“Eternity: What Awaits After Death”
Sermon
# 5
“Transforming
For Life Into Heaven”
1
Corinthians 15:35-52
In 1 Corinthians 15:35 the Apostle Paul
asks two questions that concern us all. “But someone will
say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?”
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul is writing to a
group of Christians who were struggling with the issue of what happens after you die.
Although they were living about twenty years after the resurrection, their thinking about
life and death were being influenced by their culture.
I am afraid that is also a plight that we may share.
As a young man growing up in the Methodist church we
recited the Apostles Creed a portion of which says. “I believe in the …. communion of saints, the
forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.”
Recent surveys have shown
that about 30% of all Americans believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation is the belief that
each individual soul lives a succession of lives in various human bodies over the course
of history. The purpose for such reincarnation is to gradually purify the soul so that it
eventually reaches perfection. Those who believe in Reincarnation believe that we continue
to be reincarnated until we get it right. The problem is that even those who say they are
reincarnated have no memory of how they got it wrong in order that the might now get it
right. Even harder to understand Gallop also found that 20% of those who describe
themselves as born-again/evangelical Christians say they believe in reincarnation. That
makes absolutely no sense. Reincarnation is diametrically contrary to the truth of the
Gospel.
Even among Americans who believe in the
resurrection of the dead, two-thirds believe they will not have bodies after the
resurrection. (Alcorn p. 110) But in reality that is self–contradictory there can be
no such thing. Resurrection by its very definition requires a body. If we didn’t have
bodies, we wouldn’t be resurrected.
We have noted thus far in
our series on “Eternity: What Awaits After Death” that physical death is
the separation of the body from the soul. At death of a believer the body is committed to
the grave and soul and spirit goes to be with Christ.
Death is an abnormal condition because it tears
apart what God created and joined together. God intended for our bodies to last as long as
our souls.
The reason we are decaying and dying is not
because we have bodies. It is because sin has infected our bodies.
The Biblical doctrine of
resurrection is an affirmation that we are a spiritual and physical unity and that God
intends to put us back together again. Although the soul is separate from the body at
death, this separation is only temporary.
Some of you could care less
about what happens to your body – after you die. You are just hoping to find enough
aspirin, icy/hot and duct tape to keep the thing running now. I understand how you feel, I
really do, but indulge me just a bit this morning. I want to share some exciting news
about what eternity holds for you physically. Hey, wait a minute did you say, physically?
Yes, indeed, one day you are going experience the ultimate extreme, make-over. We can look
forward to a new body.
I want to share with you this morning four
truths about “Being Transformed for Life in Heaven.”
First, The
New Body Is Real
Paul
addresses the first question, “How are the
dead raised up?” beginning in verses thirty-six.
· Death Is Necessary For Resurrection. (v. 36)
“Foolish one, what you sow is
not made alive unless it dies.” This
verse says that the body is “sown” – “sown” here means “buried.” It seems obvious that there is no
need for a resurrection unless one is dead.
· New
Yet Part of the Old (vv. 37-38)
“And what you sow, you do not
sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain. (38) But God
gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.”
Paul uses the illustration
of a seed to explain what he mean about the relationship between the old you and the new
you. He says the seed doesn’t look like the fruit it will produce. When you plant a
pumpkin seed it does not look like a pumpkin. Although the pumpkin seed does not look like
the pumpkin, you can’t get the fruit if you don’t plant the seed.
The body that is resurrected
is a brand new you. If it’s not you then it is not a resurrection. It will not be you
as you were but a brand new you. Hank
Hanegraaf points out that there must be continuity between the old you and new you. He
said, “We see that the blueprint for our glorified bodies
are in the bodies we now possess. While orthodoxy does not dictate that every cell of our
present bodies will be restored in the resurrection, it does require continuity between
our earthly bodies and our heavenly bodies. Just as there is continuity between our
earthly bodies and the bodies we had at birth – even though all of our subatomic
particles and most of our cells have been replaced – so too there will be continuity
from death to resurrection, despite the fact that not every particle in our bodies will be
restored. In fact without continuity, there is no point in even using the word
resurrection.” [Hank
Hangraaff. Resurrection. (Nashville: Word Pub., ) p. 70]
Joni Eareckson Tada, was paralyzed in a diving
accident, explains it well when she said, “Somewhere in my
broken paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become. The paralysis makes what I am to
become all the more grand when you contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous
resurrected legs. I’m convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?),
the image I’ll see will be unmistakably ‘Joni,’ although a much better ,
brighter Joni.” [Joni
Eareckson Tada. Heaven Your Real Home. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) p. 39]
Perhaps this analogy will help. At the age of
sixteen I was saved. When I was saved I became a new person, yet I was still the person
that I had always been. Hopefully those around me saw a lot of change but not to the point
that that they could not say, “That’s
John.” I was still John Hamby although a substantially changed John Hamby. This
same John will undergo another change at death, and yet another change at the
resurrection. But through all these changes I will continue to be who I was and always
will be.” [I am indebted
to Randy Alcorn’s personal analogy as a model. Heaven. p. 112]
Not
only is the New Body Is Real but…
Secondly, The New Body Is Recognizable.
One of the most often asked questions
concerning Heaven is, “Will we know our loved
ones and will they know us?” I touched on that question last week when I asked
the question. “Will we know less in Heaven then we do now?” I
understand that several members of the choir looked at Les Hopp as if I were questioning
whether or not we would recognize Him in Heaven. Well I think you have purposefully missed
the point. Let me try again.
The only real example of what our resurrected
body will be like is what we read of Jesus in the 40 days between His resurrection and His
ascension.
Jesus walked the earth in his resurrection body
for forty days, showing us how we would live as resurrected human beings. We are going to
have bodies like Jesus. (Note I did not say we were going to become little Jesus’) It
was the same body He had before he died and it was recognized by his friends.
Missionary Amy Carmichael wrote, “Shall we know each other in Heaven? Shall we love and remember? I
don’t think one need wonder about this or doubt for a single moment! For if we just
think, we know! Would you be yourself, if you did not remember? We are told that we shall
be like our Lord Jesus and does He not know and love and remember? He would not be Himself
if He did not! And we should not be ourselves if we did not!”
Yet when the resurrected Lord appeared He was
so different that at first they did not recognize him. He arose from the dead and yet upon
His body there were still the marks of the crucifixion, where-by his disciples knew
implicitly that this was the same Jesus in the same body. He had a real body that could
touch and be touched and could and did eat.
Not
only is the New Body Recognizable but…
Third, The
New Body Is Radically Different.
In the second question (v. 35) Paul anticipates the question about what kind of
body will we have that is suitable for living forever in Heaven. In verse forty-two
Paul begins answering that question by drawing a series of contrast.
1. The New Body Will Be Indestructible.
The first thing that Paul tells us is that our
new resurrection bodies will be indestructible. Our new bodies are not like our old
bodies. Our current bodies wear out. We get old; we begin to notice that everything does
work like it use to. We begin to understand the old saying, “What does not hurt does not work!” We
discover that no matter what the infomercials promise we can’t stop the aging
process. At best we can slow it down somewhat or camouflage it, but we can’t stop it.
Our new bodies will be made to last forever.
Our resurrection bodies will not be subject to disease or decay or aging. Our resurrection
bodies will literally out-live the stars.
2. The New Body Will Be Glorious(v 43a)
The word “glory”
means brilliance and our new bodies will be glorious like that of the risen Christ.
In
Philippians 3:21 Paul states, “Who
will be transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according
to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”
3. The New Body Will Be Powerful (v. 43b)
We will possess a new body with abilities
beyond our widest imaginations. When Jesus was with His disciples, He had the power to
come and go as he pleased, neither walls nor distance were an obstacle. According to John
20:25 Jesus came into the room without having to open the door.
But as Randy Alcorn points out, “though we know that Christ could do these things (like
pass through closed doors), we are not explicitly told that we’ll
be able to. It may be that some aspects of His resurrections body are unique because of
His divine nature.” [Randy
Alcorn. Heaven. (Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House, 2004) p. 116]
We may or may not share
those special abilities that Jesus possessed but whatever abilities we do have will be
more than could have ever dreamed of.
4. The New Body Will Be Infinite (v. 44a)
To say that we will have a “spiritual body” does not mean that we will just be
spirits. Somehow many Christians have come to the conclusion that life in eternity is
going to be as some kind of a spirit or for lack of a better term, a ghost. I want to
dispel the myth that we are going to be some kind of ghost like spiritual being. Jesus
reassured Hs disciples, “I am not a ghost..”
(Luke 24:39 NLT) R. A. Torrey writes, “We will not be disembodied spirits in the world to come, but
redeemed spirits, in redeemed bodies, in a redeemed universe.”
We will be raised with a
body suitable for our new life!
Fourth,
The New Body Is Received At Christ’s Return (vv. 51-52)
Paul answers the question
“Who will be resurrected and When?”
in verses fifty-one and fifty two. “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 incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
The dead in Christ will rise
first and be given new glorified bodies. Living believers will follow and their bodies
will be transformed. Paul further explains the sequence of events in 1 Thess.
4:16-17,
“For the Lord
Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with
the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. (17) Then we who are alive and
remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
Conclusion
I love the epitaph that Benjamin Franklin wrote
for himself while still a young man. It wonderfully catches the spirit of Paul's words in
1 Cor.15.
“The body of
(like the cover of an old book,
its contents torn out and
stripped of its lettering and gilding)
lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be lost;
for it will (as he believed)
appear once more,
in a new and more elegant edition,
revised and corrected
by the Author.”