Now, In Light of Then
1 Corinthians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
Welcome
I was reading a book this week and the author closed the book out by saying this:
“[Because we are] immensely concerned with today, [all we do must be done] in light of the day - that day when Jesus returns, when all things will be made known, including the motivation of [every heart]. May your knowledge of that day help you remain...faithful.”
That sums up well what Paul is talking about in our passage this morning. How do we live now, in light of how we will live in eternity?
We will consider that as we continue in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
We have seen in this chapter: Paul spoke of Christ’s resurrection and the centrality of the resurrection to the Gospel - we saw last week that Christ’s resurrection is inseparably tied to ours - it is an “all or nothing” deal - resurrection applies to both Christ and the elect, or it applies to no one - so thank God Christ is risen!
Now Paul continues his train of thought, and it leads him to touch on a multitude of topics - from the fall of man, to Christ’s first coming, to Christ’s second coming. So, as a warning, we are going to cover a lot today, and we are going to look at a lot of Scripture.
But that just goes to show how the Gospel is so all-encompassing. How it speaks to not just God’s eternal plan of redemption, or to the promises He has kept in Christ - it speaks of the promises He is keeping and will yet keep.
Because God is keeping His promises to us, day by day, minute by minute. As we live united to Christ in His resurrection life - God is keeping His promise to us.
As the Holy Spirit draws us to know Christ more and to live more like Him in holiness and to surrender to God all we are and all we have - God is keeping His promise to us.
As we come together and worship Him and praise Him and hear Him speak through His Word all in communion with Him and each other - God is keeping His promise to us.
And even as He assures us of the future reality of eternity in His presence, He is still keeping His promise to us.
So the Gospel may center on and even depend on the resurrection of Christ - but the Gospel includes the fact that God is still working His salvation - He is still working His salvation in the world and in us.
And He will work it, and ultimately restore all things and reign forever and ever.
Does that make any difference in how we live now?
Now, in our passage today, Paul is still addressing the same objection that he began talking about in verse 12. Some of the Corinthians said that there is no bodily resurrection of believers, which is why Paul talked about how inseparable our resurrection is from Christ’s.
If Christ has been raised, we will be raised.
And that is why he ended with this:
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Paul has made it abundantly clear: Christ has risen from dead. It is objectively true. The Corinthians could verify it. And, as we saw, they believed it.
So Paul showed them how our future resurrection is an objective fact. It is verified through Christ’s resurrection.
So now Paul is going to use the rest of the chapter to explain in more detail exactly what will happen when we are resurrected.
And here he begins again with Christ’s resurrection. In fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.
And then he addresses our resurrection: Christ has been raised from the dead, but He is just the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep - or those who are Christians who have died bodily.
There will be a harvest at the end. All Who died in Christ, will be raised to live with Christ forever.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
This is the first time in Paul’s writings that he equates the headship of Christ with the headship of Adam. But this is important to understand.
Adam was the head of his wife. He was the head of the first body of believers. He was - quite literally - the head of the whole human race. And when Adam sinned, his family became a family of sinners.
That includes us.
The human race became a body without a head because Adam rejected God.
And the whole of humanity was, so to speak, still in Adam when that happened. So the whole race was plunged into death because of sin.
But in God’s grace, the moment that happened, He made a promise to Adam - that through his own seed and that of his wife - that through a human - God would bring redemption.
And that’s why Paul is focused on the humanity of Christ here. He is the fulfillment of the promise. Through the line of fallen humans came God’s Messiah.
And all those in Him will be resurrected just like all those in Adam were cursed to die. He undid through His death and resurrection, what we did through sin.
Paul gives an extended explanation of this in Romans 5 - which I encourage you all to read today.
But when Jesus came as a man, He made clear Who He was and what it meant for those who would believe. It would mean resurrection.
As Jesus said to Martha when Lazarus died:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
Through the one man Adam came death.
By the one man - Jesus of Nazareth - the promised Messiah - God in the flesh - has come the resurrection of the dead.
He is the resurrection and the life, and all in Him shall live.
Which is what Paul says next:
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
And Paul is not making a claim here that everyone will find salvation when he says that in Christ shall all be made alive. He is saying that all in Adam die. Every human - every last one - descended from Adam is under the curse of death in their natural state.
What we deserve, brothers and sisters, is death. Never forget that.
But also never forget that for those who are in Christ - the One Who overcame death for us - those in Christ will be made alive. We have been brought from death to life, and we will be brought from death to life.
Because while this is speaking of our future resurrection, there are great implications for us right now.
Because this is already a reality for us. This is part of what you may have heard called “the already and the not yet.” There are promises that have been fulfilled in Christ, but still have a more complete future fulfillment in Christ.
We already have the promises, but we don’t have them in their fullness yet.
We look forward to a life that we don’t yet have: physical life forever in the presence of Christ, but we already have eternal life. We look forward to the coming of the kingdom which has not yet appeared in its fullness, but the kingdom has already come.
We look forward to the end - which has obviously not yet happened - but the Bible tells us that the end has already begun.
So too, we will be raised physically - that has not yet happened - but he have already been raised spiritually with Christ.
This is why Paul tells the Roman Christians that we have died with Christ and have already been given new life out of that death.
This is what we will see symbolized in baptism in just a little while. We are already raised to new life and need to live like it.
This is Paul he writes in Ephesians that God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the heavenly places, and a few verse later tells us that God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly places.
And then Paul says that He did this so that in the age to come God might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ.
In other words, Christ has been raised so that we will be raised, but in the meantime, we are raised with Him - and that already is, so that God can show the fullness of His grace in the life we have not yet entered into.
Our resurrection life has begun, brothers and sisters. It began the moment we each believed.
Are we living out that resurrection life?
We looked at Christ’s promise of the future resurrection last week from John 5. I want to look at that again. Jesus said:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Jesus wasn’t just talking about the future, here. This isn’t just about the “not yet.” This has already happened. Look at what He says:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
This started with His first coming. This already is.
Those who hear the Gospel and are regenerated, hear the voice of our Shepherd, and we live.
And yet:
an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
This is not yet. This will be at His second coming. We will take part in the resurrection of life.
But if we have placed our faith in Christ, we have heard His voice and we live. Right now. We were dead in sin because we were in Adam. But we heard the call of Christ through the Gospel, and we are raised to life already.
We are already alive in Christ - we are already raised with Him.
And someday, we will be raised just like Him.
Paul says that those in Christ will be made alive like He was made alive in His resurrection:
But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
We are resurrected to new spiritual life when we believe in Christ because of what He did at His first coming. And if we are, we will be resurrected to new physical life when Christ comes again.
But that isn’t the end of the matter. Christ will do more:
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
After our resurrection, Christ will destroy every rule, every authority, and every power. These are words Paul uses often to describe the spiritual powers of darkness. And that’s what He’s talking about here.
Satan. All the fallen heavenly beings who craved and took what wasn’t theirs to take. Christ will destroy them all.
But, He already has won His victory over them.
In John 16 we read of Christ’s teaching on the coming of the Holy Spirit in the upper room the night before His death. And what does He say?
That the ruler of this world is judged. Not will be. Is.
In Ephesians 1, Paul talks about the resurrection of Christ, as we already touched on. And what does he say? That through His resurrection Christ already has been placed above all rule and authority and power and dominion.
We see here again the already and the not yet. Christ through His resurrection is victorious over the spiritual powers of darkness, and will yet be in the age to come.
This is the “not yet” of the kingdom in which we already live:
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
Once the final victory is won, Christ will conquer every enemy, and then He will hand the kingdom over to the Father.
And yet, Christ already reigns:
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
Brothers and sisters, Christ reigns now. There is a King Who sits on His throne, and He has dominion over the whole creation. We don’t yet see it physically. But He already does.
The world doesn’t know it yet, because they don’t hear His voice. As Paul said earlier in the letter - such things are spiritually discerned. So the world can’t know it.
But Christ reigns.
And He will reign until every enemy is destroyed.
And this is not just the powers of darkness. This is not just those who will continue to make themselves enemies of God until the bitter end.
There is another enemy that will be destroyed once and for all:
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
This is talking about our resurrection.
Christ has already overcome death. He overcame it when He walked out of the grave alive. So death has been defeated. One day, it will be completely destroyed and even those who have died, will rise.
Christ reigns, and He will reign, until the end of this age, when all will be called out of their graves and will rise bodily. Every ruler and authority of the spiritual realm will be destroyed.
And death itself will be destroyed.
And then Christ will usher in His kingdom visibly in the new heaven and the new earth. Because He is King.
But not just Him.
For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him.
God the Father is the One Who gave the kingdom to the Son. So the Father is not in subjection to the Son, because it was His kingdom to give.
Paul here quotes from Psalm 8.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
This is a well known passage. And Paul tells us that it refers ultimately to Christ. The writer of Hebrews also tells us that this is about Christ:
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
This speaks of Christ overcoming death for us. Through His perfect life and His atoning death on the cross, Christ died the death we deserved, and has given us the life He earned.
And through that, the Father gave Him a kingdom.
Christ Himself said:
All things have been handed over to me by my Father
And before He ascended to His throne, He gave His church our marching orders - the Great Commission - and how does He start that off?
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Christ reigns. The Father has given Him a kingdom.
And at the end, when death is defeated forever and we are raised to life, Christ will give the Kingdom back to the Father:
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
What does it mean that the Son will be subjected to the Father?
Well, it is interesting to note that Paul here is only teaching what Christ taught. Outside of this reference to the kingdom being given to the Father, this idea of the Father’s Kingdom is only ever spoken of by Christ.
And when He does, He is speaking of the end. Of the culmination of our salvation.
Most famously, of course, He talks about it in the Lord’s Prayer. He addresses the Father and says:
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
That is what we pray for when we pray the Lord’s Prayer - that the Kingdom of the Father would come. That the end would come, and heaven and earth would become one so that it is on earth as it is in heaven.
So the first thing Jesus taught His disciples to pray for, was for the end to come. For God to complete the redemption of all things. Before they were to pray for provision for today, before they were to pray for holiness and deliverance from the evil one, they were to pray for the end.
In other words: They were to live now, in light of then.
Jesus talks about the Father’s kingdom again in the parable of the weeds. An enemy sows weeds among wheat, and the reapers ask if they should remove the weeds. And what does the landowner say? Leave them until the harvest.
And this is Jesus’ explanation of the parable:
He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
We will be glorified, and live in the Father’s kingdom.
This is why Jesus tells us that when we celebrate communion we are to remember what He has done to ratify the New Covenant, but He also points us forward to the end:
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
When Christ spoke of the Father’s kingdom, He spoke of the end. Of our completed salvation.
We should all be praying for that.
But here is the truly amazing part of all of this. Not only will the Father rule, but Christ will continue to rule.
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.
What does it mean that God will be “all in all?”
This is talking about YHWH God - the fullness of God the Trinity, ruling as One.
As one commentator puts it, this talks about:
“the time of the resurrection of the dead, when through Christ the final enemy of the redeemed has been subdued, [and] the will of the one and only God will be supreme in every quarter and in every way”
Here the wonderful mystery of the Trinity is revealed. There is One true God. But He is three Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Three inseparable yet distinct Persons are One God.
And though God only reveals Himself physically through the Person of the Son, the fullness of the Godhead dwells within that Person.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell
Through His resurrection and victory, the Son has received a kingdom from the Father, and the Son reigns. The Son will give that kingdom back to the Father after every enemy is destroyed, and God will reign as One - He will be all in all.
The kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.
And every eye will see and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father
But there’s still more. Because Christ has overcome for us, we will also inherit the Kingdom.
As Christ told His apostles:
“You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
It is God’s Kingdom.
It is Christ’s Kingdom.
Brothers and sisters: it is our Kingdom.
The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;
We live.
We will reign.
So we cannot deny Him Who gave it all to us. We cannot deny Him through how we live out our salvation.
Okay. Let’s pause for a minute. That was a lot.
We saw how in Adam everyone is under the curse of death, but for those in Christ, death has been overcome and we will live, and we already live now. All because of Christ’s work.
We saw that at the end, every enemy will be overcome, all because of Christ’s work.
In the end, God will reign in all His fullness, and we too will reign, all because of Christ’s work.
We have literally been given everything - literally, we will be given the whole world by God! - all because of Christ’s work.
So, brothers and sisters, we need to work now.
We need to live as we’re called now, in light of then, when God will be all in all and the whole world will be ours.
And that’s what Paul addresses next. Let’s let Paul apply all of this rich truth to us.
Because Paul now returns to the matter at hand - the denial of our physical resurrection, which means a denial that Christ will destroy death.
And Paul points to the now to prove the not yet.
Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?
explain the behalf of the dead - An expression of allegiance to honor not only Christ but also the ‘patron’ apostle or evangelist in whose testimony the convert had believed
- remember in chapter 1, Paul addressed those who divided over who they followed, and he says that’s why he’s glad he didn’t baptize many of them - because people would be baptized in identification with their patron
- some of them did it to identify with people who had already died
Paul is saying that implied in the very act of honoring these people, is that the Corinthians believed that death was not the end. They believed those who died in Christ lived on.
And if they believed those people lived on in spirit - the already of our being raised with Christ - why would they deny that they would be raised in the body?
Those people are still alive, and will one day be alive fully, body and spirit!
Because they are already raised spiritually, just not yet in the body.
And then Paul adds another question. He asks first: why believe those dead bodily are alive now if you don’t believe they will be fully alive then, and then he asks:
Why are we in danger every hour?
He is asking “why do you think we are putting our own lives at risk?”
Paul put his life at great risk to preach the Gospel. Go read in Acts 18 and see how Christians - Paul’s friends and co-laborers - were persecuted and beaten.
See how in the next chapter Paul is physically restrained by his friends from going into the crowds because they feared for his life.
Go read Acts 14 and see how Paul was stoned in Lystra.
Paul’s life was literally in danger at every moment.
Why would he put himself in that situation?
Because he knew he couldn’t really die. Even if his body died, he would live, and at the end, he would live bodily forever.
Which is why he says:
I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?
Clearly, Paul doesn’t mean he literally died every day. He is saying he is willing every single day - every single moment - to give up this current physical life for the sake of the kingdom. He gives up his life for the sake of Christ every day.
I think his reference here to the beasts in Ephesus are the people that would have killed him had he been allowed to confront them.
And if you remember back to the start of this series, you know where Paul was when he was writing this letter.
Ephesus!
He was in the midst of that danger at the moment he was writing this.
And he asks: If there is no resurrection from the dead, then why do that? If this is the only body we will have - the only life there is - then as we saw last week, let’s be like the atheists and live as if this life is it.
Let’s live like those with no hope and make this life about nothing more than staying alive, which is exactly what the world does.
But if we believe we will be raised at the end, then we can make our lives about living for Christ! Because we live and will live. Because we know we will get everything in the end.
That’s why Paul and the Apostles risked their lives daily for the sake of Christ.
But just think about what we won’t risk for Christ. Think of the things we have trouble giving up for the sake of Christ.
Paul was ready at every moment to give up his life for the sake of Christ. Because he knew what was in store for him, and he believed it.
He lived his now in light of then.
And here we are. And we often won’t give up even our ease and comfort. Our own wants and desires.
We sometimes won’t step out in faith and do what might be hard. We sometimes don’t have the courage to do what might be uncomfortable.
Sometimes we don’t speak up for Christ when the opportunity is right there in front of us.
And sometimes, even worse, we often don’t do these things, because we know our lives don’t line up with the message.
We know that if we proclaim Christ, if we claim to live for Him, how we live will do more harm than good to the name of Christ.
Sometimes, we are so far off of our call - to lay down our lives and take up our cross to follow Jesus. The One Who gained us life, and salvation, and a kingdom.
How often we walk by sight and live like those who don’t walk by faith now, believing what will be sight then.
How often we live as if death was the end and this life was not only most important, but practically all there was.
How often we live like Paul admonishes the Corinthians for living:
If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Paul pulls this from Isaiah 22. It is a passage that condemns the people of Judah and especially Jerusalem.
Why? Because they were so focused on this life, they forgot God. Because they looked at what they had in this life, and gave God no credit.
They lived as if they were totally ignorant of God’s promises.
They lived as if He was basically a non-factor in “real life.”
Paul is saying that the Corinthians were doing this. By not living now in light of their sure end - sure because of the resurrection of Christ - they were basically denying Him in how they lived.
Does this apply to us, too?
If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
Paul here, knowing his audience, quotes from a Greek comedy: bad company ruins good morals.
And much can be said here, because Paul has spoken so many times about the divisions within the church in Corinth while they had shared values with the world.
We have seen, in matters of sex, idolatry, their entitlement, their habit of ignoring problems that needed to be addressed, even their understanding of what God has done - in all these things, they were more like the world than they were like Christ.
Be honest, who are we more like most of the time? Who do we keep company with, in practice?
When it comes to matters of sex, and feelings of entitlement, and ignoring problems - what do our lives say about who we are most like?
Perhaps the call of Paul to the Corinthians is a wake up call to us.
Wake up.
Do not continue sinning.
Stop being ignorant of God and His call.
God has already given us everything in Christ.
God will yet give us everything in Christ.
And God wants to give us, right now - day by day - everything in Christ.
If we would but turn to Him and desire to live now in light of then - God will give that to us to. He will keep His promises.
I return to 2 Timothy:
The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.
God will finish what He has begun in us.
He is faithful, even when we are not.
So let’s all turn to Him in faith thins morning.
Ask yourself:
Where in your life are you living as if this world was life, and there was no more?
Where are you denying Him in practice?
What do you need to change to live more for Christ now in light of then, when we will have literally everything?
Between you and God, confess where you fall short, and pray Him to work the power of Christ’s resurrection life in you
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John Calvin wrote:
Baptism, from our side, is a passive work. We bring nothing to it but faith, which has all things laid up in Christ.
