In 1 Corinthians 15:20-34, Paul teaches that the human race is destined to die because of Adam, but all who are in Christ are destined to raise from the dead and have eternal life.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study Podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you’re interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now on to today’s episode.
This is Episode 22 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. This episode is entitled, Christ is Risen! The Firstfruits from the Dead, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:20-34. I’m Wes Treadway, and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, here we’re going to get to the point of the entire chapter. Paul’s point, and indeed, Christ’s point in the resurrection is our resurrection, not ultimately Christ’s resurrection, although that’s vital. But Christ took on a human body in the incarnation and then took on a human body again in his resurrection in order to save us into a holistic human experience that includes us being in bodies forever. So, the resurrection of the body is part of our own future hope. It’s part of our own salvation. We believe in the resurrection of the dead, and this section that we’re going to walk through here brings that point home. Paul has been playing with the idea if the dead are not raised, if there is no resurrection and all that. But then triumphantly, in the passage we’re going to study today, he asserts Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, but then calls him firstfruits.
Firstfruits is that picture from the Old Testament of the beginning of a vast harvest, and we are that vast harvest. God intends to raise us up in Christ on the last day. As Jesus said, “I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40), in John 6, he says that several times. And so, our own future bodily resurrection is asserted here. Along with that, a grand and glorious vision of the summing up or the uniting or the bringing together of everything in the universe under the headship of God through Christ. That’s a very exciting vision, a future vision of absolute unity in which all the enemies of God have either been reconciled by repentance and faith in Christ or have been crushed and destroyed by Christ’s triumphant work. So, we look forward to walking through all of that.
“All the enemies of God have either been reconciled by repentance and faith in Christ or have been crushed and destroyed by Christ’s triumphant work.”
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read 1 Corinthians 15:20-34.
But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Whereas, by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam, all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet, but when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
Andy, verse 20 stands in stark contrast to the tone of verses 12-19 that we looked at last time. What is the significance of the term firstfruits in this passage? If there is a resurrection, how does the phrase, “Those who have fallen asleep,” make perfect sense for those who die in Christ?
Andy
Yeah, it’s beautiful, so many rich themes. Yes, verses 12-19 are very gloomy. “If there is no resurrection for the dead, if there is none, if there is no res…” it’s so hopeless. Frankly, it feels very much to me like the Book of Ecclesiastes, which I think is basically written, “If there were no resurrection from the dead, then truly life would be vanity.” It’d be vanity of vanities, and everything would be meaningless. All the projects you work on will sink back into the dust. Everyone you ever knew will die. You’ll become obscure. Nothing you did will actually make any consequential difference. But I think very triumphantly at the end of this chapter, Paul asserts that our works or labors in the Lord are not vanity. They’re not in vain because there is a resurrection. So, Ecclesiastes is life without the resurrection.
So also, verses 12-19 in this chapter, similar to that, if there is no resurrection and Christ has not been raised, lots of bad consequences. But then verse 20 comes in with a triumphant cry, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.” It’s a historical fact. It’s a theological fact. It’s the most important fact in the history of the universe, “Christ has been raised.” But he adds to it this key term, “firstfruits from the dead.” So, there’s a vast, vast harvest yet to come. That’s what firstfruits means. In the Books of Moses, when the Israelites were commanded to bring firstfruits, that was just the beginning of a harvest. The implication is there’s whole fields of wheat or whole trees filled with fruit that have to be brought in. So, this vast harvest is yet to come of righteous people who have died in Christ but who have not been raised yet.
As Paul says in another place, “They are absent from the body, present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), or they’re still alive or perhaps haven’t even been born yet. But there’s a vast harvest of the elect who will come to faith in Christ or who already have, who will be physically raised from the dead in the pattern of Christ, “Made like him, like him, we will rise,” as Charles Wesley put it. So, this word is so triumphant, this concept of firstfruits, we are going to be part of that vast harvest of resurrection. What it means for us is we are going to spend eternity in a resurrected body, which Paul will describe in detail later in this chapter. I can’t wait to get to that, but a glorious, powerful spiritual body that cannot die. It’s incorruptible. We’re going to spend eternity in that body, so be of good cheer and live a certain moral kind of life. That’s where we’re getting to today. So that’s very, very exciting in the concept of firstfruits.
Concerning that phrase fallen asleep, first of all, this is a phrase that Jesus introduced. he said, “Lazarus has fallen asleep and we have to go wake him up” (John 11:11), and they thought he meant his physical sleep. Well, then he’s going to be fine. he’s like, “No, no Lazarus has died” (John 11:14). So, he uses that term. But for Jesus to raise Lazarus or resuscitate him, really- he didn’t get a resurrection body at that point. But to bring him back to life was just as easy as shaking a slumbering man and waking him up. That’s how easy it is for Jesus or for God to raise the dead. So, it’s an analogy that we Christians when we die, it’s like we’ve just fallen asleep. At the end of the world, at the last trumpet, when Jesus comes, he will raise his people from the dead and it’ll be easy for him to do so. As it says in John 5, “All who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out” (John 5:28,29). We’re going to just hear his voice and come out. He will raise us up as though he were waking us up from sleep.
Wes
What theological link does Paul make between Adam and Christ in verses 21 and 22?
Andy
Right? This is the second place that he does this. The other is in Romans 5 and so we have this significant doctrine about Adam, Adam being our federal head, our representative. In Adam we sinned and died. In Christ we are made righteous and live. So that was used in Romans 5 to display and unfold the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And how can something we trust and believe but don’t really experience or feel make any difference at all in our position. He argues there for federal headship in Adam. You may not have felt a sinner. You may not have felt that you died in Adam, but you did. That’s positional language. So, there he’s describing the significance of justification by faith through federal headship. Federal means representative headship. Jesus represented us at the cross just like Adam represented us at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So, in Adam, we died. We were sinners, we’re made sinners. And died in Christ we are made righteous and live. That’s Romans 5. Here what he’s saying is, in Adam, we died. In Christ we are all raised from the dead. So, it’s the same concept of federal headship. Now let me say something very important about evolution. Whatever you may believe, I don’t think that if you are a theistic evolutionist that means you can’t be a Christian. I think there’s good arguments against theistic evolution, but the historical Adam is essential to our doctrine. We have to believe that there was a literal, historical Adam to understand Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.
Wes
What does verse 23 teach us about our future in Christ and the timing of the resurrection?
Andy
Yeah, verse 23 says there’s a sequence to it. First of all, Christ is given preeminence. He’s given the first place. He’s given the role of being firstfruits because he is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Son of Man. he should have preeminence in all things. So, for centuries, even millennia, he is the only resurrected human. There were other humans that were resuscitated like Lazarus or like Jairus’s daughter, but they weren’t resurrected into bodies that can never die again. Jesus, however, stands alone and he has preeminence and there’s an order here. There’s a turn, an order. Christ goes first as the firstfruits, and then it clearly says, “When he comes then those who belong to him.”
That clearly teaches the resurrection happens at the second coming of Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4, the rapture verse, teaches the same thing as well. It’s at the second coming. Now people looking at Revelation 20 and the millennium and all that, there’s all kinds of confusing aspects to that, and I don’t want to be confusing. But if all you have are Paul’s writings in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15, you know when the resurrection happens. It happens when he comes. It happens at the second coming, but the purpose here is to exalt Christ and give him preeminence so that in all things he might have preeminence.
Wes
Andy, as we come to verse 24, there’s a number of striking phrases here. One of them is “then the end will come.” Another is that “Jesus will deliver the kingdom to God the Father.” Then it talks about him destroying all rule, authority and power. Talk a little bit about verse 24 and what we see from Paul’s argument here.
Andy
Well, the end of all things. History has a purpose. And he makes it very plain in Ephesians 1:10 and also here that we’re moving toward a unification of all things in the universe, in heaven and on earth, all things united together gladly under the kingship of God, under the rulership of God, under God’s throne. Jesus’ work is to bring together all of those things and make them one. We’re going to talk about that more as we move on. But the end of history, the purpose of history and the chronological end will come at the second coming and at the resurrection. At that point, he’s going to hand over, it says, or present the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. So that language is like demonic powers, all of his enemy’s powers, Satan and sin and death and destruction, he’s going to destroy all of those enemies. Having defeated all of his enemies, he’s going to hand over a tranquil, united, perfected kingdom to God to rule over forever.
Wes
Now on the heels of verse 24, we come obviously to verse 25. How does verse 25 relate to Psalm 110:1 and Hebrews 1:13?
Andy
Yeah, that’s quoting Psalm 110:1, “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” That’s something God the Father says to God the Son, “the Lord said to my Lord,” David wrote, “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” So, the idea is once Jesus died and then rose again and ascended through the heavenly realms, he sits down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven, the author of Hebrews tells us. From that position of honor, then he watches God the Father zealously go after his enemies. Now, there’s one of two outcomes for his enemies. Either they are going to bow before him, every knee will bow, and every tongue confess gladly. The kingdom of God is where the creatures, subjects to the kingdom gladly submit to his kingly reign, delight in it, celebrate it, want it to happen. However, there are enemies that will never submit to the reign gladly.
They will never be delighted in the reign, and they have to be subdued. They have to be destroyed. They have to be crushed. God the Father is saying, “I’m going to do one of two things with these enemies, but you sit at my right hand and watch what I’m going to do.” So almighty God, the God who created and who sustains all things puts his omnipotence behind this holy war. The holy war is either a war against our indwelling sin and our positional sin, which is conquered by the saving work of Christ. We are rescued from being enemies to being sons and daughters of the living God. Or the enemies are demonic and also human beings who will never believe in Jesus. They are reprobate. He will fight against them, and he’s going to reign. He’s going to subjugate all of them and win over them by his power. However, he doesn’t win their love. He doesn’t win their affection. They’ll be, I think, seething with rage for all eternity.
“We are rescued from being enemies to being sons and daughters of the living God.”
Wes
Why does Paul call death the last enemy, and why does God wait so long to destroy this enemy?
Andy
That’s a very good question, and it is the penalty of sin, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That Adam was threatened before he ever sinned. He said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From the day you eat of it, you’ll surely die” (Genesis 2:17). So, death entered through sin and that is the penalty. And so, all sinners must die. Obviously there later in this chapter we’ll talk about a mysterious generation that will not physically die. They’ll be alive at the second coming. However, it says in Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed to each of us to die once and after that to face judgment,” and so it’s part of God’s way. So as much as he yearns to crush his bitter enemy, death, in John 11 outside Lazarus’s tomb, when Mary comes and says the same thing her sister Martha had said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32b), Jesus was filled with an internal rage.
The Greek makes it plain that he is raging inside himself, but not at Mary, certainly not, he loves her tenderly, not at Martha, not at any of the unbelievers that are around there, the Jews that came down from Jerusalem to be part of the funeral, none of that. He is raging at death, and he wants to destroy death. He wants to do it now, but it’s not God’s plan. So, for 20 centuries, we know the blood of martyrs has been seed for the church. At least we know that some martyrs are going to have to die. It’s part of God’s plan. That God intended that those individuals be born, would live a certain number of days on earth and then would give their lives for the gospel. Others like David Brainerd didn’t die martyr’s deaths, but they died very difficult deaths, and it was part of God’s plan. So, the final enemy or the last enemy is death, and he can’t remove it until the end of the world. So fundamentally, that’s what this means. The last enemy or the final enemy is death.
Wes
What clarification does Paul make in verse 27, about what is put under Christ’s feet?
Andy
Well, the clarification is God himself isn’t put under Christ’s feet, so that excludes God, but everything else is going to be under Him. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Probably the clearest explication of this is at the end of Ephesians 1 where it says that “God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the age to come” (Ephesians 1:20-21). So far above. So, any powerful thing you can imagine, any powerful being, any powerful title, any honorific title, any of that, put all that at a hierarchical level and then measure infinity above that, that’s Jesus seated on his throne, far above, infinitely above all things, God raised Christ. So, he is reigning far above his enemies, and everything is put under his feet.
Everything, everything, everything is under him. “Before him every knee will bow and by him every tongue will swear” except God (Philippians 2:10-11). Now, God’s not under him at all. That is excluded and Paul’s very, very plain about this. Now when it says everything’s been put under him, it is clear that does not include God himself who put everything under Christ. God’s the one doing it. So that statement in Isaiah, which Paul quotes in Philippians 2, “Every knee before him, every knee will bow by him, every tongue will swear,” he actually ascribes to himself in Isaiah. And then it’s ascribed to Jesus so that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So, there’s no competition between the Father and the Son.
Wes
All of this culminates in verse 28, as Paul describes this final state of the redemptive plan. Talk a little bit about that. How does verse 28 encapsulate what Paul is arguing for here as he reflects on the power of the resurrection?
Andy
Okay, so to our listeners, I cannot stress highly enough how important Ephesians 1:10 and 1 Corinthians 15:28 are for my conception of where we’re heading, and my conception of what sin did to the beautiful universe God made and what God has done in his doing in Christ and ultimately will do in reversing the effects of sin. I’ve used the language of a fragmentation grenade. If you could see a fragmentation grenade blow up in super, super slow motion and watch this cohesive metal thing come apart at the seams. And just move out in every direction, moving further and further and further away from its center and disintegrated. I think about what an integer, it’s a unity, disintegrated is something blown apart. Something that was intended to be together is blown apart. Well, that’s what sin has done. There are so many things that were together that were blown apart by sin. Most importantly is God and man. We were blown apart. Our relationship with God was severed. Then Adam and Eve knew that they were naked and were shamed with one another, and they were severed from one another.
Then pretty soon Cain is murdering his brother Abel because his deeds were righteous, and Cain’s were wicked. So, there’s a severing there, and then it gets worse and worse, and it just moves and moves and moves. Meanwhile, we’re told that creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth and it’s in bondage to decay. Well, what is decay but disintegration? You see some beautiful green leaf that in the fall turns a beautiful red color. But then it falls, and it lands on the ground, and rain comes and more leaves land on top of it. You check it in about four or five months and it’s this mucky, nasty brown thing and it’s disintegrated. You can’t even pick up the whole leaf, it’s come apart. It’s falling back into the ground and it’s disintegrating. Well, what happens to the corpse? You put the corpse in the ground and worms eat it or bacteria eats it, and it disintegrates, it comes apart. Everything’s coming apart. Well, God did not intend those things to come apart.
First and foremost, the human soul from the body, that’s the severing of the two literally is death. The separation of the soul from the body is what death is. So, the resurrection is the putting of the soul back in a body that can never be severed again, the resurrection body. So, he’s reversing all of this thing. So, all of this fragmentation moving from the center out, hurtling outward. And there’s all this brokenness everywhere in society, brokenness between government and the people, between the people one from another within families. There’s all this brokenness, divorce, and there’s destruction. Then even today, even today, Wes, I was at the Hawk Pavilion, and I saw a church member, a dear lady who loves the Lord. She’s still alive, but she’s in her last hour, she’s in hospice care, and I’ve seen this before. I walked in and like literally did not recognize her. She looked like a living corpse almost. I’ve seen it before in those hours before death. Paul will later say in 1 Corinthians 15:43, “The body that is sown, it’s sown in dishonor.”
There’s a dishonoring to the mortal process, to dying. We don’t look beautiful anymore. Our hair falls out. Our skin looks gross, just whatever. Well, imagine all of that disintegration and destruction reversed, healed, remedied, brought back together, reassembled, reconfigured, new heaven, new earth, new Jerusalem, resurrection bodies, perfect relationship vertically, perfect relationship horizontally, perfect relationship with God vertically, perfect relationship with each other horizontally. Everything brought together under king Jesus, under almighty God, all things together under one head. Ephesians 1:10 is teaching it, and so also 1 Corinthians 15:28. How awesome is that vision? God, it says in Ephesians 1:9, “made known to us the mystery of his will, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment.” Is not Paul teaching the same thing here in this passage, the consistency of the Word of God? It’s beautiful.
Wes
It really is a beautiful picture, and it’s a part of Paul moving through this argument, beginning with the importance of the gospel being proclaimed to this reflection on the resurrection as motivation for life in this world in a way that honors Christ, but also looking forward with great hope to what is ahead. Now in verses 29-34, Paul turns again and starts to reflect some on the issues that flow from denying the resurrection once more. Verse 29 is a difficult verse, as we begin this last section that we’ll look at today, how should we understand verse 29? How do some unwisely make too much of this verse or build a whole theology around it?
Andy
Yeah. All right. So now “if there’s no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?” Well, simply to answer the question, I would say, I don’t know. Why are they? But I think here’s what I want to say. It is a difficult verse. No one really truly knows well what it means. People can guess, and I’m going to make a guess. But I have far less certainty about my interpretation of this verse than I do other verses in this chapter, and I think that’s okay. I’m all right with understanding that there is a basic distinction in the Bible between milk and meat. And milk are those things that are simplest to understand and most universally accepted by true believers. Children can understand them, and they are what is essential for salvation. That’s milk. Meat refers to things that are either hard to accept or hard to understand or both.
That’s what I would say. Meat is hard to understand and/or hard to accept. So, there could be some things that are easy to understand but hard to accept, like predestination, reprobation, things like that. People can understand what it’s teaching, but they just don’t believe it. They don’t accept it. But there are other passages, 2 Peter 3 says that Paul writes some things that are hard to understand. That’s one of these, this is hard to understand. We don’t understand what he’s talking about. All right. So, let’s talk about what it can’t mean. A false understanding here is that people that are alive now are being baptized to benefit those who have already died. So that opens up a whole can of worms and a whole discussion of false theology that says that we can affect or benefit people who have died by things we who are not those people, we can do on Earth.
All right? So, I would say that medieval Catholicism, perhaps even present-day Catholicism has this doctrine of purgatory. Many in Catholicism do have it, so I said perhaps, but they do, and they say masses for the dead to benefit them. They will do other acts of piety like lighting votive candles for the dead or giving money. That’s what the indulgences with the 95 Theses was all about in the Middle Ages with Martin Luther. So, the idea is the living can affect those that are suffering in purgatory. Purgatory is kind of like a hell. It’s just temporary in which you’re having your sins addressed by your own suffering. But the living can do things to benefit you. Baptism for the dead is one of the things that they argue can be done. Well, that is not what’s being taught here.
The Mormons also have a whole doctrine of baptism for the dead based on this verse. So, I would say we can set that aside. There’s nothing we can do to help the dead. Jesus in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus said, “Look, there’s a huge chasm between us.” Abraham said, “There’s a huge chasm between us and you and we can’t get to you, you can’t come to us” (Luke 16:26). There’s nothing we can do to help you. And hell is eternal, not temporary. Purgatory doesn’t exist, not biblical, so let’s set all that aside. Then what does it mean? Well, my first primary answer is I don’t know, and I’m okay with not knowing. I am okay to say, “I don’t know what this means.” It’s not going to change my theology at all. But if you say, “No, really, give me some shot at what it could mean.” All right.
One interpreter that I read gave me, I think, something that I could go with, and that is it’s talking about righteous, godly people who lived a certain life and who left a beautiful testimony, the effect they have on unbelieving observers of their lives like unsaved, relatives. Imagine a godly grandmother who’s on her deathbed and her grandkids are coming and they’re not Christians yet, and she basically says, “If you ever want to see me again after I die, you need to be baptized. You need to repent of your sins and be water baptized. You need to come to Christ, and then you will see me again.” Paul’s saying, look, if there is no resurrection from the dead, you’re never going to see grandma again, so that whole argument would fall apart. So that’s about the best I can do with that verse.
Wes
Well, Paul makes further application about the effect of the resurrection in verse 30-32. How is there no motivation for extreme Christian suffering if all debts are paid in this life? How does the idea that all rewards come in this life stand opposed to what Christ teaches about rewards in Matthew 6?
Andy
Right. So, you’re talking about rewards right here. One of the number one inducements to great suffering and even martyrdom is given in the doctrine of rewards, that it is not in this life that you’re going to get your rewards. You don’t even want it in this life. I think it’s good to, like with Epaphroditus, honor men like him and recognize that he almost died for the work of Christ and speak some words of encouragement to him and all that. ‘Cause we need to be kept going in that kind of a self-denying, self-sacrificing life. So, the church should do that, but the real reward is God. The real reward is, look, if a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it’s going to bear much fruit, and my servant will be where I am and be like Me and My Father will honor you.
So that’s it, or as Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your award in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12). So fundamentally, the idea is be motivated by rewards. “I fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith, now there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8). So, the idea of a martyr’s crown or a suffering crown and all that is great inducement to self-denying sacrifice in this life. But if this life is all there is, Paul says we’re fools.
We are above all men to be pitied if there’s no resurrection from the dead. We’re making a big mistake. So fundamentally, the resurrection from the dead motivates extreme service. Think about Jim Elliot who laid down his life for the gospel for the Huaorani Indians who killed him, not martyring him for anything. They just were afraid and didn’t want the white men to come in their area, and they were killers anyway. Jim Elliot knew, and the other four knew that there was a very good chance that they would die for the gospel. If there is no resurrection from the dead, what’s the point? So fundamentally, the motivation here is, we endanger ourselves daily because we’re not afraid of death because we believe in resurrection. And if we should die, we’re going to be rewarded for all eternity.
Wes
Now Paul even gives a specific example here of fighting wild beasts at Ephesus. What is he talking about there and how does that belief enable Paul throughout his life? We’ve talked before about the significance of Paul’s suffering, specifically, how does that enable him to continue in that fight?
Andy
I’m guessing that he’s at least referring to something like the wild beasts are humans. I think, where Jesus said, “Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls before pigs. If you do, they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matthew 7:6), he’s talking about people. So, if you read in Acts 19:34, there’s this amazing riot in Ephesus, and they’re shouting for what, two hours or something like that, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” They’re going crazy. Paul wanted to go preach the gospel to them and look, they’re like, “If you go in there, they’re going to kill you.” That’s what Jesus meant by not giving dogs what is sacred.
You go out there and preach the gospel, and they’re rabid and snarling, and they want a pound of flesh. They’re going to rip you to shreds. So, I don’t think he’s directly here talking about Acts 19 because he actually didn’t do anything that day. They just successfully kept him from going into the amphitheater and losing his life. But you have to imagine those same people around in the community, and they were still pretty juiced up the next day or the next week or the next month. Paul in ongoing ministry would’ve been facing people who are pretty angry at him. I know this, three times in the Book of Acts riots are started because of Paul, so he is facing aggressive human enemies to the gospel, but he did so unafraid. Why? Because of the resurrection from the dead.
Wes
Now, Andy, you mentioned how this chapter really seems to almost stand in contrast to the Book of Ecclesiastes. At the end of verse 32, it’s almost like Paul could have been quoting from Ecclesiastes. How does the ethic, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die,” sum up the pagan approach to life? Why does it make perfect sense to live like that if there is no resurrection from the dead?
Andy
Well, I have to say, if atheistic materialistic evolution is true, that’s how you should live. Just go for pleasure, and when you feel like you really can’t get much pleasure anymore, commit suicide. And some atheistic types did that. They just reached the point where they’re like, “Look, I don’t really want anything more out of life. I’m ready to go.” They didn’t believe in the afterlife and so they thought, “That’s it. I want to stop hurting, and if I dissolve my brain through death, I won’t have any more pain.” So that’s the way they look at it. Then others are like, “Look, if for this life only we live, then let’s just get as much joy as we can in this life. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, and we cease to exist.”
But if there is a resurrection from the dead, then that changes everything. If how you live your life in the body on earth now affects your eternal outcome, your eternal experience, heaven or hell, then it matters a lot what you do in the body. So, Paul’s saying, “Look, if there is no resurrection from the dead, if we cease existing at death, we should just go after pleasure.” That’s really the ethic. Frankly, I think we see that in our increasingly pagan culture. We see people just mad for pleasure, and they’re going after things, and they don’t care about the future. They don’t care about their own selves. They just want to be happy, and they want to have a good time.
Wes
Now, most of our listeners will be familiar with the proverb, “Bad company ruins good morals.” How does that proverb fit into Paul’s warning about those who teach that there is no resurrection from the dead, and how does denying the resurrection lead to a corrupt immoral lifestyle?
Andy
Right. Well, he’s talking to the church here. he’s talking to Christians, and he’s saying, “You need to get away from people who actually think there’s no resurrection from the dead.” And that’s all their pagan philosophical neighbors. He’s like, “Don’t immerse yourself in their stuff because they’re going to lead you back to the temple of prostitutes.” That’s what they’re doing, and that’s what you used to do before the gospel came here. So bad company is going to corrupt your morals. You’re going to go back to illicit sex and drunkenness and orgies and all that. So, you’re going to go after that stuff. But if you believe in the resurrection of the dead, you’re going to live a pure life. As Paul says very plainly in Acts 24:16, he says, “Because I believe in the resurrection of the dead, I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man vertically and horizontally, because I do believe there’s judgment day.”
So, it does matter what we believe. If we believe in a resurrection, we’re going to lead moral, godly, upright lives. But I’m telling you, I’m warning you, he’s saying, stay away from immersing yourself with your pagan neighbors who think like this. ‘Cause they are consistently living out this wicked pagan lifestyle because of what they believe about eternity, so get away from them. Bad company corrupts good morals, and furthermore, he’s giving a warning to the church. If any of these people, after having read this chapter, still believe there is no resurrection from the dead, they probably need to be disciplined out of the church ’cause we can’t have that corruption spreading through our church.
Wes
Andy, what final warning does Paul give in verse 34, and what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage?
Andy
The final warning, he tells him to stop sinning. So, he is going back to, I think, to sexual immorality and other things that he addressed earlier in the book. He says, “Look, you’ve got to lead godly, moral upright lives. I want you to be ashamed of your sin so that you stop doing it. Stop sinning, come to your senses.” Sin is insane. It’s irrational. Christ has been raised. There is a resurrection. How you live now matters a lot for all eternity, so repent of your sins, lead godly, moral upright lives. Share the gospel with your lost neighbors. Live a godly life in light of the resurrection from the dead.
“How you live now matters a lot for all eternity, so repent of your sins, lead godly, moral upright lives.”
Yeah, final thoughts would be the same thing for us in our generation. We’re living an increasingly pagan world. So fundamentally, it comes down to the two journeys. It comes down to the internal journey of holiness and the external journey of gospel advance, both of them done in light of the resurrection from the dead. Verse 58 says very plainly, the ethical injunction from this whole chapter, “Be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” So let’s be holy and let’s be rich in gospel proclamation so that we can win the lost in our community.
Wes
Well, this has been Episode 22 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 23 entitled The Nature, Glory and Encouragement of Our Future resurrection, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:35-58. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys Podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study Podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you’re interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org. Now on to today’s episode.
This is Episode 22 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. This episode is entitled, Christ is Risen! The Firstfruits from the Dead, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:20-34. I’m Wes Treadway, and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, here we’re going to get to the point of the entire chapter. Paul’s point, and indeed, Christ’s point in the resurrection is our resurrection, not ultimately Christ’s resurrection, although that’s vital. But Christ took on a human body in the incarnation and then took on a human body again in his resurrection in order to save us into a holistic human experience that includes us being in bodies forever. So, the resurrection of the body is part of our own future hope. It’s part of our own salvation. We believe in the resurrection of the dead, and this section that we’re going to walk through here brings that point home. Paul has been playing with the idea if the dead are not raised, if there is no resurrection and all that. But then triumphantly, in the passage we’re going to study today, he asserts Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, but then calls him firstfruits.
Firstfruits is that picture from the Old Testament of the beginning of a vast harvest, and we are that vast harvest. God intends to raise us up in Christ on the last day. As Jesus said, “I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40), in John 6, he says that several times. And so, our own future bodily resurrection is asserted here. Along with that, a grand and glorious vision of the summing up or the uniting or the bringing together of everything in the universe under the headship of God through Christ. That’s a very exciting vision, a future vision of absolute unity in which all the enemies of God have either been reconciled by repentance and faith in Christ or have been crushed and destroyed by Christ’s triumphant work. So, we look forward to walking through all of that.
“All the enemies of God have either been reconciled by repentance and faith in Christ or have been crushed and destroyed by Christ’s triumphant work.”
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read 1 Corinthians 15:20-34.
But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Whereas, by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam, all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet, but when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
Andy, verse 20 stands in stark contrast to the tone of verses 12-19 that we looked at last time. What is the significance of the term firstfruits in this passage? If there is a resurrection, how does the phrase, “Those who have fallen asleep,” make perfect sense for those who die in Christ?
Andy
Yeah, it’s beautiful, so many rich themes. Yes, verses 12-19 are very gloomy. “If there is no resurrection for the dead, if there is none, if there is no res…” it’s so hopeless. Frankly, it feels very much to me like the Book of Ecclesiastes, which I think is basically written, “If there were no resurrection from the dead, then truly life would be vanity.” It’d be vanity of vanities, and everything would be meaningless. All the projects you work on will sink back into the dust. Everyone you ever knew will die. You’ll become obscure. Nothing you did will actually make any consequential difference. But I think very triumphantly at the end of this chapter, Paul asserts that our works or labors in the Lord are not vanity. They’re not in vain because there is a resurrection. So, Ecclesiastes is life without the resurrection.
So also, verses 12-19 in this chapter, similar to that, if there is no resurrection and Christ has not been raised, lots of bad consequences. But then verse 20 comes in with a triumphant cry, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.” It’s a historical fact. It’s a theological fact. It’s the most important fact in the history of the universe, “Christ has been raised.” But he adds to it this key term, “firstfruits from the dead.” So, there’s a vast, vast harvest yet to come. That’s what firstfruits means. In the Books of Moses, when the Israelites were commanded to bring firstfruits, that was just the beginning of a harvest. The implication is there’s whole fields of wheat or whole trees filled with fruit that have to be brought in. So, this vast harvest is yet to come of righteous people who have died in Christ but who have not been raised yet.
As Paul says in another place, “They are absent from the body, present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), or they’re still alive or perhaps haven’t even been born yet. But there’s a vast harvest of the elect who will come to faith in Christ or who already have, who will be physically raised from the dead in the pattern of Christ, “Made like him, like him, we will rise,” as Charles Wesley put it. So, this word is so triumphant, this concept of firstfruits, we are going to be part of that vast harvest of resurrection. What it means for us is we are going to spend eternity in a resurrected body, which Paul will describe in detail later in this chapter. I can’t wait to get to that, but a glorious, powerful spiritual body that cannot die. It’s incorruptible. We’re going to spend eternity in that body, so be of good cheer and live a certain moral kind of life. That’s where we’re getting to today. So that’s very, very exciting in the concept of firstfruits.
Concerning that phrase fallen asleep, first of all, this is a phrase that Jesus introduced. he said, “Lazarus has fallen asleep and we have to go wake him up” (John 11:11), and they thought he meant his physical sleep. Well, then he’s going to be fine. he’s like, “No, no Lazarus has died” (John 11:14). So, he uses that term. But for Jesus to raise Lazarus or resuscitate him, really- he didn’t get a resurrection body at that point. But to bring him back to life was just as easy as shaking a slumbering man and waking him up. That’s how easy it is for Jesus or for God to raise the dead. So, it’s an analogy that we Christians when we die, it’s like we’ve just fallen asleep. At the end of the world, at the last trumpet, when Jesus comes, he will raise his people from the dead and it’ll be easy for him to do so. As it says in John 5, “All who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out” (John 5:28,29). We’re going to just hear his voice and come out. He will raise us up as though he were waking us up from sleep.
Wes
What theological link does Paul make between Adam and Christ in verses 21 and 22?
Andy
Right? This is the second place that he does this. The other is in Romans 5 and so we have this significant doctrine about Adam, Adam being our federal head, our representative. In Adam we sinned and died. In Christ we are made righteous and live. So that was used in Romans 5 to display and unfold the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And how can something we trust and believe but don’t really experience or feel make any difference at all in our position. He argues there for federal headship in Adam. You may not have felt a sinner. You may not have felt that you died in Adam, but you did. That’s positional language. So, there he’s describing the significance of justification by faith through federal headship. Federal means representative headship. Jesus represented us at the cross just like Adam represented us at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So, in Adam, we died. We were sinners, we’re made sinners. And died in Christ we are made righteous and live. That’s Romans 5. Here what he’s saying is, in Adam, we died. In Christ we are all raised from the dead. So, it’s the same concept of federal headship. Now let me say something very important about evolution. Whatever you may believe, I don’t think that if you are a theistic evolutionist that means you can’t be a Christian. I think there’s good arguments against theistic evolution, but the historical Adam is essential to our doctrine. We have to believe that there was a literal, historical Adam to understand Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.
Wes
What does verse 23 teach us about our future in Christ and the timing of the resurrection?
Andy
Yeah, verse 23 says there’s a sequence to it. First of all, Christ is given preeminence. He’s given the first place. He’s given the role of being firstfruits because he is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Son of Man. he should have preeminence in all things. So, for centuries, even millennia, he is the only resurrected human. There were other humans that were resuscitated like Lazarus or like Jairus’s daughter, but they weren’t resurrected into bodies that can never die again. Jesus, however, stands alone and he has preeminence and there’s an order here. There’s a turn, an order. Christ goes first as the firstfruits, and then it clearly says, “When he comes then those who belong to him.”
That clearly teaches the resurrection happens at the second coming of Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4, the rapture verse, teaches the same thing as well. It’s at the second coming. Now people looking at Revelation 20 and the millennium and all that, there’s all kinds of confusing aspects to that, and I don’t want to be confusing. But if all you have are Paul’s writings in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15, you know when the resurrection happens. It happens when he comes. It happens at the second coming, but the purpose here is to exalt Christ and give him preeminence so that in all things he might have preeminence.
Wes
Andy, as we come to verse 24, there’s a number of striking phrases here. One of them is “then the end will come.” Another is that “Jesus will deliver the kingdom to God the Father.” Then it talks about him destroying all rule, authority and power. Talk a little bit about verse 24 and what we see from Paul’s argument here.
Andy
Well, the end of all things. History has a purpose. And he makes it very plain in Ephesians 1:10 and also here that we’re moving toward a unification of all things in the universe, in heaven and on earth, all things united together gladly under the kingship of God, under the rulership of God, under God’s throne. Jesus’ work is to bring together all of those things and make them one. We’re going to talk about that more as we move on. But the end of history, the purpose of history and the chronological end will come at the second coming and at the resurrection. At that point, he’s going to hand over, it says, or present the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. So that language is like demonic powers, all of his enemy’s powers, Satan and sin and death and destruction, he’s going to destroy all of those enemies. Having defeated all of his enemies, he’s going to hand over a tranquil, united, perfected kingdom to God to rule over forever.
Wes
Now on the heels of verse 24, we come obviously to verse 25. How does verse 25 relate to Psalm 110:1 and Hebrews 1:13?
Andy
Yeah, that’s quoting Psalm 110:1, “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” That’s something God the Father says to God the Son, “the Lord said to my Lord,” David wrote, “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” So, the idea is once Jesus died and then rose again and ascended through the heavenly realms, he sits down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven, the author of Hebrews tells us. From that position of honor, then he watches God the Father zealously go after his enemies. Now, there’s one of two outcomes for his enemies. Either they are going to bow before him, every knee will bow, and every tongue confess gladly. The kingdom of God is where the creatures, subjects to the kingdom gladly submit to his kingly reign, delight in it, celebrate it, want it to happen. However, there are enemies that will never submit to the reign gladly.
They will never be delighted in the reign, and they have to be subdued. They have to be destroyed. They have to be crushed. God the Father is saying, “I’m going to do one of two things with these enemies, but you sit at my right hand and watch what I’m going to do.” So almighty God, the God who created and who sustains all things puts his omnipotence behind this holy war. The holy war is either a war against our indwelling sin and our positional sin, which is conquered by the saving work of Christ. We are rescued from being enemies to being sons and daughters of the living God. Or the enemies are demonic and also human beings who will never believe in Jesus. They are reprobate. He will fight against them, and he’s going to reign. He’s going to subjugate all of them and win over them by his power. However, he doesn’t win their love. He doesn’t win their affection. They’ll be, I think, seething with rage for all eternity.
“We are rescued from being enemies to being sons and daughters of the living God.”
Wes
Why does Paul call death the last enemy, and why does God wait so long to destroy this enemy?
Andy
That’s a very good question, and it is the penalty of sin, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That Adam was threatened before he ever sinned. He said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From the day you eat of it, you’ll surely die” (Genesis 2:17). So, death entered through sin and that is the penalty. And so, all sinners must die. Obviously there later in this chapter we’ll talk about a mysterious generation that will not physically die. They’ll be alive at the second coming. However, it says in Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed to each of us to die once and after that to face judgment,” and so it’s part of God’s way. So as much as he yearns to crush his bitter enemy, death, in John 11 outside Lazarus’s tomb, when Mary comes and says the same thing her sister Martha had said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32b), Jesus was filled with an internal rage.
The Greek makes it plain that he is raging inside himself, but not at Mary, certainly not, he loves her tenderly, not at Martha, not at any of the unbelievers that are around there, the Jews that came down from Jerusalem to be part of the funeral, none of that. He is raging at death, and he wants to destroy death. He wants to do it now, but it’s not God’s plan. So, for 20 centuries, we know the blood of martyrs has been seed for the church. At least we know that some martyrs are going to have to die. It’s part of God’s plan. That God intended that those individuals be born, would live a certain number of days on earth and then would give their lives for the gospel. Others like David Brainerd didn’t die martyr’s deaths, but they died very difficult deaths, and it was part of God’s plan. So, the final enemy or the last enemy is death, and he can’t remove it until the end of the world. So fundamentally, that’s what this means. The last enemy or the final enemy is death.
Wes
What clarification does Paul make in verse 27, about what is put under Christ’s feet?
Andy
Well, the clarification is God himself isn’t put under Christ’s feet, so that excludes God, but everything else is going to be under Him. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Probably the clearest explication of this is at the end of Ephesians 1 where it says that “God raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the age to come” (Ephesians 1:20-21). So far above. So, any powerful thing you can imagine, any powerful being, any powerful title, any honorific title, any of that, put all that at a hierarchical level and then measure infinity above that, that’s Jesus seated on his throne, far above, infinitely above all things, God raised Christ. So, he is reigning far above his enemies, and everything is put under his feet.
Everything, everything, everything is under him. “Before him every knee will bow and by him every tongue will swear” except God (Philippians 2:10-11). Now, God’s not under him at all. That is excluded and Paul’s very, very plain about this. Now when it says everything’s been put under him, it is clear that does not include God himself who put everything under Christ. God’s the one doing it. So that statement in Isaiah, which Paul quotes in Philippians 2, “Every knee before him, every knee will bow by him, every tongue will swear,” he actually ascribes to himself in Isaiah. And then it’s ascribed to Jesus so that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So, there’s no competition between the Father and the Son.
Wes
All of this culminates in verse 28, as Paul describes this final state of the redemptive plan. Talk a little bit about that. How does verse 28 encapsulate what Paul is arguing for here as he reflects on the power of the resurrection?
Andy
Okay, so to our listeners, I cannot stress highly enough how important Ephesians 1:10 and 1 Corinthians 15:28 are for my conception of where we’re heading, and my conception of what sin did to the beautiful universe God made and what God has done in his doing in Christ and ultimately will do in reversing the effects of sin. I’ve used the language of a fragmentation grenade. If you could see a fragmentation grenade blow up in super, super slow motion and watch this cohesive metal thing come apart at the seams. And just move out in every direction, moving further and further and further away from its center and disintegrated. I think about what an integer, it’s a unity, disintegrated is something blown apart. Something that was intended to be together is blown apart. Well, that’s what sin has done. There are so many things that were together that were blown apart by sin. Most importantly is God and man. We were blown apart. Our relationship with God was severed. Then Adam and Eve knew that they were naked and were shamed with one another, and they were severed from one another.
Then pretty soon Cain is murdering his brother Abel because his deeds were righteous, and Cain’s were wicked. So, there’s a severing there, and then it gets worse and worse, and it just moves and moves and moves. Meanwhile, we’re told that creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth and it’s in bondage to decay. Well, what is decay but disintegration? You see some beautiful green leaf that in the fall turns a beautiful red color. But then it falls, and it lands on the ground, and rain comes and more leaves land on top of it. You check it in about four or five months and it’s this mucky, nasty brown thing and it’s disintegrated. You can’t even pick up the whole leaf, it’s come apart. It’s falling back into the ground and it’s disintegrating. Well, what happens to the corpse? You put the corpse in the ground and worms eat it or bacteria eats it, and it disintegrates, it comes apart. Everything’s coming apart. Well, God did not intend those things to come apart.
First and foremost, the human soul from the body, that’s the severing of the two literally is death. The separation of the soul from the body is what death is. So, the resurrection is the putting of the soul back in a body that can never be severed again, the resurrection body. So, he’s reversing all of this thing. So, all of this fragmentation moving from the center out, hurtling outward. And there’s all this brokenness everywhere in society, brokenness between government and the people, between the people one from another within families. There’s all this brokenness, divorce, and there’s destruction. Then even today, even today, Wes, I was at the Hawk Pavilion, and I saw a church member, a dear lady who loves the Lord. She’s still alive, but she’s in her last hour, she’s in hospice care, and I’ve seen this before. I walked in and like literally did not recognize her. She looked like a living corpse almost. I’ve seen it before in those hours before death. Paul will later say in 1 Corinthians 15:43, “The body that is sown, it’s sown in dishonor.”
There’s a dishonoring to the mortal process, to dying. We don’t look beautiful anymore. Our hair falls out. Our skin looks gross, just whatever. Well, imagine all of that disintegration and destruction reversed, healed, remedied, brought back together, reassembled, reconfigured, new heaven, new earth, new Jerusalem, resurrection bodies, perfect relationship vertically, perfect relationship horizontally, perfect relationship with God vertically, perfect relationship with each other horizontally. Everything brought together under king Jesus, under almighty God, all things together under one head. Ephesians 1:10 is teaching it, and so also 1 Corinthians 15:28. How awesome is that vision? God, it says in Ephesians 1:9, “made known to us the mystery of his will, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment.” Is not Paul teaching the same thing here in this passage, the consistency of the Word of God? It’s beautiful.
Wes
It really is a beautiful picture, and it’s a part of Paul moving through this argument, beginning with the importance of the gospel being proclaimed to this reflection on the resurrection as motivation for life in this world in a way that honors Christ, but also looking forward with great hope to what is ahead. Now in verses 29-34, Paul turns again and starts to reflect some on the issues that flow from denying the resurrection once more. Verse 29 is a difficult verse, as we begin this last section that we’ll look at today, how should we understand verse 29? How do some unwisely make too much of this verse or build a whole theology around it?
Andy
Yeah. All right. So now “if there’s no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?” Well, simply to answer the question, I would say, I don’t know. Why are they? But I think here’s what I want to say. It is a difficult verse. No one really truly knows well what it means. People can guess, and I’m going to make a guess. But I have far less certainty about my interpretation of this verse than I do other verses in this chapter, and I think that’s okay. I’m all right with understanding that there is a basic distinction in the Bible between milk and meat. And milk are those things that are simplest to understand and most universally accepted by true believers. Children can understand them, and they are what is essential for salvation. That’s milk. Meat refers to things that are either hard to accept or hard to understand or both.
That’s what I would say. Meat is hard to understand and/or hard to accept. So, there could be some things that are easy to understand but hard to accept, like predestination, reprobation, things like that. People can understand what it’s teaching, but they just don’t believe it. They don’t accept it. But there are other passages, 2 Peter 3 says that Paul writes some things that are hard to understand. That’s one of these, this is hard to understand. We don’t understand what he’s talking about. All right. So, let’s talk about what it can’t mean. A false understanding here is that people that are alive now are being baptized to benefit those who have already died. So that opens up a whole can of worms and a whole discussion of false theology that says that we can affect or benefit people who have died by things we who are not those people, we can do on Earth.
All right? So, I would say that medieval Catholicism, perhaps even present-day Catholicism has this doctrine of purgatory. Many in Catholicism do have it, so I said perhaps, but they do, and they say masses for the dead to benefit them. They will do other acts of piety like lighting votive candles for the dead or giving money. That’s what the indulgences with the 95 Theses was all about in the Middle Ages with Martin Luther. So, the idea is the living can affect those that are suffering in purgatory. Purgatory is kind of like a hell. It’s just temporary in which you’re having your sins addressed by your own suffering. But the living can do things to benefit you. Baptism for the dead is one of the things that they argue can be done. Well, that is not what’s being taught here.
The Mormons also have a whole doctrine of baptism for the dead based on this verse. So, I would say we can set that aside. There’s nothing we can do to help the dead. Jesus in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus said, “Look, there’s a huge chasm between us.” Abraham said, “There’s a huge chasm between us and you and we can’t get to you, you can’t come to us” (Luke 16:26). There’s nothing we can do to help you. And hell is eternal, not temporary. Purgatory doesn’t exist, not biblical, so let’s set all that aside. Then what does it mean? Well, my first primary answer is I don’t know, and I’m okay with not knowing. I am okay to say, “I don’t know what this means.” It’s not going to change my theology at all. But if you say, “No, really, give me some shot at what it could mean.” All right.
One interpreter that I read gave me, I think, something that I could go with, and that is it’s talking about righteous, godly people who lived a certain life and who left a beautiful testimony, the effect they have on unbelieving observers of their lives like unsaved, relatives. Imagine a godly grandmother who’s on her deathbed and her grandkids are coming and they’re not Christians yet, and she basically says, “If you ever want to see me again after I die, you need to be baptized. You need to repent of your sins and be water baptized. You need to come to Christ, and then you will see me again.” Paul’s saying, look, if there is no resurrection from the dead, you’re never going to see grandma again, so that whole argument would fall apart. So that’s about the best I can do with that verse.
Wes
Well, Paul makes further application about the effect of the resurrection in verse 30-32. How is there no motivation for extreme Christian suffering if all debts are paid in this life? How does the idea that all rewards come in this life stand opposed to what Christ teaches about rewards in Matthew 6?
Andy
Right. So, you’re talking about rewards right here. One of the number one inducements to great suffering and even martyrdom is given in the doctrine of rewards, that it is not in this life that you’re going to get your rewards. You don’t even want it in this life. I think it’s good to, like with Epaphroditus, honor men like him and recognize that he almost died for the work of Christ and speak some words of encouragement to him and all that. ‘Cause we need to be kept going in that kind of a self-denying, self-sacrificing life. So, the church should do that, but the real reward is God. The real reward is, look, if a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it’s going to bear much fruit, and my servant will be where I am and be like Me and My Father will honor you.
So that’s it, or as Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your award in heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12). So fundamentally, the idea is be motivated by rewards. “I fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith, now there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8). So, the idea of a martyr’s crown or a suffering crown and all that is great inducement to self-denying sacrifice in this life. But if this life is all there is, Paul says we’re fools.
We are above all men to be pitied if there’s no resurrection from the dead. We’re making a big mistake. So fundamentally, the resurrection from the dead motivates extreme service. Think about Jim Elliot who laid down his life for the gospel for the Huaorani Indians who killed him, not martyring him for anything. They just were afraid and didn’t want the white men to come in their area, and they were killers anyway. Jim Elliot knew, and the other four knew that there was a very good chance that they would die for the gospel. If there is no resurrection from the dead, what’s the point? So fundamentally, the motivation here is, we endanger ourselves daily because we’re not afraid of death because we believe in resurrection. And if we should die, we’re going to be rewarded for all eternity.
Wes
Now Paul even gives a specific example here of fighting wild beasts at Ephesus. What is he talking about there and how does that belief enable Paul throughout his life? We’ve talked before about the significance of Paul’s suffering, specifically, how does that enable him to continue in that fight?
Andy
I’m guessing that he’s at least referring to something like the wild beasts are humans. I think, where Jesus said, “Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls before pigs. If you do, they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces” (Matthew 7:6), he’s talking about people. So, if you read in Acts 19:34, there’s this amazing riot in Ephesus, and they’re shouting for what, two hours or something like that, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” They’re going crazy. Paul wanted to go preach the gospel to them and look, they’re like, “If you go in there, they’re going to kill you.” That’s what Jesus meant by not giving dogs what is sacred.
You go out there and preach the gospel, and they’re rabid and snarling, and they want a pound of flesh. They’re going to rip you to shreds. So, I don’t think he’s directly here talking about Acts 19 because he actually didn’t do anything that day. They just successfully kept him from going into the amphitheater and losing his life. But you have to imagine those same people around in the community, and they were still pretty juiced up the next day or the next week or the next month. Paul in ongoing ministry would’ve been facing people who are pretty angry at him. I know this, three times in the Book of Acts riots are started because of Paul, so he is facing aggressive human enemies to the gospel, but he did so unafraid. Why? Because of the resurrection from the dead.
Wes
Now, Andy, you mentioned how this chapter really seems to almost stand in contrast to the Book of Ecclesiastes. At the end of verse 32, it’s almost like Paul could have been quoting from Ecclesiastes. How does the ethic, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die,” sum up the pagan approach to life? Why does it make perfect sense to live like that if there is no resurrection from the dead?
Andy
Well, I have to say, if atheistic materialistic evolution is true, that’s how you should live. Just go for pleasure, and when you feel like you really can’t get much pleasure anymore, commit suicide. And some atheistic types did that. They just reached the point where they’re like, “Look, I don’t really want anything more out of life. I’m ready to go.” They didn’t believe in the afterlife and so they thought, “That’s it. I want to stop hurting, and if I dissolve my brain through death, I won’t have any more pain.” So that’s the way they look at it. Then others are like, “Look, if for this life only we live, then let’s just get as much joy as we can in this life. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, and we cease to exist.”
But if there is a resurrection from the dead, then that changes everything. If how you live your life in the body on earth now affects your eternal outcome, your eternal experience, heaven or hell, then it matters a lot what you do in the body. So, Paul’s saying, “Look, if there is no resurrection from the dead, if we cease existing at death, we should just go after pleasure.” That’s really the ethic. Frankly, I think we see that in our increasingly pagan culture. We see people just mad for pleasure, and they’re going after things, and they don’t care about the future. They don’t care about their own selves. They just want to be happy, and they want to have a good time.
Wes
Now, most of our listeners will be familiar with the proverb, “Bad company ruins good morals.” How does that proverb fit into Paul’s warning about those who teach that there is no resurrection from the dead, and how does denying the resurrection lead to a corrupt immoral lifestyle?
Andy
Right. Well, he’s talking to the church here. he’s talking to Christians, and he’s saying, “You need to get away from people who actually think there’s no resurrection from the dead.” And that’s all their pagan philosophical neighbors. He’s like, “Don’t immerse yourself in their stuff because they’re going to lead you back to the temple of prostitutes.” That’s what they’re doing, and that’s what you used to do before the gospel came here. So bad company is going to corrupt your morals. You’re going to go back to illicit sex and drunkenness and orgies and all that. So, you’re going to go after that stuff. But if you believe in the resurrection of the dead, you’re going to live a pure life. As Paul says very plainly in Acts 24:16, he says, “Because I believe in the resurrection of the dead, I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man vertically and horizontally, because I do believe there’s judgment day.”
So, it does matter what we believe. If we believe in a resurrection, we’re going to lead moral, godly, upright lives. But I’m telling you, I’m warning you, he’s saying, stay away from immersing yourself with your pagan neighbors who think like this. ‘Cause they are consistently living out this wicked pagan lifestyle because of what they believe about eternity, so get away from them. Bad company corrupts good morals, and furthermore, he’s giving a warning to the church. If any of these people, after having read this chapter, still believe there is no resurrection from the dead, they probably need to be disciplined out of the church ’cause we can’t have that corruption spreading through our church.
Wes
Andy, what final warning does Paul give in verse 34, and what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage?
Andy
The final warning, he tells him to stop sinning. So, he is going back to, I think, to sexual immorality and other things that he addressed earlier in the book. He says, “Look, you’ve got to lead godly, moral upright lives. I want you to be ashamed of your sin so that you stop doing it. Stop sinning, come to your senses.” Sin is insane. It’s irrational. Christ has been raised. There is a resurrection. How you live now matters a lot for all eternity, so repent of your sins, lead godly, moral upright lives. Share the gospel with your lost neighbors. Live a godly life in light of the resurrection from the dead.
“How you live now matters a lot for all eternity, so repent of your sins, lead godly, moral upright lives.”
Yeah, final thoughts would be the same thing for us in our generation. We’re living an increasingly pagan world. So fundamentally, it comes down to the two journeys. It comes down to the internal journey of holiness and the external journey of gospel advance, both of them done in light of the resurrection from the dead. Verse 58 says very plainly, the ethical injunction from this whole chapter, “Be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” So let’s be holy and let’s be rich in gospel proclamation so that we can win the lost in our community.
Wes
Well, this has been Episode 22 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 23 entitled The Nature, Glory and Encouragement of Our Future resurrection, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:35-58. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys Podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
