In 1 Corinthians 15:35-58, Paul teaches on the glory of the resurrection body in heaven after Christ triumphantly gives death the final blow.
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 23 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. This episode is entitled The Nature, Glory, and Encouragement of Our Future Resurrection, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:35-58. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, Wes, one of the truly thrilling chapters in the Bible in which the bodily resurrection of believers in Jesus Christ is described in detail. The actual nature of the resurrection body in ways that are not found anywhere else in any other scripture except by comparison with Jesus’s own resurrection body. And then the glory of the resurrection victory, the celebration of it, the triumph of it. Then at the very end of the chapter, a practical application that “we should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.” And to try to see how belief in the inevitability of the resurrection victory should lead to relentless work for the kingdom. The link between the two. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read verses 35-58 in 1 Corinthians 15.
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there’s one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There’s one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Andy, what significant question does Paul raise that he’ll seek to answer in this section that we’re looking at?
Andy
Well, he is going to look at practical aspects of the resurrection from the dead. And these practical aspects are so overwhelming that some people think that the very concept itself is foolish. They can’t conceive of how a mortal body that’s been moldering in the grave for years or even centuries could ever be raised up. The logistical problems seem insurmountable; therefore, they think it cannot happen. And so, Paul is addressing the practical side and practical objections to the bodily resurrection from the dead.
Wes
Now, why do you think Paul says this question is foolish, especially since he goes on to answer it?
Andy
Well, it’s really brilliant. He’s turning the whole thing around. Remember that in Acts 17 when he was in Mars Hill, he was disputing with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. And when he got to the issue of the resurrection from the dead, some of them sneered, they mocked, they considered it foolish. Paul’s turning it around in reference to the Corinthian Christians. Now keep that in mind, he’s writing to Christians who in verse 12 say there is no resurrection from the dead, it cannot happen. They’re so infused with their Greek philosophical system that they cannot conceive of bodily resurrection from the dead. They think of it as impossible. They think it’s foolish.
But Paul’s saying to these Corinthian Christians, it’s foolish for them to think God cannot do that. The God who can create the universe out of nothing by the word of his power can raise dead people to life. It is foolish to think that such a logistical problem would be insurmountable for the omnipotent God. That’s what’s foolish. He’s actually sharply rebuking their unbelief. So, it has to do with this. The practical objections to the bodily resurrection are stemming from unbelief. They’re fundamentally questioning God. Now, there’s nothing wrong with asking God questions, but there is something wrong with questioning. So, he’s rebuking questioning. Namely because I can’t conceive how this could happen practically, then it can’t happen. That’s the foolishness.
Wes
How do verses 36 and 37 establish a strong break with the present body? And how does the sowing-planting image help us to understand the difference between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies?
Andy
Right, so the resurrection, the fundamental concept here we have to have with the sowing and the growing aspect you sow a seed and what comes from it is different than what gets sown in the ground. But it is connected to it is you have continuity and difference. If you don’t have continuity, you don’t have resurrection. You have basically creation ex nihilo of our eternal bodies. There is no connection. But Jesus has been raised from the dead. He said to Thomas, “Touch me and see.” All right, you said, “If I don’t put my finger in the nail marks and my hand in the side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Jesus said, “I am the one who was raised.” “Behold,” he says in Revelation 1:18, “I was dead and now I am alive forever.” So that is continuity, but there’s also difference, continuity, and difference. So, the idea of a seed sown and then the body raised shows continuity but also difference.
Wes
So, what then is Paul’s point in verse 38?
Andy
God makes everything. Every physical thing that exists in the universe, God created. And so, God creates our mortal bodies, our present bodies, and obviously they’re called mortal because in Adam we sinned, and we will die. But God created Adam’s physical body out of the dust of the earth. As Paul will mention later, God made it. God also is the one who makes our resurrection body, and he gives to each a body as he has determined. He gave to Adam in his innocence a perfect physical body, but then he gives to us in Christ a perfect eternal resurrection body. And God is the one who makes both. I think he’s comparing the present physical body with the future resurrection body, and God is the one who makes both of them.
Wes
In verse 39, Paul points out that men, animals, birds, and fish, all have different kinds of flesh. What does that fact have to do with the resurrection body?
Andy
Well, I’m going to go to what Jesus said in his resurrection body in Luke 24, where the doubts arose in the minds of his onlooking apostles who were to be eyewitnesses of his bodily resurrection. They had doubts. And one of the conceptions they had is that he was a spirit. Same thing that happened when he walked on the water, they thought he was a ghost. And so, they believed that he was a spirit, and he drives that away by saying, “Touch me and see, a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). And so, there is something that we would call resurrected flesh. And so that’s I think what he’s getting at here. The resurrected flesh will be of its own sort. And he’s going to describe it in a few verses and it’s very thrilling. But right now, he’s just saying, “Look, there are different types of physicality or physical beings.” Right now, we have the world we’re used to with men and animals, and they all have a certain kind of body, but then there is this body that’s yet to come.
Wes
In verses 40 and 41 what does Paul mean by heavenly bodies versus earthly bodies? And what is the significance of the statement, star differs from star in glory?
Andy
Well, he’s going to say later, just as we have borne the likeness of the man from the dust, the earthy man, Adam, so we will bear the likeness of the man from heaven, the heavenly man, Christ. And so therefore we have earthy flesh in Adam, and we will have heavenly flesh, whatever that means, and we’ll describe it in a moment, in Christ. And so even there he says, “Look, we’ve got earthly existence,” you’ve got the earth and animals and birds and insects and fish and all that that God made in the six days of creation. But then far above the earth you have the celestial beings, you have the sun, the moon, and the stars. And they’re beyond human power. We didn’t make them; we just observe them. We can’t actually interact with them. They’re just lofty and high. And so, what he’s saying here is that the physicality of sun, moon, and stars was made by God as well.
He also notes that the heavenly bodies differ from one another in splendor or in glory. The sun is the brightest of all, the moon’s second and then stars after that. And even stars differ from one another in glory. Each of them has a different glory. Now, simply put, we would say there is a glory to our present physical bodies as Psalm 139:14 says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.” So, my present physical body is a marvel, and it does display the glory of God. But my future resurrection body will be even more glorious. Jesus said, “then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father” (Matthew 13:43).
Now beyond that, it is possible that when he says star differs from star in glory, that even in heavenly glory, we will differ from one another. Some will shine more brightly than others. There are just some people that will be more glorious than others. And this was important in my book in heaven. I don’t believe we will all be equally glorious in heaven. I think some will shine more brightly than others. So, it’s pretty exciting.
Wes
Now, the four couplets in 42-44 teach us about the nature of the resurrection body. Paul describes the present mortal body as perishable, dishonorable, weak and natural. And conversely, he describes the future resurrection body as imperishable, glorious, powerful and spiritual. Let’s take each of these couplets in turn. What does it mean that our present body is perishable and that our future body will be imperishable?
Andy
Okay, perishable means able to die. And I think our present body is perishable in that really from the moment we’re born it begins its journey to death. And just even biologically, cells are dying all the time. When we take a shower and scrub our bodies, we’re scrubbing off dead cells off of our skin and then other cells have risen to take their place. And so, there’s this constant regeneration, but sadly in Adam, in that we’re dying, it’s not done perfectly. And so, you can see in the face of an elderly person a very different appearance than they look when they were 20. They look much worse. They look older. And then how much more, and I’ve noted this quite recently, even there was a woman, a dear woman that died a few days ago, a member of our church, I went to visit her one last time and this has happened to me many times before. I literally couldn’t recognize her. She just looked like somebody else.
And I’ve seen that before. People, literally hours before they die or days before they die, they don’t look anything like what you’ve known them to be. That’s the perishable aspect, able to die, perishing. In Adam, we are dying. Imperishable means unable to die. There is no principle of death in heaven. Our resurrection bodies will not be dying. Indeed, they cannot die. They are imperishable.
“There is no principle of death in heaven. Our resurrection bodies will not be dying. Indeed, they cannot die. They are imperishable.”
Wes
How is the present body sown in dishonor and what does it mean that it will be raised in glory?
Andy
Both of these are actually pretty weighty and significant. I just mentioned in one sense the dishonor. When you go to see an elderly person in a nursing home and then how much more you go to see somebody in hospice care hours or days before they die. The dishonor is in their physical appearance. They have been broken down by the disease and by aging and by the process of dying, it is dishonorable. And without going into details, there are certain sights and sounds and smells that have to do with dying that are repulsive, and it’s not meant to be pretty. And so fundamentally, there is a stripping of honor. You think about somebody in the peak of health, you think about an Olympic athlete at the pinnacle of their physical prowess. They’re in their maybe mid-20s and they’ve trained their bodies all their lives and they’re ready to win a gold medal in the Olympics. They’ll never be more physically fit or more beautiful, more attractive than they are. It’s all downhill from there.
Look at that same person 30 years later. Wes, have you ever seen an athlete that you hadn’t seen in a while, and you see pictures of them at a baseball signing or something? They’re like, “Whoa, what happened to you?” Well, we know what happened, they aged. And so, there’s a dishonor to it. Now, I’ve been at many funerals, and we try to give honor to the dead person and we should. We can imagine somebody dying with military honors. Their casket is covered with an American flag and there’s all kinds of honors that are given to the person having served, including an honor guard and various other things. And even if the person didn’t serve in the military, there are other ways that funeral directors and pastors like myself give honor to the deceased person.
But still, it’s dishonorable. There’s a fundamental dishonor to death. I would say also with that these days, funeral homes try to hide some of the earthier aspects. Like you don’t see dirt like you used to. You don’t see the hole in the ground. It’s blocked by the casket, which is hovering over the thing held by a certain mechanism. And then there’s literally AstroTurf. You don’t actually see dirt. And I think people just find it jarring. It’s almost like they’re in deception. They forget we’re all going to die. Previous generations didn’t hide it at all. The shovel was right there. You were involved in spreading dirt on the casket when it was lowered down. And you’re just saying just like was said to Adam, “Remember man that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” And so fundamentally it’s dishonorable, but it’s raised in glory. Let’s talk about that.
The body itself is glorious. Just as the corpse is dishonorable, the resurrection body is glorious. These adjectives are all describing the body. It’s not just raised to trumpets of honor and you’re being honored. “My Father will honor the one who serves” (John26:26). That’s not that. The body itself is glorious. The righteous will shine like the sun. We are going to be bright just like the angels were. Remember when the angel came to announce the birth of Jesus, the single angel on the hills outside Bethlehem and the shepherds were there. And suddenly the angel appeared, and the glory of the Lord shone around. The angel was bright, physically bright. We’re going to be like that too. The body will be raised glorious. So, the contrast is powerful from dishonor to glory.
Wes
How then is the mortal body sown in weakness? And what does it mean that it is raised in power?
Andy
Well, fundamentally it was weak because it couldn’t fight off the disease or the injury that took it out of this world. It lost that battle, right? So, the immune system couldn’t win against the cancer or against the other disease or the body couldn’t defend against the car accident or the drowning or whatever it is. Whatever accident took it out, it was weak in the face of it. Death is stronger than the mortal body, and so it’s sown in weakness. Furthermore, you just look at a corpse and it has no power, no intrinsic power. It cannot move. All right? Any power has to do with motion. Muscles can flex, you can walk, you can lift something. The corpse can do nothing. There is no motion, there is no power. It is completely powerless. All right? It is sown in weakness. Conversely, it is raised in power. Now, again, we need to see these adjectives as describing the body intrinsically, not the process applied to the body.
Just as I said, the resurrection isn’t so much in these verses that God is honoring the body with glory. It’s not that. It’s that the body itself is described as glorious. Same thing here. The corpse itself is described as weak. It is raised, it is described itself as powerful. It is a powerful body. Now what does that mean? All right, I’ve thought about this, and is it like Superman able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? It can stop a locomotive with one hand. Is that it, do we have superhuman powers? Maybe. But I think it’s better to see that it doesn’t ever lose power by what it does. Now, think of it that way. At least it means this. Okay, we will run and not grow weary. We will walk and not be faint. Think about that. At the end of Isaiah 40:30-31,“Even youths grow tired and stumble and young men stumble and fall. But those who wait in the Lord will renew their strength. They’ll run and not grow weary, walk and not faint.”
Now you brother just finished a 50-kilometer race out west. What was that like? Unbelievable.
Wes
Hardest physical thing I’ve done, but pretty beautiful views for a payoff.
Andy
All right, so how would you have done if you had had a resurrection body and no one else did?
Wes
My time would’ve probably been better, I think I would’ve-
Andy
Guarantee it.
Wes
Yeah, I would’ve done much better as far as the time was concerned.
Andy
All right, so would you say like I do as a bike rider, the hardest part is the uphills, going uphill?
Wes
Yeah, there were some pretty steep climbs in that race.
Andy
Imagine running and not growing weary at all. You have as much energy at the top as you did at the bottom. What would that be like?
Wes
Oh man, that would’ve felt a lot better than that felt at the top of some of those.
Andy
So, I think, at least it means this. Beyond that, I’m speculating, I can’t speculate. But I do know this, a single angel did move the stone away from the entrance to Jesus’s tomb. So, there may be some amazing physical power, but at least this much, it is a powerful body. Our resurrection bodies will never lack energy or strength. They’ll be just rippling with energy. So that’s pretty awesome.
Wes
Finally, as we consider these four couplets, what does Paul mean when he says the body is sown a natural body but will be raised a spiritual body?
Andy
All right. Natural body means a body like we know. It’s the body that we’re familiar with, the mortal body, the physical body, the body that’s from Adam, from the dust of the earth. It’s this physical body, that’s what’s sown. What is raised is a mystery. It’s essentially a mystery. Later in this very same chapter, he says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery.” What is a spiritual body? Now that’s a combination of the two realms. You think about it, the physical realm is the world we know now, the realm of the five senses, we call it the five-sense world, the physical world where physics operates. And then you’ve got the spiritual realm where angels and demons and where God himself dwells. And there’s a barrier of sorts between the two that’s torn or rent when Jesus was baptized and the heavens were torn open, remember?
And a dove came out representing the Holy Spirit. So, there is some kind of a barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world. And so, in this case, it’s a complete perfect combination of the two, a spiritual body. So, what I would have to say about this is, I don’t know what that means. I think it’s almost like quantum physics where there’s just weird stuff that we can’t really understand that combines the spiritual realm with the physical. And the only indication we have of how different it is, I don’t want to use a disparaging term like weird, but when you look at Jesus’s resurrection body, there are kind of different aspects. Maybe we would say weird, like passing right through walls. And yet, “Touch me and see a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” How do you put those two together?
How do you pass through the stone wall of the cave in which you are buried or through the locked door of the upper room and then say, “Touch me and see, I’m not a spirit or a ghost.” I don’t know how that is, but I think this couplet spiritual body explains it, we’ll be like him. We will have spiritual bodies. Also, I think I speculate on this, but it says in Revelation 22 that the tree of life is on both sides of the river of life that flows from the throne of God, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. But we’ve already been told in Revelation 21, there’s no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. So, what do you need healing for? The only way I put that together is that, when we’re eating in the new Jerusalem, new heaven, new earth, from the tree of life in whatever way that means, we will be continually healed from anything that might injure us.
Any accident we would ever have, anything that would cut us or anything that would be like a pathogen or a disease, it will be immediately overwhelmed by the life flowing from God, from the tree of life through our resurrection bodies. That’s what I think of when I think of a spiritual body. One last thing, Lord’s prayer, “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Also, “I saw the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven like a bride” (Revelation 21:2). So, you get this combination thing of heaven and earth all becoming effectively one, and it comes down here to the resurrection body. It becomes one, heaven and earth become one in our resurrection bodies. That’s the best I can do with that last couplet.
Wes
Verses 45-49, Paul expands on what we’ve received from Adam versus what we will receive from Christ. Why does Paul make so much about the order natural then spiritual, dust then breath in these verses?
Andy
Well, first of all, just for all of us who aren’t fighting back against the concept of resurrection, we believe in it. We’re pining for it, we’re yearning for it, we’re groaning for it. Romans 8 says that along with the creation, we ourselves are groaning inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of the body, that’s the completion of our adoption proceedings. So, when we get our resurrection bodies, then our salvation is done. We’ll be fully adopted children of God and we’re groaning for it. And so, we might say, “Why not now? Why not today? Why not today?” You would say, “right before my race, I want my resurrection body, give it-”
Wes
It’s a great moment right here.
Andy
Great time for it. Or we could think of people that are facing dread illnesses and like, “Why not today?” Well, there’s an order, and we have to finish bearing the likeness of the man from the dust, including his penalty, which is death. Death is the final enemy; we’ve already said earlier in this chapter. But there is coming a day when we will bear the likeness of the man from heaven who is Christ.
Wes
Andy, any more that we should take away from that thought right there, that we currently bear this image of Adam, but one day we’ll bear the image of Jesus?
Andy
Yeah, it all comes down to our faith in these words. We’re reading these words and we’re saying, “All right, right now it looks bad. And we are all aging, we all get sick. We have injuries, we have diseases. We have things that bring us sorrow, not just for us but for loved ones.” And we have to bear that likeness. And so, there is an order to things, but everything’s on schedule. And though it would seem to us like there would be more clear evidence of God’s resurrecting power, the fact is we’ve never seen it. We were not eyewitnesses to Christ’s bodily resurrection. We just read it and believe it. So, we have to believe that just as we believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. So, we believe that God will bring with Jesus, those who have fallen asleep in him, 1 Thessalonians 4. We will be raised like Jesus was, but it’s all faith.
So, we have to trust in the word of God over against the evidence of our eyes that shows us the corruption and the decay and the death around us all the time. And in us as we age ourselves. So, we have to bear the likeness of Adam. In good order, in sequence, we will someday bear the likeness of the second Adam, who is Christ the man from heaven.
Wes
What powerful assertion does Paul make in verse 50? And given the constantly decaying nature of our present bodies, why does verse 50 make so much sense?
Andy
“I declare to you brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” All right, so let’s talk about what we’re talking about, which is eternity, all right. And if we’re in these mortal bodies, even if they could in some amazing way be constantly replenished or renewed in their present decaying form, we wouldn’t want to spend eternity in these corrupting bodies. When we’ve been there 10,000 years, not bright shining as a sun, but just still physical. We can’t, that cannot work. The world that is coming has no decay in it at all. Nothing disgusting, nothing defiled, nothing corrupted, nothing diseased. None of that can enter the new Jerusalem. Only those things that are pure and perfect and imperishable. And so, he says, “Look, you can’t take those carcasses, you can’t take those moldering bodies into eternity.” Flesh and blood cannot inherit the coming imperishable kingdom of God. It cannot be. So therefore, there has to be a change.
Wes
What mystery does Paul tell us in verse 51? And what is the transformation or change that he has in mind in the following verse?
Andy
Well, this is the great exception. I just said we have to bear the likeness of the man from the dust, which is to sink back into the dust through death. Paul says, yes, that’s usually true. It is true of every generation but the final generation, what I call the mysterious generation. The generation of people who will be alive at the second coming of Christ/at the end of the world. That generation will not die. “We will not all sleep,” all being the elect. Not all the elect, not all the church of Jesus Christ will die, “but we will all be changed.” We have to be transformed for the reason he just gave in verse 50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” So, if we are still alive at the second coming of Christ, we will be instantaneously transformed into resurrection body. We’ll talk about that in a moment. But the mystery is that we will not all die, but we will all be transformed in the way he’s about to describe.
So, Paul then describes in verse 52, when and how that will happen “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.” All right, so that’s the timing of it. At the second coming, as we already saw earlier in this very same chapter, verse 23 I think it is, when he comes at the second coming of Christ, we will be raised from the dead. And in the flash means there’s not a process. We’re not kind of gradually going to be growing into our resurrection bodies. We will instantly receive them. So, unlike our physical bodies, which were built or kind of knit together in our mother’s womb, the image used, “or did you not curdle me like cheese” (Job 10:10), Job says. In my mother’s womb there was a process and then you grow physically larger from infancy, et cetera. No, there’s none of that. It’s an instantaneous, instantaneous transformation in which we receive our eternal bodies in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye.
And then it says, at the last trumpet. The trumpet’s going to sound. And those are the trumpets given by the archangel. It’s basically saying, “Everyone on earth, entire population of the earth, it’s over!” That’s the trumpet. And so at the last trumpet, and that implies there’s other trumpets, read about it in the Book of Revelation. But at any rate, at the last trumpet, then the resurrection comes.
Wes
How does verse 53 make sense when it comes to spending eternity in the new heaven and new earth?
Andy
Yeah, I think 53 is just a restatement of verse 50. The perishable has to be changed. We can’t be perishable in an imperishable world. So, the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable that is the resurrection body and the mortal with immortality. So that has to happen, and God knows that.
Wes
How significant is the concept that death will be swallowed up in victory? And how does verse 54 connect to verse 57?
Andy
Yeah, death is swallowed up in victory. I look on that. I like sports and let’s put it this way, Jesus doesn’t eke out a one-point victory at the buzzer over death. Jesus destroys death. Jesus tramples death. Jesus wins in a rout over death. And you’re like, “Well, how is that be? Because it seemed like death won over him.” It’s like, “Yeah, but he rose from the dead.” And the issue is, how is it swallowed up in victory? The idea is, the victory of resurrection is going to be so much greater than the experience, the humbling, painful, difficult experience of death, that it will be as though it were swallowed over, swallowed up.
So, I guess the idea is of eternal glory compared to a short process of pain. And you think about it, Paul calls it our light and momentary sufferings. So even as difficult a death process as David Brainerd who died of tuberculosis, and it took him 30 days to die coughing up blood every day. Even so as difficult as that death was, and it was as difficult as any death I’ve ever heard in my life, it’s still nothing compared to an eternity in a resurrected, glorious body. The victory swallows up the experience of death. That’s what it means. Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Wes
And the connection then to verse 57 seems to be that our victory is in that victory Christ has won over death?
Andy
Beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. It’s not a victory we won on our own because it’s sown in weakness, we would’ve lost, we would lose against death. But Jesus has won a victory on behalf of all of us. And you think about it, how many people benefit, it is a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people and nation. And what the text doesn’t say in Revelation 7 is, from every generation of church history. From every generation of the history of redemption, Jesus won people by one single act, his own resurrection from the dead. He gives a resurrection victory to all his people.
“From every generation of the history of redemption, Jesus won people by one single act, his own resurrection from the dead. He gives a resurrection victory to all his people.”
Wes
In the midst of all this talk about victory, what do verses 55 and 56 teach us about the link between the law, sin and death?
Andy
Yeah, so the sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. He’s not minimizing that the death process is painful. It is painful to die. So again, going back to David Brainerd coughing up blood, and every day he thought that day was his last, and he still had another 23 days to go. That is painful. He’s not minimizing that. And there’s a sting in that. There’s a pain in that, and not just for the individual going through it, him or herself. But for onlooking loved ones who are grieving and walking through the valley of the shadow of death with that person, it’s very, very painful. And there is a sense that death wins and that we are so powerless and there’s a sting to it. But he turns the whole thing around and actually mocks, personifies and mocks death. All right? When we have been raised, we’ll be able to turn around and say, “Where’s your victory now? Look at this. Here I am, where are you?”
And actually, it does say that death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire. So, death itself will die. And so, we are going to see a tremendous victory. So, he says the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. So fundamentally the reason we die is sin. We transgressed and in Adam we sin, but then we actually ourselves sin by breaking God’s laws. We transgress. All sin is a transgression of the law and that’s the stinger in it. But Jesus has extracted the stinger like a scorpion or a spider that has had the stinger removed. And so therefore death doesn’t sting us anymore. We’re not afraid of it. Paul actually, if given the choice in Philippians 1 would’ve preferred to die. It’s as nothing for him. And so that’s what Christ’s resurrection victory has done.
Wes
In Paul’s final application of this teaching, what link do we see between a strong sense of our future glory and resurrection and the ability to be steadfast and immovable in overcoming Satanic opposition to the gospel ministry?
Andy
What a great question, Wes. There is a great question. Why is verse 58 here? This is the application. All preachers need an application to the sermon. It’s like we have all this doctrine. The doctrine’s been about the bodily resurrection of Christians based on Jesus’ resurrection victory. All right, well if that’s true and now we’re convinced that it is, we Christians will rise like Jesus in resurrection bodies. Okay, so what? What should we do? Well, if I could say it’s simply, work hard for Jesus, work hard in the great commission, work hard in winning lost people to faith in Christ. Well, what’s the link between the two? Glad you asked. Well, would it be well, the resurrection of the elect through the power of the gospel, through the power of faith in Christ is the finish line of all of our Christian labor. Well, is it going to win?
It’s guaranteed to win. It’s guaranteed to be victorious. It is impossible for us not to be victorious. We are going to succeed in our labors in the Lord. If we preach the true gospel to the unconverted elect, and if we are given the privilege of being there when they cross over from death to life, it doesn’t matter whether we are the ones there or not. We have a role to play. We’re a team, as the church we’re a team and we’re sharing the gospel worldwide. Jesus said very plainly again and again in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I’ll never drive them away.” But will what? “Raise them up on the last day.” He says it multiple times. So, in other words, you want to know how certain this thing is. All of the elect I’m going to welcome and I’m going to raise them up on the last day.
As he said in the previous chapter John 5, they will be in their graves, and they’ll hear the voice of the Son of God and come out. And they’ll come out and shine. And so how guaranteed is it? Nothing can stop it. What could stop Jesus himself from being raised from the grave? Nothing. And what can stop him from raising all of his children out of the grave? Nothing. So, we are going to win. “So therefore, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in your labors in the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Now, let me say something about in vain. This is an insight God gave me when recently I was memorizing the gloomy and depressing book of Ecclesiastes. It has its role to play. It is perfect scripture. But what is the role? Vanity of vanities, says a preacher.
Vanity, empty, meaningless, life is meaningless. It’s like, “Man, you’re having a bad day. I just want to put an arm around you bro. Can I just talk to you?” But it has a role to play. What is the role? What is Ecclesiastes’ point? This is what I think it is. There’s a repeated phrase in Ecclesiastes, under the sun, under the sun, under the sun. It’s life on earth. But if you keep going similar to the logic of 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, if there is no resurrection from the dead, then this. If there is no resurrection from the dead, then our preaching is worthless. If there is no resurrection from the dead, then not even Christ has been right. All right, take that approach and make a whole book out of it. If there is no resurrection from the dead, you got the book of Ecclesiastes.
And what does that tell you about life? It’s meaningless. It really is meaningless. If the atheistic, materialistic, evolutionist types like Stephen Hawking are right, life truly is meaningless. All of your labors are meaningless. They are all dust in the wind. Your reputation is meaningless. Everything you strive for, you hope for, all of it is meaningless if there is no resurrection from the dead. But Christ has been raised, there is a resurrection from the dead. And we are Christians, and our labors in the Lord are not in vain. They are not vanity of vanities, they’re not meaningless. Actually, they have eternal consequences. So therefore, if there’s no resurrection from the dead, nothing you do has any eternal consequence. Conversely, if Christ has been raised, everything you do in line with his word, in line with the gospel is eternally consequential.
Wes
Well this has been Episode 23 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 24 entitled The Collection for God’s People and Final Words where we’ll conclude our discussion of 1 Corinthians by looking at 1 Corinthians 16:1-24. 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 23 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. This episode is entitled The Nature, Glory, and Encouragement of Our Future Resurrection, where we’ll discuss 1 Corinthians 15:35-58. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, Wes, one of the truly thrilling chapters in the Bible in which the bodily resurrection of believers in Jesus Christ is described in detail. The actual nature of the resurrection body in ways that are not found anywhere else in any other scripture except by comparison with Jesus’s own resurrection body. And then the glory of the resurrection victory, the celebration of it, the triumph of it. Then at the very end of the chapter, a practical application that “we should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.” And to try to see how belief in the inevitability of the resurrection victory should lead to relentless work for the kingdom. The link between the two. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read verses 35-58 in 1 Corinthians 15.
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there’s one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There’s one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have born the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Andy, what significant question does Paul raise that he’ll seek to answer in this section that we’re looking at?
Andy
Well, he is going to look at practical aspects of the resurrection from the dead. And these practical aspects are so overwhelming that some people think that the very concept itself is foolish. They can’t conceive of how a mortal body that’s been moldering in the grave for years or even centuries could ever be raised up. The logistical problems seem insurmountable; therefore, they think it cannot happen. And so, Paul is addressing the practical side and practical objections to the bodily resurrection from the dead.
Wes
Now, why do you think Paul says this question is foolish, especially since he goes on to answer it?
Andy
Well, it’s really brilliant. He’s turning the whole thing around. Remember that in Acts 17 when he was in Mars Hill, he was disputing with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. And when he got to the issue of the resurrection from the dead, some of them sneered, they mocked, they considered it foolish. Paul’s turning it around in reference to the Corinthian Christians. Now keep that in mind, he’s writing to Christians who in verse 12 say there is no resurrection from the dead, it cannot happen. They’re so infused with their Greek philosophical system that they cannot conceive of bodily resurrection from the dead. They think of it as impossible. They think it’s foolish.
But Paul’s saying to these Corinthian Christians, it’s foolish for them to think God cannot do that. The God who can create the universe out of nothing by the word of his power can raise dead people to life. It is foolish to think that such a logistical problem would be insurmountable for the omnipotent God. That’s what’s foolish. He’s actually sharply rebuking their unbelief. So, it has to do with this. The practical objections to the bodily resurrection are stemming from unbelief. They’re fundamentally questioning God. Now, there’s nothing wrong with asking God questions, but there is something wrong with questioning. So, he’s rebuking questioning. Namely because I can’t conceive how this could happen practically, then it can’t happen. That’s the foolishness.
Wes
How do verses 36 and 37 establish a strong break with the present body? And how does the sowing-planting image help us to understand the difference between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies?
Andy
Right, so the resurrection, the fundamental concept here we have to have with the sowing and the growing aspect you sow a seed and what comes from it is different than what gets sown in the ground. But it is connected to it is you have continuity and difference. If you don’t have continuity, you don’t have resurrection. You have basically creation ex nihilo of our eternal bodies. There is no connection. But Jesus has been raised from the dead. He said to Thomas, “Touch me and see.” All right, you said, “If I don’t put my finger in the nail marks and my hand in the side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Jesus said, “I am the one who was raised.” “Behold,” he says in Revelation 1:18, “I was dead and now I am alive forever.” So that is continuity, but there’s also difference, continuity, and difference. So, the idea of a seed sown and then the body raised shows continuity but also difference.
Wes
So, what then is Paul’s point in verse 38?
Andy
God makes everything. Every physical thing that exists in the universe, God created. And so, God creates our mortal bodies, our present bodies, and obviously they’re called mortal because in Adam we sinned, and we will die. But God created Adam’s physical body out of the dust of the earth. As Paul will mention later, God made it. God also is the one who makes our resurrection body, and he gives to each a body as he has determined. He gave to Adam in his innocence a perfect physical body, but then he gives to us in Christ a perfect eternal resurrection body. And God is the one who makes both. I think he’s comparing the present physical body with the future resurrection body, and God is the one who makes both of them.
Wes
In verse 39, Paul points out that men, animals, birds, and fish, all have different kinds of flesh. What does that fact have to do with the resurrection body?
Andy
Well, I’m going to go to what Jesus said in his resurrection body in Luke 24, where the doubts arose in the minds of his onlooking apostles who were to be eyewitnesses of his bodily resurrection. They had doubts. And one of the conceptions they had is that he was a spirit. Same thing that happened when he walked on the water, they thought he was a ghost. And so, they believed that he was a spirit, and he drives that away by saying, “Touch me and see, a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). And so, there is something that we would call resurrected flesh. And so that’s I think what he’s getting at here. The resurrected flesh will be of its own sort. And he’s going to describe it in a few verses and it’s very thrilling. But right now, he’s just saying, “Look, there are different types of physicality or physical beings.” Right now, we have the world we’re used to with men and animals, and they all have a certain kind of body, but then there is this body that’s yet to come.
Wes
In verses 40 and 41 what does Paul mean by heavenly bodies versus earthly bodies? And what is the significance of the statement, star differs from star in glory?
Andy
Well, he’s going to say later, just as we have borne the likeness of the man from the dust, the earthy man, Adam, so we will bear the likeness of the man from heaven, the heavenly man, Christ. And so therefore we have earthy flesh in Adam, and we will have heavenly flesh, whatever that means, and we’ll describe it in a moment, in Christ. And so even there he says, “Look, we’ve got earthly existence,” you’ve got the earth and animals and birds and insects and fish and all that that God made in the six days of creation. But then far above the earth you have the celestial beings, you have the sun, the moon, and the stars. And they’re beyond human power. We didn’t make them; we just observe them. We can’t actually interact with them. They’re just lofty and high. And so, what he’s saying here is that the physicality of sun, moon, and stars was made by God as well.
He also notes that the heavenly bodies differ from one another in splendor or in glory. The sun is the brightest of all, the moon’s second and then stars after that. And even stars differ from one another in glory. Each of them has a different glory. Now, simply put, we would say there is a glory to our present physical bodies as Psalm 139:14 says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.” So, my present physical body is a marvel, and it does display the glory of God. But my future resurrection body will be even more glorious. Jesus said, “then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father” (Matthew 13:43).
Now beyond that, it is possible that when he says star differs from star in glory, that even in heavenly glory, we will differ from one another. Some will shine more brightly than others. There are just some people that will be more glorious than others. And this was important in my book in heaven. I don’t believe we will all be equally glorious in heaven. I think some will shine more brightly than others. So, it’s pretty exciting.
Wes
Now, the four couplets in 42-44 teach us about the nature of the resurrection body. Paul describes the present mortal body as perishable, dishonorable, weak and natural. And conversely, he describes the future resurrection body as imperishable, glorious, powerful and spiritual. Let’s take each of these couplets in turn. What does it mean that our present body is perishable and that our future body will be imperishable?
Andy
Okay, perishable means able to die. And I think our present body is perishable in that really from the moment we’re born it begins its journey to death. And just even biologically, cells are dying all the time. When we take a shower and scrub our bodies, we’re scrubbing off dead cells off of our skin and then other cells have risen to take their place. And so, there’s this constant regeneration, but sadly in Adam, in that we’re dying, it’s not done perfectly. And so, you can see in the face of an elderly person a very different appearance than they look when they were 20. They look much worse. They look older. And then how much more, and I’ve noted this quite recently, even there was a woman, a dear woman that died a few days ago, a member of our church, I went to visit her one last time and this has happened to me many times before. I literally couldn’t recognize her. She just looked like somebody else.
And I’ve seen that before. People, literally hours before they die or days before they die, they don’t look anything like what you’ve known them to be. That’s the perishable aspect, able to die, perishing. In Adam, we are dying. Imperishable means unable to die. There is no principle of death in heaven. Our resurrection bodies will not be dying. Indeed, they cannot die. They are imperishable.
“There is no principle of death in heaven. Our resurrection bodies will not be dying. Indeed, they cannot die. They are imperishable.”
Wes
How is the present body sown in dishonor and what does it mean that it will be raised in glory?
Andy
Both of these are actually pretty weighty and significant. I just mentioned in one sense the dishonor. When you go to see an elderly person in a nursing home and then how much more you go to see somebody in hospice care hours or days before they die. The dishonor is in their physical appearance. They have been broken down by the disease and by aging and by the process of dying, it is dishonorable. And without going into details, there are certain sights and sounds and smells that have to do with dying that are repulsive, and it’s not meant to be pretty. And so fundamentally, there is a stripping of honor. You think about somebody in the peak of health, you think about an Olympic athlete at the pinnacle of their physical prowess. They’re in their maybe mid-20s and they’ve trained their bodies all their lives and they’re ready to win a gold medal in the Olympics. They’ll never be more physically fit or more beautiful, more attractive than they are. It’s all downhill from there.
Look at that same person 30 years later. Wes, have you ever seen an athlete that you hadn’t seen in a while, and you see pictures of them at a baseball signing or something? They’re like, “Whoa, what happened to you?” Well, we know what happened, they aged. And so, there’s a dishonor to it. Now, I’ve been at many funerals, and we try to give honor to the dead person and we should. We can imagine somebody dying with military honors. Their casket is covered with an American flag and there’s all kinds of honors that are given to the person having served, including an honor guard and various other things. And even if the person didn’t serve in the military, there are other ways that funeral directors and pastors like myself give honor to the deceased person.
But still, it’s dishonorable. There’s a fundamental dishonor to death. I would say also with that these days, funeral homes try to hide some of the earthier aspects. Like you don’t see dirt like you used to. You don’t see the hole in the ground. It’s blocked by the casket, which is hovering over the thing held by a certain mechanism. And then there’s literally AstroTurf. You don’t actually see dirt. And I think people just find it jarring. It’s almost like they’re in deception. They forget we’re all going to die. Previous generations didn’t hide it at all. The shovel was right there. You were involved in spreading dirt on the casket when it was lowered down. And you’re just saying just like was said to Adam, “Remember man that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” And so fundamentally it’s dishonorable, but it’s raised in glory. Let’s talk about that.
The body itself is glorious. Just as the corpse is dishonorable, the resurrection body is glorious. These adjectives are all describing the body. It’s not just raised to trumpets of honor and you’re being honored. “My Father will honor the one who serves” (John26:26). That’s not that. The body itself is glorious. The righteous will shine like the sun. We are going to be bright just like the angels were. Remember when the angel came to announce the birth of Jesus, the single angel on the hills outside Bethlehem and the shepherds were there. And suddenly the angel appeared, and the glory of the Lord shone around. The angel was bright, physically bright. We’re going to be like that too. The body will be raised glorious. So, the contrast is powerful from dishonor to glory.
Wes
How then is the mortal body sown in weakness? And what does it mean that it is raised in power?
Andy
Well, fundamentally it was weak because it couldn’t fight off the disease or the injury that took it out of this world. It lost that battle, right? So, the immune system couldn’t win against the cancer or against the other disease or the body couldn’t defend against the car accident or the drowning or whatever it is. Whatever accident took it out, it was weak in the face of it. Death is stronger than the mortal body, and so it’s sown in weakness. Furthermore, you just look at a corpse and it has no power, no intrinsic power. It cannot move. All right? Any power has to do with motion. Muscles can flex, you can walk, you can lift something. The corpse can do nothing. There is no motion, there is no power. It is completely powerless. All right? It is sown in weakness. Conversely, it is raised in power. Now, again, we need to see these adjectives as describing the body intrinsically, not the process applied to the body.
Just as I said, the resurrection isn’t so much in these verses that God is honoring the body with glory. It’s not that. It’s that the body itself is described as glorious. Same thing here. The corpse itself is described as weak. It is raised, it is described itself as powerful. It is a powerful body. Now what does that mean? All right, I’ve thought about this, and is it like Superman able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? It can stop a locomotive with one hand. Is that it, do we have superhuman powers? Maybe. But I think it’s better to see that it doesn’t ever lose power by what it does. Now, think of it that way. At least it means this. Okay, we will run and not grow weary. We will walk and not be faint. Think about that. At the end of Isaiah 40:30-31,“Even youths grow tired and stumble and young men stumble and fall. But those who wait in the Lord will renew their strength. They’ll run and not grow weary, walk and not faint.”
Now you brother just finished a 50-kilometer race out west. What was that like? Unbelievable.
Wes
Hardest physical thing I’ve done, but pretty beautiful views for a payoff.
Andy
All right, so how would you have done if you had had a resurrection body and no one else did?
Wes
My time would’ve probably been better, I think I would’ve-
Andy
Guarantee it.
Wes
Yeah, I would’ve done much better as far as the time was concerned.
Andy
All right, so would you say like I do as a bike rider, the hardest part is the uphills, going uphill?
Wes
Yeah, there were some pretty steep climbs in that race.
Andy
Imagine running and not growing weary at all. You have as much energy at the top as you did at the bottom. What would that be like?
Wes
Oh man, that would’ve felt a lot better than that felt at the top of some of those.
Andy
So, I think, at least it means this. Beyond that, I’m speculating, I can’t speculate. But I do know this, a single angel did move the stone away from the entrance to Jesus’s tomb. So, there may be some amazing physical power, but at least this much, it is a powerful body. Our resurrection bodies will never lack energy or strength. They’ll be just rippling with energy. So that’s pretty awesome.
Wes
Finally, as we consider these four couplets, what does Paul mean when he says the body is sown a natural body but will be raised a spiritual body?
Andy
All right. Natural body means a body like we know. It’s the body that we’re familiar with, the mortal body, the physical body, the body that’s from Adam, from the dust of the earth. It’s this physical body, that’s what’s sown. What is raised is a mystery. It’s essentially a mystery. Later in this very same chapter, he says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery.” What is a spiritual body? Now that’s a combination of the two realms. You think about it, the physical realm is the world we know now, the realm of the five senses, we call it the five-sense world, the physical world where physics operates. And then you’ve got the spiritual realm where angels and demons and where God himself dwells. And there’s a barrier of sorts between the two that’s torn or rent when Jesus was baptized and the heavens were torn open, remember?
And a dove came out representing the Holy Spirit. So, there is some kind of a barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world. And so, in this case, it’s a complete perfect combination of the two, a spiritual body. So, what I would have to say about this is, I don’t know what that means. I think it’s almost like quantum physics where there’s just weird stuff that we can’t really understand that combines the spiritual realm with the physical. And the only indication we have of how different it is, I don’t want to use a disparaging term like weird, but when you look at Jesus’s resurrection body, there are kind of different aspects. Maybe we would say weird, like passing right through walls. And yet, “Touch me and see a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” How do you put those two together?
How do you pass through the stone wall of the cave in which you are buried or through the locked door of the upper room and then say, “Touch me and see, I’m not a spirit or a ghost.” I don’t know how that is, but I think this couplet spiritual body explains it, we’ll be like him. We will have spiritual bodies. Also, I think I speculate on this, but it says in Revelation 22 that the tree of life is on both sides of the river of life that flows from the throne of God, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. But we’ve already been told in Revelation 21, there’s no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. So, what do you need healing for? The only way I put that together is that, when we’re eating in the new Jerusalem, new heaven, new earth, from the tree of life in whatever way that means, we will be continually healed from anything that might injure us.
Any accident we would ever have, anything that would cut us or anything that would be like a pathogen or a disease, it will be immediately overwhelmed by the life flowing from God, from the tree of life through our resurrection bodies. That’s what I think of when I think of a spiritual body. One last thing, Lord’s prayer, “May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Also, “I saw the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven like a bride” (Revelation 21:2). So, you get this combination thing of heaven and earth all becoming effectively one, and it comes down here to the resurrection body. It becomes one, heaven and earth become one in our resurrection bodies. That’s the best I can do with that last couplet.
Wes
Verses 45-49, Paul expands on what we’ve received from Adam versus what we will receive from Christ. Why does Paul make so much about the order natural then spiritual, dust then breath in these verses?
Andy
Well, first of all, just for all of us who aren’t fighting back against the concept of resurrection, we believe in it. We’re pining for it, we’re yearning for it, we’re groaning for it. Romans 8 says that along with the creation, we ourselves are groaning inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of the body, that’s the completion of our adoption proceedings. So, when we get our resurrection bodies, then our salvation is done. We’ll be fully adopted children of God and we’re groaning for it. And so, we might say, “Why not now? Why not today? Why not today?” You would say, “right before my race, I want my resurrection body, give it-”
Wes
It’s a great moment right here.
Andy
Great time for it. Or we could think of people that are facing dread illnesses and like, “Why not today?” Well, there’s an order, and we have to finish bearing the likeness of the man from the dust, including his penalty, which is death. Death is the final enemy; we’ve already said earlier in this chapter. But there is coming a day when we will bear the likeness of the man from heaven who is Christ.
Wes
Andy, any more that we should take away from that thought right there, that we currently bear this image of Adam, but one day we’ll bear the image of Jesus?
Andy
Yeah, it all comes down to our faith in these words. We’re reading these words and we’re saying, “All right, right now it looks bad. And we are all aging, we all get sick. We have injuries, we have diseases. We have things that bring us sorrow, not just for us but for loved ones.” And we have to bear that likeness. And so, there is an order to things, but everything’s on schedule. And though it would seem to us like there would be more clear evidence of God’s resurrecting power, the fact is we’ve never seen it. We were not eyewitnesses to Christ’s bodily resurrection. We just read it and believe it. So, we have to believe that just as we believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. So, we believe that God will bring with Jesus, those who have fallen asleep in him, 1 Thessalonians 4. We will be raised like Jesus was, but it’s all faith.
So, we have to trust in the word of God over against the evidence of our eyes that shows us the corruption and the decay and the death around us all the time. And in us as we age ourselves. So, we have to bear the likeness of Adam. In good order, in sequence, we will someday bear the likeness of the second Adam, who is Christ the man from heaven.
Wes
What powerful assertion does Paul make in verse 50? And given the constantly decaying nature of our present bodies, why does verse 50 make so much sense?
Andy
“I declare to you brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” All right, so let’s talk about what we’re talking about, which is eternity, all right. And if we’re in these mortal bodies, even if they could in some amazing way be constantly replenished or renewed in their present decaying form, we wouldn’t want to spend eternity in these corrupting bodies. When we’ve been there 10,000 years, not bright shining as a sun, but just still physical. We can’t, that cannot work. The world that is coming has no decay in it at all. Nothing disgusting, nothing defiled, nothing corrupted, nothing diseased. None of that can enter the new Jerusalem. Only those things that are pure and perfect and imperishable. And so, he says, “Look, you can’t take those carcasses, you can’t take those moldering bodies into eternity.” Flesh and blood cannot inherit the coming imperishable kingdom of God. It cannot be. So therefore, there has to be a change.
Wes
What mystery does Paul tell us in verse 51? And what is the transformation or change that he has in mind in the following verse?
Andy
Well, this is the great exception. I just said we have to bear the likeness of the man from the dust, which is to sink back into the dust through death. Paul says, yes, that’s usually true. It is true of every generation but the final generation, what I call the mysterious generation. The generation of people who will be alive at the second coming of Christ/at the end of the world. That generation will not die. “We will not all sleep,” all being the elect. Not all the elect, not all the church of Jesus Christ will die, “but we will all be changed.” We have to be transformed for the reason he just gave in verse 50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” So, if we are still alive at the second coming of Christ, we will be instantaneously transformed into resurrection body. We’ll talk about that in a moment. But the mystery is that we will not all die, but we will all be transformed in the way he’s about to describe.
So, Paul then describes in verse 52, when and how that will happen “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.” All right, so that’s the timing of it. At the second coming, as we already saw earlier in this very same chapter, verse 23 I think it is, when he comes at the second coming of Christ, we will be raised from the dead. And in the flash means there’s not a process. We’re not kind of gradually going to be growing into our resurrection bodies. We will instantly receive them. So, unlike our physical bodies, which were built or kind of knit together in our mother’s womb, the image used, “or did you not curdle me like cheese” (Job 10:10), Job says. In my mother’s womb there was a process and then you grow physically larger from infancy, et cetera. No, there’s none of that. It’s an instantaneous, instantaneous transformation in which we receive our eternal bodies in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye.
And then it says, at the last trumpet. The trumpet’s going to sound. And those are the trumpets given by the archangel. It’s basically saying, “Everyone on earth, entire population of the earth, it’s over!” That’s the trumpet. And so at the last trumpet, and that implies there’s other trumpets, read about it in the Book of Revelation. But at any rate, at the last trumpet, then the resurrection comes.
Wes
How does verse 53 make sense when it comes to spending eternity in the new heaven and new earth?
Andy
Yeah, I think 53 is just a restatement of verse 50. The perishable has to be changed. We can’t be perishable in an imperishable world. So, the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable that is the resurrection body and the mortal with immortality. So that has to happen, and God knows that.
Wes
How significant is the concept that death will be swallowed up in victory? And how does verse 54 connect to verse 57?
Andy
Yeah, death is swallowed up in victory. I look on that. I like sports and let’s put it this way, Jesus doesn’t eke out a one-point victory at the buzzer over death. Jesus destroys death. Jesus tramples death. Jesus wins in a rout over death. And you’re like, “Well, how is that be? Because it seemed like death won over him.” It’s like, “Yeah, but he rose from the dead.” And the issue is, how is it swallowed up in victory? The idea is, the victory of resurrection is going to be so much greater than the experience, the humbling, painful, difficult experience of death, that it will be as though it were swallowed over, swallowed up.
So, I guess the idea is of eternal glory compared to a short process of pain. And you think about it, Paul calls it our light and momentary sufferings. So even as difficult a death process as David Brainerd who died of tuberculosis, and it took him 30 days to die coughing up blood every day. Even so as difficult as that death was, and it was as difficult as any death I’ve ever heard in my life, it’s still nothing compared to an eternity in a resurrected, glorious body. The victory swallows up the experience of death. That’s what it means. Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Wes
And the connection then to verse 57 seems to be that our victory is in that victory Christ has won over death?
Andy
Beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. It’s not a victory we won on our own because it’s sown in weakness, we would’ve lost, we would lose against death. But Jesus has won a victory on behalf of all of us. And you think about it, how many people benefit, it is a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people and nation. And what the text doesn’t say in Revelation 7 is, from every generation of church history. From every generation of the history of redemption, Jesus won people by one single act, his own resurrection from the dead. He gives a resurrection victory to all his people.
“From every generation of the history of redemption, Jesus won people by one single act, his own resurrection from the dead. He gives a resurrection victory to all his people.”
Wes
In the midst of all this talk about victory, what do verses 55 and 56 teach us about the link between the law, sin and death?
Andy
Yeah, so the sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. He’s not minimizing that the death process is painful. It is painful to die. So again, going back to David Brainerd coughing up blood, and every day he thought that day was his last, and he still had another 23 days to go. That is painful. He’s not minimizing that. And there’s a sting in that. There’s a pain in that, and not just for the individual going through it, him or herself. But for onlooking loved ones who are grieving and walking through the valley of the shadow of death with that person, it’s very, very painful. And there is a sense that death wins and that we are so powerless and there’s a sting to it. But he turns the whole thing around and actually mocks, personifies and mocks death. All right? When we have been raised, we’ll be able to turn around and say, “Where’s your victory now? Look at this. Here I am, where are you?”
And actually, it does say that death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire. So, death itself will die. And so, we are going to see a tremendous victory. So, he says the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. So fundamentally the reason we die is sin. We transgressed and in Adam we sin, but then we actually ourselves sin by breaking God’s laws. We transgress. All sin is a transgression of the law and that’s the stinger in it. But Jesus has extracted the stinger like a scorpion or a spider that has had the stinger removed. And so therefore death doesn’t sting us anymore. We’re not afraid of it. Paul actually, if given the choice in Philippians 1 would’ve preferred to die. It’s as nothing for him. And so that’s what Christ’s resurrection victory has done.
Wes
In Paul’s final application of this teaching, what link do we see between a strong sense of our future glory and resurrection and the ability to be steadfast and immovable in overcoming Satanic opposition to the gospel ministry?
Andy
What a great question, Wes. There is a great question. Why is verse 58 here? This is the application. All preachers need an application to the sermon. It’s like we have all this doctrine. The doctrine’s been about the bodily resurrection of Christians based on Jesus’ resurrection victory. All right, well if that’s true and now we’re convinced that it is, we Christians will rise like Jesus in resurrection bodies. Okay, so what? What should we do? Well, if I could say it’s simply, work hard for Jesus, work hard in the great commission, work hard in winning lost people to faith in Christ. Well, what’s the link between the two? Glad you asked. Well, would it be well, the resurrection of the elect through the power of the gospel, through the power of faith in Christ is the finish line of all of our Christian labor. Well, is it going to win?
It’s guaranteed to win. It’s guaranteed to be victorious. It is impossible for us not to be victorious. We are going to succeed in our labors in the Lord. If we preach the true gospel to the unconverted elect, and if we are given the privilege of being there when they cross over from death to life, it doesn’t matter whether we are the ones there or not. We have a role to play. We’re a team, as the church we’re a team and we’re sharing the gospel worldwide. Jesus said very plainly again and again in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I’ll never drive them away.” But will what? “Raise them up on the last day.” He says it multiple times. So, in other words, you want to know how certain this thing is. All of the elect I’m going to welcome and I’m going to raise them up on the last day.
As he said in the previous chapter John 5, they will be in their graves, and they’ll hear the voice of the Son of God and come out. And they’ll come out and shine. And so how guaranteed is it? Nothing can stop it. What could stop Jesus himself from being raised from the grave? Nothing. And what can stop him from raising all of his children out of the grave? Nothing. So, we are going to win. “So therefore, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in your labors in the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Now, let me say something about in vain. This is an insight God gave me when recently I was memorizing the gloomy and depressing book of Ecclesiastes. It has its role to play. It is perfect scripture. But what is the role? Vanity of vanities, says a preacher.
Vanity, empty, meaningless, life is meaningless. It’s like, “Man, you’re having a bad day. I just want to put an arm around you bro. Can I just talk to you?” But it has a role to play. What is the role? What is Ecclesiastes’ point? This is what I think it is. There’s a repeated phrase in Ecclesiastes, under the sun, under the sun, under the sun. It’s life on earth. But if you keep going similar to the logic of 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, if there is no resurrection from the dead, then this. If there is no resurrection from the dead, then our preaching is worthless. If there is no resurrection from the dead, then not even Christ has been right. All right, take that approach and make a whole book out of it. If there is no resurrection from the dead, you got the book of Ecclesiastes.
And what does that tell you about life? It’s meaningless. It really is meaningless. If the atheistic, materialistic, evolutionist types like Stephen Hawking are right, life truly is meaningless. All of your labors are meaningless. They are all dust in the wind. Your reputation is meaningless. Everything you strive for, you hope for, all of it is meaningless if there is no resurrection from the dead. But Christ has been raised, there is a resurrection from the dead. And we are Christians, and our labors in the Lord are not in vain. They are not vanity of vanities, they’re not meaningless. Actually, they have eternal consequences. So therefore, if there’s no resurrection from the dead, nothing you do has any eternal consequence. Conversely, if Christ has been raised, everything you do in line with his word, in line with the gospel is eternally consequential.
Wes
Well this has been Episode 23 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 24 entitled The Collection for God’s People and Final Words where we’ll conclude our discussion of 1 Corinthians by looking at 1 Corinthians 16:1-24. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
