The Resurrection of the Body

Let’s begin by reciting the Apostles Creed together. This morning we come to the last clause of the Apostles Creed. The clause simply states that we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, but that statement isn’t simple to unpack. Wrapped up in that statement is the future salvation of the world and the reality of heaven and hell. So, over the next few weeks we are going to consider the future work of God in our final salvation. Not only is the Apostles Creed formed around the Trinity, but it is also formed around the redemptive work of God in the past, present, and future. As we confess our belief in God the Father, who created the world, and in Jesus Christ, who suffered, died, and rose again, we are confessing faith in God’s work in the past. When we confess our belief in the Holy Spirit, the church, and our forgiveness, we are confessing faith in God’s present work of salvation. And, when we confess belief in the resurrection of the body and eternal life with God, we are confessing faith that God will do a future work of salvation.

That future work could be considered the completion of our salvation. I emphasize this because modern Christians often make the mistake of thinking of our salvation as finished when we make a profession of faith. In fact, we often refer to that moment as the moment that we “got saved”. But salvation is not any one moment in time. A better way to think of our salvation is in the sense that the creed does – past, present, and future. Before the world ever began, God the Father had a purpose of salvation – he purposed to save you through his son. Rev 13:8 refers to Jesus as the “lamb slain before the foundation of the world.” If you are saved today, it is because God purposed from all of eternity past to save you. But, God also purposed to do that in time and space. So, as Paul says in Rom. 5:6, “At the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” And, at some point in your own life, God applied that salvation by calling you through his Spirit to trust in Jesus Christ. At the moment that you placed your faith in Christ, God marked you with the seal of his Holy Spirit, forgave all of your sins, and made you a part of his kingdom. But, you might have noticed that, even though your heart and desires were changed, not much changed about your body or even your day-to-day living. In fact, things might have even gotten worse since you placed your faith in Jesus. I know for me, they have. I trusted in Jesus when I was 8 years old. I’m 43 now, and this body has only gotten older and gained more aches and pains. I also have it on good authority, from some of you, that it only gets worse from here! So, how is it that Jesus can promise that he will make all things new, and yet my body continues to age and even die? How is it that I can struggle under a sinful world, with injustice and persecution and disease, when Jesus has promised to bring about an eternal kingdom where righteousness and goodness will reign? Well, it’s because God has not yet finished his great work of salvation. There is still one final act left in the redemption of the world: the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

Today, let’s consider the first part of that final act in the resurrection of the body. To see that, let’s read 1 Cor. 15:35-49 together. There are two points I want you to see from this passage: The False Beliefs about Salvation, and the Final State of Man.

First, consider the false beliefs about salvation. Back when I preached on the part of the creed that covers Jesus’ resurrection, we studied the first part of 1 Cor. 15. If you’ll remember from that sermon, I explained that the Corinthian church was wrestling with a false belief that was popular in their day – a belief called Gnosticism. This belief holds that the material world is evil, and the spiritual realm is good. So, many in the Corinthian church were denying that there would even be a final resurrection. After all, why on earth would God want to resurrect this old, sinful body. Many still hold this view today. Understand, your final hope of salvation isn’t in some disembodied spirit world in the realm of heaven, but a real, redeemed, physical body in a new earth. Mankind was not made for Heaven; we were made to fill the earth and bring the glory of God to his good creation. The resurrection of the body is God’s final redemption of the world that sin corrupted.

So, in our passage, Paul addresses this false belief by bringing up a question some Corinthians were asking: “How are the dead raised and what will the body be like?”  You can sense the skepticism in this question. Some might wonder, “So, is this going to be like a scene from ‘The Walking Dead’, with Zombies roaming the new earth?” Others might scoff, thinking there is no way that God could take the dust from some long dead body and do anything with it. To answer this skepticism, Paul gives a helpful analogy. He explains, in verse 36, “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.” This is one of the most helpful analogies in all of Scripture. Just imagine that I have in my hand a kernel of corn. In that kernel is every DNA sequence that will ever be needed to make a corn plant and its future generations. But, when I plant that corn kernel in the ground, I don’t expect to go back and dig it up and find it to be alive and plump, nor do I expect to come back and find a single, giant corn kernel. If I did, farming wouldn’t be much of a business! Rather, when I plant that kernel, what comes up in its place is, by appearance, nothing like what I planted. What I planted was yellow. What grows is green. What I planted was small. What grows is large. What I planted was a single fruit. What grows is 1200 times more. Paul explains, so it is with the body. What goes into the ground is a body corrupted by sin. What comes out is a body that is redeemed.  What is planted is a body harangued by disease. What blossoms is made perfect. What is buried is a body that is entrapped by death. What rises is eternal, never to die again.

This brings me to the second point from v. 42-49: the final state of man. In these verses, Paul makes five comparisons that help us to understand what the resurrected body will be like. These comparisons contrast the current state of our bodies with the future of our resurrection. First, he says that the current body is perishable, but the resurrected body will be imperishable. The word “perishable” means “influenced by decay.” As Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death. The sin of Adam and our own sin brings the judgment of death. But, because of Jesus’s death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, our new bodies will be made imperishable – impervious to decay.

Second, our bodies are “dishonorable.” This word means “shameful.” We don’t just carry with us the judgment of sin as our bodies decay and die, but we carry too the shame of sin. Our bodies have been affected by sin to the point that even our hormones, our desires, our natural proclivities can be shameful. This is why it is no excuse to say, “Well, I was born this way so this desire that the Bible condemns must really be OK.” So, our body is buried in the shame of sin, but when it is raised it will be glorified, meaning that it will no longer be affected by the shame of sin. Those sinful desires and impulses will be eliminated entirely.

Third, our bodies are weak. By this, Paul means that our bodies are susceptible to disease and malady. Now, this weakness is not a direct effect of sin, but rather a consequence of it. When God created Adam and Eve, they were not superhumans who then changed in some calamitous way into the weak beings we now are. No, God made them to be dependent on him. He made them out of dust. They needed the trees of the garden for food. They needed clothing for their naked bodies. They needed the tree of life to sustain them for eternity. God’s intention was that they would depend on him to give them eternal life as they walked with him in the Garden. But, they chose instead to rebel and seek the way of Satan. When God cast them out of the garden, he banished them from the tree of life and the strength that only he could give. So, they were left weak and vulnerable to life in the wilderness. But, when the resurrection comes, we will be raised in miraculous power, never to face disease and malady again.

Fourth, our bodies are natural. Again, this isn’t, in and of itself, a bad thing. God made us to be “natural” or “physical”. But, when cast away from the presence of God, we live a purely physical existence without the blessings of God. In other words, we do not have the ability, in this purely physical existence, to see the Spiritual realm that surrounds us. We cannot live on that plane. This is why, in the OT, God revealed himself through visions and dreams. It is why God must give us spiritual eyes to see the truth the Gospel, and why we need the Holy Spirit to understand God’s word and walk in his ways. So, in the resurrection, we will be raised with spiritual bodies. This is not to say that our new bodies will not have a physical component, but they will made spiritual to dwell with God. Paul will later describe this, in verse 54, as a “putting on”, which is the idea of putting on a robe. So, he says that the mortal will put on the robe of immortality.

Finally, our bodies are of Adam. We are all descendants of Adam, and so we inherit his judgment, shame, frailty, and separation. But, Paul says that those who are in Christ will bear the image of Christ. The supreme example of what our resurrected bodies will be is the resurrected Jesus Christ. In his resurrection, Jesus was still physical – he still had the wounds of his crucifixion, his disciples could touch him, and he ate with them on the shore of Galilee. But, he was more than physical, too – so he could appear to his disciples behind a locked door, or disappear from their presence as quickly as he’d arrived. And, while he bore the marks of his death, he was often unrecognizable – something about him was different. Lastly, his resurrected body was such that he could ascend to heaven to dwell at the right hand of the Father.

As Christ is, so we will be. This is the hope of our final salvation. It is not the hope of some bodiless existence in the clouds, but of an incorruptible, glorified, powerful, spirit-filled body that will dwell with God in the new heavens and new earth. May we live expectantly for that day, waiting for our final redemption and walking in faithfulness to Christ.