1st Corinthians 15: The Resurrection Debate

The Corinthian Controversy

WELCOME PRAYER SONG SILENCE

1st Corinthians 15. Part III (verses 12) December 9th 2018 Milk Okay, we left off last week with Paul having addressed some matters relative to Him and His walk as a witness of Jesus resurrection, ending with him saying that he was the last in his list to have seen him, and then he described himself as a Jew, and a persecutor of the church, and then as one called out, and then a mighty laborer in the harvest of souls – which we talked about.

We wrapped up at verse 11 with him saying, and whether it was me who preached or the other apostles I just mentioned, the Gospel was preached and you believed.

And at this point he steps into the situation that caused this part of the letter to be written – someone there in Corinth – “or someones” were teaching that there was no resurrection.

So he says at verse 12:

12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

Exploring the Rhetoric

Let’s jump back to verse 12. In verse 11 we ended with Paul saying that whether it was he or the other apostles preached, the gospel was received by them. Now he broaches the subject at hand, having firmly established that Jesus did resurrect and says:

12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

Now . . . I love that. It is the words of a great rhetoritician, a logitian – here is a truck load of evidence that Jesus rose from the grave as a resurrected being. NOW . . . if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? Here Paul makes a connection which says since Christ rose from the dead how can some of you suggest that there is no resurrection of the dead for us?

It’s interesting. Why would we believe that just because Christ resurrected from the dead that others would too? I mean, He deserved to rise from the dead, because he personally had no sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace. – that I can accept. But where on earth do we – and did they – get the impression that just because Christ rose from the grave that they and or we would too?

Paul is going to answer this for us – in part – through the argumentation to follow – but not fully. And when we think about it, it is one thing to believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, but it is really an all together different thing to believe that we will too as a result! Right?

I mean, sure – we get it in theory – we place our faith on Jesus, he rose from the dead as the first fruits, and then we as believers will too – because we are His by faith. But the interesting thing we cannot get around is that because of Christ and his resurrection – ALL will rise from the dead.

Think on that for a minute – especially if you are one who resists Jesus vicarious work being beneficial to all regardless if they believe on Him or not.

The Old Testament Precedent

Our belief in a resurrection for ourselves is extracted from scripture – lots of scripture. And the general overview comes straight out of the Tanakh or old Testament:

The ideas of resurrection start back in the Old Testament.

Scriptural Foundations

Daniel 12:2 "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.”

Right off the bat the precedent is set that resurrection of the dead will be for ALL – some to everlasting life others to everlasting contempt.

Daniel 12:3

Teachings on Resurrection

"Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”

David the Psalmist says in 17:15: As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake. Intimating that the grave is not the end of human existence. Even Job, one of the oldest books in the Bible, says:

Job 19:23-27:
"Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! "That with an iron stylus and lead They were engraved in the rock forever! "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.”

It is believed that the stand Job speaks to here is the actual stand Jesus could and would make as the victor over all things which was had once he rose from the grave.

Old Testament Beliefs

Again to Psalms 49:15, where David wrote: But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me. Selah. I like how that is written – from the power of sheol – a power possessed somehow by deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. and the grave over all who enter it – but the Messiah would redeem David from this power – and this Psalm is evidence of His faith in the fact.

Psalm 71:20, which is often seen as Messianic, reads: You who have shown me many troubles and distresses Will revive me again, And will bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

Isaiah wrote in 26:19: Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

Hosea 13:14:
Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death? O Death, where are your thorns? O Sheol, where is your sting? Compassion will be hidden from My sight.

It is without question that the Jews believed, over the course of their history, that there would be a resurrection.

New Testament Teachings

By the time we get to Jesus' day, several hundreds of years after the close of the Law and the prophets with Malachi, there were some of the House of Israel who rejected the resurrection entirely – they were the Sadducees.

Acts 23:8 reads: For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

This set the stage for a lot of teaching on Jesus' part relative to the resurrection. For instance, we read in Mark 12:24-27 how Jesus answered some Sadducees who tried to present him with an impossible situation where a woman is married by a series of brothers who were taking her to wife under Levirate law, and they wanted to know whose wife she would be in the resurrection. We read:

Jesus said to them, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? "For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven."

Not only did the Sadducees question the resurrection, but in Paul’s day, we read in 2 Timothy 2:18 that men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some.

Historical Context

So, the topic was topsy-turvy in that day and age, but from Jesus to Paul we discover a great deal of passages about the resurrection. It is not an easy task to understand them when or if we take them and assign them to ourselves in this age. It's not that there is not a resurrection that started then with them and continues on today, but these passages were specific to Jesus coming back and the resurrection beginning then.

So to make it simple, try and understand that all of them are describing what the resurrection will look like and be like to “them/then,” sometimes in reference to those who were dead, and sometimes in reference to those who were living.

This is really important because “them/then” were literally both raised from the actual grave – as Jesus was, and others were taken into the skies and changed in the twinkling of an eye if they were alive at His coming.

The Resurrection According to Scripture

Little tricky – it’s possible – but requires some thought and reference to context. So first, let’s read what the writers and speakers in scripture said to THEM/THEN about the resurrection that was going to revolve around the Lord, that age, and His coming which would bring or initiate the resurrection.

Jesus on Resurrection

In John 5:28-29 Jesus himself said:

"Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” I want to point out that the resurrection – how it is meted out here, from Jesus mouth, is based on the deeds done in the flesh. That is what Jesus says. The dead will come forth from the tombs – those who did good deeds to “a resurrection of life” and those who committed evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. So then, the resurrection was based on deeds done.

Admittedly, and to be fair, He is speaking of the resurrection that would commence at the end of that age – and for all of those who will participate in it when “an HOUR arrives” (which he and the apostles said was coming). Nevertheless, I do not think the rules of the resurrection have changed since and remain convinced that the resurrected bodies all people receive is based on their deeds. More on that later.

Paul's Teachings

We read in Acts 24:15 that Paul says:

“Having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.”

Paul also said, when speaking before Felix in Acts 24:15

“Having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked."

Luke cites Paul, who speaking to the resurrection with some Greeks, says in Acts 17:18

“And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,"–because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.”

Then twelve verses later we read Paul say:

Acts 17:30-32,

30 “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: 31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world (the land, the Roman Empire or even Israel – oikomenia, not kosmos) in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. 32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.

Again, speaking to “them/then,” Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:52 (our chapter today) and he speaks to those who were alive in that hour/day when Jesus would come and judge the oikomenia, saying:

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

Speaking to that day, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:16

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

Again, speaking to that Age and the wrapping up of it, Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-32

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. "All the nations (this is better translated all the tribes – as in twelve tribes) will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;

This act is described in Revelation 20 at the Great White Throne Judgment which wraps that age up and prepares us to enter into this current eternal spiritual age, which is described in Revelation 21.

Instances of Resurrection

We are ultimately going to get into what Paul writes about the actual resurrection later in this chapter – how he describes it – so I am not going to cover those passages, but let’s read some more instances where the resurrection is discussed.

In John 11:25-26 Jesus has a rather tricky conversation with Martha. The setting was Lazareth had died and was laying in the grave for over three days. This is how the conversation goes: 23 Jesus

Resurrection and Eternal Life

Saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? 27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

These passages have Jesus talking to Martha about two things – resurrection and eternal life.

Understanding Resurrection

First of all, Lazarus is in the grave – dead. And we read: 23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. We don’t know what Jesus meant in verse 23. But we know that Martha thought (and affirmed) that Lazarus would rise again in the resurrection AT THAT LAST DAY. Having admitted to a believe in “the resurrection at the last day,” Jesus clarifies how vital a role that He plays in TWO THINGS – listen to what he says BACK to Martha.

25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection (I am the reason there will be a resurrection at that last day – but then he adds, “and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: This is not speaking of the resurrection only – it is speaking of the Resurrection to eternal life, which comes by belief on Him. See, resurrection is a gift to all. And Martha admitted a believe in this resurrection. But Jesus points out to her plainly that He is not only the Resurrection but that He is also the LIFE that can continue on past the grave – for all who believed in Him.

Belief and Eternal Life

Then he says 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Of course he is not talking about physical death there – that if people believe on Him they will never die. That is not the case – we all die physical deaths – He is speaking of the second death here and He ties BELIEF into living eternal life “even though (some) were dead (physically). The fact that Jesus is speaking of eternal life through a resurrected body obtained by faith is seen in how she responds and says 27 Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

So, where resurrection is mentioned by Martha, and Jesus proclaims to her that he is the resurrection he adds, “and the life.” And he ties having eternal life (though someone was dead) to believing on Him. And Martha affirms this by admitting that she trusts that he was the Christ, the Son of God, which was prophesied that would come into the world.

In this exchange we see that eternal life is tied to the resurrected bodies we receive and that the resurrected bodies we receive are tied to eternal life. This is extremely important information to retain relative to resurrection. Yes, Jesus is the resurrection (for all, actually – as scripture makes plain) but He is also “the LIFE” and when people believe on him they will be Resurrected to eternal life. Those who do not will be resurrected to judgment.

Now, understand this clearly – I am committed to the following biblical ideas: That Jesus has paid for the sin of the world. That he did not simply die as a man for our sin, but he died AS MANKIND for our sin and God has reconciled the world to himself through His Son. No question. What this means is no person will stand before God and he will tally up their sin and hold them to task for it. This is made possible by the finished work of Christ Jesus – for all. This is the reconciliation. However, this does NOT erase the fact that by faith in His Son that some will receive a resurrection to LIFE – to eternal life, and that the resurrection that they receive will, in fact, allow or permit them to have life eternal. This then suggests that all who have NOT received Christ by FAITH will be resurrected – but to judgment. I see this as automatically placing them outside the New JerusalemThe spiritual reality of God's fulfilled presence with humanity—replacing Sheol after 70 A.D., abiding in bodies that will have a really difficult time abiding in the New Jerusalem where

Resurrection and Glorification

God and Christ dwell. It seems to me that the resurrected bodies received by all from God makes it possible where all people will exist in heaven—some in the light that is God, and others outside of the city walls, where He is not. The permanency of these bodies, and their ability to change or adapt remains a question.

References in Scripture

Moving back into scripture, we Jesus say to them in

John 6:39
"This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.

In Luke 14:12-14 we read something radical. He says to a man who invited him to eat with him. He says

“When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

This is one of the passages that suggest to me that the rewards meted out to people will come in and through the Resurrection.

Constrasting the idea that people like the Mormons say about the resurrection (meaning that it is bodily and we will look exactly like we do now only at our best, John the Beloved says in 1st John 3:2

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be we know that when He appears (meaning upon His promised return to them), we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

Paul's Teachings on Resurrection

Then we can wrap our tour through the scripture on resurrection by hearing what the Apostle Paul has to say about the resurrection. One point he brings up is that about glory. He speaks of glory in some in the resurrected here in chapter 15 but he touches on it in other places too.

For example he writes in Romans 8:17

“and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

We know since his glorification came at His resurrection that this is in all probability speaking of the glory those who are his will receive when they are resurrected.

Colossians 3:4
When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

This idea is echoed in Romans 6:5 where he says:

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

Philippians 3:21
who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

The Saints in Thessalonica were afraid that those who died would somehow miss out on the resurrection when Jesus returned to them and Paul addressed this in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14, saying:

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

Romans 6:8
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

Then getting right down to the point of our resurrection, Paul says in 1st Corinthians 6:14

Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.

And 2nd Corinthians 4:14 says
knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.

Then describing what will happen at his coming, Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:16

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

The Hope of Resurrection

Paul says, in more detail in 2 Corinthians 5:1-4:

For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not

The Teachings on Resurrection

be found naked.

Then he encourages the believers at Corinth more and says one verse later:

2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord– for we walk by faith, not by sight– we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

Insights from Hebrews and Matthew

Some interesting passages that add flavor to the idea of resurrection are Hebrews 11:35 where the writer says:

“Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; What this appears to mean is that these characters Paul speaks about were willing to receive torture here, rather than sell out, as a means to receive a better resurrection – again, speaking to the idea that some resurrections will have the one glory and others will have another.

Finally, we read of a them/then reference about resurrection that must be addressed. It’s a reference found in Matthew 27:52 where, speaking to the time after Jesus resurrection, we read:

The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;

I am going to go with the simplest reading of this and assume that they were raised bodily in the same manner Jesus was raised. It is believed that the earthquake that accompanied Jesus death on the cross opened the graves and then the bodies of those recently dead – who would have been recognizable to the people in the town – rose up after Jesus rose on the third day. We know that they did not rise up before as Jesus is the first fruits from the grave so we can make that clear.

However, about them rising bodily. This seems to clearly suggest that they did. So in that day we have two types of resurrections that scripture speaks to occurring: Bodily, as Jesus did, as these in Jerusalem did, and as perhaps some did when Jesus returned to them. We then have the changed in a twinkling of an eye resurrection, that Paul describes in 2nd Thessalonians, for those who were alive at his coming.

Understanding the Universal Resurrection

I am convinced that this latter resurrection is what happens with all who have died since the wrapping up of that age and that it will continue to happen as people die and enter into the heavenly realm. One thing about this and near death experience reports. Because people do not experience the resurrection in a twinkling of an eye in near death experience, but only experience the reconciliation that all have to heaven through the finished work of Christ, it seems to me that the weight of their glory or lack of it, would be experienced only by those who do not return.

In any case, Paul, having demonstrated the evidence for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, proceeds here to demonstrate that all the dead would rise and he ties this to the fact that the Lord Jesus had risen. Next week we will enter into his logic – which is superb – but let’s wrap our time up by allowing me to make some observations. The idea is, since Jesus resurrected, we will all also resurrect. The resurrections of the worlds inhabitants have nothing to do, in the universal sense, with faith – all will experience a rising from the grave and being fitted with another body.

Of course belief does play an important role in the body we will receive, but the point is all will be resurrected. Why? Why wasn’t there a resurrected prior to Jesus for the Old Testament folk? Because the grave had power over them rising up again. Why did the grave have such power? Because the WAGES of SIN IS DEATH.

No listen – the only way for all to rise up out of the graves hold on them is for the wages of sin to have been paid. For all. In other words, if there is a universal resurrection there is a universal payment for sin. To argue for a limited atonement for sin would be to simultaneously argue for a limited resurrection of the dead – that would make sense, right? But since we know all rise to a resurrected body, then we must admit that all have been released from the grave hold upon them, and the way that is possible is because the wages of sin have been paid – for all.

Granted, there are different resurrections awaiting

The Concept of Dying with Christ

For this reason I believe that 2nd Corinthians 5:14, when it says:

2nd Co 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all are dead.

Understand this passage – it is not saying that Christ died for all because all were dead in sin. It is saying that because Christ died ALL have died.

Died how?

Died with Christ. Meaning through His substitutionary death for our sin, which kept the world in the grave, we have all now paid for the sin in and through His death for all sin, and there is nothing to hold any of us in the grave any longer – even the most evil will rise because they died for their sin through the vicarious death of Jesus.

The Implications of Christ's Substitutionary Death

So, I tend to see all people no longer dead in sin (as the world was because of Adam) until Christ, but instead we are all dead with Him – as He PAID in full the sin of the world through His substitutionary death.

And again, that is why all enter into a heavenly realm at death since Christ – the sin-debt has been paid.

Heavenly Destinations Post-Resurrection

But with what glory they receive in and through their respective resurrection will, in fact, determine their heavenly destination – specifically whether they are able to abide in the New Jerusalem (where God and Christ dwell) or they are only able to reside outside of it.

We will continue forward next week – with verse 13!

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