Resurrection Firstfruits (1 Corinthians 15:12-28)

1 Corinthians 15 verses 12 through 28.

1 Corinthians 15:12–28

Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith.

Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God, that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless.

You are still in your sins.

Those then who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished.

If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.

But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.

For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own order.

Christ the first fruits, afterward, at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom of God, or the kingdom to God the Father, when he abolishes all rule and all authority and power.

For he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy to be abolished is death, for God has put everything under his feet.

Now, when it says everything is put under him, it is obvious that he who puts everything under him is the exception.

When everything is subject to Christ, then the Son Himself will also be subject to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.

You please pray with me.

Lord, we thank you for your word that you've given to us.

And that Bibles and the translations into English are so accessible to us, Lord, and I pray that we would never take that for granted.

I pray, God, that you would open our eyes to see the truths of your scripture here this morning, and that you would be the one doing the speaking here this morning.

God, I pray that you would fill me with your spirit to teach, and that you'd help me to rightly divide your word this morning, and each one that's here as well.

Lord, to rightly divide your scriptures.

Lord, I pray that you would teach us that you would be the one that is making change, real change in each one of our lives to become more and more like Jesus, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So last week we started this section, this whole section of chapter 15.

And last week we talked on the importance of the resurrection to the gospel.

We talked about Jesus' crucifixion being the payment for our sin and his resurrection being like a receipt.

You know, proof of payment.

Proof of Jesus being God.

Proof of Jesus having power over death and life.

Proof that we no longer have to die for our own sin.

And proof that we no longer need the sacrificial system that we see in the Old Testament.

And today, Paul's gonna address kind of the what if the resurrection never happened?

What state would we be in if what these people in Corinth are saying was true?

But before we jump into that, I want you to imagine something.

And this is gonna come into play towards the end of the sermon.

I want you to imagine the perfect day.

Maybe you've lived that perfect day where you said, I want to relive this day over and over and over again.

Or maybe you haven't experienced that day and you need to imagine what that day might look like.

You know, a day spent with your favorite people in your favorite place with the perfect weather, eating your favorite food, doing your favorite things, where there's no stress, there's no demands, there's no conflict interpersonally, and there's no conflict, you know, in the world around you.

You're just enjoying every moment of that day.

Got it?

Everybody there kind of imagining what that might look like, your favorite place, you know, that that perfect day.

Hold on to that.

We're gonna we're gonna get to that.

But first we're gonna jump in and we're gonna start going through verse by verse.

So look at verse 12 with me.

It says, Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

Again, it seems as if Paul's responding to a very specific issue that's going on within the Corinthian church.

You know, I keep going back to chapter 12, verse 3, you know, and wondering if some false teachers had come in and said, you know, Christ could not have been crucified, because that would mean that he was cursed.

You know, because anybody in that time they thought that was crucified must have been cursed.

And then we come into this new section where it seems like this Greek culture, as we talked about last week, is having some real issues with resurrection from the dead.

It says in Acts that it was a strange doctrine to them, this whole concept of resurrection.

You know, it sure seems like some false teachers were promoting that, yeah, Jesus was real, but there was no resurrection from the dead.

So in verse 12 here, Paul asks, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

And remember, Paul's addressing the church in Corinth.

Those that already believe in Jesus, but are now also saying that there's no resurrection from the dead.

You know, a big deviation from the gospel that Paul had originally taught them, and then that he reiterated at the beginning of chapter 15.

So Paul's telling them the gospel's not a buffet.

You know, you can't treat it like, you know, I'll take a little bit of a crucifixion, but that makes me a little uncomfortable, and I'll take a lot of forgiveness, you know, because I need a lot of that.

Little burial because I don't really like death, you know, but I'm gonna pass on the resurrection because I just don't have an appetite for that.

He's saying, you can't do that.

He's saying following Jesus isn't an a la carte menu.

He's saying you have to believe the whole gospel with the death for our sins through crucifixion, with the burial, with the resurrection, and then with the 500 witnesses as we looked at so closely last week.

Now, Paul's gonna address their error, because this is kind of the attitude and the thought that he's addressing.

But in verses 13 through 19, what he's gonna be doing is he's gonna be turning things around and saying, okay, let's just imagine if you're right.

Let's just imagine that Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, and let's look at what it would mean if you are correct.

And that's what we're gonna get in verses 13 through 19.

So look at 13 with me.

He says, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith.

So he's saying, if Christ wasn't raised from the dead, then the apostles and the church planners and the elders and the deacons, the whole church, you're all wasting your time.

We're all wasting our time, and we're living these lives for nothing.

And it means that they were all being persecuted and shipwrecked and jailed and going hungry for no reason if Christ was not raised from the dead.

And what Paul's saying is if we're doing all of this in vain, he's like, then our faith is in vain.

Your whole belief system is in vain.

And if you quit your job, say, as a temple prostitute, or if you quit your job as an idol salesman or a temple butcher, you've done all of that in vain.

You might as well, if Jesus didn't raise from the dead, you might as well just go back to your old jobs and keep doing those things.

And the point being here, you can't say you're a follower of Christ and also not believe in the resurrection from the dead.

Those two statements, those two concepts cannot exist together.

He goes on in verse 15.

Look at it with me.

Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God, that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised.

So not only would Paul be living his life in vain, it's much worse.

He would be a false witness against God if Christ had not been raised from the dead.

He would be testifying that God did something that he did not do, and telling people that their sins were forgiven when they really weren't.

Remember, Paul was one of the chief people saying Jesus did not raise from the dead and was not God.

You know, we saw all that persecution through the book of Acts that he did until he saw Jesus resurrected.

And not just Paul, but a lot of people would be in a lot of trouble if those claiming that there is no resurrection from the dead were right.

And Paul being the chief of those, that would be in a lot of trouble if Jesus had not raised from the dead.

He goes on in verse 16.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless.

He's not meant some words, is there, is he there?

He says, You are still in your sins.

You know, what's the point of our faith in Christ if our sins have not been forgiven?

And if these people are claiming to know Christ and also saying that there's no resurrection, he straight out says, He says, Your faith is worthless.

Those are some big words that Paul is giving to this Corinthian church.

Your faith is worthless if Christ has not raised from the dead.

Look at verse 18.

Those then who have fallen asleep, so those that have died in Christ have also perished.

If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.

If we've placed our faith in Christ, and there really is no resurrection from the dead, what he's saying here is hell is waiting.

You know, that word perish there in verse 18 from the Vine's Expository Dictionary says the idea is not extinction, but ruin, loss, not of being, but of well-being.

Doesn't mean we just go away.

It just means we've lost all of our well-being.

He's speaking of hell here.

If we're wrong in believing in Christ as God and Savior, God still exists and we're enemies of God, spreading false doctrine and deceiving others to come with us on our road to hell.

Like I said, Paul's not messing around here.

You know, in verse 19 here, it says, if we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitying more than anyone.

Part of what makes this life and the trials that we face more tolerable is knowing what our future is, right?

As a believer, as a Christian.

Knowing what is waiting for us in heaven.

You know, and the fact that we will be resurrected just like Christ when he comes again.

Those are things that we can hope for.

We have a future that's waiting for us, and it really does help with the hardships that we face in this life.

But if we suffer for the sake of Christ, here's what Paul's saying, in this life, and then we go to hell because we were wrong about Christ, he says we should be pitied more than anyone.

Because we're choosing the hard road now and the hard road through eternity.

But as we'll see in verse 20, we are right in our belief in Jesus and in his resurrection.

And here is where Paul's gonna flip from the hypotheticals and he's gonna go into what the reality of Christ is.

Look at verse 20.

But as it is, so he's saying, here's the truth: Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

You know, one of the things we see with Christ being raised from the dead is a symbol of what is to come for us.

You know, we talked a lot about this on Easter when we were going through the same passage about literal firstfruits.

You know, the first of your crop being a taste of what is to come when you harvest the rest of your crop.

Now, I brought something here.

This is a reinier cherry.

Anybody ever had a reinier cherry?

To me, this is the best cherry.

So a few years ago, I planted a reinier cherry tree.

And what you're looking at is the literal first fruits from that cherry tree.

Not just of the season, this is the first piece of fruit that tree has produced in the last couple years.

And this is really a taste of what's to come, not only this season, but what's to come for the life of that tree, you know?

And I've never tried it before.

This is literally the first one coming off, but this is the first fruit off of that tree.

And so we're gonna cut this up into about 60 pieces this morning, and we're gonna just give it.

Might get a little taste, I don't know.

But that is a symbol of what is to come.

It's what I get to look forward to, not only this year, but in the years to come.

And if you're a Jewish person and you're reading this, you know, whether you are a part of the church in Corinth or you're reading this letter from Paul later on, this term first fruits would have significant meaning to them.

Because God instituted the offering of firstfruits and the feast of firstfruits in Leviticus 23.

You can go and read that later if you'd like to, if you want all the details.

But he did this when he was giving the law to the Israelites in the wilderness.

And this offering that was to be sacrificed to the Lord was the first bundle of grain from their fields.

That's what the offering of firstfruits was supposed to be.

They weren't allowed to harvest or process any of the rest of the grain in their field until they gave that offering.

And this was a way for the Israelites to recognize in a very real way that their increase of their whole crop was from God in the first place.

So they would give their first fruits to God.

And something very interesting about this offering is that it was to be brought on the first day of the week following Passover.

Think about that.

Which just happens to be the same day that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

Jesus resurrected the day that everyone was bringing their offerings of firstfruits as an offering to the Lord.

So, keeping all of that in mind, look at verse 20 again.

But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

He was the first to be raised from the dead into a resurrected body.

Now, others have been raised from the dead and had been prior to Jesus, but not into an eternal body.

They were raised from the dead in their normal body.

I mean, think about poor Lazarus.

That guy had to die twice.

You know, that's just really unfortunate for him.

But Jesus was the first to be resurrected into his eternal body as a symbol of the abundant harvest that is to come.

That is, believers being resurrected into their eternal bodies as well.

Romans 6, 5 tells us, for if we have been united with him, referring to Jesus, in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

See, he is the first fruits of what is to come.

Look at verse 21 with me.

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man.

You see, the sin of Adam and Eve brought death, not only of themselves, but also on everyone that was going to come after them.

And it was not only an eventual physical death that they brought upon themselves, but it was a spiritual death as well.

And since this death was brought on by man, it had to be put to a permanent end through man.

Like we talked about last week, the animal sacrifices only provided a temporary covering of sin.

And I want us to realize that none of us could have done what Jesus did.

You know, it had to be someone that was fully man and also fully God to take our place.

Because not only did they have to have the capacity to remain sinless, but they had to have the desire and the nature to remain sinless in order to be that perfect sacrifice in our place.

And no other human could have done that for us, and we couldn't have done it for ourselves.

So Jesus stepped down from his position in heaven.

He was born of a woman, so that he could be fully God and fully man.

Because he was the only one that could do that for us.

And because he loves us so much, he actually did it.

Think about that.

He loves us so much that he actually did that for us.

Look at verse 22 with me.

For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own order.

Christ, the first fruits, afterward, at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

Basically just saying, Christ's resurrection into his eternal body already happened, but we will have to wait for ours until after his second coming.

Verse 24.

Then comes the end.

When he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he abolishes all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet.

The last enemy to be abolished is death.

So for clarity's sake, let's talk about the timeline that we see at the end of Revelation.

And basically, we're just going to sum up Revelation chapter 20 and 21.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

So basically, what we see is Jesus returns.

It's his second coming.

And then there is a millennial reign, the thousand-year reign of Christ over earth.

In this time, Satan will be bound and won't be able to deceive the nations anymore for that thousand-year period.

And Jesus is going to execute perfect justice during this time.

And at the end of those thousand years, Satan will be released for a short time to attempt to deceive the nations one last time.

And then it says that Satan and all of his followers are consumed by fire from heaven, and Satan and his followers are all thrown into the lake of fire for eternity.

And this is when the kingdom of God is finally established in its entirety, forever, everywhere.

Jesus has already defeated eternal death right now for us.

For all that follow him.

But at this time, after that thousand-year reign, the millennial reign, all death will finally be abolished.

Everything that was brought on by the curse of sin will finally be gone.

Because when you think about it, we weren't created for death.

We weren't created to understand it, to know how to deal with it.

Because we weren't created for death.

For example, has somebody ever died and you just didn't know what to say to their loved ones?

You just didn't feel like you had the right words.

Or maybe you are that loved one, that lost someone, and you just don't know how to deal with that death.

You see, we weren't designed for death.

And it's why we don't know what to do with it, or how to cope with it, or what to say to people that are mourning because of death.

That's why it hurts so bad.

But death is only while on this earth.

We won't have to deal with it or see it anymore when all authority is given to God by Jesus.

Paul goes on.

Verse 27.

For God has put everything under His feet.

Now, when it says everything is put under him, it is obvious that he who puts everything under him is the exception.

God puts everything under Jesus' feet except for himself, is basically what that's saying.

Verse 28.

This is just another way of saying, since Jesus is under God's authority, that once Jesus is in authority over everything, except for God, then God is essentially in authority over everything.

And when God's in authority over everything, well, I want to read to you what we get to look forward.

So everybody turn the last book in your Bible, Revelation 21, verse 1.

Revelation 21:1

Keep a finger in 1 Corinthians, because we're going to hop back there.

But I want you to see it for yourself.

This is like the very end of your Bible, like right before the maps, if you have maps in your Bible.

Revelation 21, verse 1.

Revelation 21:1

And what we're going to see is what it looks like, as we just read, when God will be all in all, as it says in verse 28 of 1 Corinthians.

But for now, Revelation 21, we're just going to read verses 1 through 4.

This is what we get to look forward to.

This is what it looks like when all authority is under Jesus' feet.

It says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.

And here it is death will be no more.

Grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

And I can't wait.

I don't know about you, but that just sounds amazing.

All death is finally defeated.

Satan and his followers are eternally in the lake of fire.

And we will dwell with God like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, face to face in paradise.

You know, I've talked to so many Christians, and honestly, I used to be one of them as well, that was kind of hesitant for eternity because I didn't really know what to expect.

You know, because you get that whole, you know, eternity in a worship service.

It's been an hour and I'm ready to go.

But I did a deep dive into heaven years and years ago, specifically about what the Bible had to say about eternity.

And specifically all the verses that have to do with heaven and what it looks like for us to be in that eternity, worshiping God in eternity, you know, living finally on this new earth and this new heaven and this new Jerusalem in our resurrected bodies.

I'm really looking forward to our resurrected bodies.

Not because, you know, people think, oh, I'm gonna be all ripped and I'm gonna look like I was 20 again, you know, all that kind of stuff.

But the thing I think I'm most excited about is when Jesus showed himself to the disciples, it says that the doors were locked and he appeared to them.

Which means he was either able to walk through walls or to teleport, you know, in some capacity.

And when my son always asked me, Dad, if you could have any superpower, what would it be?

I always tell him teleportation.

Like that would just, because for me it's all about food.

Because I could have lunch, I could have pasta in Italy, you know, for lunch today, and then I could have like a ribeye in New Zealand for dinner tonight, you know.

That's when I think about teleportation, you know, that always goes back to food.

Sorry.

But I you know, you think about those things of what heaven's gonna be like, you know, being on an earth that is probably a lot like the Garden of Eden.

I mean, think about it.

Every bit of beauty that we see on this earth and appreciate, it's just a shadow of what's waiting for us on the new earth.

And what God created us to be here, it doesn't just stop when we get to heaven.

It's not like we lose everything that we are, now we're just, you know, some spirit that floats around.

We'll just get to do the things that we love all day, and it's gonna be called work in paradise.

You know that perfect day that I asked you to dream up earlier?

The no stress, the no pain, no tears with the people that you like the most, eating the food that you like the best, doing the things that you love.

That's the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem that we're gonna get to enjoy, but it's gonna be even better because we get to do it in the presence of God.

We get to dwell with God, we get to see him face to face and enjoy paradise, that perfect day forever.

Dwelling with God and each other in perfect harmony for eternity.

You know, we won't ever have those days where we wake up all groggy and like, oh, I don't want to get out of bed.

I don't want to do the things that I have to do today.

I think we're gonna wake up like, yes, today is the day that I've been waiting for and I've been looking forward to, and I just can't wait to get this thing started.

And that's gonna be every day for us.

And yes, there's gonna be times of worshiping God all together, singing like we've never sung before, and it's gonna be amazing.

And I don't think we're gonna want it to stop.

But there's also gonna be a whole new earth and a new heaven and a new Jerusalem for us to explore as we worship God through everything that we do.

But the most important thing is that, as it says at the end of verse 28, you can flip back to 1 Corinthians 15, 28.

And at the end of our passage for this morning, verse 28, it says, so that God may be all in all.

Think about that for a second, because I think we say all in all, you know, and we just kind of blow over that.

But think of that, so that God may be all in all.

And this is a trick question, so don't raise your hand.

But is God your all?

Meaning, is he everything to you?

Is he all that you need?

And don't say yes, because that would mean that you are sinless.

For God to be our all, that means that we wouldn't desire anything that is not him or of him.

When we sin, it's because our flesh is saying God's not enough.

Right?

For example, if we get drunk, we're saying he's not a good enough comfort for us.

So we reach for the bottle.

If we have sex outside of marriage, we're saying he's not enough to meet my needs.

If we get sinfully angry, we're saying he's not enough to satisfy what we think we deserve.

You know, if we get stressed about the unknown, we're saying he's not big enough to take care of our future.

You see, it's when God is all that sin is no more.

And it won't be until this earth has passed and all authority is handed to God by Jesus.

You know, and we're living on the new earth in the new heaven and new Jerusalem.

It's not until then that God will finally be all in all.

And I can't think of anything better.

This life we're living on this earth, as James 4 tells us, is like a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

You know, we can get so caught up in how hard life can be, and how hard the trials that we're facing are.

You know, but one of my favorite quotes of all times is from Charles Spurgeon, where he says, Jesus uses our trials to wean us from earth and woo us to heaven.

Jesus uses our trials to wean us from earth and woo us to heaven.

And I love that because this earth is not our home.

We're here temporarily, we're here for a vapor in comparison to eternity.

And when we think that way, it really changes the way that we look at hardship.

And it changes what we desire most on this earth.

And the closer we get to God being our all in this life, the less desirable the things of this earth become.

And the less desirable sin starts to become.

And that's what's called an eternal perspective.

Where we're not living for this earth, but we're living for eternity.

As we look forward to that day where God is finally our all.

Will you please pray with me?

Oh Lord, how we desire for you to be our all.

Lord, we know that we will fall short on the side of eternity.

But I pray that we would daily become more and more like Jesus, because that's when you become more and more of our all.

Lord, teach us to abide in Christ more closely, to depend on Him for everything, to walk by the power of the Holy Spirit, to listen to every whisper of direction and counsel that He gives us.

Lord, we desire to be more and more like you daily.

So help us to surrender.

Help us to surrender things that we might not even know.

Lord, I pray that you would bring those things up that we haven't surrendered, that you desire for us to.

Lord, whether those are big things or small things, help us to daily become more and more like Jesus.

We thank you for the love that you have shown us.

We thank you for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the sin offering that was made for us, so that we can spend eternity with you.

Lord, your plan for salvation is beyond anything we can comprehend, Lord.

But the gospel message is so simple that Jesus died for our sins, that he was buried, and on the third day he resurrected from the dead and showed himself to over 500 people.

Lord, I pray that we would just continue to spread that message, but first that we would believe it with all of our heart.

We wouldn't look at it as an a la carte menu, Lord, but we would accept all that you have done for us and have grateful hearts.

Lord, as we're about to worship, I pray that our grateful hearts would be evident to you.

You love us so much, Lord, and we we want to love you in return.

We want to show you how much we desire you and adore you, and we want to lift up your name above everything else in our life.

Lord, we pray that you would be our all.

In Jesus' name, amen.