By Lambert Dolphin - ldolphin.org
IF CHRIST BE NOT RAISED I Corinthians 15: 12-19
HERE Paul attacks the central position of his opponents at Corinth. They said flatly," Dead men do not rise again." Paul's answer is, " If you take up that position it means that Jesus Christ has not risen again; and if that be so, the whole Christian faith is wrecked."
Why was it that Paul regarded a belief In the Resurrection of Jesus as so absolutely essential? What were the great values and the great truths that it conserves? The Resurrection of Jesus proves four great facts, which, if they are proved, can make ill the difference to a man's view of life here and hereafter.
(i) The Resurrection proves that truth is stronger than falsehood. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus said to His enemies, "Now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth." (John 8: 40). Jesus came with the true idea of God and of goodness His enemies procured His death because they did not want their own false view of God and of goodness destroyed. That is to say, if the enemies of Jesus had finally succeeded in obliterating Him, falsehood would have been stronger than truth. On one occasion the Earl of Morton, who was the regent of Scotland, sent for Andrew Melville, the great Reformation leader. "There will never be quietness In this country," said Morton, "till halff a dissone of you be hangit or banished the countrey" "Tushe sir," said Melville, " threaten your courtiers in that fashion. It is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the ground.... Yet God be glorified, it will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll His treuthe " The Resurrection is the final guarantee of the indestructibility of the truth.
(ii) The Resurrection proves that good is stronger than evil. Again to quote the Fourth Gospel, in it Jesus is represented as saying to His enemies, "You are of your father, the devil." (John 8: 44). The forces which crucified Jesus were the forces of evil, and if there was no Resurrection then these forces of evil were triumphant. J. A. Froude, the great historian, wrote, "One lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, that the world is built somehow on moral foundations, that in the long run it is well with the good. and In the long run it is ill with the wicked." But if the Resurrection had not taken place. it is that very principle of the moral order of the universe which would be imperiled. and we could never again be certain that goodness is stronger than evil.
(iii) The Resurrection proves that love is stronger than hatred. Jesus was the love of God incarnate.
On the other hand the whole attitude of those who procured the crucifixion of Jesus was an almost virulent hatred. It was a hatred so bitter that in the end it was capable of ascribing the loveliness and graciousness of the life of Jesus to the power of the devil. If there was no Resurrection It means that the hatred of man in the end conquered the love of God. But the Resurrection is the triumph of love over all that hatred could do...
The Resurrection is the final proof that love is stronger than hate.
(iv) The Resurrection proves that life is stronger than death. If Jesus had died, never to rise again, it would have proved that death could take the loveliest and the best life that ever lived and finally break it. During the war years a certain city church In London was all set out for harvest thanksgiving. In the centre of the gifts there was a sheaf of corn. The service was never held, for, on the Saturday night, there came a savage air raid and the church was laid in ruins. The months passed on and the spring came, and someone noticed that, on the bomb site where that church had stood, there were shoots of green. The summer came and the shoots flourished and in the autumn time there was a flourishing patch of corn growing amidst the rubble. Not even the bombs and the destruction could kill the life of the corn and its seeds. Life was stronger than death. The Resurrection is the final proof that life is stronger than death.
Paul insisted that if the Resurrection of Jesus was not a fact then the whole Christian message was based on a lie that those who had died believing in it had died trusting in a delusion, that without it the greatest values in life have no guarantee. "Take away the Resurrection," said Paul, "and you destroy both the foundation and the fabric of the Christian faith."
THE FIRST-FRUlTS OF THOSE THAT SLEEP I Corinthians 15: 20-28
THIS for us again Is a very difficult passage because it deals with ideas and conceptions which are strange to us.
It speaks of Christ as " the firstfruits of them that sleep." Here Paul is thinking in terms of a picture which every Jew would know and recognize. The Feast of the Passover had more than one significance. As everyone knows, it commemorated the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. But it was also a great harvest festival. It ~l just at the time when the barley harvest was due to begin to be ingathered. The law laid it down, "Ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." (Leviticus 23: 10, II). The law laid it down that some sheaves of barley must be reaped from a common field. They must not be taken from a garden or an orchard or from specially prepared soil. They must come from a typical field. When the barley was cut it was brought to the Temple. There it was threshed with soft canes so as not to bruise It. It was then parched over the fire in a perforated pan so that every grain was touched by the fire. It was then exposed to the wind so that the chaff was blown away. It was then ground In a barley mill, and the flour of it was offered to God. That was the first fruits. And it is very significant to note that not until after that was done could the new barley be bought and sold in the shops and bread be made from the new flour. The first-fruits were a sign of the harvest to come; and the Resurrection of Jesus was a sign of the resurrection of all believers which was to come. Just as the new barley could not be used until the firstfruits had been duly offered, so the new harvest of life could not come until Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Now Paul goes on to use another Jewish idea. According to the old story In Genesis 3: 119 it was through Adam's sin that death came into the world. Death was the direct consequence and penalty of that sin. The Jews believed that all men literally sinned in Adam. It is easy for us to see that Adam's sin might transmit to his descendants the tendency to sin. As Aeschylus said, "The impious deed leaves after it a larger progeny, all in the likeness of the parent stock." As George Eliot wrote, "Our deeds are like children that are born to us, they live and act apart from our will; nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never. They have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness." Nobody would be likely to deny that a child can inherit a tendency to sin, and that the fathers' sins are very literally visited upon the children. No one would deny that a child can inherit the consequences of a father's sin, for we know all too well that physical conditions which are the consequence of an immoral life can be transmitted to the child. But the Jew meant more than that. The Jew had a tremendous sense of solidarity. He was sure that no man could ever do anything that could affect only himself. He was bound up in the bundle of life. And the Jew held that all men sinned in Adam. He, to them, was the father of the race. The whole world of men was, as it were, in him. And when he sinned all sinned. That may seem a strange idea to us. It may seem to us unfair. But that was the Jewish belief. All had sinned in Adam, therefore all were under the penalty of death. So we have a situation in which all men are sinners and therefore all men must die. But with the coming of Christ that chain was broken. That situation was invaded by something new. Christ was sinless. Christ conquered death. And just as all men sinned in Adam, so all men escape from sin in Christ; and just as all men died in Adam so all men conquered death In Christ. Our unity with Christ is just as real as our unity with Adam and this unity destroys the evil effect of the old. So we get two contrasting sets of facts. First, there is Adam--sin --death. Second, there is Christ--goodness--life. And just as we were all involved in the sin of the man who was first created, we are all involved in the victory of the man who recreated mankind. Whatever we think of that way of thinking today, it was convincing to those who heard it for the first time; and whatever else is doubtful it remains true that with Jesus Christ a new power came into the world to liberate men from the sin and the death In which the human situation was Involved.
Verses 2428 read very strangely to us. We are used to thinking in terms in which we put the Father and the Son on terms of equality. But here Paul quite clearly and deliberately subordinates the Son to the Father. What Paul is thinking of is this. We can only use human terms and analogies. God gave to Jesus a task to do. That task was to defeat sin and to vanquish death and to liberate man. The day will come when that task will be fully and finally accomplished, and then, to think of the thing in pictorial terms, the Son will return to the Father like a victor coming home and the triumph of God will be complete. It is not a case of the Son being subject to the Father as a slave or even a servant is to a master. It is a case of one who has accomplished the work that was given him to do, and who returns with the glory of complete obedience as his crown. As God sent forth His Son to redeem the world so in the end God will receive back a world redeemed, and then there will be nothing in heaven or in earth outside the love and the power of God.
IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION I Corinthians 15: 29-34
ONCE again this passage begins with a very difficult section. People have always been puzzled about what being baptized for the dead means, and it cannot be said that even yet the problem is definitely and finally settled. The preposition that is used for for in the phrase for the dead is the Greek word huper. In general this word can have two main meanings. When used of place, it can mean above or over. Far more commonly it is used of persons or things and means instead of or on behalf of. Remembering (hen these two meanings, let us look at some of the meanings which have been given to this phrase.
(i) Beginning from the meaning of over or above, some scholars have suggested that this refers to those who get themselves baptized over the graves of the martyrs. The idea Is that there would be something specially moving in being baptized on sacred ground with the thought of the unseen cloud of witnesses all around. It is an attractive and rather a lovely Idea, but, at the time Paul was writing to the Corinthians, persecution had not yet broken out in anything like a big way. Christians might suffer ostracism and social persecution, but the time of the martyrs had not yet come.
(ii) It is in any event much more natural to take huper in the sense of instead of or on behalf of. If we take it that way there are three possibilities. It is suggested that the phrase refers to those who get themselves baptized in order to fill up the vacant places in the Church which the dead have left Again it is a great thought. The idea is that the new believer, the young Christian, comes into the Church like a new recruit to take the place of the veterans who have served their campaign and earned their release. There is a precious thought there. The Church ever needs its reinforcements. its replacements, and the new member of the Church is like the volunteer who fills up the depleted ranks.
(iii) It is suggested that the phrase means those who get themselves baptized out of respect for and affection for the dead. Again there is a precious truth here. We know it to be true that many of us came into the Church because we knew and remembered that someone whom we had loved and who had loved us had died praying and hoping for us. There are many who have in the end given their lives to Christ because of the unseen influence of one who has passed over to the other side.
(iv) All these are lovely thoughts, but In the end we think that this phrase can only refer to one custom, a custom which existed in the early Church, but which has quite correctly passed out of Church practice altogether. In the early Church there was a custom of vicarious baptism. If a person who had intended to become a member of the Church, who was actually under instruction, who was, in fact, a catechumen, died, sometimes someone else underwent baptism for him after he had died. It was a kind of baptism by proxy. The custom sprang from what is really a superstitious and magical view of baptism, the view that, unless a person was baptized, he was excluded from the bliss of the faithful and of heaven. It was to safeguard against this exclusion that sometimes people volunteered to be baptized literally on behalf of those Who had died. Here Paul neither approves nor disapproves that practice. He merely asks if there can be any point in it at all if there is no resurrection and if the dead never rise again.
From that Paul passes on to one of the great motives of the Christian life. In effect he asks, "Why should a Christian accept the battle and the danger and the perils of the Christian life if it is all to go for nothing?" He quotes his own experience. Every day he is in jeopardy of his life. Something terrible of which the New Testament has no record happened to Paul at Ephesus. He refers to it again in 2 Corinthians I: 810: he says that in Asia that is in Ephesus, he was in such dire peril that he despaired of life and had the sentence of death passed upon him. To this day in Ephesus there is a building which is known as Paul's prison. Here he calls it fighting with beasts. The word he uses is the word that is used of a gladiator who in the arena had to fight with the lions. The later legends tell us that Paul actually did so fight and that he was wondrously preserved because the beasts would not attack him. But Paul was a Roman citizen and no Roman citizen could be compelled to fight in the arena. Much more likely he used the phrase as a vivid picture of being threatened and ill-treated by men or by a mob who were as savage for his life as a wild beast might have been. In any event Paul demands, "To what end is all the peril and the suffering and the scars if there is no life beyond?"
The man who thinks that this life is all, and that there is nothing to follow it, may well say, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." The Bible itself quotes those who spoke like that. Isaiah (56: 12) speaks of those who say, " Come ye, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day and much more abundant." The preacher, who held that death was extinction, wrote, "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor." Ecclesiastes 2:24, cp. 3: 12; 5: 18; 8:15; 9:7). Jesus Himself told about the rich fool who forgot eternity and who took as his motto, "Eat, drink and be merry." (Luke 12: 19). Classical literature is full of this spirit. Herodotus, the Greek historian, tells of a custom of the Egyptians. " In social meetings among the rich, when the banquet is ended, a servant carries round to the several guests a coffin, In which there is a wooden image of a corpse, carved and painted to resemble nature as nearly as possible, about a cubit or two cubits in length. As he shows it to each guest in turn, the servant says, 'Gaze here, and drink and be merry, for when you die, such will you be.'" Euripides writes in the Alcestis (781789, A. S. Way's translation):
Thucydides (2: 53) tells how when the mortal plague came to Athens people committed every shameful crime and eagerly snatched at every lustful pleasure because they believed that life was short and they would never have to pay the penalty. Horace (Odes 2: 13; 13) gives as his philosophy, "Tell them to bring wines and perfumes and the too short-lived blossoms of the lovely rose while circumstances and age and the black threads of the three sisters (the Fates) still allow us to do so." in one of the most famous poems in the world the Latin poet Catullus wrote, " Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us value the tales of austere old men at a single half-penny. Suns can set and then return again, but for us, when once our brief light sets, there is but one perpetual night through which we must sleep." Take away the thought of a life to come and this life loses its values. Take away the idea that this life is a discipline and a preparation for a greater life to come and the bonds of all honor and morality are loosened. It Is useless to argue that this should not be so, because men should not be good and honorable for the sake of some reward. The fact remains that the man who believes that this is the only world will inevitably live as if the things of this world are all that matter.
So Paul insists that the Corinthians must not associate with those who say that there is no resurrection. To associate with such is inevitably to risk an infection which can pollute life. To say that there is no resurrection is not a sign of superior knowledge; It Is a sign of utter Ignorance of God. Paul is unleashing the lash that very shame may bring these wanderers back into the right way.
THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL 1 Corinthians 15: 35-49
BEFORE we begin to try to interpret and understand this section we would do well to remember one thing--all through it Paul is talking about things that no one really knows anything about. He is not talking about verifiable matters of fact, but about matters of faith. He is trying to express the inexpressible and to describe the indescribable, and he Is doing the best he can with the human ideas and the human words that are all that he has to work with. If we will remember that it will save us from a crudely literalistic interpretation and will make us fasten our thoughts on the underlying principles which are in Paul's mind. In this section Paul is dealing with people who say," Granted that there is a resurrection of the body, even if we go so far as to allow that that is so, with what kind of body do people rise again?" Paul's answer has three basic principles in it.
(i) He takes the analogy of a seed. The seed is put In the ground and dies, but in due time it rises again, and It rises with a very different kind of body from that with which it was sown. Paul is showing that, at one and the same time, there can be dissolution, difference and yet continuity. The seed is dissolved; when it rises again there is a vast difference in the body that God gave It; and yet, in spite of the dissolution and in spite of the difference, it is the same life, the same seed. That argument proves that our earthly bodies will be buried and will dissolve; they will rise again and the form in which they rise may be very different; but the fact remains it is the same person who rises, however different the resurrection body may be. We may be dissolved by death; we may be changed by resurrection; but it is still we who exist.
(ii) The second basic principle which Paul lays down is that in the world, even as we know it, there is not one kind of body. Each separate part of creation has its own body. That argument proves that God gives to each living creature and to each created thing a body suitable for and adjusted for its part in creation. If that be so it is only reasonable to expect that God will give us too a body fitted for the resurrection life.
(iii) The third basic principle is that in life there is a development. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth. (Genesis 2: 7). But Jesus is far more than merely a man made from the dust of the earth. He is the incarnation of the very Spirit of God Himself. Now, under the old way of life, we were one with Adam, sharing his sin, inheriting his death and having his body but under the new way of life we are one with Christ and we shall therefore share His life and His being. That argument proves that it is true that we have a physical body to begin with, but it is also true that one day we shall have a spiritual body also.
All through this section Paul has maintained a reverent and wise reticence as to what that body will be like. It will be a spiritual body and it will be such as God knows that we need and we will be like Christ, but in verses 4244 he draws four contrasts which shed light on our future state.
(i) The present body is corruptible; the future body will be incorruptible. In this world everything is subject to change and decay. "Youth's beauty fades, and manhood's glory fades," as Sophocles the old Greek poet had it, but in that life to come there will be a permanence in which the lovely things will never cease to be lovely and beauty will never lose its sheen.
(ii) The present body is in dishonor; the future body will be in glory. What does Paul mean by this? It may be that he means that in this life it is through our bodily feelings and passions and instincts that dishonor can so easily come to life; but in that life to come our bodies will no longer be the servants of passion and of impulse but the instruments of the pure service of God, than which there can be no greater honor.
(iii) The present body is in weakness; the future body will be in power. It is nowadays fashionable to talk of the power of man, but the really remarkable thing is the weakness of man. A draught of air or a drop of water can kill him. We are limited in this life so often simply because of the necessary limitations of the body. Time and time again our physical constitution says to our visions and our plans,
Thus far and no farther." We are so often frustrated in life because we are what we are. But in that life to come the limitations will be gone. Here we are compassed about with weakness; there we will be clad with power.
"All we have hoped or willed or dreamed of good shall exist;
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard."
On earth we have the "broken arcs"; In the life to come "the perfect round."
(iv) The present body is a natural body; the future body will be a spiritual body. By that, it may be, Paul meant that, as we are, we are but imperfect vessels for the Spirit and imperfect instruments of the Spirit; but in the life to come we will be such that the Spirit can truly fill us, as can never happen here, and the Spirit can truly use us, as is never possible now. In the life to come we will be able to render the perfect worship, the perfect service, the perfect love that in this world can only be a vision and a dream.
THE CONQUEST OF DEATH I Corinthians 15: 50-58
ONCE again we must begin this passage by remembering that Paul is again dealing with things which defy language and which baffle expression. We must read this with the mind with which we would read great poetry, rather than with the mind with which we would dissect a scientific treatise. The whole argument follows a series of steps until it reaches its climax.
(i) Paul insists that as we are we are not fit to Inherit the Kingdom of God. We may be well enough equipped to get on with the life of this world, but for the life of the world to come we will not do. A man may be able to run enough to catch his morning train, but he would need to be a very different man to be able to run enough to run in the Olympic games. A man may write well enough to amuse his friends but he would need to be a very different man to write something which men will not willingly let die. A man may talk well enough in the circle of his club but he would need to be a very different man to talk well enough to hold his own in a circle of real scholars and experts. A man always needs to be changed to enter into a higher grade of life. First then Paul insists that before we can enter the Kingdom of God we must be changed.
(ii) Further Paul insists that that shattering change is going to come in his own lifetime. In this Paul was in error. But he looked to that change coming when Jesus Christ came again.
(iii) Then Paul goes on triumphantly to declare that no man need fear that change. The fear of death has always haunted men. Dr. Johnson, one of the greatest and the best men who ever lived, was haunted by this fear. Once Boswell said to him that there had been times when he had not feared death. Johnson answered that "he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him." Once Mrs. Knowles told him that he should not have a horror for that which is the gate of life. Johnson answered,
No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension." He declared that the fear of death was so natural to man that all life was one long effort not to think about it. Now wherein lies the fear of death? Partly it comes from the fear of the unknown. But still more it comes from the sense of sin. If a man felt that he could meet God easily then to die would only be, as Peter Pan said, a great adventure. But whence comes that sense of sin? It comes from a sense of being under the law. So long as a man sees in God only the law of righteousness he must forever be in the position of a criminal before the bar of God with no hope of acquittal and with the certainty of condemnation But it is precisely that that Jesus came to abolish. He came to tell us that God is not law, but love; that the centre of God's being is not legalism but grace; that we go out, not to a judge, but to a Father who awaits His children coming home. And just because of that Jesus Christ gave us the victory over death, and the fear of death is banished in the wonder of the love of God.
(iv) Finally, at the end of this chapter, Paul does what he always does. Suddenly the theology becomes a challenge; suddenly the speculations become intensely practical; suddenly the sweep of the mind becomes the demand for action. So Paul ends by saying," If you have all that glory to look forward to, then keep yourself steadfast in God's faith and God's service, for if you do, all your effort and all your striving will not be in vain." The Christian life may be difficult, but the goal is infinitely worth the struggle of the way....(William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1956)
What are Resurrection Bodies Like?
We know of one man who walked on earth having overcome death and having gained possession of a resurrection body. That man was Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus has in fact gained a great and lasting victory for us,
After His resurrection from the dead, Jesus made a number of appearances to his followers. The following passages of Scripture shed light on what He looked like, how he behaved, and what He did during the next 40 days before his ascension. He was present on earth with people in his resurrection body:
It is helpful to read: Matthew 18:1-35, Mark 16:1-11, Luke 23:53-24:54, John 20:1-18, Mark 16:12-13, Luke 24:13-35. Luke 24:36-43, John 20:19-23, John 20:24-29, John 21:1-24, Matthew 28:16-20. Mark 16:14-20b, Luke 24:44-53, John 21:25, 20:30, 31; Acts 1:1-12, and I Corinthians 15:3-8.
From these passages we learn that Jesus had a tangible resurrection body which could be touched and handled. He was able to eat food. His body carried with it the nail wounds in his hands, feet and sides that remained as evidence of his crucifixion. He carries those same scars today. He was not a ghost, not a spirit. He had been dead, and was now alive again.
Jesus, after His resurrection, was able to conceal his identity from friends, as for example when he talked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus on that first Easter afternoon. He was able to enter and leave rooms through closed doors, and apparently could travel a hundred miles to Galilee with ease. At the time of His departure--the Ascension--he disappeared through a gate, a space-time gate taking him out of our physical world into the invisible world of the spirit which surrounds us on all sides.
In summary, in our resurrection bodies,
1. We will be able to recognize Jesus as He is now and has been for the past 2000 years. "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2)
2. We will recognize our friends and loved ones.
3. We can eat food, we can be touched and we will have our usual senses of sight, smell, taste, smell, etc.
4. We can, apparently enter and leave the physical world from the invisible realm of the heavenly places.
5. Our new bodies do not wear out and are imperishable. We are no longer subject to sickness, pain or grief.
6. We will be incapable of sin by nature. Thus the quality of all relationships with our fellow saints will be immensely improved.
7. Marriage will have ceased as an institution for us. We will not be sexless, nor will the differences between the sexes be eliminated, rather they will be amplified and extended. We will probably lack reproductive organs. However, our participation in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb implies an intimate unity not only with our Lord Jesus, but also with all the rest of God's people.
8. Because of the absence of sin, pleasure and enjoyment without fear of failure, inhibition or restriction will be greatly expanded. Any two believers can enjoy intimate fellowship of the highest quality."At the right hand are pleasures forevermore."
9. Our resurrection bodies will be equipped to be in tune with the spiritual world, the heavenly places, therefore time and space travel is a likely capability of these marvelous new bodies.
10. Based on our walk with God in this present life believers will possess varying capacity to contain God in heaven. The quality of time, and the quality of eternal life which each of us experiences will be greater for those whose lives have been lived out on earth is a closer walk with the Lord and obeyed Him most faithfully.
11. We should consider our present selves as mere smudges of greasy smoke, largely shadowy and transparent. The residents of heaven, on the other hand are "solid people." The best description of this state of affairs I know of is given by C.S. Lewis in his wonderful (fictional account) of a visit from the outskirts of hell to the gates on heaven in his perennially valuable book "The Great Divorce".
12. Resurrection bodies are not the same identical bodies which were laid in the grave which were then reconstituted. The new body is related to the former body, yet different.
Additional Commentaries and References:
Excellent further commentaries by Ray C. Stedman, Expository studies in First Corinthians, Messages 36-39. and also Ray C. Stedman, Expository Studies in Second Corinthians, messages 9-10.
My article Time and Eternity hopefully clarifies the difference between time and eternity as applicable to the physical vs. the spiritual world. Also discussed are the various kinds of subjective time we know in daily experience.
The Bible indicates that the unrighteous who did not receive Christ in their lifetimes will also be resurrected (separately) and given resurrection bodies, (Revelation 20:11-15). We know even less about the nature of these bodies which will last forever along with their occupants in a place of everlasting destruction.
IF CHRIST BE NOT RAISED I Corinthians 15: 12-19
If it is continually proclaimed that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some among you say that the resurrection of the dead does not exist? If the resurrection from among the dead does not exist, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then the proclamation of the faith Is emptied of its meaning, and your faith has been emptied of its meaning too. If that is so we are shown to have borne false witness about God, because we witnessed about God, that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, If Indeed the dead are not raised up. If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised your faith is worthless, you are still In your sins; and, if that is so, those who died trusting In Christ have perished. If It is only In this life that we have hope In Christ, then we are more to be pitied than all men.
HERE Paul attacks the central position of his opponents at Corinth. They said flatly," Dead men do not rise again." Paul's answer is, " If you take up that position it means that Jesus Christ has not risen again; and if that be so, the whole Christian faith is wrecked."
Why was it that Paul regarded a belief In the Resurrection of Jesus as so absolutely essential? What were the great values and the great truths that it conserves? The Resurrection of Jesus proves four great facts, which, if they are proved, can make ill the difference to a man's view of life here and hereafter.
(i) The Resurrection proves that truth is stronger than falsehood. According to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus said to His enemies, "Now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth." (John 8: 40). Jesus came with the true idea of God and of goodness His enemies procured His death because they did not want their own false view of God and of goodness destroyed. That is to say, if the enemies of Jesus had finally succeeded in obliterating Him, falsehood would have been stronger than truth. On one occasion the Earl of Morton, who was the regent of Scotland, sent for Andrew Melville, the great Reformation leader. "There will never be quietness In this country," said Morton, "till halff a dissone of you be hangit or banished the countrey" "Tushe sir," said Melville, " threaten your courtiers in that fashion. It is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the ground.... Yet God be glorified, it will nocht ly in your power to hang nor exyll His treuthe " The Resurrection is the final guarantee of the indestructibility of the truth.
(ii) The Resurrection proves that good is stronger than evil. Again to quote the Fourth Gospel, in it Jesus is represented as saying to His enemies, "You are of your father, the devil." (John 8: 44). The forces which crucified Jesus were the forces of evil, and if there was no Resurrection then these forces of evil were triumphant. J. A. Froude, the great historian, wrote, "One lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, that the world is built somehow on moral foundations, that in the long run it is well with the good. and In the long run it is ill with the wicked." But if the Resurrection had not taken place. it is that very principle of the moral order of the universe which would be imperiled. and we could never again be certain that goodness is stronger than evil.
(iii) The Resurrection proves that love is stronger than hatred. Jesus was the love of God incarnate.
"Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love Divine."
On the other hand the whole attitude of those who procured the crucifixion of Jesus was an almost virulent hatred. It was a hatred so bitter that in the end it was capable of ascribing the loveliness and graciousness of the life of Jesus to the power of the devil. If there was no Resurrection It means that the hatred of man in the end conquered the love of God. But the Resurrection is the triumph of love over all that hatred could do...
The Resurrection is the final proof that love is stronger than hate.
(iv) The Resurrection proves that life is stronger than death. If Jesus had died, never to rise again, it would have proved that death could take the loveliest and the best life that ever lived and finally break it. During the war years a certain city church In London was all set out for harvest thanksgiving. In the centre of the gifts there was a sheaf of corn. The service was never held, for, on the Saturday night, there came a savage air raid and the church was laid in ruins. The months passed on and the spring came, and someone noticed that, on the bomb site where that church had stood, there were shoots of green. The summer came and the shoots flourished and in the autumn time there was a flourishing patch of corn growing amidst the rubble. Not even the bombs and the destruction could kill the life of the corn and its seeds. Life was stronger than death. The Resurrection is the final proof that life is stronger than death.
Paul insisted that if the Resurrection of Jesus was not a fact then the whole Christian message was based on a lie that those who had died believing in it had died trusting in a delusion, that without it the greatest values in life have no guarantee. "Take away the Resurrection," said Paul, "and you destroy both the foundation and the fabric of the Christian faith."
THE FIRST-FRUlTS OF THOSE THAT SLEEP I Corinthians 15: 20-28
Now then Christ has been raised from among the dead, the firstfruits of those who sleep. For, since it was through one man that death came, it was also through one man that the resurrection of the dead came. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. Each comes in his own rank. Christ is the firstfruits, and then those who belong to Christ will be raised when He comes. After that comes the final end, when He will hand over the Kingdom to God, His Father, when He has reduced to helplessness every other rule, and every other authority and power. For He must reign until He puts all His enemies under His feet. Death will be the last enemy to be reduced to helplessness. For God has subjected all things to Him. (When we say that all things have been subjected to Him, that of course does not Include Him who subjected them to Him). But when all things have been subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.
THIS for us again Is a very difficult passage because it deals with ideas and conceptions which are strange to us.
It speaks of Christ as " the firstfruits of them that sleep." Here Paul is thinking in terms of a picture which every Jew would know and recognize. The Feast of the Passover had more than one significance. As everyone knows, it commemorated the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. But it was also a great harvest festival. It ~l just at the time when the barley harvest was due to begin to be ingathered. The law laid it down, "Ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it." (Leviticus 23: 10, II). The law laid it down that some sheaves of barley must be reaped from a common field. They must not be taken from a garden or an orchard or from specially prepared soil. They must come from a typical field. When the barley was cut it was brought to the Temple. There it was threshed with soft canes so as not to bruise It. It was then parched over the fire in a perforated pan so that every grain was touched by the fire. It was then exposed to the wind so that the chaff was blown away. It was then ground In a barley mill, and the flour of it was offered to God. That was the first fruits. And it is very significant to note that not until after that was done could the new barley be bought and sold in the shops and bread be made from the new flour. The first-fruits were a sign of the harvest to come; and the Resurrection of Jesus was a sign of the resurrection of all believers which was to come. Just as the new barley could not be used until the firstfruits had been duly offered, so the new harvest of life could not come until Jesus had been raised from the dead.
Now Paul goes on to use another Jewish idea. According to the old story In Genesis 3: 119 it was through Adam's sin that death came into the world. Death was the direct consequence and penalty of that sin. The Jews believed that all men literally sinned in Adam. It is easy for us to see that Adam's sin might transmit to his descendants the tendency to sin. As Aeschylus said, "The impious deed leaves after it a larger progeny, all in the likeness of the parent stock." As George Eliot wrote, "Our deeds are like children that are born to us, they live and act apart from our will; nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never. They have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness." Nobody would be likely to deny that a child can inherit a tendency to sin, and that the fathers' sins are very literally visited upon the children. No one would deny that a child can inherit the consequences of a father's sin, for we know all too well that physical conditions which are the consequence of an immoral life can be transmitted to the child. But the Jew meant more than that. The Jew had a tremendous sense of solidarity. He was sure that no man could ever do anything that could affect only himself. He was bound up in the bundle of life. And the Jew held that all men sinned in Adam. He, to them, was the father of the race. The whole world of men was, as it were, in him. And when he sinned all sinned. That may seem a strange idea to us. It may seem to us unfair. But that was the Jewish belief. All had sinned in Adam, therefore all were under the penalty of death. So we have a situation in which all men are sinners and therefore all men must die. But with the coming of Christ that chain was broken. That situation was invaded by something new. Christ was sinless. Christ conquered death. And just as all men sinned in Adam, so all men escape from sin in Christ; and just as all men died in Adam so all men conquered death In Christ. Our unity with Christ is just as real as our unity with Adam and this unity destroys the evil effect of the old. So we get two contrasting sets of facts. First, there is Adam--sin --death. Second, there is Christ--goodness--life. And just as we were all involved in the sin of the man who was first created, we are all involved in the victory of the man who recreated mankind. Whatever we think of that way of thinking today, it was convincing to those who heard it for the first time; and whatever else is doubtful it remains true that with Jesus Christ a new power came into the world to liberate men from the sin and the death In which the human situation was Involved.
Verses 2428 read very strangely to us. We are used to thinking in terms in which we put the Father and the Son on terms of equality. But here Paul quite clearly and deliberately subordinates the Son to the Father. What Paul is thinking of is this. We can only use human terms and analogies. God gave to Jesus a task to do. That task was to defeat sin and to vanquish death and to liberate man. The day will come when that task will be fully and finally accomplished, and then, to think of the thing in pictorial terms, the Son will return to the Father like a victor coming home and the triumph of God will be complete. It is not a case of the Son being subject to the Father as a slave or even a servant is to a master. It is a case of one who has accomplished the work that was given him to do, and who returns with the glory of complete obedience as his crown. As God sent forth His Son to redeem the world so in the end God will receive back a world redeemed, and then there will be nothing in heaven or in earth outside the love and the power of God.
IF THERE IS NO RESURRECTION I Corinthians 15: 29-34
If there is no resurrection at all, why do people get themselves baptized for them? Every day I take my life in my hands, I swear it by the pride If there is no resurrection, what will which I have in you In Christ Jesus our Lord. What good is it to me--looking at it from the human point of view at Ephesus I had to fight with beasts in the arena? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Don't deceive yourselves evil friendships destroy good characters. Turn to sober living. as it is only right that you should, and don't go on sinning. Some of you boast about your knowledge, but you have not a vestige of knowledge about God. It is to shame you that I speak.
ONCE again this passage begins with a very difficult section. People have always been puzzled about what being baptized for the dead means, and it cannot be said that even yet the problem is definitely and finally settled. The preposition that is used for for in the phrase for the dead is the Greek word huper. In general this word can have two main meanings. When used of place, it can mean above or over. Far more commonly it is used of persons or things and means instead of or on behalf of. Remembering (hen these two meanings, let us look at some of the meanings which have been given to this phrase.
(i) Beginning from the meaning of over or above, some scholars have suggested that this refers to those who get themselves baptized over the graves of the martyrs. The idea Is that there would be something specially moving in being baptized on sacred ground with the thought of the unseen cloud of witnesses all around. It is an attractive and rather a lovely Idea, but, at the time Paul was writing to the Corinthians, persecution had not yet broken out in anything like a big way. Christians might suffer ostracism and social persecution, but the time of the martyrs had not yet come.
(ii) It is in any event much more natural to take huper in the sense of instead of or on behalf of. If we take it that way there are three possibilities. It is suggested that the phrase refers to those who get themselves baptized in order to fill up the vacant places in the Church which the dead have left Again it is a great thought. The idea is that the new believer, the young Christian, comes into the Church like a new recruit to take the place of the veterans who have served their campaign and earned their release. There is a precious thought there. The Church ever needs its reinforcements. its replacements, and the new member of the Church is like the volunteer who fills up the depleted ranks.
(iii) It is suggested that the phrase means those who get themselves baptized out of respect for and affection for the dead. Again there is a precious truth here. We know it to be true that many of us came into the Church because we knew and remembered that someone whom we had loved and who had loved us had died praying and hoping for us. There are many who have in the end given their lives to Christ because of the unseen influence of one who has passed over to the other side.
(iv) All these are lovely thoughts, but In the end we think that this phrase can only refer to one custom, a custom which existed in the early Church, but which has quite correctly passed out of Church practice altogether. In the early Church there was a custom of vicarious baptism. If a person who had intended to become a member of the Church, who was actually under instruction, who was, in fact, a catechumen, died, sometimes someone else underwent baptism for him after he had died. It was a kind of baptism by proxy. The custom sprang from what is really a superstitious and magical view of baptism, the view that, unless a person was baptized, he was excluded from the bliss of the faithful and of heaven. It was to safeguard against this exclusion that sometimes people volunteered to be baptized literally on behalf of those Who had died. Here Paul neither approves nor disapproves that practice. He merely asks if there can be any point in it at all if there is no resurrection and if the dead never rise again.
From that Paul passes on to one of the great motives of the Christian life. In effect he asks, "Why should a Christian accept the battle and the danger and the perils of the Christian life if it is all to go for nothing?" He quotes his own experience. Every day he is in jeopardy of his life. Something terrible of which the New Testament has no record happened to Paul at Ephesus. He refers to it again in 2 Corinthians I: 810: he says that in Asia that is in Ephesus, he was in such dire peril that he despaired of life and had the sentence of death passed upon him. To this day in Ephesus there is a building which is known as Paul's prison. Here he calls it fighting with beasts. The word he uses is the word that is used of a gladiator who in the arena had to fight with the lions. The later legends tell us that Paul actually did so fight and that he was wondrously preserved because the beasts would not attack him. But Paul was a Roman citizen and no Roman citizen could be compelled to fight in the arena. Much more likely he used the phrase as a vivid picture of being threatened and ill-treated by men or by a mob who were as savage for his life as a wild beast might have been. In any event Paul demands, "To what end is all the peril and the suffering and the scars if there is no life beyond?"
The man who thinks that this life is all, and that there is nothing to follow it, may well say, "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." The Bible itself quotes those who spoke like that. Isaiah (56: 12) speaks of those who say, " Come ye, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day and much more abundant." The preacher, who held that death was extinction, wrote, "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor." Ecclesiastes 2:24, cp. 3: 12; 5: 18; 8:15; 9:7). Jesus Himself told about the rich fool who forgot eternity and who took as his motto, "Eat, drink and be merry." (Luke 12: 19). Classical literature is full of this spirit. Herodotus, the Greek historian, tells of a custom of the Egyptians. " In social meetings among the rich, when the banquet is ended, a servant carries round to the several guests a coffin, In which there is a wooden image of a corpse, carved and painted to resemble nature as nearly as possible, about a cubit or two cubits in length. As he shows it to each guest in turn, the servant says, 'Gaze here, and drink and be merry, for when you die, such will you be.'" Euripides writes in the Alcestis (781789, A. S. Way's translation):
"From all mankind the debt of death Is due,
For of all mortals is there one that knows
If through the coming morrow he shall live?
For trackless is the way of fortune's feet,
Not to be taught nor won by art of man.
This hearing then, and learning it of me,
Make merry, drink; the life from day to day
Account thine own, all else in fortune's power."
Thucydides (2: 53) tells how when the mortal plague came to Athens people committed every shameful crime and eagerly snatched at every lustful pleasure because they believed that life was short and they would never have to pay the penalty. Horace (Odes 2: 13; 13) gives as his philosophy, "Tell them to bring wines and perfumes and the too short-lived blossoms of the lovely rose while circumstances and age and the black threads of the three sisters (the Fates) still allow us to do so." in one of the most famous poems in the world the Latin poet Catullus wrote, " Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us value the tales of austere old men at a single half-penny. Suns can set and then return again, but for us, when once our brief light sets, there is but one perpetual night through which we must sleep." Take away the thought of a life to come and this life loses its values. Take away the idea that this life is a discipline and a preparation for a greater life to come and the bonds of all honor and morality are loosened. It Is useless to argue that this should not be so, because men should not be good and honorable for the sake of some reward. The fact remains that the man who believes that this is the only world will inevitably live as if the things of this world are all that matter.
So Paul insists that the Corinthians must not associate with those who say that there is no resurrection. To associate with such is inevitably to risk an infection which can pollute life. To say that there is no resurrection is not a sign of superior knowledge; It Is a sign of utter Ignorance of God. Paul is unleashing the lash that very shame may bring these wanderers back into the right way.
THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL 1 Corinthians 15: 35-49
But perhaps someone says, "In what form are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" That is a foolish question. When you sow a seed, It cannot be made alive, unless it first dies. It is slot the body which is going to come into existence that is sown, but a seed which is not clothed in a body at all, it may be of corn, or of some other of the crops. But God gives it a body as He wills, and to each of the seeds He gives its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one kind of flesh of men, and another of beasts, and another of birds, and another of fishes. There are heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies. The splendor of the heavenly bodies is one thing, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one splendor and the moon another splendor and the stars another splendor. I say stars, not star, for star differs from star in splendor. There Is the same difference between this body and the body we shall have in the resurrection of the dead. Our body is like the seed. It is sown in corruption; It is raised in Incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; It is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. For if a physical body exists, so does a spiritual one. For it stands written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." it is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and after that the spiritual.
The First man is of the earth and was made of earth; the second man is from heaven. Such as are made of earth are like earth; such as are heavenly, are like the heavenly one; and, as we have borne the image of that which is of earth, so we shall also bear the image of Him who is of heaven.
BEFORE we begin to try to interpret and understand this section we would do well to remember one thing--all through it Paul is talking about things that no one really knows anything about. He is not talking about verifiable matters of fact, but about matters of faith. He is trying to express the inexpressible and to describe the indescribable, and he Is doing the best he can with the human ideas and the human words that are all that he has to work with. If we will remember that it will save us from a crudely literalistic interpretation and will make us fasten our thoughts on the underlying principles which are in Paul's mind. In this section Paul is dealing with people who say," Granted that there is a resurrection of the body, even if we go so far as to allow that that is so, with what kind of body do people rise again?" Paul's answer has three basic principles in it.
(i) He takes the analogy of a seed. The seed is put In the ground and dies, but in due time it rises again, and It rises with a very different kind of body from that with which it was sown. Paul is showing that, at one and the same time, there can be dissolution, difference and yet continuity. The seed is dissolved; when it rises again there is a vast difference in the body that God gave It; and yet, in spite of the dissolution and in spite of the difference, it is the same life, the same seed. That argument proves that our earthly bodies will be buried and will dissolve; they will rise again and the form in which they rise may be very different; but the fact remains it is the same person who rises, however different the resurrection body may be. We may be dissolved by death; we may be changed by resurrection; but it is still we who exist.
(ii) The second basic principle which Paul lays down is that in the world, even as we know it, there is not one kind of body. Each separate part of creation has its own body. That argument proves that God gives to each living creature and to each created thing a body suitable for and adjusted for its part in creation. If that be so it is only reasonable to expect that God will give us too a body fitted for the resurrection life.
(iii) The third basic principle is that in life there is a development. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth. (Genesis 2: 7). But Jesus is far more than merely a man made from the dust of the earth. He is the incarnation of the very Spirit of God Himself. Now, under the old way of life, we were one with Adam, sharing his sin, inheriting his death and having his body but under the new way of life we are one with Christ and we shall therefore share His life and His being. That argument proves that it is true that we have a physical body to begin with, but it is also true that one day we shall have a spiritual body also.
All through this section Paul has maintained a reverent and wise reticence as to what that body will be like. It will be a spiritual body and it will be such as God knows that we need and we will be like Christ, but in verses 4244 he draws four contrasts which shed light on our future state.
(i) The present body is corruptible; the future body will be incorruptible. In this world everything is subject to change and decay. "Youth's beauty fades, and manhood's glory fades," as Sophocles the old Greek poet had it, but in that life to come there will be a permanence in which the lovely things will never cease to be lovely and beauty will never lose its sheen.
(ii) The present body is in dishonor; the future body will be in glory. What does Paul mean by this? It may be that he means that in this life it is through our bodily feelings and passions and instincts that dishonor can so easily come to life; but in that life to come our bodies will no longer be the servants of passion and of impulse but the instruments of the pure service of God, than which there can be no greater honor.
(iii) The present body is in weakness; the future body will be in power. It is nowadays fashionable to talk of the power of man, but the really remarkable thing is the weakness of man. A draught of air or a drop of water can kill him. We are limited in this life so often simply because of the necessary limitations of the body. Time and time again our physical constitution says to our visions and our plans,
Thus far and no farther." We are so often frustrated in life because we are what we are. But in that life to come the limitations will be gone. Here we are compassed about with weakness; there we will be clad with power.
"All we have hoped or willed or dreamed of good shall exist;
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard."
On earth we have the "broken arcs"; In the life to come "the perfect round."
(iv) The present body is a natural body; the future body will be a spiritual body. By that, it may be, Paul meant that, as we are, we are but imperfect vessels for the Spirit and imperfect instruments of the Spirit; but in the life to come we will be such that the Spirit can truly fill us, as can never happen here, and the Spirit can truly use us, as is never possible now. In the life to come we will be able to render the perfect worship, the perfect service, the perfect love that in this world can only be a vision and a dream.
THE CONQUEST OF DEATH I Corinthians 15: 50-58
Brothers, I say this, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. Look now! I tell you something which only the initiated can understand. We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed, in a moment of time, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised up incorruptible and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.. then the word which stands written will happen, " Death has been swallowed lip in victory." 0 death, where is your victory? 0 death, where Is your sting? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, beloved brothers, show yourselves steady, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your toil does not go for nothing.
ONCE again we must begin this passage by remembering that Paul is again dealing with things which defy language and which baffle expression. We must read this with the mind with which we would read great poetry, rather than with the mind with which we would dissect a scientific treatise. The whole argument follows a series of steps until it reaches its climax.
(i) Paul insists that as we are we are not fit to Inherit the Kingdom of God. We may be well enough equipped to get on with the life of this world, but for the life of the world to come we will not do. A man may be able to run enough to catch his morning train, but he would need to be a very different man to be able to run enough to run in the Olympic games. A man may write well enough to amuse his friends but he would need to be a very different man to write something which men will not willingly let die. A man may talk well enough in the circle of his club but he would need to be a very different man to talk well enough to hold his own in a circle of real scholars and experts. A man always needs to be changed to enter into a higher grade of life. First then Paul insists that before we can enter the Kingdom of God we must be changed.
(ii) Further Paul insists that that shattering change is going to come in his own lifetime. In this Paul was in error. But he looked to that change coming when Jesus Christ came again.
(iii) Then Paul goes on triumphantly to declare that no man need fear that change. The fear of death has always haunted men. Dr. Johnson, one of the greatest and the best men who ever lived, was haunted by this fear. Once Boswell said to him that there had been times when he had not feared death. Johnson answered that "he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him." Once Mrs. Knowles told him that he should not have a horror for that which is the gate of life. Johnson answered,
No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension." He declared that the fear of death was so natural to man that all life was one long effort not to think about it. Now wherein lies the fear of death? Partly it comes from the fear of the unknown. But still more it comes from the sense of sin. If a man felt that he could meet God easily then to die would only be, as Peter Pan said, a great adventure. But whence comes that sense of sin? It comes from a sense of being under the law. So long as a man sees in God only the law of righteousness he must forever be in the position of a criminal before the bar of God with no hope of acquittal and with the certainty of condemnation But it is precisely that that Jesus came to abolish. He came to tell us that God is not law, but love; that the centre of God's being is not legalism but grace; that we go out, not to a judge, but to a Father who awaits His children coming home. And just because of that Jesus Christ gave us the victory over death, and the fear of death is banished in the wonder of the love of God.
(iv) Finally, at the end of this chapter, Paul does what he always does. Suddenly the theology becomes a challenge; suddenly the speculations become intensely practical; suddenly the sweep of the mind becomes the demand for action. So Paul ends by saying," If you have all that glory to look forward to, then keep yourself steadfast in God's faith and God's service, for if you do, all your effort and all your striving will not be in vain." The Christian life may be difficult, but the goal is infinitely worth the struggle of the way....(William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1956)
What are Resurrection Bodies Like?
We know of one man who walked on earth having overcome death and having gained possession of a resurrection body. That man was Jesus of Nazareth.
"...[He] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel..." (2 Timothy 1:9-10).
Jesus has in fact gained a great and lasting victory for us,
"Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Hebrews 2:14-15)
After His resurrection from the dead, Jesus made a number of appearances to his followers. The following passages of Scripture shed light on what He looked like, how he behaved, and what He did during the next 40 days before his ascension. He was present on earth with people in his resurrection body:
It is helpful to read: Matthew 18:1-35, Mark 16:1-11, Luke 23:53-24:54, John 20:1-18, Mark 16:12-13, Luke 24:13-35. Luke 24:36-43, John 20:19-23, John 20:24-29, John 21:1-24, Matthew 28:16-20. Mark 16:14-20b, Luke 24:44-53, John 21:25, 20:30, 31; Acts 1:1-12, and I Corinthians 15:3-8.
From these passages we learn that Jesus had a tangible resurrection body which could be touched and handled. He was able to eat food. His body carried with it the nail wounds in his hands, feet and sides that remained as evidence of his crucifixion. He carries those same scars today. He was not a ghost, not a spirit. He had been dead, and was now alive again.
Jesus, after His resurrection, was able to conceal his identity from friends, as for example when he talked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus on that first Easter afternoon. He was able to enter and leave rooms through closed doors, and apparently could travel a hundred miles to Galilee with ease. At the time of His departure--the Ascension--he disappeared through a gate, a space-time gate taking him out of our physical world into the invisible world of the spirit which surrounds us on all sides.
In summary, in our resurrection bodies,
1. We will be able to recognize Jesus as He is now and has been for the past 2000 years. "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:2)
2. We will recognize our friends and loved ones.
3. We can eat food, we can be touched and we will have our usual senses of sight, smell, taste, smell, etc.
4. We can, apparently enter and leave the physical world from the invisible realm of the heavenly places.
5. Our new bodies do not wear out and are imperishable. We are no longer subject to sickness, pain or grief.
6. We will be incapable of sin by nature. Thus the quality of all relationships with our fellow saints will be immensely improved.
7. Marriage will have ceased as an institution for us. We will not be sexless, nor will the differences between the sexes be eliminated, rather they will be amplified and extended. We will probably lack reproductive organs. However, our participation in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb implies an intimate unity not only with our Lord Jesus, but also with all the rest of God's people.
8. Because of the absence of sin, pleasure and enjoyment without fear of failure, inhibition or restriction will be greatly expanded. Any two believers can enjoy intimate fellowship of the highest quality."At the right hand are pleasures forevermore."
9. Our resurrection bodies will be equipped to be in tune with the spiritual world, the heavenly places, therefore time and space travel is a likely capability of these marvelous new bodies.
10. Based on our walk with God in this present life believers will possess varying capacity to contain God in heaven. The quality of time, and the quality of eternal life which each of us experiences will be greater for those whose lives have been lived out on earth is a closer walk with the Lord and obeyed Him most faithfully.
11. We should consider our present selves as mere smudges of greasy smoke, largely shadowy and transparent. The residents of heaven, on the other hand are "solid people." The best description of this state of affairs I know of is given by C.S. Lewis in his wonderful (fictional account) of a visit from the outskirts of hell to the gates on heaven in his perennially valuable book "The Great Divorce".
12. Resurrection bodies are not the same identical bodies which were laid in the grave which were then reconstituted. The new body is related to the former body, yet different.
Additional Commentaries and References:
Excellent further commentaries by Ray C. Stedman, Expository studies in First Corinthians, Messages 36-39. and also Ray C. Stedman, Expository Studies in Second Corinthians, messages 9-10.
My article Time and Eternity hopefully clarifies the difference between time and eternity as applicable to the physical vs. the spiritual world. Also discussed are the various kinds of subjective time we know in daily experience.
The Bible indicates that the unrighteous who did not receive Christ in their lifetimes will also be resurrected (separately) and given resurrection bodies, (Revelation 20:11-15). We know even less about the nature of these bodies which will last forever along with their occupants in a place of everlasting destruction.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." (John 5:24-29)
