Alright, let's take our Bibles
and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Last week we looked at the mediatorial
reign of Jesus Christ, who is the resurrected, ascended, seated,
all-sufficient Savior of God's elect. You know, when Paul established
the assurance of the belief, keeping him from needless worry,
and keeping him from needless fretting about. He's establishing
the assurance of God's elect. And when establishing this assurance
of men before God, he doesn't ask who shall lay anything to
the charge of any man. He said, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Now, if God didn't have an elect
and Christ didn't represent His elect, there would be no need
to ask that question. If Christ died for all men, that
question would be irrelevant. But He didn't. He was a representative
man and He died for His elect. And I tried to show you in our
study last week that Jesus Christ is that representative. That's
why He came. That's why creation is. That's
why man has a being. And Paul's message at Mars Hill,
he establishes that. That this is in Him we live and
move and have our being. that we might feel after Him,
that we might find Him. It's about this redemptive work
of Christ. That's why we have a being. That's
why man exists on this earth. That's why creation exists. This
thing didn't start back in Bethlehem. This thing started in eternity
past. And when He came, He came to
fulfill certain offices and appointments which God gave Him before the
foundation of the world. And he came as a representative
man. And so Paul teaches here in 1
Corinthians 15, talking about that resurrection, that in Adam
all die, in Christ shall all be made alive, in these two representatives,
these two federal heads. He's ordained of God before the
foundation of the world. He's promised and prophesied
throughout the Old Testament. Manifest through the virgin birth
and a body of flesh, God and man in one body? He is manifest
by divine and just resurrection and manifest by heavenly ascension. The angels came and received
Him up into glory. This was a heavenly ascension.
He didn't just disappear like the Jews made out. Somebody come
and robbed his body and he just disappeared. That's not so. There
was people standing there when he stepped onto that cloud and
those angels took him and he ascended into glory. And the
angels even said to him, no doubt I would have been, and no doubt
they were standing there with their mouth open looking up into
the sky watching him ascend into glory. And the angels said, why
stand you gazing? This same Jesus that you see
going away is going to ascend again in like manner. He is going
to come in clouds of glory with His heavenly angels. And so He
ascends into heaven itself, and there He is coronated, taking
His rightful seat on the throne as our Redeemer. Now, in today's
study, Paul asked this question. If the resurrection, if the ascension
and reign of Christ in glory be not so, he draws two conclusions. First of all, in verse 29, he
said, what shall they do which are baptized for the dead? If there's no resurrection, if
there's no life after death, if Jesus Christ was not raised
of God and received into glory, and seated at his right hand,
what are they going to do who are baptized for the dead? Now, he's not talking about somebody
being baptized in proxy for the dead, but he's talking about
being baptized and marked out for martyrdom, which was almost
certain death. There was places then, now we
can't even imagine that today, that a man would be taken out
and set on fire or taken out and stoned to death or something
like that for his profession of faith. But in that day, in
that day, to publicly confess Christ was almost certain death
in certain places. And Paul said, if there's no
hope after death, why would a man do that? Why would He do that? And then secondly, verse 30,
and why stand we in jeopardy every hour? You know, it's kind of like Christ. They, several occasions, they
tried to take Him and kill Him. But they couldn't. God preserved
him. It wasn't his time yet, and he
walked right through their midst. They would have taken him out
and threw him off the brow of the hill that that city was built
on, but they couldn't touch him because his time was not yet
come. And the same thing with the Apostle Paul. He was beaten
three times, one stripe short of death. And he was left for
dead on several occasions. He was shipwrecked. He did this
and did that. And he said, well, why stand
wind up? If there's no hope after death, why am I subject to this
persecution and opportunity of death on every hand? The preacher's life is a life
of opposition and struggle. And Paul talks here in verse
32. Let's look at that. If after the manner of men I
fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it me if the
dead rise not? Let's just say like the heathen.
Let's eat and drink and tomorrow we are going to die. Now, Satan is depicted as a roaring
lion. Herod was called a fox. Nero was called a lion. And those
hard-hearted legalizers, they were called dogs. And I don't
believe Paul's here talking about being made to fight literally
with beasts in an arena when he's talking about having fought
with beasts at Ephesus. He's talking about false prophets. And he's talking about Satan
and his ministers of righteousness. And the preacher's life is a
life of opposition. He said, we wrestle not with
flesh and blood, but against rulers of the darkness of this
world and against spiritual wickedness in high places. Preachers are
the bullseye of the target. for Antichrist religion. They're
just the bullseye, because we stand publicly and declare these
things, and our name is associated with these things publicly. And
all God's people suffer persecution, but preachers especially. They're
public declarers of the truth, and they stand before men and
they condemn their evil ways. I remember the old saint, I can't
think of his name now, Henry used to talk about Bishop Latimer,
and he preached that message to Henry VIII, who was an adulterer,
just a rank adulterer. And he brought this message that
adulterers and so on, they're all going to be judged. And the
king sent a committee to talk to him. And they said, Preacher,
I know you're not aware of the situation here, but it might
be better if you found something else to preach on. So the king,
being you did this thing publicly, the king is going to give you
another opportunity next Sunday to stand up and preach. And so
he stood up. And that following Sunday, he
said adulterers and so on are still going to be judged where
you like it or where you don't. And he was taken out and beheaded.
But we tell men, we talk to men, and we're public declarers of
the truth, and we stand before men and we condemn their evil
ways. And we condemn their false doctrine,
and we insist on the truth of the Gospel of Christ and the
Word of God. Verse 32. I've already read that
to you. And our life is a life of opposition. It's a life of opposition. The
natural man's not going to accept these things. He's not going
to receive these things of the Spirit of God. His mind is enmity
against God. He's a rebel in heart and mind.
He is by nature, Paul said, a child of wrath, even as others. He's
taken captive, he told Timothy, by Satan at his will. And for us to be careful when
we're talking to to people like this, and remember that Satan
can take men captive at his will. He's a powerful enemy. You're
no match for him. You're no match for him. Michael, the archangel, when
contending for the body of Moses, he didn't bring any railing accusations
against Satan. He was no match for Satan either.
But he said, the Lord will rebuke you. The Lord is a match, more
than a match. And I know, you know, there's
talents involved in preaching, there's certain gifts given to
individuals to this end, but no man has the ability to accomplish
conversion in another, or regeneration, or lead a man to repentance and
establish him in a faith. It's God the Holy Ghost who works
in conjunction with that message that causes that word to come
in power. I can tell you the truth, but
I can't cause that truth to enter into your heart. I can't apply
that truth to your conscience. God the Holy Ghost must do that.
And when I've said the truth, when I've declared to you the
truth, that's it for me. That's it for me. There's no
need for me going outside and button-holing you or getting
you off to yourself somewhere and trying to force these things
down your throat. I've already told you the truth. Now I wait
on the Lord to do His work. And if He don't do it, it's not
going to be done. It's not going to be done. God
the Holy Ghost brings these things to pass. But why suffer this
opposition and persecution? Why put myself through this misery
and division if there's no life after death? What's the point?
You see what Paul's saying? What's the point? If the dead
rise not, let's just live like the heathen, eat, drink, for
tomorrow we die. I was talking to Brian last week
about a verse over in 2 Peter chapter 3. Peter said, If the
old world was kept by the word of the Lord, and then destroyed
in judgment, and the heavens and the earth which are now by
the same word are kept in store, reserved under fire against the
day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, and the Lord
being longsuffering toward His elect, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repent, and looking around
us and seeing that all these things that we see, all these
things which we interact with are going to be dissolved, what
manner of people ought we to be? What manner of conversation
ought to attend our lives? What holiness and godliness ought
to attend our lives knowing these things? It's the promise and power of
His resurrection that's at the heart of our hope before God.
And just presenting a substitute didn't do any man any good. Even
back under the law, you brought that lamb, you couldn't rest
in that and brought the lamb handy. You needed a high priest
to take that blood and go beyond that veil and do business with
God. And that's what it is. That's
what Christ did. He entered into heaven itself
with His own blood and obtained eternal redemption for us. And it's the promise and power
of His resurrection that's at the heart of our hope before
God. And then He tells us here in
verse 34, Awake to righteousness, and sin not, for some have not
the knowledge of God." He said, I speak this to your shame. These
men who were trying to convince this church that there is no
resurrection, Paul says here pretty clearly, they don't know
God. And he says, I'm telling you that to your shame. You're
being taught by men who don't know God. Awake to righteousness is not
a call for men to produce a righteousness by some kind of self-reform or
self-will. Rather, it's a call to awake
to the righteousness of Christ and His shed blood. It's a seeing
and knowing and realization of this righteousness which enables
us to serve our God. We can't serve Him apart from
this imputed righteousness. You couldn't even come into His
presence. We're just maggots. Can you imagine? You look at
a maggot person, you just step on him or ignore him or take
a shovel and get rid of him. You don't want to round up. We're
just maggots before God apart from this righteousness. We can't
enter into His presence. We enter into His presence because
Christ has given to us and obtained for us a righteousness. A perfect
righteousness. And God sees that righteousness,
and He sees us righteous before Him. And He says, Awake to this. Awake
to this. And the living proof of this
righteousness has been resurrected. It's a person. Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes it.
And His resurrection and ascension into glory, there's my righteousness.
It's already accepted of God and seated with Him in the heavens.
Verse 35. But some will say, how are the
dead raised up? And with what body do they come? That's what the natural men want
to know. How? How? They never asked why. How? How? How are the dead raised
up? Those who've been reduced to
death, just dust, fed to the beasts. Here's a body that was
standing there and they led this body out into the arena and they
turned the lines loose on him and there's nothing left but
his boots. There he sits. He's gone. He's
been digested. His body's been dissolved. There's
nothing left. Or this one over here, he died
and he's out in the desert and they left him out there and he
just reduced to dust. How is the dead going to rise? You see what they're asking in
this verse? What kind of bodies will they have? Some of them
were burned at the stake, burned into ashes. How are they going
to rise? Will they be the same bodies? How can this be? How can this be? I want to say
this first of all. There's no part of the salvation
of man which can be explained and understood by natural reasoning. We receive it by faith. I don't understand how God created
the world the universe out of things that was not. But that's what it tells you
over here in Hebrews chapter 11, and faith receives that and
accepts that. There's no part of this thing,
regeneration, does that make sense to you? You can't explain this. It's
not understood by natural reasoning. And to those who are perishing,
these things are foolishness. You start explaining it to them,
and the more you explain, the more foolish it appears to them.
But to those called out of darkness, those born of God, those given
power to become sons of God, to believers, God has instruction
and reasoning. He said, now come now, let us
reason together. You can reason if God reasons
with you. He enables a man to become reasonable,
and he can reason with him. He can tell him things. But Paul is going to talk to
you, assuming that God has done a work in your heart. He was
convinced that God did a work in some of these people's hearts,
and he is going to talk to them and reason with them. And to
answer this great mystery, how these bodies were raised up,
Paul goes to the farmer. And he said, you ever look at
a grain of corn? All shriveled up, hard, don't
look like it'd produce anything to me. I don't think you can
cook it enough to eat it. Old seed corn, here it is, all
shriveled up. It don't look to me like, it
doesn't look anything like what it's gonna look like when you
put it in the earth. And now this big green stalk
comes up and has two or three ears on it and produces fruit.
That little grain don't look like that, does it? When the farmer sows his grain,
it must be buried in the earth before it can appear with its
purposed end. And contained in that seed is
that which will be raised again. When the believer is raised from
the dead, it will be in a sense the same body, but with infinite
glories and excellences above anything that we can imagine.
Like that old dried, shriveled up grain of corn does not even
resemble the full stock in the ear. So that which is buried
does not yet appear. This is what John said, it does
not yet appear what we shall be. Verse 37, And that which thou
sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, whether it
be whatever kind of grain of wheat or some other grain, but
God giveth it a body as it has pleased Him. and to every seed
his own body." God is going to give His seed a new body. A new body. God will Himself
give this seed a new body, rising up out of the dust by His Word
and by His power and by His sovereign grace. We shall receive a new
body, an incorruptible body, a sinless and a holy body without
sin. Not even a trace of the serpent's
slime can be found on that new body. And in the next several verses,
Paul is going to illustrate that though we shall be raised in
bodies of flesh, we'll have fleshly bodies, yet we shall possess
glories and excellences that you can't see right now. Verse
39, all flesh is not the same flesh. one kind of flesh of men,
another flesh of beasts, another of fowls, and another of birds.
And there's also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial. But the
glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of a terrestrial
is another. There's a difference. Celestial
means heavenly, spiritual, divine. Terrestrial means pertaining
to this world, subject to natural laws, having an earthly origin,
an earthly body, earthly limitations. And there's one glory, he says,
of the sun, verse 41, and another glory of the moon and another
glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in
glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It's sown in corruption. It's raised in incorruption.
Contrary to the Armenian view of heaven, which speaks of divisions
and distinctions in heaven among God's elect, got some of them
got four or five crowns, and one of them got two crowns, and
one of them just barely had one crown. He kind of wears it over
on the side. And some, you know, living in
mansions, and some of them living in shacks. They used to sing
a song in that crazy Armenian church that my wife and I had
joined. Give me just a cabin in the corner
of glory land. There ain't no cabins in glory.
Just mansions. In my father's house there are
many mansions. No cabins. And Paul's not here pointing
out distinctions in the resurrected saints, but he's talking about
the distinction of saints' resurrected bodies to that which they now
have and know. That's what he's talking about
in all this. And as their bodies terrestrial and bodies celestial
with great distinction, so in the resurrection the glory and
excellences of the saints shall be manifest and known to all
men." You'll be able to see them and see the distinction. Salvation is by grace, it's not
by merit. And Arminians talk about the
prayers and works of believers being spiritual building products
that are sent up into glory, and then God takes those things.
That's nonsense. That's what Paul's telling these
people here. These people don't know God.
He said, I'm speaking this to your shame. You ought to know
that they don't know God, listening to them talk about these things.
Our Lord said, I go to prepare a place for you, doesn't He?
I'm not leaving here to send you material so I can help you
build a place. I go to prepare a place for you.
He does it, and he does it alone. And grace will build the house,
not our personal merits. And God himself giveth it a body
as it hath pleased him, a glorious body, a body like unto the Son
of God, an incorruptible body, an immortal body, and a body
without sin. These bodies, verse 42, are sown
in corruption. They're buried in corruption.
If there was no sin, there'd be no death. Sin, when it's finished,
bringeth forth death. They're sown in corruption, but
they're raised in incorruption. They're sown in dishonor, verse
43, raised in glory. Sown in weakness, raised in power. Verse 44, sown a natural body,
raised a spiritual body. Natural men have taken great
liberties to interpret in song and picture what the saints should
be like in glory. I see pictures of saints with
wings flying around. You can't find that in the Scripture. John tells us plainly in 1 John
3 verse 2, it does not yet appear what we shall be like in glory.
Christ, when He was raised, did not have wings, did He? Why do
we think we would? Scripture says we shall be as
the angels in heaven. That's why men paint pictures
of wings and things. We'd be like the angels in heaven.
But he's not talking about how saints appear in heaven when
he said that. He's talking about all these
earthly relationships being gone. Dissolved. No longer there. Your wife won't be your wife. And when Peter, James, and John
saw Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, you know
what he saw? Moses and Elijah. He didn't see
angels. He saw Moses and Elijah. They
knew who he was. When the rich man was depicted
looking up into heaven, he saw Lazarus, didn't he? And saw him
in Abraham's bosom. And Job said, though after my
skin, worms destroy this body, though the maggots get on me
and eat me till I'm no more. Though after my skin, worms destroy
this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God. And he said, Whom I
shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another,
though my reins be consumed within me." Think of it. He said, I know my Redeemer liveth,
and that He'll stand in the latter day upon the earth. The resurrection
of Christ, the first fruits of them that slept, was recognized
as Himself. When He came forth from the dead
and appeared to them, they knew who He was. Except when He wouldn't
allow them to see Him. But when He appeared before them,
here's my hands, Thomas, stick your finger in that hole. They
knew who He was. They knew who He was. And in that day a great transformation
shall occur, verse 53. This corruption will put on incorruption,
and this mortal shall put on immortality, and death shall
be swallowed up in victory. Then shall God's elect say from
their own experience, we all who know the Lord have
experienced His grace. I don't have to question that.
Paul said, if you don't know that, you're reprobate. We have experienced His grace,
and that experience of grace has taught us to serve Him. It's taught us who we are before
Him. I'm not talking about feelings
here. I'm talking about an experience of grace, being convicted of
the truth. understanding the truth. Then shall God's elect say from
their own experience, O death, where is thy stand? O grave,
where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 58, 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. It is not going to
be wasted. He is going to raise you from
the dead. And you will be with Him forever. What a hope!