Our Resurrection Bodies – Part 3
 

·         Paul has been very, very clear about the content of the Gospel thus far in this chapter of 1 Corinthians.

·         It is summarized in vv1-5 of the chapter and developed throughout the rest of the chapter through verse 34.

·         It could not be clearer, if one is listening with a heart that is actually interested in being instructed.

·         Sadly, that is not the case in many quarters today.

·         By far, most people approach the Gospel with a preconceived idea of what it means already in their heads and are only looking for evidence, support for their preconceived notions.

·         Because their ultimate trust is in their own mind and their own understanding of truth, they necessarily arrive at their own conclusions.

·         Like the proverbial driver who follows directions to the letter, but has started at the wrong place…

Common Innocent Gospel Counterfeits

·         1.     Formalism.

·         “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control.

·         I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live.

·         I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”

·         2.     Legalism.

·         “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others.

·         I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them.

·         There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”

·         3.     Mysticism.

·         “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God.

·         I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”

·         4.     Activism.

·         “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world.

·         But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”

·         5.     Biblicism.

·         “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”

·         6.     Therapism.

·         “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt.

·         Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior.

·         I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs."

·         7.     “Social-ism.”

·         “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol.

·         The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”

·         How many of these do you recognize in your own heart?

·         How can we help our congregations to recognize them in their hearts through preaching, discipling, and counseling?

The Statement of the Gospel (1-4)

Reasons to Believe (5-11)

·         The testimony of eye witnesses (5-7)

·         The Testimony of a special witness (Paul himself) (8-10)

·         The testimony of a common message (11)

The Importance of the Resurrection to the Gospel message. (12-34)

I.    Theological consequences (13-15)

·         If there is no Death & Resurrection - No good explanation of the empty tomb (13)

·         Preaching is meaningless (14a)

·         Faith Worthless (14b)

·         All Witnesses and All Preachers are liars! (15)

II.   Personal Consequences (16-19)

·         All men are still in their sins (and still under the power of sin!) (16-17)

·         All former believers have perished (18)

·         Christians most pitiable and lives in vain! (19)

III.  The Resurrection Plan (20-28)

·         The Redeemer (20-22)

·         The Redeemed (23)

·         The Restoration (24-28)

IV.  Resurrection Incentives (29-34)

·         An Incentive for Salvation (29)

·         An Incentive for Service (30-32)

·         An Incentive for Sanctification (33-34)

By Now It Is Very Much Evident

Now He Deals With Objections

Verse 36 – Paul’s Answer

1.  An Illustration of Resurrection (36-38)

·         Here’s the illustration.

All Predicated on the Power of God

2.  The form of resurrection (39-42a)

·         Now the word glory simply means manifestation and that’s what he’s saying, but it carries with it the idea of light chakina, and it also carries with it the idea of God’s glow, the very life of God as we shall see. 

·         So he says in verse 42,

·         In other words, the resurrection of the dead is going to be one kind of glory different from any kind of glory we’ve ever seen before. 

·         Don’t limit God.

·         Now, this is amazing in many ways.

·         Two ideas flow from the thought,

·         What are you saying Paul? 

·         Number one, I’m saying this, the resurrection body will be different from the body here.

·         All right? 

·         The resurrection body, our resurrection body is going to be different from the body we have here. 

·         But I think he’s also saying something else. 

·         Now watch this, I think he’s saying in resurrection, the bodies that we possess will be different in some sense from each other.

·         People will often ask this, when we get to heaven will we be like Christ? 

·         Yes, 1 John 3:2.

·         Well, does that mean we’ll all look like Christ, we’ll all be 33 years old forever, etc., etc., etc.

·         People often ask that question.

·         I don’t really think so.

·         I don’t think we’re all going to look like Christ and we’re all going to be the same and we’re going to be sort of like assembly line thing.

·         I think we’ll all be there in a sense unique. 

·         For example, Moses and Elijah long after they had died were given some kind of form to return to appear on the Mount of Transfiguration and were recognizable in some way as Moses and Elijah. 

·         And God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

·         And we see in the resurrection even at the end at the great white thrown that the standing in resurrection form before God are the small and the great. 

·         Which means the variables are still there. 

·         You say, will I look like me? 

·         Well, yeah, you’ll be recognizable as you. 

·         Will I be the same as I am? 

·         No, you’ll be different, but recognizable as you.

·         So what Paul is saying, you see, is this, the basic form of resurrection will be glorified another level of glory, we will be different from this body and yet different from each other in that body. 

·         That’s exciting to think about. 

·         There are a lot of dear saints who are dead and their spirits are with the Lord and they’re waiting for that day when they get clothed with that body. 

·         And here we’re here and looking at our infirmities and weaknesses and wanting so much that body.

·         We’re going to see more about what that thing is capable of doing in a few minutes. 

·         Sauer, Erik Sauer, says

3.  The Contrasts of Resurrection (42-44)

·         The illustration of resurrection is the seed, the form of resurrection the body, far beyond anything we’ve known here because God has the capacity to do that different from this one and even in that form different from each other. 

·         Thirdly, the contrasts of resurrection. 

·         He wants them to understand how this can be. 

·         How can it happen? 

·         So in verse 42, he says this,

·         We’ll stop there for a second.

·         He’s saying listen, there is a tremendous series of contrasts that are going to take place in this body. 

1.  Corrupt & Incorrupt

·         Now he says, first of all there is a sowing in corruption.

·         Let me broaden that statement.

·         He’s not simply talking about burial.

·         The whole of human life manifests corruption, right? 

·         From the time we’re born, we start the process of corruption.

·         Birth is the beginning of decay.

·         And we begin to decay immediately.

·         So the whole of life is corruption,

·         In John 19 we read about Lazarus…

·         The four days in the grave and Martha looks in there and she says Lord by this time He’s stinking.

·         And corruption, of course, is accelerated in the grave, but the whole process of life is decay.

·         We live in a sphere of corruption.

·         We decay, we get disease, we become infirm, we get ill, the process goes on and on, our muscles weaken, our bones weaken, etc., etc., the longer we live.

·         So we’re living in a sphere of corruption. 

·         Now we are then in that state of corruption sown in corruption and that’s talking about burial.

·         There is a sowing literally it says, there is a sowing corruption, so that corrupt thing is sown in the ground like that seed when we die.

·         And then he says there...literally there is a raising in incorruption.

·         But what’s going to happen in the future isn’t going to be corrupt.

·         It’s going to be incorrupt.

·         That’s why Peter says we have inheritance incorruptible, undefiled that can’t fade away reserved for us in heaven.

·         There is an incorruptible existence with no decay, no infirmity in the future. 

·         So we go into the grave corrupt, we come out uncorruptible, incorruptible.

·         The fantastic thing to realize.

·         That body will never decay, it’ll never get old.

·         It’ll have absolutely no time limitation.

·         It will have no capacity to deteriorate.

·         We will be permanently incorruptible.

·         No decay.

·         There will be a day when God will bring out of that grave William Farrow – the incorruptible version. 

2.  Dishonor & Glory

·         Secondly, he says there’s another contrast between dishonor and glory. 

·         And I think here what he means is all that man was potentially capable of being.

·         You know, God made man and He looked and He said it’s good. 

·         And God gave to man a glory beyond anything else that He made.

·         And by that I mean, God gave man, the capacity to manifest himself beyond any other thing that He made.

·         Man had a greater capacity to manifest God.

·         Man alone was created in the image of whom?  Of God.

·         And so man could manifest God, the very glow of God could come through man.

·         The very life of God be made visible through man, but man sinned and dishonored and scarred and marred that image. 

·         And so the whole of man’s life since the fall of Adam is dishonor to the image of God, but some day that glory potential is going to be restored.

·         In this life we are a dishonor.

·         Our capacities are limited.

·         Our minds are limited.

·         All of that unimaginable capacity of the human brain and they tell us we use one tenth of one percent of our brains.

·         We dishonor God by our inability to capitalize on what we have in creation. 

·         We dishonor God because we fail.

·         And finally we go to the grave and there we are ugly and gross and they can paint us up like horizontal members of a late cocktail party, but `.

·         And we look it and we stink and we dishonor the image of God, but some day says Paul, we’re coming out of that grave in glory.

·         In other words, in the full manifestation of the sons of God the way He made us to be. 

·         No more dishonor, no more corruption.

3.  Weakness & Power

·         Thirdly, he says,

·         Sown in weakness and raised in power, we know we’re weak in this life subject to disease and failure and heartache and death and we can’t fulfill our dreams and our desires.

·         And we can’t overcome our limitations.

·         We can’t conquer our infirmities and our weaknesses.

·         We struggle.

·         We’re at the mercy of everything around us, by the environment, by the things we eat, the people around us, we are weak, we are weak.

·         And what happens? 

·         We go into the grave and that ultimate weakness becomes obvious, we can’t raise ourselves from the grave, we can’t do anything, we’re like Lazarus who in the grave was corruptible, he was rotting.

·         Who in the grave was dishonorable, anybody looking at him wouldn’t see the image of  God, who in the grave was weak, he couldn’t do a thing for himself.

·         But out of that grave some time comes a body raised in power. 

·         Now what that means is the full power that God ever designed for a human being to possess in the ultimate of transformation. 

·         We’ll have power that’s just beyond what we can...we’ll literally be sailing all over the universe.

·         Power to go...no more limitation.

·         Martin Luther said of our bodies,

·         That’s just one element of the power of our bodies in resurrection to just speed our way across the universe. 

·         The grave reveals the truth about the body.

·         It’s corruptible, dishonored, weak, resurrection will reveal the truth about the glorified body incorruptible, glorified, and powerful.

4.  Natural & Spiritual

·         And he sums it up in verse 44 by saying “It is sown a sucacan soma,” a natural body.

·         What he means by that is a body suited to this life.

·         It is sown a body suited to this life, but it is raised a spiritual body, a numatican soma, a body suited to that life.

·         It’s going to be different. 

·         As well adapted as we are to this life, so well adapted will we be to that life in perfection.

·         Right now we’re natural.

·         That is we belong to this life.

·         It’s the same word used in 1 Corinthians 2:14, the natural man.

·         The sucacan, that which is fleshly, that which is the here and now.

·         We have a body that fits the present style of life.

·         And in that day a body that will fit a new kind of life, a new level of life, a new dimension of life, a new dimension of existence beyond anything we have ever experienced.

·         For an illustration of it, I call you to Luke 20:34. 

·         Listen, Jesus answering said to them,

·         In other words, the normal process of human life and production takes place in this age.

·         The normal processes of human life are ended and then it says,

·         So in the resurrection the whole kind of existence has changed. 

·         We’ll be entirely different, entirely unique. 

·         We will be like the angels.

·         That doesn’t mean we’re going to wear white robes and have wings.

·         It simply means as the angels are suited for that level of existence so shall we be.

·         And if you want to know kind of like how we’re going to be, just look how the angels go and come. 

·         Really exciting to think about.

·         And boy life is so short and I don’t really care that much if it gets a little shorter if this is what we have to look forward to.

·         So God has a wonderful new thing planned for us. 

A Natural and A Spiritual Body

·         To close out his thoughts, he says in verse 44 on this point,

·         And the two are completely different.