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Sermon preached on 1 Corinthians 15:12-49 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 04/09/2023 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
This is a wonderful passage for considering the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is wonderful because is speaks to the current and ever relevant concerns people have about if there is life after death. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead holds out hope that anyone can be raised from the dead, if they would look to Jesus as Lord and Savior. So, this continues to be a timely passage to consider amidst much fear of death in this world. This passage also considers the resurrection by contrasting Jesus with Adam, which seemed fitting given our current sermon series in the book of Genesis. We’ll consider today how Jesus is the last Adam, and how that related to his resurrection and the hope for our own.
Let us begin then by confronting the claim that there is no resurrection of the dead. This is in verses 12-19. This was a false teaching that was getting attention at the church at Corinth and so Paul begins addresses it here. It is not hard to find people would do not believe in any kind of resurrection from the dead or bodily afterlife. Many unbelievers down through the centuries have held such. Atheists naturally don’t believe in any resurrection from the dead. A number of other religions have had differing views about what happens after death, and many of them do not hold to a bodily resurrection. But there are also some who in the name of true religion have also rejected the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. For example, in the Bible we see the Sadducees who claimed to follow the one true God, but didn’t believe in any resurrection or afterlife. Another group that started to infiltrate Christianity was the Gnostics, and they thought the body was bad, so they taught a form of Christianity that liberated the soul from the body at death. Well, even today, we have people among Christendom that don’t believe in a bodily resurrection. Think of liberal Christian theology, also called modernist Christians. Some of them have even said that Christianity would not be threatened if archeology ended up finding Jesus’ dead body buried in some tomb. Of course, such heresy is called enlightened thinking by such false Christians, but as we see here it is not actually a novel idea. It was a false teaching during the time of 1 Corinthians, and it still is a false teaching today.
It is actually really sad to think of someone who doesn’t have any hope of a resurrection after this life. It is easy to pity such a person. But the reason why we believe in a resurrection of the dead is not because the alternative makes us sad. It’s because it is true. In fact, if it wasn’t true, and yet we have hoped in it, then that would be sad, verse 19. We should be pitied then. No, the Christian faith teaches the resurrection of the dead because it is true.
Paul’s case for this is simple. He confronts any who would try to say they embrace Christianity but reject the resurrection of the dead by pointing to case of Christ. We proclaim Christ as risen from the dead. If there is no possibility of someone being raised from the dead, then Christ himself couldn’t have been raised from the dead. But Paul says Christ was raised from the dead. The church doesn’t teach Christ’s resurrection as some figurative teaching. It’s not a myth to teach some moral lesson. No, the church has borne witness to historical, physical, bodily fact that Christ Jesus actually died on the cross, and then on the third day he actually rose from the dead and has been alive ever since. Verses 3-6 explicitly say this and lists the various eye-witnesses to it. The language of Paul in places like verse 15 is that he and others have given legal testimony about this fact of Jesus’ resurrection. It is that historical fact that we are here today again bearing witness to the world that Jesus rose from the dead. Petaluma, Jesus died but is now alive! At the heart of Christianity is a historical resurrection of Jesus. Paul says that the resurrection of Jesus is proof in the possibility of one being raised from the dead. This life is not all that there is. There is a hope of an eternal life after this life, if you have been saved through putting your faith in Jesus.
Verse 33 gives an application to us at this first point., It says, “Do not be deceived.” It goes on to mention how bad company can turn us astray. It warns that some have no knowledge of God. The application at this first point is that we shouldn’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you that there is no resurrection of the dead. We shouldn’t listen to anyone who tells you Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead. Many people will tell you today that you are a fool to believe this. But they are wrong. And there is nothing new under the sun. The resurrection of Jesus is an historically verified fact. And it is the hope for our own resurrection too when we die.
That leads us then to our second point to consider Christ as the firstfruits of the resurrection from the dead. This is in verses 20-28. Paul’s point here is that what is true of Jesus can be true for us. Though we will all physically die, we too can be ultimately raised unto an eternal blessed resurrection life. Such a glorious resurrection from the dead is not something just true for Jesus. It will also be true for all who are his disciples.
Paul explains this with the colorful imagery of Jesus being the firstfruits. In a harvest, the firstfruits are the first of the crop. It is what you first begin to harvest. If you’ve grown tomatoes, for example, you know you watch and wait for the first tomatoes to ripen. Once that happens, that marks the beginning of your tomato season with lots more tomatoes to come. So, the idea of the firstfruits carries with it the anticipation of the whole harvest that is coming. Under the old covenant, God called for the people to give as an offering the firstfruits of their harvest, and in so doing it looked in trust for God to provide the full harvest. So then, the firstfruits idea always has in view more of the same to come. Paul says that Jesus is the firstfruits from the dead, which means there are more resurrections of the dead to come.
But then Paul backs up and goes back to Adam, the first human. Verse 21, “For as 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.” If Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection, Adam was the firstfruits of death essentially. He’s the reason why we all need to be raised from the dead. In the beginning of this age, death was introduced in Adam, and humans have been dying ever since. That was when mankind fell into sin by Adam and Eve disobeying God by eating of the forbidden fruit. They plunged themselves all their posterity into a state of death. Every human is born into Adam, and so every human will die in Adam. But the good news, as it says here, if you are in Jesus, you shall live! That happens by resurrection, because you will die in Adam, but be made alive in Jesus Christ. But that is true only if you are in Jesus Christ.
Just to clarify, the Bible does teach that everyone, saved or not, will experience a resurrection at the end when Christ returns. But the difference is that some will be raised to be judged and condemned and cast into the eternal lake of fire. They will be part of these enemies that Christ finishes defeating as described in verse 25. But us who are saved in Christ, we will be raised from the dead unto an eternal blessed life in an eternal kingdom of God.
So then, that is the timeline that Paul explains here in verse 20. There is this order of events. Originally Adam plunged all humanity into death. But Christ now has come, and has already died but also rose again. But the rest of the harvest in terms of a bodily resurrection will not happen until Christ returns. Verse 24 says that Christ’s return is the end. In other words, it’s the end of this current age. Until then, the gospel of Jesus Christ is being proclaimed to the world. Christ is building his church. But he is coming again, and when he does, he will bring an end to this current age. At that point, he will complete his victory over all his enemies. That is why we are here today calling people today to find the Christian hope today by turning to Jesus in faith. Otherwise, when he comes, you will be his enemy, and that will not be good. So then, the last enemy will be death. In the end, we’ll find not only that we are raised from the dead, but that we won’t ever die again. That end will actually be a new glorious beginning of a wonderful and everlasting age to come.
Let’s now turn in our third point for today and consider Paul’s question in verse 35, “How are the dead raised” and “With what kind of body do they come?” I love this question, because isn’t it such a typical question we all have when we start to think about this biblical teaching of the resurrection of the dead? How does it happen? What will our glorified bodies be like? Paul addresses those questions.
First off, he speaks of the transformation from our old body to our new body with the analogy of a seed. In verse 36 he describes how seeds effectively die in the ground in order to come to life. Botanically we know there is a decaying that has to happen to the seed so that the dormant core can germinate and ultimately grow into a mature plant or tree. So, Paul gives an analogy to help us think about how new life can come forth out of something dead.
But Paul also uses the seed analogy to illustrate how our resurrected body can be so wonderfully different and better, yet still connected with and rooted in our original body. This is his point in verse 37. You don’t sow in the ground the whole body of the plant or tree. No, you sow just a kernel. The seed is really nothing like the plant that will come forth from it. But they are organically connected. That little tiny seed contains all the genetic potential for the mature plant. But a glorious transformation has to take place. And this is just a natural process that God made for this age. But it is a helpful analogy, because our final resurrected body will be quite different than our current bodies, but there is nonetheless a connection, with the dead body being raised up and transformed into something wonderfully different.
Paul then goes on to describe that there are different kinds of bodies. He speaks of the different kinds of bodies we find in this creation. And he uses that to then speak of how we’ll have a different kind of body in the resurrection. In verse 38 he speaks botanically, that the body of the plant that comes from different seeds can vary quite dramatically. A cherry tree has a very different structure than a grape vine, for example. In verse 39, he then makes the same point regarding the various creatures, speaking in terms of the difference of their flesh. Human bodies are very different than the bodies of other animals which are very different than the bodies of birds and fish. Verse 40 then does the same contrast between earthly and heavenly things, speaking in terms of the difference of their glory. The sun is much brighter than the moon and both than the stars. One star to another is not of the same brightness. I love all the creation imagery here, again complementing our Genesis series. But Paul basically points out the obvious, that even here in this current creation, we see different kinds of bodies, with different kinds of flesh or glory. Paul is making this point to lay out an analogy that likewise our resurrected body will be of a different sort than what we currently have.
Paul develops that application starting in verse 42. He identifies four differences between what our old dead bodies are like when they are “sown” in their burial, versus what they will be when they later are resurrected. You see, he is still running with that seed analogy. He describes our dead bodies as being sowed when they are buried, and the new life that comes up is the resurrected body. So, he identifies four differences between the body that gets buried and the body that then rises up from the grave.
So, first he says our old bodies that are buried are perishable. In other words, they are subject to decay. They will literally start to decompose in the grave. But what will rise up will be the opposite. The Christian’s resurrected body will be imperishable, never more able to subject to decay and death. Second, Paul says ours bodies that are buried are buried in dishonor. When a body is buried, gone is the brilliant light of life that you can see in their eyes and smile. There is mourning and wailing and lament as a time of sorrow. But when the Christian’s body is resurrected, we will have the Spirit of glory enlighten our eyes in new life. And then, in great glory, we will be revealed to all the world to be the sons of God. Third, we’ll be buried in weakness, describing the final incapacity which is death, that all strength is gone and your body is lifeless. But the Christian’s resurrected body will be raised up in power, renewed in vigor and potency, never to weary again, and never to fail in the strength to live for God. Fourth, what will be buried is a natural body, what is raised is a spiritual body. This might be a harder one to understand because we might wonder how is a body spiritual, aren’t bodies and spirits two different sorts of things? But when we contrast spiritual with natural, it begins to shed some light. Our bodies in this life come into existence via natural physical development. We are conceived by our parents in a natural process of reproduction. We are born naturally, and grow naturally, until in some natural way we physically die and are then buried even naturally, in that it is our bodies and not our souls that are committed to the grave. It is all very natural in the sense that it is a normal function of nature and physical processes. But the Christian’s resurrected body will be raised up supernaturally, by the Spirit who will give life to our mortal bodies. So that even the body itself, while still being a body, will be not a body according to the old nature, but according to the Spirit, so that we will have a body formed supernaturally.
So then, the Christian’s resurrected body will be significantly different than his old body. While being rooted somehow in his old body, as considered with this picture of a seed being buried and growing into something far greater, so too our new body. Our new body will be a different order of body, with a better sort of flesh, with a different, far greater, glory. This is what has already happened with Jesus. His natural body physically died the dishonorable death even of the cross, and he was buried in that tomb in weakness with a body that was subject to corruption. Yet, God did not allow Jesus to be abandoned to the corruption of the grave, but rose him up supernaturally in power and glory by the Spirit and endowed him even with all the power he would need to subdue all his enemies.
Paul further drives this all home by two more related comparisons between Adam and Jesus. Verse 45 compares Adam as a living being and Jesus as a life-giving spirit. Humans of course are both body and spirit. Verse 47 refers to how Adam came from the dust but Jesus as the last Adam came from heaven. Paul says the order here is important. God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground to make him a living being. Paul emphasizes here the naturalness of the first Adam with the dust emphasis. But then God sent Jesus as the second Adam out of heaven and Paul emphasizes the supernaturalness of Jesus in so coming. Jesus was literally fully spirit who then supernaturally assumed a human nature, body and soul. So that Paul emphasizes of Jesus how he as the last Adam became for us a life-giving spirit. As it says in John 1:4, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” This order then becomes the application. We each are born of Adam and of his image, and in him we’ll naturally live and die. He became a sinner and we are in his sinful image, and so in him, our future is death and eternal damnation. But then if we have now come to be in the last Adam, Jesus, through faith in his name, then he works this resurrection life within us. That life is spiritual and heavenly even while the life of the first Adam was earthly and physical.
In conclusion, I hope you have seen the importance of proclaiming Christ-risen again today. His resurrection becomes the hope for our own resurrection. And it is in him that he provides the way to have that hope. Our world is plagued rightly with a concern for death. The world rightly fears dying. We saw that especially when COVID-19 surfaced. We see that fear afresh with the resurgent concerns of nuclear war fueled by the aggression of Russia and the posture of China. We are reminded of such fear with all the recent school shootings and stabbings. A number of us have lost loved ones recently too. We can’t escape the reality of death. It is all around us, and yet God has put eternity in our hearts.
The world can be contradictory about this. During life they can fear death and act rightly that they have no hope beyond this life. Yet, so often those are the same people who console themselves when a loved one dies that the person is in a better place, even though that person did not know Christ. Well, the Bible does tell the world that it needs to fear death, for in Adam we are guilty and dead. But Bible also calls us to be in Christ, and if we are, we won’t need to ultimately fear death. As we remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ today, may we each remember the way of salvation that is in him, so that we can all have the sure hope of the resurrection from the dead by the power that is in his name.
Amen.
Copyright © 2022 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
