1 Corinthians 15
McGeeCHAPTER 15THEME: ResurrectionWe have come to a chapter that can be classified as one of the most important and crucial chapters of the Bible. If you would select ten of the greatest chapters of the Biblewhich men have done from the beginning of the Christian erayou will find that 1 Corinthians 15 will be on your list and has been on practically all the lists ever made. It is that important. It is so important that it actually answers the first heresy of the church, which was the denial of the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this chapter Paul is coming to the third great spirituality. You will recall that first he dealt with carnalities. He dealt with those things which seemed so important to the Corinthians and still seem so important to us today. Then Paul turned from the carnalities to the spiritualities. How wonderful it is to know that every believer has a gift from the Holy Spirit. I can’t think of anything more thrilling than to know that God has given you and me a gift to function in this world and that we are to be partners with Jesus Christ in the tremendous enterprise of making Him known! Then Paul goes on to the great love chapter. All gifts are to be exercised in love, and love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t something that we can work up. It is given to us. Above everything else we need to see love, this fruit of the Spirit, in the life of a believer. Now we come to the third great spirituality, which is the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and our own resurrection. The glory of the Christian faith is that it never views life as ending with death. This life is not all there is. The Christian faith always looks beyond the sunset to the sunrise. It looks out yonder into eternityand what a hop it offers! This is another factor which gives meaning and purpose to life.
I expect to live an eternity. I am not in a hurry to get there, and I want to stay in this life as long as I can because I think that this is the place of service. I think this is the place of preparation. I think that rewards are determined by what we do down here, and I want to get a few good works on my side of the ledger. That is why I would like to stay here and serve Him as long as He will allow me to stay. We used to sing a song, “Will there be any stars in my crown?” I don’t hear that sung anymore.
Why not? Well, it is because people are trying to be the star down here. Oh, my friend, that we might get the tremendous view which the resurrection of Jesus Christ should give to the believer. We have lost sight of the Ascension, and we have our minds on the incidentals. This adds up to one tragedy after another in the lives of professing Christians. This great resurrection chapter actually deals with the gospel. It shows that the most important part of the gospel is the resurrection of Christ. Frankly, without that, everything elseeven the death of Christis meaningless. He was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification according to Rom_4:25. In His death He subtracted our sins, but in His resurrection He gave to us a sure, abundant entrance into heaven. We stand in His righteousness. He was delivered for our offenses, but He was raised again for our justification (our righteousness). Before we get into this chapter, it would be well to define and delineate very sharply the meaning of the Resurrection. The Resurrection is not spiritual, but it is physical. The word is anastasis nekron, which means the “standing up of a corpse.” These bodies of ours are to be raised; the Resurrection in Scripture always refers to the body. Anastasis means “to stand up.” Histemi means “to cause to stand.” Ana means the standing up of the body. It cannot refer to a spiritual resurrection. C. S. Lewis, the brilliant Oxford don, ridiculed the liberals in England in his day. They would talk about the Resurrection being spiritual, so Lewis would ask, “What position does a spirit take when it stands up?” That is a question for the liberal to kick around for a while. Scripture teaches that the Resurrection means to stand up. In Paul’s day, in Corinth and in the Roman world, there were three philosophies concerning death and life after death. There was Stoicism, which taught that the soul merged into deity at death. There was, therefore, a destruction of the personality. Such a concept makes the Resurrection a nonentity. Then there was the Epicurean philosophy, which was materialistic. It taught that there was no existence beyond death.
Death was the end of existence. The third was Platonism which taught the immortality of the soul, believing in a process like a transmigration. You still find that teaching in Platonism today in the religions of India and in the cults of America. It denies the bodily resurrection. Because of these philosophies, when Paul mentioned the Resurrection while he was in Athens, they thought he was talking about a new God. We need to understand very clearly that Paul is not talking about a spiritual resurrection. The soul does not die. The minute a body dies, the person goes somewhere. If the person is a child of God, to be absent from the body means to be present with the Lord (see 2Co_5:6-8). If a person is not a child of God, then he goes to the place of tormentour Lord labeled it that. The divisions of this chapter are as follows:
- The prominence of the Resurrection in the gospelverses 1Co_15:1-4
- The proofs of the Resurrectionverses 1Co_15:5-19
- The parade of the Resurrectionverses 1Co_15:20-28
- The program and pattern of the Resurrectionverses 1Co_15:29-50
- The power of the Resurrectionverses 1Co_15:51-58
1 Corinthians 15:1
PROMINENCE OF RESURRECTION IN THE GOSPELPaul states that the Resurrection is part of the gospel; in fact, there is no gospel without the Resurrection. Dr. Machen says that Christianity does not rest on a set of ideas or creeds, but on facts. The gospel is not the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. The gospel is a series of facts concerning a person and that person is Jesus Christ. Now listen to the way Paul states it: The question sometimes arises whether the gospel originated with Paul. He says, “I delivered unto you …that which I received.” From whom did he receive it and where? He received it out yonder in that Arabian desert where the Lord took him and taught him. When Paul was confronted by the Lord on the Damascus road, he did not know that Jesus was back from the dead. He asked, “…Who art thou, Lord? …(Act_9:5). He didn’t dream that “the Lord” was Jesus. Paul himself had to be convinced of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He didn’t think it up. He received it. Paul says that he declares the gospel to them. What is the gospel? “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” That is the gospel. These are the facts. My friend, there is no gospel apart from those three facts. That is what the gospel is. Jesus Christ died for you and for me. He was buried and He rose again. That is gospelit’s good news. Now suppose that you come to me today and say, “Teacher, I have good news for youI would like to see you become a millionaire.” I would say, “Well, that would be nice.” Then you would tell me your plan. You would say, “You get a job, and in a thousand years you will be worth a million dollars.” I would say, “Well, I sure would like to have a million dollars; I could use it to get the gospel out, but if you think by my working I can make a million dollars, you are wrong. That’s not good news. In fact, it is bad news!” However, suppose you come to me and say, “I have discovered someone who was interested in you. In fact, he loved you so much that when he died he left you a million dollars!” That, my friend, would be good news! The gospel does not tell us something that we must do. The gospel tells us what Jesus Christ has already done for us. He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, He rose again the third day. He died. That is a historical fact. Very few would deny that. He was buriedthat needs to be added. Why is that so important? It proves that He didn’t just disappear. It means that they actually, literally had His body. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea and the others who saw Him crucified knew who He was. They knew it was Jesus. They buried Jesus. That is very important. It confirms His death. He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. The Resurrection is a part of the gospel. The tomb was empty. That is the proof. The gospel is that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. This is the first proof. There is another proof of the Resurrection, and that is the experience of the Corinthians. Let’s listen to it again. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain” (vv. 1Co_15:1-2). “Unless ye have believed in vain"that is, unless it was an empty faith. There is a faith that is an empty faith, of course. But he says, “By which also ye are saved.” The church is the proof of the Resurrection. There were eleven discouraged men in Jerusalem or its environs. They were ready to go back to fishing. They had just gone through enough trouble. If Jesus was dead, they didn’t want the body out of the grave. They wanted it to stay there. They wouldn’t go break a Roman seal and face a Roman guard to steal a body which could only bring them more trouble.
Then what happened? Word came to them that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead! That fact transformed these men. That revolutionary fact brought the church into existence. Through nineteen centuries there have been millions of people who have said that Jesus Christ is alive. You simply cannot explain the church apart from the Resurrection.
I am saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Without His resurrection I would have no gospel, no living Christ, no Savior. The existence of the body of believers is the second great proof of the Resurrection. There is another proof. Notice that it says He died for our sins “according to the scriptures” and that He was buried and rose again the third day “according to the scriptures.” What Scriptures? The Old Testament Scriptures. I would love to have been with Paul the apostle when he arrived in Europe and went to Philippi, Thessalonica, then down to Athens, and over to Corinth. I think he had with him a parchment which was the Old Testament. I imagine that when he went into a synagogue and mentioned the death of the Lord Jesus, the Jews said, “But this is not in our Scriptures.” Then he would turn to the Book of Genesis and say, “I’d like to remind you about the offering of Isaac and how Abraham received him back from the ‘dead’he was ready to kill the boy.
Now God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up freely for us all.” Then he would turn to the Mosaic system of sacrifice, to the five offerings in Leviticus, and show them how they pictured Christ, then to the great Day of Atonement and the two goats which pictured Christ’s death and resurrection. Also he would cite Aaron’s rod that budded and the Book of Jonah, which typifies resurrection. Then he would turn to Psalms 22 and Psalms 16. He would show them Isaiah 25 and in Isaiah 53 he would point out that He was wounded for our transgressions and He was bruised for our iniquities. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of all of us. So he could show them from the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus Christ was to die and to rise again.
The expectation of the Old Testament was not for this life only but also for the life that is to come. There are some folk who say they do not believe in a “hereafter religion”; they want a here-and-now religion. May I say to you that I have botha here-and-now religion and a hereafter religion.
1 Corinthians 15:5
PROOFS OF RESURRECTIONWITNESSESNow as another proof of the Resurrection Paul lists a number of witnesses. You just can’t get around witnesses. Any lawyer today would love to have as many witnesses for his position as Paul lists here as proofs of the Resurrection. He mentions Cephas first. This is, of course, Simon Peter, to whom Jesus appeared privately. You may ask, “What took place?” It is none of my business, and I guess it is none of yours. It is not recorded for us. Jesus appeared to Peter. After all, he had denied Him. Peter had to get things straightened out with the Lord. You see, our Lord is still in the footwashing business. Then He was seen “of the twelve.” Who are the Twelve? He appeared to Cephas privately, then He appeared to the ten (Judas was dead at this time). “The Twelve” was used as a collective term for the body of disciples. It does not necessarily imply that twelve disciples were present. However, when you put them all together and Paul joins them, you have twelve men.
1 Corinthians 15:6
Jesus was seen of five hundred people at one time. I think this was up yonder around the Sea of Galilee. Remember that He had told them He would meet with them in Galilee. So I believe that His true followers went up to Galilee to meet Him there. As they traveled northward, I’m sure folk would ask them, “Now that Jesus is dead, are you going back to fishing?” They would answer, “No, Jesus is back from the dead and we’re going up there to meet Him.” There were five hundred of His followers who met Him there.
1 Corinthians 15:7
“He was seen of James"this was probably a private interview. He was seen again by all the apostles. Lastly, He was seen by Paul. My friend, it is very difficult to argue with a man who has seen Him.
1 Corinthians 15:9
Paul calls himself the least of the apostles. He is being very modest here. Inspiration guarantees that this is a statement which came from his heart. My heart says, “Paul, you’re great. I can’t consider you the least of the apostles.” But Paul says he isn’t worthy to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church of God. He considered himself to be the chief of sinners. Yet he was the hardest worker of any of the apostles. But, very candidly, he tells us that it was the grace of God that enabled him to accomplish what he did.
1 Corinthians 15:11
I am tired of men talking about being Christians and denying the facts of the gospel. You are not a Christian if you deny the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. You have a perfect right to deny these things if you wish, but you have no right then to call yourself a Christian. It says here that when these Corinthians heard the gospel, they believed, and that is when they became Christians. This is so crucial and so critical that we are going to review it to emphasize it. What is the gospel? It is the good news that Christ died, was buried, and rose again on the third day. He didn’t vanish or disappear. He rose again. The tomb is empty. Jesus Christ is alive today. These are the historical facts. The gospel is not a theory, not an idea, not a religion. The gospel consists of objective facts. This is the gospel which Paul preached. It is not simply a subjective experience which Paul had; it is fact. It tells us in verse 1Co_15:1 that the Corinthians received it and in verse 1Co_15:11 that they believed it. What does it mean to receive Christ? Joh_1:11-13 tells us, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” To receive Christ means to believe on His name. Our first verse says of the gospel relative to the Corinthians, “which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand.” That was their current state. They stood in a living faith in relationship with a living Lord Jesus Christ. Where do you stand today? The second verse says, “By which also ye are saved.” The gospel does not save if it is just a head knowledge. It is not just a nodding assent to the facts. It is the One of whom the gospel speaks who does the savingChrist saves. When you accept the facts of the gospel, when you put your faith in Christ absolutely, then you are saved. As Spurgeon put it, “It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee. It is not thy hope in Christ that saves thee. it is Christ. It is not even thy faith in Christ, though that be the instrument.” It is Christ’s blood and merit that saves. The gospel was preached to the Corinthians. Paul said, “You received it, you stand in it, and you are saved.” Then he adds, “Unless ye have believed in vain.” If their faith does not rest upon the facts, then it is a vain faith, of no effect, and theirs is not a genuine conversion. Faith itself has no merit. The important thing is the object of your faithin whom you believe. Have you trusted a Savior who died, who was buried, and who rose again from the dead? We spoke of the significance of the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures as an evidence of the Resurrection. Then there were the witnesses who were alive at the time Paul was writing: Cephas, the twelve, the five hundred, James, all the apostles, and finally he himself, all of whom saw the resurrected Christ. Of himself he says, “as of one born out of due time.” That is, his was not a late birth but an abortion, a premature birth. He is a picture of that remnant which is to be saved after the church is removed from this earth.
1 Corinthians 15:12
Some of these people with backgrounds of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Platonism were denying the Resurrection. It wasn’t that they were specifically denying the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they did not believe in any resurrection at all. Now Paul begins a series of “ifs"“if Christ be not risen.” Paul faced the fact. My Christian friend, don’t hide your head like an ostrich under the sand and say, “Well, we can’t be sure about the Resurrection, so let’s not say too much about it. Let’s walk as if we were walking on eggshells.” My friend, I am on a foundation; that foundation is the Rock, and the Rock is Christ. He came back from the dead. Paul is not afraid that Christ might not have risen from the dead. He puts down these “ifs” as a demonstration of the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:13
If there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ is not risen. They are linked together. And it is on the basis of the resurrection of ChristPaul is going to say later onthat Jesus Christ is the firstfruits. That means there will be more to follow. He is the firstfruits, and later at His coming there will be the resurrection of those who are His.
1 Corinthians 15:14
Perhaps you belong to a church which denies that Christ arose from the dead. If Christ is not bodily risen from the dead, then our preaching is vain. Not only that, but our faith is vain also. You might just as well drop your church membership. It’s no good. There is no reason to go to church or to hear a sermon if Christ is not raised from the dead.
1 Corinthians 15:15
All the apostles were liars if Christ had not risen. Every one of these men was a false witness if Christ is still in the grave. Have you ever noticed that men do not die for that which they know to be a lie? Men do die for a lie, but they think it is the truth. For instance, millions of men died for Hitler because they believed in him. The apostles testified that they saw the risen Christ, and they were willing to die for that declaration. I’ll let you decide if they were right or wrong. But men do not die for what they know is a lie.
1 Corinthians 15:16
If Christ is not raised, then, my friend, you are a lost, hell-doomed sinner, and that is all you can ever be. If Christ be not raised, every one of us is still in our sins.
1 Corinthians 15:18
There have been millions upon millions of believers who have died trusting Christ as their Savior. If Christ is not risen, then every one of them has perished.
1 Corinthians 15:19
May I say to you that I think Christianity is a here-and-now religion. Paul makes that clear in the sixth chapter of Romans. But Christianity is also a hereafter religion. If Christ be not raised, we have been deluded and we are about the most miserable people in this world today. But we’re not! We’re rejoicing! That is the end of Paul’s “ifs.” Will you face up to the possibilities which he presents? Go through the “ifs” logically and you will see that the human family is lost and hopeless if Christ had not been raised from the dead.
1 Corinthians 15:20
PARADE OF THE RESURRECTIONSo I want to join Paul as he declares the Resurrection Christ is the firstfruits. In the Old Testament they had the festival of firstfruits when they would bring the first sheaf of grain to the Lord. This meant that there would be more to come, otherwise it couldn’t be the firstfruits. The fulfillment of that is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He came back from the dead in a glorified body. And He is the only one who has come back from the dead in a glorified body.
1 Corinthians 15:21
After the festival of the firstfruits came Pentecost, which was fifty days later. That found its fulfillment in Pentecost in the New Testament when the church began. But it will find its ultimate fulfillment when Christ comes for His own and they shall all rise to meet Him in the air. That will be the real Pentecost. A Pentecostal brother of mine said, “You know, Brother McGee, I’m expecting a Pentecost.” I shocked him when I said, “I’m looking for Pentecost too.” He said, “Oh, you don’t mean it!” I said, “I don’t mean it like you mean ityou think you are going to repeat the Day of Pentecost down here. The Pentecost I am waiting for is when the Lord Jesus comes to take His church out of His world.” Christ is the firstfruits.
1 Corinthians 15:23
How wonderful that is! “Christ is risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept"meaning the sleep of death. “For since by man came death [that man is Adam], by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” “In Adam all die"the proof that you are in the family of Adam is that you are going to die unless the Lord comes to take you in the Rapture. “Even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. “But every man in his own order.” There is not a general resurrection day. It is interesting that the Reformers recovered a great deal of the truth of the Bible, but they didn’t recover all of it. We are living in a day when there is much Bible study in the field of eschatology; that is, the doctrine of the last thingsprophecy. It is a study of prophecy. In times when great truths are being recovered one also finds a lot of heresy and just plain “nutty” ideas. There is a lot of false teaching about prophecy, largely because of ignorance of the whole scope of Scripture.
I firmly believe that the Book of Revelation should not be taught unless one has studied the other books of the Bible first. Prophecy is important, but it is not everything. The great Reformers recovered much Bible truth, but they missed this teaching of the Bible that every man will be raised in his own order, that there is not a general resurrection day. Christ is the firstfruits, and then “afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” What is He coming for? He is coming for His church, my friend.
1 Corinthians 15:24
“Then cometh the end"the end of what? The end of the age. How will the age end? There will come the Great Tribulation, and then there is going to be the millennial Kingdom here on the earth. Satan will be released again for a little while, then he will be cast forever into the lake of fire, and the Lord Jesus Christ will establish His Kingdom forever. That will be the eternal Kingdom. Actually, the eternal Kingdom is a further projection of the millennial Kingdom, only the millennial Kingdom will be a time of trial. “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God.” When will this take place? At the end of the millennial Kingdom, Christ will put down all rule and all authority and power.
1 Corinthians 15:25
That is Satan.
1 Corinthians 15:26
I’ll be glad when we get rid of that fellow!
1 Corinthians 15:27
So Christ is not subject to Godbut wait a minute, notice what the next verse says.
1 Corinthians 15:28
This means that when Christ has completed His millennial reign here upon this earth and has established His eternal reign (I believe that He will turn over to David His throne on the earth), then He will return back to His place in the Godhead where He was in the beginning, so that “God may be all in all.”
1 Corinthians 15:29
PROGRAM AND PATTERN OF THE RESURRECTION"What shall they do"that is, what shall they accomplish? We have already learned that the word baptize means identification with someone or something. In this case Paul is speaking of identification as a dead person. He asks, “What shall they accomplish which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?” Why are they then identified as the dead? This does not imply that the Corinthian believers were being baptized for their dead relatives or friends. It means that they were baptized or identified with Christ Jesuswho had died for them and He was now risen from the dead. They were dead to the world but were alive to Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:30
Paul is saying that if Christ be not raised from the dead, then they are foolish to put their lives in danger. However, since Christ is raised from the dead, believers are identified with Him. As Paul said to the believers at Rome, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom_6:3-4). We are joined to a resurrected, living Christ. “Now if Christ was not resurrected, then,” Paul says, “I am foolish to make the sacrifices I have made down heremy life stands in jeopardy every hour. I am constantly in danger of death.”
1 Corinthians 15:32
Paul asks, “Why should I be put in a lions’ cage for my faith in Christ if Christ did not rise from the dead? I am identifiedI am baptizedinto His death. I am identified as a dead man because I am joined to a living Christ.” Being identified with Christ in His death and resurrection is a tremendous fact! Let’s not reduce it to some little water baptismal service that would be meaningless. If Christ is not risen and if the dead will not be resurrected, then we might as well adopt the the hedonistic philosophy of the Epicureans who say, “Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.”
1 Corinthians 15:33
The Corinthian believers were being deceived by those who questioned the Resurrection. They were listening to those who had plenty to say but no knowledge of God. Paul is saying that if they get the wrong information, they will act wrong. He admonishes them to stop sinningbecause there will be a resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:35
Paul will answer two questions: the how and the what. Men fail to distinguish the difference between the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul. Plato and Cicero argued from the immortality of the soul. Paul is arguing for the resurrection of the body. The Sadducees denied any resurrection, any life after death. And Christ Himself had answered them: “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mat_22:31-32). Paul has answered those who denied the resurrection of the body by the resurrection of Christ whose body was raised up. Now the question is, “How can a body that dies be raised up again and be the same?” Paul says that we learn from nature that the bodies are not identicalthey are the same but not identical.
1 Corinthians 15:36
The answer to the first question: the how. He says in effect, “If you only had sense enough to see it, you would see that in a seed which is planted, there is dissolution and continuitya seed that is planted will produce seeds which are essentially the same as that seed. But the seed itself has died and disintegrated, so that the seed it produces is not the very seed that died. It is like that seed, but it is not the same seed. In the seed that is planted there is a disintegration and yet there is a continuity. It is a mystery, but it is not an impossibility.” What is death? Death is a separation. It is not the ending of the spirit or of the personality. These do not die. The real “you” goes on to be with the Lord if you are a child of God. It is the body that disintegrates. Death is a separation of the body from the individual, from the person. The body disintegrates, decays, decomposes. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes applies only to the body. Paul now answers the second question: What body is raised up?
1 Corinthians 15:37
The sowing of grain is the illustration. Christ is the firstfruits, then we’ll be coming along later. We are waiting for the rapture of the church when Christ takes the believers out of the world. If at the time of the Rapture we are already dead, we will be raised up. If we are still alive at the time of the Rapture, we’ll be caught up and changed. The seed, you see, does not provide itself with a new body, neither does the sower, but God provides it:
1 Corinthians 15:38
Then Paul moves into another area. All of this is the mystery of life. Actually the mystery of life is greater than the mystery of death. When you sow wheat, wheat comes upnot barley or corn. That little grain that forms on the stalk is like the one you sowednot identical, but certainly very similar. Now he moves from the area of botany to zoology.
1 Corinthians 15:39
The difference between a dead body and the resurrection body is greater than the difference between men and beasts, fish and birds. Paul says that all flesh is not the same flesh.
1 Corinthians 15:40
Now he has moved into the realm of astronomy and says that all the bodies of the solar system are not the same. The sun is not the same material as the moon, neither is it the same as the stars. The stars differ from each other. There is a solar system, a stellar system, planets, and suns.
1 Corinthians 15:42
You see, the body that was given Adam was always subject to death. Although he would not have died if he had not sinned, his body would have been subject to death. However, by resurrection we get a body that is incorruptible.
1 Corinthians 15:43
We will get glory and color and beauty and powerall of these thingswith the new body.
1 Corinthians 15:44
Many years ago in the city of New York (in fact, it was way back in the day when liberalism was called modernism, back in the 1920s) they had an argument about whether resurrection was spiritual. The liberal even today claims it’s spiritual. He doesn’t believe in bodily resurrection at all. A very famous Greek scholar from the University of Chicago read a paper on the passage from this verse. His paper put the emphasis on the word spiritual. He concluded by saying, “Now, brethren, you can see that resurrection is spiritual because it says it’s spiritual.” The liberals all applauded, and somebody made a motion that they print that manuscript and circulate it.
Well, a very fine Greek scholar was there, and he stood up. And when he stood up, all the liberals were a little uneasy. He could ask very embarrassing questions. He said, “I’d like to ask the author of the paper a question.” Very reluctantly, the good doctor stood up. “Now, doctor, which is stronger, a noun or an adjective? A very simple question, but I’d like for you to answer it.” He could see the direction he was going and didn’t want to answer it, but he had to. “Well,” he said, “a noun is stronger, of course.” “Now doctor, I’m amazed that you presented the paper that you did today. You put the emphasis upon an adjective, and the strong word is the noun.
Now let’s look at that again. ‘It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.’” He said, “The only thing that is carried over in resurrection is the body. It’s one kind of body when it dies, a natural body. It’s raised a body, but a spiritual body, dominated now by the spiritbut it’s still a body.” And, you know, they never did publish that paper. They decided it would be better not to publish it. May I say to you, just a simple little exercise in grammar answered this great professor’s whole manuscript and his entire argument which he presented at that time.
1 Corinthians 15:45
You see, the first man, Adam, was psychicalpsuchen and zosan in the Greek. That means he was physical and psychological. The last Adam (Christ) is spiritualpneuma or pneumatical, if you want the English equivalent.
1 Corinthians 15:46
The first man is of the earth and is earthychoikos, meaning “clay,” rubbish if you please. There is so much talk of ecology today. Who messed up this earth anyway? Man. Because man is earthy. Everything that is the refuse of man is rubbish. He is that kind of creature. He fills the garbage cans. But the Second Man is the Lord from heaven.
1 Corinthians 15:48
We are all earthy. We are from Adam and that is our condition. But we are also in Christ. We are joined to Him, and therefore we have a hope, the hope of the resurrection in an eternal body which will forever be with Christ. Today we bear the image of the earthy, but we look forward to the day when we will bear the image of the heavenly. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Our old bodies are not going to heavenI’m glad of that. I would like to trade mine in. God is not going to send these bodies into a repair shop. Corruption cannot inherit incorruption. This body must be put into the ground, like a seed. It will come up a new body, a new tabernacle for us to live in. It will not be identical to the old body, and yet it will be like the old body. Out here on the west coast there are many atheists who have their ashes scattered out over the Pacific Ocean after they die. In other words, they challenge God to try to put all of those atoms together again. Our bodies are made up of a few chemicals. Most of the body’s composition is water, hydrogen, and oxygen, with other atoms thrown in with it. Do you think that God cannot bring those atoms together? Or maybe He wants to use other atoms.
After all, hydrogen atoms are all very much alike. It wouldn’t make any difference to me if He used other atoms to make my new body. What nonsense to discount the Resurrection because of this! Yet one of the foremost arguments against the possibility of resurrection is that God would not be able to regather all those atoms! My friend, since He made the body to begin with, He certainly can make another like it. He is God, isn’t He?
God will get your body together again whether it comes out of the grave or its ashes are scattered out there in the ocean. The first heresy in the church was the denial of the bodily resurrection. We see how Paul has shown the truth of the Resurrection. He has spoken against the three major philosophies of his day. Stoicism said the soul merged into Deity at death, and there was a destruction of personality. Paul says our bodies shall rise. Epicureanism said there was no existence beyond death. Paul says Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and our bodies, too, shall rise. Platonism believed in the immortality of the soul but denied the bodily resurrection. Paul says that our physical bodies shall be made alive as spiritual bodies.
1 Corinthians 15:51
POWER OF THE RESURRECTIONWhat is a mystery? We have already discussed it several times. A mystery is something which had not been revealed in the Old Testament but is now revealed in the New Testament. It is something which you cannot learn by the eye-gate or the ear-gate. Nor has it entered into the heart of manthat is, it is not something many would have thought of. It is a fact which must be revealed by God. “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep"we are not all going down through the doorway of death. “But we shall all be changed.” Whether you die or don’t die, you must still be changed, friend. Sometimes we hear people say, “I hope I am alive at the coming of Christ; so I will just go into His presence.” Well, before any of us can go into His presence, we’ll have to be changed.
1 Corinthians 15:52
“In a moment,” in the smallest particle of time. The word is en atomo from which we get our word “atom.” Scientists made a big mistake when they called that little fellow an atom. They thought they had found the smallest particle of matter, and now they can cut up the little atom like a railroad restaurant pie. It would have been better if we had named it a stoicheion, which means “a building block.” Actually, Simon Peter uses this word in his second epistle when he says that the elements (stoicheion) shall melt with a fervent heat. And he wasn’t even a scientist; he was a fisherman. But the Spirit of God knew a little about science! We shall all be changed “in the twinkling of an eye.” How long is that? Is a twinkle when the lid goes down or when it comes up, or is it both of them? Well, it simply means in a moment, in a fraction of a second. There won’t even be time to say, “Here He comes” or “He is here!” “At the last trump.” What is that? That is His last call. The trumpet is His voice. John tells us in the Book of Revelation, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,” and when he turned to see who was speaking, he saw Christ (see Rev_1:10-13). So “at the last trump” is the voice of the Lord Jesus. On His last call to mankind, He will call the dead back to life. He said, “…Lazarus, come forth” (Joh_11:43). Someday He will say to me, “Vernon, come forth.” And He will also call you by name. “And the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
1 Corinthians 15:53
Notice the word mustit is emphatic. We cannot go to heaven as we are now. We cannot go to heaven with the old bodies we have. We wouldn’t be able to see what is really up there, nor could we hear the music. Our bodies are quite limited. We are almost deaf and blind as far as heaven is concerned. Even here on earth there is so little of the spectrum that we actually see and so little of the sounds that we actually hear. If we went to heaven in these old bodies, we would miss half of what was taking place. And, my friend, when I go up there, I don’t want to miss a thing! Therefore I’m going to need a new body. “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
1 Corinthians 15:54
This is the victory of the Resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:55
I heard a Bible teacher say that since God has taken the sting out of death, it is like a bee that has his stinger removed. Well, I can’t tell when a bee’s stinger has been removed. I can’t stop every bee and ask, “Say, do you have a stinger?” Therefore, I am afraid of every bee. Death has lost its sting because we are to look way out beyond death. It is a doorway that opens up the vast regions of eternity. It starts us down the hallway, not of time, but of eternity. But I don’t like going through that door. “O grave, where is thy victory?” It looks as if the grave wins. Many a man has been a successful businessman, but death finally won over him. Many a politician gets elected to high office, even to the presidency, and then dies in office. They reach the heights, but death walks in on them and claims a victory. Death is an awful monster. However, Christ has been down through that way.
Just as the ark went down into the Jordan River and over to the other side, so Christ has gone down through the waters of death for me, and He tells me, “I’m your Shepherd. Remember, I not only lead you through this life, but I’ll lead you through the deep waters of death, and I will bring you into eternity.” So like a little child I’m afraid, but I’ll put my hand in His nail-pierced hand, and He will lead me to the other side. “O grave, where is thy victory?” “The sting of death is sin.” It is sin that has the real stinger. “The strength of sin is the law.” The law is the mirror that shows us we are sinners. “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory.” How? Because we are smart and clever and are overcomers? No, the victory is through our Lord Jesus Christ. Speaking of the tribulation saints, Rev_12:11 says that they overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb. That is the only way any of us will overcome.
1 Corinthians 15:58
I think this verse goes all the way back to chapter 1Co_1:9. “God is faithful [Oh, how faithful He is], by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” I have been called into the fellowship of His Son. Paul has already told us in this epistle that all things are ours. He said that Paul and Apollos and Cephas and the world and life and death and things present and things to come are all ours, and we are Christ’s. Life is ours, and I want to enjoy life. Death is ours, for we have the One who got the victory over death. Things present (the things of time) and things out yonder in the future are all ours. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us!