1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Intro

The famous welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd Jones once said that a Christian’s emotional response to this passage is one of the great tests of the health of their walk with God.  

No pressure.  

But the reason he says it is because of the tendency for Christians, who should be utterly preoccupied by the life that is to come after death, to in fact live lives that look exactly the same as their neighbours who think there is nothing beyond death.  

It’s not that Christians shouldn’t care about…

It’s that they care too much for people who know that this world is a mere shadow compared to the new creation that is to come.  

I think there is a truth to that, but what’s fascinating is how our non-Christian culture is unknowingly chasing after the key doctrines of this passage.

Link to text  

Paul’s climax of this chapter is not merely evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, it is to assert, because he rose from the dead we can be confident that our bodies will be transformed after death into something glorious.

Look at [42-44]

And our culture finds itself in a strange place where we can deny [1-11] resurrection of Jesus, yet we long with all our might as a civilisation that [35-58] is true.

What is going to the gym – it is a desire for a transformed body.

What visiting the make-up sections of Boots – it is a desire for a transformed body.  

What is a diet? A visit to the doctors? An appointment with the physio? A snooze button on an alarm clock?  

They recognise our current bodies have a deficit; they are an implicit desire for a new body.  

Structure

So let’s talk about the promise of new bodies for believers. Such transformation requires our realisation of four things:

Point 1: Necessary death

Point 2: God’s track record  

Point 3: Jesus is the example  

Point 4: Begin now  

1.Necessary death

[36-38] Paul argues The necessity of death for transformation.

He takes the familiar image for any one in Greco-Roman culture of a seed being planted, a symbol of death and burial, and then sprouting life, breaking through the top soil, and in transformed wonder being a healthy grain, or bush, or tree.

In other words, Paul is claiming that the transformation that first requires death, is built into the design code of the world.  

So do not be surprised that we humans are to follow the same pattern.

But Paul writes this precisely because this talk of dead humans getting transformed bodies is a surprise to many of his listeners.  

For [35] the question he is answering, would have been the sneering sceptical mocking of the gnostics.  

These were a popular group at the time, that corrupted Christian communities by teaching that ‘bodies are the real problem in life – ugly, smelly, unreliable, meat puppets, that we should seek to get rid of as soon as we can!”

For the gnostics believed that the hope of life after death was to be a formless, bodiless, ethereal entity. A little like the modern sentiment that the dead become star dust. Or the Eastern religious idea that we become one with nature, our bodies are gone and our consciousness becomes part of the ebb and flow of the universe.  

Paul response to those ideas is put starkly [36] in classic Paul language:

It’s difficult to communicate his strength of feeling here in polite company. So in the words of Buddy the Elf, he shockingly calls them: “a cotton-headed ninny muggins!”

Apologies to those of you online who find such language too offensive for church.

But I’m trying to communicate Paul’s strength of teaching that when Christians die we are gifted real bodies in the new creation.  

2. God’s track record

[38-39] God’s track record of transformation, in that, Paul uses another set of examples from the coding of the world to say that such a belief in new bodies shouldn’t be a surprise.  

Echoing Genesis 1, which lists God’s good creation in different ‘kinds’ and categories, - i.e God has a track record of making variety of different things, with different bodies.

[40-41] moves the conversation towards the fact that God has a track record of making objects with different levels of splendour.

In that the God who made goldfish and sparrows, also is the trade mark creator of the sun whose splendour of  a body that can burn at [15m] degrees gives light and life to the universe.  

We were reminded by the astronauts of Artemis 2 that the body of the earth itself when viewed from the moon is  

And Paul’s point is, “Yes, if he can create bodies of this weight, glory, splendour in the creation we can see around us now – he can certainly has ‘the street cred’ to give you a body of incredible splendour when its your turn to be resurrected!”

Let me put it like this, if you study any of the sciences, or work in fields that allow you to gaze in detail at the marvel of the world and universe and it does not lead to a sense of anticipated excitement at what type of  new body God will gift to you, then you’re literally missing the best part of your job.

It’s like being invited to a Michelain star restaurant and refusing to eat because you’re studying the menu.

That’s why Paul with relish [42] says: So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;  

It is hard to get our heads around this future hope.  

Allow me to try and make this more concrete.  

How many of us struggle to look in the mirror?

How many of us have to gird ourselves before we gaze our reflection?

The older I get the more a full-length mirror becomes an object of torture.  

Paul seems to be suggesting that in the new creation you will catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror, and without any sense of delusion or inflated ego, you will feel a sense of marvel and wonder will roll over you like a wave, much like glimpsing a mountain top view for the first time or having your breath taken away by a sunset over an ocean.  

Can you ever imagine a future where you could see yourself like that?

No I suppose not, but don’t you long for it?

Now, don’t here me wrong. The splendour of our new bodies won’t be that we look like suns or stars in a celestial sense.  

Rather, the splendour of our new bodies will be physical minds and bodies that  reach their full potential.  

For as an Oak tree is fuller of splendour than a acorn – so shall we be.

Where the hindrances of our world of sin, illness and decay will be cast off like shackles and in every sense – physically, intellectually, creatively, emotionally we shall run.  

And in the words of the Christian Olympic Sprinter, from the film Chariots of Fire, “When we run we shall feel the pleasure of God”.

Joni Erecson-tada – who became a quadriplegic due to a diving accident in her childhood, puts it well when she says:

I still can hardly believe it. I, with shriveled, bent fingers, atrophied muscles, gnarled knees, and no feeling from the shoulders down, will one day have a new body, light, bright, and clothed in righteousness—powerful and dazzling. Can you imagine the hope this gives someone spinal-cord injured like me? Or someone who is cerebral palsied, brain-injured, or who has multiple sclerosis? Imagine the hope this gives someone who is manic-depressive. No other religion, no other philosophy promises new bodies, hearts, and minds. Only in the Gospel of Christ do hurting people find such incredible hope.

But perhaps my favourite attempt to capture this splendour of our new resurrection bodies, is CS Lewis:  

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship”

3. Jesus is the example

[45-49] Jesus is the example of transformation. And that’s significant because the idea of  transformation could fire our brains in all sorts of crazy directions.  

The fact that Jesus is our model actually makes this quite concrete.  

So let me give a quick correction to those of you who think you’ll be resurrected as George Clooney – you're wrong.

Let me explain why.

In this passage Paul re-echoes from [20-22] the idea that we were once in Adam and that leads to decay and death and now believers are in Christ which means that as Christ is transformed from death to eternal life in a new body, we too will be transformed from death to eternal life in a new body.  

[49] this is Paul’s point: And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

And what we see from Christ as our example of resurrected bodies, is that the Lord Jesus was recognised as having the same face as before his death.

His new body could do remarkable things, eg. Pass through locked doors, but there was no sense he returned to life with a body worthy of the front page of men’s health.  

In fact, some have been troubled by John 20 where the risen Jesus shows Thomas his nail wounds - “Aren’t I supposed to be re-made as perfect?”

But is it that we find the body of the risen Jesus, with the marks of the nails in his hands, and the place where the speak pierced his side, repulsive, morbidly grotesque, ruined these markers of Good Friday?

No.  

Actually, for us believers, who understand their significance, what they represent – those markers of his former body are now cast with a new beauty.  

Even if we allow Jesus’ nail wounds to be exceptional for the purposes of proving to Thomas he really is Jesus alive again,

It’s not a jump to say that there is something about our new bodies that casts a new beauty on perhaps things about ourselves we currently hate.  

Perhaps in the light of our resurrection our hair that we despise because it’s not like everyone elses will on our new bodies been seen for what God intended –  

Our nose that we would be tempted to adjust if we had the money, in the light of our new bodies, enables us to say with every suprised sincerity, “Ah, that’s what God intended it to be, and it’s wonderful.”

• Those who wish they were taller,

• Arms less gangly

• Legs less leggy

• Complexion clearer

• Eyes blue-er

When you next look in the mirror and despise and hate and criticise – be careful Christian, because you will one day meet the artist and stand in the true light he had always intended you to be seen in.  

In that context wouldn’t a nose job be awkward?

4. Begin now

[50-58] Begin your transformation now.

[51-52] spotlight the moment of Christ’s return and that great future moment where all believers will receive their new bodies.  

And that draws him to the great climax of the chapter, a quote from Hosea 13:14, a phrase that draws together the whole chapter:

But I want us to land on [58] these are Paul’s specific applications.  

The instruction to ‘stand firm,’ applies to us as we swim in a social media world flooded by daily waves of life hacks, manifesting trends –  

But the last instruction is where I want to land:

Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

The promises of this passage:  

• The hope of the grieving - of life after death

• The hope of the sick and broken - new bodies

• The hope of the millions whose homes are burnt rubble- a new creation

Sounds like it would take an enormous effort to qualify for such a future.  

• If we were Muslims the equivalent future hope requires – near perfect performance of the Pillars of Islam.

• If we were Buddhists – our expectations should be lifetimes of refinement through re-incarnation.

• If Catholics – how many centuries of the fires of purgatory would we need to first endure?

Even then their future hope doesn’t match the future hope of the Bible.  

So as we draw to the end of this letter, what would the dysfunctional Corinthian church need to do. Surely of all Christians they are back of the queue?  

The twist of the passage is that [57] it’s all a gift, the victory is ‘given’, ‘gifted’ to us. ‘Grace’ an undeserved gift for an undeserving people. Faith enough to say Jesus is both alive and your king!

That is the outrageous, scandalous generosity of the Gospel.  

Whilst the atheist despairs, and the religious devote themselves to the effort of trying to qualify for a ticket. The Christian in contrast is told to  “now ‘pack’” – for your future is certain.

Actually, it would be better to say, “Now, ‘plant’” - what do I mean?

Tolkien - Niggle

The ‘work of the Lord’ and the ‘labour in the Lord’ means:

Like a gardener in winter who anticipates the coming Summer – plant in your life and community good things now, that will grow to their full potential in the new creation.  

In other words, what do you do right now, that is the fruit of trusting in Jesus, that you can easily feel - “What’s the point!”?

Paul’s application: Because there is a continuity between this world and the world to come, and that which is an acorn in this world will become a tree in the next -  
“Keep going!”.

• Those of you who keep exercising the gift of hospitality to others but no one ever asks you? - Keep going!

• Those of you who welcome thousand people at church, yet you feel unseen yourself? - Keep going!

• Those who take the risk to invite your friends to church or Alpha and they always say ‘no’? - Keep going!

• Those who pour yourself out behind the scenes of church life, and no one says thanks, and the elders just change stuff anyway? - Keep going!

• Those who planting in their life: sexual purity, gratefulness, resilience, healthy prayer and devotional life, faithfulness in marriage, boundaries at work – Keep going!

I can’t pretend to know what the trees of those seeds will look like in the new creation –

but the one who rose from dead,  

and gifts you a better future than the even the one you have spent all your life longing for – says  - “It’s worth it.”  

Your labour now is not in vain!

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