Christ, the first fruits

Good morning. Before we step into this passage here, which we will certainly do, I have a couple of minutes of announcements. Things to cover first. This is the last call for the God's Intent for Your Finances seminar to be held next Saturday morning, 9 to noon. That's not 9 p.m. to midnight. Nine to noon. Babysitting is provided. Couples are encouraged to come both if at all possible. We need to have you sign up in the lobby if you want to take that in.

It would be great for somebody who just feels like they've got money burning a hole in their pocket. Or money going down the drain. Or somebody who would like to accumulate something that doesn't just go away. Or somebody was wondering whether the money's saying hello or waving goodbye. So anyway, any of those.

And so feel free to take advantage of that. There is also a petition for you to consider. It's not anything we're urging, just to consider. Today in the coffee room to place a pro-life measure on the Colorado state ballot later this year. But that's for you to consider and take advantage of if you'd like to do that. There's also a supplemental handout on what the Bible says about worldviews and political systems on the cabinet to the right as you exit this room.

That's where all the papers go, right? I'm surprised it's still standing up there. Okay. And on top of that, there's another one, chapter 14, expanded and explained is also there. Okay. All right. That's enough of our two hours of announcements. Back to the study. And we'll be going through the passage that Courtney introduced to us here in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now, this passage has an interesting pattern to it.

It starts off with firstfruits actually twice. And Christ the firstfruits is the statement that it makes. Verses 20 through 22, those first few. speak of Christ as the firstfruits, and then it does in a kind of a double pattern that we'll look at here shortly, a contrast between death from Adam's sin and being made alive in Christ. Those two contrasts, and it does so twice, as we'll soon see. The next verses, 23 through 28, also speak of Christ as the firstfruits and then proceed with a series of then and when statements. That's what Courtney was pointing out, all the subject to's and powers and authorities and things of that sort.

It finally finishes up with sort of Paul's addressing a practical issue that seems to be affecting people from their questioning of the resurrection. That's rather than staying in some sort of a cold, dusty doctrine, instead having a serious impact upon their lives and some are falling into sin. So, what does this term, firstfruits, mean? What do you think it means? Just wondering. Well, let's take a look at that. Probably none of these. None of those.

In the culture of the people of Israel, and based upon their reading of the Law of Moses, there were a series of seven feasts that were instituted. Some of those were clustered quite close together, as we'll soon see. And one was the earlier harvest, and that was a grouping of three. Then a little bit after that was Pentecost, and then finally another grouping in the fall harvest period. And so those seven feasts were instituted by the Law of Moses itself. It said the Jews must carry these out. The harvest had three stages. And those were, of course, somewhat natural, but also something that the Lord took particular note of and instituted in their feasts.

And we talk about stages, we're not talking about rockets or any of the things that horses pull. No, this is the first stages, the first fruits, the very first things of the spring harvest. They were brought in and presented at the temple. And we'll cover what that means in a little more detail here. The main harvest was when most of the crops were brought in. During the main harvest time, they didn't have a lot of feasts and festivals, because they had to get out there and harvest, right? Except for the day of Pentecost, which we'll look at shortly.

Finally, you have the gleanings. This is to provide for the poor. There were two particular areas of gleanings. In order to provide for the poor, they didn't just, hand them money at the off-ramp. What they did was they provided a way so that the poor could work for the food that they gathered in the gleanings. It happened in two ways.

One is the Jews were not permitted to go and harvest all the way into the corners. They had to leave an area in the corner that was completely unharvested. Fully planted, fully developed and cared for, but unharvested so that the poor could take from those. Additionally, in the area that they did harvest, they were not allowed to go in and take a second run through it.

They had to leave whatever was left through the first run through the harvest and leave it there for the gleaners. So between the corners and kind of that whatever was left over in the area that they had harvested, Those who were gleaning were able to take from the crops that were there. Whether you're talking about grain crops or orchard crops or vineyards or anything of the sort. We give as an example here, the Book of Ruth is just a really touching and heartwarming story. Gleaning turn to romance and the love of a lifetime and even more since Ruth is a grandmother of King David and in the lineage of Christ.

So anyway, those are the three stages. Taking a focus now on Israel's harvest of the first fruits, one of the things we notice is in the four books, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, that Moses had to lay out, here are the laws for the Jews. Each one of those books has not just one reference, but multiple references about how Israel must carry out this harvest and presenting of the first fruits. It's spelled out multiple times in each one of those books.

Interestingly enough, as you go through the rest of the Old Testament, this idea of firstfruits as a figurative term is used in one place, and that's Psalm 105, 36, where the firstfruits is used as the idea of the first fruit of something, but not necessarily the crops. As we shift into the New Testament, in the New Testament, firstfruits is always figurative, including this passage that we have here. It's looking upon Anything that is kind of the first of a larger group being called the first fruits, but it's not dealing with crops in any of those instances. It's always dealing with something other than crops, typically people. You have, after the first fruits, the main harvest and then the gleaning. Here is how that was described in Leviticus 19, 9 and 10.

Now, when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. That is, you can't go back a second time and pick up the leftovers. You've got to leave it. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God. You shall leave them for others who are less fortunate than you and they can then glean and harvest what is left. But you must do this. This was required. Also Leviticus 23-22 has a similar kind of statement just farther on a few chapters later. You have as this slide on page one of your handout this poetic form of first Corinthians 1520 and verse 23.

These are the two verses that mention Christ being the firstfruits. And look at the interesting pattern there. Starts off with the word but, not as any kind of a sharp contrast, but simply as a turning point in what Paul is saying. He next points out Christ. The first time he says Christ has been raised from the dead. The next time he says Christ and that Truth is assumed. The next one down is a restatement in both cases of the first fruits. We have that marked out here on the screen in green with a line between them. And then finally, those who are is repeated in each case.

And those who are asleep, and that's the euphemism in the New Testament for those who are dead in the Lord, those who are believers who have died. He has, in verse 23, is Christ's at his coming. Those who are asleep, Christ will take at his coming. You also have a poetic pattern here, just looking at verses 20 through 22, and it goes like this.

Oh, and by the way, in this one, I've kind of shortened up the language, tightened it up a little bit, so that it more literally reflects what the Greek language says there. And it goes like this. You have the first line that says, but now Christ has been raised from dead ones, the first fruits of those who are asleep. And in this one, it's kind of a somewhat of a rhyming pattern.

The next two, however, are interesting in that he has a repetition of the pattern, but it's a contrast. For since by a man, death, by a man also, resurrection of dead ones. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. This word raised in this particular verse here, very important as well as interesting. It's in the perfect tense, which shouldn't make you perfectly tense, right? Okay, but what does the perfect tense mean? It's a completed past action, ongoing results of the future, implying permanence.

Why is that important? Christ was raised from the dead not to die again like Lazarus. Imagine Lazarus dying twice. Oh no, I'm dying again. Didn't happen to Jesus. Jesus says in the book of Revelation, He says, I am alive forevermore. He's not going through cycles before with this.

It also means it's a completed past action ongoing results into the future. Christ was raised not just to raise Him, but to have results on into the future. There are consequences to Christ being raised, and it's all good. Imagine anything on this earth that's all good. This is it. Christ was raised.

It's permanent. It's irreversible. It's not going to change. It's a done deal, and it's always going to have its positive impact. Always. Never ending. The other thing that we see here is the repeated pattern, by a man, death. That is also in Adam, all die. Repetition of the idea. By a man also, resurrection of dead ones.

In Christ, all will be made alive. The point here is all who are in Christ, all who have believed in Christ and therefore have been identified with Him and are in Him will be made alive. Have you put your trust and confidence in Christ for salvation? And is death, burial, or resurrection? That's you, okay? It's talking about you.

You have on page two of your handout, and I think you'll find this interesting, the top half of the page is much like what you see here, with the exception of the candelabra and the gradle. It is a circular chart of the Jewish calendar matched up against the calendar that we're more accustomed to that runs from January through December. And it shows the various Jewish feasts. We'll touch on some of them that aren't particularly relevant just so we'll stay oriented. One of those is Hanukkah.

Hanukkah, believe it or not, is mentioned just once in the Bible in John 10.22. And it's not called Hanukkah there, OK?

It's the Feast of Lights or the Festival of Lights. And it's what Jews typically today celebrate in what we know as December. And it's oftentimes coinciding with Christmas or sometimes earlier. So that's Hanukkah. It has to do with an event that took place between the time of the New Testament and the Old Testament, which is why it only shows up in the New Testament and just that once. The Jews also have the Feast of Purim. In that they read the book of Esther all the way through. And it's interesting, it goes along with a bunch of noisemakers and almost Mardi Gras or Halloween-ish type costumes.

But that's one that was not instituted by Moses. but one that came later because Esther was about almost 1,000 years after the time of Moses. Now, from Pentecost, excuse me, Passover to Tabernacles are the seven feasts instituted under the law of Moses. These are the ones that Moses gave. And you see those starting in the spring and continuing on into the fall. Here we have Passover. and then tabernacles as the first and the last of those seven feasts.

The point that we have also noted on your handout here, there's Passover, unleavened bread, and then the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is actually roughly a week-long The second day is the Feast of Unleavened Bread First Fruits. That second day is the Feast of First Fruits. Now, you have a chart like this on the bottom half of the second page. And what it does is it puts together the Passover, which would be typically on a Friday, and then the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread on a Saturday. And then finally, firstfruits on a Sunday. What you see underneath that is very interesting. Let me step through it.

The Passover that the Jews observed would, according to the traditional chronology, be the day that Christ is crucified and buried. Christ, the Passover lamb, crucified and buried on that day. The next day, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Christ remains in the tomb. Saturday, as we would call it. And the third day, First Fruits, would be the day we call Sunday, and Christ is raised on that third day. So these feast days match up exactly with Christ's death and burial and resurrection. And what's interesting, as we have gone through 1 Corinthians, now with this passage, all three of those days are mentioned in 1 Corinthians.

Christ our Passover, 1 Corinthians 5.7. And by the way, this is not in your handout, so make note of it if you'd like to do so.

1 Corinthians 5.7, Christ is our Passover, is exactly the identification that Paul gives there in 1 Corinthians. The very next verse, he says, Therefore let us celebrate the feast not with old leaven or with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5.8. And the very next day is firstfruits. And that is the passage we're looking at now.

First Corinthians 15.23, Christ the firstfruits. So those three days in sequence are mentioned right here in First Corinthians. Paul matches them all together. And he even has them in sequence, in the sequence in which they're observed. So what's the meaning of first fruits?

Now you may have said to yourself, well, I've already asked that question. Well, you're right. So if you think you're hearing double and seeing double, you are. What we're doing different here is we're not answering the question, what was it to the Jews? But we're saying, what is it to us as Christians?

So first fruits was a term with meaning for both the Jews and the Gentiles. But among the Jews, the first fruits represented the whole crop. In other words, I'm bringing in this first fruit from my crops, whatever it is, wheat, vineyard, orchard crops, whatever it is, I'm bringing the first fruit in, presenting it at the temple, and that was then a representation of the entire crop that was going to follow. So first, there was a representation. in the first fruits of the whole crop. Next, there was a consecration or a dedication of those first fruits on behalf of the whole crop.

It says, Lord, we're going to go out there and harvest and it's all yours. Lord, we're going to go out there and harvest all this that we brought. We recognize it's from you. You are the owner of it. We're the stewards. Thirdly, it anticipated the whole crop. It looked ahead and looked forward to the rest of the crop coming. And fourthly, it guaranteed the whole crop. Lord, we're wanting to follow through on what you did, the Jews would say. And we know that you're going to bring the rest of this because you're faithful. And we're responding to what you've told us to do.

So it was those four things. Passover was the day when Christ was crucified and buried, followed by the first day of unleavened bread, like we saw in the chart, and then when Christ was in the tomb, and then the firstfruits, the day he was raised from the dead. So Christ the firstfruits means that Christ, when he was resurrected, was the first of all the rest that would follow in resurrection. And guess what? If you're a believer here this morning, that's you. He is the first of all who would follow. He is, to go back to this first part of the slide here, He represents the rest. He consecrates or dedicates all the rest. That's you and me.

There is an anticipation of our resurrection and a guarantee of our resurrection. Now, 1 Corinthians 15, 23-28 is all about timing. Now, I don't mean I put the stopwatch there, that's just for fun. What I really am talking about is not so much close timing down to the hundredth of a second, but more sequence. As you start off in verse 23, it comes across this way. It's the timing of the resurrections.

And what does he have? But each in his own order, Christ and the firstfruits, after that those who are Christ's at his coming. That word order was a term that was used in military formations, where they would have here's this one, and then that group, and then this next group, and they would have each in a military formation coming across in their own order and sequence. That's what he's talking about here.

Christ is the one who comes first. After that, those who are Christ's that is coming. By the way, who are Christ's that is coming? That's us, right? If you're a believer here today, let's put your trust in Christ for salvation. You're a Christ that is coming. I hope it's today. I hope it's today.

The next, verses 24 through 28, is the timing of the raining. Verse 23 is the timing of the resurrections. Now, verse 24 is the timing of the raining. One of the things you notice as you go through this, and I've tried to underscore it, is we've got underlines and then on the screen here some blue lettering to show all the things that point to timing. As you go through all the way from verse 23 to the end, there is a sense of timing in everything that has happened.

This, then this, and this happens when that happens, and this will take place until this time and that time. And he goes through this entire passage dropping very strong hints that this is about timing. This is about what is going to take place in the future, beginning with what's happening now. This is what is going to take place in the future, and it's about timing. It's about sequence. It's about when this happens, then this happens. When this happens, then that follows. One of the questions that we have is where is history headed? Where is history headed? Ever worry about what's happening? No, not you, right?

It's easy, especially as we get what's happening around the world just projected right into our front rooms, right into our earbuds, right? Right into the places where we walk and live. And we find out instantly the very worst of the worst things that are happening. And once we find that out, we find out the next thing and the next thing. So where is history headed? How cranked up, how bent out of shape should we get? Should you stay awake at night, pry your eyes open, and really worry up really good? Where is history headed?

The Apostle Paul is spelling out here In this passage, he has made it succinctly in Ephesians 1.10, starting with verse 9, actually. All of history on this present heavens and earth is being managed by God. Now, get this. Managed by God. To what end? To the end that he will bring all things together in Christ. That's where history is headed.

If we look back in history, we can see some horrible things happen. If you look at your TV set at news time, you see horrible things happening. If you start looking ahead, you can still see some horrible things that might happen. And boy, there's plenty to worry about, isn't there? But you know what?

History is headed. God is managing history to be headed up in Christ. So you can sleep tonight. Okay? You don't need to get all cranked up about it. All of history is directed towards everything being headed up in Christ. And what kind of chances do you think there are that God's going to mess that up? Do you think it's all history is being directed so that everything is headed up in Christ? Hopefully. All history is being directed so that everything is headed up in Christ, more or less. All history is being directed so that everything is headed up in Christ with a 90% probability, more or less, plus or minus 5%. No. Okay? No, all history is absolutely being directed to be headed up in Christ.

That's what this passage is telling us. Ephesians 1, 9 and 10, we have it here expanded and explained. He the Father made known to us in the church, this is on page 3 of your handout, through the apostles and prophets, the previously unrevealed mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He the Father purposed in Christ.

Verse 10, from the plan and perspective of God's administration of all things, Does that include you? Yep. Does that include the small details of your life? Yep. All things, which we now know includes the church toward the full completion and final stage of the earthly times.

That is, the summing up and bringing into submission of all things in the Christ, the Messiah. There's the definite article there, which is a Jewish technical term for the Messiah. Believe it or not, while it never shows up, I haven't seen it in any English translation, any major translation, this is the first of 23 times in Ephesians, where it says, The Christ, The Christ, The Christ. The Jews would read that and they'd say, The Messiah. All things in the Millennial Kingdom, including all the things in the heavens and things on the earth, literally all of creation, So here in this passage, verses 24 through 28, 1 Corinthians 15, Paul moves from the time of his writing to the times that are still future in our own day, almost 2,000 years later.

Everything is being headed up into Christ. That's where God is managing things. And there is nothing, nothing that is going to happen that's going to thwart that. There's nothing about which God is pacing the floor of heaven saying, what on earth am I going to do? I was heading everything up in Christ, but Vern blew it. Right? Now I have no idea what I'm going to do. Vern goofed it up so badly, it's terrible. Right? No. That's not happening, is it?

He will head everything up in Christ, no exceptions. And no chance of failing on that point. Paul's points through this are all about authority. Christ will have all of ultimate authority. And you see authority and power and being subject to being repeated and made redundant in this passage. Christ will have all power.

Now, Here's a chart to kind of give us a timeline of how that looks like. Your chart is complete. I'll go through it just a little bit at a time so that we have it clear. First was Christ's first coming almost 2,000 years ago, recorded in the Gospels and explained in much of the rest of the New Testament. He died, was buried, raised, ascended, and seated. And the first three of those are on Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits, right? Died, buried, raised, ascended, and seated.

You're about here. Some would like to move that over a little bit closer, but OK, you're about here. In fact, one of the things we said in the elective before this is this whole world could be over and done with in 1,007 years. That soon. So you're here. Next we have, and we have kind of the timeline there on the bottom, seven year tribulation in a millennial kingdom.

But the next event that Scripture has laid out for us is Christ coming for the church. If you're a believer here this morning, that's you. Christ coming for the church. The term that's been applied to that is called the rapture. It's just a Latin term for the taking of the church, for the Lord to take the church to be with Him. Following that, is Christ coming with the church. See the distinction there? Christ coming for the church. At the end of that seven-year tribulation period, Christ coming with the church.

That also includes, and you have it noted on your slide there, and all the other saints of all time and the angels coming with Christ at his second coming. You're going to be there. You're going to be there. Finally, we have, as this passage lays out, death abolished and all things in subjection, a new heavens and a new earth. That's the timing.

Now, one of the things that we got to look at, you ever heard some, here's a statement, all power corrupts. Ever heard that? Maybe you've heard it this way, but we need the electricity. No, that's not what I meant. Okay. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is what Lord Acton said and a couple other fellows said something similar in previous decades.

We get concerned about when somebody gets too powerful, don't we? Why? Because human nature does get corrupted by power. The worst of the sin nature gets expressed when somebody powerful gets into place. All power, however, does not corrupt Christ. Here's what God is going to do. You're going to see people come to power, and people fall out of power, and people who are powerful die, and there's all this coming and going. That's the way it is with people. And as you see, all power does corrupt, and the more powerful somebody gets, it seems the worse it gets. But it's not going to end that way.

God is going to give all power and all authority to Christ. Everything will be subjected to Him. And finally, even death itself. And we don't have to worry about it, because Christ with all power does not corrupt. He is incorruptible. We've been told that all power corrupts, and it's true. But all power will ultimately be centered in Christ, and that's a good thing. There's no chance of corruption.

You see, mankind has three problems. You've got the God of this world, you've got the world system, and you've got the sin nature. That's a triple whammy, folks. It's a triple whammy. That's why this world is this big careening mess. When Christ comes and everything is being managed by God, even now, to the direction that Christ will head up everything, when He comes, He will have absolute authority. And unlike what we see with people, where we want to keep somebody from having too much power, in the case of Christ, it will be quite the opposite. We will want to see Him with all the power. Because with all the power, He corrupts not one bit. Christ cannot be corrupted.

Now we come to the fun head-scratcher. People have scratched all the hair off their heads with this one. Not me though, right? Ha! Baptized for the dead. Oh boy. What's this one? This is the verse that probably gets the first prize for the most proposed interpretations. One study I read counted over 200. And I think they fell asleep is probably what happened. Probably more than that. But over 200.

It's evident that the believers in Corinth understood what Paul meant. We don't have any record that they were puzzled by that. He doesn't seem to go into any big long explanation. They also understood that Paul meant that the dead are raised. This has to do with the resurrection. So that much is clear. Let me suggest a couple of other things, several other things. We can bring our understanding of this verse into focus in these ways. We'll start on this slide and move to the next.

Paul did not want believers to be baptized as a proxy for dead people in order to save the dead. That wasn't what this was about. After all, Paul himself said earlier in this very same letter, he says, I don't, you know, baptize, oh, I may be able to baptize a few of you, but that's about it. He wasn't looking at him coming in.

If baptizing some saved living person in order to save somebody who was already dead was going to be effective, he would have made a whole lot more out of this verse. I mean, because that would be phenomenal, wouldn't it? That's not what he was pointing at.

Some of the guidelines I think we get that will help us understand this verse are the baptism is most likely water baptism of Christians. I've seen one of the 200 plus interpretations was where somebody tried to make this identification baptism and it didn't seem to work out very well. Water baptism for Christians. The ones who are baptized most likely refers to a small group of believers within the church.

There are some who have suggested, because there was a practice of baptizing in the pagan cultures, that that's what Paul is talking about. I don't believe that's the case. I don't think he would point to that. The very next point he's going to make in this passage is about the apostles and why the apostles are an example of a group within the church that shows that resurrection makes sense. The next point, the dead for whom some were being baptized were likely believers who died. It's not saving somebody who's already dead by baptizing somebody who's alive. And the last point, those believers who died had almost certainly already been baptized before they died. Why do I say that? The practice that we find in the New Testament is as soon as somebody was saved, they got them baptized. Isn't that what happened on the day of Pentecost?

Acts chapter 2. Remember, here is Philip and what's called the Ethiopian eunuch, this fellow who was a court official in Ethiopia. Here, Philip got up on the chariot with him, explained some things out of the book of Isaiah. The Ethiopian court official believed, and Philip, right there, okay, here's water, let's baptize you.

The practice from any record that we have was that the church immediately baptized anyone who was saved. So these people had very likely already been baptized. There wasn't any baptism again that was necessary or was finally going to save them because they weren't saved before.

Here is what I would say out of 200. I'm kind of cutting to the chase because I'm not going to go through 200 plus interpretations. What I think is the most likely interpretation, if the Greek text conveys because of, and I think there's a basis for that, that is one of the possible meanings shown here under the Strong's definition, rather than on behalf of, then some believers who have been saved by faith in Christ and are then baptized have done so because they heard the testimony of some who have since died. and the ones who died may even have included those who saw Christ resurrected. There's also another possibility I would consider viable, and that is if the text is understood to mean that believers are baptized as an outward expression of their faith in Christ, then these who are baptized for the dead take the place of believers who have died and continue on as a living testimony. Those, I think, are two possible interpretations that seem to fit with the facts and don't stretch the passage. Most of the interpretations, and I've taken a look at some of them, are really out there. But that's what I would suggest is the meaning here. So, why are we doing this is the question, okay? And Paul's asking this in these verses 33-32. Okay, so why are we doing this if there is no resurrection? Paul's point in these verses is this.

He and the apostles are going out there and putting their lives on the line. We're going to find out when we step into 2 Corinthians that Paul spells out a whole bunch of ways in which his life was threatened, in places he put his life at risk time and time again. 2 Corinthians 11, he says there he'd been shipwrecked three times, but Acts 27, which takes place after 2 Corinthians 11, he gets shipwrecked again. So that's at least four, okay?

This guy has gone through wild, crazy times, and if he didn't believe in the resurrection, he wouldn't be doing it. It wouldn't make any sense for he and the rest of the apostles to go putting their lives on the line if they didn't believe in the resurrection. They'd say, hey, you know, this is the only thing I've got. When I'm done, I'm done here. And instead, what did they do?

They believed so firmly in the resurrection that they put their lives on the line again and again and again and again. From every record we have, the apostle John was the only one of the twelve who died a natural death. Every record we have says that all the rest of them put their lives on the line again and again and again and ultimately lost it because of the belief that Christ was raised. If Christ did not rise and the believers do not rise from the dead, then not only are the apostles and the others testifying of a falsehood, but they're risking death, which would shorten, if this were true, the only life they've got.

The only life they're ever going to have. Finally, at the end of the passage, if this life is all there is, if this life is all there is and there isn't any more, then how do we live? The worldview that this life is all there is has a vacuous morality in a lifestyle and a motivation that goes right along with it. Let's eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Let's live it up. because it's surely going to be all over. Let's just have fun now, and who cares what the consequences are, because we probably won't be around for them.

That's why Paul had to go beyond just philosophy and hypothesis. He had various arguments here, but this is the character of doctrine. Doctrine isn't just some dusty pile of things that we say, yeah, this is true, isn't it? Doctrine matters. Doctrine impacts the way we live. And that's his point here. He says, I've been going through this, talking about this argument, asking this question, and saying if, if, if, if, and therefore, therefore, therefore, and I've been spelling all these things out.

But the bottom line is, some of you are embracing this idea that Christ never was raised, and you're not going to be raised, and I'm not going to be raised either. And you know what it's doing? You're not just spouting your doctrine, you're living in sin. Because you're saying, let's eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. The doctrine has impacted your daily life. He says, and that's not good. They were sinning because of the philosophy. It wasn't just hypothesis. It wasn't just spouting off platitudes. It was impacting every single day of their lives.

The reality, however, is Christ is raised. The reality is Christ is coming for us. The reality is He has prepared a place for us. As the Gospel of John records in John 14, 3, Jesus told the disciples, and by the way, this was what a Jewish husband newly engaged, they called them husbands, newly engaged would say to his wife to be, I go and prepare a place for you.

I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. It's not only some cold doctrine of a resurrection. Oh yeah, there's some kind of afterlife out there. It's very personal. Christ is the one who is going and preparing a place because he's alive. And Christ is the one who will come for you and me because we're his bride. Christ is the one whom we will see face to face. Whether he comes today, or next week, or next year, or next decade, or whenever, Christ is the one we'll see face to face. I wouldn't mind if it's today.

Let's pray. Lord, we just thank you as we look at this passage. What marvelous hope we do have. And Lord, a hope that impacts our daily life. It's not just the sweet by and by, but we have a hope for every day. And Lord, by your strength, by the motivation of grace, we pray that we would live this day for that day, that day when we see you face to face, that day when our bodies are like yours. We thank you for the blessed hope that we have. In Jesus' name, amen.