meant for us. We were not meant to live a life broken by sin and misery, but we were to live a life of holiness and to be, uh, to live a life of happiness.
So in our passage today, we want to think about the resurrection body fit for a heavenly environment. Uh, we want to understand the great mysteries Paul speaks of in our passage. Uh, he says there is the great mystery. We shall not all sleep. We shall all be changed in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. Uh, the trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed. Uh, this is the goal of the believer at that last day, when that moment comes, when that trumpet sounds from heaven, we will be changed from this mortal body to that body of immortality and life forever.
So two questions are being raised by the scoffers. Two questions are being raised by the doubters at Corinth. And those two questions are, how are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come? Now, what do we what do we say of people like the Apostle Paul? He doesn’t suffer fools. Well, and he really doesn’t answer the first question because, well, it’s kind of a duh. God can do anything he wants. He will raise the bodies. Well, how’s he going to do it? He’ll do it in his own way. So he doesn’t really say much about it, but it’s worth us considering what the rest of the Bible says about God raising the dead and how he does so.
How are the dead raised? Well, they are raised by the power of God. They are raised by the power of God that spoke and out of nothing came the universe. Raised by the same power of God that when he speaks, The stars are formed. The moon is hung. The sun rises from its chamber and spreads across the earth and returns to its chamber at night.
How are the dead raised? They’re raised by the power of Jesus that spoke to the wind and the waves. And when he said, peace, be still, the sea was calmed. How are the dead raised by the same power of Jesus who called down into the grave, the tomb of Lazarus and called him to come forth. And he came out a resurrected man.
When the Lord Jesus was on the cross and he suffered and died for our sins, when he went to the grave and on the third day rose again, we are told he was raised by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are also told in some places in the Bible that by the spirit of Jesus himself, His deity, he was raised from the dead. You know, at the death of Jesus, at that particular time, there was a great earthquake reminding everyone of the power of God. At the time of Jesus’ death, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, showing everybody that the power of redemption is not in the blood of bulls and goats or in the work of the priesthood after the line of Aaron, but that the power of redemption is in the blood of Jesus that was just shed on the cross when our sins were laid on him. The power of God was on display at his death when people received back from the grave, the dead ones who had rested in Christ. And so how is it that the dead are raised? It is by the power of God. He speaks. And listening to his voice, the dead are brought back to life.
You remember, uh, Ezekiel, uh, chapter 37, where God says to Ezekiel, overlooking the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel, can these bones live? And Ezekiel says, sure, Lord, you know, they can live. And so as the spirit of God moved, the bones began to rattle. And they formed into bodies and they form sinews and skin and they became living beings as God put life back into them.
This is the belief of the Old Testament. It’s not just something new with the resurrection of Jesus. Do you remember when God made the heavens and the earth and he told Adam, if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you’ll die. But if you don’t eat, you’ll live forever. So Adam and Eve ate and we read those generations in the early chapters of Genesis. Uh, we read about this person and this person and that person and that person, and they all died. They all died. They all died.
But then there’s that strange figure, Enoch, one of the grandchildren of Adam. And it says of Enoch, he lived X number of years, but it does not say he died. It says he was not. because God took him. He’s one of the few in the Bible that went straight to heaven. He skipped out on the experience of death and the grave, but he was raised at that moment. Elijah went up to heaven in a chariot of fire.
Job, when he loses everything, says, I know that my Redeemer lives and that one day he will stand upon the earth and I will see him in the flesh. Job believed in the resurrection. Moses, the same, Elijah, Elisha, the prophets, they believed in the resurrection. David even says, of himself, but more of Jesus, your Holy one will not see decay, but will live.
And so how are the dead raised? It is by the absolute mighty power of God. And here’s what is so interesting at that moment, when Jesus returns at that moment, when the trumpet resounds, how many are in the grave? How many are in the watery grave or in the grave of the earth? How many have rested so long in their graves that they are no more?
And God in that instant, God in that twinkling of an eye will raise them all up. And here’s something we don’t often think about. God will raise both the righteous and the unrighteous. He will raise up both the dead in Christ and the dead apart from Christ. And the scripture says both will face judgment. And the raised up in Christ will say to the judge of the earth, I look to Jesus. I look to Jesus for my obedience. I look to Jesus for my forgiveness. And that’s enough for our God.
But those who have rejected Christ, those who have lived in their sins and trespasses and refused to repent, they will be raised up for everlasting judgment. That is a truth of the scripture is becoming very popular even in Christian circles to say that the dead in Christ will rise to an everlasting life, but the dead not in Christ will just remain in the grave. There’s a teaching of annihilation or that they just are no more. But I think the scripture clearly teaches the other.
So how are the dead raised by the power of God? But the second question with what kind of body do they come? You know, we talk about all the time. When I come back from the dead, am I going to be 28? When I come back from the dead, is it going to be 33? When I come back from the dead, is it going to be the good body? you know, before babies, the good body before too many carbs, the good body when we had muscles, the good body before glasses or knee replacement.
And we think so much on earthly terms. Remember C.S. Lewis’ observation, we were made for heaven. We were made for a higher existence. We were made for a greater reality. And we need to think much more of what God will do when by his power, he raises us from the dead in that instant at the last day, he will give us a body that is fit for heaven. We think too much of being fit for earth. You know, we, we live in a world of social media influencers. Look at how I look. Do you want the look I have, then do this. And we live in a world where, where body image is of too much importance. And it’s going to be way better than that. Paul doesn’t explain, the Bible doesn’t explain what it will be like, but he does tell us in this passage that when we are sown in death in the grave, that After our death at the resurrection, we will come to life.
And he gives that image from agriculture. You take a seed, you put it in the dirt, you water that seed dies in the dirt, and then it comes to life. And what was a little bitty seed can become a seven or eight foot corn stalk that produces a fruit that produces something that will sustain our lives. And so what is sown in the ground is very different than what is raised up when it grows. And so we sow the dead body into the earth, but it is not the body that is to be. It is a bare kernel. He says it is perhaps of wheat or of grain.
It is a seed and God will give it a body in the resurrection as he has chosen. And there’s a big contrast here. in our passage, what is sown perishable is raised imperishable. What is sown in dishonor is raised in glory. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. What is sown as a natural body will be raised a spiritual body.
I can’t help when thinking of this passage of the words perishable and dishonor and weakness. In the last couple of years, watching both parents get sick, both parents die, you watched what used to be bodies full of life waste away because of the effects of sin and disease. But the hope is you sow that seed perishable into the earth and one day it will be raised up into that heavenly body. I know so many of you in the room fear death, you face dying with a little twinge of fear. You have loved ones resting in Jesus, asleep in the grave until the resurrection. And so all of these things are swirling in our minds and in our hearts. And it reminds us, doesn’t it, the wages of sin is death. Not just the wages of our own sin, but the wages of sin in this earth. Why do cells turn into cancer? Why do bones waste away and rot? Why do once great strong bodies turn up in weakness? Why do we lose our eyesight? Why do we lose our teeth? Why do we lose our appetites? Why do we lose? Why do things fall apart? And the wages of sin is a terrible, terrible thing.
But we have hope. The first man, Adam, was a living being. But the last Adam, Jesus, is a life giving spirit. And so our natural body goes into the grave. But our spiritual body will one day be raised up. The first man was from the earth. The first man was a man of dust. But the second man, Jesus, is a man of heaven. And as was the man of dust, as is the man of heaven. And so we are those of the dust, but one day we will be of the man of heaven. Right now we bear the image of the man of the dust, but one day we will bear the image of the man of heaven.
And perhaps you’re saying, Paul doesn’t answer the question with what kind of body do they come? He simply says it’s going to be a heavenly body. It’s going to be a spiritual body. And I know we want to know the details. Will I have a 32 inch waist? Will I wear size whatever clothing? And that’s really not the point, is it?
The point is we will be able to do what is necessary to behold the glory of God and to do the work of the new heavens And the new earth, our earthly bodies are rather glorious. Our earthly bodies are rather special. They are rather wonderful. But you remember what Paul says, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What is imperishable? That’s this life does not inherit the perishable.
And so we expect one day, we long one day for that heavenly body, that glorious body, that superior body. We long for that body that is like Christ. And we look for the day when the mystery comes to pass, the trumpet sounds, and those asleep in Jesus in a moment are raised up and changed, or the word really should be transformed. We are made imperishable.
Just a thought or two about the implications of this. Next week, I want us to look at the very end of 15, where he says, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, be immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain. That’s one of the big encouragements from this passage. But I want us to think for just a moment as we conclude about the implications of this.
We live in a world that values the earthly body, and we need to long for the heavenly one. We need to long for the spiritual one. We live in a world that values the human body, and well, we should. It is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Well, we should value the human body. What does Paul say? Do not present your members for unspiritual things. We should, in this life, in this body, live for the Lord, a temple of the Holy Spirit. But he has not redeemed us to fool around in this life. He has redeemed us to serve.
And here’s, I think, what is true of the Apostle Paul. His body By the time he fought the good fight and finished the good race, his body, much like Christ, had not much else left to give. We know of Christ and we know of his physical sufferings on on that great evil day where he was unjustly tried and unjustly and unmercifully treated and then put on a cross. and put on a cross in the most horrible way. But we read of the life of the apostle Paul and perhaps we do so of other missionaries and other servants of God, beaten and shipwrecked and left for dead and stoned and all the rest.
We can value our life, we can value our body so much so that we never risk it for anything for the kingdom of the Lord. One of the phrases of the scripture, one of the phrases of servants of God, is that they are spending and being spent for the Lord. We live in a world that wants to die with white teeth. We live in a world that wants everything straight, everything fixed, everything just right.
And you read the book of Hebrews. Wayne was reminding me this morning in Hebrews chapter 11, that the heroes of the faith often were destitute. They were living in caves. They did not have clothing. Some were sawn in two. Others lived such hard lives for the sake of the Lord, because they looked for a better city. They looked for a lasting city. They looked for a resurrection life.
And so we want to remember that by the power of God, he will fit us with a resurrection body that pleases him and is able to enjoy all the wonders of heaven that are promised. But it only comes to those who have faith in him. Jesus requires that we put away our sins, that we turn from them and we come to him seeking help and forgiveness, and he requires that we put our faith, our belief in him, that we trust in him alone for our salvation, as he so gloriously offered in the gospel. And to those who come to him, he freely gives new life now in the Holy Spirit, but everlasting life in a resurrected body in the heavenly place. Let’s look to him now in prayer.
Our God, we give you thanks for the realities that are ours now, but also those great realities that are future in Jesus Christ. We love this world. We love what you have given to us. And we do hang on too tight. Give us a stronger desire for that lasting world, that lasting city. where our bodies will not waste away, but will live forever in your glorious presence. Hasten that day, Lord, when the trumpet sounds and your people are called into your presence. We pray that that would be so and ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.