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I.
INTRODUCTION.
A.
Nine years
ago today, I lost my first loved one, my Papaw Lee.
1.
Papaw Lee was quite the fellow.
a.
He was always concerned that
the trash be
compacted in the trash cans as tightly as possible.
1)
In order to accomplish a tight
compaction, he
would stand in the trash can and stomp it to make sure it was as tight
as could
be.
2)
Imagine his embarrassment when
he had to go to
the Emergency Room & explain to the ER physician how & why he
broke his
arm.
b.
Papaw got up early for work.
He left the house
around 4:30 each morning, so he went to bed about 8 in the evening.
1)
It was not at all unusual for
my family to be
there when Papaw went to bed. He would always say to my two brothers
& me,
“Boys, come on & let’s go to
bed.”
2)
He did that for years, until
we three boys snuck
in his bed while he was taking his bath.
2.
Papaw was a very good man, but
for all his good
qualities, he was not a Christian.
a.
Dad & my grandmother &
I all talked with
him—every time we‟d have a
gospel meeting, we‟d make sure
the preacher stopped by for a visit.
b.
But, Papaw just wasn‟t interested
until
he knew the
end was near.
1) Dad had made up his mind
that he was going to go & talk with
Papaw quite bluntly.
2) Dad walked in the room
& said, “Eugene, we need to talk.”
Before Dad could say another word, Papaw said, “Randy, let’s go do it.”
3.
When Papaw died, I was so very
grateful.
a.
I was grateful that Papaw had
obeyed the Gospel
& that he had died in Christ.
b.
In fact, I was grateful that
Papaw had a
slow-moving cancer. While it was a dark cloud over our family for many
years,
that cancer provided him with many opportunities to be clothed in Jesus.
B.
How grateful
we should be to grieve in hope!
1.
There can be no doubt but that
death hurts, that
death causes untold heartache & that death is God‟s enemy.
a.
Death is not in this world
because of God‟s will but
because of sin: “Sin came into the world through one man, and death
through
sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rm 5:12).
b.
Death is God‟s enemy:
Jesus “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The
last
enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:25-26).
2.
While death hurts, brings much
heartache, &
is God‟s enemy, we
grieve in hope.
a.
“We do not want you to be
uninformed, brothers,
about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who
have no
hope” (1 Thess 4:13).
b.
Paul doesn’t say that
it‟s wrong to
grieve, but he says that we should not grieve as others who have no
hope.
C.
The
Corinthians weren’t quite sure
what to make of death.
1.
As we have mentioned before,
some of the
Corinthians denied the resurrection: “Some of you say that there is no
resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:12).
2.
From what Paul writes here, it
seems that the
major
stumbling block to the Corinthians’ accepting the resurrection was
the state of the
resurrected body.
a.
We read at v 35: “Someone will
ask, “How are the
dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”
b.
Undoubtedly, those who first
raised these
questions in Corinth are nothing but dust.
1)
Some of them might still have
a bone scattered
here or there, but there is likely little left of their bodies.
2)
These brethren were greatly
concerned about that:
“What if several millennia pass & we‟re nothing
but dust? How are we going to be resurrected & what is that body
going to look
like?”
3.
To answer those questions,
Paul uses an
agricultural analogy.
a.
Corinth wasn‟t as much an
agricultural community as were some of the other ancient cities.
1)
However, because of the city‟s location,
Corinth was a major harbor in the ancient world.
2)
The Corinthians would have
seen goods from all
over the world come through their city.
b.
Therefore, although they would
have been more
indirectly involved in agriculture, the Corinthians would have known as
much
about harvesting as any other group in the ancient world.
4.
This morning, we want to think
about the coming
harvest of the resurrection as Paul answers the Corinthians‟ questions.
II. HOW ARE
THE DEAD RAISED?, vv 36-38.
A.
Paul begins
this section with quite strong words: “You foolish person!”
1.
That’s not very
kind, is it?
a.
Jesus teaches that we ought
not to refer to people
as fools: “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable
to the hell of fire” (Mt 5:22).
b.
If RJ came home & said
that he had raised his
hand in class to ask a question & the teacher called him a fool, I’d be over to school faster
that
you could blink!
2.
So, what should we make of Paul‟s calling
the Corinthians fools?
a.
The basis of Paul‟s statement here seems to be
Psalm 14: “The fool
says in his heart, „There is no God‟” (Ps 14:1).
b.
Paul‟s basic
answer to how the dead are raised is: GOD.
1)
They are fools who look at the
marvelous universe
we inhabit & say there is no God.
2)
They are fools who say, “How
are the dead going
to be raised?” If God could make everything that is from nothing, how
hard will
it be for him to raise the dead?
B.
The seed we
sow does not come to life unless it dies.
1.
You likely understand that
when we plant a seed
it does not die in the ground & then come back to life as a plant.
That is
a botanical absurdity.
2.
But, Paul isn’t teaching botany here; he‟s teaching
about the resurrection.
a.
In the ancient world, it was
believed that seeds
did die before they sprouted. Paul takes that belief to teach about the
resurrection.
b.
We do basically the same thing
when we tell our
children a fable to make a point. If we tell the story of the tortoise
&
the hare, we aren’t saying it’s true, but we’re making a point.
C.
So, seeds
die before they live & what is sown is not like what comes forth
from the
ground.
1.
Paul‟s point in
mentioning that seeds die before they sprout is to teach the truth that
life
follows death.
a.
As strange as it sounds, we
see this principle in
medicine all the time.
1)
If I have cancer, what is my
oncologist going to
do? He’s going to
kill the cancer cells so that I can live.
2)
If I need an organ transplant,
surgeons will
remove my diseased organ & replace it with another. The diseased
organ will
be allowed to die so that I can live.
b.
This paradox works spiritually
as well.
1)
“Whoever would save his life
will lose it, but
whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25).
2)
As Paul writes here, we have a
merging of these
two concepts: Paul is teaching about the spiritual truth of the
resurrection,
but the resurrection will be a bodily resurrection.
2.
But, we must not think that
our bodies will look
the same in the resurrection, for you what you sow is not the body to
be.
a.
When you plant a corn seed,
you don‟t expect the
plant that‟s going to sprout
from that seed to look exactly like that seed, do you?
b.
When it comes to the
resurrection, what is placed
in the ground is not the same as what comes forth.
1)
In the next paragraph, Paul
compares the body
that is sown with the body that is raised (vv 42-49).
a)
The body that is sown is
perishable (it is
susceptible to decay), but the body that is raised is imperishable (it
cannot
decay).
b)
The body is sown in dishonor
(it is buried to
rot), but the body is raised in glory (the resurrected body will be
like Jesus’ resurrected body).
c)
The body is sown in weakness
(is there anything
weaker than a dead body?), but it is raised in power (God’s power shall raise our dead
bodies).
d)
The body is sown as a natural
body (it is
susceptible to the laws of nature), but it is raised a spiritual body
(it will
be fit for the spiritual realm).
e)
The body that is sown is of
the earth (it is made
out of elements in the earth), but it is raised a heavenly body (fit
for the
heavenly kingdom).
2)
There is no need, therefore,
to worry about the
state of the body prior to the resurrection.
a)
If I die in a plane crash over
the ocean &
fish eat my body, I’ll still be
raised on the Last Day.
b)
If a nuclear bomb goes off
right here & we
are all disintegrated, we shall still be raised on the Last Day.
3)
Rabbis in Paul’s day said that the body would
be resurrected
from a bone in the neck that was indestructible. However, it doesn’t matter what physical matter
remains; God will raise our bodies!
D.
How is that
even possible? “God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind
of seed
its own body.”
1.
The reason a corn stalk looks
so different from a
corn seed is that God has designed them that way.
a.
When God first made the world,
he decreed that
plants would yield seed a certain way: “God said, “Let the earth sprout
vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in
which is
their seed, each according to its kinds, on the earth” (Gn 1:11).
b.
You don’t expect to
plant corn & have green beans come forth. That is not the laws of
nature God
has placed on earth.
2.
Why does Paul talk about each
kind of seed having
its own body?
a.
Who among us can cause a seed
to grow?
1)
We can plant a seed, we can
water the seed, and
we can make sure it gets enough sun. But,
can any of us look at a seed & say, “Okay, it’s time to grow & expect it
to grow?”
2)
Only God can cause a plant to
grow. He does so
today through the laws he set in place at the Creation, but all seed
growth
goes back to God!
b.
Paul is saying, “Look, folks,
don‟t worry
about the resurrected body. The God who made this world & causes
all things
to grow is the One who will cause our bodies to come forth at the Last
Day.”
E.
A young boy
had been promised a new puppy for his tenth birthday, but he had a hard
time choosing
between a dozen likely candidates at the neighborhood pet shop.
1.
Finally, Jonathan decided on
an ugly, shaggy dog
who was wagging his tail furiously.
2.
His dad said, “John, why do
you want that dog?”
Jonathan said, “I want the one with the happy ending.”
F.
It doesn’t matter what our bodies look
like as they rot in the ground, for Jesus is going to come again &
God is
going to raise them up as beautiful, spiritual bodies. Our bodies are
going to
have happy endings!
III. WHAT
KIND OF BODY WILL WE HAVE IN THE RESURRECTION?, vv 39-41.
A.
There is
likely not a one of us who hasn‟t pondered
what our resurrected body will look like.
1.
There isn’t anything
at all wrong with pondering what our bodies in the next life will be
like.
2.
The problem in Corinth was
that those brethren
were doing much more than simply pondering.
Because those brethren couldn’t uncover
every minute detail, they said the resurrection wasn’t going to occur.
B.
To those
pondering their future bodies, Paul says, “Look around you. You see
that humans
are designed one way, animals are designed another, & birds and
fish are
different from humans and animals.”
1.
Think about the different
kinds of flesh on this
earth.
a.
Many animals have coats of fur
that keep them
warm in the winter; we humans kill those animals & take their flesh
to keep
warm. We aren’t made like
they are.
b.
Who here would want to try to
live under water
like a fish? Our respiratory systems function much differently—fish can’t live outside of water &
we can’t live
inside of water.
c.
Would any of us want to climb
the building after
worship & jump off and fly like a bird? We don’t have wings as they do.
2.
Of course, we can get much
more specific even
among different kinds of creatures.
a.
There are many physical
differences between men
& women.
1)
Females generally outlive
males by four to eight
years in the United States.
2)
A woman’s metabolism
is normally lower than a man’s.
3)
Men & women have a
different skeletal
structure: woman have a shorter head, broader face, less protruding
chin,
shorter legs, & longer trunk.
b.
Our flesh differs from one
another.
C.
Not only
does flesh differ from creature to creature, but bodies differ from one
place
to another.
1.
There is one glory for human
bodies & another
glory for heavenly bodies.
a.
Our bodies differ remarkably
from heavenly
bodies.
b.
E.g., we do not shine as do
they, we are not
nearly as large as are they, etc.
2.
Just as there are different
kinds of flesh on
this earth, there are different glories of heavenly bodies.
a.
The sun & the moon differ
greatly in their
glory—the sun is much brighter, gives off much more warmth, and has a
greater
gravitational force than the moon could ever hope to have.
b.
We can tell from our vantage
point than no two
stars are quite the same: some are much brighter than others, some
appear much
larger than others, & some even appear different colors.
D.
What does
all this have to do with the resurrection of the dead?
1.
When Jesus comes again, all
the heavenly bodies
we’ve spent
time talking about this morning are going to be burned up.
a.
“The heavens will be set on
fire and dissolved,
and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!” (2 Pt 3:12).
b.
There isn’t going to
be sun, moon, & stars after the resurrection, so why waste time
talking about
their differences this morning?
2.
When Jesus comes again, there
will not be
differences between men & women.
a.
“In the resurrection they
neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mt 22:30).
b.
Jesus doesn‟t say there
is only one gender in heaven, but he does say that gender differences
are
absolved in heaven.
c.
If that’s the case,
why waste time talking about the differences between men & women
this morning?
E.
Here is the
point: If God clothed bodies as he chose at the Creation, why can‟t he clothe
our bodies as he wills at the Resurrection?
1.
He is the same God, he has the
same power, &
he will not allow our spirits to be naked, but he will clothe them as
he sees
fit.
2.
We don‟t have to
spend time worrying about bodies decaying, about what they‟ll be like
in the Resurrection, for God has taken care of those things. I don‟t have to
worry about them!
F.
But, wouldn‟t it be nice
to know exactly what our resurrected bodies will look like?
1.
We know what those bodies will
look like without
any doubt: “We are God’s children
now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he
appears
we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone
who thus
hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 Jn 3:2-3).
2.
That‟s all I need
to know about my resurrected body—it’s going to
be like Jesus‟ body!!
a.
What a glorious thought!
1)
These bodies we inhabit on
this earth sometimes
give us fits with aches & pains & illness, but when Jesus comes
again, our
bodies will be perfect just like his body!
2)
These bodies don’t always work exactly like
they should, but when
Jesus comes again, our bodies will work perfectly just like his body!
b.
Is that the hope you have this
morning? Are you
purifying yourself as he is pure so that you can be like him at the
Resurrection?