1 Corinthians 15 – Glorified resurrection body (season six, episode six)

Greetings, and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason,

and I am the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In the podcast, we are going through our resurrection series as we look at the

text of 1 Corinthians 15 to glean information about the reliability of the resurrection

of Jesus and what that means for us now and in the future.

In this episode, we look at how Paul describes our future resurrection in relation

to the differences seen in the life of Adam and what we inherited from the first

man in comparison to Jesus'

resurrected body, which is what we will be like in eternity.

Thanks for joining us today.

On the first Palm Sunday, the Israelites were celebrating, but they were celebrating

what they hoped for, not what was truly coming.

When Jesus told his disciples to go on ahead and to get the donkey to bring

and carry him into Jerusalem, this was a sign.

This was a prophecy from the prophet Zechariah chapter nine, verse nine.

It says, look, your King Jerusalem is coming to you, riding a donkey.

His humility is seen in that he's riding the colt, the baby of a donkey.

And so when Jesus was going through Jerusalem, they had this prophecy in their

mind. and they knew that he was a king.

The phrase that they were shouting, Hosanna, comes from Psalm 118, verse 25.

Psalms 118:25

And in the English translation of Psalm 118, 25, it says, save us, save us, we pray.

Now, while the literal translation of that word is save now,

the people were asking Jesus to rescue them, to save them as their king.

You see, they understood this and they knew this about Jesus,

but they didn't have the story 100% correct.

Because Jesus, in their opinion, the Messiah, was coming to save them from an

occupying force in their country.

Was there to save them from the oppression that they felt.

Save them from unfair taxes that they felt.

Save them from being ruled by someone who didn't even live within the confines of that country.

Their hope was that Israel would be restored as an independent nation.

And so what they wanted saved from was Rome.

So they had the story half right.

They knew Jesus as king. The Bible tells us that he is king of kings and Lord of lords.

They knew that because he was riding in on a donkey. and they knew that he was

a savior, but they had it a little bit wrong.

Jesus is not an earthly king. Jesus is a heavenly king and he is reigning right

now in eternity with God.

And he didn't come to save Israel from the Roman oppressors.

He came to save all people from their sin.

And so you can see here how they had it about half right.

They knew certain characteristics that were really, really true of Jesus,

but they also thought some things that were not accurate and were not true.

And Paul is dealing with the same idea about people who believe half-truths

as he's writing 1 Corinthians 15 and he's talking about the resurrection of the dead.

He's talking about our resurrection from the dead.

You see the people in Corinth, they did believe that Jesus raised from the grave.

They did believe the eyewitness testimony. they did understand and comprehend that.

But they didn't understand and comprehend the whole picture.

Because in their mind, from the way they were brought up in their cultural surroundings,

a physical resurrection from the dead was nonsense. It was laughable.

And so Paul spends this whole chapter correcting this misunderstanding.

They had it about half right. They knew that Jesus was resurrected,

and Paul is trying to convince them that it's much more than just Jesus'

resurrection that we as Christians have to look forward to.

In this chapter, Paul has really talked about how important it is to believe

that not only Jesus resurrects from the grave, but also you and I resurrect as well.

He has given evidence for that. He's used rhetorical devices.

He's used reasoning to try to get them to understand these concepts.

And in the last part of this chapter, he is disclosing what he knows about the

resurrection, what our resurrections are going to look like.

And last week, we talked about the physical aspects of it.

He talked about how God has created different bodies. there are fish,

there are lizards, there are humans, there are dogs, there are all of these

different bodies that God has created.

And so limiting God to what he can do for our resurrection is not appropriate.

Because then he goes and says, all right, look at the bodies in the sky.

We have the stars, we have the sun, we have the moon, and how all of these are

physical entities, but they are also different entities.

And again, the idea is he was trying to drive home here is that it will be a physical body.

And he's gonna add one more layer on today that's going to give us what we know

about the resurrection of ourselves when Jesus returns.

And we're gonna look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, starting in verse 43. But let me pray first.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

Lord God Almighty, I pray that your word will be a lamp into our feet and a light into our path.

Teach us today. Pour out your spirit upon us today.

Save us. Save us, we pray, from our brokenness and our rebellion and focus us

on you and on your will for us.

Jesus, I pray for this in your name. Amen.

All right, I'm going to start reading with the last verse I read last week to

help you to try to get the transition that's coming here.

So in verse 43, which I read last week, it says, our bodies are buried in brokenness,

but they will be raised in glory.

They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength.

They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies.

For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

Paul used the analogy of a seed last week and how a seed, when you plant it

in the ground, dies to itself and it grows up as a plant.

First the stalk, then the leaves, then if it produces a flower,

a flower, or if it's seed-bearing plant, it will produce the head and whatever it is creating in that.

And so his argument is that this physical entity changes and transforms when

it's put into the ground.

And now Paul uses us as that analogy.

Now, when our bodies, which are natural bodies, they will perish.

We will not live eternally like this.

We will return to the dust and ashes from which we came.

And when that happens, Paul says we will be raised as a spiritual body.

Now, this seems like an oxymoron, and Paul is using, again, another rhetorical

device to get the people hearing this for the first time to continue to pay attention.

He is using the term spiritual, which is non-material, and body,

which is material, and putting them together to get us to dive further in.

And so we continue in verse 45.

The scriptures tell us the first man Adam became a living person,

but the last Adam, that is Christ, is a life-giving spirit.

What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later.

So Paul says, all right, we have these two different categories.

We know in Genesis 2 verse 7 that God forms Adam from the dust of the ground,

Genesis 2:7

and then he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and he becomes a living being.

So Adam is made from earthly substance. He is made from things of this world.

And everyone who comes from Adam, all human beings are also having this natural body.

This is what we are right now.

Every single human being. And we know the limitations of this body.

We know that they do not last forever. We know we need to protect ourselves

from the sun because if we're out in the sun too long, it can be damaging and harmful to us.

We know that we get sinus infections. We know that we can have diseases come upon us.

We know that these are a natural body that do not last forever.

And so he's saying, this is what we inherit from Adam, from our ancestors.

But the last Adam, so this is someone who represents humanity.

Adam is the Hebrew word for human. So the last human, which is Jesus,

Paul tells us here, is a life-giving spirit.

You see, Jesus wasn't from the earth.

Yes, he walked around. Yes, he had a human body, but Jesus came from eternity.

He lives with God.

That's where he was in the beginning.

And because he was not from this world,

because he has his own glory, his own substance from heaven,

that's what happens to all of us who believe in Jesus.

We inherit his body.

The first human, Adam, we already have his characteristics.

The second Adam, Jesus, we will receive his characteristics when he comes back.

Now, this does not mean we have every characteristic that he has.

You and I will not be omniscient or all-knowing. We will not be all-powerful

in eternity. We will not be everywhere present all at the same time in eternity.

But the substance that Jesus is as a resurrected person is from eternity.

It is from heaven, and that is what we will be changed into.

We will be like him, like we are like Adam. We're not Adam, but we are like him.

We will not be God, but we will be more like him in eternity.

And he continues on saying, Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the

earth while Christ, the second man, came from heaven.

Earthly people are like the earthly man and heavenly people are like the heavenly man.

Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.

So Jesus comes, when he comes back again, he is going to transform our bodies

like a seed that turns into a plant. We will be different.

We will be transformed. We will be like him.

And all we have to do is look at the resurrection experiences the disciples

have to see what that will be like for us, all right?

Jesus is similar.

He was recognizable on most occasions to the people that he was appearing to,

but he was also different.

He was glorious.

And so we have to compare what we have now to what we will have then.

We are temporary right now, but we will be eternal.

Not because of our own work, not because of our own effort, but because that

is what God promises to us.

That will be his gift to us who believe in Jesus.

We will be eternal. We are subject to decay now. We will not be in eternity.

Our muscles won't get tired. They won't get wearied.

It doesn't talk about sleep at all, so I can't go down that rabbit hole.

But it's things that we experience now, fatigue and loss.

These things are not going to be present in our eternity.

It is going to be glorious. It is going to be perfect for us.

There will be no more diseases.

God wipes every tear from our eye. It will be this moment where we are just glorious.

But even though we are transformed as glorious, we still bow down and we worship the king on the throne.

Because he is set apart. He is unique.

He is different from us. And so we come to him now in our temporary bodies so

that when we have eternity with him,

we will live with him forever in perfection.

Without ailments, without pain, without brokenness surrounding us.

And this is what our eternity looks like.

And lastly, Paul says this in verse 50.

What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot

inherit the kingdom of God.

These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.

And so the idea here is what lasts forever is that our eternal bodies,

what God gifts to us, that's what lasts forever.

And it will be a state where our eternal bodies are perfectly designed to obey

the Spirit of God 100% of the time.

You and I, we do good if we obey the Spirit of God 50% of the time.

Like that's a really good mark. But in eternity,

our spiritual bodies are designed for the spirit to lead us, to guide us,

to move us where we need to move to and to do what God wants us to do.

This is what eternity looks like.

We shed off the natural body and we are raised a glorious, God-honoring,

God-loving body that sings to him forever and ever and ever.

This is what our eternity looks like for those who believe in Jesus and surrender

to him. And this, to me, begs a question.

Right now, the NCAA tournament is going on, and I'm thankful to report I don't

have to be embarrassed about losing to a 16 seed this year.

I'm very excited about that. Maybe an 8 or 9 seed, who knows, but not a 16 seed.

And we can look at these events, we can look at these athletes,

and we can say, my goodness, they have spent hours and hours training,

doing weights, taking shot after shot after shot, and they are talented in this regard.

And if they are putting that much time and effort into something that lasts for three weeks,

or baseball is starting up for 162 games,

basketball and hockey are ending, their seasons are nearing the end of the regular

season, and those 82-game seasons, they put in all of this work and all of this

effort for such a limited time.

How much time are we putting in to our eternal bodies that last forever?

How much time are we taking to really make sure we have this right relationship with God?

How much time are we taking in reading scripture, in praying to God,

and doing the things that God wants us to do.

You see, we think it's good and it's right.

And I'm not saying it's wrong to put all of that energy and effort into such

a finite body that one day your Achilles tendon can tear.

You can really mess up your knee that your shoulder may not work properly for

years and years and years because of the injury and repetition you're doing to it now.

But in the moment, you receive glory for that.

And again, it's not right or wrong unless you're worshiping.

And then I will say that is wrong to worship a human being.

But you're doing that and you're putting that work and effort into such a short amount of time.

But if we are putting our work and effort in reading scripture and singing songs

to God and gathering together for worship and learning throughout the week,

not just on Sunday mornings, That means we are putting our work and effort into

something that will last forever and ever and ever.

And so you have to weigh these two things on a scale. Which one is more important?

Which one should we be taking the time and effort into more than the other ones?

And again, please hear me say, our physical bodies do need to be taken care of.

And it's important to have our bodies be in a shape that God can use them for his glory and purposes.

But are we taking the time and effort to put them into the eternal bodies that

Jesus gifts to all who believe in him?

Are we taking the music that we listen to and letting us worship God through it?

Are we letting God dictate what we read and worshiping God through that?

Are we taking the podcasts that we are listening to,

the YouTube videos that we are watching, and are we worshiping God through those

preparing our hearts and therefore our eternal bodies for our resurrection?

That's where this passage leads me.

Are we doing the work and effort we need to do to be able to say,

I am ready for Jesus's second coming. and please hear me and know that you are

saved by grace through faith.

It is not a work of your own so that no one can boast.

It is a gift of God, but God has given us the responsibility and the ability

to tend to our hearts like a garden and make sure we're planting what needs to be planted,

to grow and mature to fruition so that our eternity is glorious. Let me pray.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you today and we ask that you help

us to really glorify you in all that we say, in all that we think, and in all that we do.

And please, Father, cultivate in our hearts and in our minds a drive and a passion

to work, to put work and effort into our eternity.

Because those bodies and being with you in your presence all the time is what

I want to want more than anything else.

So I pray, Father, that you gift that to all of us.

In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Thank you again for joining us in our discussion of Paul's description of the

future resurrection. We may not know everything about it, but we do know that

it will be better than what these bodies are like now.

Next week, we finish this series by learning how Jesus' resurrection points

to our resurrection bodies being unaffected by death and decay.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Have a great week.