You might turn in your Bibles
to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This is the third part in this
subject matter. We're studying this particular
chapter now for the third week. And my first message on this
chapter was the redemption of our bodies. And last week we
had the same subject, only I called it the wonders of the gospel,
which is clearly the redemption of our bodies is the result of
the gospel. But I want to continue on here
in this because it is such a glorious, a glorious revelation of what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us, his people. As I was
listening to Brad reading from Philippians chapter three, and
as I've been studying this particular chapter a lot and looking at
other scriptures that are similar to this and say the same things,
I'm impressed by the fact that God's people are to be constantly
holding the attitude that they want Christ to return, they expect
him to return, and that they look for and wait for him to
return. And that's very important truth
in scripture. We often feel the weight of our
own corruptions and the guilt that plagues us in our minds,
and we rightly look to the cross. But in this chapter, the foundation
of the cross is laid and the result of that foundation is
used to prove the certainty of the absolute completion in our
own experience of what Christ obtained for us when he redeemed
us by his precious blood. And that is the redemption of
our bodies. So that by the gospel, we learn
that the Lord Jesus Christ has done everything God gave him
to do, and that the end result of what God gave him to do, the
final accomplishment of what he gave him to do, was to raise
his people up in their bodies. And when we realize this, it
explains other texts of scripture For example, in John chapter
six, when you read this, it takes on a clearer light. He says in
John six, verse 37, the Lord Jesus Christ talking about himself
as the bread sent by his father from heaven. He says, all that
the father giveth me shall come to me. And we learn in just a
few verses after this, the reason they come is because they're
drawn by the Father to Christ. So they shall come. And then
he says, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast
out. Now we come, of course, as sinners,
like the leper or as every other. every other person plagued by
whatever afflictions shows by an emblem or a type, the real
problem we come for is for the salvation from our sins. And
so he says, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Clearly,
there's a people given by the Father to Christ, and there's
no uncertainty. They shall come to Christ because
the Father teaches them and draws them to him. And it says, him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. They come to me
for salvation, and he won't cast them out. Then he goes on, verse
38, for I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the
will of him that sent me. So you see that the reason Christ
came was to do the will of his father. If he didn't do that
will, then he wasn't obedient. And if he didn't accomplish that
will, then he wasn't successful. So in the next verse, he says,
and this is the father's will, which has sent me, that of all
which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise
it up again at the last day." Here we see the certainty of
his grace and power. Everyone given to Christ shall
be raised up at the last day. He will not lose any. And this
is, This is a great comfort because
we know that if it were left up to us in any way, we would
not. I'm sorry, I'm going to turn
this speaker off, this other mic off. If it were left up to us at all,
we would not come. And if it were left up to us
at all, we would not stay with Christ. And certainly if it were
left up to us, after having died in our body, we couldn't raise
ourselves up. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
doing the will of the Father, and that will is the entire salvation
of all of his people. Not one of them is lost. And
so he goes on in verse 40 of John 6, and this is the will
of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth
on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. When we believe on Christ, it's
the result of that grace of the Father drawing us to Christ,
giving us faith to see with faith, see Him by faith, and so seeing
and believing Him, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself assures us that
we presently have everlasting life. Because in order to believe
Christ, we have to be given this life. And now we have it, but
we can't see it. We can't see the body. that will
result from this everlasting life because we still have this
other body, which is a body of sin. This body is dead because
of sin. But the body that we shall have
will be a body that is without decay, without corruption, and
cannot die, and has everlasting life. And in that body, we will
see Christ. Now we see him by faith alone. Then we'll see him with spiritual
eyes. That new body will be fitted
with eyes capable of seeing spiritual things. And what that means,
I don't know. But all I know is that we can
see God, we can see Christ with those spiritual eyes. And we
won't need faith then. Now we live by faith, and the
eyes we have are the eyes of the soul, faith in Christ. faith
in the gospel, taking God's word concerning his son as the way
things are, and this is all of our salvation, and depending,
embracing that with God-given persuasion that Christ is my
all before God, and coming to God that way. Not looking for
any recognition for what I am or what I've done, but looking
and expecting God to receive me only for what he finds in
his son. As Brad read, that I might not
have the righteousness which is my own of the law, my own
law keeping, but the righteousness which is of Christ. That righteousness
which is the righteousness of God and is by the faith of Christ. His faithfulness. his obedience
because of that faith that he had, which he had perfectly,
and he fulfilled that will of God perfectly. All right, so
that's the end result. Now we're given faith. Now we're
raised in our soul. But then we'll be raised in our
body. Now we live by faith. And our soul sees and receives
the things of God by the Spirit of God given to us, revealing
the things of Christ to us. And that is through the gate
of faith, the eyes of faith given to us. But then we shall receive
this body. And that's what the Lord Jesus
is talking about here. There's a will of God given him
to do. And when he finishes that will
in the end, the consummation of it is that he will raise up
his people on the last day. And I see this throughout the
way that the Lord talks. He says in John chapter 11 and
verse 25, for example, John 11. Verse 25, Jesus said to Martha,
I am the resurrection and the life. So here the Lord himself
says, the Lord Jesus Christ is the resurrection. He's the one
who gives life from the dead. And of course, he's the one who
raised up himself. God raised him up from the dead. And he's the life. He's the life. that we have. He's the only life
that we have. He's the life in our soul. He's
the life in our body. He goes on, he says, he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. That's
talking about our resurrection of our body. Though we are dead
in our body and though we die in our body, physically die and
our body experiences corruption, we shall live. And verse 26,
and whosoever liveth spiritually now and believeth in me shall
never die because spiritually he cannot die. Believest thou
this? Believest thou the Lord Jesus
Christ, the one who is the resurrection and the life. So these things
are throughout scripture, and Christ talks about this, believing
unto everlasting life, present possession, and then when faith
receives the substance of all that it hoped for, Because that's
what faith does, it causes us to expect, because all depends
on Christ. And his merit, not mine, and
his faithfulness, not mine, his ability, not mine, and his understanding,
not mine. All that we need depends on him,
therefore it's certain. And that's why that song we sang,
from whence this fear and unbelief has not the father put to grief
his spotless son for thee. And if he's done that, then everything
is right. Everything is certain. Everything
is done. And so in 1 Corinthians 15, what
we see here is by the spirit of God, the apostle addresses
the church in Corinth who were believers and brethren. He addresses
them first by declaring and reminding them again. He repeats the gospel. He doesn't just say, the gospel
is something I preached to you once. We're going to continue
to preach the gospel to you because everything that is given to us
depends on what Christ has done and only what he has done. And
so this is the foundation of everything. It has to start here.
The issue in Corinth is that there were there some who denied
the resurrection, that there was a resurrection. They must
have taught that people live and die and that's it. But Paul
says, okay, I need to correct this error. There's some among
you who believe that there is no resurrection. Let me start
with the foundation. And he starts with Christ. He
starts with the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified, not only crucified,
but risen again. And he could have just left it
there. He could have just left it there.
Because the fact that Christ rose from the dead, was declared
in scripture, and scripture cannot fail. And then he adds, there
were many eyewitnesses. So scripture by itself is enough. Paul's preaching from scripture
would have been enough, but then there were the eyewitnesses too. And then there was, as we looked
at this the last couple of weeks, there were the grace given to
Paul that converted him from hating and persecuting Christ
and his people and wanting to put them to death, breathing
out fire against the church of God, to the complete reversal
where he now, labored and laid his life down in love for Christ
and his people to convince them of the truth of the resurrection
because of what Christ had done. The resurrection is the result
of the success of Christ's work. If there is a resurrection, if
Christ rose, then his work was successful and everything else
must follow. So the resurrection is the proof
of the success of Christ's work. He offered himself to God once. There's no need to repeat that
offering because it was a perfect and a complete satisfaction to
God. It was a perfect and complete
removal of our sins, a perfect and complete cleansing of His
people. By that one offering, we are
sanctified. By that one offering, we're perfected
forever. And this is what Hebrews chapter
10 says. And though the tense of those
verbs there is in the perfect tense, an action completed in
the past, perfectly completed, no need to be repeated. In fact,
it cannot be repeated because the Lord Jesus Christ died once
to sin and therefore he rose forever without sin unto salvation. So this is the foundation. This
is the foundation of our salvation. This is the foundation not only
of our salvation, but of our complete salvation from all sin. When we were singing that song,
Deeper Than the Stain Has Gone, in the chorus it says, God still
reigns on his throne. And I hope you feel the power
of those words, God still reigns on his throne. And what does
that mean? It means that the stain of our
sin did not in any way detract from or nullify or taint the
glory of God. Because the Lord has had such
complete victory over all enemies for his people by his Son that
even their sin is used. according to God's purpose, to
show his power over their enemy and his grace to them. So like,
for example, if you think about the flood of Noah's day, God
saw Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. God called Noah, he instructed him, build this
ark, get into the ark, bring your family into the ark, and
they were all in the ark. And then God poured out the judgment
upon the earth and destroyed every living thing. except Noah
and his family, because they were in the ark. And after the
flood, God dried up the waters of the flood, and finally Noah
and his family come out, and God put a rainbow in the sky,
a sign of the covenant. The judgment has fallen. The
judgment is passed. The ark absorbed. It underwent
that judgment. But the people inside didn't
feel the judgment because they were in the ark. And so God's
wrath has been poured out on the Lord Jesus Christ. And his
people have passed through the judgment. And now the judgment
is passed. And the smile of God's grace
is upon Noah and his family. And God makes a covenant with
them. Look at the judgment passed. And so it is with the Lord Jesus
Christ and his people. And that's what the gospel is.
It's teaching us these things. And that's why the apostle brings
the gospel first and continuously brings the gospel in all of his
instruction. He always goes back to the Lord
Jesus Christ, to him crucified, risen and reigning for his people,
having accomplished all God gave him to do, and the certainty,
therefore, of their resurrection. The certainty of their souls,
the resurrection of their soul, but also the certainty of the
resurrection of their bodies. And that's what he's trying to
prove here. He does prove it. And he does it by laying it all
on the foundation of Christ. And he goes on in here, he mentions
the eyewitnesses, he mentions his own conversion, the grace
given to him now to preach this gospel and to labor and to endure
and to even die for the sake of the gospel and for those he
was sent to preach this gospel to. after having brought this weighty
argument of scripture and the gospel in Christ's work and God's
receiving him again from the dead and justifying him with
his people and the eyewitness accounts and the faithfulness
of every apostle who saw him, they all saw him, and their faithfulness
and laying down their own lives for Christ's sake and for the
sake of his gospel for his people and laying all the weight of
that on on the Corinthians. He then takes another approach
to proving the resurrection. And this is something that's
often done, even among men, as he considers the absurdity that
exists if there is no resurrection. The absurdity that would occur
if there was no resurrection. If there's no resurrection, what
would the consequences be? In order to prove the resurrection,
he disproves the negative. If you say there is no resurrection,
well, let me consider that for a minute and let's try to see
what would result if there was no resurrection. And then he
ends up with saying it's absolutely impossible that there is no resurrection
because it's so absurd in the most God demeaning sense. So, one of the things here is
that if there is no resurrection, he starts out in verse 12, if
Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among
you that there is no resurrection of the dead? So he's preached
that he rose, and you say yet there is no resurrection of the
dead. But if there be no resurrection of the dead, verse 13, then is
Christ not risen? All right, consider that. You're
claiming there's no resurrection, and yet you've heard the gospel
preached. You've heard it from the apostles. All 12 of them
saw him. I saw him, Paul says, after he
not only rose, but had ascended, he appeared to me. And then all
the other hundreds of eyewitnesses and the scripture spoke of these
things. And so you're saying then if
there's no resurrection, Christ isn't risen. He goes on. Then also is our preaching vain
and your faith is also vain. Vain means it's meaningless. It has no value. It's empty. It's void. It's nothing. Now
that, that in itself would be absurd. But he goes on in verse
15. Yea, and we are found false witnesses
of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ,
whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. You're
saying, by saying there's no resurrection, that God sent us
and that we're preaching what he sent us to do, or that he
didn't send us and we're lying. Either way, we're false preachers,
false teachers, and we're saint because we say God raised up
Christ and he didn't raise him up since the dead don't rise.
He goes on to continue the absurdity, verse 16, for if Christ, I'm
sorry, if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised. He reemphasizes this. You see
how absurd it is. In verse 17, and if Christ be
not raised, your faith is vain. What you believed is false. And
the reason for believing it, has no value. There's no value
in believing what's false. And the claim that you believe
is actually a claim of resurrection from spiritual death and sins
to spiritual life. And now you're denying that truth.
So your faith is vain. And you are yet in your sins. Because the resurrection is victory
from death, therefore the wages of sin, which is death, have
been paid. And there is no more sin for
God's people, for those for whom Christ died, because He rose
again. Their sins have been answered.
Judgment has fallen. The debt has been paid. God's
wrath has been appeased. His justice satisfied, because
Christ is raised, and He bore our sins. And this is the most
powerful part of all. If Christ is not raised, your
faith is vain, and you are in your sins. It's not a matter of just having
your bodies not raised. You're in your sins. Then they
also, which are fallen asleep in Christ, are perished. the grief that that would cause
those whose loved ones perished, but think of the hopelessness,
the eternal hopelessness of dying and never, never being with or
seeing Christ forever. You're perished if there's no
resurrection. If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. All right,
now that's the absurdity of it. If there's no resurrection, Christ
is not raised. If there's no resurrection, all
of the apostles and all gospel preachers are liars. If there's
no resurrection, the God we believe and Christ whom we believe and
the gospel of Christ that we preach and believe are not true
but false. And the gospel declares who Christ
is, who God is, and declares to us what Christ has done by
the will of God and how that he, because he finished that
will, he rose from the dead. The gospel declares all believers
to have risen from the condemnation and the judgment their sins deserve
to eternal life because the Lord Jesus Christ rose. But if Christ
did not rise from the dead, He died. He didn't remove our sins. Sin's sting is still there to
be felt and answered for. God's law and justice haven't
been answered. He didn't fulfill righteousness.
God's law is still unsatisfied in His justice and His righteousness. And His death did not release
anyone from the curse of the law, did not release them from
the bondage to do the law. And therefore, it was a complete
failure if there's no resurrection. If there's no resurrection, Christ
did not rise, and no believer will rise. All are yet in their
sins. How could this be? It's absurd,
isn't it? If there's no resurrection, then
Jesus is not the Son of God, because he said he would rise
again, and yet he did not rise. And God delivered up his son
to death to endure the wrath for our sins and yet did not
raise his son either because he's unjust or because he was
unable. These absurdities are so bad
that it brings such an impossible situation that it proves the
truth of the resurrection. All right. I hope that you can
see the wisdom given here to the apostle, that both positively
and negatively, considering the positive testimony of Scripture,
the facts of Christ's actual dying and rising again, the eyewitness
accounts, the labors and even the death of the witnesses who
saw him, after the resurrection to preach his gospel out of love
to God and to Christ and to his people, that all of this positively
proves the resurrection, but negatively the absurdities of
it are so enormous that there's no possibility that God could
not be God, that he would be such a liar, and that Christ
could not do what he said he did. So this is meant to both
silence the deniers and to bolster the confidence of Christ's people. Because it all comes down to
this. Did the Lord Jesus Christ actually accomplish what he said
he did? Well, obviously, since he rose
from the dead, he was true. Because he would not have risen
again from the dead if he was a liar. God would not have allowed
that. And so he goes on in verse 20. He's established the truth of
the resurrection. And he says it plainly. But now
is Christ risen from the dead. And here he introduces a new
and great a new and great truth, which
he had already taught, but now he brings this new thing, not
new entirely, but new as if in this argument here of the resurrection.
He shows us how our relationship to Christ ensures our resurrection. He says in verse 20, Verse 20, the latter part, Christ
is risen and become the first fruits of them that slept. Now our first fruit, farmers
are familiar with this, even in the Old Testament it talked
about it, when they would go out and just at the very earliest
part, when the first grain or whatever it was, that first thing
that came ripe, They would harvest that first fruit and they would
present it to God and wave it and it would be God's promise
of the entire crop to be brought in. So that this was an indication
of all that would follow, a small part of the entire harvest. Now the first fruit was a first
fruit to God. The harvest here, although in
the Old Testament and in our thinking, is grain or what we've
planted in the ground. Maybe it's some vegetables in
your garden or the fruit on your tree. But the husbandman here
is God himself. And the crop, the seed that's
planted, are the people of God. And the harvest is the end of
the world. This is talked about, Jesus mentions
this in Matthew 13. The harvest is the end of the
world. And at the harvest, Christ will
send forth his angels, and he will gather his wheat, he says,
into his barn, and he'll take the tares, the false wheat, the
chaff, and he will burn them in fire. And this is all said
in Matthew 13 to be at the end of the world, just like here
at the end. And so the harvest are the people
of God. who are the fruit that result
from Christ as a seed falling into the ground and dying, as
he did in his death on the cross, and bearing forth fruit to God. The people of God are all the
result of his death. Just like a seed, when it's planted,
Jesus said in John chapter 12, if a seed falls into the ground
and dies, it brings forth fruit. And that's what his death was.
It was bringing forth much fruit. In other words, Christ's death
not only procured the harvest, but his resurrection was the
first fruits of that harvest. And in Christ, in that first
fruit, all of God's people are given life from that first fruit. And the harvest, the husbandman
of the harvest is God himself. So receiving Christ from the
dead was the first fruits to God. Therefore, the fruit that follows
that also is God's harvest, and therefore it must also follow. Because God is not going to be
deprived of the fruit because He planted the seed. He planted
Christ in His death. And our own bodies have to be
sown in death in order for our bodies to bring forth that fruit
that pleases God to give us that body that shall be. And so we
see here in these words, now the apostle is transitioning
from proving the resurrection to opening up our view of faith
to see the greatness and the grandeur of all of God's people
brought as a harvest from the field of this world into the
presence of God, in all of His glory, and given and equipped
with a body like Christ, spiritual body, so that in that body now,
they can receive without any barrier. Without all of the types
and figures and the ordinances that we have like the Lord's
table and baptism and faith itself, all those things will be unnecessary
because we will see Christ as He is. It says in 1 Corinthians
13 verse 12, Now we see through a glass darkly as we see things
of scripture, spiritual things now. We see them by faith, but
it is as looking through a glass. It's dark, it's shadowy still.
We can't as clearly see it as we would like to be able to see
it, nor can we. We're not equipped to see it.
But then, he says in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, then we shall know even
as we are known. That means that God is going
to equip us with a mind and with a vision that enables us to completely
understand spiritual things, to see Christ in His glory, and
not be burnt up, not be consumed by that, but we will be able
to see Him and enjoy Him in the very presence of God because
of Christ, because we're in Him. And that's what He's going on
to say here. So that's the first fruit. Christ is the first fruit.
He did rise. He's the first fruit. And because
he is the first fruit, we need to understand that. Look at verse
21. For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. So here, the Lord
is expertly, through the apostle, setting up for us God's principles. God's principles. He does this
in Romans also. He talks about the utter helplessness
that we are in because of the guilt of our sin in the book
of Romans, and how we're under the condemnation of death, eternal
death, and we can't do anything, even if we wanted to. But there
is none that want to. None seek after God. There's
none righteous. And it seems like we're utterly
helpless and hopeless in our condemnation. And then, in that
same book of Romans, God introduces the truth that as we have fallen
in Adam, So we are raised in Christ. Just as we sinned in
Adam, so in Christ we obeyed. Just as we were condemned in
Adam, so in Christ we're justified. And just as we were brought under
the condemnation of death in Adam, so we're brought under
the resurrection of eternal life in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
all of it is by his substitutionary obedience in death. And this
is the amazing thing, that the Lord Jesus Christ, in the full
vigor of his life, lived a full, a perfect life, and then in the
peak of his strength, he laid down his life, not in waste,
but in sacrifice to God, in order to answer God's justice and fulfill
all righteousness in that obedience of love that he did for his people. And the truth of scripture is
that what he did all of his people are credited with, have done
in him. And this is the relationship
God's people have to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is typified
in our relationship to Adam. He says, as by man came death,
so by man came the resurrection of the dead. But two different
men, The first man, Adam, death came. The second man, Christ,
life came and resurrection from the dead. Death didn't have the
victory. The man, Christ Jesus, came and
overcame death. He put away sin. He answered
God for all of it. He took the responsibility as
the champion. As David went out against Goliath,
so Christ went out against our enemies and utterly destroyed
our sin and death and the grave and hell and everything that
was against us to keep us from God. And God so powerfully showed
His sovereign power and righteousness over our sin that He conquered
them in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Lord Jesus is that
second man. And so he goes on. He goes in
verse 22, now we're talking about Adam, as in Adam all die, and
this includes everyone ever born into this world. You and I are
in Adam when we were born. We were born in Adam, we received
the same physical body as he has, a natural body, an earthy
body, a body that's corruptible, it can die, it's not immortal,
it's mortal. and it can decay, and it's weak,
and it's dishonorable because of sin. And not only the body,
but the nature that Adam had, that fallen sinful nature which
is dead in sins. And we also committed the very
sin that Adam committed in the garden because we were there
when he did it. When he took that fruit and ate
it, we did it, and we were guilty of it, and therefore we died
in Adam. And so if we understand that,
it seems like gloom and doom. But no, it's glorious because
God had already determined before to put us in the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says, even so, as in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. And he's speaking,
of course, of the resurrection of our body. But we can't be
made alive in our body unless we're also alive with Christ
in our soul. Remember what the Apostle Paul
said in Galatians 2, verse 19. He says, I am crucified with
Christ. I am crucified with Christ. I
died. with Him. That shows that our
union with Him, by God-given union, He chose us in Christ,
that joined us to Christ, and that union with Christ means
that whatever He did, we did in Him, and God therefore imputes
it to us. And so he says in Galatians 2,
he says, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live,
that spiritual life, Christ in me, I live by the faith of the
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You see, this
spiritual life in us causes this result. It produces this faith
in Christ. It returns, as Solomon prayed,
we're returning to you what you've given to us. We didn't have this. You gave it to us and now we're
returning to you what belongs to you credit and glory and honor
for all you've done to save us from our sins and all the riches
of your grace we're bringing to you in faith looking to Christ
and ascribing to him all of this credit and so he says here as
in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive there's
no exceptions everyone who was born and because they were in
Adam died And it's equally true. Everyone who is given to Christ,
who is in Christ by eternal election, in Christ by an everlasting covenant,
in Christ by his engagements with the Father as our surety,
and espousing his people to himself in love as his bride before the
foundation of the world. He loved the church and gave
himself for it. He's the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. He was ordained by God as the
one whose redeeming blood would redeem us from our sins according
to 1st Peter chapter 1 verse 20. And so, God placed us in
Christ beforehand, and though we died in Adam and received
from Adam all of our natural, physical, earthly, corruptible
nature, and our fallen nature, and what's weak and dishonorable
from Adam, yet in Christ we receive the very life of Christ, who
is the resurrection and the life. And there's a certainty and a
guarantee because he is the resurrection and we're joined to him that
we shall be raised again. And so he shows us here this
union with Christ in Adam and it's a wonderful union. He builds
on it. He goes on. He goes, he says
in verse 23, but every man Every man in his own order, he's talking
about the two men. Christ, the first fruits, afterward
they that are Christ at his coming. You see, we're going to be raised
with him at his coming. This is when the end of the world
occurs, at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when
he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power,
for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. God the Father gave all things
into the hands of his Son. He committed to his son the keeping
of his people, and he put him in charge of everything in creation,
including things in heaven, angels, including things on earth, all
principalities and powers, whether they be kings or presidents or
senators or governors or mayors or husbands or fathers or employers,
all of these delegated authorities were put under Christ. And even
devils and demons were put under Christ. Everything was put under
Him for the sake of His people. That He would put them under
His rule in order to fulfill the thing that God gave Him to
do. The panoramic bringing of His
people to God in glory as His sons in love. Holy and without
blame before Him in love as His own dear children. And this was
all given to Christ to do. And he, as the king, would subject
all enemies under his feet. God the Father rules, but Christ
rules as his, as they say, vicar, the one who is in place of God
the Father as the mediator to bring all these things into his
rule and to deliver that kingdom up to his Father. And so he says
here, he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. The resurrection
of our body is going to put death in our bodies to death. That's
when that death will be put to death. It doesn't mean the second
death is put to death. That was already done for God's
people. when he hung on the cross. But here, the death that our
bodies know is put to death. And every other enemy has already
been put under at this point. And so he says, for he hath put
all things under his feet, under the feet of Christ. But when
he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is
accepted, which did put all things under him. God the Father was
not put under him. In case anyone would have a heretical
idea there, he has to squash it before it rises up. He's showing
the greatness of God, the Father, that he's greater than all. Jesus
said this, My Father which is greater than all. And then in
verse 28, And when all things shall be subdued to him, then
shall the Son himself, also himself, be subject unto him, that put
all things under him, that God may be all in all. And God meaning
the triune God here. You see, this is a very difficult
scripture to understand, and you can read commentators on
this, and they wrestle with this, and they try to explain it, but
at the end of the whole explanation, I think we're left unsatisfied
that we cannot really understand these things at this point. But
we will understand it, and one thing is certain, Every principality
and every power that now exists will all be done away. There
will be no delegated authority. There won't even be the relationship
of a husband as being the head of his wife. That will be done
away. There won't be any mayors or governors or senators or presidents
or kings. No man will be above another
man at this point, or woman. A man won't be above a woman,
or a woman above a man. All of God's people will be on
a level plane, and Christ will rule over all, all of His people,
and all of His enemies have now been subdued under Him. And then
He takes the entire kingdom of His people, save to the uttermost,
Because they have been at this point in time. They have been
saved to the uttermost. They've been perfectly conformed
to the image of God's dear Son. And they stand before the Father
as His children, predestinated to this purpose. And they're
made holy and without blame before Him in love. There's no reason
why there's any taint, any impediment, any abatement of all of God's
blessings upon them, all has been given to them at this point,
so that the kingdom has been completely brought to its consummate
end and delivered up to God, God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit, by the mediator. And even though the
Lord Jesus Christ, his mediator, has been and ever shall be in
subjection to the Father, and even though he has taken our
human nature and shall forever be in our human nature as both
God and man, yet it says here that the Son will be How does it say it? He says,
then when all things shall be subdued to him, then shall the
Son himself also be subject unto him. The Son will be subject
to him. He's subject to him now. He will be subject to him then.
Just like his people, with his people. And yet he's God over
all. Now how can you reconcile those
things? I don't worry about it. I just
believe it. As much as I can understand it.
He says, else what? And I have to be careful here,
because we're getting into a deep part of this subject matter that
will take some time to unfold. So I'm going to attempt to pick
this up next time at this point, and we'll just try to go forward
from here. All right? I realize now that if we go any
further, then we're going to lose the appreciation for what's
about to be said here, because we'll get distracted by the seeming
complexity of it, even though it's not complex. All right,
let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for your revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ to us
in all of his glory because he saved us from our sins. We are
so indebted to him. We will spend eternity singing
his praises, bowing in the full vigor of our spiritual bodies
with no impediment. All of these things will be removed
and we'll be so happy and without any doubt, without any fears. without any regrets, all tears
wiped away, perfectly made children of God, all to His glory, and
sin completely vanquished, and death completely overthrown,
and every enemy of our souls, the devil, and this world completely
taken away, not even a trace of sin left, only the glory of
God, a victory so great that it could not have been greater.
What an amazing Savior and salvation. We bow before you now. We ask,
Lord, that you would impress these things upon our souls at
this time, so that we might live by faith upon our Savior, and
that we might glorify Him in all things. In His name we pray,
amen.