1 Corinthians 15:29-58

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
Series: 1 Corinthians (Acts)

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Rusty's Notes

RESURRECTION SUPPORTED BY CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
1 CORINTHIANS 15
29 Otherwise what will they do who are being baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are people baptized for them?

• Baptism of believers has always been debated as essential or non-essential for salvation… or for future resurrection of the body.
• In the Corinth church there is record of them vicariously baptizing living believers for the sake of the believers who had already died without being baptized. Solely for the purpose of their physical bodies to be resurrected upon Christ’s return.
• A proxy baptism.
• 1) Salvation is a personal matter that each must decide for himself.
• 2) Nobody needs to be baptized to be saved.

30 Why are we in danger every hour? 31 I face death every day, as surely as I may boast about you, brothers and sisters, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• “I die daily” – Not talking about “dying to self” as Paul mentions in Romans 6… but physical dangers.

32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus as a mere man, what good did that do me? If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

• Actually a quote from Isaiah 22:13 – But Isaiah was quoting it as a popular philosophy at the time Israel was about to be invaded by the Babylonians.
• If the resurrection is not true, then we can forget about the future and live as we please!
• But the resurrection is true!
• Jesus is coming again!
• Even if we die before He comes, we shall be raised at His coming and stand before Him in a glorified body.[1]
• Paul is simply arguing ad hoc from things that actually are happening and making the point that the reason people participate in them and tolerate them and accept them, rightly or wrongly, is because there is a hope of life to come.[2]

33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”

• Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t make it right.
• Think of all the things that are acceptable today that weren’t acceptable when you were a child.
• It happens… it creeps in…
• Mob mentality… everyone else is doing it.

34 Come to your senses, and stop sinning; for some people are ignorant about God. I say this to your shame.

• Quit living your life by the way of the world.
• Quit getting in worldly arguments.
• I’m going to live in a world that is facing a pandemic.
• I’m going to live in a political world that finds itself greatly divided.
• But that doesn’t mean that has to become my world… especially my discussion.
• My opinion is not going to change the world.
• My participation in protests, discussions, rallies, social network feeds is not going to change the world.
• But my servanthood, my love for God, my love for others… may greatly impact those around me.
• In those days, public shame was a huge deterrent.

 
THE NATURE OF THE RESURRECTION BODY
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? What kind of body will they have when they come?”

• This is a typical question even for today.
• Everyone wants to know what does the future hold?
• What is going to happen? What does it look like?

36 You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for what you sow—you are not sowing the body that will be, but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain.

• Paul can’t even answer their questions.
• We don’t know!
• Have you ever planted an unknown seed to see what it becomes?

38 But God gives it a body as he wants, and to each of the seeds its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same flesh; there is one flesh for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is different from that of the earthly ones. 41 There is a splendor of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; in fact, one star differs from another star in splendor.

• Paul goes on a tangent about all the different subjects that we have determined to have/be “bodies”.
• Humans (gender, size, ethnicity, etc)
• Animals (2 legged – multi-legged, winged, water)
• Heavenly bodies (moon/stars, sun, galaxies)
• Who has any idea what a “resurrected body” likes like except God?
• With Jesus, we assume we saw a transitional body.
• The disciples didn’t even recognize Him, yet he still had scars in His hands.
• Assuming there won’t be scars in resurrected bodies in heaven.
• His point is simply to say, “Think of the extraordinary, rich diversity of things God has created that we as people call ‘bodies,’ we think of as having embodied form—and if God is that creative, surely He knows how to create resurrection bodies.”[3]

42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; 43 sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; 44 sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body.

• There will be nothing wicked, nothing flawed, nothing imperfect.[4]
• Our baptism represents this transition.
• We recognized people (as non-believers) for the things they did.
• They were born with a dead spirit because they came from the seed of Adam.
• They are born dead.
• But because of their belief in Jesus… they are made a new creation.
• We no longer view them as a physical being that does things… but as a spiritual being who can’t be made any more perfect than they already are.
• So what we do does not define us.
• Who we are impacts what we do.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; (Genesis 2:7) the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual.

• First you are physically born… with a spirit… that is dead… inherited from Adam.
• Then Jesus came along so that our Spirit could have life.

47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 Like the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust;

• Born dead, separated from God.

like the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.

• Made alive with the Spirit inside.

49 And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

• We still have these physical bodies but we are recognized by our living Spirit.
• The world is only going to know we are different because we are more interested in things above than the things of this world.
• How am I any different if all I talk about is the things of this world?
• If it’s real, it ought to change the way we think about everything in this life, putting no ultimate allegiance in anything that lasts only for this life.[5]

 
VICTORIOUS RESURRECTION
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Listen, I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, (a church nursery posted that on their door) 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

• But flesh and blood (basar ve-dam in the Hebrew) was a standard Jewish idiom for finite fallen humanity.
• There are literally hundreds of parables in the writings of the rabbis in the early centuries of the common era that begin, “There was a king of flesh and blood.”
• And the moment you read that, you know that what follows is going to be a comparison, usually from the lesser to the greater, of something about the nature of human kings with something that is true all the more about God as King.
• “Flesh and blood” does not mean “embodied” then here, it means finite fallen humanity cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
• The perishable cannot inherit the kingdom of God, that which is imperishable. So Paul is pursuing his same line of argumentation.[6]

53 For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality. 54 When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place:
Death has been swallowed up in victory. (Isaiah 25:8)
55 Where, death, is your victory?
Where, death, is your sting? (Hosea 13:14)

• The Church of Corinth was consumed with the idea of death – terrified.
• Life span was short and many illnesses.
• Today we live in a pandemic and we have death statistics all around us.
• There is anxiety and depression consuming us because of the thought of death.

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

• It is because of our sin that death entered into this world.
• And what gives sin its power is the law.
• The law came along so sin would increase (Romans 5:20)
• This is the corruptible
• The incorruptible is that God gives you freedom.
• Live your life by the Spirit and there is no law.

57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

• Throughout the New Testament, and particularly throughout Paul, eschatological teaching—teaching about the end times and the last days in the eternal state—is never given simply to satisfy someone’s curiosity.
• It appears in contexts of encouragement, of encouraging the beleaguered, of encouraging the persecuted, of telling folks “All that makes life hard now is worthwhile.”
• Today’s bumper sticker “Life is hard, and then you die,” if by that one means “and there is nothing more after that,” is absolutely false from Paul’s perspective.
• The only way to redeem that bumper sticker is to make the slogan longer: “Life is short, life is hard, and then you die, and then it gets fantastic if you’re a follower of Jesus.”

 
In everything you hold dear and in everything that is trivial, ask yourself “What does it mean to make this choice in light of the fact that I am living forever?”[7]

[1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 618–619). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[2] Blomberg, C. L. (2017). NT334 Book Study: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[3] Blomberg, C. L. (2017). NT334 Book Study: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[4] Blomberg, C. L. (2017). NT334 Book Study: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[5] Blomberg, C. L. (2017). NT334 Book Study: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[6] Blomberg, C. L. (2017). NT334 Book Study: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[7] Blomberg, C. L. (2017). NT334 Book Study: Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.