The Resurrection of the Body

Good morning, it's good to see you all today and a joy to be with you. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15 and we will be reading from verse 20 to 28, excuse me, and then from verse 35 to 58. This is the third message in the series what lies after death, and because I had a previous engagement to do a full Bible conference in a church in Surrey, I was not able to preach this message last Sunday night. So I'm putting it in this morning, and that may help some of you understand why I'm dealing with this subject this morning. Tonight we will deal with Can hell really be that bad? And then the following Sunday night, God willing, heaven, the saints' everlasting bliss. So we read together, and I'd ask you please to stand with me in honour of the reading of God's Word. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 20. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at his coming. Then comes the end. when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, It is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. Now when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Verse 35, But someone will say, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? Foolish one! What you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as he pleases, and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 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. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body, and so it is written. The first man, Adam, became a living being. The last, Adam, became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. And as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 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 incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Thus reads the word of God. May he be pleased to bless it to our hearts by his Holy Spirit. Please be seated. As we pursue our study of what lies after death, we come this morning to the subject of the resurrection of the body. When a believer dies, his body is buried in the grave, where it gradually decomposes. His spirit, however, is instantly made perfect and received by Christ in heaven, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. But that is not the end of our redemption. Human beings are not pure spirits like God and the angels. We are a body-spirit being. Our redemption therefore is not completed when we die and our glorified sinless spirit goes to be with Christ in heaven. Our body also needs to be glorified and reunited with our spirit. Without our resurrection body, we are only half-human and half-redeemed. So, according to Scripture, the climax of our redemption will be the resurrection of our body on the last day. Now, there are many people who find it hard to believe in the resurrection of the body. That was so even in our Lord's day. The Sadducees, the religious lawyers of the Jews, denied the possibility of a resurrection. That's why they were sad, you see. When Paul declared in Athens that God had raised Jesus from the dead, we read that some mocked So clearly this is an article of faith that calls for elucidation, so I want to begin with the fact of the resurrection. The greatest argument for the resurrection of the dead is the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself. Nobody has ever been resurrected except Jesus Christ. By raising the man Jesus of Nazareth from the grave, God has given proof of his power and of his purpose to raise those who belong to Christ from the dead. Now that's Paul's argument at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15. And then in verse 20 he says, Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Now as most of you will know, the firstfruits is a sheaf of the first ears of ripe grain that are gathered and waved before the Lord in the temple as a thank offering for the rest of the harvest that is both certainly and soon to follow. In the same way, Paul says that the resurrection of Christ is going to be followed by the resurrection of his people, as certainly as the first fruits are going to be followed by the harvest that is waiting in the field. Or to use another metaphor, Paul in verses 21 and 22 says, For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. That is to say, just as Adam died and brought death to all of his physical posterity, so Christ rose again and brought resurrection to all his spiritual posterity. All who are united to Adam by physical birth will die, but all who are united to Christ by spiritual birth will rise again. Now, though Paul is concerned in 1 Corinthians 15 only with the resurrection of Christians, as is the case in 1 Thessalonians 4, he does teach elsewhere that the unrighteous are going to be raised on the same day as the righteous, the last day of history. In Acts 24 verse 15, he speaks of a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. And his belief in such a general resurrection was derived both from the Old Testament and from his Lord and Master Jesus. In Daniel 12 verse 2, the prophet speaks of a general resurrection when, to quote, those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And then our Lord in John chapter 5, 28 puts it more clearly than in any other place that he speaks on the subject and he says that there is an hour coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice, that's the voice of the Son of Man, and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. The same voice which said at creation, let there be light, and there was light, will say at the resurrection, come forth, And all the dead will hear his voice and come forth to be judged by him. So much then for the fact of the resurrection. Let's consider in the second place the nature of the resurrection of the body. In 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 35, Paul says, But someone will say, How are the dead raised up? With what kind of body do they come? And Paul's immediate response is, you foolish man. Not because the question is foolish, but because Paul detects among these Corinthians the foolish supposition that because they think the resurrection demands the resumption of the human body to its former physical existence, that it is impossible, for how can a body be resurrected from the dust into which it has decomposed, or from the ashes? Even today, some people think that the body that decays after death is going to be miraculously reconstructed out of the material particles of which it previously was composed. But that's not what the Christian doctrine of the resurrection means. God is not going to people heaven. with earthly creatures of flesh and blood. Paul states quite categorically in verse 50, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither does the perishable, the corruptible, inherit the imperishable. Christians do not believe in the resuscitation of our earthly body to its former physical existence. But we believe in the resurrection, its transformation into a new organ for spiritual life in heaven. And so the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain and Lazarus, were all resuscitated. They return to this life only to do their dying all over again. But Jesus was resurrected to live and to die no more. The apostle therefore goes on to answer this foolish question by emphasizing in verses 36 to 49 the difference between our old body and our new resurrection body. And he does so in two ways. First, by similes. Verses 36 to 41, Paul employs three suggestive similes that he draws from the vegetable and the animal and the celestial kingdom. Take the vegetable kingdom first, verses 36 to 38. I hope you have your Bibles open and you are following. A seed, he says, has to be sown in the ground and die before it can live again and bear fruit. But when it does grow, it has a new body that is totally different from the old. The seed you sow is dark, it's bare, and it's ugly. But from that seed, God raises up a flower which is bright and shapely and fragrant. Or take the animal kingdom, says Paul, verse 39. An elementary knowledge of natural history tells us that not all flesh is alike. The earth swarms with men and beasts and birds and fish. But the bony skeleton of each of these earthly creatures has a different covering. Man has skin, but not scales. Animals have fur and feathers, whereas man has flesh. Our God is not a God of monotonous uniformity, but a God of rich diversity. And Paul says, you know, even in the celestial kingdom that he created, there are differences according to God's design. The sun and the moon and the stars can be distinguished from one another by their size, their luster, and their colour. Well, says Paul in verse 42, so also is the resurrection of the dead. As the flower differs from the seed, as the flesh of beasts is different from the flesh of birds, as the sun differs from the moon, so the resurrection body is going to be different from our old earthly body. You see, God created all of these bodies to be different because they were designed to live in a different environment and perform a different function and purpose. Likewise, when God raises our human body to live with Him in heaven and serve a spiritual purpose, He will give us a new body to suit that new environment and to fulfill our new purpose. Oh, without doubt, there will be a continuity between the two bodies, just as there is a continuity between the plant and the seed out of which it grows. A certain seed can only produce a certain flower or a certain fruit, and yet the flower and the fruit is completely different in shape, in color, and fragrance from the bare seed that you plant in the ground. And in the same way, when God raises our new body, there will be some continuity between it and the old one. That is why it is going to be raised up from the place where it was laid down. Otherwise God would just create the body, the new body out of thin air anywhere. But there is a specific purpose here. The old is going to be raised up from where it is buried. But the end result, says Paul, is going to be wonderfully different. Paul, I say, teaches this by similes, but he also teaches it by contrasts. In verses 42 to 44, he gives us four striking contrasts between our old earthly body and our new heavenly resurrected body. In the first place, verse 42, he says, what is sown is perishable, corruptible. What is raised is imperishable or incorruptible. You know, I don't have to tell you that this present earthly body cannot last forever. From the moment it reaches maturity, it begins to deteriorate until finally being mortal. It dies and decomposes in the grave. But the new body is going to be different. It will be raised imperishable, says Paul, and subject to none of the burdens of aging and of mortality that you and I now endure. Instead, the new body is going to enjoy the vigor of eternal youth, and every body in heaven is going to be a fully developed, mature human being. No babies and no old folk. As we worship God with that eternal youth, forever and ever, without the encumbrances of sickness or pain or tiredness, So that's the first contrast. The new body will never grow old or die. It will be immortal and imperishable. The second contrast is in verse 43. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. Now I must make it clear that the dishonor of our present human body is not in itself. The Greeks thought that way. They looked upon the human body as a dishonorable thing, because they believed it was a kind of material prison that confined the spirit and hindered it. The Bible, however, says that God created the body to be a perfect, permanent vehicle through which our spirit can express itself. For God made us body, soul beings. And our eternal destiny and the purpose of God is not to be a disembodied spirit, but to be a re-embodied spirit. What then constitutes the dishonor of our body? It is this. the fallen nature with which it is associated from birth. For while the body in itself is not sinful, it is the seat or the home of sin. To use a good old-fashioned term, we are all born with original sin. The nature which we inherit from our parents is from the moment of conception biased towards evil, towards pleasing and pampering and obeying self rather than pleasing, obeying God. Thus some of our bodily appetites that are perfectly natural and good in themselves and created by God have become by this evil principle within us, corrupted. And as a result, eating easily degenerates into gluttony, drinking into drunkenness, sleep into sloth, and sex into immorality, and so on. And this bias towards sin remains in our bodies until we die. Even though we are born again of the Holy Spirit, Even after we become mature Christians, it's still there, and we have to fight it. When then will we be rid of indwelling sin, of this bias towards evil, this antipathy towards God? And the Bible says only a death only when this body is laid in the grave and our old sinful nature perishes with it. And there our body will lie in the dust until the last day, the day of resurrection, when it will be raised in glory, no longer to bear Adam's shame. So if the shame of the present body is that it is the seat of sin, the honor of the resurrection body is going to be the fact that it will be the home of glory. It will be sinless. But Paul brings out a third contrast in verse 43, and that is the old body that is sown in weakness is going to be raised in power. You know, I think our present human body should be labeled fragile, handled with care, for it has other weaknesses besides its mortality. Even when we are young and fit and strong and healthy, there are limits to what we can do and where we can go. For example, to do our work properly, we must eat a balanced diet, sleep so many hours in 24, and take a certain amount of exercise. Again, the body can't survive without adequate clothing and shelter, because it cannot stand up to the fury of the elements around it. to go in the air or to go under the sea, we need pressurized cabins. Our present bodies, I say, are weak, even when they are at their best. They can't go everywhere or do everything, but our resurrection body is going to be invested with new and undreamed-of powers. Now, while no clear indication is given in the New Testament as to the exact nature of these new powers of our resurrection body, we can gain some idea of them from the resurrection body of Jesus. For the New Testament clearly teaches that the resurrection body of Jesus is a prototype of our resurrection body. Just as when you go to the motor show in Chicago and you see the prototypes all lined up there, you know this is what you are going to get when you put your order in in a few months' time. Verse 49, As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. And you know, this is taught again so beautifully in Philippians 3 verse 21, where we are told that when Christ comes, he's going to change our lowly body to be like his glorious body. So it's quite legitimate, I think, to draw tentative deductions about our resurrection body from the data that is supplied in the Gospels concerning the resurrection body of Jesus. For example, we know that Christ's resurrection body had some continuity with his earthly body of flesh. It had both flesh and bones, but it didn't have blood. but it had flesh and bones. It could be seen. It could be touched. It still bore the scars of the nails in his hands and side. Handle me and see, Jesus said, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have. But although his resurrection body had some continuity with the old earthly body, It also passed through the grave cloths without disturbing them. It also entered into a room that was completely closed without opening a door or a window. It could vanish from sight and then suddenly reappear. It could even defy the law of gravity on the day of ascension and rise up into the clouds and into heaven. Now I know that our present knowledge of things is not sufficient to grasp how this can all be. We can only humble ourselves before these facts even if we can't understand them. But what is clear is that Christ's risen body had new powers. It was not subject to the cramping limitations of time and space that hinder us. Paul says, it was raised in power. Now, the fourth contrast between these two bodies is stated by Paul in verse 44. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. That is to say, the old body is an animal body designed as a vehicle for biological life. The new body will be a spiritual body designed for the spiritual life of heaven. Our earthly bodies are governed and controlled by our physical senses. Our new body is going to be governed and controlled completely by our spirit. Our present body is adapted for life on earth. Our resurrection body is going to be adapted for life in heaven. Well, so much for the believer's resurrection body. What will the resurrection body of an unbeliever be like? Surprisingly, Paul says nothing about it here, and the Bible says very little about it elsewhere. In fact, there are only two verses in the Bible which have anything to say about it. In Isaiah 66 verse 24, God says that their bodies, and I quote, will be an abhorrence to all flesh. That is to say, the wicked will appear hideous. to each other. The other reference is in Daniel 12 and verse 2, where he says that the wicked will awake to shame and to everlasting contempt. Their bodies will be a cause for perpetual disgust and loathing. Now I agree, these verses don't elaborate very much. But they do make it clear that the destiny of the righteous and of the unrighteous are exactly opposite. Just as the righteous will rise to everlasting life, so the wicked will suffer everlasting destruction. And just as the righteous will shine like the stars forever, so the wicked will awake to shame and everlasting contempt. Further than that, I dare not go. But what is clear is that the resurrection bodies of the wicked will be a horrible sight to themselves indeed. They will cause even the damned to shudder. And Jesus put his confirmation upon this teaching. Otherwise, I would be a little frightened taking it out of the Old Testament solely. But Jesus confirmed this truth, this simple but terrible truth, by quoting from Isaiah 66 and saying, they are going to a place where the fire is not quenched and the worm never dies. They are perpetually in a state of rotting. The last thing we must consider is the time of the resurrection. When will the resurrection of the just and the unjust take place? In 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51, Paul says, Lo, 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. we shall be changed. When will the resurrection of all the dead take place? And the answer is, when the trumpet sounds at the coming of Jesus Christ. And Jesus taught that in two of his parables. He taught in the parable of the wheat and the tares, or the wheat and the weed, that when he returns The wheat and the tares will be harvested together and separated on the same occasion. And in the parable of the drag net, when a fisherman casts a huge sign net out into the ocean and then pulls it to shore, he pulls in both good fish and bad fish. And at the same event or occasion, the good fish are separated from the bad fish. When, Jesus says, when the Son of Man returns with the angels in heaven. Now, when Paul speaks of the trumpet, he is using symbolism here. It's figurative, it's not literal. And he uses the symbol of a trumpet because a trumpet was used in the Old Testament to summon and to gather the people of God together. And so in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 16, Paul repeats the symbolism. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord. The resurrection will take place when the trumpet sounds at Christ's return on the last day of this age. And Paul calls it the last trumpet because it is the last of the seven trumpets in the book of Revelation which announce the events leading up to the end of the world. when the kingdoms of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. This is further supported in John 6 where our Lord says four times He will raise up His dead disciples on the last day. The resurrection then will take place when Christ returns on the clouds of heaven in power and great glory with these mighty angels at the end of history. Moreover, I want you to notice from this chapter that the resurrection and the transformation are going to be instantaneous. Whether we are dead or alive on that day of Christ's return, we are all going to be changed in a moment. There will be no gradual transformation from a state of decomposition to the glorified state. Rather, it will be a sudden, dramatic, and instantaneous transformation for Christians. Verse 52, We shall all be changed, that is, all of the dead and all of the living who are believers. We shall all be changed in a moment. in the twinkling of an eye. And brethren, as I bring this wonderful truth to a close, I must ask, are you, am I looking forward to the day when Christ returns to complete our salvation and save us utterly from sin and death and decay? Do we long for this day? when in the new heaven and in the new earth we shall be freed from every impediment of body and spirit so that we can serve God as he deserves to be served forever and forever. Is this great prospect, the thing that fills our horizon and thrills our souls, Are we in that state where we can hardly wait for it to happen? Well, I do hope that we are not so caught up with this world, that our time and our attention is spent largely like that of the worldling, on pampering this physical earthly body, keeping it fit and trim. with making it young and beautiful, with satisfying its every whim and fancy, we must beware. Jesus said, whoever desires to save his life, to guard it, to make it live longer, to make it more beautiful, he's going to lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will find it. To quote those wonderful words of Jim Elliott, who was martyred by the Aka Indians in the jungles of Ecuador in the 1950s, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose. Be like the Apostle Paul, who was willing to suffer the loss of all things that he might know the excellence of Jesus Christ and eventually attain to the resurrection of the dead. If you are not a Christian, you need to understand, as Paul said, that there is going to be a resurrection of the just and of the unjust on the last day. And I must ask you this morning, In which are you going to share? The resurrection of the just or of the unjust? The resurrection to glory or the resurrection to shame and everlasting contempt? If you remain in your unbelief, you will perish in your sins and suffer what Paul calls in 2 Thessalonians, everlasting destruction, shut away from the presence of the Lord. That is, from the presence of his blessings and life. But if you come to Christ in faith this morning, if you turn from your old way of life to live for him, He will give you eternal life. You will experience it right here and now and have the promise that He will raise you from the dead on the last day. So I would beg you this morning to come to Jesus Christ just as you are. Don't think, well, I don't think I could make it. I don't think I could live this life. I mean, I see some of my friends. I don't think I could be like them. Of course you can't be like them. But Christ can make you a Christian. Christ can give you the power to live for the glory of God. And I beseech you to come to Him now while He is still calling and while He may be found. His promise is, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me. Friend, my unbelieving friend, it's a promise you can count on. And know that when the roll is called up yonder, You will be there. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this glorious truth of the resurrection of the body of believers on the last day. Thank you that you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to take our frail human flesh and so fulfill the plan and the purpose that in his divine and human being he could make this possible. He could live a sinless life, die an atoning death for the forgiveness of our sins, and then rise again so that we might enjoy his risen life and share a resurrection body like he has. grant that this glorious truth will fill our hearts and minds all the time, so that we never ever get to the stage where we feel sorry when physically things start going down, but know for sure that it is only bringing us nearer to that glorious moment when we will be with Christ, and to his return when he will change our lowly body and make it like his glorious body. For those, our Father, who are still thinking of these things, pray that by your Spirit you will give them grace to come to Christ now, the giver of eternal life. In His name we ask it. Amen.