We're going to be in 1 Corinthians
15 again today, but I had a reason for having Brad read that particular
text of scripture from Matthew 16. I wasn't thinking about it
actually, and I was talking with Jamie the other night, and she
was asking about the last verse in that chapter, and so I got
to thinking about it. because it's often the case that
I will see a scripture and think about it and then come to some
conclusion and then I haven't thought about it for a while
and I don't know what it's saying, so I had to think about it again.
When I say think about it, I mean thinking what else the Lord has
said in order to help us to understand that particular verse. It says
there in that chapter, it's amazing that Peter, knew that Jesus was
the Christ, the Son of God. And the Lord said the reason
He did was His Father had made it known to Him. And then immediately
after that, Jesus said, upon this rock, the rock of Christ,
who he is, the confession that Peter was able to give by that
grace given to him from the Father, this rock, Christ would build
his church. And of course, the Lord Jesus
ultimately is that rock. Not Peter, by the way. But the
Lord says, I'll give to you the keys of the kingdom. He's talking
about the gospel, of course, because Christ is the one who
holds the keys of hell and death and gives salvation from hell
and death and from sin to his people through the gospel. It's
the gospel that's able to make us wise unto salvation, and that
is the power of God to salvation. But I'm always impressed with
verse 18 where Jesus says, the gates of hell, I'll build my
church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And you
can see how the Lord You know, I have a tendency, in a wrong
way, to jest, to make fun of things and use quip phrases in
order to maybe impress others with my wit or something. I don't
have any wit, so I have to borrow words from someone else to get
it. But anyway, the Lord didn't do that. He just said, I'm going
to build my church. The gates of hell will not prevail
against it, because that's a fact. And I love that fact. And then
right away, he started telling his disciples that he was going
to have to go to the cross to humiliation and to death. And
Peter thought, no, no, no, no, no, that's not right. The very
one to whom God had given such a revelation out of all the other
disciples and spoke up for them all, that one, To that one, Jesus
said, you don't savor the things of God, you're an offense to
me, get behind me, Satan. That's a withering statement,
isn't it? How could we possibly go another day after the Lord
said that to us? But here again, we see our own
instability. We can be spot on in one moment
and completely antithetical to the truth in another. It's like,
isn't it great that the Lord didn't cast Peter off for such
things, or us? But then he tells his disciples
to not love your life in this world. If you love your life
in this world, you try to save your life in this world, you're
going to lose it. And that's a very fundamental principle.
We're to deny ourselves and to take up our cross daily because
it wouldn't do us any good if we gained the whole world and
lost our soul. What can you give in exchange for your soul? And
then he says, the son of man shall come in the glory of his
father with his angels. He's talking about the last return
of Christ, the second return, which is the last return. The
Lord came first to save his people as a baby. He's going to come
the second time with the power of the almighty Christ of God. And he's going to deliver his
people from death, that final triumph. which is the title of
today's message, The Final Triumph. But here in the last verse, he
tells them that there would be some who, standing there with
him, that would not taste death till they should see the Son
of Man coming in his kingdom. He had told them he was going
to the cross. What was coming after that? Well, if you remember,
he rose from the dead, he ascended to glory, and he sat down on
the right hand of the throne of the majesty on high. He told
the thief on the cross, today, today, as they hung on the cross,
you shall be with me in paradise. What phenomenal words the Lord
spoke, and not one of them fails. Hell's gates will not prevail
against me building my church, he says. And it doesn't matter
if I am going to the cross, I'm going into my kingdom. I have
to go to my kingdom and take my place there on the throne
by way of the cross. And so in Acts 2, Peter preaches,
he says, that, in verse 30, David being a prophet, knowing that
God had sworn an oath, with an oath to him that of the fruit
of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ
to sit on his throne. And then he goes on, he, David,
seeing this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that
his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up,
from the dead, we all are witnesses, therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he has shed forth this which you now see
and hear. For David is not ascended to
the heavens, but he saith himself, the Lord said to my Lord, sit
thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore,
let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ."
Powerful, isn't it? Powerful words. So what was it
when the Lord Jesus entered into his kingdom? Obviously, it was
his exaltation after his death, having purged our sins. And so
we read this in Ephesians chapter 4. And this is also referring
to the same event. He says in verse eight of Ephesians
four, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive
and gave gifts to men. This is talking about Christ's
exaltation and distributing to his people, not only the Holy
Spirit, but the grace to preach the gospel by that Holy Spirit
in order to bring his people from afar, in order to call his
sheep. by his gospel and to bring them
into the fold. This he must do, and this he
rose from the dead and took his place in glory to accomplish
that sovereign will which God the Father gave him to finish.
And that's what we're talking about. To love our life in this
world is to lose our life, but forever. But to hate our life
in this world, because in comparison to our life in glory, that is
to deny ourselves and to live in denial of ourselves. We don't
trust ourselves, do we? And we're not going to serve
our flesh by the grace of God, by His Spirit in us. We're going
to mortify the deeds of the flesh in order that we might serve
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in 1 Corinthians 15, that's
an introduction to what I'm going to be talking about today. and
beginning with verse 30 of 1 Corinthians 15. And as I said, I've entitled
today's message, The Final Triumph. The Final Triumph. The triumph of Christ, the triumph
of Christ for his people, the triumph of Christ over sin and
over death, the grave, Satan and his kingdom, the triumph,
the final triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ will occur when
he raises up the bodies of his people from the grave. That's what this scripture is
talking about. Now, when we talk about this,
Lots of things flood my mind, and usually they do because of
the experiences I had in the prior week. I find that the Word
of God continuously humbles me. It continuously humbles me. And I feel better when it does.
I just do. There's something calming When
God's word causes me to realize I'm wrong, He's right, and I
find a sense of submission to what He has revealed and His
will, that calms me. It's kind of like, I guess, a
horse. They have to break horses. I've never really rode a horse
very much. I don't know about horses, but
I've seen them do this on TV where they, They take a stallion,
a wild, rebellious stallion, and they tame them. And then
the horse is happy. I'm happy to submit now. And
that's the way I feel. And so this week, as I was facing
something I got passionate about, and my wife graciously spoke
to me in soft terms and words, it made me realize I was wrong.
Yeah, that was wrong. And I don't know why I hold to
things when I'm like that, but I am. And so it comforts me to
know that the Lord will triumph over my sin. I think that when
we realize that we have no power over our sin and we can't remove
our guilt, then we're very glad that God didn't make our salvation
dependent on our own will. Aren't you glad? And people,
they tenaciously hold to the fact, no, you're saved because
you accepted Jesus Christ. No, I'm not. I'm saved because
God determined to save me and did save me by Christ. The fact
that I know it is an evidence of his grace. And he raised me
from the dead. That's something to be thankful
and treasure. But we find that to be true.
So when we think about the resurrection, the first thing we think about
is dying. And I don't want to die. I really don't. I kind of
enjoy standing here right now. I don't really want to die, on
the one hand. But on the other hand, I do want to see the Lord.
I just don't want to go through that process and the pain and
the detachment. I've grown to become very comfortable,
to some extent, in this body. And so that's why the words of
the Lord Jesus Christ, don't love your life in this world,
seemed to go against my natural inclination. But then he comes
with these soothing words and says, no, this is not what I
designed for you for eternity. There's a triumph. that I've
obtained, a victory, and that victory is over your sin, over
the death your sin has brought upon you, and the grave in which
your body completely corrupts, and I've gained a triumph over
that. But in the process of thinking about that, we don't feel comfortable,
do we? I look in the mirror, And I think
it doesn't look like, I mean, there's a lot of blemishes and
stuff, and it's really not what I'd like to look, but I'm really
not ready to throw this away. But the Lord says in this very
chapter that we're just bare grain. This is not the body God
intends for us to have. This is just a seed of that. and it has to fall into the ground
and die. So we begin to think about that
process. And he tells us to look forward
to this, expect it. Faith goes into the presence
of God and sees heaven and eternity and God's will accomplished and
God's glory in that. And to want something other than
that is to be in opposition to the best possible life and blessings
that God could possibly have. Because we're afraid, aren't
we? We're naturally fearful. I'm talking about myself. And
so we should be very compassionate towards others who experience
this decline and the loss of loved ones. We should be very
compassionate. And I found this by Octavius Winslow, which was
in a bulletin that Larry Criss sent to me. And commenting on
Psalm 1611, which you recognize that Psalm was a prayer of the
Lord Jesus Christ himself about his own resurrection. And therefore,
it's a prayer not only of his but of ours. But Octavius Winslow
said this about this resurrection of Christ and the resurrection
of his people with him, that it was Christ's highest desire
to abide in the presence of God and ours also. He says in verse
11 of Psalm 16, in thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right
hand, there are pleasures forevermore. Now that's the word of God. That's
the expression, the expressed prayer and praise of the heart
of the one who is our head, our husband, the one who is truth itself.
Our life in thy presence is fullness of joy. And so Octavius said
this, dearest Savior, Be thou close to me in that solemn moment. Tread the valley by my side. Pillow my faint, weary head upon
thy bosom. Speak these words of heart cheer
to my struggling, panting, departing soul. Fear thou not. I am with thee. From Isaiah 41. Then it will be happiness for
me to die. Death will have no venom. The
grave, no gloom. Eternity, no dread. and from
the measured experience of thy preciousness on earth, I shall
pass in triumph through the shadowy portal into the full sunshine
and perfect realization and eternal enjoyment of all that faith believed
and love desired and hope expected of thy full-orbed glory and preciousness
in heaven. Now that, as I said, came from
a bulletin from Larry, and I really like Larry and his wife, Robin,
and I thanked him for that. In Isaiah 43, it says, but now
the saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed
thee, O Israel, fear not. I have redeemed thee. I have
called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee. And through the rivers,
they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Savior. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee." These are just pictures of the
kingdom of Satan. Since thou was precious in my
sight, thou has been honorable, and I have loved thee. Therefore
will I give men for thee and people for thy life. Fear not,
I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. He's talking about God's
elect. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep
not back. Bring my sons from far, and my
daughters from the ends of the earth, even every one, notice,
that is called by my name. For I have created him for my
glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him. And so we see
in that the promise of God that his people will triumph. I have
loved thee. I'm going to bring you. I've
created you for my glory. I've called you by my name. Now, I want you to notice this
here. This is an important truth in
scripture. It assures us of the certainty
of God's promises to his people. This is what I'm about to turn
you to in Exodus chapter 3. Look at these words. Exodus chapter
3. And in verse 14, God told Moses, His name, this is the name, when
the children of Israel ask you what is his name, this is what
you shall say. I am that I am. And he said, thus sayeth, thus
shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I am hath sent me
to you. Now notice this next verse very
carefully. And God said, moreover, unto Moses, thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has
sent me to you. This is my name forever, and
this is my memorial unto all generations. What is his name?
God has taken the name of his people as his name. Does that surprise you? It absolutely
boggles the mind, doesn't it? The eternal God has taken His
people's name and has made their name His name, the God of my
people. These people, these named people,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all of His elect are named and He has
adopted their name as His name, the God of my people. And he
tells us in Isaiah 43, which I just read, I've called you
by my name. So we have the name of Christ.
And what this means is, is that if one of God's people should
fail to finally appear in glory before him, redeeming them from
their sin, and death, and the grave, and Satan, and everything
that is opposed to them being with Christ. If that could happen,
then God himself would fail to be God. That his name would no
longer be a name of honor, but of reproach. And this was the
powerful motive that Moses himself prayed when he prayed for the
children of Israel, when they had made, they had worshiped
the calf that Aaron made. And he comes down from the fountain,
from the mountain, and he says, what am I gonna do with you?
And Moses intercedes, Moses, before he came down from the
mountain, intercedes to God for them. He says, well now, if you
destroy all these people, Your enemies are going to hear and
they're going to say, well, because the Lord couldn't deliver them
into the land that he promised to give them. He couldn't save
them from their sins. And same thing happened when
they were about to go into the land of Canaan. Well, Lord, if
you destroy this people, then your enemies are going to say,
he just wasn't able. In other words, God had bound
himself in an oath, in a covenant, in a promise, a relationship. He's taken his people. This is
his name, Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. They're my sheep and I must bring
them. There's no possibility of failure.
Or God is not God. And his name is a name of reproach
and dishonor among the demons of hell. That can't happen. No, it will not happen. And so
we see the certainty here. Christ is going to the cross,
yes. He's going in humiliation and weakness, but he's going
to rise again in power and great glory. And some of you disciples
standing here now that hear these words, don't love your life in
this world. Don't hold on to it. Deny yourself,
take up your cross daily, follow me, that's where I'm going, to
the cross and beyond. And we say, Lord, if you go with
me, if you will go with me, then I can go to death. And I'll go
there with calm, peace and joy, knowing that for me to live is
Christ, but to die is gain. And so back to 1 Corinthians
chapter 15 now. 1 Corinthians 15, and I wanna pick
this up in verse 30. The apostle having said, we would
not be baptized for the dead since in baptism we're professing
our expectation, our hope of the resurrection of our bodies
if there was no resurrection. In verse 30 he says, why stand
we in jeopardy every hour? So what he's saying here that
who would be in their right mind and allow themselves to suffer
continuous reproach and the dangers of the assaults of the Christ-hating
world if there was no resurrection? Who would do that? Who would
allow themselves to suffer the ignominy, the shame of bearing
Christ's name if the Lord Jesus Christ and his people never rose
from the dead in their bodies? Why would we suffer the deadly
dangers, the economic deprivation that religion or the world would
withhold from us so that we couldn't survive? Why would we wander
about in sheepskins and goatskins and dens and caves of the earth,
like the Old Testament believers did in some cases, if there was
no resurrection? Why wouldn't we just eat, drink,
and be merry, as he says? Because we're convinced there
is a resurrection. That's why we do this. That's why we suffer these things,
because there is a resurrection of our body. And so the apostle here, he goes
on in verse 31, he says, I protest by your rejoicing, which I have
in Christ Jesus, our Lord, I die daily. Now the words here, I
protest by your rejoicing, if you look in the margin in my
Bible, it says, could be read as your, your rejoicing could
be read as our rejoicing. And that, to me, is what he's
saying here. I protest by our rejoicing, which
I have in Christ Jesus. Every believer, as Paul, ought
to be persuaded of the resurrection of Christ on the last day, and
therefore, that enables us to endure all afflictions. Paul
could endure everything he suffered on a daily basis because he knew
there was a resurrection. Philippians 1, he says, for me
to live is Christ, but to die is gain. And if we're absent
from the body, he says, we're present with the Lord, and not
only that, but our bodies will be raised up. Remember in Deuteronomy
how the Lord said, I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal. This is a promise by God that
he's the God of the resurrection. I kill and I make alive. I wound
and I heal. And there's so many other promises.
But knowing this, David said, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with
me. thy rod and thy staff that comfort me." The gospel of Christ
instructs me and comforts me and gives me peace and joy in
believing. And this is true even under all
kinds of affliction, especially the affliction of death. And
so, even though Paul suffered daily the threat of imminent
death, and he was stoned, he was beaten, he was shipwrecked,
he was left for dead, these things actually happened to him. It
wasn't just an inner struggle. He suffered in his body. And
so he says, I protest by our rejoicing, which I have in Christ
Jesus, our Lord, I die daily. And even under the threat of
this, the Lord is with us. We therefore have nothing to
fear, and we shall not be ashamed of our hope. Nothing is able
to separate us from Christ, from his love for us. Not our sin,
and not all the devils of hell, and not the kingdoms of this
world, not present life, not future things. Nothing can separate
us from the love of Christ, which is in Christ Jesus. And so he
says, I protest. by our rejoicing which I have
in Christ Jesus. And then he goes on in verse
32. He says, if after the manner
of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus. Evidently, Paul gives
a concrete example of dying daily. He refers here to whatever happened
at Ephesus. It must have been that the beasts
were turned loose on him. I don't know what came. Did he
die? Did the Lord raise him up from the dead? I don't know.
He says, what advantage would that be if the dead rise not?
Let us eat, drink, for tomorrow we die. That makes no sense,
does it? We would be foolish. It would make no logical sense. There's no rational reason for
us to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily if there's
no resurrection of our body. So in verse 33, he says, be not
deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners. Peter said, Lord, far be it from
you to go to the cross and suffer in humiliation at the hands of
these people. And Jesus said, no, get behind
me, Satan. You see, if we don't believe
in the resurrection of our body, what will we do? We won't have
any motive to deny ourselves and to die daily. We will not
be in this constant warfare of our new nature with our old nature
and trying to subdue the deeds of the body. Will we? We won't
live in the confidence of having died with Christ. We're risen
with Christ and therefore he's given us life in our souls, eternal
life, and he will raise us up at the last day. And so the evil
communications here refer to the deception of those who said,
who claimed there was no resurrection of our bodies. If the Corinthians
continued to fellowship those kinds of people who denied the
resurrection, they would be defiled. They would corrupt your good
manners. Just as faith comes by hearing the gospel, so unbelief
is stoked when we listen to false gospels, isn't it? Isn't that
what happened to Eve? Don't you remember Satan tried
to discredit God to Eve? And he tried to gain Eve's confidence
in himself and in his lies, rather than trusting Christ, who is
the truth. And when Eve listened to the
devil, she sinned and she believed the lie. So if we listen to the
ministers of Satan, as the Apostle Paul says they are in 2 Corinthians
11, they're ministers of light. They transform themselves, as
Satan does, into ministers of light. But they deny the Christ. They deny the gospel. They preach
a false gospel, and they preach a false Christ. And the remedy
against this is to hold the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus, the
onlyness of Christ, the singularity of Christ in our trust and our
confidence. But if we listen to the false
message, then our faith will diminish and we'll be tempted
to believe a lie. And if we believe a lie, then
the things that we do out of faith will cease to be done.
And if you look at the last verse in 1 Corinthians 15, notice this. This is a conclusion of what
he's saying. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you
know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. There would
be no labor in these things of the gospel. And notice how God
who raises the dead, He raises, he brings life out of the dead.
He transforms a body that was already mortal and corrupt in
itself because of sin. He transforms that body after
it has corrupted in the grave so that he brings out of that
corrupt, decayed body a new, spiritual, eternal, immortal,
incorruptible body. If God does that, then what can
he do with the labors that we expend in this body out of faith
in Christ? You see, he who raises the dead,
he can accomplish eternal blessings out of the labor of a sinful
man looking to Christ, or woman. How does he do that? Through
the gospel. Through the gospel, the church is built through the
proclamation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that
he's gone to the cross and overcome all of our enemies, sin and death,
the grave, hell. He's even delivered us from the
wrath of God and the justice of God that would have brought
us to eternal ruin. And he's done it in such a way
that magnifies the justice and righteousness of God in our eternal
salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. But all these things
would not be if we didn't believe the gospel and the things promised
with that gospel, that we shall rise again. So he says in verse
34, awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the
knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. Now,
the Lord Jesus Christ must give us light. He must give us life. He must give us light. And this
light that he gives to us, this life and light come to us through
the gospel. I love this text of scripture
in 2 Timothy. chapter one. I'll read this to
you in 2 Timothy chapter one. Maybe you've memorized it. He
says in verse nine, he's talking about the Lord. He says, who
has saved us and called us. with a holy calling, and in that
order, too. He saved us and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works. Don't you love
it when the Lord tells us this over and over? But according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. Notice verse 10 now. But now,
this grace given to us in Christ before the world began, in which
he saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to that purpose and grace. He says,
now this is made manifest by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who has done what? Abolished death. And has brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel. Awake to
righteousness. This is where that righteousness
is revealed. In the gospel. The gospel is
what Paul laid out in verses 3-4 of the same chapter. To teach us that the resurrection
of our body is based entirely on what Christ has done. Okay. Now, we only live in believing
the gospel, don't we? If we deny the resurrection,
then we deny the resurrection of Christ, and we deny the resurrection
of His people, and that is not faith, that is unbelief. So,
awake to righteousness means to believe Christ according to
the gospel, and in believing Him, we live to God because of
His righteousness, counted as ours in Him. If we believe Christ,
we will live to God in this present life. Let me read that to you
in Romans chapter 6. The Lord will make sure of it.
Romans 6, he says, for in that he died, Christ, he died to sin
once. But in that he liveth, he liveth
to God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ
our Lord." You see, that's what faith teaches us. We died with
Christ. We rose with Christ. We live
to God. Therefore, we do not We do not
live in faith, yielding our members as instruments to unrighteousness,
to sin, but in faith in Christ, we yield ourselves to God as
those who are alive from the dead. and the members of our
body, we yield those members of our body unto righteousness. Not a righteousness that obtains
life or justification by it, but a righteousness in living
by faith on Christ's righteousness in thankfulness to God and by
his power, we are enabled then to submit ourselves in faith
to Christ and the Lord. produces that fruit in us which
only He can, which is obedience to Christ and submission to Him
out of faith. Whatever is not of faith is sin.
Just like unbelieving Israel fell in the wilderness because
they wouldn't believe, we need to be told, as Jesus told the
churches in Revelation 2, you think you're rich, you think
you're doing well, you're presuming, you're actually poor, naked.
And you need to buy from me gold tried in the fire and clothing
that you might be covered from your nakedness. We have to constantly
be reminded that we're sinners in need of the grace of God.
And so we submit. We submit and we find ourselves
calm and glad to be taught of God, to trust Christ. It humbles
us. The gospel humbles us. It overthrows
our rebellion in our unbelief and it makes us submit to the
truth of Christ and makes us happy to do so. That's what it
means in Romans 15, 13 when he says, let me read it to you. Romans 15, 13. He says, now the
God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that
you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
See, that's what it is. Faith in believing enables us
to experience joy and peace by the power of the Holy Spirit
and that hope in Christ causes us to abound in hope and to live
accordingly. He saved us, He called us with
a holy calling, not by our works, but He did call us to life, to
live to God, and this life is in us, it's the life of Christ
in us, and by this life in us, we believe Christ, and we live,
glad to be humbled by the gospel, to be bowed because of our sin. Now, he gets to the next question
here in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 38. But he says, let me read through
those verses. He says, but some men will say,
how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? I mean, I know, you imagine a
lion ate a poor missionary, consumed him. His body has undergone a
thousand changes. It's returned to the dust. The
desert sands have blown it away. The rains have come and washed
into the river. Hippopotamus ate the fish that
lived off of it. How is the Lord going to possibly
raise up this body? Doesn't that seem reasonable
to ask that question? No. No, it doesn't. Remember what Paul said. He says,
why should it be thought a thing incredible to you that God should
raise the dead? Why should it be incredible to
you that God should raise the dead? Our God, Psalm 68 20, our
God is the God of salvation. And unto the God the Lord belong
the issues from death. The God that Abraham trusted
is the God who raises the dead and calls things which be not
as though they were. There's nothing too hard for
the Lord. The things that are impossible
for men are very possible with God. Jesus said, Lord, if it
be possible, take this cup. With you all things are possible,
but not my will. Thy will be done. This is not
a thing to be thought of as incredible because our own peanut brains
can't wrap around it. or that our own ability can't
contribute to it. No, this is exactly what we need
to be humbled with. God has to perform a resurrection
for us to believe Christ. And he most certainly has to
perform a resurrection of our dead body because of sin in order
to raise us up by the power of God to be made like Christ's
body. So this question, even though
it's an objection, it sounds like to natural man, it's reasonable. How are the dead raised up? What
kind of body did they come with? Let me tell you, let me tell
you. And so it seems incredible to
us. First, notice, first he says, thou fool, that which thou sowest
is not quickened except it die. So that's the first thing. You
claim that this is incredible, but God has designed it so that
the only way our resurrected body will be, our bodies that
are dead will be raised is if it first dies. He goes, that
which thou sowest, like a farmer, thou sowest not that body that
shall be, but bare grain. Look in the mirror, you're just
looking at a kernel of grain. It's not the flower. It may chance
of wheat or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it
hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. So, there's
a seed. We didn't have it before, and
now it's in us. The seed is Christ in us, but
our body is still what we had from Adam. It's natural, earthy,
corruptible, mortal, dishonorable, weak, all the things he described
shortly. That's not an issue. In fact,
it was by God's very design that our first body was natural and
that in Adam we all died. Because by God's own design for
his eternal glory, He would have it. It pleased Him to give us
a spiritual body, a heavenly body. In fact, a body just like
our second Adam, Christ. His body, He went into the grave. His body didn't see corruption,
but He died because of sin. His body was raised, not a physical
body like ours that we now have. Because when Christ was on the
earth, He had to eat. He had to drink water. Remember,
he went out into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. He
was hungry. And he was with the woman at the well. He was thirsty,
because he had a natural body in that sense. What humiliation
it was for him to have a body, like a body, it says in Romans
8, that was to all appearances a sinful body, because it was
subject to the same weakness as our body. He had to sleep.
He got tired and he was sorrowful. But this other body, this other
body designed by God, comes out of death. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is the first fruits. And so the first thing he says
in response to, how are the dead raised up? What kind of body
do they come? He says, it's going to be by the will of God. We
have a natural body by His will. We'll have a heavenly body by
His will. Adam, our first father, was earthly,
but he was a figure of Christ, the second Adam. Adam was of
the earth. Christ is the Lord from heaven.
Adam had a living soul. Christ is the life-giving Spirit. Atom by atom we received a natural
body and a soul, and this life in our body is in our soul. It
was breathed into us by the breath of God. And when that body dies,
the soul has to leave. The body we now have depends
upon the things of this earth, doesn't it? We rely on the sun,
we have to have sunshine, we have to have darkness to sleep.
We have to work or our body gets weak. We have to eat or our body
just doesn't survive. We have to drink. Everything
is tied to this earth, isn't it? But our new body is in no
way tied to this earth. It will not depend on the things
of this earth. It will be a spiritual heavenly
body. We won't sorrow. We won't have
regrets. There won't be anything to be
sorrowful about. There will be no weakness. I wonder sometimes,
I wonder if I'll get rid of all these wrinkles when I get a new
body. That's not the point. The point is that it'll be so
far beyond what the kernel, the seed of this body looks like
now. It will be the same person. It will be the same body in the
sense that as Jesus rose from the dead, it was still flesh
and bones, but it was a new spiritual body. We can eat, we can drink,
but we won't need to. And we can move about in this
new body like Christ did when he was on the earth after his
resurrection from one place to another through walls. I don't
understand it. It's a spiritual body. It's still
a body, but it's a spiritual, it's a heavenly body. It cannot
die. It knows no sin. And that's the best part of it.
This new body is going to be without sin. There'll be no lack
in the energy of this new body to yield itself to God. That's
all we will do and we'll never grow weary of it. And we'll be
able to understand things. There won't be the limitation
of our present ignorance or our failing memory. No regrets. Everything will be perfect. Our
bodies will be just like Christ's body. Just like our bodies now,
just like Adam's body. And that's what is staying here.
And so we must die. Our present body, mortal, corrupt. We must die. Our body that is
raised, our present body is corrupt, it shall be raised incorruptible.
Our present body dies and decays in dishonor in the grave, it
shall be raised to glory. Our present body shall be sown
in the ground in weakness, but it shall be raised in power.
Our present body is natural. Our raised body will be spiritual. Our present body is earthy. Our
raised body will be heavenly. Our present body resembles Adam
the first. Our raised body will resemble
Christ, the second and last Adam. That's what he's saying in these
verses that follow. Oh, there's a flesh of men. There's
a flesh of beasts. There's a flesh of birds and
fish. There's the bodies on earth,
the trees and the mountains and the rocks. There's bodies in
the heavens, the sun and moon and stars. But these are just
things that God was pleased to give these people, these things.
God can do whatever he wants, and he does. And he's been pleased
to give us a spiritual body. But the first body is going to
be natural and earthy and corruptible and mortal. The second body,
that's what is going to be all glorious. But Christ had to come
first. He had to lay down his life.
He had to deny himself. He had to experience that humiliation
for our sins and suffer the penalty of our sins so that we might
be raised in victory and triumph over our sins. in a body that
would be absolutely victorious over sin in the grave and death.
And I'm going to stop here now because we've come to the end
of our time, but I hope to finish this chapter next time. Let's
pray. Father, thank you for your great, great grace and mercy,
your love, inexpressible wisdom and power. and faithfulness,
and your promises, everything, you've bound us to yourself by
your own name. And our name, you've taken us
to yourself as your people, and made us your God. And we bear
your name in our hearts, even in our minds, as on our foreheads.
And we thank you, Lord, that this great grace you would give
yourself to us and take us to yourself and join us to yourself
so that you would live in us by Christ, by his own spirit,
and you would raise us from the dead to be with you. to see you
as you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we shall be then
satisfied when we awake in your likeness. What a glorious day
that will be. Help us not to cling to this
world, but to live in all of the energy that this present
body is given to us by faith in Christ, and so living in anticipation
of your work being done to your glory. In Jesus' name we pray,
amen.