Sermon Discussion Questions:
1. Read through 1 Cor 15:35-58. What questions do you have?
2. How does this passage humble you? Sown in weakness.
3. How does this passage give you hope? Raised in power.
4. How does Paul's teaching in chapter fifteen produce vs. 58?
5. What in your life makes you feel most tempted to think that your labor is in vain?
The German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a sermon once asked: “Why are we so afraid when we think about death?”
With typical levity, Woody Allen quips: “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Allen is using humor as a way of ricocheting the force of Bonhoeffer’s question.
Why are we so afraid when we think about death?
What a question. Why are we? Bonhoeffer goes on to, audaciously, claim: “Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible…Death is not bitter…Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle.”
To be honest, when I first read that my immediate thought was: Easy for you to say, pal; you obviously haven’t died yet! Anyone who has sat at the bedside of one who is dying knows that death is anything but mild, sweet, or gentle. It does seem dreadful, terrible, and bitter. The body slowly winds down like a tired clock and one by one the jewels of strength and mind are pried from the crown: ragged breathing, watery eyes, frail arms. Perhaps Allen was right: death isn’t what we fear but dying. Maybe Bonhoeffer, who was only 27 when he wrote those words, was simply too young to know what he was talking about.
But, of course, Bonhoeffer ministered under the shadow of Adolf Hitler. As a minister, he had to attend to the sick and dying. His brother, Walter, died fighting in WWI. Bonhoeffer wasn’t naïve about the reality of death. Later, Bonhoeffer admits: “Death is hell and night and cold…if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.” Death, left alone, is an ugly thing, a brutal thing. But with faith? Then the pitiless decay of death becomes the fruitful compost of new life; the darker it is, the richer the soil.
He explains “…[Death] beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace. How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?”
If we have ears to hear, this is the hope that Paul offers us at the close of the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians. We will be looking at verses 35-58, but let’s just read verses 50-58 now.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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 imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
1 Cor 15:50-58
Chapter fifteen of 1 Corinthians is enormous. It is the longest chapter in the whole letter by far. There are entire books that Paul has written that are shorter than this one chapter. And the central issue that Paul keeps stressing is the issue of the resurrection. Some in Corinth, while believing that Jesus rose, denied that other people would be resurrected from the dead. So, Paul explains over and over again why this isn’t so, and anticipating reasons for why the Corinthians may deny this central doctrine. One of those objections is given to us in verse 35: “But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (1 Cor 15:35). This is a fairly straightforward objection. When you die, your body goes into disrepair. You decompose till you are a part of the dirt you are buried in. So, naturally, the skeptics are wondering: How is God going to bring your body back? It is wormfood!
So, Paul takes a surprising amount of space to explain the weakness of our current bodies, the glory of our bodies at the day of resurrection, and what that knowledge should produce in us now while we live.
Sown in Weakness
Paul uses two images to convey the weakness of our natural body.
First, he compares the body with a seed: “You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain,” (1 Cor 15:36-37). Paul relies greatly on gardening metaphors throughout this section, picturing the body like a seed—and for a seed to be planted, it must first be plucked—it must die. Perhaps Paul is relying on Jesus’ own use of this metaphor as He describes His own death: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,” (John 12:24). Death is not defeat, but the means by which Jesus is glorified, by which He bears much fruit. The flower must be crushed to make the perfume, the rock split to reveal the gem.
“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body,” (1 Cor 15:42-44).
We will return to these verses on our next point, but for a moment consider the final state of our natural body. What is our body like as it approaches the grave? It is perishable, dishonorable, weak. I don’t think Paul is intending any disrespect to anyone, he is just trying to explain with stark honesty about the demise of our natural bodies. You grow from youth into the zenith of strength, and then diminish. You forget where you left your keys. Your energy flags. Your eyes dim. When I was a child, my mother worked as nurse at a senior care home that specialized in dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. I would often come along with her and play a game with the residents where they would sit in a circle together swatting a balloon with their papery hands. My job was to sit in the center and help hit the balloon back to them because they would so often only make the balloon travel a few feet. I eventually stopped going with my mom, because I felt afraid to face the thought: one day, I will struggle to hit a balloon. The body is sown in weakness.
Second, Paul compares our body to dust by looking at Adam.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:47-49)
When God first creates Adam, He forms him out of the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7). In fact, Adam’s very name (אָדָם) comes from the word for the ground the dust is taken from: Adamah (אֲדָמָה). Which is a humbling image. There is nothing particularly noble about a pile of dirt. Obviously, it is God’s divine breath that makes Adam a living being. This is the contrast Paul wants to make between Adam and Christ, “Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit,” (1 Cor 15:45). Christ, the last Adam, is unlike the first: He doesn’t merely receive life, He is the One who gives life. Adam, on the other hand, is entirely dependent on God’s power to bring and sustain life: he becomes a living being. But, again, this strikes a note of humility…we are dependent on another for our life, we are only dust. But the moniker of “a man of dust” doesn’t only evoke the creation of Adam, but also the curse of Adam:
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
- Gen 3:17-19
Human life now is going to be the slow decrepitude of our bodies returning to the dust from which it came. Later, the rest of the Bible uses our constitution of dust to refer in total to our fragility, limitations, and imperfections as humans (Ps 103:14). So, being a “man of dust” not only refers to our death, but to the frustration and toil of life. You forget what you learned; your emotions come and go, sometimes helpful, sometimes not; you try to build something with your life, but it always feels like you are rushing around trying to stop it from falling apart; you seem to push against an energy that pushes against you in all your endeavors. What is that? Cursed is the ground because of you. Life does not drop fruit into your hand. Now, you sweat and scrape the dust…but you find thorns and thistles. Your bread only comes at the price of pain, exertion, exhaustion. Sin twists itself around our entire embodied existence, not only at the grave. Death is the final stroke of a battle that has been waged against us from day one; death is where we finally relent and collapse back into the dust from which we were taken. Do you ever wonder why we refer to those who die as “resting”? John explains: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord…that they may rest from their labors” (Rev 14:13). Death is rest, because life is labor.
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul compares the human body to a tent: canvas stretched over sticks—not a metaphor that conveys much permanence. We are sown in weakness, but we will be raised in power: “For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,” (2 Cor 5:2).
Raised in Power
Return to Paul’s image of a seed, Paul explains: “And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 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,” (1 Cor 15:37-41)
Return to the image of an acorn. An acorn is plucked from a tree—it dies. It is then planted in the ground—it is buried. But then…in time, it grows into the “body” that God has given it: an oak tree. Paul brings up these various kinds of bodies: humans, animals, birds, fish, and celestial objects just to show that God, like in Genesis one, is free to make many kinds of things, different bodies. Each body has its own unique splendor, glory, to it. Which leads to the heart of Paul’s argument:
“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” (1 Cor 15:42-44)
If the Corinthians are skeptical about the resurrection of the body because they have seen the corruption of a corpse, then Paul reminds them that—like a seed—what comes out of the ground (what is raised) is not the same as what goes into it. The resurrection body is: imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual.
Sometimes, people can be confused by Paul’s designation of “spiritual” to describe the body, as if “spiritual” means “non-material,” like a ghost. Especially when Paul later explains that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” (1 Cor 15:50). This does not mean that our resurrection body will be a phantom. “Flesh and blood” is an idiom used in the Bible to describe what is of the earth, life here and now as we know it, like when Jesus tells Peter: “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven,” (Matt 16:17; cf. Heb 2:14). Our resurrection body is not a natural body, that we inherit from Adam; it is a heavenly body that we inherit from Christ. “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven,” (1 Cor 15:49).
So, what will the resurrection body be like? It will be like Christ’s. Christ’s body after He rose from the dead was like and unlike our body. He could be touched (John 20:27) and embraced (John 20:17); He ate food (Luke 24:42-43), and comforted His troubled disciples: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have,” (Luke 24:39).
This means that our glorified, resurrected bodies will be material—flesh and bones—bodies, just like Christ’s. But let’s extend that thought a little further. Why do things fall apart now? Why does our body slowly wind down? Why do we forget? Why do we get a knot of anxiety in our chest? It does so because it is under the curse. Think of an aperture on a camera. An aperture is an opening that you fix a lens to to take in light to produce an image. If the aperture is closed, no light comes in, no image. If the lens is broken or dirty or out of focus, the image is distorted. Consider the aperture of the camera as your experience, and the lens as your perspective or worldview. Right now our bodily apertures—from our sense experiences, to our mind, to our emotions, to our nervous system, to our digestion, to our physical strength, and so one and so forth—all of it is partially opened. Further, our lens—our perspective on who God is and what this world is, our doctrine, our theology—even the brightest and sharpest of us, still only have a dim view of what Reality truly is. The healthiest, godliest, and wisest among us, can only produce the crudest of pictures of what Ultimate Reality truly is. The best meals, the most satisfying naps, the most beautiful music…all of it is coming to us through a kinked hose, a distortion mirror. The most sublime of human experiences now, at the day of our resurrection, will appear to us a rushed and sloppy drawing of a child in comparison with the exquisite detail and sharpness of the picture before us. Never again will you pull back from a game of basketball because you have a bad knee. Never again you will experience a panic attack or the grey fog of depression. Never again you will be pained by your own shortcomings. Remember the analogy of the seed: what we are now, what we experience now, is miniscule compared with what is to come. And, with our minds not throttled by the debilitating effects of sin, we will finally pursue math and science, architecture and art, literature and philosophy, no longer with one hand tied behind our back.
What innovations will we discover?
What technology will we create?
What novels will we write?
What music will we compose?
And, not only will our faculties be cleansed and remade so that we can experience more than ever before, not only will we finally have perfect perspective and clean lenses—but at the resurrection, God will then remake the entire world! The rivers and Redwoods and Rocky Mountains will no longer be subjected to futility! All thorns and thistles removed. Steaks and sonnets and sunsets and cities will be new! In other words, not only will the camera be renewed—the very landscape itself shall be transformed like gold.
We will bound through God’s renewed universe like kings and queens, scooping pleasure to ourselves with both arms.
Abounding in the Work of the Lord
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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 imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
(1 Cor 15:51-55)
When does all this happen? ‘At the last trumpet.’ That is, when Christ returns. Christ shall appear visibly, descending from the sky, and at the sound of a loud trumpet blast, and “in a moment, in the twinkling of the eye” we shall all be changed. Those of us who are still alive when this happens shall be translated immediately into a glorified state with renewed bodies. Those who have already died, whose souls dwell in heaven with Christ, shall be reunited with their bodies, but made new with the resurrection. Then, our great and final enemy—Death—shall be utterly destroyed (cf. Rev 20:14).
But here is the parting application I want to think about: Paul’s long, winding argument concludes with this: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain,” (1 Cor 15:58). I want to know why Paul ends his argument there. When you read through all of chapter fifteen it is not immediately clear—at least not to me—that what Paul is teaching should produce the kind of dogged determination he describes: be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Well, what are they? To be steadfast means that you hang on, that you stay committed, that you keep your word, your faithful, even when it is hard. Which dovetails naturally with immovable. When pressure is applied, when intimidation comes, you plant your feet and stand there. But there is a way you could be steadfast and immovable, but just be a curmudgeon. You could be fueled by bitterness and a resistance to change. So, Paul exhorts the church to be always abounding in the work of the Lord. We do not only hunker down, but we go out and love and serve and evangelize our neighbors. We make disciples of the nations, we suffer, we pray, we serve.
But Paul then concludes with this comfort: “know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Why does Paul say that? Well, obviously, because if you attempt to be steadfast, immovable, and abounding in the work of the Lord…there will be times where you feel like your labor is pointless. You will attempt some great thing for God, and wind up with mediocre or depressing results. You will stretch yourself and push yourself and eventually you’ll say: Why I am doing all of this? Look at how sparse the fruit is. Why am I trying so hard? And Paul says: don’t despair! You may think your work is pointless, but in the Lord, it isn’t! It is doing something! Stand fast! Don’t move! Keep working! This is the very energy that animates Paul when he says that: “by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me,” (1 Cor 15:10).
I certainly want those things in my life! And Paul assumes that what he has just given you in chapter fifteen is a foundation for that kind of life, because he opened verse 58 with Therefore. So, what has he given you?
- Christ is King. “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet,” (1 Cor 15:25)
At His resurrection, Jesus Christ was installed as the King over this world—and He sees your labors and He is using your work to further His kingdom. You may lack the perspective He has; but do not look to what is seen, but trust the God you cannot see can see what you cannot. He is ruling and reigning over the cosmos and your small acts of faithfulness that are totally ignored by others around you; that are mocked by the world; that are downplayed or even denied by your own doubt—He sees. And He is using you. And every enemy that opposes you; the very forces of Hell itself that seem so formidable, are at this very moment crumbling under the weight of the throne of God, your God. And very soon, we shall hear that trumpet sound and see His throne, no longer with the eyes of faith, but by simple sight. - Your sins are forgiven. “Christ died for our sins,” (1 Cor 15:3)
There are few things that sap your vitality and vigor in the Christian life than the gnawing guilt of sin. Satan whispers in our ear: who do you think you are to try to do anything for God? How many times have you fallen? How many times have you confessed this sin? What do you do when you hear that voice? You strike back: You say I am a sinner unworthy of being used by Christ. True! Yet, Christ died that unworthy sinners like me may be forgiven and cleansed, so that even my half-hearted, stuttering attempts at good works may be pleasing in His sight.
What though the vile accuser roar
Of sins that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more;
My God, He knoweth none - Death is defeated. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Cor 15:56-57)
Because of the victory of Jesus Christ over your sin, death, and Hell, you now will live forever with Him in glory. Therefore, your life doesn’t end in with death, but extends further than you can imagine. And what you do here in this short life will result in eternal joy, heavenly rewards. Don’t puppy guard the comforts of your life like this is your one shot at ease and refreshment. This life is but a mist; the resurrection is the solid joys you are searching for. Live for that!
“Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?”
