A Prelude To The Resurrection

Congregation: Almighty and most merciful Father; we have strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. There is no health in us.

Have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore those who are penitent, according to your promises, which were declared unto us in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O merciful Father, for his sake, that we may live a godly, righteous, and sober life; to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Minister: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

Congregation: Thanks be to God! Amen.

CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE Exodus 16:1-12

Pastor Austin Prince

THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31, ESV)

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYERS

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

†PSALM OF PREPARATION #526

“He Leadeth Me: O Blessed Thought!”

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy scripture to be written for our learning; grant that we may in such a way hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our savior Jesus Christ.

SERMON 1 Corinthians 15:35-49 // Resurrection of the Body

TEXT 1 Corinthians 15:35-49

1 Corinthians 15:35–49 ESV

35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. 42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

AFTER SCRIPTURE

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Amen.

INTRO

If we’re not careful, we can often believe that the summit of the gospel (the good news) is only our salvation. But the truth is, our salvation is a means to an end. That end, of course, being our restoration with God and communion with Him for eternity. Our salvation, and our focus on it, brings great comfort and ease to the mind at present, but what does the gospel speak to us about the future? How are we to feel as our spirits grow more and more comforted by Christ in this life, and yet, our bodies grow more and more into decay? What does the good news have to say about that? How are we to face the grave? It’s obviously a difficult question to answer with great confidence — none of us have experienced the life to come, but we all too familiar with death, of aging, sickness, and pain.

After spending much time convincing the Corinthians that the resurrection was for Christ (and is for them) not only a reality but an essential part of the gospel, Paul now anticipates a question which they will likely have. He states in v. 35 “But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”” (1 Corinthians 15:35, ESV)

The implication here is that resurrection seems vulgar. We know what happens at death. We know what happens to a body over time. If we are to be resurrected, what does that even look like? What does that mean?

What are we to expect of the bodies that we have now and what are we to expect about resurrection bodies?

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.” (1 Corinthians 15:35–37, ESV)

I love that Paul answers the Corinthian objection by calling them fools.

“Guys, wake up! Isn’t the answer all around you all the time? Isn’t it obvious what God does all the time with seed?”

He expects them to have learned from nature the pattern of death and resurrection.

This “you should have already know this from nature” happens frequently in the Bible, by the way. We would do well to take that to heart and pay attention. “Go to the ant” and “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19–20, ESV)

“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.” (1 Corinthians 15:36–37, ESV)

Paul says, don’t you know that life doesn’t come to a seed unless it dies? If you expect anything to come from this, any flower or grain or fruit, it has to die first. And that’s where we are headed.

One of the chief paradigms of the Christian faith is that life comes after death. Not only in the grand scale of our life now and our future resurrection, but as it regards our salvation as we die in the substitutionary death of Christ and are born-again in the Spirit. And in daily dying to self, too, where we find that the seeds of obedience die a kind of death as we abide in Christ and bear much fruit.

So as it regards these bodies now, they are just seeds. They decay, they break down, but they must before they can really live.

And Paul spends a few lines here on the glory that we can expect.

“But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” (1 Corinthians 15:38–44, ESV)

It is fascinating to think of a seed, how plain most of them are and how small, but when they die and come to life, they look nothing like they did before. What comes from them is vibrant and dramatic and full of life. And Paul helps us to see, even though slightly and dimly, what that glory might be in the future. He reminds us that we differ in glory now, some seed is grain, some is wheat. There are differing glories and bodies here now of man and animals and fish and birds. There is great glory to us in the sun and the moon and the stars, but they are an earthly glory. We marvel at them, but they are seed, too. We travel to see this glory now. We paint pictures of it and try to capture it in photos, but this is still just seed glory. “But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—” (1 Corinthians 2:9, ESV).

And we aren’t told what that glory is exactly, and I’m not going to speculate, but we are told this:

“What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” (vv. 42-44)

Part of this resurrection glory is that death will have lost its grip and be no more.

Dishonor and weakness which have defined this life as seed will no longer be the expectation as time goes on. We will not have to buttress our hearts and minds in preparation of loss.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.(Jesus says) I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10, ESV)

The Image of Christ

“Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:45–49, ESV)

Adam was a living being, a man made from and born to the dust, and to dust he returned. That’s us. As our forefather and representative head, we have a familiarity with Adam in every way — weakness, decay, and sin. But Jesus is the life-giving Spirit. And by God’s grace, we who were born into Adam are now reborn, as it were, into Christ, and will be as familiar now with Christ as we were with Adam. Our inheritance will no longer be decay and shame and death, but life and rest, and glory.

We know that familiarity with Adam well, and as we mature in Christ now, we are just starting to gain that familiarity of our new identity.

Applications

The doctrine of the resurrection and of resurrection bodies encourages us to both live well and to die well.

Living well:

“Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” (John 12:25–26, ESV)

Where do we follow Jesus? To the grave.

“And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:38–39, ESV)

Death and resurrection isn’t just a one-time paradigm at the end of our lives, but a daily paradigm for life now in Christ.

I said earlier that we are to pay attention to the parables around us: we are sustained through every night of sleep and awakened each day by God’s sovereign hand - a little story of death and resurrection. We can watch a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. You can go out into your yard today and put a seed in the dirt and watch it die and come back to life. And you can take up your cross and go into your home, and you can bury the seeds of bitterness and unforgiveness and anger, and God will do what he does with seeds — making them blossom and grow, turning one seed that died into a thousand tree that bears a thousand fruits. God’s mercy is not only that there is life after a seed dies, but that it’s death produces abundant and exponential life. Go test that parable in your life.

The resurrection also teaches us to die well.

Dying well:

Death has lost its sting. We aren’t supposed to live lives of fear, clinging on to the familiar dust of Adam. We are to know that this body is just seed; it will be remade and it will be glorious.

(as the song In Christ alone says so well)

No guilt in life, no fear in death, This is the power of Christ in me; From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from His hand: Till He returns or calls me home, Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

This life is meant to be spent, not preserved. Just before this section in our reading for today Paul reminds the Corinthians that in light of the resurrection, he “dies every day” (1 Cor. 15:31). For him, it meant going around the world, through persecution and storm and imprisonment for the gospel. For some it means missions and martyrdom and for some it means marriages or motherhood. Regardless of what we do, we face it with boldness, knowing that our lives both now and forevermore are in Christ.

N.D. Wilson has a great book about this topic called Death by Living, in it he says,

“Lay your life down. Your heartbeats cannot be hoarded. Your reservoir of breaths is draining away. You have hands, blister them while you can. You have bones, make them strain-they can carry nothing in the grave. You have lungs, let them spill with laughter.”

“Drink your wine. Laugh from your gut. Burden your moments with thankfulness. Be as empty as you can be when that clock winds down. Spend your life. And if time is a river, may you leave a wake.” (N.D. Wilson, Death By Living)

†HYMN OF RESPONSE #515

“More Than Conquerors”

THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Leader: Lift up your hearts!

Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.

Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!

CONFESSION OF FAITH - The Apostles’ Creed (p.851)

INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE

Beloved in the Lord Jesus, the meal which we are about to celebrate is a feast of remembrance, communion, and hope.

We come to remember that Jesus was sent into the world to assume our flesh and blood, to become God with us, that we might be redeemed. We come to have communion with this same Christ who has promised to be with us even to the end of the world.

We come in hope, believing that this bread and this cup are a pledge and a foretaste of a new heaven and a new earth, where we shall behold God.

In his earthly ministry Jesus praised those who provided for him, saying, I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink. Now here, for us, is the bread of life given; let all who hunger come and eat. Here is the fruit of the vine, poured out for us. It is for all who belong to Christ through repentance, faith, baptism, and continuing union with his church. Let all who thirst come and drink.

Let’s pray this prayer together:

PRAYER

Congregation: Most righteous God, we remember in this meal the perfect sacrifice offered once on the cross by our Lord Jesus Christ for the sin of the whole world. United with Christ in his suffering, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, trusting in the power of God to triumph over evil, we wait in joyful hope for the fullness of God’s reign. Send your Holy Spirit upon us, we pray, that the bread which we break and the cup which we bless may be to us the communion of the body and blood of Christ.

Grant that, being joined together in him, we may attain to the unity of the faith and grow up in all things into Christ our Lord. And as this grain has been gathered from many fields into one loaf, and these grapes from many hills into one cup, grant, O Lord, that your whole Church may soon be gathered from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Amen.

Congregation is seated.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS

THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION AND SHARING OF THE SUPPER

“Eat and drink, remember, believe”

Mark 14:22-25

And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

†OUR RESPONSE #213

“Glory Be to God the Father”

Glory be to God the Father, glory be to God the Son,

glory be to God the Spirit, God Almighty, Three in One!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!, Glory be to him alone!

†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. 2 Thess. 2:16-17

Grace Notes

What are we to expect of these bodies as they approach the grave? What’s next? If the resurrection is true, what will that be like?

Answering these questions from our text this week, Paul challenges the Corinthians to pay closer attention to the way the God has made the world. As he reminds them in his letter, and as Jesus has taught as well, “a seed never grows until it dies” (1 Cor. 15:36 & John 12:25-26). Not only is this parable plentiful in our world to instruct us on what is to come, it also guides us on what we can expect. The seed, like our bodies, is sown in weakness and is plain in glory, but the tree will be alive, strong, and glorious. The seed is singular, but the fruit of life is exponential and abundant. The glories that we know now are seed glories–great, but nothing compared with what is to come in the new heavens and new earth. Since so much anticipated joy and life now strips away the fear of death, and since death’s sting has been taken away by Christ’s payment for our sins, we can both live well and die well.

We can live well by following a death and resurrection paradigm. As we die to self and bury our pride and sin, God raises up among us life and abundant life. As Jesus calls his disciples, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” (John 12:25–26, ESV). In the living of this life, we follow Jesus to the grave.

And we can die well by facing death with hope and great expectation, having not only preserved our lives but truly lived them, giving our hearts, minds, souls, and strength to serve God and neighbor.

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