Word of Salvation – Vol. 51 No.30 – December 2006
The Resurrection Body
A Sermon by Rev John Haverland
on 1 Corinthians 15:35-49
Scripture Readings: Psalm 103; Ecclesiastes 12;
and Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 22
Theme: Paul answered questions about the character of the resurrection body of believers based on the resurrection of Christ’s body.
Purpose: To explain the nature of our resurrection bodies for our comfort and hope.
Congregation,
At some time or other you have probably walked through a cemetery and looked at all the headstones and read the names and dates that have been inscribed on stone. You can learn a lot about family histories and connections from these inscriptions. Often people have quoted passages from the Bible.
Next time you wander through a cemetery think about these verses concerning the resurrection of the dead. On the day when Jesus comes again, amazing events will take place in all these cemeteries in the cities and towns and rural areas all over this country. The sights will be spectacular and awe-inspiring! Millions of people will be raised from their graves. No matter how long they have lain there, they will be raised, and the bodies and souls of all who have died will be reunited.
This scene will take place in cemeteries all over the country and all over the world. Those who have been buried at sea will be raised from where they came to rest. Those who have been buried in their own back yards or in church yards will be raised from those places.
On that day all those who have died with faith in Christ will be raised with a glorious new body that will be fit to live in heaven and enjoy all the blessing and joy of a new heaven and a new earth. This will be a “perfect blessedness such as no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no man has ever imagined: a blessedness in which to praise God eternally” (HC Answer 58).
But how will all this happen? The apostle Paul anticipated that question from both unbelievers and believers in Corinth: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?”
This passage we have just read answers these questions and explains the character of the resurrection body and its basis in Christ Jesus.
1. First of all, then, let’s consider the ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS that were asked.
“How are the dead raised?“, some were asking. There were some in Corinth who said that there would be “no resurrection of the dead.” They accepted that the soul would live on after death but they did not believe in a physical resurrection of the body.
This disbelief arose out of Greek philosophy and its low view of the human body. The Greeks put all the emphasis on the soul or the spirit of a person. They saw the body as a prison. When you died your soul would be released from its physical prison. In Greek thinking there was therefore no place for a physical resurrection of the body.
These people asked; “How are the dead raised?” Their question was cynical because they did not believe this was desirable or possible. Their tone was sarcastic. Their minds were closed.
The same is true today. Secular people in New Zealand or Australia do not believe in the resurrection or in life after death. You die and that’s it – it’s all over, finished, done with, you’re gone! They too ask, in a mocking voice: “How are the dead raised?” How can a body that has decomposed in the ground for hundreds of years then be raised to life? How can you resurrect a body that has decayed to nothing? How can God give life to a little pile of ash that has been scattered over the waves? Those who raised these questions clearly believed this was impossible. But with God nothing is impossible.
Paul explained how this will take place by using the illustration of a seed.
[Read verses 36-38]
Think about a seed. An apple grows on a tree, drops to the ground, rots away and eventually leaves some tiny seeds. They are small, and they look dead, useless, lifeless. But from that tiny seed God can make another apple tree that will bear fruit. God can bring life out of something that looks dead.
Or take a bulb. It looks lifeless and boring. But when you plant it in the ground it will produce roots and shoots and eventually produces beautiful flowers.
If God can bring life out of a seed or a bulb, he can give life to the ashes and dust of our bodies. A family in Christchurch lost a son aged about 20 in a motorcycle accident. On his gravestone they wrote the words: “Planted to rise again”. Those words come from these verses. They were written in confident hope of the resurrection of the body on that day.
Others asked: “With what kind of body will they come?” (verse 35). What sort of existence will it be? What will it be like?
In verses 39-41 Paul explained that we will be given bodies suited to a life in heaven. He described the ‘bodies’ that are found in this creation – the bodies of men and animals, of birds and fish, of the moon and the stars. Each one is different and each one has a ‘body’ suited to its place and location and situation.
God can take similar physical material and organise it to suit its own environment. A bird has a body that enables it to live in the air, while fish were made so they could live in water.
Paul then applies this to our resurrection. At present we have a body that is suited to living in this world, but these bodies won’t be suited to living in heaven. So when we die our bodies must be buried. Then, later on, from the seed of this body, God will make a new body, a spiritual body, perfectly made for the glory of heaven. It will be different, recreated for a new life. So what kind of body will it be? It will have heavenly splendour, a heavenly glory.
2. Having answered these questions, Paul went on, secondly, to describe THE CHARACTERISTICS of this new body. He did this with a series of contrasts.
“The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable” (vs 42).
One of the laws of physics is the law of entropy which says that all systems go from order to disorder; systems lose their energy; everything left to itself tends to decay. Iron rusts, aluminium oxidises, fruit rots. Everything left to its own course has a tendency to disorder, to chaos, to decline, to randomness. This is part of the fallenness of our world.
These bodies of ours will also fail because they are perishable, corruptible, in a process of decay. Our bodies are wearing out and declining (cf Ecclesiastes 12). We get sick; we grow old; and eventually we will die.
However, one day we will be raised incorruptible!
There is a wonderful section at the very end of Handel’s “Messiah” where the bass soloist sings these verses with a trumpet solo sounding from the orchestra: “The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality.”
You who believe will receive a body that will never become sick or disabled or old. It will not wear out or fail. It will be eternal, imperishable, immortal, and will never decay!
It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory (vs 43).
One of the most distressing deaths to see is when a loved one is wasted away by a cancer which slowly destroys the body. Death can be humiliating, distressing, dishonourable, shameful.
But one day these bodies, that are sown in dishonour, will be raised in glory! One day Jesus will transform these lowly bodies so they will be like his glorious body.
The word “glory” means radiance, splendour and brightness. Moses reflected something of God’s glory after he had talked with God in the tent of meeting. The angel who rolled the stone away from Christ’s tomb on that Sunday morning had an appearance like lightning, with clothes that were as white as snow (Mt 28:3).
You, too, will share this glory! It is hard to imagine just what this will be like, but one day we, too, will be raised in glory and splendour.
It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power (vs 43b).
This present body is a weak one. Mine is weak, and so is yours. After a hard day’s work you feel tired and you need to rest. A migraine or a flu can send you to bed totally wiped out. Even rugby players or runners who are at peak physical fitness can have an injury and suddenly they are weak and they cannot play or run.
Psalm 103 reminds us that “we are dust”. Our “days are like grass” (vs 15). We were made from the dust of the earth, from the ground. We are creatures who are mortal, weak, human.
But this body that is weak will one day be raised in power! We won’t suffer from the limitations we experience now. In heaven we won’t need our glasses, there will be no need for hearing aids, no one will need a knee or hip replacement; there will be no sickness, no pain, no suffering. You will always have a steady hand and a firm handshake and a sure step. On the new earth we will run and not grow weary, we will walk and not faint!
The final contrast includes all the others: It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
At present we have a natural body. It is a physical material body that is bound by space and time. It is also affected by sin in every part, prone to temptation and imperfect. But God will give us a spiritual body. This doesn’t mean that it will be non physical or non material. The resurrected body of Jesus was still a real body. Jesus could be seen and touched and he could eat. In the same way our resurrection body will be physical.
But it will also be spiritual; it will be raised and renewed by the Holy Spirit; it will be controlled and directed and led by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It will be a body fit to live with God in heaven. Just as we have a body that is suited to life on this earth, so, too, we will be given a body fitted to a life with Christ in heaven.
3. THE BASIS for our resurrection bodies is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the third point we will consider in this passage. The apostle Paul developed this with a parallel between the first Adam and the last Adam in verses 45-49.
The first Adam is described in those early chapters of Genesis.
He was created by God from the dust of the earth.
God breathed into him and he became a living being.
He had a “natural” body in that it was physical and material.
He was an “earthly man” with a body that was designed to live on this earth and that was suited to this environment, this situation.
This man Adam functioned as the representative of humanity. We, too, are “of the earth”, as he was (vs 48). We bear “the likeness of the earthly man” (vs 49). This is our present situation.
But this passage also describes the last Adam, Jesus, who was and is the Son of God.
By his resurrection he became “a life-giving spirit” (vs 45). This means that he has life in himself and he can give it to others – to all those who believe in him. If you believe in Jesus and put your trust in his saving death on the cross and if you believe that he died there for your sins, then Jesus will give you eternal life. He is the life giving Spirit who has the authority and the power to give you life forever.
This passage also explains that he did not come from the dust of the ground like Adam but rather from heaven. He came from heaven when he came the first time and was born into this world as a man. He originated from heaven as the second person of the Trinity. He came as the Son of God with his divine nature and he also took on a human nature. He will also come from heaven when he comes the second time as the Judge of all men. So he is “from heaven”.
But Paul also applies this to us.
In verse 48b he describes what is true of us now, already: “…as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.” The New Testament tells us that believers are already seated with Christ in the heavenly places. We have been raised with Christ, we are ruling with Christ, we belong to Christ. This is your present position. This is who you are already. But there is more to come.
Verse 49: “And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.” This verse is describing something future. We have not yet received this – this is still to come. At present we bear “the likeness of the earthly man” – Adam – we are like him. But one day we will bear “the likeness of the man from heaven” – Jesus – the last Adam.
We don’t know exactly what that will be like. This chapter tells us something about our resurrection bodies, but we don’t know everything. But we do know enough to look forward to this and to long for what is to come.
At present we have a natural body that is earthly, perishable and weak. These bodies of ours will be buried in the ground – in cemeteries in this town/city or wherever. Think about that when you pass by a cemetery. But think further than your death. For one day Jesus will come and these bodies will be raised: raised imperishable; raised in glory; raised in power; raised as spiritual bodies to live forever!
What is to come will be better, greater and more wonderful that we can ever hope for or imagine. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).
This is the great comfort we have when a loved one dies, and a comfort for us when we have to face our own death. And this is our great hope for the future – we shall bear the likeness of the man from heaven!
Amen.