The Nature of the Resurrection

Transcript

Good morning. Good morning. If you have your Bibles, would you please turn with me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. We’ll begin at verse 35. If you don’t have a Bible with you this morning, there should be some Bibles in the seats in front of you, underneath in that little basket area. Feel free to grab one of those. If you don’t have a Bible at home, you’re welcome to take that with you as our gift, as long as you promise to read it. Right, Greg? Okay. And on that note, would you please stand with me for the reading of God’s Word?

But someone will ask, how are the dead raised? 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

— 1 Corinthians 15

(ESV)

or 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 is of 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 star differs 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.

— 1 Corinthians 15

(ESV)

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 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.

— 1 Corinthians 15

(ESV)

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth that is contained in it. We pray now that you would give us the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Obsession with Immortality

We desperately need it. Father, this passage explains so much concerning our future hope. And so we pray that as we go through your word this morning, you would in a sense rip open the veil of our material world and show us the glories of the world to come. And we pray, oh God, that would fuel our worship and adoration of you. Because there is so much to look forward to. We pray that you would give us eyes to see the mystery and wonder of the world to come through your word this morning. We pray in Christ’s name, amen. You may be seated. Last year, Americans spent an estimated $16 billion on plastic surgery. This includes minimal invasive procedures. But over 1.5 million cosmetic surgeries were performed, making a 5% increase from last year. The fitness and health industry this year is estimated to reach $265 billion.

This means on average, people spend around $286 a month for health and fitness activities, which maybe includes gym memberships, fitness classes, I know there’s a few in our church that do spin classes, I don’t even know what that is, personal trainers, supplements and workout gear. This amounts to an annual spend of over $3,400 per person in the U.S. And finally, roughly $500 billion is projected to be spent on prescription drugs this year, which has a 5% increase from last year. This is a whole lot of money. The common thread in all of this massive spending when you break it down to its smallest compound is self-preservation. The desire to extend youthfulness and prolong life as much as humanly possible. People and Americans in particular are completely obsessed with the idea of self-preservation and science and technology industries are very much aware of this obsession. In fact, there are scientists right now who have dedicated their entire focus on extending

human life indefinitely. They believe it’s possible. They think in about 100 years or so, advancements in genetic engineering and nanotechnology will make this a reality. And the reason for this new science is because of demand. That’s what the people want. Not only that, humans, it seems, are so fixated on extending life that even as people prepare to die, they make plans still holding off hope for the future opportunities to reclaim the life that they once had. In fact, there are companies right now that will literally freeze legally dead people in an attempt to preserve their bodies with the hope that future technologies will one day be able to reanimate them. Now, I know that sounds crazy, like an indie sci-fi film, but it’s true. In fact, there are four major companies doing this very thing right now. Again, the reason these companies exist is because of demand.

The people want it. Well, family, despite these efforts, here’s what we know from the scriptures, that humans are appointed to die once and then after that comes the judgment. So no matter how much science and technology advance, death for humans is inevitable. The only exception is for those who happen to be alive when the Lord returns. They will be the only ones who will not face physical death, but they will still be transformed in the end. Now, this obsession with extending eternal life is completely understandable. All humans have within them this deep craving for everlasting life. And the reason why we crave it is because we were made for it. So the problem isn’t necessarily with the desire for immortality. The problem is where people are sourcing their information to make sense of it. This desire to continue living has existed since the day death entered the world.

Since that day, people have looked everywhere for answers to satisfy this endless longing to understand and secure immortality. Philosophers have presented their theories. Spiritual gurus have shared their assumptions. And songwriters have made these very beautiful but empty predictions. Here’s the irony. All these philosophers, spiritual gurus, and songwriters have died, along with their philosophies, assumptions, and their beautiful but empty predictions. What’s crazy is that in their pursuit of satisfying this craving for understanding what happens to us beyond the grave, people have exclusively looked to dead men for answers, when they should have been looking to the only one who defeated death, the eternal God who resurrected from the grave and conquered death. And this family is precisely what the Corinthian Christians have done. Instead of turning to Jesus and the scriptures for answers concerning life beyond the grave, they turn to philosophers and poets, which you might call songwriters, like Plato and

Philo, hoping to find answers about life after death. But these men, in every way, led them astray, especially when it came to understanding what happens to the body and soul after death. So throughout this chapter, Paul has been doing the hard work of attempting to realign their thinking, to move them away from the philosophy of the culture and pull them back to the source of all truth and wisdom, which is Jesus Christ, the only gateway and giver of eternal life. All throughout this chapter has been challenging their inconsistencies and confronting their worldly philosophies, pointing them to the truth of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the bodily resurrection of the followers of Jesus. So far in this chapter, Paul has examined the historical facts of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. He’s explored the hypothetical, theological, and personal implications of it. And this morning, we’ll see how Paul continues to correct their thinking by urging them to

Addressing the Mockers

consider the nature of the bodily resurrection. Not just the possibility of the bodily resurrection, but the actual process. In other words, what exactly will this resurrection of believers look like? And this, family, is what we’re going to be giving our time to this morning. This portion of Scripture moves us a bit away from the resurrection of Jesus and exclusively deals with the resurrection of the saints. This passage here is not only rich in beauty and hope, but this is probably the most comprehensive text in all of Scripture dealing with this particular subject. So there’s a lot of wonderful things to unpack this morning. So let’s dive right in. You guys ready? Okay. All right. Paul begins in verse 35 by addressing two questions raised by the Corinthian Christians. Paul writes, but someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?

These Corinthian Christians had two big questions concerning the nature of the resurrection. In other words, they were concerned with the how and what mechanics of the resurrection. First, how bodies can be raised from the grave, and second, what condition will those bodies be in if they are, in fact, to be raised? Now to understand the big idea behind the text this morning, we need to first understand two things. Number one, the reason for the questions, and number two, the tone of the questions. As we saw over the last two weeks, Paul had been hammering them with the truth of the resurrection. Both Jesus’ bodily resurrection and the resurrection of believers. I mentioned earlier he’s used historical facts, apologetics, theology, scripture, even personal implications to make his case. But even with all of that, these folks still are not convinced. They just don’t seem to get it.

And the reason why is because they’re stuck on Plato’s philosophy. We talked a lot about this last week. They were still clinging to this false dichotomy of the spirit and body. That somehow the body is bad and the spirit is good. Now the tone of their questions is undeniably a mocking tone. So though it’s framed as questions, they’re actually attempting to ridicule him. They weren’t asking questions out of genuine, you know, confusion. They were trying to make Paul look like a fool in front of everyone. So the tone here is dripping with sarcasm, and you can imagine them asking their questions kind of like this, Paul, come on, man. How are dead people going to raise from the grave? What are you talking about? How are these decomposed, rotting bodies going to be raised? Are they just going to pop up from the ground and just start walking around?

You can see behind this mockery is this idea that nothing good can come from a body that’s been buried deep in the dirt. So their condescending attitude is clear. And here’s the thing, this wouldn’t be any different from the kind of mockery Christians hear today. When some people in our culture hear about the resurrection of the dead, to many it seems laughable, because their only framework for something like this comes from the culture. So in their mind, they think of it as kind of like a zombie apocalypse, or like a Michael Jackson thriller video. They can’t imagine beauty coming from decaying bodies rising from the ground, because that sounds more like a horror film than reality. And the Corinthians were probably thinking some of those very same things. Probably not a Michael Jackson thriller video, but along the lines. So they mocked the very idea of this bodily resurrection.

And listen, we’ve seen this kind of mockery before. We first started our sermon series, if you remember, I started us back in Acts 17, when Paul was preaching about the resurrection to the philosophers in Athens, on Mars Hill. They mocked him too. Acts 17, 32 says, now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, but others said, we will hear you again about this. Listen, when they said, we’re going to hear you again about this, Paul, it wasn’t that they were genuinely interested, but rather they were being entertained by these radical and crazy ideas. So now in response to these mocking questions from the Corinthians, Paul responds bluntly in verse 36, and he says, you foolish person. Paul calls them fools and rightfully so, because a fool is someone who fails to see what is possible if it’s beyond their limited understanding.

So if it doesn’t make sense to them, then it’s obviously not a reality. Fools tend to position themselves and their limited experience as the standard of truth or facts. And this friends is huge in our culture right now. In fact, we live in a post-truth, alternative facts world, a culture in which people will refuse to listen to the truth, even if it’s plain and evident, even through empirical data and verifiable facts. And that’s exactly what these mockers were doing to Paul. They were being fools. After hearing all this wisdom, all the historical evidence, all the theology, all the implications, they flippantly dismiss it all. They were despising wisdom. And the Bible says that fools despise wisdom. I love that Paul calls them fools because it illustrates what Proverbs 26, 5 says, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

That’s exactly what Paul did here. He called them fools for following empty philosophy and not trusting in the wisdom of God. Now to be clear, he doesn’t call them fools to vindicate himself, okay? But rather to snap them back into reality, to show them they’re not using wisdom. They were so immersed in the philosophy of the culture that they were failing to see the wisdom of God’s word. Just a quick side note, Paul calls them fools, but this isn’t a rebuke of their intelligence, okay? It’s not that Paul thinks that they are dumb and that he is smarter than them. The same book of Proverbs that tells us to answer a fool according to his folly also tells us that wisdom is a gift from God. What Paul understood about God was in every way a gift from God. So it’s not about being smart enough to decipher certain facts.

It’s about depending on the wisdom that God gives as a gift to help us interpret the facts of reality. Listen, there are many intelligent people in this world, very smart people in this world, who will never be able to make sense of certain spiritual realities in this world because in order to do that, they need the wisdom that comes from above. The gift of God in the revealing of supernatural and spiritual truth. So it’s not that they are incapable of learning or knowing anything, which is why Paul doesn’t just leave them in their foolish thinking. Instead, he seeks to address their foolishness by framing the wisdom of God in a way that is accessible to them. So he begins in the second half of verse 36 by saying, What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. Now look at how Paul addresses this issue here.

It’s both beautiful and practical. He takes these massive divine truths, the wisdom of God concerning the resurrection of the dead, and makes it crazy accessible with this simple illustration, which by the way is a lot like how Jesus operated. Paul takes these weighty spiritual concepts and makes it plain by using something familiar and tangible like the marvel of plant life. And we see that in verses 37 and 38. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen and to each kind of seed its own body. Paul uses the imagery of a seed, this very small and seemingly insignificant thing. This small seed, when it’s buried in the ground, before it begins the germination process, the seed has to reach the end of itself.

In other words, the seed has to die. But what comes from that seed is nothing short of a miracle, a beautiful, colorful and mature plant. And the seed at first glance doesn’t look like anything significant. Before it is planted, we can only speculate what it will become. But once it’s buried, something amazing happens. God begins to give it its shape, its form, its color, its symmetry, its texture, and all of its beauty. God gives the seed a body, goes into the ground one way. When it comes out, it is vastly different. The point Paul is making here is that death of the seed brings forth new life. And even though the plant looks largely different from the seed, it is still in its essence the same entity of the seed. Now Paul uses this simple natural process to illustrate the possibility of new life that comes from something being buried in the ground.

The Glory of Resurrection

He’s showing the beauty and wonder that will come from the resurrection of believers who, though they may be buried in the earth, will be raised to a new and glorious life. Shape, color, symmetry, texture, beauty, all from death. But Paul doesn’t stop with just plant life. He moves on to explore the diversity of bodies, showing that God’s creative work extends far beyond what we see in a simple seed. Look at verse 39. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. God has created a wide diversity of bodies in this world, each designed with a purpose. He’s made all kinds of bodies to thrive in all kinds of ecosystems. Fish are given bodies suitable for the seas. Birds are given bodies to thrive in the skies. Animals are given bodies to flourish on the land, and humans are given bodies to have

dominion over everything in this fallen world. You see how that works? Different bodies for different purposes. But Paul doesn’t stop with just earthly bodies. He mentions celestial and terrestrial bodies. In verse 40, he says, there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The point Paul makes here is that there are bodies fit for angels, and there are bodies fit for humans. In the infinite wisdom of God, he’s made all kinds of bodies suitable for their environments. The point he makes is that if God has already done this in creation, why would it be difficult for them to understand that when He recreates the body that has been buried, He can make it suitable for a recreated, transformed world to come? This renovated world, this new creation, will need bodies specifically suited or contoured for its new environment. Just as God has given birds wings to soar through the skies, and fish gills to swim

in the depths of the seas, He will give us resurrected bodies that are perfectly contoured for the new heavens and new earth. Then Paul continues to push it further with another powerful illustration, this time using the spectrum of glory. The second half of verse 40 and verse 41, he says, the glory of the heavenly is of 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 star differs from star in glory. Paul is making it clear here that there is a vast difference between the glory of the heavenly bodies and the glory of our earthly bodies. Both have God’s glory imprinted on them, but that degree of glory is massively different. So think about it this way. In the jet black of night, far from the lights of the city, we could look up and we can see

the glory of the stars. Each one is unique in its radiance. I was just at the Rogue River with some brothers from the church, and one night we were sitting around in the evening, and I looked up at the stars, and there were so many stars in the sky that it actually provided sufficient light for us to see each other in the dark. It was glorious. Now, I don’t get to see that very often, but as glorious as the stars are, when we gaze at a full moon on a clear night and observe its luminous glory, it completely outshines the glory of the stars. It’s increasingly more brighter. Sometimes, even here in Portland, during those rare August days when we have a perfectly clear sky, which again is very rare, we can look at the sun and see how it radiates the glory in a way that far surpasses both the moon and the stars.

The point is, each one is glorious, breathtaking in its own right. But there is a difference in the degree of glory. They shine differently. Paul is pointing out that there is a spectrum of glory, and that there’s a wide gap between the glory of the earthly bodies that we currently have now and the glory of the heavenly body that we will one day have. And just a side note, just because the glory of the sun is far greater than the stars doesn’t mean the stars are bad. They’re just not as glorious. And in the same way with our earthly bodies, they’re not bad, they’re just not as beautiful as what will come. And the difference, brothers and sisters, will be noticeable. That degree of glory will be incomparable. And we will really begin to see where Paul is heading with this imagery in verses 42

through 44. He says, 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. Paul is saying, think about all the imagery I’ve just shown you in the same way. It’s going to be like this with the resurrection of the dead. From the earth, beauty and life can spring forth with bodies suited for a new world. And these bodies will be more glorious than we can ever imagine. Paul in these verses, he gives us four distinctions to help us understand the difference in glory between our earthly bodies and resurrected bodies. And he first begins with the difference of decay.

What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. Paul starts with the physical and biological breakdown of the body. Likely because this was at the core of the Corinthians’ mockery. What Paul is saying here is that what is put into the ground, like everything else in this world, will decompose. What is raised will not. So the difference between the body now and the body that we will have after the resurrection is that our resurrected bodies will no longer be subject to decomposition. They will never deteriorate. The resurrected body will reverse the second law of thermodynamics, which says everything born must deteriorate. And what this means, of course, is that the resurrected body will no longer be subject to things like aging, or sickness, disease, pain, or tiredness. All the physical and biological effects of the fall that tormented our bodies will completely be done away with.

So you’ve got to think about what this means for people with chronic illness. For those of us with physical disabilities. For those who suffer from asthma, or fibromyalgia, or cancer, or heart disease. All of these things will be gone forever. Never to return again. But the most glorious thing about this new body is that it will be sinless. You see, the reason it is imperishable is because the sin that made it perishable will be eradicated. Family, I mentioned this last week. How often do you consider the implications of that reality? A sinless body. A life without sin. All the struggles of sin that we wrestle with, all the temptations, all the putting to death, all the resisting, all the fleeing, gone. No more. The sin that made us corruptible dies in the ground, and what is raised is incorruptible. This also means, brothers and sisters, for the very first time, we will experience true

rest. Rest from fighting the pervasiveness and persistence of sin. Rest from the ongoing discouragement of our failing bodies. Rest from the havoc of health issues. Rest from the anxiety that tends to keep us awake at night. We will truly and finally rest. Now, I don’t know how many of you struggle with sleep, but for me, this will be a glorious reality. I was thinking about this week. I will rest. Heather, you will rest too. Amen. Paul continues with this difference, but this time he unpacks the difference of dishonor. He says, it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. Now, this might not seem much at first, but I really want you to think about this for a second. The human body suffers its greatest humiliation when it’s finally laid in the grave. Death, family, is the great humiliator of all people. It’s the one thing that the rich, the beautiful, the influential, and the powerful cannot escape.

And death doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care about your ethnicity, your gender, your culture, your class, or your age. It humbles everyone. Even if you’re buried in a wealthy tomb, it’s still humbling. When we are finally laid into the ground, everyone becomes equally dead and equally lifeless. But when God raises his people, he will restore the dignity and glory that was lost when sin brought death to our world. The word dishonor here, it’s often used to describe the loss of citizenship. In other words, what Paul is saying is that sin has banished us from our rightful citizenship. We were kicked out. But when we are raised, we will regain the citizenship that was lost because of sin. So no more decay and no more dishonor. But Paul continues with the difference, this time focusing on strength. He says it is sown in weakness. It is raised in power.

Family, our entire existence as humans is defined by weakness and limitation. Physical, moral, intellectual, and general weakness. I mean, we age. We, some of us, get gray hair quite early. We break. We forget. We fall. We misunderstand. We misinterpret. We can’t do everything we want to do because of our limitations. We can’t know everything we want to know because of our limitations. Death is the greatest expression of human weakness. So when we die, we are totally and completely powerless. A corpse has no power to raise itself or to speak or to reason. It’s entirely without strength. But when the body is raised and reunited with the soul, we will have unimaginable power. Kids, where are you at? Raise your hand, kids. Rachel, did you just raise your hand? Okay. Kids, if you are trusting in Jesus, did you know that one day you will have superpowers?

I’m serious. You will have superpowers. You will have a body that will be invincible. Did you know that? You will have power that is beyond what you can understand now. You will be invincible. No one will be able to hurt you and you will never get tired. Imagine how you feel after eating ice cream and you have all this energy. You’ll just keep going. For parents, that sounds crazy, but for kids, amen. And listen, this is also true for adults. We will no longer be constrained by the limitations of our human bodies, physically, mentally, and emotionally. We will have the bandwidth to keep up with kids after they eat ice cream. And family, we get glimpses of this kind of power in these rare moments when the Holy Spirit supernaturally works in our lives. I mean, think about those rare moments when God gives you supernatural strength, when

you are physically at the end of your rope. Moms, I know you feel this sometimes. When He gives you supernatural joy that surpasses all of your difficult circumstances. Think about those moments when you actually know what to say when you’re sharing the gospel or when you give this encouraging word to someone in the congregation. When God gives you the grace to endure the challenges and circumstances that you thought were so far beyond you. Those supernatural moments that seem to happen when you least expect it. Family, when we are raised, those supernatural moments become normative. What is extraordinary becomes ordinary. We will be characterized by power, not by the limitations of our current bodies. Amen. And finally, Paul gives us another difference. This time he focuses on the body. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Now to understand this fully, think about the difference between the earthly body of

Jesus before the resurrection and His glorified, resurrected body. After He rose from the grave, His body changed. John’s gospel tells us that Jesus was able to walk through locked doors. So His resurrected body was different. It was glorified, but it was still a body. Paul tells us that our bodies too will be transformed into spiritual bodies. These won’t be like immaterial bodies, but new bodies suited for a different heavenly dimension. Our natural bodies in every way were made for this present life, but our spiritual bodies will be made for the life to come. And listen, this is very important to understand this. The resurrection isn’t the doing away with the body. Paul makes this clear over and over again. It’s the transformation of the body. And the reason this is important to understand is because some people think that we will have spirit bodies, but that’s not true.

Two Adams, Two Humanities

There’s a difference in having a spirit body and having spiritual bodies. I know that sounds confusing, but let me just explain. When Christ was raised and seen by the disciples, it was not the spirit of Jesus that they saw, but it was the spiritually transformed body of Jesus that they saw. So to be clear, when we are raised, we will not be like ghosts, meaning the spirit of the person that once was. We will be who we are now, only spiritually transformed. The body will be spiritually modified. Okay? This is what Paul means in verse 44 when he says, if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. What Paul is saying here is that there will be continuity between our natural and spiritual bodies. There will be identifiable features in our spiritual bodies that will reveal it’s still us. In other words, the things that make us who we are, they won’t disappear even though our

bodies are transformed. So our bodies will be different, but in many ways, they will still be the same. In John’s gospel, when Jesus did walk through those locked doors, the disciples immediately recognized that it was Jesus. And Thomas even saw his wounds. So they could see identifiable features. He was the same Jesus they had always known, but he was also different. So there’s both continuity and discontinuity, a transformed body with recognizable features. When I was very young, my mom and I, we were not very close. Now, I mean, she was my mom, of course, but given the difficult circumstances of our family, we just really didn’t seem to connect on a meaningful level. We didn’t really know each other that well. And it wasn’t until my mother started following Jesus shortly after I became a Christian that we grew close. And this was a sweet season because for the first time, I really began to know my mom

and she began to know me. And really because we started spending a lot of time together and in a way that I can only attribute to the Lord’s kindness, our affections for each other began to increase. It was like the Lord was letting us make up for lost time. Well, during that season, I learned so much about my mother, not just her past or the pain that she carried, and not just her character or her growing hunger for the Lord, which honestly far surpassed mine, even though I was the one that told her about Jesus. But in that season, I also began to notice certain distinguishing features about her. The physical traits that made her unique from every other person on the planet. And for whatever reason, I remember her cheekbones, which were often streaked with tears of joy when she would sing to the Lord.

I remember her hands. I distinctly remember her very tiny hands, probably because of how often we used to hold hands when we would pray together. When my mother went to be with Jesus just a couple of weeks before Kuyper was born, it was those physical features that burned into my memory. When I think of her or when I miss her, it’s those kinds of details that flood my mind. What’s amazing is that in God’s kindness, I get glimpses of my mother in Tobin’s eyes and in Kuyper’s half-cracked smile, which I’m so thankful for. But family, when the Lord finally takes me home and I am standing in a sea of a million saints, I will recognize my mother by those very features. When the Lord returns and raises his people, you will recognize each other. This is a glorious truth. Our bodies will be different, but we will be known.

We will be completely seen for perhaps the very first time. Brothers and sisters, when we’re raised, we won’t be exactly the same, but we will be known. There will be continuity and discontinuity at the same time. The things that make us who we are, the unique traits God has given us, those will remain, but we will be transformed. So the beauty of our ethnicity, our gender, all the things that God has dignified in us will be preserved. Praise be to God. I will see my mother again in a glorified body with her cheekbones, her little tiny hands, her blue eyes, and her half-cracked smile. Brothers and sisters, you will see your loved ones again who have trusted Jesus in their glorified bodies. You will see them, amen? They will be transformed with different glorified bodies perfectly suited for a renovated world, and you can bank your life on that.

Well, then Paul begins his closing arguments in verses 45 through 49, once again by contrasting Adam the first man and Christ the last Adam. He writes, 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 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. Paul here gives us a view of two humanities, Adam and Christ. Adam, who was formed from the dust of the ground, became a living being when God breathed

life into his lungs. As the first human, Adam stands as the head of the human race. All of us bear his image, the image of the man of dust. Through Adam, sin entered the world, bringing death and the loss of immortality. But Jesus, the last Adam, the Son of God, came from heaven. He took on human flesh. He died, was buried, and rose again to conquer sin, Satan, and death by becoming a life-giving spirit. Through Jesus, immortality has been redeemed for all who will follow after him. And the point Paul is making here is that both Adam and Jesus are head figures, but with one critical difference. Every human is a descendant of Adam, while only those who trust in the finished work of Jesus will become descendants of Christ. Those who remain only descendants of Adam will face eternal death, judgment, and separation from God.

But those who are descendants of both Adam and Jesus will follow the pattern of Jesus’ resurrection. Just as he was raised from the grave and given a glorified body, so too will we who trust in Jesus be raised and given new bodies. First John 3 says, Beloved, we are God’s children now, descendants of him. And what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. If you are here this morning and you would not know yourself to be a Christian, if immortality is what you long for, if you desire eternal life, dear friend, you need to know this very important fact. Eternal life can only be found through Jesus, the life giver. Jesus alone can give you what you need to live eternally, and he offers himself freely

to those who would turn from their sins and trust in him for the forgiveness of sins. And listen, you can have him this morning, turn from your sins, believe that he is who he says he is, both the son of God and the savior of the world, and he will make you his child. You can become a descendant of Jesus. You want to know more about that? If you have questions concerning what it means to follow Jesus, come and speak to me after the service. I’d love to talk to you about following Jesus. Family, our deepest longings as finite creatures will finally be fulfilled when Christ returns in glory, raising his people, giving them new bodies, suited to live in his remade world for all of eternity. And listen, the gospel is the gateway to this kind of glory. The gospel is the gateway to this kind of glory.

---

Living the Resurrection Hope

Brothers and sisters, think about the gift of the gospel. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t do anything to deserve it. It was a gift to you by God himself. The gospel that you have received has promised you a glorified body beyond the grave, completely suitable to live forever with Jesus. And all other gifts pale in comparison. They are temporary and far less significant. Can I ask you this morning, how are you responding to this most glorious gift of the gospel that promises you life everlasting? There are only two ways that you should be responding to this gift, unrestrained thankfulness and praise and evangelistic zeal. You should be thanking God constantly for saving you and granting you the gift of eternal life. And you should be zealously proclaiming the God who freely gives this gift of eternal life to sinners like you and me. These two responses, thankfulness and zeal, should preoccupy us.

And if those aren’t the predominant features in your life, you need a greater vision of your sin and a greater vision of the gospel and a greater vision of the promise of a future resurrection. You need to ask the Lord to give you a bigger picture of the gospel. And then one last thought before we close. The promise of a future resurrection family doesn’t detach us from this present age. Pain, sickness, sorrow and even death still affects us in the here and now. It is often overwhelming and too hard to bear. So brothers and sisters, comfort one another. Comfort one another with the promise of our future glory. The promise of the resurrection gives us great hope and the perspective that we need to endure the hardships of this life. The very things that overwhelm us, the things that are too hard to bear. When we are reminded of what awaits us, we actually have just enough to bear those things.

So encourage one another. Remind each other of the truth constantly. We are too broken of a people and we are marked by too much suffering to not be reminding each other of this reality. Carry each other’s burdens and then carry one another to the word where they can find hope. We should be preaching these promises to one another whenever we see each other. This is the work that you are called to as a member of this church. These are the only words of hope that truly matter in dark times. So family, file those away for difficult days, for dark days. File this away just as surely as Christ was raised. No matter what you’re going through, so too you shall be raised and receive glorified bodies where all those things that you’re going through will be done away with for all of eternity. And we will be with Jesus.

I do pray that this text has been a great encouragement for you. It’s been a great encouragement for my own soul. All week, I have been lifted by this text and I pray that this carries you into your week. Let’s pray. Our Father and our God, we do thank you that this life is not all there is. If our hope was for this life only, what a waste. But because we have a view of what’s to come, oh Lord, this is so good. It fuels us. It compels us. It drives us to fight to the very end because what awaits us is far greater than we could ever understand or comprehend. Lord, I pray that you would give us the fuel and the appetite to live with the reality of the resurrection every day. Would that reality of glorified bodies eclipse all of our suffering in this world?

All of the hardships? Help us to realize that we have so much waiting for us in the end. And would you help us, God, to remind each other to help pull each other out of the pit to help lift our eyes to our future hope? We desperately need it. We pray these things in Christ’s name, amen.