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Reading 1 Corinthians 15:39-41 where Paul continues his argument from general revelation about the resurrection of the dead. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Paul continues to give an argument for the resurrection of the dead, just from what we observe in nature, as you see a seed become a plant, so you can know your mortal body will become immortal, when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ, that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 1 Corinthians, Chapter 15, as Paul has been laying out his argument, making an apologetic for the resurrection of the dead. As with yesterday, we're going to read from verses 35 to 45, out of the Legacy Standard Bible, this is the Word of the Lord, through the Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth.
But someone will say, How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come? You fool, that which you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
But God gives it a body just as he wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish.
There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a corruptible body, it is raised an incorruptible body. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
So as we concluded yesterday at verse 38, we read that God gives a body just as he wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. Now you could interpret that as God has given to each one of us a physical body, or you could interpret that as to each one who is raised from the dead, we have our own individual glorified bodies.
Either way that applies. Whatever body we've been given, mortal or immortal, is given by God. It is by his will and not our own. But we think more of this, we think of this in terms of the physical, and Paul kind of climbs to the immortal as he goes through this argument, especially when you consider in verse 39, where Paul says, all flesh is not the same flesh, for there is one flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another flesh of birds, and another of fish.
So he's still making an argument here from general revelation, as I talked about yesterday. General revelation is that which we can observe just from nature. And even when we observe the world around us, we can find evidence in nature of the resurrection of the dead.
You don't have to die and then come back to life on the other side to know if there is some kind of resurrection. For Paul is saying within nature you can observe this concept of something going into the ground and dying and being raised with a new body.
The first example that he gives is a seed. What you sow into the ground is not the body that is to be, but it is a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as he wished.
Each seed has its own body before it goes into the ground, and then it has a new body as it comes up out of the ground. So that is going to be the case with each and every one of us. We have a physical body.
We'll die in this physical body. We'll be raised in our own immortal bodies. Now one of the things that this speaks to is the fact that when we rise from the dead, we're not just going to be this group ethereal form that's going to exist in some other verse, right?
Some sort of timeless, immortal existence where everybody just is kind of a soul in a cloud and you're just part of a big spiritual organism. In case anybody has that sort of a vision of what heaven will be like, Paul's argument here is not that you die and then you raise to become part of that big spiritual organism.
You're going to have your own individual body. Just as you died in your individual body, you'll be raised in an immortal individual body. Just as Christ died and rose from the dead, so it will be with us.
Christ did not become some ethereal spiritual form. In fact, he showed himself physically alive to his disciples and let them touch him to see this was really his body. It was really his body that went into the grave.
It's really his body that came back out again, but it was changed. It was not zombified, nor was it even just kind of physically repaired and came back in a form that was pre-crucifixion. There was something different about Christ's resurrection.
It really was his body, but now it's immortal because he can't ever die again. We also see Jesus doing things there in that 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven that he was not doing beforehand, like suddenly appearing in a room.
First he's not there. The doors are locked. The disciples are talking and then suddenly, well, there's the savior. He's right there. And where was he going in that time that he was with his disciples for those 40 days during his earthly ministry?
He was sleeping at Bethany or somebody else, Peter's house, because we read about Jesus being there at Peter's house and healing his mother-in-law, who got up and then tended to them. So he would sleep in somebody else's home.
He was itinerant. He was always traveling. He was always somebody else in another place. Remember that statement that he said to a person who said they wanted to follow him. He said that foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay his head.
So he was always traveling around during his earthly ministry. But in that 40 days after his resurrection and before his ascension into heaven, what was he doing? Well, he was going back and forth between heaven and earth.
And you might be going, no, wait just a second, because he ascends into heaven after that 40 days. Right. But he had already been there. He went there when he died. He died. His body was buried in the ground.
But where did his spirit go? What did he say on the cross? According to Luke's gospel, before he died, father into your hands, I commit my spirit. And that's where he went. He went to be in paradise. He said to the thief next to him on the cross today, you will be with me in paradise.
That's exactly where Jesus went. But his ascension into heaven, his body going up out of their presence, that was showing to them that here's how I'm leaving. And now I'm gone from your presence. So they would see that finally one last time.
But it was also to show them the way that he would return. Because remember, the angels appeared with the disciples and said, this Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.
But the point I'm making here is that Jesus resurrected body. He physically rose from the dead. That really was his body. But there was something different about the body as well. It had gone from being mortal to immortal.
And so just as it was for Christ, so it will be the same for each and every one of us. And that's the argument that Paul is making here. So God has given to each one a body, its own body. Each seed has its own body.
You have your own physical body. You're going to have your own glorified body. All flesh is not the same flesh. But there's one flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds and another of fish.
So how do you know what a man is? How do you know what a mammal is? How do you know the difference between a mammal and a bird? How do you know the difference between a bird and a fish? What are those?
What are those things have in common? And how are they different? Well, a man and a mammal live on the land. A bird lives in the air. A fish lives in the sea. So even with each and every one of those examples you have, they live in different locations.
A man will live in a village or in a city with other people. An animal lives out in the wilderness somewhere. So each one of these creatures, different in its own way, but they also occupy different spaces.
And so it's going to be the same with us. Our fleshly bodies occupy this place. We're here on earth. Our immortal bodies are going to occupy another place. And we will be in that place where there is no more corruption.
Now, indeed, God is going to reconcile all things, even all created things that we see around us will be reconciled to Christ. Ephesians talks about that in Colossians, that God is reconciling all things through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Everything is being made new in Christ. But we're still going to be occupying a place that is not subject to corruption anymore. And when Christ returns, that will be when he ushers in his perfect, imperishable kingdom, where there will be no more dying, no more evil, no more things passing away, no more temptation or anything like that, for he will have made all things new.
I love what John MacArthur says about the thing that makes him long for heaven the most is because he's just sick of his sin. He's tired of sin. I hate it. I don't want temptation. I don't want the desire for sin anymore.
I want heaven where there isn't any of that, for we will be in the presence of Christ, perfect and perfect and holy forever. Amen to that. I cannot stand the fleshly temptations of my body. I cannot wait until I can put this off and put on the immortal and be with the immortal God forever in his perfect kingdom.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. And as we struggle, as we fight with sin and with temptations and things like that, while we're in these corruptible bodies here on this earth, may those things make us long for the incorruptible.
As we talk about the body being corruptible, that doesn't just mean that we are decaying, that we're that we're coming into death. You're getting older and eventually you will die, although that's certainly part of what it means.
But being corruptible means that we are also weak to fall into sin. We can be tempted. We can fall. We can stray from God and go after our own way. I don't want that anymore. I hope that you don't. I hope that a person who is in Christ Jesus, if you have the Holy Spirit of God in you, will you are you are fighting against that old person.
The old way is trying to keep that thing buried so that you may live for Christ, walking in newness of life. That's not something that we do on our own. We do that by the power of God. But with the Holy Spirit within you, you have the power to resist those temptations and desire to live a holy life.
God has given to each one a body of its own. And some things that you have to deal with in your body, I don't have to deal with. But just the same, each person is going to be raised to an incorruptible body that will be your own.
Somebody else's glorified body is not going to be your glorified body. And you are going to receive a certain glory by God's will, because once again, God gives it a body just as he wished. So it's by God's will that you have the body that you have and that you will receive the glorified body that you will have.
And it will be according to the grace that God has given to you. As we read about in Romans 12, 3, Paul says, through the grace given to me, I say to each one among you not to think highly of himself more than he ought to think, but to have so such a sound thinking as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
We have a different measure of faith that has been allotted to each person by God. That's according to his will. And so, likewise, it is by his grace that we will be raised to the incorruptible body that we will receive.
Consider the words of Christ in Revelation 2, 17. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone, which no one knows, but he who receives it.
Now, I've had several questions about this verse as people have asked, so what's being talked about there? When we get to heaven, will we be given a new name? So the name my mom gave me is not going to be the same name that I get in heaven?
I don't know about that, honestly. I don't know if for sure we're still being called by the same name in heaven that we were being called on earth. But that's not really what this verse is talking about.
What it means, because you have the white stone, so it's purified. White is a reference to something pure in the book of Revelation. A stone or a rock is an indication of something permanent. So we have a permanent purity that we have received by God, a new name that is written on the stone, which no one knows, but the one who receives it.
This is talking about our immortality, that we're going to receive this perfection permanently in God's perfect kingdom. And how is it that you know it, but nobody else knows it? It's because it's going to be specific to you.
There is a way that only you know how God has saved you from your sin and showed his grace to you. Only you know that. Your story is not somebody else's story. Now in one sense, we all have the same story.
God had predestined us for adoption to himself as sons and daughters of God through Jesus Christ. We read about that in Ephesians chapter one. So we were all predestined. Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined in Romans 8, 29 and 30.
Okay. So yeah, in a certain sense, we all have that same story of salvation, but there is a way that God has shown his grace to you that only you know. Only you know that that affection, that kind of intimate personal relationship that you have with God that nobody else shares.
We're all supposed to have a relationship with God, but it's going to be different with every person. And so it is with everyone who is risen from the dead. You know how God's grace has been specifically applied to you, the sins that he is atoned for by the precious blood of Christ.
And so you have this body in this world, you're going to have your own body in the world that is to come. All flesh is not the same flesh. There's one flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another flesh of birds, another of fish.
We're occupying this world now. We're going to be occupying a different space when we rise again, when we are given these new bodies. Verse 40, there are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one and the glory of the earthly is another.
And that's just really, you know, I kind of jumped ahead on the application, but this verse is just further into that. We occupy earth now. We're going to occupy heaven one day. And there is a certain glory that we have in the earth now.
There's a certain glory that we will have in heaven forever. Now, some might say, well, yeah, but glory is not until we get to heaven, right? So here we're not glorified, but in heaven we are glorified.
Well, consider what's said in Romans 8, 30, which I already referenced. Those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
Not he's going to glorify, but we've already been glorified. And as Paul says with the Ephesians, we are already seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Now, the actualness of our location has not yet been realized.
We're still on earth. We're not in heaven. But there is such a guarantee of this inheritance that it's as if we have been placed there already. Glorification is the promise. If God has justified you, he is sanctifying you.
He is going to give you that resurrected body so that glory is already promised you. It's not a work that he's going to not finish. For as Paul says to the Philippians in Philippians 1, 6, I'm confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.
And what is that completion on the day of Christ? Our glorified bodies. So now we occupy the earthly spaces. One day we will occupy the heavenly spaces. Verse 41, there is one glory of the sun. There is another glory of the moon and another glory for the stars, for star differs from star in glory.
Well, now we're talking about heavenly things because those are things in the heavens. Yeah, we're talking about physical bodies in the heavens here, sun, moon, stars. But we're still talking about things that exist in a place where we cannot occupy.
You can't leave the earth and go up into, as Paul calls it in 2 Corinthians 12. You can't go into the second heaven. The third heaven is where God dwells. We can't even ascend to the place where the sun, moon, and stars are.
But as the sun, moon, and stars kind of exemplify that space up above that we cannot get to. So he's making a reference here to heavenly things, to the place where in fact God dwells. We can't go where the sun is.
It would kill us. Just like you cannot stand in the place of God. It would kill you. You cannot go stand on the moon. You would die there too. You wouldn't be able to breathe. But we are going to be given heavenly bodies.
We will be given incorruptible bodies. Notice you have this reference here to star differs from star in glory. So once again, as you will receive this resurrected body, it will be yours. There will be something unique and specific to that resurrected body that you have.
You're not sharing that body with anybody else. You don't just become a ghost form and inhabit this ethereal cloud, as I mentioned earlier, but you will have your own resurrected glorified body. Now as we kind of finish up the lesson here, let's talk about the implications of this.
Well, that means whatever you do in the body you have now is going to have an effect on your eternity. So it's not that you can do whatever you want in this body and it's not going to have an effect on your eternal body.
That's what the Gnostics believe. So you can do whatever you want to in this body now because whatever is physical will just die and that which is spiritual is eternal. So whatever you've done in your physical body is just going to be no more.
And then your spirit goes on and lives forever, according to the Gnostics. But scripture tells us that whatever we do in the body is going to have an effect on our eternity. Just like you go with the seed metaphor again.
If you crush that seed, is it going to produce anything? No. And so you cannot live in sin and rebellion against God in your body and expect that you're going to see eternity, not eternity in heaven with God anyway.
So we must live for the Lord in the present, knowing that we're going to receive the glory. We will live in that glorious eternal kingdom with God forever. So live now as citizens of that eternal kingdom.
Put off sin and any earthly, worldly desire. Instead desire the heavenly things, seated above where Christ is, as Paul talks about this in Colossians chapter 3. So therefore, if we have been raised with Christ, seated with him above, then we need to seek the things that are above.
We need to not be living in the sinful passions of the flesh, in sexual immorality, which is any kind of sexual lust or desire that is outside of marriage. God gave sex for marriage and that's where it should stay.
Our sexual appetites for things that are outside of marriage, that's sin, it's wickedness. And as Paul said earlier in 1 Corinthians 6, those who live in sexual immorality, even going after homosexuality, will not inherit the kingdom of God.
And consider some of the other sins that Paul had mentioned in 1 Corinthians 6 10. Don't be an idolater. Don't put something else in the place of God saying, I need this in order to be happy. Don't covet other people's things.
In Colossians chapter 3, Paul equates coveting with idolatry. Don't be greedy. Don't be a drunkard. Don't revile, have hatred toward others, holding on to grudges. Don't be a swindler. These will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Put off the old self with all of its corruptible practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed after the image of our Creator, which is being renewed in Christ. If we're going to put on the incorruptible, we must put off the corruptible even now.
Don't walk in sin. Walk in righteousness. And to them will belong the kingdom of God. So this next verse that we go on to tomorrow, so also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a corruptible body.
It is raised an incorruptible body. That's where we'll pick up tomorrow. So live even now in the righteousness that we have been called to, no longer in the passions of the flesh, but in the righteousness of Christ we've been clothed in.
Heavenly Father, convict our hearts and may we walk in the ways of your Son until the day of Christ comes. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, we pray in his name, amen.
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Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study, When We Understand the Text.