I want to look at 1 Corinthians
15 today with you because this chapter is a significant chapter. It's too big really to do it
justice, but we're going to try to anyway, and I'll try to keep
it to a reasonable time as well. When you listen to what we just
heard Brad reading there, you see that the question was raised
in the first verse. In verse 35, some man will say,
how are the dead raised up and with what body do they come?
The first 34 verses of this chapter, which we're going to read in
a minute, explain why we believe there's a resurrection, why there
is a resurrection, not just because we believe it, but why there
is a resurrection. And it's a very significant proof
of the resurrection, and we'll go through that. But this question
is raised here. It shows that some, not all,
but some in the church at Corinth claimed there was no resurrection. And so Paul is addressing that
error. And notice the way that he does
it here. You would have thought if all
the implications of there not being a resurrection were analyzed,
you would have thought he would have come out flaming at these
people. And yet he's patient with them,
and so much so that when he speaks to them, to correct this error,
it serves as one of the greatest blessings in all of Scripture
to us, as an instruction, as a revelation, as an expanding
of what God has done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. So appreciate
the fact that God always brings good out of evil. And this chapter
is an example of that. The unbelief, and it says here,
In verse 36, the apostle addresses those who denied the resurrection. He says, thou fool, that which
thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And the word fool
there means unwise, ignorant, unbelieving, and it indicates
this lack of spiritual wisdom as a cause of unbelief and pride. And so even though Paul calls
them a fool, it's not the same kind of word that's used in Matthew
5 where Jesus said, don't call your brother a fool or you'll
be in danger of judgment. But here, the apostle does that
because it was an appropriate description. But he speaks it
in love in order to correct them. And it shows the tremendous temperance
that was given by the grace of God to the apostle Paul. Tremendous
temperance in the way that he not only did not just tear them
up with all of his apostolic authority, in correcting this
error, but he actually expanded and unfolded these truths in
a way that are clearer here than perhaps anywhere else in scripture.
Okay, so all that I say by way of introduction. The title of
today's message is Living in Hope of the Resurrection of Our
Bodies, or the Redemption of Our Bodies, the two being the
same thing. Redemption means to set at liberty, and the resurrection
of our body is Christ setting at liberty his people from death.
and all the consequences of our sin. And so we're going to look
at this today as that view, our hope and how we live ought to
live in hope of the redemption of our body, the resurrection
of our body. Now this is something that we
talk about, we say that we believe, but in verse 35 it says, some
will say, how are the dead raised up? So it brings to mind the
skepticism that is naturally in us. It's one thing to believe
I'm going to die. It's another thing to realize
I'm dying, isn't it? And when we have the God-given
providence of experiencing someone close to us who gets sick and
declines and finally dies, the realization of our own mortality,
our own imminent death becomes more painfully clear and real
to us, doesn't it? Especially if that person that
we know who dies or is sick unto death is close to us and is of
the same approximate age or condition in life as we are. So we naturally
realize then at that moment how impactful their experience is
as we observe that experience and as we also learn from them
their hope during the whole process of dying. And that's what we
experienced when we were going through recently what we saw
in the sickness and the decline and then the death of our brother
Cass Hodson. And so these things were then
prominent on my mind. And as I told the folks there,
Cass and I were about the same age. Brother Don Fortner, if
you remember, he died at the same age, age 70, that Cass died. So death is very close for us. As we get older, we realize that
more and more. But even then, I have, as I thought
about these things, I find that generally speaking, most people
When it comes time to die, find that their life was cut short.
They didn't expect it to be so short. It's rare when people
say, yeah, my life is full, and I'm surprised I've lived so long. I'm surprised the Lord hasn't
taken me thus far, and I'm looking forward to being with the Lord.
That's not normally the way people come to this point in their life.
Normally, we come with this disappointment that, oh my, I didn't think it
would come so soon. And one of the things you see
especially as you get older, past the age of 20 or so, is
that when you look back over your life, it doesn't seem to
be so long at all. The first seven years seem like
they take forever. The next seven also seem like
you take forever. And then right until you get
to be 21, it seems like it's never going to get there. But
then after 21, it tends to go quickly, doesn't it? And you
get involved in your life as an adult, and working, and all
that goes with that, getting up every day, going to work pretty
soon. Years pass. And then perhaps you get married,
you have children, and you're supporting your family, you're
raising your children, and you look back after your children
are grown, and you think, wow, those years went by pretty quickly
in retrospect. And it's even more so when you
get to be over 65 and you look back and you say, you know, 65
years seem to go by pretty quickly. And I don't seem, I mean, when
I'm at home, I think I'm still kind of a young person in my
mind, at least. You get up and you go, whoops,
that's kind of pains here and there. So it reminds me that
I'm not as young as I used to be. And the wounds that occur
in my body don't heal like they used to. So you get sore when
you work in certain ways that you used to work in. And that
stiffness continues longer than it used to. And sometimes it
just stays with you for months. In all these things, our frailty,
our weakness, and the decline of our bodies becomes painfully
obvious, doesn't it? But, and here's what I'm building
up to, this chapter is teaching us something about that whole
process. is teaching us something very,
very important, is that for the believer in Christ, death is
not something to be feared, rather it is something to be joyfully
expected and looked forward to. Because the Bible doesn't talk
about death as the end for the believer, but the beginning. And that's why in verse 36 he
says, that which thou sowest, like a seed, is not quickened,
is not made alive, except it die. And so we see in this chapter
that for us to rise again from the dead, our bodies have to
go through a change. And for almost every believer,
that change will occur in the decay of death. But don't worry. because this entire thing of
the falling on sleep in death was designed by God Himself. It was designed by God to bring
great glory to His Son and to Himself. And you see that in
many ways in scripture. But I want to begin this with
you by looking at some things that are in this chapter either
surprising when you read them and don't realize that they're
there, or refreshing and stimulating because you were reminded of
them. So let's consider some of those things. First of all,
this thing of God's glory. Realize that everything the Lord
does is for his glory. And there is perhaps, I mean,
we've said it before, there's nothing that is brighter shining
of God's glory than the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus
said over and over in the New Testament, in the Gospel of John,
chapter 12, for example, he said, Father, glorify thy name. And he was talking about his
own going to the cross, that he would go to the cross, that
he would suffer and die for his people, be buried, and rise again
the third day in victory over sin and death. And this would
bring great glory to God, and it did, no doubt. But here, what
we see that in the death of the believer, in the death of the
body of the believer, we have a decree, an ordained will of
God to bring great glory to himself by his triumph over our death. And this you can see throughout
scripture. Remember the whole encounter of God with Pharaoh
through Moses. Remember Moses comes to Pharaoh.
God says, now when you get there, they aren't going to believe
you. You tell them to release the children of Israel, to let
them go, and they won't obey. But you throw down your rod,
and this will be the first sign. It'll become a serpent. And then
after a while, you take it back up, and it'll become your staff
again. And so when they did that, remember what happened. The magicians
of Egypt, Pharaoh's magicians, they said, oh, we can do that.
They throw down their staff, and their staff becomes a serpent. And then what happened? Well,
Moses' staff, the serpent that it became, swallowed up those
serpents, right? And what does that teach you?
Well, it teaches us that God always triumphs. And his triumph
is much more glorious because of the enemies that come against
his people. And it says in Isaiah 25 verse
8 that death will be swallowed up in victory. Now, that swallowing
up was signified by Moses' serpent, his staff, swallowing up. God's
will given to Moses to complete would absolutely swallow up all
the opposition of Pharaoh and his court and his armies. Just
as Christ's coming with the gospel, the word, the staff of God's
power would swallow up, the accomplishment of his work would swallow up
the devil and death and the grave and all the victories like a
big vortex sucking them down into perdition. And God personifies
the evil, the wickedness of the enemies of his people as sin
and death and the grave and hell and all these things, the world
and its lusts and its temptations and its deceptions and its religion. All of it is going to be consumed
in the victory of Christ over the enemies of his people. But
we see the glory here because of the weakness, you see. Out
of death comes life. because of Christ's victory. And that's the first thing that
shocks us here in this chapter, is that we might ask, well, why
is it that God designed the world the way he did? Why didn't he
bring us immediately from his hand of creation to be created
in Christ Jesus as spiritual people then? Why did we have
to go through this whole experience of our history, the long history
of this world, and being born a natural man, and an earthly
man, having a body that was corruptible, and in Adam it did corrupt. We fell into sin, we committed
sin in Adam, and our bodies fell then into death, and we were
condemned to die. And our bodies not only began
to corrupt, but in the end, in the end of our life, our bodies
do go into the ground and become corruption. And they decay and
decline and they become weak and it's dishonorable and it
brings our pride into the dust. Why did God do that? Well, it
was his purpose to glorify himself in the resurrection of his people
because he conquered their sin. And he conquered their sin in
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. So God brings this glory out
of the weakness, even our sinful weakness. And this corresponds
to what the apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 12,
when he said, when I'm weak, When I'm weak, then the strength
of Christ is perfected in me. And so therefore, I'm happy when
I suffer by my infirmities, by my weaknesses, because then Christ's
power is perfected in me. And I decrease, and he increases,
like John the Baptist said. So this is the way. And so therefore,
in our lives, when I see my body declining, what am I supposed
to think? This is God's perfect will, to
glorify His Son. Through the weakness that sin
brings to my body, and the corruption and the mortality that God designed
through my fall in Adam, to bring a greater glory, to bring good
out of that evil, to the glory of His name. And not only to
the glory of His name, but for my own inheritance with Him in
glory. So that in itself is a fantastic thing. We realize
that when we look at this chapter, when we take the whole chapter
in its survey and we look at it, we say, it has to be this
way for the glory of Christ and for the salvation, the eternal
salvation of his people. And perhaps at this point I ought
to read to you from Isaiah 25. And turn with me there because
Isaiah 25 is a significant text of scripture about the promises
of God concerning the resurrection of his people and his entire
plan of salvation in the Lord Jesus. So look at Isaiah 25. And notice in verse 6 of Isaiah
25, he says, And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make
unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the
lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain
the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil
that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory,
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and
the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the
earth, for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that
day, Lo! This is our God. We have waited
for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited
for Him. We will be glad and rejoice in
His salvation. You see this? This is the expression
of absolute joy and confidence in Christ, who is our great God
and Savior. At the resurrection of our bodies,
all of the a redeemed church of God, gathered in glory, saying,
this is our God. We waited for him, and now he
will save us. All the tears, like a parent
taking their handkerchief and blotting the tears from the face
of their child and comforting that child in all of their troubles,
He will blot away the tears of all of the fears and the doubts
and the disappointments and the sorrows that sin brought into
His people because of our utter failure. to do for our God, as
we ought to have done, and his salvation of us, that it costs
so much that he would do this, and yet he will swallow up death
in victory, and he'll take away the veil from off all faces.
He will make it clear at that time, without any ambiguity,
without any impediment, that Christ is in His glory, is our
God and Savior, and we will relish in Him throughout all eternity. No doubts anymore. No questions
to be answered anymore. All will become clear. And so
we see that there. Now, the second thing. that strikes
me as I read 1 Corinthians 15. There's many things that will
occur to us as we read through here. The second thing, though,
that strikes me is that Christ himself, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and notice in this chapter in 1 Corinthians 15, he says in
verse 47, the second man, the second man, is the Lord from heaven. How
many men are there? Two. Christ is the second, and
he's also called the last Adam here in this same chapter. But
here it says, the first man is of the earth, earthly. The second
man is what? The Lord from heaven. Now that's
a plain statement here, that Jesus Christ is both God and
man. The sovereign of heaven is the
second man. And isn't it wonderful here that
in this chapter what we see is that Christ himself, in order
to save his sinful people, was brought under their sin, and
the condemnation of their sin, as they were in Adam, he himself
came under that sin, and he had to first undergo the experience
of a natural body. He had to be born of a woman.
He had to live in a body that grew weary. Remember, he said,
in The Woman at the Well, he sat thus on the well, being wearied
with his journey. His body was subject to the temptations. Otherwise, the devil's temptations
meant nothing. He was tempted in the wilderness
to turn the stones into bread and other things. And he had
to live upon the word of God. So his body was subject to those
things. He thirsted. He hungered. He
grew weary. He slept, remember, in the back
of the boat on the sea. All these things were true. He
wept. He was sorrowful. And he was amazed. Remember when
he was in Gethsemane, he was sore amazed and very heavy from
the sorrow that came upon him. He experienced the pain of soul
that caused him to cry out in prayer to God. He prayed as a
man, needing God's saving grace to save him from the pains of
death and to deliver him from death. In Hebrews chapter 5 and
verse 7, it says that he, He, with strong crying and tears,
he offered his prayers to God with strong crying and tears,
and he was saved and delivered in that he feared. And though
he were a son, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.
So all these things were true of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
in order to deliver us from our sin and from the condemnation
and the mortality and the corruption that came upon us in these bodies
because of sin, Christ had to live in a body that was like
a sinful body. Not because it was sinful, but
because it suffered the same afflictions that our body suffers,
the wearisomeness of life. And he had to grow, he had to
learn, he had to go through all these experiences. And this is
phenomenal that the Lord from heaven had to first take our
nature into union with himself in order to, in that nature,
do what? Carry our sins in his own body
up to the tree. And then not only carry them
up to the tree, but on the cross, bear those sins and the whole
outpouring of God's wrath against him in soul and body for those
sins. And then he was buried. He died
and he was buried. How could the Lord of glory die?
Because he was in our nature. He was made a little lower than
the angels for the suffering of death that he, by the grace
of God, should taste death for every one of God's children.
And so he died. And then he was buried. And that
body that died with our sins was buried. And our sins then
were laid in the tomb in his body. And they were left there.
Because then he rose because God justified him. He assessed
all that he did and he received all that he did. His blood and
his obedience and his sufferings and his cries. And he justified
him. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit. And he raised him from the dead
because he, by his righteousness and by his blood, overcame sin
and death. But in order to do that, he had
to first have a natural body. And so he says this in 1 Corinthians
15. He says, in verse, I'll read
this to you. He says, Let's see, where is it? Here in verse 46, how be it?
That was not first, which is spiritual, but that which is
natural. We weren't born a spiritual person,
were we? Not a spiritual man, not a spiritual
body, but we were born natural. Not heavenly, earthy. Not immortal,
mortal. Not incorruptible, we were corruptible. You see, Adam is called Adam
in scripture. And the name Adam is just simply
a name of man. And man is subject to death. And that's why Adam, when he
sinned, died. And we sinned and died in Adam. And there we were. We were dead
in our sins. And the Lord Jesus Christ had
to take our body. Not a sinful body, but a body
that was like. a sinful body. And when you looked
at him, you couldn't tell the difference between him and everybody
else, because he suffered from the same things that we suffer
from as a natural person. But he was the Lord from heaven.
And in order for him to then be the first of all of his people
to raise his people from the dead, in order for him to take
that body, he had to overcome sin and death in this body, the
body that we now have, and then rise in triumph. And he was risen
from the dead, not as a natural man, but as a spiritual man. And not as a earthly man, but
as a heavenly man. Not as corruptible, but incorruptible.
Not as mortal, but immortal. Not as weak, but powerful. Not
as dishonorable, but glorious, you see. What does this all mean? It means that Christ is the first
fruits. And in order for him to be the
first fruits of his people, in order for him to be the resurrection
and the life to his people, he had to undergo death for our
sins. And that's phenomenal, isn't
it? Even the Lord of glory, the Lord from heaven, had to first
enter this world in the likeness of sinful flesh so that God could
condemn sin in his flesh in order that in overcoming our sin by
satisfying God's justice, he would rise a spiritual, heavenly,
immortal, incorruptible body. And that body would be so glorious
that he would be able to come into the presence of God as a
man. in the body that is fully capable of being in the presence
of God. And our body will be raised on
the last day in likeness to his body. Philippians 3 and verse
21 says this. Let me read this to you. I'm sorry, I usually just have
my marker in these places, but Philippians chapter 3 and 21,
he says, in verse 20, our conversation, our citizenship is in heaven,
from whence also we look for the Savior. Notice, we look for,
expectingly, waiting, joyfully anticipating, longing for the
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. who shall change our vile body
that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according
to the working whereby he is able, notice, even to subdue
all things unto himself." So, our resurrection is Christ putting
into subjection our death to himself in an open display. He already has all things under
his authority. But the results of his redemption
are given to us at that time. The results for our body to be
redeemed are given to us at the end of time. And so that's the
second thing I wanted to point out here. And there's many things
to point out here. I wanted to also point out this
amazing fact from this chapter here that may not be obvious
to you when you just read it casually. You know, in scripture, God says
that Jesus Christ is the head and his people are his body,
right? And that's important if we understand
that. The implications are significant
here in many ways. That Christ has so joined himself
to his people that he is the head of his people and they are
his body. Ephesians 5 says, bone of his
bone, flesh of his flesh, one with him. If you think about
that and you realize that Christ's body is made up of all of His
people who are brought to Him, given to Him from before time,
and then brought to Him in time, So that all of his people throughout
time are being brought into this experience of their spiritual
union with Christ in time, aren't they? The history of this world
consists of Christ bringing his sheep to himself by the preaching
of the gospel through the power of his grace. And in fact, this
action, this operation in them, when the gospel is preached,
the Spirit of Christ then resurrects them in their spirit. He says,
in Ephesians chapter 2, he says, you were dead in sins, but now
he's quickened you. He's given you life in your spirit.
When we were dead in sins, because of his great love wherewith he
loved us, hath quickened us together with Christ. And this quickening
occurs in the individual lives of all of his people throughout
history. So that the body of Christ is
being formed when the spirit of God is given to them, the
gates of hell are not prevailing against him, he's building his
church. And then the realization, the consummation of them in both
soul and body, notice now, and this is a phenomenal thing. At
this time in history, which is the end of history, the last
moment of history, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who rose and
then took on this body, which is this spiritual, heavenly,
powerful, glorious body, incorruptible, immortal body. At that time,
he will come in glory, personally. And he will issue the sound of
his voice like a mighty trumpet. And in a moment, all of his dead
who fell on sleep in death in their body, every one of them
at the same time by the power of Christ will be raised up out
of their corruption and their dishonor and their decay. And they will be all changed
in a moment and given a spiritual body. that is immortal and incorruptible
and heavenly, just like his glorious body. Now, what kind of power
is that? Unbelievable power, isn't it? This is the power of our Christ. This is the power of God in the
last man, the second man, the last Adam. I find that phenomenal. And there
will be believers at that time living. And when it happens,
all of them, without going through the process of bodily death,
will instantly, in an immeasurably short moment of time, be transformed
and changed so that their bodies also will be made like Christ's
glorious body. And together, they will be caught
up together with the Lord in the air and be forever with the
Lord. Now, that's something to look
forward to. Do we believe these things? If we believe them, then
we anticipate, we expect them, we long for them, we look forward
to them. And I just want to take you to
a couple of verses about this. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
5. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, this anticipation, this joyful
expectation of Christ's total victory because of his cross
in the resurrection and the change of his people into what their
spiritual body and heavenly body will be. Look at 2 Corinthians
5 and verse 6. The Apostle Paul says, In verse
5, that God has given us the earnest of the spirit. That's
the first part of our redemption. That's what we were talking about
a moment ago. Through the preaching of the gospel, the spirit of
God operates in us and he speaks life to us. He raises us from
the dead spiritually. And here he says, God who also
has given us the earnest of the spirit, therefore we are always
confident Not doubtful, but confident that while we are at home in
the body, and this is a nice place, I mean, my body seems
like a pretty comfortable home. We are absent from the Lord in
our body. In our body, we're absent from
the Lord. He goes on, for we walk by faith, not by sight.
We can't see the Lord with our eyes, can we? How do we see him? By faith. Faith is what? The substance of things hoped
for. The evidence of things not seen.
He goes on in verse 8, for we are confident, I say, and willing,
rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the
Lord. If we're gone from this body,
where are we? We're present with the Lord.
So even though on the last day we wait, as it says in Isaiah
25, 8, 9, we're waiting. We're waiting for the redemption
of our body. And that will occur on the last
day. Even then, I mean even before then, God in his grace says that
our spirit already raised is not going to die the second death,
but will go immediately at the, when our bodies fall asleep,
to be with the Lord. That's what he's saying here.
And so we want that to happen. We are willing rather to be absent
from the body and to be present with the Lord. So I wanted you
to see that willingness that God puts into his people so that
they have this anticipation, this joyful expectation that
they will die and it will be a glorious victory. They'll be
with the Lord immediately and then on the last day there's
this resurrection of their body. But then in Philippians chapter
1, Philippians chapter 1 and verse 19. this anticipation,
Paul says, for I know that this, this trouble that he was experiencing
in his life preaching the gospel, this shall turn to my salvation
through your prayer and the supply of Jesus, of the Spirit of Jesus
Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, you see,
earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed,
but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall
be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ,
and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this
is the fruit of my labor, yet what I shall choose I want not,
I don't know, for I am in a strait. Betwixt two, having a desire
to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless,
to abide in the flesh is more expedient for you." So here we
see Paul's He's standing on tiptoes, expecting to be with the Lord,
also fully confident that Christ is going to be glorified in his
body, even if he's alive or dead. But he wants to be with the Lord,
so he would rather be with the Lord, which means he has to die. than to be on earth in his body
going through all the troubles that we have. And so he's looking
forward to that, but he realizes that if he does die or sleep
in death, that he can't preach the gospel. So he says, it's
better for you that I stay. Just like we do when we realize
that if we die, then I have to leave my wife with all the troubles
that I now am able to help her with. And I don't want that to
happen. So I have a desire to be here for that sake. A sanctified
outlook from God is to anticipate and want to be with the Lord.
And so, our death. Now, in 1 Thessalonians chapter
5, look at this also with me. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and
I've read this to you recently, but notice what he says here.
He says in verse 8 of 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, he tells believers
what to do who are thinking about the Lord's second
coming and death and everything that goes with that. He says
in verse 8, let us who are of the day, meaning we're not in
darkness, we're of the light, we're of Christ, let us which
who are of the day be sober, putting on, this is what sobriety
does, spiritual sobriety does, put on the breastplate of faith. and love, and for a helmet, the
hope, the expectation of salvation. We just read in Isaiah 25, 9,
this is the Lord. We waited for him. He will save
us. Look at verse 9. For God hath not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything
we expect is because of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what faith
says. Notice verse 10. Who died for
us, That whether we wake or sleep, to be awake means in my body. I'm still at home in my body.
I'm alive in my body. Or sleep, I'm no longer alive
in my body, but wherever I am, he says in the next part, we
should live together with him. Whether I'm alive in my body,
or whether I'm asleep in my body, I'm with the Lord, living together
with Him. You see? And why? Because Christ
died for us. Who died for us, that whether
we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. And then,
turn back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Chapter 1, where he
says to the Thessalonians, he says, verse 9, he says, He was so thankful, he says,
for these people that we have talked to about you. He says,
for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we
had unto you, how you turned to God from idols to serve the
living and true God. You see, salvation is turning
away from everything that's false, that we once trusted, to Christ,
who is the true. And to wait for his son from
heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Even Jesus, who delivered
us from the wrath to come. What are believers doing? Well,
we turn to God from these dumb idols, and they're dumb both
because they can't speak and because they're stupid. that
we would ever create them in our minds, or other people would.
But here, what do we do when we've turned to God in faith?
We wait for His Son from heaven. We're expecting Him to come.
He raised Him from the dead, Jesus, who delivered us from
the wrath to come, so He's going to deliver us entirely. All right,
so that's... Some of the things that I've
seen here in this chapter, and there are many more, and we'll
go through that. And I'm not going to do all this today because
there's going to be too much time. So we're going to have
to cover this chapter more next time. But I just want to give
you a first start at the beginning of this, the remainder of this
message, which we'll pick up next time, by looking at the
first four verses of the chapter. Notice the first part of this
chapter is setting the groundwork on which the resurrection of
our bodies and all that follows is built. It stands on this. There were those in the church
of Corinth who denied the resurrection of the dead. Huge implications,
negative implications in doing so. To deny the resurrection
of the dead has huge negative implications. And in order to
get to those, the apostle is going to step back and he's going
to preach to the entire congregation at Corinth the gospel again. Because the gospel is always
the foundation for everything. It's the foundation for knowing
the will of God, the work of God, the glory of God. It's the
foundation for what we believe, it is what we believe, and it's
the foundation for why the Spirit of God is given to us with this
grace to enable us to believe. So the gospel is always the starting
point. So the apostle, faithful to his
master, here in this chapter begins this way, just like he
began the entire book of 1 Corinthians, when he says in chapter 1, verse
17, for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Because the gospel is the power
and the wisdom of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. So
he says, moreover, brethren, notice how he addresses them,
they are believers, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel
which I preached unto you, because that's what Christ sent him to
do, to preach the gospel which also you have received, so you
obviously are not unbelievers, and wherein you stand, by which
also you are saved. The gospel that we believe is
what saves us. if you keep in memory what I
preached to you. Now, it doesn't mean that our
memory has to work until the end of our lives or we'll be
lost. What it means is that having believed Christ as He is declared
in the Gospel, we have no other faith. We have no other confidence.
We hold no other one but Christ. We continue to hold him in faith. The word memory doesn't mean
this meant a cognitive business that we remember things from
one moment to the next. It means holding to Christ continuously
as we believed him in the gospel. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him. In other words. All right, then
he goes on. If you're saved, if you hold
fast to Christ in faith, hold fast to what I preach to you,
unless you have believed in vain. All right. I think we're going
to close with this thought on this verse here, before I go
on to this. Notice, what does it mean to believe in vain? Well,
if you believe a false gospel, then you have a false faith. Do you understand that? If you
believe that a spider web can keep you from falling into the
Grand Canyon, then you have trusted a false bridge, a bridge that's
unable to hold you up. To have a faith that you believed
in vain, it means you believed something that was empty. Something
that is vanity. Something that cannot say. To
believe what is false is to have a false faith. To believe a false
god is to have a false faith. To believe a false Christ or
a false gospel is to believe in vain. So, first and foremost,
to believe in vain means to not hold the true gospel as the object
and Christ as the object of your faith. Because the gospel is
nothing more than God's declaration to us concerning Christ. Who
he is and what he did. But then there's also this other
thing, which is not so clear until you read the entire chapter,
is that the faith that we are given In the true Christ, and
in the true work that he accomplished, in the salvation by which we
are truly saved, that faith only comes to us because Christ not
only put away our sin, but rose and gave his spirit to us so
that we could believe the true gospel. You see, in order for
us to know and believe the truth, a resurrection in our spirit
has to occur, which comes to us because Christ himself rose
from the dead. He is the resurrection and a
life, spiritually and physically. And so this is why it's so important
that we understand the gospel. If you don't know and believe
the true gospel, then you have a false faith. Mormons have a
false faith. Jehovah's Witnesses have a false
faith. Catholics have a false faith. Why? Because they don't
believe the truth. They don't know Christ. And Jesus
will say to those at the last day who stand before him and
plead their own works, I never knew you. You see? Because we're
seeking recognition from Christ based on ourselves and our work.
And that's a false gospel. To believe in vain is to have
a false object of faith. And also, it's saying that if
there is no resurrection, you cannot believe the truth. And therefore, to say there's
no resurrection denies the fact that you can even have faith
in Christ. And so these things build up
in their intensity as the apostle brings them to light in his explanation
of the resurrection of our bodies from the dead because of Christ.
What a magnificent savior and salvation that he has accomplished
for us. And I hope that you'll stick with me as we look at this
next time to go through this chapter. Let's pray. Father,
thank you for your glorious salvation in our glorious Savior, the Lord
from heaven, who is the second man. Only two matter, that we
are either in Adam or in Christ. We're all born in Adam. We must
be put in Christ. And this you must do for us.
Help us, Lord, to know that we are in Christ by causing us to
believe Him and live upon Him. And we pray, Lord, that You would
be glorified in our lives, in our body, whether it be by life
or by death. And we would, according to the
revelation You've given to us of Christ in the Gospel, we would
joyfully expect. our departure from this mortal,
corruptible body that we might be with you immediately when
we fall asleep in death, and then in the end of time when
you raise your people at once from the dead. What a Savior. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.