First Corinthians 15:42-49

Like Jim said, we've been working our way through resurrection. And we have discovered that, gee, there is gonna be such a thing. And resurrection has to do with the bodies. And we're contrasting between the present body that we have and the body that we will have. which Jim read, is incorruptible, glorious, powerful, spiritual. At the resurrection, we will receive these spiritual bodies. At present though, with our finite minds, it's really hard to comprehend either spiritual existence Or what is a spiritual body?

What does it look like and what does it do? I mean, we can talk about what Christ's body could do when he rose. We do admit that there is a natural body entirely suited to the conditions of this present earth. The bodies we have are suitable for functioning on this earth. But we know that believers will have a spiritual body that will be entirely suited to the heavenly conditions.

So it's interesting how God does things. He suits the things we need to the environment and the conditions that we're in. So you remember the question that we asked last week? How are the dead raised up and with what body do they come? When Christ rose, interesting, he left nothing of his old body in the tomb. It all came out. The resurrection body then will be related to the present body that we have, as we found out last week, just as the harvest is related to the planting of the seed when it germinates.

Which seed must always decay? Even in the existence of the present body, there is difficulty in identifying the parts over time. The constant flux of its substance is such that the entire body sort of dissolves and rebuilds itself every seven years or so. So I look at old pictures of me and I think, who is that guy? But I always look at old pictures of Donna and I know who she is.

It's therefore not a matter of identifying particles or molecules or of the resurrection of relics of any more than the harvest is the reaping of the actual material which was contained in the dying seed. When the seed goes in the ground and dies, what comes up later, you can't find it in the seed. It doesn't look like, it just isn't a mini part of what the harvest is. So in the case of Christ, the remaining of a remnant of his body in the tomb, however, would have established the error that he did not rise from the dead.

From Lewis Barry Chafer. So we don't doubt the truth that the individual personality and its organic unity of spirit, soul, and body is not only redeemed with eternity in view, our soul, our spirit, and our bodies are redeemed, but the body is raised and shares its own specific redemption along with the soul and spirit of man, reuniting the body with the soul and the spirit. It is the present body that's raised, but in the sense that its identity is gonna be utterly merged into and deposited with a brand new body, brand new.

A complete identity is assumed, that which is sown is raised. And I was fascinated with that words. We're not buried, we're sown. So, verse 42 says, so also is the resurrection of the dead. It, the body, is sown a perishable body and it's raised an imperishable body. So here comes some contrast between what goes in the ground and what comes out of the ground.

Sowing of a perishable body, it shrivels up and it withers, it's corrupt, it's ruined, and it just goes in the ground. It's raised, though, Incorruptible. In other words, you won't be able to mess with it. You can't harm it. It's gonna live forever. It'll have an unending existence. It'll have immortality and it won't be able to be corrupted at all.

Then verse 43 says it's sown in dishonor. It's raised in glory, it's sown in weakness, and it's raised in power. So dishonor means that when you sow a body in the ground, it has indignity. It isn't worth hanging on to. It's disgraceful. When you think about how many sins every one of us commits in a lifetime, we belong in the ground. It has reproach, it's shameful.

But from that, it's raised in glory. It will manifest the application and appearance commanding respect and excellence, and it will manifest the glory of Christ. What a difference, what a difference. It will be sown in infirmity and sickness and weakness and diseased. It will be raised with power. It'll have ability that we can't imagine now, both physically and morally. As reading in a person or a thing, it's power in action, as the Vines Expository Dictionary says. I like that phrase, power in action.

Constable says the human body goes into the ground perishable as a seed. However, God raises it imperishable as grain. It goes into the ground in a lowly condition, dishonor, but it arises in honor and glory. It's weak when it dies, but it's powerful when it arises.

So it's sown as a natural body. That's what we all have now. We have what is known as natural bodies. and it's raised a spiritual body. And then he makes an interesting statement. He said, if there is a natural body, which there is, there is also a spiritual body. So natural is from the Greek, which the Greeks used to designate the soul of a man. That's what this Greek word means. The word spiritual is a word that speaks of the spirit of man.

The human being is composed of three parts. With his physical body, with our physical body, we have world consciousness. We have five senses. We, located in the body, we receive impressions through those five senses from the outside world. Then we have a soul, and the soul makes us self-conscious, self-aware. We know that I'm a person, or a personality.

And then with the Spirit, we have God consciousness. Now, it enables us to know that there is a God. It enables us to worship that God when the Spirit, because it was dead through sin, is made alive by the operation of the Spirit. The body as it exists before death is natural.

It's tied to the soul. And it's made up of the elements just like I mentioned. Most of its activities are concerned with the individual's experience on the earth. I don't think we understand very clearly that the human natural body and the soul are tied together. That body we have now is not designed for spiritual things.

We become spiritually alive in Christ, but we still have a body that's designed to deal with our soul. The human spirit, though, can function within that environment, enabling a man to get engaged in a religious environment that surrounds him, but what does he primarily do?

He ends up a pagan, he worships idols, he participates in ceremonies in the idol temple, Don and I were having a talk this morning, and I said, well, you know, we either worship at the altar of the Lord Jesus Christ, or most people worship at the altar of the world. They worship there. And that's how they function spiritually. The human spirit, when quickened by the Holy Spirit, however, as part of the saving work of God, is enabled to worship God himself, and to participate in the service of the Lord.

But this consciousness is less a part of this life than will be occupied, that is now occupied with the soul. It will all be spiritual when we're resurrected. The type of spiritual life is determined by the quality of the soul life that we have. It will be in a body now predominantly we're worried, concerned about our mind, emotion, and will, our souls. Then everything that we do will be spiritual. Our spirits will dominate. Our soul dominates now. Our spirits will dominate.

Then we'll have a body that'll go along with it. And they will be sympathetic to each other. The resurrection body then will be a spiritual body. But we don't mean by that that it's going to be composed of intangible, vapory, illusory substance. It's not going to be an apparition. It's going to be a real body in which the spirit of life of man will predominate.

The individual will be occupied for the most part with the things of God. That's hard for us to realize because we're You know, we have our daily lives and we go out, like we were talking in Sunday school this morning, Cordy was talking about, boy, you know, I get up in the morning, spend time with the Lord, and then I gotta go hit the bricks. I go out in the world, and what am I thinking about? The things of the world all the time.

Well, this new body won't have to do that. It will be spiritual all the time. And that spirit will predominate, and that spiritual body will predominate. The body dominated by the spirit will be the same body as to identity, which we have now, but it'll be changed to a composition and life principle that is spiritual.

It will be a body of flesh and bones because Christ could feel things when he rose in a physical sense. He could tell the disciples, here, come and touch me. I'm physical. put your finger in the holes in my hands and your hand in my side. So they could handle the body, they could actually touch it. But it had flesh, but it also could walk through walls. It wasn't constrained by physical barriers. Here's the other interesting thing about a spiritual body, it won't have any blood in it. And here's the reason I know that, I'm not surmising. The Lord Jesus was raised, and within 24 hours after he was raised, he's got the disciples sticking their finger in the holes. Well, where were the scabs? And put their hand in his side.

Well, why didn't it have a scar? because it didn't, your spiritual body doesn't need blood to survive. Your physical body today does. You can't survive. You take the blood out of a body, what happens to the body? It dies. The life source of the resurrected body, spiritual body, will be the Holy Spirit himself. And my spirit and your spirit will be alive and that will be the life source.

But you'll be able to touch things and experience things, okay? The new life principle that animates the body, our resurrection body, will be just exactly like the Lord's, only it will be glorified. Lewis Barry Chafer said, one has to reconsider the four great changes listed to be assured that a different form of resurrection awaits the body of the child of God who has been planted and sown. quite diverse from any restoration ever accomplished in human history. This transformed, resurrected body will be limitless in power, infinite in glory, eternal in endurance, and adapted to the Spirit, such as the particular glory of each individual." Boy, imagine what that's going to be like. Then he says, if there's a natural or soulish body, then there is gonna be a spiritual body.

As surely as there is the body which we have now suited to the earth and life that now is, there's also gonna be a spiritual body that's suited to the life that will be, a spiritual life. When the Lord Jesus comes to raise those that are his, in 1 Corinthians 15, 20, Roger covered for our citizenship is in heaven. We're not from the earth anymore. From which we also eagerly await for our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory. by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself. Because we're heavenly, positioned in the heavenlies, we have to have a body that fits.

The other verse I wanted to quote, that verse I quoted, I'm sorry, was Philippians 3.20. The other verse I wanted to quote was 1 Corinthians 15.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who sleep. For since by man came death, Adam, by a man also came resurrection from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ. For as in Adam all die, not most of us, all of us, so also in Christ will all be made alive. But each in his order, Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are in Christ that is coming. So we will have at the time of Christ's coming either through a transformation in the rapture or because we resurrected these incredible new bodies.

Now he changes a little bit in his focus. He says, so also it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam, a life-giving spirit. And by the way, that life-giving spirit, when God breathed into Adam, the breath of lives, it was plural, it was more than one life. The thing that makes this verse go together is the fact that at the very beginning it says, so also it is written. It is written in God's word, the first man, Adam, became a living soul, the last man, a life-giving spirit.

Of the immaterial part of man, it is not said that it is divinely created, or made of any existing material, but that man became a living soul as a result of divine in-breathing into the earthen vessel, the breath of life. It wasn't created. So our physical life, the life we have now wasn't created. It came from God himself. The Lord God in Genesis 2-7 formed man of the dust of the earth ground and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.

So it's clear I think that the immaterial part of man's originates not as a creation but as a transmission. a transmission of life, which brought the body alive. Some element of the creation may have been present and active, but it's evident that the living soul, which man became by the divine inbreeding, is more uncreated than it is created. It is the impartation from the eternal one, God himself, Man seems to be exalted to a place of surpassing dignity and honor because of how he was brought to life. And the plural in there means that he got more than just soulish life, he got spiritual life too.

Lewis Perry Chaffer says, immeasurable indeed are the applications I'm sorry, applications in the fact of a divine in-breathing with respect to the prominence and permanence, with respect to a lofty and solemn grandeur of the beings thus engendered. In other words, when Adam was created, he was special. The human soul and spirit thus are originated, and that, as before indicated, by Elohim, by God himself. Which title implies that all three persons of the Godhead have shared and even as sufficient in himself in securing his crowning work, the crowning work of Elohim's productive powers. All three persons breathed into Adam. First Adam, last Adam. Different, different, different. The last Adam is a quickening or a life-giving spirit.

One who when he rose from the dead, he could breathe on his disciples and say to them, receive the Holy Spirit. And thus he could communicate spiritual life to them just by saying it. The great occasion when scripture shows us the Lord became a quickening spirit is when he rose from the dead. Then, not before, did he breathe on the disciples and say, receive the Holy Spirit. It was not new birth merely for them, but it was life more abundant because it was in the power of the resurrection.

The first man, Adam, was made a living soul. The last, Adam, a life-giving spirit. However, spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual. And when I get down towards the end, it's gonna sound like I'm gonna contradict this, but I'm really not. The natural comes before the spiritual.

The first man is earthly. He's made out of the dust of the earth. William Kelly calls us the dusty ones. So he says, if you're a dusty one, so you are a dusty one. First is seen man failing, man fails in his responsibility. Then the obedient, suffering, victorious man, the Lord Jesus Christ, comes on the scene. If you quote from Genesis 2-7, he reminds us that the first man, Adam, became a living soul, but the first Adam, as we know, was the figure of Him to come. The first man is from the earth, earthy. The second man is from heaven.

So I found this really terrific article from J.G. Bellet, probably written a hundred years ago, but he defines the first Adam very interesting. He said, there's an infinite difference between the last and the first Adam. And when I read that, I thought, no kidding. God created Adam from the earth.

He was natural. He was perfect. He was unmarred and he was untested. He did not have knowledge of good and evil. And in his naive innocence, he was placed, as Beleth says, in protective custody, the Garden of Eden. For his freedom, Adam was placed in a perfect environment, quote, and the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden, you may eat freely.

To protect that freedom, Adam was commanded not to make a choice. Not to make a choice. It's hard for us to grasp not to make a choice, because we make choices all the time. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, from any tree of the garden you can eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat thereof, you will surely die. So being created perfect, Adam didn't have any problem as to obeying his creator. He didn't have any problem making a choice.

He was in protective custody. He was in an environment that perfectly suited him. All he had to do was depend on God. That's all he had to do. He didn't have to make a choice. He just needed to be dependent on God. And being innocent and being created, his place was that of reliance upon God. That was his place. He was given perfect freedom within the will of his benefactor.

And he was protected by the warning against making a choice. Adam could have easily repelled the temptation, but he chose to submit to it. He made a choice. His resultant fall proved that, left to himself, he couldn't stand. It was not that he was evil. His act would have been innocent had it not been warned against. He became evil as a result of his choice. Through Adam's transgression, the creature assumed strength independent of God. You see that? He got strength that was independent of God. Before that time, he was totally dependent on God.

And therefore, in restoring him, God must teach him that he alone, God, is sovereign, and that all creature strength must fail. Boy, I'll tell ya, I learn that every single day, and I'm sure you do too. And this is the lesson which the law and the gospel together teach us. For the law testing man shows the vanity of confidence in the flesh. The gospel revealing God shows the safety of trust in him.

So that's the first Adam. Let's talk about the last Adam. When God's, the son was about to enter the world in his humanity, he said in Hebrews 10, seven, then I said, look, I have come to do your will, oh God. And it is written about me in the scriptures. Our Lord Jesus in his perfect deity and perfect humanity entered into this world, lived and died and returned to his place in glory, all on the basis of the eternal triune will. As the God-man, his attitude was, John 4, 34, my food is to do the will of him that sent me and to accomplish his work.

He doesn't have a question of choice either. That is the way it's always been with him and always will be. As the last Adam, he took the form of a servant and came to do the Father's will. That's what he came to do. It was all forever settled, both in heaven and on earth.

He lived, Matthew 4.4, by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's how he lived. He did not have to choose. He simply abode in his eternal mode of perfect obedience.

So as the earthly is, so also are those who are earthly. As the heavenly, so also those who are heavenly. And this is where it gets a little complicated. And I got a lot of this material from Miles Stanford. He starts out by saying, remember the earthly adage, no matter how you slice it, it's still bologna? What's of the earth is earthly. That part of man which remains lost will be forever in hell. That portion of it which is redeemed will forever, will be forever on earth.

Stay with me. The first, the renewal millennial earth. The second, the new eternal earth. So if you're a Jew, and you're a godly Jew, you're gonna either occupy first the millennial earth, but after the millennial kingdom is over, where are you going? You're gonna be on the earth because you're an earthly man. You're from Adam. The new eternal earth will be your home. If you begin with Adam, you gotta end with Adam. The first man is of the earth, earthy.

All those who believe on the coming one and died before the day of Pentecost were saved, saved for an earthly kingdom, both millennial and eternal. All are either saved Israel or saved Gentiles. None are Christians, none are members of the body of Christ, none are heavenly, not a single one. Hence, it's serious matter for a believer to be locked into the Adamic, earthly, law-oriented kingdom, in Viren theology and thinking.

So, just as you have borne the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. We, as now in Christ, in Christ, shall also bear the image of Christ in the day that he's coming as the heavenly one. Such are the heavenly ones, believers, Christians. We have borne the image of the earthly. We shall bear the image of the heavenly, Chafer's systematic theology.

The last Adam, who is the head of a new race that will never be superseded by another head or by another race. So in order to become heavenly, you have to start in heaven. In order to get to heaven, one must originate in heaven. That can never be said about the Adamic race, which began and ever remains earthly. The believer is to have nothing to do with the first Adam life.

It has been rejected in crucifixion, Romans 6.11. Reckon ye yourselves indeed dead unto sin. On the contrary, the believer is to have everything to do with the last Adam life.

It has been accepted in glory. Reckon yourselves to be alive under God in Christ Jesus. So the question has to be asked, when did the Christian become heavenly? Well, the first recorded thing God did back in eternity before creating anything was to make a promise to Christ. And the promise was, He conceived and formulated in his heart and mind every single believer. And he promised each one of us to his son.

Titus 1.2 says, in the hope of eternal life, which God cannot lie, promised before the world began.

John Darby makes an interesting comment here. He says, our portion in life existed before the foundation of the world. Not only in the counsels of God, but not only in the person of the son, but in the promise made to the son as our portion in him. It was the subject of those communications between the Father to the Son in which we were the objects, the Son being their depository. Marvelous knowledge which has been given us of heavenly pronouncements of which the Son was the object in order that we might understand the interest which we have in the thought and intent of God. of which we were the objects of Christ before all ages. Miles Stanford wrote, they're an eternity past. Prior to all creation, each Christian began. Not actually, but intentionally and positionally in God's heart and purpose and in his son, the last Adam. not in the first man, Adam, but in the second man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Second Timothy 1.9 tells us, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and grace, and here's the line, which was given us in Christ before the world began.

Ephesians 1.4 says, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. And then, you may have seen this before, but Myles put together a little pamphlet called An Eye for an Eye, and in that pamphlet he quotes this thing that's called interior to all.

And that says, once upon eternity, there was but infinite non-existence. No atom, no universe, no world, nothing, nothing, nothing. But God, the eternity triunity of love, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. For Isaiah 57, 15 says, for thus saith the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity and whose name is holy.

Let your heart, dear friend, draw back there. and contemplate the beloved Son eternally in the bosom of the loving Father, receiving reciprocations of that divine love in all its unutterable purity and ardor in the spirit of love. Back there in eternity, before anything had been brought into being, In the pure essence of divine love and light, I'm sorry, of divine life, light, and love, in the mind of the Father, in the heart of the Son, in the hands of the Spirit, by and for his love, God conceived you and me. Thought of an eternity past. Brought forth in time for eternity, future, forever loved. Think about that.

In the secret place of the Most High, in the bosom of the Father, before anything was created, the Father fashioned you. In his heart. This is one of Roger's favorite verses. Psalm 139, 16, thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unformed. And in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

When the giver of the gift of life thinks and speaks, even in eternity past, it's done. While he may not choose to carry it out immediately, it is forever completed. For he spoke and it was done. That which has been is now, and that which is to be has already been.

That's from Ecclesiastes 3.15. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem way back when she said, ere suns and moons could wax and wane, ere stars were thunder-girt or piled. To heavens God thought on me his child. Ordained a life for me, arranged, in circumstances every one, to the minutest, I, God said, This head, this hand should rest upon, thus ere he fashioned star and sun.

Therefore it is by the offense of one judgment came upon all man. But God chose us in the last Adam, eons before the first Adam was ever created. And to carry out his eternal choice, his promise to his son, God set up the cross of Calvary, the instrument of death to realize the intention of life. In God's foreordained time, the last Adam came to that cross to retrieve each called one from the first Adam death to the last Adam life.

The Father identified each one of us with His Son on the cross, thereby making Him to become sin for us. 2 Corinthians 5, 21, For He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So the Lord Jesus died for our sins, and in that respect, His death, sins were identified with Him. but the sinner wasn't identified with him. At that same time, in his death unto sin, sin principle, each one of us died unto sin with him. So we can say, I have been crucified with Christ, knowing that our old man has been crucified with him. By his substitutionary payment of our sins, we're freed from the entire Adam life, all the guilt and all the penalty. In our identification with him and his death unto sin, we are freed from the entire Adam life in nature, from the entire first creation. Therefore, in the resurrection from Calvary, death In the resurrection from Calvary death, the Father was free to recreate us in the last Adam. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation, and that's what we are.

Let's close. Father, how we thank you. Sometimes your information about who we are is just a little overwhelming, but we know that from a resurrection standpoint, we must have a body that will fit who we have always been in the heart of your father, in the heart of the Lord Jesus. We're thankful for that. We pray in your son's precious name.