Beginning with verse 28 when
all things shall be subdued unto him Then shall the son also himself
be subject unto him. That's the father That put all
things under him that God May be all in all Now This goes with the previous
verse it's a Speaking of when all of the enemies
of the Savior of God and his people are subdued And put under
his feet you look at verse 25 Christ must reign till he has
put all enemies under his feet The last enemy that shall be
destroyed is death For he hath put all things under his feet
But when he saith all things are put under him and is manifest
that he is accepted which did put all things under him. And
now we consider verse 28, when all things shall be subdued unto
him. That is every enemy, both animate and inanimate. Death
is not a physical person, but it's an enemy of God's people
and he destroys all of our enemies and his. Then shall the son also himself
be subject unto him unto the father that put all things under
him That God may be all in all now the Lord Jesus Christ when
he will have Destroyed all enemies when he shall have saved all
those whom the father Gave him will deliver up the kingdom We
see that in that context also. He's gonna deliver up the the
kingdom unto God. And that is, of course, the kingdom
necessitates all others being put down. There can only be one
king. The reason the word king is used for the Savior is because
of that. He's sovereign, he's over all.
There's no Congress, there's no cabinet,
there's no Senate. It's a, a king over all that has, and
Christ is said in the scripture to be a king with no counselors.
Who hath been his counselor? He worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will. He has no one. There's none beside
me, he said when he says, I'm king. He reigns and there's none
beside him. There's no rival. Nobody helps
or nobody hinders him. He does as he pleases in the
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of this earth. And
none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? So
that's what we're talking about is all enemies put down, And
all of the kingdom also is what Christ accomplished on the cross
that his people, his people are part of the kingdom. He speaks
of us entering into his kingdom. That is under his authority,
under his rule, under his protection, under his saving grace, under
his precious blood, under every benefit that God can bestow upon
a sinner, All spiritual blessings in heavenly places are ours in
Christ as a result of being part of His kingdom, as entering into
His kingdom. And so that's what he's speaking
of here. When everything that now in time
is happening to the promotion of that kingdom, to the success
of that kingdom, to the finishing of the kingdom, bringing all
the people He chose in Christ into the kingdom Then Christ
will present to his father the fulfillment of all That the father
sent him to do He sent him as king And he will give account
the Savior and we're speaking in human terms to some Degree
here because we have no other way to understand things, but
he will bring He'll give a count of his victories. The Lord sent
him to do, he said, I must do the will of him that sent me.
And having done that, he returns to the father and now he presents
the fulfillment of all of that and gives a count of all of his
victories. And he will bring to him that
sent him all of the fruits of the successes for which he was
sent. Then, our text says, now, the
son has always been subject unto the father. This is no surprise.
So why does it say that here if we already know that the Lord
Jesus Christ said often, I'm here to serve my father. I don't
speak to you except what I've heard from my father. And he
constantly acknowledged his subordination to the father, his service to
the father. So this is no surprise he came
to do God's will he came to fulfill the law of God as a servant as
as a human being The only man that ever did the will of God
That ever did serve him perfectly But it was service He came to
accomplish the redemption of his people. That's a task that
his father sent him to accomplish but this objection Is never a
place of inferiority It's not inferiority. It's it's it's it's
a order of Persons in the Godhead. It's it's an order of Office within the Godhead
the purposes That are accomplished by each person of the Godhead
being one God Service obedience When we think of the glories
of God, of His character, of His attributes, His glorious
attributes, what's more glorious than service? When He spoke of going to the
cross, He said, now is the Son of Man glorified by being spit
on and beaten and mocked and hung on a cross to die? Yes,
because that was perfect obedience unto His Father. And not only
that, the accomplishment of the redemption of all of His people.
He spoke of the death that He should accomplish. What greater
glory is there in the Godhead than service and subjection to
the Father? He speaks of us. If any of us
will be glorified and lift and raised up, let Him serve. There's no glory in lording it
over people, there's glory in service. That's what obedience
is, one of God's greatest attributes. Subjection, sacrifice. What's more glorious than the
sacrifice of the Son of God? He who shed the very blood of
God on a cross. Those are aspects of His glory
that we don't often think about, but goodness. Nowhere was the
glory of God shown forth like at Calvary where there was humiliation
and service and subjection and sacrifice. Those are his attributes. There's a lot of speculation
about what since then in which Christ Said to to to then be
in subjection to the father when he's always been in subjection
to the father But there's no need for speculation. He's always
been in Subjection to the father it always will be in some sense
Though even in his humiliation Even in his subjection even in
in his humility even when he was when he was in human flesh and was despised
and rejected of men. At his very lowest, he thought
it not robbery to be equal with God. So there's no inferiority
in this subjection. Just like a wife is in subjection
to her husband, she's not inferior to him. It's just God's order. It's God's order. That's an illustration
of how it is with Christ, the Father, the Son, and his people. God being all in all, also here
it says that God may be all in all. That's not a new thing either.
He's always been all in all, but in a whole other sense when
the kingdom is delivered up unto him and all is accomplished. It's a different relationship
now between the persons of the Godhead in a sense. There's no
more for Christ to accomplish. He's done, he's finished. Just
like he said it was. There's no, right now the spirit
goes where he wants to, giving life, birthing again from above
the people of God. There's no more of that then.
That's over with. So there's a different, there's a cessation of the mediatorial
kingdom of Christ and the cessation of God using any means at all
to accomplish his purposes. He does that now. He uses us. Pitiful as we are, the Lord is
able to use us for his glory as his witnesses and in his ministry
here. But no longer Will the Holy Spirit
move as he did in time? No longer will there be any need
for Christ to fulfill or accomplish anything, all things being accomplished
by him already, and so there will be a different relationship.
You see, God will be all in all, and he will be face to face with
those whom he chose from eternity. And so God being all in all here
corresponds with the language in Isaiah chapter two, where
it says, the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Well, God is all in all now,
but you can't say that now. People exalt one another for
different reasons. They exalt themselves. Satan
exalts himself. He says, I will be as the most
high. He's still saying that. He's
still thinking that. Forlorn not then That's the difference. That's the difference God's not
going to be more than he is now All glorious all self-sufficient,
how do you improve on that? But in a whole other sense he'll
be all in all and that's the language of our text Verse 29 Else what shall they do which
are baptized for the dead? If the dead rise not at all,
why are they then baptized for the dead? Now you have to read
this whole chapter and get an overall view, which I don't feel
I'm very good at doing often enough. I'm gonna try to start
doing that more, kind of giving us a reminder of the overall
view of these chapters as we go through them, because we do
tend to focus minutely on Words and phrases and that's that's
important too. But he's not changing the subject. It sounds completely different
from verse 28 and it is in a sense, but he's still talking about
the same thing when he was talking about Christ delivering up the
kingdom. He's talking about resurrection. If you trace back to what he.
Or how that part of the store of the letter started. And so
he's just focusing back on that again more directly in this verse. This is a new argument here among
several that Paul uses to teach and correct error regarding the
resurrection of the dead. You know, this whole chapter's
about that. There are those among you, he said to the church at
Corinth, that say there is no resurrection of the dead, and
he's impressing upon them the ramifications of saying that
and thinking that. So he's using a new argument
here. And there's a lot of disagreement and speculation about this also
being baptized for the dead. There's all kinds of, I mean,
there's a bunch of different Theories on this but I'll tell
you this whenever you don't understand Something in the Word of God,
or you don't know exactly what it's saying Focus on what you
do know What God has revealed don't speculate about what you
don't know and we're not gonna do that tonight my best thought
on this is that Paul is referring to baptism this way because it
is a symbol of death and He says you're being baptized for the
dead. That is, you're not actually dying when you're baptized, but
baptism is a symbol of death. It represents the dead. When you're baptized, you represent
the death of our Savior and his resurrection and us in him dying
to self and being made alive unto God. So I think that's the
language there. If we're wrong about that though,
if we're wrong about that, maybe we're not sure about that. Okay,
what are we sure about? Well, if we're wrong about that,
it doesn't change the lesson of the verse here. Believers
were taught then and now to submit to baptism as a public confession
of Christ. And no doubt, many of those who
were saying that there's no resurrection of the dead and ridiculing that,
the very idea of it, had been baptized in the name of Christ. And he said, what were you baptized
for if there's no resurrection of the dead? That's exactly what
you're picturing in that. He's pointing out the foolishness
of baptism if there's no resurrection of the dead. And look at verse
30. I think the context bears that
out. But again, he's talking about
baptism as it relates to the resurrection of the dead. And
it clearly relates, doesn't it? Because you're being buried under
the water, immersed, and then rising up, clearly picturing,
as I said, our Lord Jesus Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection
are our life. If he doesn't die, we don't live.
If he doesn't live, we don't live. And it also pictures us
being raised together with him into newness of life, spiritual
life. It's an outward showing, as the
Lord said at the table, you do show the Lord's death till he
come. It doesn't specifically say that
about baptism, but of course that's what you're doing. You're
showing the Lord's death until he come. And so he says here,
why stand we in jeopardy every hour? Again, moving on here,
another argument. He says, I protest by your rejoicing,
which I have in Christ Jesus, our Lord. John Gill says that should be
our rejoicing. And very well, that word could
be either one, and it's our makes more sense here because he talks
about Him rejoicing in Christ, which I have, you're rejoicing,
which I have in Christ. Jesus, our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I
have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it me if the
dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow
we die. You see, he's saying that last
part, I guess, sarcastically would be the right word for it. He's saying that's what that
would be our attitude if there's no resurrection of the dead then
let's just live it up Before we die, let's get in as much
You know Pleasure of the flesh as we can before we die. There's
no resurrection Now Paul the Apostle Paul counted not his
life dear unto himself for the sake of preaching the gospel
of Jesus He was tortured for preaching the gospel. He stood
in constant jeopardy of death, and he was very willing and bold
in that. And that's what he's saying here. I've faced, I've
fought beasts. I've, I die daily, as in he's
subject unto death all the time. He's constantly under danger
of being killed by the enemies of Christ. And he's saying, why
would I do that? Why would I be so willing and
bold in the face of death if there's no hope in Christ? That's
why he did it. That's why he was able to be
bold. That's why he was able to say, I count not my life dear
unto myself. Because his hope was in Christ
and not in this life only. If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. And he's
saying here that if there is no resurrection of the dead,
we might be excused for living only for the moment. Why wouldn't we have that attitude
if this is all there is? With no regard to spiritual things,
with no regard to eternity. We don't say that, we don't say
let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die because there is a resurrection,
because there is a reckoning, because it is appointed unto
men once to die, but after this, there is an after this. And that's
why we don't live unto ourselves. We don't live for the moment,
we don't live, we don't even count this life, this world our
home. for that very reason. And so
to say that is horrible. And he impresses that upon them
pretty strongly here. And then in verse 33, another
admonition here, be not deceived. He's speaking now to those who
haven't denied the resurrection. He's saying,
don't be deceived by these people. Evil communications corrupt good
manners. Don't tolerate it. Don't put
up with it. Don't abide it. Remember he said
in verse 12, and look at it if you want to, if you got your
Bible open there. He says, how say some among you? So he's not
rebuking the whole church. He's warning the whole church
though. He said there are some among you that deny the resurrection
and he's Scathingly rebukes them for that throughout this whole
chapter and then he speaks to the others and says don't be
deceived Don't don't include yourself in those conversations
Evil communications that is evil companionships number one definition
of that evil companionships Corrupt virtuous morals or Character
They will corrupt your character. Before long, they'll start making
sense a little bit, you know. Enemies of the gospel always
make a lot of sense. They always have good reasons
for their lies. They'll have scripture to back
them up that they've pulled out of context. quote other men who were wrong.
They'll say this is what the fathers believed as if we should
give a hoot about that. He said, if you listen to them,
if you tolerate their ridicule and denial of the gospel, it
will corrupt your good manners. Evil companionships will corrupt
your virtue. This is true in the church as
well as in the world. And I wish everybody was here
to hear this. This will happen in the world and it will happen
in the church if we're not careful, if we're not warned in our hearts
as well as we are in the scripture. And we understand which sense
this is true. They may not convince you of
their error If you're a believer, they won't. But to even tolerate
it is to spit in God's face. I was talking with a man I grew
up with, and boy, we were good friends. We were fast friends
in high school and beyond for several years. And I spoke to
him the other day for the first time in 30 years. And he knows
I'm a preacher, and he kept saying things that I couldn't agree
with. Pretty sure he knew that I didn't agree with him, because
it was an awful uncanny coincidence otherwise, the kind of things
he was saying. And I had to correct him. I couldn't
just let it go. I'm not going to tolerate it.
Thank God I'm not. That's the grace of God. Not
anything spiritual about me. That's the grace of God. It made
for a very awkward conversation, but he kept saying things like,
well, you know, we've got to accept, you know, this and that
or the other. I kept quoting scripture to him. I said, I can't go along with
that, Zeke. I can't go along with it. And it was pretty awkward. But
you can't deny the word of God. You can argue with me, but you
can't argue with God. That's what it boiled down to.
So we talked about old times for a while, and I realized that
he and I could never be friends like we used to be ever again. I love the guy. I'd do anything
for him, but we're not going to have any fellowship or communion
with one another as long as he insists on blaspheming God to
my face. We can't walk together. Not like
that. Not like that. It would be an
evil companionship. That's exactly what our text
is talking about. An evil companionship. And if that was important to
me, if companionship with him was more important to me than
the integrity of the gospel, then I would compromise the gospel.
I would have no choice but to dishonor my Lord. If I'm gonna
be part and parcel to that, then I'm spitting in God's face. It's
just that simple. By God's grace, I can't do that
right now. I hope I never can. Verse 34,
awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge
of God. I speak this to your shame. This
is very revealing, isn't it? Awake to righteousness and sin,
Not. Wake up. Realize the gravity
of this. People talking about there's
no resurrection. You're taking it literally, when it's probably
figurative language, a spiritual thing that we don't understand.
No, it's pretty clear. The Lord said He was gonna come
back and raise up our vile bodies, and we're gonna be changed, and
He's gonna take us home with Him. It's not complicated. And
just like with Satan, you know, subtlety, subtlety. But no, it's black and white.
It's clear as a bell. And this is Paul's exhortation
to all of them, wake up and sin not. This is not just a difference
of opinion, it's blasphemy. Realize the gravity of this it's
easy for sinners to just kind of shrug off differences in beliefs
And to associate with people that they like Regardless of
whether they agree in matters of doctrine and spiritual thing
Paul says this is not a matter of opinion The problem is the
difference is not some surface or shallow thing or just difference
of personalities or the ways we understand thing the difference
is somebody knows God and somebody don't and That's real important
to see that here. That's a rude awakening, but
a necessary one. If you've experienced this. It's no fun, but it is necessary. And to deny the clear teaching
of scripture in preference for your opinions and to limit doctrine
to your threshold of understanding is a shameful thing. Did you
see that? Shame on you. That's what he
said. I speak this to your shame. He's speaking to this to the
shame of those who tolerate this and to those who are ignorant
of the truth Who don't know God? There's no excuse for not believing
God Forming opinions that are contrary to the scriptures. There's
no excuse for that He's God and you're not Problem is he can't lie and you
can't do anything but lie and We're liars We ain't ever told
the truth in our life that wasn't a direct quote from the Word
of God And clear comparing scripture
with scripture We can't lean to our own understanding for
a millisecond or we're off the rails That's why when somebody
says now I've been given this a lot of thought and here's what
this said. I I don't care how much thought you've given it.
Has the Lord revealed it clear and plain? That's the question.
Declare that. People thinking long and hard
about things is the problem. The longer you think about it,
the further off the rails you're going to get. God's got to reveal His truth,
and when He does, we're to declare it boldly. and people aren't gonna like
it, we're to declare it all the more boldly. I don't have to think about whether
God's sovereign or not. I don't have to give a lot of
thought to whether Christ died for his sheep and redeemed every
one of them or not. I just need God's grace to believe
it. Even though it takes an act of
God's grace for us to understand and believe, that does not excuse
our unbelief. It's shameful. It's shameful. Paul does not say, you poor ignorant
ones who can't help it. He says, you fools. Look at verse
35. But some man will say, how are
the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?
And you can just hear the ridicule, can't you? People ridicule the
truth because it makes them feel big about themselves. Oh, we
got a bunch of zombies coming out of the grave. Yeah, that's
gonna happen. Or Noah's Ark, they love to ridicule
Noah's Ark and things, you know, the truth. They hate God and
they hate what he said. And that's why they do that,
because they want to be God. God laughs, not you, not you. God laughs at those who are contrary
to him. You don't get that. You don't
have that prerogative. Some man will say, how are the
dead raised up? And with what body did they come? Are they
going to be all rotted? And you know, we know what happens
to dead people. How is that going to work? Fool, you fool. And again, we
could look at the Greek word for fool there. It ain't pretty.
It ain't pretty. That which thou sowest is not
quickened except it die. Fools, because God has put before
our very eyes a beautiful and miraculous illustration of how
that he brings life out of death. You can't eat without seeing
it And remember though that the
only point that Paul is addressing here is the objection That dead
bodies decay and it would be it'd be terrible for that to
come out of the grave. How's that gonna work? You know,
what body are they gonna come with and things like that? That's
what he's addressing that objection When a seed goes into the ground,
it doesn't come up looking like it did. Shriveled up and dead
and brown. No value. How does God have his
nature work that way? Why does it work that way? Why
do you plant seed? Why doesn't the earth just spring
up things, you know, for us to eat? Why can't we just walk around
enjoying the things of because of sin. The wages of sin is death. And if there's gonna be life
now for us, there's got to be death. There's gotta be the death of
the old man. There's gotta be the death of a substitute. God
requires death. He requires a sacrifice. And
that's pictured in every seed that's planted, except it dies. It's not gonna bring up, it's
not gonna spring up with life. But if it die, listen to the
same allegory to describe the gospel. In John 12, 23, Jesus
answered them saying, the hour has come that the son of man
should be glorified. Now that's what he's talking
about. He's talking about his death. The son of man, when he
spoke to the father, he said, the hour has come. What hour?
The hour of his death. They tried to kill him before
that, but they couldn't touch him because his hour had not
yet come. But in John 17, he says, the hour has come. What's
the next words out of his mouth in his high priestly prayer to
the father? Glorify. Glorify thy son, that thy son
may glorify thee. That's what happened on Calvary. And that's what he's talking
about here. And then in the next verse, he says, verily, verily,
I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground
and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He's arguing with that because
we see that every day and yet we don't believe. We see miracles
every day and because they're common, we don't consider them
miracles anymore. How in the world does that happen?
There's seeds so tiny that they have to put like a little wax
around it or something to make it a little bit bigger so you
can see how to plant it right. And you know, a tomato seed,
that thing is tiny when it dries up especially, and you plant
that and it's an eight foot tall plant three months later. That's
a miracle. That's God that does that. You
can't make that happen. God makes that happen. When a
baby's born, you must be born again. We see miracles every
day. And they don't mean anything
to us because we see them so often. And we just don't believe
God. In effect here, Paul is saying,
we're talking about God here. You're saying with what body
that shall they come? We're talking about God. Are
you kidding me? He breathed life into you from
the dust of the earth. And you're asking with what body
will He raise us from the dead? Whatever body He wants to give
us, that's a pretty good answer. And that's what He's saying.
Listen to this, Philippians 3.20, listen carefully to this, and
I'm gonna have to, but Philippians 3.20, for our conversation is
in heaven. "'Our citizenship is in heaven
from whence also "'we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
"'who shall change our vile body, "'that it may be fashioned like
unto his glorious body.'" How's he gonna do that? According to
the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto
himself. The same working with which he
created a universe for crying out loud. You're gonna question how is
God gonna do that? How's God gonna make that happen,
really? A kernel of corn, dry and dead,
you put it in a seven foot tall stalk, hundreds of them. It's a marvelous way that God
does miracles before our very eyes that show forth the glory
of his resurrection power. All of these things that are
used in the scriptures to illustrate that, when a baby's born, when
there's a true marriage in worship to God, a marriage
that's performed and entered into in worship to God, in submission
to his will, the one that instituted it, and even when we plant our vegetable
gardens. These are biblical reminders
of the truth of the gospel and what our Lord Jesus accomplished
for us on Calvary. Paul says you're a fool if you
don't see that, if you don't recognize the gospel, if you
don't recognize and acknowledge God's power in these things.
and understand that he does as he pleases in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of this earth. Now, you're not gonna
look at a corn stalk and come to know the Savior, but if you
know the Savior by his grace, you'll never look at another
corn stalk the same ever again. And being taught the truth from
the word of God, we're without excuse. How important is it to us to
know God? You see, that was the problem
here. He said, there's some of you that just don't know God.
And I speak that to your shame. We don't have any excuse. How important is it to us to
know him? We answer that question all the
time. Apart from His grace, it's not
a good answer, is it? But may He give us grace to seek
Him, to say with Paul that I may know Him in the power of His
resurrection. Amen, let's pray.