The Resurrection of the Dead (1 Cor. 15)

The Death of Death

1 Cor. 15.20-34

Death entered the world through the very first man and spread to every other member of the Race (See also Rom. 5.12-21). Adam spread death to the human race, but in the resurrection of Christ the entire race will be raised from the dead. This general resurrection of the dead will happen at the end of time when Jesus returns. Jesus was the first to be raised from the dead. But everyone who has died will be raised, both believers in Christ and unbelievers. (Paul’s focus is on the resurrection of believers.) All will be raised, but not all will inherit the Kingdom of God (See Jn. 5.28-29).

Christ has been raised, but death is still ruling the human race. Everyone still dies. So in what sense has Jesus defeated death? What good does the resurrection of Christ do if we still die? In his letter to the Corinthians Paul writes about the death of Death. Jesus is reigning, having already defeated death. At the end of time Jesus will destroy death and put it away completely. Christ is reigning in heaven, but there are still hostile powers on earth, including death.

The final destruction of these hostile Powers is still to come. But it will happen. When Jesus comes the End will come and the Kingdom of God will come in all its glorious fullness. There are aspects of the Kingdom of God for which we are still waiting in hope (See Rom. 8.18-25). And as long as the Church is still in the world she will continue to pray “Thy Kingdom come!” Now the world is like a field in which there are growing both Wheat and Weeds (See Matt. 13.24-30; 36-43). But the Harvest is coming!

This means that believers must patiently endure the trials and suffering of this Age. We belong to another world. But we are still in this world. Our mortal bodies are a constant reminder that we are not yet fully redeemed. The Kingdom of God has come. But it should be obvious that the Kingdom has not come in fullness. There is more to come.

He Must Reign Until the End

 

The Now and the Not Yet

Even though the Kingdom of God has come, and we can enter it now, we see all the evidence of the old order hanging around. This can be confusing. In what sense has the Kingdom of God come if there is still evil and death? If Jesus is reigning then why do all of these things seem to contradict His reign? Are Christians out of touch with reality? Some think that is the case. Here we are preaching that Jesus is King, yet there is little in this world that seems to be under His control. Furthermore, Christians themselves are still subject to these evil Powers. For example, Christians still get sick and die. And there are still millions of people who have not acknowledged the reign of Christ. Sometimes the world even rises up against Christians and kills them. How are we to believe that the Kingdom of God has come to a world that would even kill those who claim to serve that very Kingdom? It doesn’t look like the Kingdom has really come.

But there is much more to come. That is Paul’s message to the Corinthians, especially those who did not believe in a resurrection. Christians have hope. Jesus is reigning and He will come again to consummate His Kingdom, bringing all inimical Powers to their knees in final and permanent destruction.

Believers in Christ must live with the End in mind. We are foolish not to. It is foolish to live only for this present Age as if this life is the only thing we will experience. Christians have to live with this hope in mind and not get caught up in the futility of this present, evil Age. In fact, we are to live as if the Kingdom of God HAS come, which is what makes us strangers and aliens in the world. We are citizens of another Kingdom even as we go about our lives in the world. We must think about how we will fit in with the coming Age. Many will not be prepared for it because they are not preparing for it now.

We are not to worry about the future, but we are to prepare for the future. When the Lord tells us not to worry about the future He was talking about our lives in this world (See Matt. 6.25-34). We are not to have anxiety about those things. Instead we are to seek the Kingdom of God.

If we lose sight of this future hope we will be caught up in the corruption of this present Age and will be excluded from the Kingdom of God. So we must not become caught up in an Age that will not last.

 

The End will come

This present Age will come to an end. The singular event that will bring about the End is the coming of Christ. The dead will be raised when He comes. Everything important that is coming in the future hinges on Christ’s coming, or His appearing. It is important to notice that for Paul the key event that we are waiting for is the coming of Christ. Everything else that will happen at the End will happen when He comes. (This is not the emphasis of modern Eschatological teaching. Most people are waiting for some kind of event, like the rise of the Anti-Christ, instead of the coming of Christ Himself!) But the End of this present Age will come when Christ comes. His coming is the blessed hope of the Church. So we are waiting for a Person, not just an eschatological event or series of events. Our hope is in Christ.

God is governing time and human history. It has been said that history is really HIS STORY. God is working out His purpose in the world and that is the only reason for the world. The Bible has a linear view of human history: God began the world and God will end the world when His purposes are complete. This is different from a pagan view of history, which has always been cyclical. A pagan view of history is that everything is just going around and around again in pointless circles. The pagan view of history is one of futility and despair. The Biblical view of history is one of hope. We believe there is meaning and purpose in human life because God has a purpose. Our own society is filled with despair because people have rejected God and therefore life has lost its meaning.

Most people today believe that the world will end but only in some meaningless cataclysm. The Hollywood movies depict some kind of natural disaster, usually caused by mankind, which will bring the human race to an end. Scripture is clear about the fact that the present world order will come to an end. But it will not end because of natural calamities or a man-made ecological disaster. God will bring this present world to an end.

Those who reject the Bible also refuse to believe that there was a time when God brought the world to an end in a great flood (2 Peter 3:3-7). God promised never to destroy the world with water. But when Christ comes God will destroy this present world with fire as He once destroyed the world with water.

Everything in this world is going to pass away. It is important for us to remember this simple truth. This is why Jesus told us not to store up our treasures on earth (Matt. 6.19). This is why we are not to love the world (1 Jn. 2.15).

In case we forget the temporal nature of this world, God has given us a built-in reminder: death. Death reminds us that the things of this world, including our own bodies, are not going to last forever. There is something that will last forever and we are to seek and invest in that Order rather than in what is temporal.

 

Christ is Reigning Now

But the End has not come yet. What is happening in the meantime? Christ has risen and has ascended into heaven. Now what? Nothing seems to have changed in the world. We must understand the significance of Christ’s ascension. This truth has been neglected by the Church. In fact, some people don’t even teach that Jesus is reigning NOW but that He WILL reign only in the future when He comes again. But this is not what the New Testament teaches.

Christ IS reigning now, but His current reign is from heaven not upon the earth. But modern people miss the significance of Christ’s current reign in heaven. The Bible teaches that heaven, not earth, is the main place. The whole book of Daniel emphasizes the fact that Heaven rules the earth. Heaven is the Throne of God. Heaven is like the control room for the earth. So when Jesus ascended into heaven and sat at the Father’s right hand, that is another way of saying that Jesus is ruling the world from heaven.

The Apostle John saw the heavenly Throne Room and Christ reigning there (See Revelation 4-5). The book of Revelation is really the revelation of Christ’s current reign in heaven. What happens on earth is the result of Christ’s reign in heaven. This truth is pictured in apocalyptic symbolism as the Lamb taking a sealed scroll from the hand of the One seated on the Throne and then breaking and opening its seals (See Revelation 5.1-8.5).

In heaven there is no disputing Christ’s reign. But the view down here on the earth looks different. How can Christ be reigning when the whole world seems to be in direct opposition to His reign? All the nations are raging in opposition to the Lord and His Anointed One (See Psalm 2).

At the present time Christ is reigning IN THE MIDST OF HIS ENEMIES. This is exactly what the Scriptures predicted:

The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies (Psalm 110:1-2)!

Paul is commenting on this prophetic/messianic Psalm in our text. We are waiting for all of Christ’s enemies to be made His footstool. Down here on earth we see that the enemies of Christ are still running loose! We are reminded of this truth constantly as we see the world raging against Christ. This perfectly describes the times in which we live, although this is nothing new but has been the state of the world since Christ ascended back into heaven and even before that.

So the New Testament teaches that Christ is already reigning, but He is in heaven not on earth. When Christ comes again He is not coming to BEGIN to reign, He is coming to CONSUMMATE His reign. That is what Paul is teaching in our text. The coming of Christ will only REVEAL His reign publicly for every eye to see, even those who have opposed His reign. Every eye will see Him reigning because all the dead will be raised. At that time all of the enemies of Christ, including death itself, will be completely and permanently destroyed. The Devil Himself will be thrown into the Lake of Fire, along with all of his allies (See Rev. 20). When all of the remaining enemies of Christ are put away that will be the end of the world that we know and the beginning of the New Creation.

As I am writing this, it is the day before we remember D-Day, which was June 6^th, 1944. That was the day during the Second World War that the Allies invaded Nazi-controlled Europe by hitting the beaches at Normandy, France. The objective of this invasion was to establish a beachhead from which the Allies could eventually invade Germany itself. Historians all agree that when the Normandy invasion began it was the beginning of the end of the War and of Hitler’s Nazi party in Germany. There was a tremendous amount of fighting after the Allies took the beaches at Normandy, but it all began with that initial invasion on D-Day. When Jesus came into the world this is what He did for the Kingdom of God on earth. The Kingdom of God had invaded and established a beachhead! That is why Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God had come. That was the beginning of the end for Satan’s Kingdom of darkness. Jesus defeated Satan and even came back from the dead, defeating death. Jesus has already won the decisive victory. The War still rages all around us. But the outcome of this War is certain and we know what the future holds. All the enemies will be finished when He comes, including Death.

The Last Enemy to be Defeated is Death

 

Death is Still Reigning over Humanity

The Gospel proclaims that death has been defeated in a world that is still dominated by death. Not only that, but the Gospel also proclaims that Jesus is reigning when there seems to be little evidence in this world that this is true. Obviously, we are still waiting in hope for something that has not come yet.

What is obvious is that death is still having its way with the human race. In spite of all the changes that have taken place in our modern world, this one reality has remained constant: death comes to all men everywhere. Death is a universal constant.

Death makes no distinction between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the oppressed, the wise and the foolish, the young and the old. Death is the Grim Reaper going through the world with his ghastly sickle, cutting down the people and taking them away. Some of those who die are the very young. Even infants are taken away by Death.

We continue to extend our life expectancy through science and medical research, but there is no cure for death. There is simply no guarantee that anyone will live to a ripe, old age. (According to the World Health Organization the life expectancy of an American male is 76 and a female 81. But in the nation of Kenya the life expectancy for a man is only 59 and a woman 62.)

Considering death does not have to make us morbid and despairing. It is supposed to make us consider certain realities. We should think about our accountability to God and the fact that we are not ultimately in control of our lives but live at the pleasure of the Almighty. Death is how God has imposed a limit on the pride and wickedness of the human race.

As I sat writing these words I was looking out the window of a coffee shop across a busy street into a graveyard. As people come and go about their business there is right under their noses a reminder of their destiny, though they drive and walk by it without much thought. No matter where we go or what we do in life, we will all end up in the same place. Death is the terrifying reality lurking underneath the surface of human life, waiting to rise up and claim us at any moment, like a poisonous snake hiding in the grass by our feet. We have many ways of ignoring the reality and presence of death. We stay busy. We entertain ourselves. We simply refuse to talk about death, even when it is staring us in the face.

Human wickedness is either directly or indirectly responsible for the untimely demise of most of the members of the human race. But even if we were left alone the normal course of nature would eventually result in our physical bodies simply failing. Sometimes we read about someone who was quite elderly dying of “natural causes.” Sometimes we say that someone just died “of old age.” But most people die of something other than natural causes or old age. Human folly is a leading cause of death. And men will have to give an account for wasting their lives or taking the lives of others.

Whatever the cause of our death, we must all come to accept the reality of death. First we must accept our own mortality. Then we must also accept the fact that all of our loved ones will die. This realization will actually make us wise. One of the foolish qualities of youth is their stubborn belief in their invincibility. The sooner we come to terms with our weakness and our mortality the better off we will be. Christians are not people who detach from reality. It is the business of Christians to prepare for death and for what comes after death. And we want to be influential in preparing others for their death as well.

The Church today is much more interested in this world and this life. Churches say they want to be “relevant.” But what is more relevant than preparing for death? We all have to take that final voyage and it is better to be ready than to not be ready.

Christians should make it their goal to die well and to also face the death of our beloved brethren with hope rather than despair. If our faith is relevant at a particular moment it is when we are staring directly into the face of death.

 

Death is an Enemy

It is popular even in Christian circles to speak of death as a merciful release. When someone is suffering we may secretly long for death to take them so that they do not have to continue suffering and we don’t have to suffer with them as we watch their pain. If we are able to live a long time the body eventually reaches a point where it becomes almost impossible to enjoy life. When the so-called quality of life is gone, we may prefer death to life.

So from one perspective death might be called our friend. I often hear Christians speak as if they prefer to die so they can be with the Lord. Even Paul spoke that way (See Phil. 1.23). It is better to be with the Lord and death is the thing that will usher us into His presence. “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” So death is our friend who brings to an end our pilgrimage through this veil of tears and transports us into our heavenly home.

I do not want to take any comfort away from the saints. But I also feel that in order to provide comfort for ourselves and for others we might ignore what Scripture says. Sometimes the greatest comfort is found, not in ignoring the painful reality, but embracing it fully and then applying the Gospel. Paul does not call death a friend in our text.

Death is an enemy. God did not create man to die but to live. Death was not an original inhabitant of the world God created. Death is an invader. God imposed the sentence of death on creation because of sin (See Rom. 5.12; 8.20). Apart from God we die. Death is alienation from God. That is why death is an enemy.

And it is not just our enemy it is the enemy of Christ. That is the point in our text. Christ is going to defeat all of His enemies, including Death. Death is the enemy of Christ because it is in opposition to the salvation that He came to bring. He came to bring us eternal life and that means He had to defeat death. To defeat death Christ Himself had to taste death (Heb. 2.9). Until Death is put away for good the Saved cannot enter fully into eternal life. The Gospel declares that death is a temporary condition and will not always have the dominion. We know this is true because we see Jesus raised and exalted (Heb. 2.5-9).

 

Death is Subject to Christ

There is no Power in heaven or on earth that is not subject to Christ, including Death itself. Death is not yet subject to the saints. We still die. But we have hope through the resurrection of Christ. When Jesus comes again He will make death irrelevant and we will be raised, never to die again. We will enter into eternal life in the presence of God and reign with Christ in His Kingdom. This glorious destiny is why we have been saved. We are being prepared for this world to come.

Hope is the child of faith. We put our faith in the One who has already been raised so that when that One speaks about the future we can have hope. Our hope for the future is based on what Christ has already done in the past. The glorified Christ is holding the keys of Death and of Hades (Rev. 1.18).

This is why we must be constantly looking at Christ as we continue our pilgrimage through this world of sin and death. Fix your eyes on Jesus (Heb. 12.2)! If we look around at the world we can become discouraged. But Christ is reigning over this world and has overcome it!

Our most natural feeling about death is fear. The fear of death is the mother of all fears. This is why the first words spoken by the resurrected Christ was “do not be afraid!” That is the Gospel! He has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light (2 Tim. 1.10). And if death is subject to Him then we have nothing more to fear. So do not be afraid. Death cannot hurt you if you are in Christ.

Jesus Speaks to the Church (Revelation 2-3)

I know some folks are not fond of the book of Revelation. It is a strange book and not easily understood. But if you understand Revelation correctly there is an encouraging message that is full of hope for the Church. The message of the book of Revelation is simple, if you don’t get lost in the details: Jesus has won the victory! If we are with Jesus we will win. That’s it! But I think the reason so many people miss the message of this book is because they do not see Christ at the center of it.

The book of Revelation begins with a vision of Christ. The Christ that John saw on the isle of Patmos was a glorified Christ. Jesus has been exalted into heaven. He is ruling the world, even though the world does not want Him as their Ruler.

Christ is in heaven, and the Church is still on the earth. But John sees a glorified Christ in heaven standing in the midst of seven lamp stands, or candlesticks. The whole scene reminds us of the Levitical priests serving in the Tabernacle. Heaven and earth are separate realms. But there was one place where heaven and earth intersected and that was in the Tabernacle that Moses built in the wilderness for the people of Israel. Later Solomon built the Temple. That was where the presence of God dwelt among His people and heaven intersected with earth. Today that place where heaven touches earth is the Church. Christ is in the midst of the lampstands. Jesus is here with us today! And believers have been seated with Christ in heavenly places (Eph. 2.6). And this glorified Christ has a message for His Church.

He addresses seven Churches, all of which were located in the Roman province of Asia Minor, which is the modern country to Turkey. The fact that there are seven Churches indicates fullness or completeness. ALL of the Churches, in every place, and for all times, are being addressed through these specific congregations. Jesus is speaking to the whole Church!

There are certain people in the world who are so powerful and influential they command our attention. The President commands the attention of our nation and of the whole world. When he talks, people listen. The chairman of the Federal Reserve commands the attention of the financial world. When she talks it can upset the financial markets around the world almost instantaneously! Now Jesus occupies the highest position of power in earth and in heaven. When He talks the Church ought to listen.

But sometimes I wonder if the Church is really listening to Jesus. The Church is in trouble. We are facing attacks from the outside and corruption on the inside. And that is what makes these letters in Revelation so relevant. The troubles we are facing today are nothing new. Whatever situation the Church might be in today is probably addressed in some way in the letters to the Churches in Revelation. Christ’s voice continues to reverberate down through the centuries of time to the Churches of today. We need to hear what Jesus has to say. Are we listening? What does Jesus have to say to His Church?

“Good Job!”

To some Churches Jesus says “good job!” Most of the Churches in Revelation were commended for something. Almost every Church has something good going on and Jesus will find it. Jesus is not a harsh and critical taskmaster who always finds the negative.

I know some people who never seem to find anything good about the Church. They are always critical. Always complaining. But that is not how Jesus treats the Church. He commends what He finds to be good. But what Jesus commends may not be what people are looking for in the Church. For example, we often think in terms of attendance numbers or building projects as a measurement for the health of the Church. But Jesus does not mention those kinds of things to these Churches. What does Jesus look for in a Church? (We usually ask what WE want in a Church or what other people want. What Jesus wants is infinitely more important!)

 

Jesus commends Churches that are mature, stable, and consistent.

The Church at Ephesus was that kind of Church. To them Jesus said:

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary” (Revelation 2:2-3 ESV).

Ephesus had worked hard and had done so consistently without vacillating. They had discernment and were able to recognize what was good and what was evil. It is interesting to remember that this is the Church to which the Apostle Paul wrote that leaders are supposed to

“equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-15 ESV).

The Ephesian Church had grown up strong. Stability and consistency follow maturity. A lack of maturity is seen in how people are not able to recognize things that will harm them spiritually. And babies usually don’t do anything for anyone else. They have to be cared for and are completely selfish. Everyone starts out as a baby, but we do not expect people to stay that way. Jesus looks for growth and maturity.

 

Jesus commends Churches that withstand the pressure from an evil culture.

That described the Church at Pergamum:

“I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells” (Revelation 2:13 ESV).

That was a Church in an evil place. There are places in the world where Satan seems to have a stronghold. There may even be violent persecution in these places. The Church must always be prepared for opposition. We are living in times when there is an increasing hostility toward the Church. Many Christians are being persecuted and killed in certain places in the world. This should not surprise us. Jesus said the world would hate us because it hated Him first. There is tremendous social pressure on the Church today to conform to the world. Some Churches can’t stand the pressure and allow themselves to be swept away in the current of culture.

Every Church has to make the decision to conform to the pattern of the world or to follow Jesus and be counter-cultural. There will always be a price-tag for declaring our allegiance to the Kingdom of God. We just have to decide if we are more interested in being accepted by the world around us or if we want to be accepted by Jesus.

There is no reason why this Church cannot be a Church that Jesus would like.

I don’t think that means there is some kind of pattern that we can just impose on a particular congregation. Each Church may be very different, but still be pleasing to the Lord. The consistent theme in these letters is faithfulness to Christ Himself.

“Shape Up!”

But Jesus does not always commend the Church. There are times when He has to tell the Church to shape up. The letters in Revelation contain some serious rebukes for the Church. Some people don’t think Jesus can talk like this, but He can! It is not because He hates the Church but precisely because He loves the Church that He rebukes her when she goes astray.

We have to remember that Jesus is in a unique position to assess and then rebuke the Church. Jesus sees everything, even those things we can’t see. Our assessment of the Church is often flawed. We might have personal and selfish agendas when we assess the Church. But Jesus loves the Church. He purchased her with His own blood.

I like to think of the Lord as our Great Physician. He is interested in the health of the Church. Doctors have to be willing to speak the truth to their patients because it could be the difference between life and death. Even when doctors have to inflict pain, it is always to save and to heal. The same thing is true of the Great Physician. The Church is called the Body of Christ. Jesus wants His body to be healthy.

 

Take Your Temperature

Two of these Churches in Revelation needed to take their spiritual temperature! It is amazing how certain ailments can take hold of the Body of Christ even when things look good outwardly. Sometimes Churches do not even realize that a certain spiritual problem has taken hold. We might think we are doing fine when there is actually something wrong.

Churches today need regular check-ups in certain areas of the Christian life. And when Jesus points out an area of particular concern we can be assured that it is something important, not trivial.

Love

The Church at Ephesus had some strong points, but was ailing in one particularly important area:

“But I have this against you: that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (Revelation 2:4-5 ESV).

Love is the most important Christian quality. We simply can’t be lacking in this area and be pleasing to Jesus. What good is a Church that doesn’t love? Of course we should love each other. But the most important love, our FIRST LOVE, the love from which all other love flows, is love for Jesus Himself.

Ironically, it is often the Churches that are the most concerned about Bible teaching and doctrine who lose their first love. Fine points of theology can become replacements for the Lord Himself. There is such a thing as a cold orthodoxy. And Churches who don’t love Jesus will be bad at loving each other also.

Christian charity is a benevolent, unconditional love that is put into action. Love is the fire that warms the entire Body of Christ. The world will know we are Christians by our love.

 

Usefulness

There is one Church in Revelation to which Jesus had nothing good to say. It was because of the condition of being spiritually lukewarm.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16 ESV).

What Jesus is saying is that this Church had lost its usefulness. Cold water is good for something. It can quench your thirst on a hot day. Hot water is good for something. You can cook a meal with it. But what is lukewarm water good for? It is good for nothing in particular, unless it is either cooled down or heated up! There are some Churches that have fallen into a condition that renders them useless to the Lord and His purpose. These Churches are good for nothing in particular.

This condition is so serious it makes Jesus want to puke! Jesus did not die for us so we could be useless. He died to sanctify us, or make us holy vessels that are useful to God’s purposes on earth.

 

Check for Infections

Jesus also wants His Body to check for infections. These are things that invade and cause sickness. These infections don’t belong in the Body and have to be aggressively removed. Jesus mentions two kinds of infections, which are often interrelated:

 

Error

False teachers and false teaching can infect the Body of Christ. The Church at Pergamum had caught this kind of infection:

“But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans” (Revelation 2:14-15 ESV).

The teaching of Balaam refers to an episode from Israel’s history. When Israel was invading Canaan the King of Moab wanted to stop them. So he hired a false prophet named Balaam to curse Israel. But God would not allow Balaam to do that. So Balaam told Balak, the King of Moab, to tempt the Israelite men with sexual sin. And in the ancient world worshiping an idol and sexual activity almost always went together. There were teachers in the Church at Pergamum who were teaching Christians to go back to their pagan ways while still calling themselves Christians. It was a compromise with the world.

The Nicolaitans were a group of false teachers who probably taught that it was acceptable for Christians to mix their Christian faith with paganism and fleshly indulgence. This is a practice known as syncretism. You take a little bit of his religion, a little of that philosophy, and maybe even a little bit of Christianity, and you mix it all together! This is an approach that makes a lot of sense to our culture where truth is relative. The result is that you can justify almost any kind of sinful lifestyle. False teaching almost always leads to sinful living.

 

Immorality

The Church at Thyatira had also been seduced, perhaps literally, by a false teacher:

“But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Revelation 2:20 ESV).

Maybe this false teacher was telling the Christians in Thyatira that when you come up to a higher level of knowledge you will realize that these little pleasures don’t really matter. “If you are really spiritual it doesn’t matter what you do with your body. After all, God created the body with its appetites and desires. It would almost be wrong to deny the fulfillment of what God Himself gave you. And God loves you. He wants you to be happy.”

These arguments sound very modern. The Devil doesn’t really change His tactics.

The Church is still being seduced by worldliness. The lie is that you can live an immoral lifestyle and still be acceptable to God. But God will judge the immoral person who refuses to repent. There is no ambiguity about this issue in Scripture, but there are many false teachers trying to justify ungodliness.

Jesus loves the Church and that is why He is telling her to shape up. Rebuke is a sign of love and concern. The opposite of love is not anger or rebuke. The opposite of love is indifference.

“Don’t Quit!”

Some Churches are commended: “good job!” Other Churches are rebuked: “shape up!” But all of the Churches are encouraged: “don’t quit!” Each and every letter written to the seven Churches ends the same way. Jesus gives a glorious promise to those who overcome. This theme of overcoming then runs through the rest of the book of Revelation. Jesus Himself has already won and everyone who is with the Lord will also overcome.

The trouble is that it will be a difficult path from earth to the New Heavens and the New Earth. There are going to be obstacles. We have enemies. There are all kinds of distractions and temptations trying to get the people of God to quit believing and serving Jesus.

Sometimes when you see someone who just became a Christian, with all of that joy and enthusiasm, you are wondering if that person will continue in the faith. There are people who come to Christ and are enthusiastic for a time and then something happens and they fall away. But this can happen to a whole Church! Satan makes it very difficult to serve the Lord. And so Jesus encourages His Churches.

To encourage the Churches and motivate them, Jesus holds out several promises to those who overcome or who are faithful to the end. (It is important to notice that these promises are not fulfilled in this world!)

We will have Eternal Life

Eternal life is so foreign to our experience it is hard for us to wrap our brains around what it is.

“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7 ESV).

The tree of life was in the Garden of Eden. Man was made to live forever. But when they sinned the way to the Tree of Life was blocked. In the book of Revelation the Tree of Life is back. The Bible begins with man losing the Tree of Life and it ends with man gaining the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is access to the very source of life. But it is more than just biological life. This is spiritual, eternal life. In other words, it is a Divine kind of life. The Tree of Life is God sharing His very life with His people. In the World to Come we will spend eternity in the presence of God. We will see His face. That is really living! If we overcome we will have access to the Tree of Life.

How do we overcome? By being faithful until we die!

“Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10 ESV).

Those who keep the faith until the end will win. We win because Jesus has won! In the ancient Olympic Games, the crown, which was kind of like a wreath, was given to the victors. Those who overcome this world by following Jesus will win the victory over the greatest enemy the human race has ever faced: death.

If you are faithful to Christ, death cannot hurt you. As we face various obstacles in this world we have to remember that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, not even death. What is the worst thing that can happen to us in this world? The worst thing the world could do to the saints is kill them. But that just changes our address! Christians are victorious even over death. So what is there to be afraid of in this world? We are often intimidated by things that should not scare us. We give up and we give in far too easily sometimes because we fail to remember that we are more than conquerors through Christ.

 

We will Reign with Christ

The final promise is that those who overcome by being faithful to Jesus in this world will reign with Jesus in the World to Come:

“The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father” (Revelation 2:26-27 ESV).

“The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21 ESV).

From one perspective we are already kings who are reigning with Christ. But it should be obvious that we don’t have full authority in this world. Not everything goes our way and that can be discouraging. Sometimes it almost seems like we serve the Lord and accomplish nothing. But this world is sort of like the training ground. If things are not going well for the Church these days we need to remember that this is not our time to reign. But we do see Jesus reigning. And when He has completely put down all opposition to His reign He is going to give His people a BIG promotion!

So don’t quit following and serving Jesus. The retirement plan is out of this world!

Series: The Resurrection of the Dead (1 Corinthians 15)

The Hope of the Resurrection (1 of 2)

1 Corinthians 15.20-34

People have always been curious about what happens after we die. When you look at history it becomes clear that men have overwhelmingly believed that death is not the end of our existence. It was not until modern times that the belief in some kind of spiritual world was called into question by large numbers of people. The ancient peoples believed in an invisible world of spirits, gods, and the departed dead. Furthermore, many of the ancients believed that this life was in some way a preparation of the soul for entering that afterlife and that what a person did while in the body would have some impact on the soul when it departed from this world to the world of the dead. Many of the ancient mythologies, like the famous Egyptian Book of the Dead, taught that people should be moral and virtuous as a way of insuring and earning a good afterlife instead of having to pay for wicked deeds done while in the body. The burial of the body was usually seen as the final preparation for a soul to cross over into the spiritual world of the dead. Great civilizations, like Egypt, have built tombs for their dead which were really elaborate preparations for the after-life.

Like the Egyptians the Greeks also believed that a person’s death was not the end. The Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul, though the underworld of departed spirits, or Hades, was not exactly what we would call heaven. But the Greeks viewed the body as a kind of prison for the immortal soul. The soul was what really mattered, not the body, which would be left behind in death.

It is important to understand that the Jews did not think this way. They were different in so many ways from the ancient pagans and their view of what happens after death is a good example of this difference. The Old Testament says very little about what happens to a departed soul after death. The Jews believed that God would eventually raise His people from the dead bodily at the end of time before the Day of Judgment. This may have been based largely on what is stated by the Prophet Daniel:

“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2 ESV)

Note how the rising of the dead is connected to the Judgment and the separation of the people. When we come to New Testament times and the ministry of Jesus, a belief in the resurrection of the dead was well-established in the minds of the Jewish people, though not all believed it. Remember that the Pharisees believed in the Resurrection of the dead but the Sadducees did not. This fact was seen in how the Sadducees tried to test Jesus with a question about the resurrection, but their question was based on ignorance and unbelief (See Matt. 22.23-33). When Jesus went to Mary and Martha after their brother Lazarus had died, it was Martha who expressed her belief in the Resurrection of the Dead at the end of time (See John 11.24). Martha expected to see her brother again, but not as soon as Jesus intended for her to see him!

In the book of Acts the preaching of the resurrection of Jesus was top priority for the Apostles. The early Christians were preaching that Jesus had already been raised from the dead and that the end of time had actually already begun to unfold. They were proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead (Acts 4.2), which brought the condemnation of the Jewish leaders. The Apostles were preaching that the resurrection of the dead had already begun in Jesus. Jesus was God’s Agent (Christ) to usher in the Kingdom Age. Many of the Jews believed in the coming resurrection of the dead. But to say that it had already begun in Jesus was an offensive thing to many of them. Jesus was the stumbling stone. The Jews may have believed in resurrection, but not through Jesus.

But when Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, began to preach to the Greeks, there was another problem. The Greeks did not believe in the resurrection at all. The stumbling point for them was that a resurrection had occurred. This was vividly illustrated by the reaction of the philosophers on Mars Hill to Paul’s preaching of the resurrection (See Acts 17.32). But Paul preached it anyway and did so when he came to Corinth and established the Church there.

Some of those who had heard Paul preach the resurrection and had become a part of the Church still did not believe that the dead could be raised. This is the issue Paul has to address. What are the implications of rejecting the resurrection?

The main point that Paul is making here is that the Christian faith rises or falls on the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus has not been raised then the Gospel is a fraud and Christians have no hope.

Now Paul has established this point. And he can now move on to actually talk about the resurrection of the dead and what it means to have this hope. What kind of hope do Christians have because of the resurrection of Christ? That is Paul’s main concern in this next section.

Christ the First-fruits of the Dead

One of the amazing things about the Apostle’s writing and doctrine is their absolute confidence. They proclaim their message with conviction and surety without any hint of doubt. There is nothing in the New Testament that sounds like philosophical speculation. The writers of the New Testament did not search for the truth, they proclaimed it in Jesus and the resurrection. Even when speaking of future events there is nothing but confidence. When Paul writes the Corinthians about the resurrection of the dead, he does not sound like someone who is guessing, questioning, or speculating about what might happen or what the future might turn out to be.

In our philosophical, scientific, skeptical Age this kind of certainty not only sounds strange, it may be condemned as arrogant, religious dogma. In our modern age the idea that we should accept the word of someone else as truth without any reservation not only sounds foolish, it is usually thought of as dangerous. And predicting the future with any degree of certainty has proven to be a very risky occupation that seldom pays off. We would love to be able to know the future. But we are very suspicious of anyone who claims to have perfect information. The best response could be “wait and see.”

However, there is a whole industry that is based on predicting the future: gambling. People will wager large sums of money on the future turning out a certain way. In a very real sense every living person is betting their life every day and then hoping that the future turns out the way that they envision. And many are disappointed when wrong.

But when Paul speaks about the future resurrection of the dead he is not pulling a white rabbit out of his hat and just coming up with some random philosophical theories. Paul’s reasoning is based solidly on something that had already taken place: the resurrection of Christ. The future is here in the resurrection of Christ. The fact of His resurrection in the past points to a known and certain future. Paul began this section by reminding the Corinthians of the fact of the resurrection of Christ (vs. 1-11). Without the resurrection of Christ there is no hope of any further resurrections from the dead.

But, Paul says again, Christ has been raised. We can now begin to build our hope for the future on this fact. But for Paul the resurrection of Christ points to something else. His resurrection is just the first. Paul uses the image of first-fruits, which is something the Jewish mind would have been familiar with because of the Law. Israel was commanded to celebrate the first gatherings of the harvest each year by bringing some of this initial harvest as an offering to the Lord. The first-fruits of the harvest was a reminder that God had been working and providing and that there was even more to come in the future. An initial harvest was just the promise of more to come in the future. And that is the idea in the resurrection of Christ. Christ is the first-fruit of the harvest of the dead. That first-fruit belongs to the Lord and Christ has gone back to heaven to be with the Father. But there is an even greater harvest coming.

This hope is what enabled Paul and the early Christians to begin speaking of the dead as having fallen asleep. When we fall asleep we do so temporarily. When we fall asleep at night it is in hope of waking up in the morning. The same is true for the sleep of death. Those who die are really only falling asleep and will awake one day. (This image of falling asleep is referring to the body, not to the soul. There are those who have misunderstood this and concocted a doctrine called soul-sleeping, which completely misses the beautiful imagery and the hope of the resurrection of the body that is bound up in the term “fallen asleep.”)

His Resurrection is the Foundation

Sometimes when there is a medical advancement we hear about some person who actually survived a serious illness because of this new treatment. What is the result of this news? It gives everyone else hope that they might also survive that illness! Until the new treatment actually works in real life, we might welcome the possibility of a cure, but have no concrete hope that it will work on a real person. We can think of the resurrection of Christ as a concrete example that God’s “cure” for death will actually work! Christ’s resurrection is the proof that everyone else has the hope of coming back from the dead.

If Christ had not been raised then the idea of a resurrection would be interesting speculation only. But now a person who died has been raised from the dead by the power of God. If it happened to Jesus, who is a member of the human race and actually died, then it could happen to the rest of us! That is the idea Paul is expounding here to the Corinthians. If Christ has been raised then there is hope for the rest of us who die to also be raised. But if Christ was not really raised then there is no reason to have any hope of coming back from death. And so we see why it was such a serious error for some of the Corinthians, or anyone today for that matter, to reject the bodily resurrection of Christ. Without resurrection there is no Gospel and there is no hope for humanity. Death is the final Victor in that case. If Christ is still in the tomb then death was more powerful than He and there would be no reason to believe that He is the Son of God. He was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection (See Rom. 1.4). But if He were not raised, then that would mean that God has not been able or willing to produce a remedy for death. Remember that God Himself is the one who imposed the sentence of death on creation because of man’s sin. If Christ was not raised then He could not be God’s remedy for sin and death, which means we have no remedy, at least not yet. Are we still waiting for God to act? We are still waiting for salvation if Christ was not raised. But the Gospel affirms that Christ HAS been raised. Salvation from God has appeared in the resurrection of Jesus!

But the resurrection of Christ is not the end of the matter. He is merely the first of many more who will rise from the dead.

Why does the Gospel proclaim the resurrection of the body? Why not affirm, like the ancient pagans, the immortality of the soul? Is not the soul the highest and purest part of us? Many Christians today are more Greek than Christian in their thinking. The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is not preached or appreciated today because most people do not connect this to what the Bible teaches about Creation. God is not opposed to the material, He created it. And God has promised to redeem creation (See Rom. 8.18-25). The idea that the material is inherently evil and the spiritual or immaterial is good has robbed the Church of understanding the Gospel and salvation. To be sure, the Creation is currently under a curse and our bodies are subject to decay and death. There is going to have to be a change. The world in this present form is going to pass away. Our bodies cannot inherit the eternal Kingdom in their present corruptible state. But the future does include a New Creation, a new heavens and earth, and new, glorified bodies.

That is the Gospel and we know it is true because Christ’s body was raised from the dead. If Christ’s body is still in the tomb then there is no reason for us to have any hope at all.

Adam and Christ

Now someone may ask why the future resurrection of the dead has begun in Jesus. Why did God do it that way? If God were going to raise all of the dead at the end, then why not just do that and do it instantaneously? Why raise just one man from the dead to begin with and then wait to raise the rest of the dead? That is an important question and Paul anticipates it and provides an answer to it here. To anyone who knows the Biblical story the answer becomes rather obvious. We must ask ourselves where death came from in the first place. Who was responsible? It was a single man! (Actually a man and his wife, but together they are called “Adam.”) Death entered the world and spread through the human race because of a single man, who was also the progenitor of the human race. Now it happened that way for a reason because it teaches us about another man who was to come and the nature of salvation.

Again we have to deal with the fact that what the Bible teaches contradicts how modern people think. (Actually the Gospel has always come against the wisdom of the world!) Modern people tend to think of themselves as isolated individuals who are responsible for no one but themselves and who answer to no one but themselves. This kind of individualism is not only a somewhat recent development in the history of human thought, being mostly a product of the Enlightenment in Western Europe and America, but even today it is not necessarily the only way of viewing human life. Most of the Eastern cultures and those cultures that we cannot call “modern” do not think of themselves as isolated individuals but as part of a larger family or society.

I think this is a much more Biblical way of thinking, though these cultures are not necessarily taking that way of thinking directly from the pages of Scripture. Rather than thinking of ourselves individually we must begin to think of the human race as a giant, extended family.

We are all familiar with the image of a family tree. It is useful to think of the human race as a giant family tree. But at the root is Adam. And whatever is true of the root will be taken throughout the rest of the tree eventually. That is what happened to the human family when Adam sinned and death entered the human race.

When taking the macro-view of the human race there are only two individuals who really matter. These two men are federal heads. That is, they represent many other people, just as the politicians we elect and put in office represent many other people beyond themselves. The president may be a single person, but he or she represents an entire nation. That is federal headship. It is a concept we are very familiar with in everyday life. Since we can’t be everywhere at once and do everything we need to do, we often have people who represent us and who do things for us. These people do what we would do for ourselves if we could. (Obviously that is how it would work in a perfect world. In the real world those who represent us often make mistakes or because of selfish motives do not always do what we want them to do.) Now this analogy of a federal head seems to break down at this point. If Adam was our representative, how did he do what we wanted him to do? We didn’t want Adam to sin and wreck the world! The concept of “original sin” gives many people problems. How can I be guilty for what someone else did? That does not seem fair.

But what we have to understand is that Adam WAS a good representative for the rest of the human race. That is, he did exactly what we would have done if we could have been there ourselves.

Adam chose to sin against a clear commandment of God. And that is what we would have done too. How do I know that? Simple. Every single person has actually done the very same thing, multiple times! “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” So, we all died in Adam because Adam did what we all would have done and we all do what Adam did. We are one with Father Adam.

If that were the end of the story of the human race that would mean that we would all die in our sins, just like Adam did. But that is not the end of the story because God sent another Man, another Adam. Paul develops all of this in his letter to the Romans, which is a rather complex argument (Rom. 5.12-21). Essentially Paul develops a comparison/contrast between Adam and Christ. Adam is the father of a race of men who are subject to the effects of sin and death. Christ is the progenitor of a New Humanity. Where Adam failed Christ succeeded.

Adam died, but Christ was raised from the dead. If you are human you have already shared in the nature of Adam and you were in solidarity with him. But Christ has come to give us a second option. We die in Adam, but we can live in Christ. By becoming united with Christ we can share in all of the benefits of His righteous life, which includes His resurrection power over death. (Some have used this doctrine to support Universalism, or the teaching that everyone will automatically be saved. But even a casual reading of Romans reveals that it is only those who identify with Christ who will benefit from His life and not the whole race. In other words, we have to voluntarily resign from our membership in the human race, or Adam’s family, and join Christ’s family, if we want to live.)

The Dead Raised for the Judgment

We should make it clear here that what Paul is teaching is that the resurrection of Christ has secured the resurrection of all the dead, not just those who are in Christ. Not all who are raised from the dead on the last day will enter into eternal life with Christ, but they will be raised nevertheless. This is something that Jesus Himself taught (See John 5.28-29).

There will be one resurrection of all the dead at the end of time. But some of the dead will rise to eternal life with Christ while some of the dead will rise to be condemned. The implications of this teaching are profound. The major implication of the resurrection of the dead is that each and every person is going to be judged. (There are those who teach that only unbelievers will be judged, but this is a misunderstanding of the word “judge.” They equate “judge” with “condemn” which is only one of the two possible outcomes of judgement.) This means that what we do in the body in this life is going to come back upon us (See 2 Cor. 5.10). Everyone is sowing something and is eventually going to have to reap it (See Gal. 6.7-8). This means that our lives now matter for eternity. Our eternal fate is being sealed now and will only be cemented when the resurrection takes place. The resurrection will finish the salvation of the righteous and it will cement the eternal condemnation of the wicked.

The resurrection of the body will not change the state of a person’s soul or character. Those who are unholy will still be unholy at the resurrection of the dead. The only thing that will change is the body. Right now the wicked have an unholy spirit in a corruptible body that they have used throughout their lives to satisfy their own base desires. But the resurrection body will not be capable of fulfilling those desires and the world in which those desires were fulfilled will also be destroyed.

The condemned will spend eternity in bodies that cannot die but without the ability to satisfy any of their desires or take comfort in any of the things that they have loved. That is the torment of Hell. On the other hand, the righteous now have a redeemed spirit in an unredeemed body. This causes them to groan and long for full redemption, which is the redemption of the body (See Rom. 8.23). In other words, the Redeemed will have a body that will perfectly match the nature and desires of the New Creation that we have become in Christ. All of the frustrations of a corruptible and sinful body will be gone and that will mean eternal glory for the Redeemed. The righteous will be liberated to be everything they were recreated to be in Christ when they receive that resurrection body. The Creation will also be liberated from bondage to serve the holy desires of the Sons of God (Rom. 8.21). So this life is really just the front porch of eternity and everyone is preparing for the Resurrection Day, even if they are not aware of this fact.

But the fact of the Resurrection of the Dead should cause everyone to be sober about life and careful about how we live and the decisions we make. Not only should we repent of sinful deeds we do in our bodies, but we should also be careful about the affections and attachments we make in our hearts. Those who love the world and the things in the world will be eternally disappointed when those things pass away along with the fulfillment of those lusts (See 1 John 2.15-17). (The Resurrection of the Dead is the basis for the doctrine of Hell and eternal punishment and will be discussed in another article in this series.)

At His Coming

The timing and order of all these events are important the Apostle Paul. How will all of these things happen? What will it look like? Paul has a pastor’s heart. He is not writing to satisfy an academic interest in this subject. I feel that many people who study Eschatology do so with a kind of carnal curiosity that is divorced from faith and foreign to the authors of the New Testament. If we are asking the wrong questions we will never get the right answers. Paul is not trying to predict WHEN the End will come. That is impossible to know. Each and every generation needs to live as if Christ could come any day and be prepared to meet Him. But faith does not think in terms of times and dates (Acts 1.7). It is the eternal purpose of God that matters and we believe that He will finish what He started, no matter how long it takes in terms of days, years, seasons and epochs.

The issue Paul is dealing with is the comfort of the Saints in the face of death. This is a practical issue. How should believers think about death? How should we respond to our own death and the death of our brethren? Unless the Lord comes again we will all die. Those in Corinth who rejected the resurrection were without any hope. Those who died were lost forever, as far as we know. The only people who had any hope would be those alive when Jesus comes. That was the very issue Paul was dealing with in the Thessalonian Church. Would those who have died miss the coming of the Lord? No! There would be a resurrection of the dead when Christ comes again. And then all of us will be caught up together to meet the Lord (See 1 Thess. 4.13-18). This was written to comfort the Saints. Christ has been raised and He will come again.

When He does He will bring with Him those who have departed and they will rise from the dead first. The emphasis here is on the fate of those in Christ. They will not be lost and miss the coming of the Lord.

We should notice that when Paul comforts Christians he points them to the coming of the Lord. Christians are waiting and hoping for a Person, not just an event. To be sure, when Jesus comes there will be some important events that will take place!

The resurrection of the dead is the main event that will happen when He comes. But the resurrection will not happen until Christ comes. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11.25). It is disturbing that the Church today seems to be more interested in the events of the End Times than in the coming of Her Lord and Savior.

The goal of our faith is to see Christ and to be with Him. That is our blessed hope. There is no hope apart from Christ. Everything else that will happen at the End is secondary to Christ coming for His Bride. Being afraid of the End Times is especially inappropriate. All of these things were written to give us good hope and comfort. To be afraid is to either be ignorant or unbelieving. If Christ has defeated death then there is no other enemy we should fear. Jesus is going to take care of His people when He comes, just as He has taken care of us in this world. He has saved us and He WILL save us. We must trust Him to do this.

There is a connection, theologically speaking, between Christ’s resurrection and His Second Coming. The resurrection is a little preview of coming attractions. The future is here and we are living in it, getting ready for it, preparing for that great Day. Nothing else really matters. Everything we do should be connected in some way to what will happen when Jesus comes again and our eternal life with Him.