Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 | Date: November 10, 2019 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Such a happy thing this evening to hear Rod speaking of what God has done with Amelia, and God has been so good. I couldn’t help but think while he was talking about all the worries that they had; I couldn’t help but think of that great theologian Mark Twain: “I’ve suffered many things in my lifetime, most of which never happened.”

We’re winding down our series on the afterlife, and we are dealing with the eternal state. We have talked about the eternal state of the lost, the doctrine of hell. We looked at eternal punishment, and then last time we began looking at the eternal state of the redeemed, the doctrine of glorification. We looked at it in broad terms from a personal perspective, an individual perspective. We will do that again this evening, but today we’ll look at the physical side of that: the doctrine of resurrection one more time. And then, Lord willing, our next time, we’ll finish it up with a look at the cosmic picture. What will the world be like in the new heaven and the new earth? That’ll be next time.

Tonight, again, the doctrine of the resurrection. Romans chapter 8, we’ll begin there. We’ll go to a few different passages this evening, and we will have to be quick. There is so much to cover, but I don’t want to make this into two lessons. I’d like to keep it in one this evening. And to keep it in one, we may be here till 10, but hopefully we’ll get through it.

Romans chapter 8—and I think for the sake of time, since we have been in this passage before during this series, I’ll not take time to read the entire passage, but I’ll draw your attention to verse 22 and 23: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

Just as a way of reminder here, Paul is talking about the glory that is to come; that begins in verse 18. Joined to Jesus Christ, we are heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. We are sons of God, therefore we will inherit with Christ what he inherits. And he begins to expound on that. What will that glory be like? And in contrast to that, we see the groaning creation. The created order has fallen under a curse. It is a fallen creation. He speaks of it as groaning. And it is we who are groaning because these bodies are fallen as well. They’re marked by sickness and disease and injury of all kinds, and the whole created order is caught up in the fall with us. And so we have the upheavals of nature and so on. So the whole created order and we ourselves are caught up in this fallenness and this judgment of sin.

And what we are waiting for, verse 22, “we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth.” He uses that metaphor to say something good is going to come out of this. And what we’re waiting for, verse 23, is our adoption—that is the full realization of our sonship. And then he identifies it, notice, as “the redemption of our bodies.” The redemption of our bodies. That is, we will realize God’s full saving purpose for us, and we will be redeemed, body and soul, perfected, and brought to be like Christ. Now it doesn’t speak explicitly of resurrection here, but it does say that our bodies will be redeemed. So clearly that is what is in view.

Now, as I mentioned before, this is in stark contrast to the Greek pagan religions and philosophies around the biblical world in the first century, who believed that being trapped in this body was not a good thing and what we are looking for is to be released from it. Plato and Socrates had argued for the continued existence of the soul, but not the body. The body was viewed as the prison of the soul. There was an old Greek proverb which translated is something like this: “The body is a tomb. I am a poor soul shackled to a corpse.”

Well, if you believe that, and then you hear the apostles come along and preach the resurrection of the dead, you’re going to respond like we see them respond in Acts chapter 17, when Paul preached that at Mars Hill. And you’re going to think, “What kind of a crazy… who in the world wants to come back to a body?” We want to be released from that. But that was the radical message of the gospel: that God has intents for the created order, intentions for humanity, that we will be redeemed body and soul. The purpose of God is not to come and snatch our souls away to heaven. We have a doctrine for that—it’s the intermediate state, when the soul exists apart from the body between death and resurrection. But that’s not ultimately what we’re looking for. What we’re looking for is the resurrection. Man consists of both body and soul, and God intends to see that we are fully redeemed. And so the Bible has stated concerns about our body now and how we use our body now, and it also has stated concerns about the ultimate outcome that our bodies will be raised.

The next important passage in this regard is 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I’ve looked at that in some detail. Pastor Boyd has gone to that more recently in the Sunday morning service. And so I won’t take time to go there now, but just remember there in 2 Corinthians 4 and 5 that Paul talks about what he’s struggling with, with all of the troubles that he goes through in his service for Christ. He’s beaten down, and he’s tortured, and he’s gone through all of these terrible things. But the inward man is being renewed day by day. The outward man is perishing; the inward man being renewed.

But he has a hope beyond that, when we get into chapter 5, where he says we’re looking for a new tent, a new body. And he mixes his metaphors there: a new building. And he speaks of this present body giving way to that. And there are actually two stages there as well. Remember that he says, “What I’m looking for is not to be found naked,” that is a bodiless existence in the intermediate state. What I’m looking for is the resurrected state when God comes and swallows us up, as it were, and we have this new body that is given to us in the resurrection state or the final state as we call it. And that body, we are told, will be like the body of Jesus—the body that he had in his resurrection.

Let’s look one more time at Philippians chapter 3, where the Apostle Paul tells us that. Philippians 3, verses 20 and 21: “But our citizenship is in heaven.” Now you know what lies behind that. We’re united to Christ. Christ has been raised from the dead. He has gone into the heavenlies. He’s ascended to the right hand of God. And because of our union with him, our citizenship is in the heavenlies as well. “So our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, from heaven, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subdue all things to himself.”

He’ll transform our lowly bodies. We could translate that “the body of our humiliation.” I’ve always thought that’s a fun way to translate it because some people have more humiliating bodies than others. But I think he’s speaking not just of physical appearance, but he’s speaking in terms of the fallenness of our body, tending to decay, tending to sickness, and ultimately death. And he’ll transform, he said, transform that lowly body to be made like the body of glory that Jesus has in his resurrected state.

So the question then becomes, what kind of a body did Jesus have in his resurrection? And you remember, it was a body that was continuous with his body before he died. The tomb was empty. And in fact, Thomas was invited to see the wounds in his hand and his side. They could see the marks of the crucifixion. So it’s continuous with the body that he had before. But at the same time, although he had all that and he would sit down and eat lunch with them at the seaside and all of that, he could appear in a room with the door shut. Something’s very different. So it’s a body of another order, and yet a body that’s continuous with the body that he had before he died.

Well, it is a body of glory, as how he describes it here. Jesus has a body of glory. We will be made like his glorious body as well. And so the hope of the believer is that when Jesus comes, he says our bodies will be transformed, as we’ve seen both in Thessalonians and in 1 Corinthians, as we’ll see later this evening now as well, that both those who have died and those who are living at the time of Jesus’ return—the bodies will be transformed to be made like his body. And he does this, he says, this transformation is made, verse 21, “by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” We saw something of that this morning in Pastor Boyd’s message: the gained authority that Jesus has. And as a result of his completed mediatorial work, he has come through his death successfully. God has accepted it. God has raised him from the dead, and now all authority has been given to him, and all powers have been subjected to him. He’s Lord over everything, and by that same power, he will raise us from the dead and transform our lowly bodies.

So, we’ll be raised from the dead. What will that body be like? Answer: it will be like Jesus’ body in his resurrection. That’s the short answer. But of course, because I’m a preacher, there’s a longer answer to give. So let’s look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And here actually the Apostle Paul gives a longer answer, and that is the question at issue in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 35 and following. You remember in this passage, we’ve looked at it before, that the question plaguing the church at Corinth was, “Will there be a resurrection of the dead?”

Paul’s answer in short is: you cannot claim to be a Christian and deny the resurrection. Because in claiming to be a Christian, you’ve already embraced the resurrection. Jesus has been raised from the dead. It is an essential of the gospel. And once you’ve said that, that Jesus has been raised from the dead, you’ve also said that his people will be raised as well, because we are united to him. That’s the argument, verses 1 through 19, that climaxes in verse 20: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” That is, he has been raised in that eschatological resurrection, the resurrection of the age to come. He’s already gone there. And because he has gone there, it is inevitable that we will go there with him as well. It is not just that he is arguing here that Jesus’ resurrection is the guarantee of ours. He is saying that, but that’s not all he’s saying here. What he is saying is that our resurrection has already begun. The process of resurrection has begun: Christ first, and then when he comes, those who are his. And so he deals with that in verses 20 and following. He deals with what will happen as a consequence of the Lord’s return and so on. The argument so far here in 1 Corinthians 15 is that Christ is the hinge of the question. The resurrection has already happened. Jesus has gone there. We will go there with him.

How Are The Dead Raised? With What Kind Of Body Do They Come?

Now when we come to verses 35 and following, we have another question, a related question that’s taken up. Look at verse 35: “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?'” So actually two questions here. “How are the dead raised?” That is the possibility of resurrection. Can that really happen? How could such a thing actually happen? Think about it. The body is dead. It’s lifeless. We put it in a box. We bury it in the ground. It decomposes—I’m not trying to be graphic; I’m trying to make the point. It decomposes and over years, over centuries, millennia, it’s gone. Or the body is buried at sea and it’s gone. How in the world could such a thing happen that it would be raised and still be continuous with the body that it had before? That’s the first question. The second question, verse 35, is the nature of the resurrection body. What kind of body will we have then? What type of thing will that be?

So Paul begins with, I think, an unexpected answer in verses 36 and 37: “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 the bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.” Now I’m sure that the analogy here doesn’t walk on all fours and it doesn’t work entirely, but the point is clear enough. When you plant something, you don’t plant the whole plant; you plant the seed. And the seed then brings forth the plant. You don’t plant the oak tree; you plant the acorn. And it brings forth the tree. And so he’s saying what you put in the ground is not quite the same as what comes up out of the ground. And yet, there’s continuity between the two. That’s the answer he gives in just a brief, crisp way in verses 36 and 37. The bottom line of it is what is difficult for you, what is impossible for you, of course, is not impossible with God. If God can do that with a seed and a plant, then taking care of that body that has fallen into the ground and decomposed and bringing it back to life is not a problem with God.

Well, the short answer to the question what kind of body we have is it’ll be a body like the body of Jesus. He hinted at that back in verse 23, or in verse 20: “Christ is the first fruits of those who’ve fallen asleep.” Our body will be like his. When Jesus rose from the dead, he still had the marks of crucifixion. He could still eat and drink and so on. And yet he’s able to leave the sealed tomb. He’s able to appear in a room with the door shut and so on. So there’s something very different. And that evidently is what Paul means, what we saw in Philippians 3. He will change our mortal bodies and transform them. So we have a body that’s continuous with the old body, but it’s different. It’s the same, but different. Is that double speak? It’s the same body in some respects; it’s continuous with it, and yet it will be different.

A. A. Hodge put it this way: the body of the resurrection will be as strictly identical with the body of death—all right, now follow this—the body of the resurrection will be as strictly identical with the body of death as the body of death will be with the body of birth. Do you have the same body you had when you were born? Yes and no, right? It’s not double speak. And now we know with the advances of science how the cells reproduce and all the rest of it, the body has changed entirely over time. But yet it’s continuous with the old body. And there’s something like that with the resurrection body. This is something we’ve not seen, except in the resurrection of Jesus. There we have that it is a body continuous with the body of his death, and yet it is of a different sort.

Now he tells us, if you want to jump ahead, he tells us in verse 50: “I tell you brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” That is, conditions in that state require a different kind of body, a body of a different kind of order, a different composition. So there he’s emphasized the differentness of it.

But when we come to verses 42 and following, he gives us a series of descriptions, some contrasts, five or six contrasts, designed to clarify the question: what will that body be like? That’s the question under discussion. What will that body be like? The short answer: it’ll be the same, but it’ll be different. Well, what does that mean?

Perishable Versus Imperishable

Well, verse 42, notice the contrast is perishable versus imperishable. “So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable.” Corruptible versus incorruptible. Perishable, corruptible, subject to decay, subject to destruction. The body decays and we start feeling that even before we die. Joints get stiff, cartilages wear out, we limp on one knee. We have things like that happening; we get sick, we get cancer, we have all kinds of ailments. The older we get, the more we talk about them; the body is perishable. And eventually we die. It’s the story of humanity. Every one of us, the body wears out. It’s not just subject to decay; it’s decaying. It’s in the process of that now. We see that in Genesis chapter 3. It is the curse of sin. Paul highlights it in Romans chapter 8. We’re groaning with the rest of creation in this fallen condition. It’s perishable. But in the resurrection, he says, it’ll be imperishable. We’ll have none of that decay stuff, but will have applied to us the last stage of redemption, and will be restored body and soul. And it will not be a body that is decaying, but a body that is imperishable. That’s verse 42.

Dishonor Versus Glory

Verse 43, he gives us another contrast. And here the contrast is dishonor versus glory. “It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory.” Now it’s difficult to know exactly what Paul means by dishonor, “sown in dishonor.” The body that’s planted in the ground is planted in dishonor. I suspect what he means is—well, it’s probably not that some people have a body that’s more dishonorable than others. Probably what he’s talking about is the same thing. It is a body that is subject to decay, a body in its fallen condition. Physically, it is, and even morally, it is subject to decay, and as Paul calls it in Philippians 3, “the body of our humiliation.” But in the resurrection, it will not be a body of dishonor. He says it’ll be a body of glory. So the fallenness of Adam is left behind in the resurrection and no more of the struggles that mark this existence. The sickness, the decay, the wearing out, and so on. It’ll be a day of glory with no vestige of the fall remaining. Nothing shameful about us inside or out. A body of glory.

Weakness Versus Power

Again in verse 43, this time the last half of the verse: weakness versus power. “It is sown in weakness and raised in power.” One mark of this life is weakness. However strong we might be in our youth and however wonderful physical condition we may have, we become fatigued, we become worn out, and become weak. Some of you guys, you’re like me; when you’re young, you think that there’s no man anywhere that can whip you and you’re stronger than all of them and you’ve got it all. And on the athletic field, you can outlast anybody. And on the court, you can outlast anybody. And you feel like you’re just the best and the strongest. Of course, the reality is—and it catches up to us to admit it finally, at least in years—that we’re subject to weakness. But he tells us here the body of the resurrection will be marked by power. In fact, so powerful that we’ll be able to stand in the very presence of God. Sown in weakness, raised in power.

Natural Versus Spiritual

Verse 44, we have another contrast: natural versus spiritual. “It is sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. If there’s a natural body, there’s also a spiritual body.” So simply this is a body in keeping with life in this fallen world, a body that’s suited for here and now versus a life, a body suited for glory. It’s the same point he’s been emphasizing. And then verses 45 and 46, he expands on that. We won’t take time to go into that now. But we are—well, verses 45 and 46, it’s what we were and are in Adam versus what we will be like in the last Adam, in Christ, made alive.

Earthly Versus Heavenly

And finally, verse 49, a body like his. Verses 45 to 49 then extend that same thought, and it speaks of it in terms of an earthly versus heavenly body. Again, I’ll start with 45: “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.'” That’s a quote out of Genesis—he became a living soul. “The last man, or the last Adam, became a life-giving spirit.” Here it speaks of Christ coming through resurrection, and now equipped to give life through his resurrection. “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 those who are of the dust. And as the man of heaven, so also are those who are 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.”

So a natural versus a spiritual body. Now there actually has been a lot of discussion on this. What will a spiritual body be like? Some have even argued that it won’t be a physical body. It says here “a spiritual body.” Now that clearly is not in keeping with Paul’s point here. It is a physical body, but it’s spiritual in the sense that it’s raised to new spiritual power in life and a body suited for that day and in that state. Whatever it entails, his point is this is a body perfectly suited for that life. Verse 50 is a kind of summary that I mentioned earlier: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit imperishable.” So there must be the great change.

Mortal Versus Immortal

And then he gives one more contrast, verse 53: mortal versus immortal. “This perishable must put on the imperishable and this mortal must put on immortality.” Subject to dying—mortal—subject to dying versus destined never to die and unable to die because at this point then death itself will have been destroyed.

I’ve mentioned this before in the series that I think we should be careful in the way we talk about death, perhaps particularly with people who are in bereavement. But sometimes I think Christians have tended to speak too sentimentally with regard to death. There is a great hope at death. We will be with Christ. We’ll be brought into his presence. That is far better. The intermediate state will be better; Paul tells us that. But that’s not our ultimate hope. And in fact, death is still an enemy. You’ll feel it yourself one day. And we all feel it at one time or another with those that we love. Death is still an enemy. But in the resurrection, all of that will be gone forever. We will be raised with a body of glory never to decay and never to experience the fallenness that marks this life.

Well, in Paul’s discussion here, that leaves just one more question, and that’s verses 51 through 53, and that is: what about those who are alive when Christ returns? If he’ll raise the dead and change the body so that it is continuous with the old body and yet made different for the life of the age to come, what about those who are alive at that time? And so Paul answers, verse 51, “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 and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable must put on imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”

So he’s telling us here we won’t all die, but we will all be transformed. Our bodies all will be transformed nonetheless—some out of death, some without ever passing through death—but our bodies will then be transformed at the coming of Christ to be suited to the age to come. And this, he says, verse 52, will happen in a moment, in an instant, when Christ returns and calls us up. The picture’s a wonderful thing here: Christ returning, descending from heaven, the sound of the great trumpet announcing his arrival, calling his people up. As we read in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, the dead in Christ shall rise first, then those of us who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Here our bodies will be transformed like theirs, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. And so we have the joining of those who are raised from the dead accompanying Christ—Christ bringing them back to reunite them with their bodies—and then those of us who are living at that time transformed as well.

What then, verses 54 and following? “When the perishable puts on imperishable, when 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.” That is not yet fulfilled. It’s fulfilled in the experience of Christ. And it’s fulfilled in the hope of every believer now. But Paul says, when all of this comes, when this resurrection comes, then we’ll be brought to pass this saying and we’ll look mockingly back at death and say, “Where, oh, where is your sting now?” It’s a wonderful prospect. One day we can look back at death and talk about it with a mocking tone and say that it’s over. And so Paul says this is the glory of that day. We’ll be raised with Christ, we’ll have a body like His body, to be united with Him in glory forever. To share in His glory and to be made like Christ in His glory. Our salvation finally brought to completion.

So in summary then, what kind of body will we have in the resurrection? It’ll be a literal, physical body. It’ll be continuous with our old body. Please don’t ask me how old will we be. Will the 10-year-old still be the 10-year-old? I don’t know. I’m sure God will be able to sort all that out. But we will have a body that is continuous with the old body that we had in this life, and it’ll be a body that is perfectly suited to that age and that age to come. This is the Christian’s hope and Paul speaks of it here in a wonderful way that we should be able then, although it is not yet fulfilled, we should be able at this point to look at death with a certain kind of confidence. And so we do not grieve, as he says to the Thessalonians, like those who do not have hope.

All right, let’s be dismissed in prayer.

Our Father, it’s a wonderful thing that you have let us in on all of this ahead of time. We’re grateful for the plans that you have for us. We’re grateful that we can know it and rejoice in it. We pray that you will help us as we have heard it said so often to be the kind of people who die well. We can look at death with a certain confidence knowing that although it is still our enemy, we know that it will not have the last say. We’re thankful for Christ who has gone that way before us and for Christ who will take us with him. We ask that you will encourage your people with this as you have commanded us. In Christ’s name, amen.