We are continuing to walk through Paul’s very profound chapter that deals with the doctrine of the resurrection. Not only Christ’s resurrection, which he ably defends in the first 11 verses, but he also deals with what happens when someone denies ANY resurrection at all.
We saw last week that denial of the resurrection leads to complete hopelessness. If there is nothing after death, then we are most of all to be pitied. However, Christ has been raised, and believers can now have hope, because there will come and end, and the last enemy, death, will be finally defeated.
Tonight we will continue Paul’s logic to see how denying the resurrection leads to a life of not only hopelessness, but also senselessness. When you deny the resurrection, then nothing makes sense.
Let’s read our text, beginning in verse 29 and going through verse 49:
29 Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? 30 Why are we in danger every hour? 31 I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! 32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” 33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” 34 Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 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. 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.
42 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. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 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[f] also bear the image of the man of heaven.
We’ll begin by looking at verses 29-34 and see our first major point: without the resurrection, life doesn’t make sense. Without the resurrection, life doesn’t make sense.
Paul begins to argue this point by looking first at the Corinthians, and showing that without the resurrection, even their own strange practice doesn’t make sense. Their strange practice of baptism for the dead doesn’t make sense.
Verse 29: 29 Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?
There were, apparently, some people in Corinth getting baptized on behalf of those who had already died. Paul doesn’t explain WHERE this strange practice came from, although there are countless dissertations that speculate all day for you about where this practice originated, and if you need a cure for insomnia, I’d direct you to those.
Strangely to us, Paul doesn’t condemn such a practice here. He simply mentions it in passing to show the logical inconsistency with such a position. “IF you deny the resurrection, that people simply die, and then comes nothing, then what are you doing seeking some spiritual benefit for people who have already died? It doesn’t make sense. You’re not even being logical with your own strange practices.”
People still do strange things like this today. Roman Catholics may say all kinds of prayers on behalf of the dead. I’ve even seen candles and incense that you can purchase in order to sacrifice them on the altar of some saint in order to plead to Mary to dispense some blessing from some treasure chest of Merit on behalf of a loved one who had died.
Mormons also practice this strange notion of being baptized on behalf of the dead.
But such a practice isn’t here endorsed by Paul, nor is it even mentioned, let alone condoned in there rest of scripture. We might wish that Paul had more explicitly condemned the practice here, but I think he was simply not dealing with that problem here. He was focusing on the denial of the resurrection, a matter of FIRST importance, as he said earlier in the chapter.
Likewise, the rest of scripture is clear that once someone is in the grave, that’s it. We die, and then comes judgement. There’s no in between time, no purgatory, no Elysium, no middle ground, no time for second chances. So today needs to be the day of salvation.
Don’t wait, Paul would say. Don’t linger. Don’t count on another shot later on. If you’re not trusting in Christ, then you need to act now. Don’t presume upon many more years, and a time later on to repent.
Likewise, for believers, this passage is a good lesson in how to put the bible together. We don’t adopt a strange practice simply because it is mentioned in the bible. Just because it is mentioned in the bible, doesn’t mean it is endorsed.
For example, Saul consulted with the Witch of Endor in an attempt to bring Samuel back from the dead, in 1 Samuel 28, but that doesn’t mean that such witchcraft is to be pursued. A mention of such a strange practice is clearly not an endorsement, and the more clear portions of scripture rule such an action out.
Similarly, just because Paul mentions a strange practice here, doesn’t mean we should imitate the Corinthians. Clearer portions of scripture make clear that you can’t perform religious rights for the spiritual benefit of others, much less those that have already died.
Anyway, Paul’s main point is clear, if you deny the resurrection of the dead, then you guys in Corinth aren’t even living consistently with your denial, seeking to perform ceremonies to aid those people who you say won’t even be raised at all.
Next, without the resurrection, not only does their strange practice make no sense, neither does the perseverance of the Apostles. Verse 30:
30 Why are we in danger every hour? 31 I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die every day! 32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus?
If there is no resurrection, then why would all the believers, and especially the apostles, suffer through persecution? Why would we take the whips and the lashes and the stoning and death, IF there is no resurrection?
You can read about Paul’s own history of persecution in 2 Corinthians 11. He was imprisoned, beaten, whipped, stoned, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, and none of that makes sense if this is the only life he has. It only makes sense, the Christian life only makes sense, if there is a resurrection and judgement.
To deny the resurrection is to deny the motivating factor that has led countless Christians throughout time to persevere throughout their persecution. Indeed, Paul goes on in the next verses to indicate that the resurrection is the thing that gives morality any meaning at all:
If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
If you deny the resurrection and final judgment, then you gut morality of any meaning. Not only is self-sacrifice useless, but anything you do is ultimately meaningless. Without the resurrection, it would make more sense to party it up.
If there is nothing beyond the grave, then why wouldn’t you indulge now to the max? Why wouldn’t you become a libertarian hedonist? Why wouldn’t you eat and drink and enjoy every bit of pleasure that you could? That would be logical.
BUT, and here is where Paul is pressing, everybody knows deep down that such a life is not only un-Christian, it’s also empty and meaningless. If all we have is this life, then we have no hope, because nothing in this life can provide lasting satisfaction. That’s part of the message of the whole book of Ecclesiastes.
Vanity, vanity, like chasing after the wind, is the fool who seeks lasting satisfaction from worldly pleasure. And that’s exactly where you end up, if you deny the resurrection. And that’s where some of the Corinthians were logically heading.
But such logic will never remain where it is. It must spread, like leaven through the whole lump. And so Paul warns them in verse 33.
33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” 34 Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
Paul warns them that such wrong thinking about the resurrection will inevitably spoil the whole lump. And so they need their thinking corrected, not only for their individual destinies, but also for the good of the whole congregation.
Denial of the resurrection must be rooted out, it cannot be tolerated, because wherever you have people denying the resurrection in the church, you can rest assured that it will erode morals, and it will spread like cancer.
I’ve seen people who persist at churches who get soft on the resurrection and start to ignore and undermine the gospel, and these well-intentioned people think they can stay and turn the ship around. While their zeal might be admirable, it is foolish to think that you can hang around with people and think you’re not affected.
Don’t be deceived, Paul says. If you sit under un-biblical teaching week after week, you will be impacted. Bad company WILL corrupt good morals. You’re not immune to such things. And so that means that we need to pick our company wisely.
Young people, don’t be so foolish to think that you can hang around with immoral people and not be sucked in to their sinful ways. Believers, don’t think that you can sit under poor teaching at a church and remain unaffected. Don’t be deceived.
We need to pick our friends and our company and our churches wisely, lest we have our own thinking and morals corrupted ourselves. Purity of teaching, of doctrine, and of morality are crucial for our own well-being, and we risk our own eternal destiny when we think that we can hang around with sub-biblical teaching and ethics without encountering harm to ourselves.
Bad company corrupts good morals.
Now, let’s move on to the larger section of text that remains. This one offers us a much more hope filled message, if we would embrace it.
Paul is now turning from addressing the inconsistencies found within the Corinthians’ practice, to what will happen at the resurrection. He’s answering the hypothetical question of “How, Paul, will people be raised? What will it be like?”
And Paul’s answer in this section might be summed up in this point: With the resurrection comes glory. With the resurrection comes glory.
Verse 35: 35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 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. 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.
Paul begins by appealing to agriculture. To gardening, perhaps, to demonstrate what we all know to be true: what you sow in the ground is not what you will later reap. If you put a seed in the ground, you don’t come back days and weeks and months later and dig it up to find the same unchanged seed.
Something better, more beautiful, more glorious, will be seen in the place of that seed. Nobody will look at an acorn and say that the acorn has more glory than the 100 foot tall oak tree. Nobody looks at a flower seed and says, “yes, that seed is more glorious than a beautiful rose.”
No, what is raised is a glorious transformation from what was planted. The kernel is transformed into a beautiful plant or flower.
The same is the case for us, as we will get into much more detail later. Just because the body we put into the ground in this life doesn’t seem to possess much glory now, doesn’t mean that it won’t or can’t be glorious later.
We plant a seed, our dead bodies in the grave, and we will reap a glorious harvest of a resurrected body, even more impressive than some seed planted now can turn into a tree or a flower. The principle of HOW the resurrection works isn’t difficult, if we just train our eyes to see it in our gardens.
Next he continues that logic to make the point that not all things have the same kind of glory. Verse 38:
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.
There are different kinds of glory seen in creation. Plants are cool, but they aren’t as glorious as animals. Planets and stars are not all equal in their glory, whether you measure that by size or by brightness, either way they are more or less glorious. That principle is easy enough to see.
God has knit our bodies together in a way for mankind to have a certain lesser glory, a certain form of existence, which is appropriate for now. But that glory is insufficient, it is unfit for the life to come.
And so Paul says, the same is the seen in the resurrection. Verse 42:
42 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.
Paul here takes the agricultural principle and applies it to our resurrection. Our physical body will be planted in the grave, but something more glorious will result. It is planted in dishonor, tarnished by sin and death, the very image of the curse that exists all over creation.
It will not be raised the same way as it went in. Some glorious change takes place. I taught in a previous sermon about the continuity that our body possess on either side of the grave. Christ will raise OUR bodies, and not simply toss them out and give us an altogether new one. I was then emphasizing the continuity on either side of the grave.
But here Paul is emphasizing instead the discontinuity. Yes, we will have similar bodies at the resurrection, they will be recognizable, but they will be different. They will be changed, just like a seed is not the same as the plant that it produces.
Our natural body will be transformed. It was planted, but it will not be revealed as the same as it went in. We will have a spiritual body.
Well why is that Paul? Why can we expect these natural bodies to be transformed? Verse 45:
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 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.
Paul would remind us that the resurrection makes sense because of who we are, and who where we come from.
The bible makes clear that Adam was made from the dust. And likewise, all of his children are made of dust. It is fitting that dust should return to dust. He was from the earth, and he will return to the earth.
We were all born in the image of our father, Adam. We have frail bodies which are prone do decay. And without intervention, we will end up in the grave, we will all end up returning to the dust from which we were made.
But that logical argument also applies to Christ, the second Adam, the second man. Christ was Fully Man, but he was not merely man. He was also fully God. Fully possessing the spiritual essence of God.
And because he has been raised from the dead, his spiritual condition can likewise be shared by all those who are in him. And that is the good news of Paul’s final statement in verse 49: Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Even though in Adam we all have death and decay as our destination from birth, Christ has come, and has died and been raised, and that changes everything.
Adam brought death, both physical and spiritual, to all of his children. That means that we all were condemned to hell from the very beginning. We’re sinners from our first breath, and therefore worthy of judgment and hell.
We lie and do not practice the truth. We are greedy and covetous of heart. We’re lazy and selfish, even from infancy. We’re concerned most with our selves, and not concerned with the needs of others.
And worst of all, we are born haters of God, refusing to bow the knee to him, refusing to worship him, and inventing all other kinds of idols to worship instead.
But the good news of scripture is that although we’ve all inherited this condition from the first Adam, the last Adam has provided a way of escape.
The first Adam was made a living being, and chose death instead, for himself and all his children. But the last Adam became a life-giving spirit, choosing his own death so that his offspring would be spared from it.
When we are united to Christ by faith, we are born again, born of heaven, born of the spirit, and that gives us the right to be raised from the dead, and granted glory, granted glorified bodies.
That’s the hope of the resurrection. That we can be raised like Christ, given renewed bodies that far surpass our old bodies in their innate glory, and we can live in those glorified bodies with Christ forever, surrounded by our brothers and sisters, for all of eternity.
Doesn’t that sound wonderful? That fate can be yours. No more suffering, no more wasting away in our bodies. No more aches and pains and illnesses and cancer and weakness. No more cursed dust.
Glory. Glorious, renewed, resurrected, perfected bodies. That’s what awaits all those in Christ.
If that sounds good to you, then won’t you trust in Christ? Don’t sit on this good news and file it away for another day. Wake up from your drunken stupor, Paul says, and do not go on sinning.
Don’t reject this promise because you love your sin more than Christ. Christ offers this to all, young and old, educated and uneducated, whether you’re a murderer like Paul, or whether God’s kept your feet far from heinous sin.
Trust in Christ this day, and you can be saved, and you can be guaranteed a body, a glorified body, just as securely as Christ was granted his. That’s a sure foundation.
And for those of us who believe, who trust in Christ, I encourage you to linger upon the promise of the resurrection. When you’re tempted to despair because your weakness and your dusty frame seems to be winning again, remember the promise of Christ, that this natural body will be sown in dishonor, but it will be raised in honor.
Your body, though it is weak now, will be raised POWER. You will have a powerful body then, though that seems so hard to conceive in the moment.
And when you find yourself fighting against your besetting sin, take heart. Christ has overcome the grave, he was raised in Power. And that same power is offered to you through the holy Spirit. Sin will not have the final word.
He will hold you to the end, he will keep you, because he loves you, and Christ’s hold on you is secure. He won’t let you slip through the cracks. He won’t drop you. He can never promise you glory, and fail to deliver. Don’t succumb to sin again, and fight against it, not in your own strength, but stand in the power of Christ’s might.
The promise is yours. As surely as Christ was raised, so you will be too.
