Sermon for Flinders Park Church 2018
We have probably all recited the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed many times. The final line of the Nicene Creed is “We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen.” In a similar way, the Apostles’ Creed ends with “I believe in … the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.” These lines may be very familiar, but familiarity can actually work against us. For a few years I attended a ladies Bible study with some women from Kallaroo Anglican. After a sermon on the resurrection at church, one the ladies there commented that she had never realised that Christians would be raised from the dead. She has been in church her whole life and yet she thought that the resurrection only applied to Jesus. Consequently, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss our future resurrection.
A lot of Christians think that going to heaven is what we hope for as believers. But in fact, we may temporarily be disembodied in heaven but only while we wait for our bodies to be resurrected just as Jesus was resurrected. Human beings were made to have bodies. When God made human beings with bodies in the beginning he declared that it was “very good” (Gen 1:31). Unfortunately, Christianity has been influenced by Greek philosophy a bit too much. So many Christians believe that we have immortal souls and our souls will live with God. But God wants us to have bodies, not just souls. The soul is not the real you. The whole of you—body, soul and spirit—is the real you. That is why the faithfulness of God leads us to believe that we will have new bodies.
The main place where the Bible talks about the resurrection of believers is in First Corinthians chapter 15. The first half of the chapter is an argument as to why we should believe that there is a resurrection of the dead. The second half is about what the resurrection will be like. It is the second half that I am going to focus on today.
We all want to know what it will be like to live in a resurrected body. There is, however, a sense in which we cannot know this. Paul writes, “But someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Cor 15:35-36). The question of what our resurrected bodies will be like is very hard to answer. It is difficult to answer because the resurrection of the dead is something quite foreign to what we know in this world. People invariably die, and they invariably stay that way. At least that is our experience. The only exception to that rule is Jesus himself. So we know that we will be raised from the dead, because what God promises will happen. He is faithful. But there is a limit to what we can understand and know about what that will be like.
Even though the question of what our bodies will be like when raised maybe somewhat foolish, Paul goes on to answer it as best is as possible for people who have only ever experienced bodies that die. To answer the question he uses a series of analogies. One vitally important point that Paul is making in this chapter is that there is both continuity and transformation in the resurrection. This continuity and transformation are both evident in Paul’s first analogy about seeds and plants. “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” (1 Cor 15:36b-38).
It is as if these mortal bodies we now live in are seeds that will become something amazingly different when they are raised from the dead. There is a real connection between the seed and the plant that grows from the seed. This is the continuity. When we are all raised from the dead we will be able to still know one another because I will still be me and you will still be you. We will not turn into different people. Nor will we become one homogenous blob. We will be distinctly and uniquely ourselves. The disciples were able to see that it really was Jesus that had been raised from the dead. He did not always reveal himself to them. But he is still Jesus. And each one of us will still be who we are.
And yet the plant does not generally look like the seed. You plant a seed and a tree grows from it. If you were just given the seed, you would not be able to predict what plant the seed would grow into, unless you had prior knowledge with those seeds and plants. I am not a very good gardener so I would not have a clue most of the time. The same might be said of the resurrection. We know that this body will live in now will become something wonderful, but we don’t have extensive experience with being resurrected, so we are currently ignorant about what that new body will look like. This is the transformation aspect of the resurrection.
Paul moves on to a different analogy. “Not all flesh is 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 splendour of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour” (1 Cor 15:39-41). Different kinds of bodies have different kinds of glory. We know this from simple observation of the world. So we should expect that our resurrection body will have an appropriate kind of glory.
And then he goes on to tell us what kind of glory is suited to the resurrection body as against the one we have now. “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 dishonour, 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” (1 Cor 15:42-44). There are four contrasts here between what we experience in our present bodies and what our resurrection bodies will be like: perishable versus imperishable, dishonour versus glory, weakness versus power and natural versus spiritual. Let’s consider these one at a time.
Firstly, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable.” Probably the most obvious difference between our present bodies and the resurrection bodies to come is that these bodies die and the resurrection body will never experience death. The word perishable could be translated as corruption or destruction or disintegration or subject to decay. The bodies we live in now can get sick, be injured or become disabled, and will ultimately die and decay and perish altogether. There is an end to them. The resurrection body on the other hand will never get sick or injured. It will never die.
Secondly, “it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory”. There are a few things to be said about this point. There is a certain shame in being sick. We cannot control the decaying and corrupt nature of our mortal bodies. Yet we try to honour bodies even when they are dead. We dress the dead person in their best clothes for the funeral but we know that the body will soon decay so we put it out of sight quickly. In this sense death is a humiliation or disgrace for our bodies. But the resurrection body has no shame because it is glorious. The resurrection body will have a perfect environment, and environment of glory. There will be no more disgrace for the people of God.
The resurrection will fulfil the word of Isaiah 25:6-8. “On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken” (Isa 25:6-8 NIV).
Thirdly, the body “is sown in weakness, it is raised in power”. The present body has serious limitations and is precariously weak. It is difficult to resist injury or illness. It is extremely easy to acquire a disability. The weakness and frailty, fragility and vulnerability in these bodies becomes more and more evident as years go by. The bodies we live in wear out. Knees don’t work properly, joints need replacing, lungs stop functioning properly, movement is hindered by stiffness and soreness, eyesight grows dimmer. Brains also lose functions. Memory begins to fade and it often gets harder to work out how to do something new. Sometimes people get brain damage or mental illness. All these are part and parcel of being in weak bodies which die. But we will be raised in power. No more will we be unable to do what desire to do. The power of God will operate in an unhindered way in our new, resurrected bodies. The resurrection body will be energised. No more getting weary and tired. No more frustration because of something we cannot do. There will be a vitality that equips us for ways to serve God and one another that we cannot yet dream of.
Lastly, Paul says “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”. This is not a contrast between physical and ghostly. Paul is not disapproving of the physical body is if being physical is something bad to be cast off. Jesus is clearly still in a physical body. When he was resurrected he said to his disciples, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). And then he ate some fish to demonstrate that he had a real, solid body (Luke 24:41-43). So the physical body is not bad. Paul is actually contrasting the mortal body controlled by sin with the resurrection body which is redeemed from sin and controlled by the Holy Spirit. The natural body is suited to life on the earth and the spiritual body suited for life in the immediate presence of God. In the place where God dwells surrounded by angels, this natural body still controlled by sinful desires could not dwell. We need the spiritual body. But that spiritual body is still a body.
Paul goes on, “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” (15:44b-49).
What we are now is because of Adam. As descendents of Adam we have natural bodies that die and decay and go back to the dust. This is the result of sin. After the fall God spoke to Adam, saying, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Gen 3:19). Although we are mortal because of Adam, we are also people saved by Jesus Christ. Because of faith we have been united with Christ, the man from heaven. So we will be like him. Jesus is now fully perfected as a human being in body as well as in spirit. He is now a “life-giving spirit” and he will give us his glorious, incorruptible and heavenly life and make our bodies like his.
The next verse should be read carefully. “I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable” (15:50). This is not saying that bodies are bad but only that unredeemed bodies are unable to live with God. Only the redeemed person will inherit the kingdom of God, not those who live according to the flesh, or live in an earthly way. Because of Christ we will inherit imperishable bodies. These will be suited to the eternal kingdom of God.
We are getting close to the end of the chapter now. Paul changes tack a bit. “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” (15:51-52). We do not know when Jesus will return. He may come for us today. If so we would not die but simply be transformed into our resurrection bodies. But if he does not return before we die we can still be confident of the change that will occur in us. It is assured. It will be something instantaneous, not a gradual process. One day we will be mortal and the next immortal; one day dying and the next day living forever. This is indeed a mystery, but our God is great.
Now Paul gives a final word of encouragement. “For 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, 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. 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 labour in the Lord is not in vain” (15:53-58).
Death seems to make to make a mockery of life and what we do in this life. But death has been swallowed up in the victory that Jesus has won. There is no power of death any more. There is just the victory of Jesus Christ. Therefore, what we do in the Lord is never futile. We will be raised again to life in order to enjoy the fruits of our labours for Jesus. Consequently, it is never time to give up living for Jesus Christ. Now is the time to serve him in whatever way he calls you to. Death cannot undo our work for Jesus since we will not stay dead.