1 Corinthians 15:35-49 What About the Body?

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his sermon series titled, 1

Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in. All right, as she said,

I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and I am really glad to be together with you on this Resurrection Day. Happy Easter to all of you.

I am glad to be together with what I know to be true of all of us, a gathering of broken sinners who are at various stages of our journey toward God.

I think that describes us fairly well. I take for granted that you're broken because God tells me that we all are.

And so his word tells us that we are broken, but I also assume that you're somewhere on your journey toward God because he has you here this morning.

And so that in itself tells me something about what God is doing in your life to bring you together with God's people even here on this

Easter morning. So my hope and prayer is that each and every one of us grows in our faith as a result of coming together and hearing from his word, that you hear from his word, you have an opportunity to sing praises to him, and all of that for his honor and glory.

This morning we're continuing on in a series that I began all the way back in May of 2023. We're basically going to have spent a year in 1

Corinthians off and on here and there. And back then I had not planned out that we would be in a passage about resurrection on Easter Sunday, and yet here we are this year.

It just happens that I get to keep going to the next passage in the book that I've been preaching through, and the topic of the passage is resurrection.

So God orchestrating some of these things to make it so that I can just kind of continue on in the series.

It's kind of cool. But I want to point out that there are two ways to look at the resurrection, and I have kind of gone with the first one, and this passage is a little bit on the second one.

We can emphasize, as I have often and as many pastors do on Easter Sunday, emphasizing the empty tomb.

We can talk about the empty tomb and make that our focus, make that our attention. Those gospel writers do have a tendency to do that.

So we can emphasize those ladies who showed up early that first Easter to anoint the body of Jesus only to find the tomb was empty and the stone was rolled away.

We can marvel at that stone that was rolled away. We can marvel at the burial shroud that was laying folded off to the side on the stone tablet that morning, right?

We can talk about the place of the resurrection. But I want to just ask a different question.

Paul seems to be interested in it from a different perspective, a different way of thinking about resurrection, and that is to ask this question.

What about the body? What about the body? Yes, there's an empty tomb, but what about the body?

What about Jesus Christ himself? The empty tomb is impressive, but if you think that's amazing, just wait until you encounter the risen

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ himself. He was raised from death, and so much of our focus in resurrection centers on the place, you know, the actual location, the empty tomb itself.

But I think we often lack thoughts or consideration to the body of Jesus Christ, his actual raised body.

Notice that in 1 Corinthians 15, which is an extensive teaching on resurrection, as a matter of fact, we're going to have spent, by next week, we'll have spent four weeks just on this one chapter because it's a long chapter.

There's a lot in it. The whole focus of all of 1 Corinthians 15 is on resurrection, and the empty tomb is mentioned how many times?

Zero. Even that morning trip to the tomb isn't mentioned a single time in Paul's writings because Paul's focus lies on the post -resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ in the flesh to real people.

He is interested in those who saw Jesus in the flesh. What am I getting at? I'm getting at this.

Seeing the empty tomb pales in comparison to meeting the risen

Lord. Yeah, amen, amen. Seeing the empty tomb pales in comparison to seeing the risen

Lord. Our text this morning answers a question that most all of us, if we've ever really even given any real genuine curiosity or thought to the resurrection, we will inadvertently ask this question.

This question will be posed by those who have any notion of resurrection, and that is, what about the body?

But what about the body? The Corinthians are doubting the resurrection here in our text, and they're doubting it on the basis of a philosophical aversion to physical existence.

This philosophical aversion is very well attested in ancient documents to understand Greek philosophy and the way that they thought about the body.

They wrote a lot about it, and they thought of themselves primarily in terms of a soul trapped in a body.

This is like Plato and Aristotle and those guys were like talking about these things, and they were rationalizing through this.

And the body was seen as a prison for the soul, and I think probably if you had lived in ancient times without modern medicine, you would be prone to think this as well.

Maybe even the fact that we live in a modern time with modern medicine makes us still think this.

But the notion of being raised to bodily life after death was repugnant to their thinking in part because they knew what it was to live in a frail, fallen, broken, pain -filled, able -to -suffer body.

Do you guys get what I'm talking about there? Raise your hand if you've experienced some pain, if you've experienced some suffering, you've experienced some difficult, you've experienced...

Most of the older people, your hands went up pretty fast. The young people, hands stay down, right? It's like you haven't quite got there yet.

Back in the day, I used to dunk a basketball. I don't dunk basketballs anymore, guys. I just don't. And I don't imagine that I ever will until I get my new body, but that's a different thing.

So, but for now, yeah, not so much. And so, you know, life changes. The body changes over time.

And the idea of coming back to this body where there is pain and suffering and decay and difficulty and degenerative joints and all of that stuff, where all that is real, the idea of coming back to this, can you understand why they would think it was repugnant?

Why would you come back here? Why would you come back to this? Well, Paul is going to explain, we're not coming back to this.

That's what this whole passage is about. And so while their questions are nuanced with philosophy, our questions in the modern era are similar to theirs, but nuanced with science.

Theirs was nuanced with philosophy. We think primarily in scientific terms now. So they asked the question, how can resurrection happen?

What kind of body will the raised have? And their tone probably landed with the force of checkmate.

Like, how in the world, this body, are you kidding me? Resurrected, brought back to life? Why? Like, God wouldn't do that to us.

Because they think that they have Paul trapped. The Corinthians think they have him trapped in what they perceive to be an inconsistency from their cultural perspective.

Surely you're not implying that we would be brought back to this disgraceful, weak, and pitiful body of brokenness, death, illness, and pain.

Right, Paul? They doubted the resurrection because of their experience of life in a real body. While we ask the same question, what about the body?

Because of our scientific knowledge of decay and death. We ask questions like, where do the molecules go?

How will God resurrect a sailor that was lost at sea? How will he bring back a man whose ashes are scattered across the desert?

And our text is concerned with the body. And it's mentioned, the last passage had the word death in it about a dozen times.

This passage has the body about a dozen times in it. And despite Paul writing a lot about it here, writing about the body, telling us about the body in terms of resurrection, many

Christians are woefully lacking it. And I would say many of us are woefully lacking in our thoughts about the resurrection body.

So let's let this passage teach us this morning the way we ought to think about what life will be like in the resurrection.

So open your Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to 1 Corinthians 15. We're going to start in verse 35 and read through verse 49.

Again, 1 Corinthians 15, 35 through 49. And recast, this is God's holy and precious word, a word that he's been planning in advance for us to be talking about this morning.

This is what he desires to communicate to us here on this glorious morning given to us to reflect and remember and think about deeply, resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 35. But someone will ask, how are the dead raised?

With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel perhaps of weed or some other grain.

But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.

There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the soul of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star and glory.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable.

It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness.

It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, then there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first Adam became a life -giving being.

I mean, a living being. The last Adam became a life -giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual.

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust.

And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, as I prepared for this and thought deeply about these things this week, it just strikes me here in the end that just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we who are yours in Christ shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Oh, we are very familiar with what it means to be a man of the dust, a person of the dust. Humans here, wallowing around in the mud of this world.

Corruptible, perishable, weak, defiled. Just easily carried away to our own devices, easily carried away to our own control of the world around us, control of others.

Even attempts at controlling you. We know what it means to be made of the stuff of this earth.

We know what it means to live in the stuff of this earth. We know what it means to read the headlines. And the headlines are a reflection of the wars that go on in our own hearts.

Both to be a sinner and to be sinned against. Both to be an abuser and to be abused.

We have all tasted of both sides. And how glorious and majestic that one has paid the price for us.

You know, a good Friday on the cross, dying for us. And then blowing up death from the inside.

From within a tomb, within the grave, bursting forth with glory and light.

A beautiful new creation by you. The hope that we have that we who bear this image of the first Adam will also bear the image of the second

Adam. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who came to rescue us from sin and death.

So Father, I pray that that gospel message would fuel our worship this morning.

But would also fuel the way that we live day by day in hope, in gladness, in joy.

Yes, even in the midst of a dust -ridden, fallen, broken, busted world where our hearts are not what we want them to be.

But knowing that you are putting it together should launch us out into joy in this gathering this morning.

And launch us out into a week of joy and gladness. So Father, I pray that you would allow us to worship you with souls that are just in awe of what you have done for us.

And are doing for us. And promise, even through this text, that you will one day do for us. Receive these songs now as the corporate worship of your people.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks to the band for leading us in worship. And thank you all for being here this morning.

I encourage you to get comfortable and keep your Bibles open or your scripture journals, your devices, however you navigate to God's word.

Keep it open to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 35 through 49. And as I say every week,

I know some of you, this maybe is your first time here. You can feel free to get up at any time. I know we just took a break, but if at any time during the message you want to get more coffee or juice or donut holes, if there's any left back there, take advantage of that.

And if you need the bathrooms, those are out the barn doors down the hallway on the left -hand side. So, yeah, make yourself at home here.

And the goal of the remainder of our time is to keep our focus on 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 35 through 49.

If you were to ask a random Christian if they believe in resurrection, I kind of hope you'd get a yes, right?

Like, how many of you would just say, like, yeah, I believe in resurrection. Like, I mean, that's part and parcel of what it means to be a

Christian. But then if you ask them a follow -up question, then what's heaven going to be like?

Or what is the life after this one going to be like? That's where you're going to start to get some diverging answers, right? You're going to get some

Gary Larson, Far Side cartoon type answers with floating on clouds and strumming harps and angel wings and maybe just an eternal church service, like, as if this isn't enough.

So, maybe an eternal church service. You might get some comments about streets of gold, maybe.

But the concept of what it's going to be like is kind of ethereal to our minds.

We don't spend much time thinking about it. The concept of what our bodies will be like in the resurrection is not something that many of us have put much time or energy into.

And yet, here in our text, it might surprise you to know that there's this much written about it. There's this much written about it.

There's a big chunk of 1 Corinthians 15 that's written to dedicate to the focus of our attention on what it will be like in the resurrection.

Paul gives enough, by the way, in this text, by way of analogy and illustration to ignite our imaginations.

And I believe he does so with intention. The types of things that he's going to say in this passage are to drive you to trust in your creator, who will also be, for those who are in Christ, our recreator.

So trust him is the goal of what Paul is getting at here. And trust him, not just with your life now, but trust him with your eternity.

Trust him to be okay with the fact that he's going to be the one who puts you back together again in the end.

And he is seeking here to give hope to those who are saved by faith in Jesus Christ.

So far in chapter 15, Paul has listed out evidences for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Last week we saw

Paul both express the centrality of the belief in resurrection to the Christian faith.

And now today, he will focus his attention on one pretty vital and common question. It's a question that probably ought to be asked, and probably has been by many of us, and that is, why would we want to be brought back into these failing and frail bodies?

Why would we want to come back into a body like this? And that's kind of the nature of what's being asked, although it doesn't look like it at first blush.

When we look together at verse 35, it doesn't seem to be the exact question, the way I phrased it. Why would we want to be brought back into these failing bodies?

Well, look at what they ask. Someone will ask, says Paul, in verse 35, someone will ask, how are the dead raised, and with what kind of body do they come?

So that's the nature of the question there. And in English, it looks more like a mere quest for a bit more information.

As if Paul was giving a lecture and someone politely raised their hand and waited their turn and asked, but professor, how are the dead raised?

Can you describe the mechanism? What will the resurrected body be like? As if the nature of the questioner is just to gain more information, as if that's what they're shooting for.

But by Paul's response here in verse 36 and by the Greek structure of those questions, it does not appear to be an innocently curious question, as if it's just, could you please inform us a little bit more about this?

It amounts to someone asking, like with an exclamation point question mark, how can this be?

How can this be? What about the body? What about the brokenness? What about the suffering? What about the pain?

What about the illness? What about the disease? Checkmate, Paul. The body is in the way of resurrection.

That's what he's thinking. That's what the questioner is asking. Checkmate, have you lived in a body?

Have you experienced pain and suffering in a body? Have you been in a body that had to go to the doctor?

Have you waited in line at the ER ever? Have you ever suffered?

Does your body work perfect? Raise your hand if your body works perfect. No, you know it doesn't.

I know the answer to that question. So what about the body is a logical question.

And now, note how Paul responds to the question in verse 36. He's pretty harsh here.

You foolish person, he says. His response, by the way, is not just derogatory, as if like an attack to the person, like you're a fool, you're an idiot.

No, that's not what the word fool means in Scripture. His response is semi -technical in that a foolish person throughout

Scripture is defined as a person who says that there is no God. And the questioner is posing a question, expressing doubt about God's ability to even manage resurrection.

Underlying these questions is a very foolish presupposition. God cannot raise the dead because of the problem of the body.

God can't raise the dead because the body is just too big of a problem for him to be able to resolve. As I mentioned in the introduction, the problem in Paul's day in Corinth was that many thought of the body as a prison for the soul.

And death was, they thought of death as kind of a positive thing. Yeah, you go across that river Styx and all that stuff and Hades and all that.

But death was the release of the soul from the realm of weakness and frailty and suffering.

So the idea of being revived to this place of suffering was not a good thought. To try to sell the concept to the

Greek thinkers, to try to sell them the concept of resurrection was like, what? Come back to this?

Are you kidding me? The idea of resurrection was reprehensible, repugnant to the Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle and all of those guys.

I think the big names and all of those guys in philosophy were saying, no, the body's a prison.

The goal is to get free from it. Why would you come back to that? Why would you come back to prison? But for us today, so that's their hurdle.

That's their understanding. That's what Paul is trying to address here from their perspective. But for us today, we ask the question, same question, just a different way.

We would ask the question, why resurrection? Rather, they would ask the question, why resurrection?

Why come back? And we would be more prone to ask the question, how resurrection? Their how, by the way, in verse 35 is not a how of method, but a how of in one likeness, making the two questions equal and basically restating the same thing in different ways.

Parallelism is very common, but how are the dead raised? In what manner will they be when they're raised?

With what kind of body do they come? Making those two parallel. Basically, what they're getting at is describe the body of a raised person,

Paul. What's that going to be like? And again, this is part of that checkmate.

Try to describe that. Of course, a body comes with pain. A body comes with nerve endings.

A body comes with all of these things that cause pain. And they would have been immediately skeptical of any embodiment at all after death.

We're skeptical on a different front. You see, their question is, why would you even want to come back?

But our question is, how is God going to collect all those molecules? How's he going to collect all those molecules? Oh, checkmate,

Paul. Some people are spread all over. Some people died, and they were eaten by animals. Some people are everywhere.

How are you going to do that? Ha -ha, checkmate, right? And to both them and us,

I believe Paul answers one unanimous way. You fool. Foolish person.

That works quite well for our thoughts about, like, oh, is God big enough to get those molecules?

Can he collect them? Does he have a net big enough? Is he wise enough and capable enough and powerful enough to put you back together again?

Answer the question. Can he? He can, of course. So to both, he says, don't be godless.

Don't be foolish. That's what he means when he says foolish. Don't be godless in this. Don't be godless in your thoughts about what the life after this one is going to be.

No, believe that God carries you all the way through. The God who created this place is the

God who is preparing that place. Amen? And so we are set up for his illustrations in the text, and this is where we kind of get to more of our outline.

I'm not going to give it to you up front. You're just going to have to pay attention and just follow the outline as we go. The first is an illustration from Botany, verses 36 through 38.

An illustration from Botany. Botany is the study of? Plants. There you go. Got it. There's going to be some science in here, and you weren't signing up for an

Easter science lesson, but there's some science on Botany. Paul uses an illustration really primarily from agriculture and plants.

It gives us a lot more information than we might routinely understand about the resurrection. He is absolutely trying to give you information about what the next life is going to be like, revealed by God through the

Spirit. And he posits that death is an essential step to the resurrection, and we go, duh, but this is more than a mere duh.

Of course you can't raise to new life if you haven't died, but by pointing out death here, he is expressing what ought to be considered his hopefulness, even in the face as he references our greatest enemy.

What is our greatest enemy? Death. Death is our greatest enemy. It's the last enemy.

Well, sin and death are, I mean, I don't know, you can say which one's worse, but I know which one's going to be last destroyed is death.

And let me just state this emphatically. Death sucks. It sucks. It has haunted me all the days of my life.

From my earliest memories, my father was diagnosed with cancer when I was five years old. Those are my early memories. My dad's sick.

Three days after my eighth birthday, he passed away. My mother died six months before Lynn and I were married.

I was 22 years old. I missed being an orphan just by a few years. And so what that did in my heart was made me think a little bit about where are we going?

I was thinking that as a little boy. Where are we going? What is this all about? Where's dad?

Some of you have had similar experience, and you've lost somebody that you love. I mean, I've been chasing down that.

I've been chasing that down and also been chased by that my entire life. Do you know what I'm talking about?

There's a little bit of a number on a kid's head when they lose their dad at a very early age and watching him, watching death take him.

Not fun. So I would just discourage you from speaking of death in coddling terms.

Don't speak of death in coddling terms as if it's just a grace that's given to us at the end. Our bodies fail us and we go.

That's not the way it's meant to be. Did you know that? Death is not natural. Death is not a part of the created order.

It's a part of the fallen order. Amen? And here's the thing is when we speak of it in coddling terms as if, oh, it's just God bringing his children home.

No, it is a severe and dark enemy that caused the son of God to come and rescue us.

And when you demote and push down the problem, you also push down the hero who conquered it.

Was it a lizard or was it a dragon? He conquered a dragon. He conquered the worst of enemies.

Death, which haunts not just me because of my experiences, but haunts every single one of us. It is always in the background saying, limited time.

Is it today? Is it not in the back of your mind? Does it not haunt you as like a dark cloud in the recesses of your thoughts?

Well, maybe not some of you that are younger. That doesn't mean it's not there. It doesn't mean that it's not stalking you.

Oh, wow. That got dark. No, we don't have a lightweight enemy that he defeated.

But we have an amazing and glorious hero who conquered death from the inside.

And just like he says, just like a kernel or seed of a plant or its fruit ceases to grow once plucked from the ear, the apple stops growing when you pluck it from the tree.

The tomato stops growing. Yeah, it'll turn colors, but it stops growing when you remove it from the plant.

And in that sense, those seeds die. So too will we all one day be plucked from this earth in death.

And talking this way, of course, sounds more like a good Friday message than a victorious Easter message, but just hang on.

Because when that seed is disconnected from its source of life, the plant, it is dead and it no longer moves to follow the sun like the plant would.

It no longer grows. It no longer expands. And to be quite honest, as we keep it in a jar or keep it in a packet on a sill waiting for spring to plant it, it's dead.

It's lifeless. It's just sitting there. No longer expands. In this sense, it models death.

But when it is sown into the ground, the dead seed comes to life.

There in that context, it comes to life. And what you sow is nothing at all whatsoever like what comes up.

Could you ever imagine if the only thing you ever experienced was an acorn, could you imagine an oak tree?

By looking at the seed, would you have any notion of what's going to grow out of that? You can look out the window.

You can see the tops of some oak trees out there. Acorn. That's what started that thing.

Our minds ought to be blown by the world around us. Like if you just have just a kernel, a seed, if you just have a smidgen of curiosity about the world, it should just blow your mind about the way that God has designed things.

Acorn, acorn, oak tree. Boom. Like what magic does that?

Right? Oh, you can get in all the science of it and all of that stuff. It is amazing. You see, the seed planted is not predictive of the plant that will grow.

And he is saying that's the same in the resurrection. But according to verse 38,

God is the one who has designated each form to each plant. His sovereign design, His sovereign hand guiding in creation.

In Genesis, we are told that God created each thing according to their kinds. Consider for just a moment that God is the reason you've never planted a kernel of corn and had a strawberry plant grow.

He has organized a process. Chaos is not in charge of this world. Amen? Chaos is not in charge, but rather the organized patterns that are instituted by our

Creator is the way the world works. But verse 38 brings us back to consider the sovereignty of God on the subject of resurrection.

God is in charge and He who brings oaks from acorns is the

God who will bring resurrected bodies from corpses. And He will choose just the right amount of function and glory to bring to those.

And those both come into the next section of our text. So the second movement of the text is in verses 39 through 41, we see two more illustrations.

We see an illustration from biology and an illustration from astronomy. Like I said, you didn't know you were going to be in for a science lesson here, but Paul goes into these couple of scientific things.

So botany, biology, astronomy. And in verse 39, he's highlighting from biology that God has designed all kinds of animal forms.

Humans, land animals, birds, and fish. And by the way, just as if he's showing off that he knows

Genesis, he's actually giving them in reverse order from highest to lowest. Humans, land animals, birds, and fish.

He's going through the days backwards. But his purpose in these designations and distinctions is to remind us all that God is a master creator who has demonstrated a knack, an amazing knack for various designs.

Again, just opening your eyes to look at the world around you. You should be in awe of our creator. Birds, for flight, have a body specific to their needs.

Hollow bones and wings and the ability to fly and the light feathers to keep them warm and all of that stuff.

Fish have gills and fins designed well for water. And when the two come together, snatch, right?

They're designed. The design is amazing. And in verse 40, he switches to another discipline of astronomy.

As little, not astrology, astronomy. As little as Paul would have understood of the stars, he is certainly more right than he knew.

That the stars vary in glory, and he says that. And I'm not sure what he really understood of the stars in his understanding, his knowledge, his learning.

But what we've uncovered about the vast array of the universe is that the stars are vastly different in size and color and life stages.

There is a vast, vast variety of types of stars. I took an astronomy class in college, and it was one of my favorite classes.

And got a chance to use one of the higher end telescopes up at Calvin College. And I owned a high end telescope for a while, saved up my money, bought one back when my kids were little.

And for several years, when my kids were young, we would go out into parking lots at night or to the park and see.

And there's one problem. You can buy a high end telescope in Michigan, but what's the problem?

Clouds, cloud cover. And then there's one other problem, and that's that it's so late in the summer to get to the darkness.

So you've got to be out there at like 11 o 'clock to really get the peak darkness. And it's like my kids were asleep and stuff.

But we did get to see the rings of Saturn. We got to see Jupiter, its moons. Really cool stuff. And I enjoyed it.

I sold it. Maybe someday in Arizona we'll get a chance to look at that or something.

I don't know. Paul, in his limited scientific understanding, speaks in verse 41 of the glory of the sun.

The glory of the moon. The glory of the stars. And the glory of the earthly bodies of animals differs from the glory of the stars and their brilliance.

What he's saying is that there's awe and wonder when you look and behold an elephant. There's awe and wonder when you look and behold like the whales or the dolphins or even the sharks or just all different kinds of animals.

And you see like the birds flying and singing in their own songs. And you see all of this creation, and there's glory in it.

But how many of you have seen the glory of like sitting in a campsite looking up in the darkness at the sky?

Clear, you know, non -cloudy. Once in a while you get one of those, right? And it's just like awe and breathtaking.

Now we might not understand why he is comparing animals to stars here. But he is here encapsulating the vast array of things designed by our creator

God. How many of you know that there's all different kinds of designs, all different kinds of things that he has created? From the animals to the stars.

And each one has its own kind of glory and function. What is Paul saying about resurrection here in these illustrations of biology and astronomy?

God who provides appropriate bodies for fish and birds and land animals and humans and appropriate glories for stars and moon and sun can certainly be trusted to provide us an eternal body with appropriate glory and function.

Think about it. If you believe in a God who made all these things, if you believe in a God who designed this created order that you inhabit now, are you really worried about his ability to put you back together again at resurrection?

When you behold all that he created, are you going to go, yeah, but this is a bit tough? Because I got molecules here.

There's atoms that make up my body. So I don't know about that. Do you see how silly that is?

Do you see why Paul responds, foolish person? How foolish to look at the creation around you, to see

God's very creation and then go, but I don't know if he can fix this. No, he can put it back together just fine, amen.

And think about this from another angle. He's going to design it different, like different as in an acorn to an oak tree different.

Those two things are vastly different. So he who designed, I just think he's intentionally drawing us in, kind of roping us in by some of these illustrations.

I mean, he's saying he designed fish, he designed land animals, he designed the birds and all those components that come into play on that.

He designed gills and wings. And he's going to be the one at the drawing board when he redesigns this, when he redesigns those.

When he remakes these bodies, he will be the only one at the drawing table. But look at the vast awesomeness of what he has created.

And I can imagine he has some pretty awesome design changes to the new and improved eternal human body 2 .0.

That's going to be pretty cool. We're being encouraged here to consider the creativity of our

Lord in remaking us. The one who cannot imagine resurrection going well is the one who either doesn't know the power of God or doesn't trust

God or just lacks a holy imagination. And we're being called into a holy imagination here.

And so we come to the third section of the text, now that botany and biology and astronomy have been used as illustrations to remind us that God is capable.

We know fully by what he's already made that he is capable of fixing this.

He can pull it back together. But now Paul explains more about the shift in our natures. There's going to be a radical shift in the nature of us.

Now, we will still be ourselves. Don't hear me saying anything that you're not going to be yourself, you're not going to have your own memory, you're not going to be, you know.

But there's going to be a change. There's going to be significant growth and difference to our bodies.

And there's a radical shift in the way that we process things. You see, here's what the text tells us. We are perishable.

We are dishonorable. We are weak. And we are natural. I'll explain that word.

It actually, in Greek, is a little bit of a confusing word. So I used the word soulish last service, and I had probably five people come up to me afterwards and say,

I need you to define that better. And so I'm going to try to define it better. Soulish is actually the

Greek word. So the Greek word is an adjective form of the word soul, when you see natural here in the text.

It's an adjective form of the word soul. So that's where I get soulish, kind of as in like soul.

And so I'll explain that a little bit more, but each one of these words needs a little bit of explanation. Perishable, dishonorable, weak, soulish, says

Paul. That defines our existence in the here and now. Perishable, meaning we're mortal and able to die.

You already knew that, right? Hopefully I'm not informing you for the first time. You're able to die, and you will.

Dishonorable, this is actually one of them that's more moral in its connotation.

Dishonorable, as in corrupt in our souls through sin. That's our existence in the here and now. It's a moral category to be dishonorable.

The third is weak. Frail, fragile, easily tempted. But also incapable of doing all the things that we set out to do.

There was a song back in the, I don't know, late 80s, early 90s, I Believe I Can Fly.

But they didn't. But they didn't, right? I believe I can,

I'm not gonna sing it. You guys, how many of you remember that song? You know what I'm talking about. I believe I can fly,

I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every night and day. Do you really? What are you talking about?

You're weird. What are we talking about again? Because you can't. You can't,

I mean, with an airplane, that's pretty cool. You're not gonna take off out of here and open the window and go out that way.

Right? We know that. You can't do all the things that you wish you could do. And you can't even do the things that you commit to.

We are a train of broken promises. And even to ourselves, like, I'm gonna do better this time.

I won't do that again. And you're back doing it again. Why? Because we're weak, we're frail, we're fragile, we're easily tempted.

We're dishonorable. And the last one here, we're natural. I don't love, matter of fact,

I actually kind of dislike strongly that translation. Because when we hear natural and spiritual, our minds immediately go physical and immaterial.

Like, the spiritual body will be immaterial. Passing through walls and, you know, like a floating ghost is spiritual.

And on this side is the natural. So that's, of course, earthy. The interesting thing is that the natural one is the word for soul.

It's the immaterial part of a human. But it's the thing that when God created us, Paul is identifying, when he says soulish here, he's identifying that which makes us distinct from all of creation.

So that stands out to him. What did God do when he formed Adam from the dust of the ground?

Breathe soul into him. And he came alive. He has given us soul.

And Paul identifies that as a unique thing. He says, that's humanish. Soulishness is what it means to be distinct as a human here in this fallen place.

It's part and parcel of what we are. And so it doesn't mean immaterial. Rather, the spiritual doesn't mean immaterial.

And then natural means physical. It's not that distinction. It's a word that describes human existence pre -resurrection.

We are earthy and humanish is another way to say it. By the way, all of these things, all these four things that the text tells us are true of us in the here and now, where we live as following and living and imaging the man of dust, it's going to say later.

These are all out of our control. Can you fix this? Can you fix your perishability? Well, we're trying to through the healthcare system, but we haven't made many advances.

How long do we live? Pretty much, I think 74, 75 is the average right now.

You know, that's it. And we're gone. Perishable, we're not fixing that.

Dishonorable? Wow, look at the best that we can put forward. Political candidates.

Dishonorable indeed. That defines us. That defines the best that we have to offer, right?

And you can think of better. You can think of better people to put forward. Dishonorable still, right?

Weak. We fixing that? Oh, we can go to the stars.

We can build rocket ships. We can do all kinds of things and we die. We get the common cold still.

Weak indeed. And soulish. We can't fix that we are of the dust.

That we are humanish here in this place. But when God resurrects us in the end, all of these will be reversed by His power.

Not us fixing it. See, so much of our society right now is saying, you know where the answer lies to our problem?

Some utopian political answer. Some kind of utopian medical answer.

No, no, no. Our hope must rest on the God who will fix it.

That's what this is saying. All of these will be reversed by His power. Sown into the ground perishable.

Raised imperishable. We will be unable to die in that place.

How many of you, that's just mind blowing. Imperishable. No expiration date there. Sown in a dishonorable state.

Corruptible. Enticeable by sin. Dishonorable in our actions and in our thoughts.

There raised in glory. Not able to sin.

Sown in weakness. Frail and fragile and unable to make the outcomes that we know we're called to do.

There raised in power. Power to honor our Lord. Power to live for Him. Power to walk with Him.

Sown natural or soulish. Raised in the Holy Spirit. The concept of a spiritual body here in this text is a brand new concept of the

Corinthians. Paul is inventing a concept here through the Spirit. I mean, he's not inventing it. The Spirit is to inform us.

But this new concept to them and to us is the central answer to the question. No, you're not going to just be brought back to this human body.

There's not just merely a soulish body decked out for earthly existence like the one you have right now.

But there is a new spiritual body and only Jesus has one currently. But we will all eventually be decked out with one too.

And this is the hope of Resurrection Church. Not merely and not strictly a new creation, but a redemption of this body.

A radical new thing that begins with the stuff of this thing. Remember that His body was used in producing that spiritual body that Jesus had.

That tomb was empty. It will be a real resurrection. But what is made and remade is different than what is sown.

Like an acorn to an oak tree. The grave was empty. The new spiritual body begins with the seed of a sown corpse.

But the error was coming into the Corinthian thought that resurrection equals resuscitation of a corpse. Resuscitation is not a good image.

Just make this thing breathe again. I mean, if that's the case, if that was the hope,

I would hope that the healthcare system is better there than here. If the only thing we're doing is we're just making this thing breathe again, uh -oh.

I mean, that's what happened with Lazarus. Those are resuscitations. Those are not particularly resurrections.

Those people died again. Do you realize that? This is different. Those people were raised back into a perishable body.

That's, wow, he's showing he could do it, but it wasn't the finished product yet. Paul is here saying to them and to us, no, no, no.

You're thinking about this all wrong. God, the Almighty Creator, is in charge of this resurrection process.

And he who designed all the plants and the animals and the stars will raise up from the ground something quite different than what was sown.

As different as an oak tree is from an acorn, it will be radically different. As radical as the distinction between perishable and imperishable.

How many of you know that's a big gulf? Something's perishable and something's imperishable.

How do you measure the distance between those two points? There will be similarity. Don't get me wrong. Jesus, who was rocking that thing on the resurrection day, and for those days that he appeared to those people, he still looked human.

He was able to eat fish. He didn't have three heads. He didn't have seven arms. He was able to be touched and felt, but he was also able to appear in a locked room suddenly among the disciples.

And they were so flabbergasted that they decided to actually record for us. The door was locked.

There was Jesus. Boom. Hey, guys. Ah! Right? It's like, where'd you come from? I mean, he was able to do some cool stuff.

We don't know. I don't think we scratched the surface of the things that Jesus was able to do. I don't know about that whole, have you ever thought about that whole ascension thing?

Was that a byproduct of being in a new body, the ability to go back and forth to heaven? Maybe. Maybe that's a part of it.

I don't know. I'm not telling you, but I think that we are meant in this text to think creatively about the things that God is able to do.

Now, remember that natural and spiritual do not mean physical and immaterial, and the reason I keep emphasizing that is that the text actually tells us that because we have a tendency to think we will be immaterial on the other side, and this text is not saying that.

It's not saying we're going to just be spirits. Remember, he ate. Remember, he was able to be touched.

For some reason, God allowed him to maintain the scars of his crucifixion, and I think in part because he will be known as the scar bearer.

He will be the one who bore the penalty for us, and we will see him, the one who was pierced.

But at the return of Jesus, according to our passage last week, at his return, that's when those who have died with faith in Jesus will be raised to new existence that is imperishable, glorious, powerful, and of the

Spirit. And so that leads to our last section in the text, and that is simply this. Jesus is the key to this transformation that's coming.

Verses 45 through 49, Jesus is the key. Verse 45 contains the two words natural and spiritual, but you can hardly tell it from English, so it carries on the thought of a natural body and a spiritual body, because here it is.

Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. There is our word soulish.

The last Adam became a life -giving spirit. There is our word spiritual. Those are the same words in Greek.

They translated them differently. But what's he getting at here throughout this section? That Jesus Christ is the first prototype of a resurrected body.

Not a prototype in that he's running a test model. He is the pattern of the body of the Spirit. And he is the example of where those in Christ are going.

He is the model and the pattern for our destiny. But verse 46 reminds us that there's an order to things.

First, the time in this soulish, dustish, earthish kind of existence here and now, we spend our 70 or 80 years in these soulish bodies before we get to run with the spirit bodies.

Our existence now is from earth. Jesus has now his existence from heaven.

And he is able to translate us into that heavenly plane of existence in a physical way, just like he is now.

In the same way that we have borne the image of the weak and failing man of dust, our first forbearer,

Adam the fallen, Adam the broken, Adam the weak, so will those who are in Christ be made into the image of the second

Adam, the man of heaven, Jesus Christ our Lord. The title man of heaven, you've heard him called the son of God, right?

You've heard him called the son of God. You've heard him called the son of man. Kind of a funny riff on the fact that he was kind of surprised to be a man.

Like it's kind of like, I'm a man. Because he was the second person of the Trinity. It's a big deal that he was a man. But also equally, it's a big deal that he is the man of heaven.

A title that I've never heard really used of him frequently, and one that probably ought to be, I would encourage you to think of him this way.

The man of heaven. Do you know who dwells in heaven right now?

Spirits, souls, angels, and primarily immaterial beings. Do you know who the man of heaven is?

Do you know who is in flesh in heaven? One. What's his name?

Jesus. Jesus is the man of heaven.

His title is amazing. Jesus Christ, the remade, the resurrected human, who currently is an anomaly there.

He is the paragon of humanity. Jesus Christ is the king. He is the firstborn from the dead.

He alone is the life -giving spirit, who can grant eternal and perishable life to any and all who come to him, and acknowledge him as their lord and savior.

Come to recognize him as the unique lord over all, and accept the forgiveness he extends to all through his sacrifice for us on the cross.

Now, the first order of business for any heart who comes in contact with Jesus Christ is to receive him as your rightful king.

Receive him as the rightful lord. To pledge allegiance to this king who has been sent from heaven, to rescue us from our own sins by dying on the cross as the sacrifice for us.

But here are a couple of other applications from this text. Obviously, the first and foremost business to which you need to attend is to see if your life is connected to Jesus Christ by faith in him.

Are you trusting in him for salvation? Is he your lord? Is he your king? Do you believe that he died on the cross for your sins?

Do you believe that he rose victorious? Make that your thing today. All of you.

Confirm for your own heart that you are all in with Jesus. But then if you are, then there's a couple of other applications to take away from this.

The first is the resurrection gives us hope in suffering. So the first point here in application is take hope.

Let me encourage all here who belong to Jesus Christ by faith to hope for more, to place your trust for more than this life.

Hope that God has a future in which the sufferings, yes, the sufferings are real in this present age, but they are fleeting.

And there's a future age where the sufferings of this present age will be like fleeting wisps of something that once happened in the distant past.

Kind of like, yeah, I think I remember that. Any suffering in the here and now is light and momentary compared to the eternal hope of existence with our

Lord and Savior forever and ever and ever. And that leads to the last application, and that is sow this life for him.

Sow this life for him. While we are soulish, while we are here bearing the image of the man of dust, while we are perishable, we are made out of the stuff of Adam, our rebellious forefather.

But our current existence is dignified by our destiny and our master. We are swept up into a glorious story of redemption and restoration and reconciliation with our creator.

And God calls us all to love him, not by royal decree. And this is important.

Not as though God only would say to you, thou shalt love me. How many of you have ever, those of you that are parents, have you ever said to your kids, because I said so?

Did your parents ever say that to you? But why, Father? Because I said so. Is that what

God says to us? Love me. Why, Father? Because I said so.

Is that God's answer? No, rather, what God has done for us is say, love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. But why, Father? Because I love you so much,

I sent my son to die for you. Now come, child. Follow me.

Now that you trust me, now that you know that I've got your good in mind, now that you know that I have blessing and benefit, and I'm for you, now, child, come follow me.

Come and walk with me. Sow this life for him. And so we follow him as broken people in a broken world, sometimes nearly crushed by the weight of sins we've committed and other times crushed by the weight of sins committed against us, and yet we walk in his love because he first loved us.

So let's sow this life in loving obedience to him. As we come to communion, remember his death for us.

That's the point of this, and us is a major point of it. I would encourage those who are currently trusting in Jesus Christ for your salvation to feel free to come to the tables to take the cracker to remember his body broken in our place and take the cup of juice to remember his blood shed in our place.

You can take those back to your seat and drink and eat when you are ready, making sure that you're mindful of the fact that you're not doing this in isolation, you're not doing it alone, you're doing it in a room full of people who love

Jesus too. And don't lose sight of the togetherness that God calls us to in this activity. We're being called together to remember our

Lord and Savior. He has rescued us from sin on his cross, and he has rescued us from death in his resurrection.

And he will rescue us from these perishable, dishonorable, weak, and humanish bodies when he comes back for all who are glad.

All who are glad. All who are glad to belong to him. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you so much for this resurrection message on Resurrection Day. I pray that you would be pressing on our hearts the glorious reality that we live in this time as those who are made of dust.

We bear the image of the broken and fallen forebears who have come before us. But we are not stuck in that cycle.

We know that there is a day coming. We are those who trust that there is a day coming when you will set it all right.

And so, Father, I pray that you would help us as we come to the tables of communion. We come there together. That we would lift up our eyes and see that you are redeeming and saving and rescuing a people for your honor and glory for eternity.

And I pray that that promise of eternity, that hope of a life better than this one, would help us in the way that we suffer well in this life.

The way that we sow our lives in moments and minutes and days and hours in the sowing work of your kingdom.

Be bold with the gospel. To be free to love well. To not even over -own other people's sanctification, over -own other people's response to the gospel, but just be glad to share it.

Father, I pray that you would work through this message, the things that you desire to be given. Some of us just need encouragement.

Some of us need hope for those who have gone before us. That you're going to fix this. You're going to take care of it. We miss them.

And we look forward to the day of reunion. But for now, the hope is placed in what Christ did for us that Easter 2 ,000 years ago.