1 Corinthians 15:20-26

This is Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church. This letter was probably written in about AD 55, near the end of Paul’s ministry to the church in Ephesus, and during his 2nd missionary journey.

Corinth itself is located among the islands of modern day greece. At the time of the writing of this letter Corinth was a major sea port city. It was a hub of trade in the Roman empire. Paul helped found the church during his first major missionary journey. The city is know for its temple worship and idolatry and sexual immorality. Paul has addressed a number of issues in the letter, everything from division in the church, to lawsuits, to marriage, to love, and prophecy. The portion we are looking at today is toward the end of the letter Ch 15 of the 16 chapters it is divided up in to. In chapter 15 Paul writes about the resurrection of the dead. This is the belief that God will ultimately resurrect all those who follow Jesus Christ to new, physical, bodily, life. This chapter is one of the most important chapters in the NT on this subject of the resurrection.

As people we all face the harshness of death at sometime, for this reason it is vital for us to reflect deeply on the future promised resurrection.

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own turn: Christ, the first fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

[Prayer for Illumination] Please pray with me. Heavenly, Father, I need to to hear the hope of this passage. Death is awful and something we all face in this life. Please teach me, and teach us through this passage about the hope that you have provided as the answer to death and all evil. We never know when we might face it, and so we ask that you would shape us in light of the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus. May we hear the story of the Gospel, and be enabled to believe in its truth and power. Amen

The week of August 31st 1997 will go down as one of the saddest weeks of the 20th century. In the early morning of this Sunday at 12:15 AM Princess Diana left a party with her companion Dodi Fayed and climbed into the back seat of black Mercedes-Benz sedan. Princess Diana and Dodi were in Paris that night and leaving a party with their driver. Their vehicle was allegedly followed by several photographers on motorcycles, paparazzi. At 12:24 AM the sedan smashed violently into a concrete pillar in Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Diana and Dodi, and the other two riders in the car all sustained fatal injuries.

What followed is one of the most memorable funerals of the 20th century. Diana was mourned internationally by admires from every continent. Her funeral was watched by millions of people worldwide. Admirers and friends heaped mountains of cards and flowers outside the royal residences. In her life Diana traveled the world visiting those in need. She visited the poorest of the poor. She visited those who were sick. She visited those who were suffering and dying. She was known for her compassion. Her death was a great loss. It was a moment when billions of people across the globe faced the awful reality of death. In her story we see the sweetness of life unexpectedly shattered by the bitterness of death.

So what answer might the Bible and the New Testament offer in light of this tragedy? What are Christians to think, believe, and talk about in light of death and mortality in this life? [FCF]

[Proposition]

Because the Resurrection is God’s response to death, we must proclaim when we face tragedy and death.

Look at verse 20,

20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Jesus is the first to be raised from the dead. His resurrection is a demonstration of God’s victory over death, the culmination of evil. Jesus resurrection is the first. All who follow him will also be resurrected from the dead. This is consistent with what Paul has said in other places as well. In 1 Thessalonians Paul also wrote,

13Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

The resurrection is God’s answer to death and evil. If we do not know Christ, we do not have any hope in light of death. If there is no resurrection, death is the end. If we do not believe in Jesus all we can do is just remember the person, and imagine the good times we had with them. We don’t have any reason to believe that we will see them again. But if we follow Jesus Christ, and his Spirit lives in our hearts, we believe we will be united with Christ, and reunited with all those whom we love, who are also in him.

The resurrection is God’s answer to not only death but all evil. Imagine, for a moment that there was no death. There would be no fear of disease, no fear of injury or accident, no fear of revenge, no fear of war, because there would be no threat of death.

Its hard imagine, because death is accepted as a part of everyday life. Science gives us no other option, but that death is inevitable.

But if you look deep within your soul, and face the horrible pain, dread, and disappoint death inflicts on us, this is a clue that perhaps that death is not the way is has to be, not they way it should be, its not God’s best for his creation, but a tragedy of the curse.

[Main Point # 1] Because the Resurrection is God’s response to death, we must comfort other Christians with the truth of the resurrection.

Many of us already have lost friends, or parents, or grandparents, or siblings, or cousins. We all taste the bitterness of death at some point.

We are called to console other Christians in light of Jesus’ Resurrection and victory over death.

This is different than focusing on the current resting place of the person who is with the LORD or in heaven. That really is not much comfort for those of us who are still here and are grieving the loss of a person we love. That fact, while true in the Christian sense, still leaves us missing the person.

But to talk about the resurrection, is to emphasize being reunited with all those whom we have lost who are in Christ. We or someone we know might be racked with pain, our body struggling against an alien disease, or time will ultimately wear us down in our old age. But the resurrection means, we receive new youth, fresh physical bodies, in some way similar to physical bodies he have now. But new bodies which are not fragile in the same sense or threatened by disease, or injury, or heartbreak, or depression, or death in any way. For sin and evil is conquered in Jesus’ Resurrection and defeated forever.

Paul writes about this later in the chapter, look ahead to verse 53,

For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."[g]
55 "Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"[h] 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This I believe is the larger message of the NT. Jesus Christ arose from the grave, and his resurrection inaugurated the kingdom of God. We believe the witness of the Gospels to Jesus’ Resurrection. We place our hope in Jesus Christ who will bring about our future resurrection, and his Spirit lives in our hearts and confirms to us that it is true, and enables us to believe it.

God will enact total renewal of all his good creation, including new physical bodies for all who follow Jesus Christ. To talk about people going to heaven is really just focusing on a temporary act of God. The victory secured in the resurrection, means God’s ultimate victory over death and evil. Death final dies, and life and love of God triumph forever.

[Application]

This means, in speaking and writing about death, and especially at funerals and memorials, we ought to draw more attention to our belief in the future resurrection and its meaning. As Oxford New Testament Scholar Tom Wright put it way, we ought to focus on the life to come, after the afterlife. This is the hope of ultimate restoration of all God’s creation, that is that glory of God will cover and touch the whole face of the earth.

[Main Point #2 ]

Because the Resurrection is God’s response to death, we must offer this comfort to all people.

This also applies in talking about death with people who are not believing Christians. Death is a painful subject to think about. It is the ultimate source of dread for people. It is inevitable for all of us, but its not the end. However, the thought of being raised to a new body, which is immune to disease, injury, and age, and will be strong forever is our glorious hope in Jesus Christ. What could be better than to made to live forever!

There is a misconception when people think they understand the Christian hope as “believe in Jesus and you go to heaven.” That is really not the whole story. To simply think that “we all exit this world, and then go to a better place,” is far to vague. The restoration of physical human life, is an idea that I believe is unique to Christianity. It is important to distinguish what Christians believe, which is that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead physically, and we also will be. So, the idea is unique, and largely lost even in many Christian circles, and even among Evangelicals it is forgot many times.

This subject can become awkward when talking to someone who is not yet a believer, but it does not have to be.

We can talk about what we as Christians believe about death, and what God has done about it, without ever commenting on a specific person’s future participation in this hope. Or commenting at all about a person who may have already passed away.

Many times a person who is not a Christian, yet, will ask about the fate of someone they know who has already passed away. I always want to practice extreme caution in this area, and I would urge others to do the same. But at the same time, not be afraid to talk about the hope which is available to us all in Jesus.

[Illustration]

Back when I was in 7th grade my parents moved into a new house. The flower beds there were covered up and over grown with weeds. My mother loves to garden, and I have inherited a love for this hobby from her. After a few years she started working on the flower beds and planting roses and tulips. My Mom was moving bricks around to lay a perimeter for flower beds. In one area she discovered that bricks had already been laid a number of years earlier, and they had just been over grown with weeds. She moved the bricks to another location to complete a flower bed she was building. Later that same season, a whole patch of pink and white petunias came up right where the bricks had been laying. They had been dormant for years. But they continued to come up every year in Spring.

For all those years they were under the bricks, there had been no sign of life, and suddenly once the bricks were removed they burst into life.

[Applications]

Jesus used an analogy similar to this when he taught about his kingdom. He talked about a seed falling to the ground and dying before it produced more fruit.

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. John 12:24

There is two sense in which this illustrates God’s kingdom. One, when we become Christians, we choose to follow Christ, and we die ourselves. We die to our old way of life.

[Application 1]

We die to ourselves and a life with the illusion of independence from God. We put away the mindset and lifestyle lived in ignorance of God. We embrace a life characterized by worship. Something is lost, when we commit our lives to Christ, a certain level of independence is often lost. We no longer belong only to ourselves but now completely to God. We might loose some of our friends, especially if those friends do not share our beliefs. But we are called into a new and joyful life.

We gather with others to worship God in Spirit and in truth. We hunger for God. We seek to know him by reading the Bible and studying his word with other people and on our own as well.

The life we come into when we come to know Christ is much more beautiful and fragrant to us and those around us, than the life we had before.

[Application 2]

And we die a second death, a physical death, when we are placed in the ground.

The seeds which lay dormant in our yard for many years are like the resurrection. At the gravesite, we lay in the ground those who ultimately will be resurrected, to new life, to fresh life, life more beautiful and joyful than we could ever imagine right now. The blooming of a flower, after many years in the dirt is an illustration of the promised new life which is in Jesus Christ.

When someone dies we must remember there is the hope and the promise that each of us who are in Jesus Christ and love him, will be raised up out of our graves to new life.

This new life will be indestructible and vibrant. Similar to our bodies now, but perfected in ways we cannot yet understand. If I were to dig up the seeds of the petunia before I ever saw them bloom, I could not predict what the pink and white flowers which were to come from the seed would look like. In a small way these bodies which we have now, are like those seeds. When we look at our bodies now, or those we know who are racked with pain, or disease, and have weathered many years of aging. We can’t really image what they might look in a new resurrected body. But we look forward to and anticipate this glorious day.

[Conclusion]

Diana, Princess of Wales, lived a life of great compassion and beauty. But her life in the public eye was marked by disappointment, divorce, and finally tragedy. But when we see someone’s life cut off prematurely, we should not think that that is certainly the end. The hope of the resurrection is that Jesus Christ has crushed the enemy of death. This is the same enemy which Diana was fighting against. When she brought attention to the plight of those suffering from AIDS, she was fighting against death. When she spoke about the problem of landmines, and personally destroy some, she was fighting death. When she visited poverty stricken villages where children died for lack of medicine, she was fighting the enemy of death. We all have the same enemy. Which is why we turn to the Gospel and look to the one who is the resurrection.

We believe, along with the NT writers, that Jesus Christ has conquered death, and that we who are in Jesus Christ will ultimate receive new bodies when we are raised from the dead which are indestructible, then the victory over death will be fully expressed.

As it is written, in verse 25

25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.