First Corinthians 15:29-34 Denial of the Resurrection, final thoughts of Paul
1 Corinthians 15:29-34 · Roger Henderson · Aug 29, 2021
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 72
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926192491698

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. Yeah, it's interesting how Mike and I, when we look down through the list of ones, we say, well, who's going to get those verses? And so guess who got these verses? But actually, you know, it's amazing. You start looking through the verses, and actually, I remember going through these verses about five years ago. I have my notes. I look back through, and then I just, there's so much more I found I understood this time. So I think it's an interesting section, and maybe not as as off the wall as it might seem.

So I've labeled this, actually this is from Macaulay, Denial of the Resurrection. And I kind of added Paul's final thoughts. He's talked about people denying early in the chapter. He talked about people denying the resurrection. And these are kind of a collection of things at the end, kind of that same theme. And adding some things about possibly the church environment in Corinth. but that's not for sure. And there's still some questions as we were studying in Second Thessalonians, and we have to realize these are letters written to people that understood, they knew people well, and you'll write things that would be hard to understand from somebody down the road of peace. But we have the Holy Spirit, and I think that we can make a good sense of this.

So let's just look at, this is Macaulay's outline, Implications of the Denial of the Resurrection. He's going to talk about implications for those baptized for the dead. And scripture doesn't support baptizing people for the dead or proxy baptism. We're going to talk about, there are groups that do that. There's actually one group that's just big time in that. We'll talk about that a little bit. And then there's implications for those who are suffering, like you say, well, why am I suffering? If there's really no resurrection, why am I doing this? I have no, there's no benefit for me. We'll talk about that in the middle part of the verses here.

And then lastly, some obligations imposed by the doctrine of the resurrection. And then next week we get to jump into a cool section, and I have, at the very end of this, I have the final thoughts, I have some, Maybe it's a prelude to what Mike's gonna be teaching. Mike gets the cool sections. Of course, he says I get the cool sections too sometimes, so it goes back and forth. All right, so I'm just gonna reread what was already read before.

Okay, otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead if the dead are not raised at all? Why then are they baptized for them? Why are we also in danger every hour I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If from human motives I fought the wild beast at Ephesus, what does it profit me if the dead are not raised? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Become sober-minded as you ought. Stop sinning, for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame."

All right, so let's get into the first part. The first word, you know, Paul, this is going to kind of kick off, he's going to kind of go back and review some of the things he talked about earlier in the chapter about the resurrection of the dead and those who deny it.

And this word for otherwise, it kind of marks a return to that theme, if you will, of if there's no resurrection for the dead. And several questions are asked in the first verse, and they concern the baptism for the dead. And I thought Constable's comment was good. This verse probably refers to proxy baptism, the custom of undergoing baptism for someone who died before he or she has experienced baptism.

So you might say there's two possibilities here. Some people, and possibly the Corinthian church, And we don't know, Paul never says that, and maybe this is one of his corrections to the Corinthian church. You guys shouldn't be baptizing people for the dead. He doesn't come out and say that, but he does say, if you're gonna uphold to the no resurrection from the dead, baptizing makes even worse sense, so don't go there. And so there's two possibilities. Is a believer that has died, and you say, well, he missed out on being baptized.

Then the question is, what value is baptism in the plan of salvation? And we're going to address that at the end of this verse here, before I go to the rest of the verses. And the second part is, there are groups that believe that baptizing saves you in a sense, and they believe that you can do that retroactively. actually I was reading Ironside he had a great section on this and there's a church that's well known in Salt Lake City and they There's one apparently cordon Ironside. He visited there and one of the elders said You know brother Ironside, you know, we have this rather rich lady and she's been baptized 30,000 times and And she gives money each time to the church. Each time she gets baptized. And apparently what she does, she looks in her history book. She says, Napoleon, I'll be baptized for him. I'll save him. I'll be baptized for Julius Caesar. She just goes crazy. they think that is beneficial.

They haven't read their Bible if they do that. So anyway, there's a whole group of folks that really ascribe to being baptized for the dead. And we're talking about water baptism here. And we're going to talk about also what's the real baptism, spirit baptism, and what's the relationship between spirit baptism and and water baptism. Okay, so let's continue on here.

So I'm going to jump to the middle part of the verse. If the dead are not raised at all, and this is for the sake of argument, assumed to be true, assuming the dead are not actually raised, then there's no real resurrection. So he asks two questions in the rest of the verse. These questions seem to be based on what was the practice of the Corinthian church. So it's possible, as I mentioned, he was saying, don't go there, don't be baptizing for the dead. And certainly it doesn't, if you ascribe to the view of no resurrection, it makes absolutely no sense. So the first question is, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? And by that he means, and I didn't get the definition here for the verb is, what will those do? And it's the idea, what are their options? They're going to be at a loss. If there's no resurrection of the dead, they're going to be at a loss for that. So the Amplified kind of has a little more expanded view of this.

What do people mean by themselves being baptized for the dead? So this is present tense, passive voice. If the dead are not raised, their efforts of being baptized are in vain, assuming you believe that baptism for the dead is a valid practice. And then the second question is why are they, very similar to the first question, why then are they baptized for them? Why waste your time if there's really, if they're really dead with no hope?

And so I wanna present, that was mostly what I got by studying through the verses directly and then looking, Constable had some comments, but then Macaulay kinda comes up with, and Vonnie said she recognized this, so here's Macaulay's view of these verses. First of all, the word for, which occurs twice in the verse, I've highlighted in blue, baptized for the dead and for them, is a word huper, it's a preposition of substitution, taking the place of another.

So you could think of this, living believers are seen as taking the place of dead ones in the work of the ministry. So as believers die, in your body of believers, New believers come along and they take their place in the work of the ministry. Which doesn't sound, I mean, it's perfectly reasonable and it happens all the time. That's what we desire. We desire that new brothers and sisters come and take our place, if you will. As believers die, new ones come along and fill up the ranks, and they are in a sense baptized or placed in to the dead believers, taking their spot, if you will.

So that's an alternate view. And actually that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of other views, but these are at least the two that made somewhat sense So one is sort of Paul's kind of, if you will, correcting the Corinthian church, if you will, about being baptized for the dead. The other one is there's a valid point he's trying to make here.

So I'll let you, as we did in our Thessalonians class, you're gonna have to decide which view you take. So we had a good time in our class this week. Okay, so let's go on. Now, what I wanted to do here is, at this point, I wanted to, I found a paper from Brother Hal, and he did a really great job.

I want to kind of clear up the relationship between salvation and water baptism, because we talked a lot about water baptism. Let's just kind of go, this is pretty basic. Water baptism is not required for salvation. Salvation is by grace through faith, Salvation is through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, not through any ritual, circumcision, baptism in water, confirmation, etc. Water baptism always follows salvation. And that's true.

Go through and look at where the word baptism shows up and you'll see that it shows up after like the case of the Ethiopian eunuch. I have a hard time saying that but remember he's out in the desert and he's riding and And he sees Philip is there, and Philip, he preaches Christ to him. And just after he preaches Christ, the very next verse, he says, well, there's water there. Why can't I get baptized?

And there's no reason he shouldn't, because baptism is to follow true salvation. And observe at Acts. They believe in Christ and his person and his work. At that moment, they receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Then after they are saved, they are baptized in water.

Water baptism, I would say, adds nothing to their salvation. It's to be an emblem or a testimony, if you will. It's a testimony to what has happened, what's really happened on the inside of them. It doesn't save you, it testifies to what's happened to you.

So hopefully that kind of clears up the idea of water baptism. All right, so now on to the rest of the verses, which are equally fun. Okay. Why are we in danger every hour? And that's kind of given in this whole context that there's no resurrection from the dead. And the Amplified kind of did a pretty good job here. For that matter, why do I live dangerously as I do, running such a risk that I am? in peril every hour.

Why did Paul do that? You know, he was the chief example of that. And so I just decided to use, there's in chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, which we'll get to here in a year or so, he goes through this incredible account of his life. And you would think, if you told somebody, here's my service for the Lord, if you told them this, they probably would run the other way as fast as they could. They'd say, this is not for me. Okay. I, Paul, speak as if insane. It does seem like it borders on insanity.

I more so, in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. I kind of focused on the word danger because it's in the verse here, danger every hour, often in danger of death. Five times I received the Jewish, from the Jews, 39 lashes. I guess that they were, I've heard stories of different people talking about this. They tried to be careful they didn't reach quite the 39, they'd stop at 37 or something. Because actually people would die after 39 lashes many times. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day, a night and a day I spent in the deep.

Then he talks about his travels. Here's something, you like to travel? I don't think this is on your itinerary. This is Fall's itinerary for traveling. I've been on frequent journeys, in dangerous, I was thinking about the hurricanes. This is in dangerous from rivers. You could add hurricanes to that possibly. In dangerous from rivers, in dangerous from robbers. Dangerous from my countrymen. Dangerous from Gentiles. Dangerous in cities. Life hasn't changed a whole lot, right? The city is just as dangerous. Dangerous in the wilderness. Dangerous on the sea. Dangerous from false brethren.

And then Constable kind of sums it up here, he willingly faced death daily because he believed that God would raise him, that his resurrected body would continue beyond the grave. And that's our hope too. You know, I've often heard that the best soldiers out there are believers because they They're willing to give their lives for what they believe in and they know what they know they're in they know where they're going They can be the best soldiers. They can be the because they are not they're not concerned about what's going to happen afterwards They're depending upon what Christ has said that will happen. So that's and that's what Paul believed.

So all these dangers Didn't deter him Okay, verse 31 I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. So, we hasten, I am daily in danger of death by my glorifying about you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So Paul, you know, Paul's talked a lot about boasting in scripture. He talks about the proper attitude in boasting. You know, we're not, and we shouldn't get this, be confused with, well, I have children, I have a son or a daughter, and I like to tell people how well they've, what they've accomplished in life. He's not talking necessarily about that. He's talking about our relationship to Christ and boasting in him. So here's a couple verses about that.

In Galatians 6.14, But may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world was crucified to me and I to the world. Then in Romans he says, therefore in Christ Jesus I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God. So Paul always determined in his life he would boast about what Christ had accomplished. Accomplished in in bodies of believers.

I think that's what's happening here. He's boasting about what happened in the Corinthians and Then Romans 8 36 just as it is written for your sake we are being put to death all the day long We are considered as sheep for the slaughter so in that process of boasting and telling people about what God was doing in the church at Corinth and If you think about the church at Corinth, it wasn't the poster child church. Thessalonica seems to be more one for a poster child church, but the one in Corinth, they had their problems.

Paul spent many, many lines of scripture talking about their problems and encouraging them and instructing them. So in doing that, he was dying in a sense. He was dying as he put forth what God was doing in Corinth. And Paul backed up his assertions with kind of an oath. Some people see this 31 as kind of an oath passage. This is Constable speaking here. He said he faced death daily just as he boasted about the Corinthians.

Probably he meant that he boasted in their very existence as Christians rather than he boasted about the church and their behavior. And Bonnie, she's reading through it, she says, duh. Why would he be telling, why would you be boasting about, well, they got this problem, that problem, and they're not doing too well here. I mean, you want to go to that church? With all their problems? Anyway, all right, so that's verse 31. So more on this suffering theme and resurrection.

I, from human motives, I fought with a wild beast at Ephesus. So I challenge you to find any mention of wild beast in Ephesus. Anyway, so what does that mean? If from human motives I fought the wild beast at Ephesus, if as is the case, assumed to be true, human motives according to man, I fought the wild beast.

Vine, just I looked at Vine's definition. He said probably is used, uses the word figurative of contending with ferocious men. So we can find some pretty ferocious men. And this Demetrius, he was, I think, a silversmith. And they carved images of idols in Ephesus. And when Paul came to town and preaching the gospel, saying there's only one true God, their business fell off drastically.

So he didn't stay at home and say, oh, well, that's the way it is. Let bygones be bygones. The word of God is getting out. No, he didn't do that. He got, as we say, got in his face, so to speak. So here's what happened in Acts 19. And there's more to this if you read. Read it, you know, after the service, Acts 19, 28 and 29. So he incited this crowd.

When they, the crowd, heard this, that they're going to lose their shirts, so to speak, they were filled with rage. They'd been crying out, saying, great, it's Artemis of Ephesus. So that's the images they were carving, Artemis of Ephesus. They rush with one accord into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia.

And it goes on. They get out of town quick, I think, that they get to safety. All right, so the second part of the verse. What does it profit me if the dead are not raised? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. So, what does it profit me? Without hope, why live?

It reminded me of the verse that talked about unbelievers in Ephesians 2.12. Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ. You didn't know Christ. Having no hope, without God in the world.

So with that mentality, let us eat, drink, for tomorrow we die. Belief in the resurrection was more than a truth, it was a moral safeguard. Because if you believe that there's no tomorrow, then why be careful today? Just go for it. In this life, is all there is, it's logical to cram all the pleasure you can into it.

Man, according to God's design, is body, soul, and spirit. That's why resurrection is so critical. So we're going to see this theme kind of from the rest here, and then Mike's going to pick it up in his section. And we know this, we see that there's a verse that talks about man being body, soul, and spirit. And the resurrection speaks specifically about man's body.

Think about it, God is going to great lengths. Why couldn't, if all the believers, if their soul and spirit go to be with him, why do they have to collect their body on the way up to heaven, so to speak? Why do they have to make a pit stop, not pit stop, but a side trip, grab their bodies and go up to heaven? Well, God designed man as body, soul, and spirit, and it's critical.

So now he adds another thing here, do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. So this is a process that's already going on, so you could render it, stop being led astray. This verse assumes the action is already going on, and deceive here is to lead into error, to seduce. It's often used in the sense of deceiving oneself, In Galatians 6, 7 it says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, this we also reap. So we see this do not be deceived showing up multiple times in scripture. And it has the idea of stop something that's already going on.

Then I thought of this verse in James. In James 1, 14 and so on it says, but each one of us is tempted when he is carried away enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. And that death means separation there. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. So Paul's comment so many times, do not be deceived. Stop being deceived. He wants us to be enlightened. bad company corrupts good morals.

Well, apparently, I haven't gone to the Greek literature, but this was a comment in Greek literature, this was a saying, in Greek literature from Meanders, and apparently they had comedy clubs, I don't know, this is how the funny happens, this is Meanders comedy, saying that bad company corrupts good morals, and he lived in the BCs, before Christ, was a Greek dramatist, known for the Athenian new comedy, So Constable kind of sums it up here, he says, therefore Paul used this quote to warn his readers if they kept company with people who denied the resurrection, their character would eventually suffer. Well you can think about it, if you're with a person that believes there's no tomorrow, their attitude and action is gonna be different than yours. It's gonna affect you. Okay, verse 34. Be sober-minded as you ought. Basically, come to your senses. Live righteously. Stop sinning. Sin no more. The action's already going on. He assumes it's already in progress.

For some have no knowledge of God. So here he's gonna kind of talk to them about Your actions can affect yourself in this body and then outside the body at Corinth. For certain ones possess an ignorance of God. I speak this to your shame. It was shameful that they had their neighbors who still had no knowledge of God since they had much knowledge of God. He's speaking to the Corinthians here directly.

And then the other possibility is he could have meant that his readers should sober up, stop sinning because some of them did not have the truth And this was to their shame. And that happens not many times. Sometimes it happens that in a body of believers, there are people that don't really know the truth. They may have listened to the truth, but they haven't accepted the truth. So here he's kind of speaking to that point. All right. So here's the final thoughts. And this comes from Chester McCauley. He kind of points out there are three levels of fellowship between believers and the Lord. So he sees the first fellowship, the fellowship we have now in our body, soul, and spirit.

The body we have now cannot enter heaven. For this reason, the first state of fellowship cannot last forever. The second state of fellowship is the fellowship we have with Him at death, when we die. Our soul and spirit go to be with the Lord, but our body goes to the grave. And then the third aspect, third part of fellowship, there's a fellowship that we have with him at the resurrection. Body and soul and spirit will be united with him In the class, we're caught up to meet the Lord in the air, dead in Christ rise first, and then all believers, the dead ones and the living ones, body, soul, and spirit will be with the Lord.

So it's critical, you know, God is very careful. He's careful about the dead ones, He's careful about the alive believers, that their body accompany them to heaven. So their bodies are critical. And Mike's gonna tell us about their bodies, the story about their bodies next week here. And there's some sticky points.

What kind of body, what about the body? Is there a body we have? Does all our brothers and sisters who've gone to be with, what about their body? They have a body in the grave, but do they have an interim body? But our hope, our hope is we anticipate nothing less. We anticipate that we'll be with him, body, soul, and spirit. And if you think about it, our savior is in heaven, body, soul, and spirit, because his body has the marks of the crucifixion. So it totally fits. Our body is not just some afterthought, some place to hang out. It's critically important to God, our body. Being a man or a woman does not end with this life, and where there is no body, so in spirit, there is no man or woman. All right, so let's close.

We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for your word, Father. Thank you for just how careful it is. We thank you just that it's, our brother Paul is so careful and desires that this letter to Corinth be instructed to them and help them to settle down about the baptism, baptizing people for the dead. We pray that it would help us to understand your plan and purposes. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.