1 Corinthians 15:35-49 Bodies of the Resurrected Dead

Alright, so if you have your Bibles, or you have chosen to just use the handout there, we're going to read 1 Corinthians 15 verses 35-49. So all of chapter 15 is about the resurrection. You may have noticed that. The whole thing is pretty much focused on the resurrection, the doctrines associated with it, and justifications associated with it. I'll go ahead and read it out loud and you can follow along, starting in verse 35. But someone will say, How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?

You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as he wished. own. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly one and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for stars differs from star and glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It has sown a natural body, it has raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy. The second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy. And as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly." Alright, so Paul is going to dive further into the resurrection. OK? He's responding to a skeptical position. The first thing we think to is a question. The skeptic has misunderstood some things, and Paul is going to be responding to that.

Before we dig too deep into the passage, let's talk about the three parts. of a being that is made in God's image. So if we say we're made in God's image, what are the three parts of a human being made in God's image? Body, soul, and spirit. So we're going to actually get into all three of those this morning, which is good. But I want to make sure we have that distinction enunciated. It's important often when we get into these details that we have context. What's the framing of these things and so I like to do that.

If we were to take a look at Philippians 3 verse 21 and I hope you'll turn there with me. It should be a short number of pages to the right. Philippians 3 verse 21. where Paul writes, who will transform the body of 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? So he talks about this transformation, and it's a really short terse statement. The Philippians got a short little snippet on this transformation of bodies, but we're going to take a lot deeper look at that this morning. One of the key doctrines that we need to talk about is the hypostatic union. Does everybody know what the hypostatic union is? It's important to have these $5 words under your belt.

The hypostatic union is a theological term that we use to describe the idea that Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is able to take two characteristics, his deity, his full deity, and being fully man so that he could represent us and combine those things. The hypostatic union is really critical to our Christology, our doctrine of who Christ was.

If you look at a lot of the cults that we look at that come knocking on our doors, sometimes two by two, sometimes every once in a while you'll find they come in threes or fours. The cults will deny some part of the hypostatic union. What happens if Jesus is not fully God? What happens to our theology?

We could do a whole lesson on this, but we'll be quick, right? If he's not God, then there's no way he could pay for our sins if he's not man. He needs the purity of God, right? He needs God's purity. And he also needs to be man to die for us. He has to be representative, right?

And so that's why in Genesis, when God says in Genesis 3.15 that the Messiah, he doesn't use the word Messiah, right? But that the seed of Eve would crush the serpent's head. So we have this principle of Jesus had to come from the genetic material of Eve and the genetic material of God so that he could be fully God and fully man, be pure, but also be representative. I bring that out not to be too belaboring of it, but if we're going to talk about the first and the second Adam, or we're going to talk about Jesus and we're going to talk about Adam, we need to understand that doctrinal distinction.

Alright, so Paul starts out here with how are the dead raised and with what kind of body do they come? He probably got these arguments from skeptics throughout his ministry. We don't have a copy of the letter or any details that the Corinthians might have sent to Paul, but it at least seems that there is some kind of question or report on this doctrinal division that's come up. So Paul addresses in his long chapter here, he addresses the skeptic, because he wants to make sure that in the end there is no excuse.

We can all walk away with great confidence in the resurrection. By denying the supernatural as the underpinning context, Those people who are proponents of no resurrection are asking how the dead were raised. They're setting themselves up for an outcome that is based on man's reasoning and they're denying God as creator.

Now why do we want to be careful that we understand God as creator? Any thoughts on that? Why do we think God is creator? and all powerful in this context. He's the source of everything. We kind of have lost it in today's culture but the idea that God is creator means that God is also owner. So God started creation as owner and then he gave mankind the stewardship in the garden to take care of things and then what did Adam do? you blew it. And because Adam blew it, then Satan got dominion over the earth. So this is a big deal.

But if you're denying God's supernatural power, either as a consequence of the fall, or because you're trying to use human reasoning, when you talk to an atheist or an agnostic, usually their starting position is that I am the ultimate authority and I'm denying God's power.

So we've got to be careful. Paul's asking, these people are skeptical, they're taking this negative opinion, and we need to make sure that we identify that line of reasoning, not only when we address the issue of the resurrection, but we have to observe that line of reasoning. When you're talking to someone who's a skeptic, they're denying the power of God. So the first thing Paul does is he says, you've heard people say this, someone will ask this question, and they're denying the power of God. It's not a place to start from.

If we know that Genesis 1-1 is true and the subsequent verses are true, then there's relative confidence that we will have an understanding of who raised and by what power. By answering the second question, Paul is actually going to focus on the second question, he will answer the first as well. But then, Paul being Paul, he goes for the juggler. He says, you fool! Oh boy, that's a fun one. So why is he saying that to the Corinthians? Why is he saying that the someone is a fool for asking that question? Why did the Corinthians, or what did the Corinthians cherish? What did they value?

Their own wisdom. Their own ability to be awarders. Their own ability to build themselves up in their culture and make themselves look good. And you certainly want to be wise in front of the eyes of everybody else. So calling this hypothetical person a fool is something Paul could do, although if we look at Galatians 6.1, and I believe my dad is going to be teaching on that in part today during the main service, so I won't belabor it, but if we look at Galatians 6.1, gentleness is normally the way one believer should be treating another. In this case, Paul is writing to the hypothetical fool. But they're foolish because they're trying to be wise in their own eyes.

Does our modern culture try to infiltrate our thinking and cause us to feel wise in our own eyes? Of course you deserve a break today. You deserve a break today? But when we look at what's taught in many university classes, We're wise in our own eyes.

I don't normally tend to quote a lot of secular folks, but I think it's observationally interesting that Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon, I think most of you know who that is, was disappointed to do research and discover that most scientists just quoted one another. But there was not an overwhelming, undeniable, mounting amount of evidence to prove without a doubt that the Big Bang was true, and that the universe came from nothing, and that we just were lucky enough to have all of the biology and everything come together. And he called it out, and he made a lot of atheists and agnostics very angry because their confidence in themselves was important. But even in the church today it's easy for us to begin lines of reasoning and thinking through things where we get a lot of the isms, Calvinism, Arminianism, these kinds of teachings that are extrapolations sometimes.

So we don't want to bring into church doctrine the isms that are based on man's reasoning and man's thinking and man's working through things. We want to exposit what's in the scripture. So when that happens, how do we counteract that? What do we do? And we've asked this before in this class, but I'd like to keep asking it as a reminder. What do we do when bad doctrine enters? compare the scriptures with the doctrine and show why the purported man-made reasoning falls short.

Right. We want to exposit the text of scripture and counteract error with truth. In the main service today we'll find out various ways that that's going to be applied. We'll probably get some good appropriation of that. But it's important that we understand the correction that's supposed to take place to prevent error from sticking around. All right, so the poll is now going to go on to this idea of the sowing. He says, that you fool. That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps a wheat, or of something else.

I have not got a green thumb. I have killed many plants, not on purpose, not maliciously, but I'm good at not growing things. I have other skills. But growing things is not one of them. But I do know, I have planted many seeds, and the plants usually take off eventually, but then they somehow never really flourish. I'm of the habit of buying jalapeno plants that already have at least one pepper on them, because I know at least to get one pepper. I'm just not good at growing things. And some people can't seem to give away enough of their vegetables, but that's not a gift for me for some reason.

But I do know, when you sow things, as Paul says here, this is a precise statement, that which you sow does not come to life unless it dies. The seed has to dry out, usually, and the seed has to then be planted, and then there's a whole process of enzymes and nutrition and things that take place inside of there. But unless you go through all the right stages, which as it happens, God knew when he created plant life, how that process was going to go. I still don't understand how you can justify that from an evolutionary standpoint. How many seeds didn't work before one seed worked, right?

All those things are important. So Paul is addressing a promise here, but there's also an interesting thing. Let's turn back in our Bibles. As a result of the fall, we see Genesis 3, 18 and 19. So Genesis 3, and if you get there, go ahead and someone can go ahead and read that out loud, that would be great. Both thorns and thistles, it shall grow for you. and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, and you shall return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Alright, so in principle, this death thing is not just for the plants. Death is normative. What's the exception of the normative nature of death? What's the exception of that?

The rapture. Which Roger gets to talk about at least a little bit next week. We were talking earlier that his passage he gets to teach next week is cooler than mine. And it is, it's pretty awesome. But there we see in Genesis, we see this principle of death being required, and it was required because Adam ate of the tree.

In Genesis 2.17, God says, if you eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil, surely you will die. There's no escape clause. If you eat of this tree, Adam, you are going to die. Their death was not a surprise. Nobody was surprised that death was coming. They were disappointed, but they weren't surprised.

The resurrection, though, was demanded for the faithfulness of God so that these things could take place. We've already talked about this in past verses, Matthew 22, verse is the God of the living, and he refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the resurrection was to come. It was a thing that God could say about God with absolute certainty.

So looking back at our text, moving back from Genesis, Verse 30-70 says, and that which you sow, you do not sow the body, which is to be but a bare grain, perhaps a weeder of something else. What's the principle there? What's dying? Unless a seed dies into the ground with its genetics ready to go to work from there, it's not going to have any life passed along. Well, that's true. I certainly don't disagree with that.

But it's an old form, right? The seed is not what comes out of the ground. You don't get another seed, you get a new different thing. Paul uses the analogy of the seed because you put in this thing that carries DNA, this carries the genetics of the plant, but through the process what you get is a plant, you don't get a seed.

It dies in one form, this naked dead grain. Which as it turns out, they're pretty durable. They don't take high heat like fires most of the time, although pine cones actually can handle that, which I think is pretty awesome. So we have this idea that you have a bare grain and it goes down one way, but it comes back, if you can say that, in the form of a brand new life of a new type. So, verse 38, but God gives it a body just as he wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. A seed turns into a whole plant body. We don't only think of plants as bodies, right? But that's how the analogy works.

Now, when Paul started us off with the question, how are the dead raised and what kind of body do they come? God is in charge of the bodies. We have these stinky ones, right? These ones that are dying as a result of the sin, that are aging and doing gnarly things. Of course, some things we do to them. I ate probably more calories than I should have on Thanksgiving Day. I know you're shocked to hear that.

But, you know, these bodies are of a type, right? They represent the Adam type. But God is going to give a body to us that's going to reflect a new type. A new type of body. Verse 39, all flesh is not the same flesh but there is one flesh of men and another flesh of beasts and another flesh of birds and another flesh of fish. Why does Paul differentiate between those? Why is he giving us a list of flesh types? We don't get confused. So we don't get confused.

Imagine, if you will, you've grown up in a Corinthian culture, or a culture around Corinth, and you didn't grow up Jewish, and you certainly didn't grow up Christian, what would you spend your energy worshiping and thinking about? You often have polytheism and things like that, where they would try to worship Zeus or whomever else to try to have Zeus' blessing on all of these material things. Or even Zeus. Oh yeah, worship Zeus, that's right. Animals. Yes, yes, I picked up on that.

If we turn back to Romans chapter 1, and if you're If you're curious about evangelism, how does evangelism work, how do I understand the carnal mind to preach the gospel, I find Romans chapter 1 is a great place, starting at verse 18 to the end of the chapter, to look at how the mindset of the secular thinkers is wired Verse 21, so Romans 1, 21, he says, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculation and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Interesting that this does deal into Thanksgiving and being thankful, and here we are looking at the wrong kind of thanks. Yes, we are thankful, but we are often thankful for carnal earthly things, rather than having a heavenly focused thankfulness.

But what we see here is there is a creator and there is a creation, there is a distinction. Were the birds and the fish and the beasts made in God's image? No. So the creator-creation distinction is important. Evolution, or Hinduism even, both carry within this idea of continuity of being, not continuity of person. Those are different words. when sometimes we use continuity of person to say that in the eternal state our soul will continue on and we'll have personality in the heavenly state. Continuity of being is the idea that, well, we just have this evolution of animal beings that go on forever. Or in reincarnation, the idea that somebody would reincarnate into a better or worse state than before. ideally, I guess, becoming a cow, followed by Nirvana, or being united with the universe.

So, that's weird. But, at least from a Christian perspective, it doesn't represent the revelation in the scriptures. But God gives a body, God gives this this spoken command to creation, and animals come, and creation comes together, and on day six he gets to mankind and makes man in his image. It's a unique feature that we have that animals don't have. I have two dogs, and they don't have God's image.

I was thinking about, actually, in Genesis it talks about according to their kind. This kind of reinforces that thing that God, he creates things according to their kind. He creates animals Birds are birds and dogs are dogs and cats are cats and he's able to do that perfectly and he doesn't need to make one go into the other. He can create things according to their kind and they'll have bodies that are commensurate with what he desires and so on. So he's a god of order and no problem to do that. Yeah, he maintains the types, right?

And that's a great segue into the very next thing here is the idea of federal headship. So when we talk about federal headship, how many of you are familiar with that term? Is everybody comfortable with that? We've got some folks who are shaking their head no and some yes.

So federal headship is the principle of God creating first instances, in the case Roger just mentioned, of animals or in our case of Adam, first male and female of the species, and they're carrying genetic makeup to all of their descendants. So when we look at Romans chapter 5, Paul outlines this principle of federal headship in detail, and we also see that here as Paul is talking about types, that those Those beasts are created in the lines of beasts.

I just mentioned I have two dogs. They're both poodle breeds. But dogs breed with dogs. And you get dogs out of them. Some of them are more attractive than others, but they're all dogs, right? We can genetically encourage certain attributes, right? If we look at species of dogs or certain things, we have poodles because they don't shed. So my wife can handle them. So we've been able to genetically breed special properties, but they're still dogs.

We don't find in nature this cross-breeding. Now through science and modern technology we've been able to do some pretty corrupt things where we've actually taken genetic qualities and attributes and injected them into other plants and animals that are definitely not supposed to have those properties. But that's not the biblical principle.

Paul is talking about in nature, as God designed it, a type carries on a specific attribute or quality and we can identify those things readily. So why is it that the resurrection impacts type? It kind of implies that he's not going to... Some people might disagree, but I don't think we're going to see resurrected dogs and cats and fish. He's pointing out that since Christ was the first type, we're in the line of Christ. So Christ was the first and he's going to take that So he kind of says there's a bunch of types, but there's one type, the believer in the Lord Jesus, that will be resurrected. He doesn't actually say the others will not be, but he strongly implies that people in God's image will be resurrected and know Christ. Yeah.

Well, one of the attributes that I think is interesting of the Fall, and so I'm going to emphasize the Fall only to then emphasize the New, right? As far as we get a recording of in scripture, there was no death in the gardens right before the fall. And then the fall happens, and death gets introduced, not only to mankind, but it seems like also to creation, and the animals begin to degenerate. When we look at Romans 8, what does it tell us creation is doing? groaning, waiting for the Lord to return.

And then the Lord is going to wipe out the heavens and the earth and he's going to make a new heavens and a new earth where we will be able to dwell in our new, regenerate, resurrected bodies. So the type matters, right? If we came back after the resurrection and we had these physical earthly forms, and we'll find out more about this next week, but if we came back in this Adamic form, It would have all the perils of the Adamic form now. So we need a new type. We need that. So Paul is emphasizing type because we need to understand and observe that type begets type, or like begets like. So after addressing birds and beasts and fish, Verse 40, there are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. So, who has a heavenly body? Christ does now. Christ does? Christ has a heavenly body? The angels, as far as we know, or messengers, seem to at least have a physical manifestation when they come to the earth, right? So maybe they have bodies.

What's their glory? What does it reflect? It reflects who they're serving, right? Which is why the demonic angels, what glory do they reflect? The glory of Satan. How much glory does Satan have? None. He was made to God's satisfaction, so that he could worship God, but his glory is pale in comparison.

How about glory of earthly bodies? I just whined a little bit about mine. The glory of earthly bodies, even at our pinnacle of maturing in our youth, like about 23 or 24, your body is fully mature into adulthood, and you're young and you know everything. You can learn things in college fast. everything is going great and then you start to decline. The glory is temporary at best. I always like that in the entertainment industry you're usually at your prime earning power between 18 and 34 or something like that, and after that you start to have wrinkles and show off, or they inject large amounts of Botox in their system, or whatever else it is they're doing to try to pretend like they're young.

That's the best Adam can do. So the glory of the earthly is a little disappointing, if I'm honest. It's cool. I love my wife. I love being married to her. I love that we have a marriage, but I'm okay with the Lord returning or my and her passing away because we'll have a new heavenly body in the future.

And the things that are great about this earth will pale also in comparison to the heavenly and eternal glory. Alright, so we have earthly bodies that have some glory and heavenly bodies that have some glory. In verse 41, there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars. For star differs from star in glory.

So why does Paul mention the planets? This seems a little like a deviation from his line of reasoning. Why does he mention the planets? As unique as each planet is, it's still part of the curse. It's still part of this heaven and earth, right? But there's a distinction between them. We can identify them. And again, remember that a lot of the mythology would associate the names of the planets with different gods and deities. Oh, that's Pluto. So they have different things there.

But their glory, I mean, the manifestation of the glory of the sun, if we're going to call its constant fire glory, that's pretty impressive. The moon's not half bad either, but it's only reflecting the glory of the sun. But God put them in place. When we read the beginning in Genesis, God made the sun. He put that to be a light for the day, and he made the moon to have a light for the night time.

Man figured out how to make electric lights and candles and fires, and we thought we were pretty powerful. Imagine those lights in comparison. Look, I made a little tiny fire. I'm powerful. That's like I made the sun. It's going to last for thousands of years. We're like, well, fine. We get grumpy about it.

But the reality is that the glory of the heavenly bodies still comes with distinction, still comes with difference. So if you're coming from a pagan background, he's going to refer to these planets again and say they're different. Each one of them is different. Now what's cool is that we've learned in science that each one of them is really different. We've got different gaseous planets and we've got planets with more detail. They didn't have the telescopes we have. They certainly didn't have satellites. It's cool to be able to send by the planets and do these photos with these amazing satellites.

But their glory is what? It's temporary. These planets are going to fade out of existence when God wipes them out and makes a new heavens and a new earth. And then their glory will reflect no corruption. It's part of the corrupted universe, but God's going to restore it. So verse 42, "...so also is the resurrection of the dead." It is sown a perishable body, but it is a raised and imperishable body. Now, how many of you have a footnote or a side note or something about perishable? Anyone have a different word there? Either from translation or?

Incorruptible? Corruption or incorruptible? Alright. I happen to think it's funny that they chose perishable since we've already talked about dying, although perishable is technically part of the corruption. It's corruptible. What does it mean for our earthly bodies to be sown in corruption? What does that mean? Or perishable, or being sown in a perishing state, or sown in corruption? What does that mean for us, Gary? It's going to decay.

As a consequence of our earthly father in Adam, Technically, and I'm just going to throw this out there because I can, technically we have two earthly fathers for every human being on the face of the planet. Who are those earthly fathers? Adam and who else? We know his name. We know his name. He's recorded in Genesis chapter 6 through 9. He had a zoo that floated on water. Noah. So we're all descendants of Adam and we're all descendants of Noah. Everybody who's walked on the face of the planet.

What's interesting is that there's a lot of research into a single common ancestor done in scientific circles. And the single common ancestor principle fits mathematically into recent several thousands of years. I think the number that I saw in one estimation was that it could have been as recently as 2,000 years ago that we could have had a single common ancestor.

Now we know that's not the case, but that means that Noah is an easy shoe-in for a single common ancestor. It's not like mathematically we've got some freak story in the Bible that's improbable. It's that God did it, He used it, and He redeemed all of mankind, all eight of them. through Noah. So we have a single common ancestor, but he was the single common ancestor of Adam.

So that one type carries on. Sorry, that was a rabbit trail into Noah, but I think it's interesting and worth noting. So also the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body. It is raised an imperishable body. It can't be of the same type. Our starting question at the beginning is, what type will the body be? What's Paul's answer? An imperishable or uncorrupted form. He also pointed out that God's, just like with a plant, God gives, here we have the seed. God determines from that seed what it's going to be. It's going to be a fish, a bird, and the same with us. He's going to determine our imperishable body so that the connection with Adam is now broken.

And for the believer, the identification with Christ is a prerequisite. You have to have believed the gospel. But the gospel is ineffective without the resurrection. So Paul is saying these things are intertwined, we can't separate them. We can't reason through Christ's work on the cross and the salvation that comes from it without also understanding the resurrection. By now we would hope and pray that his readers have no doubt in their mind that the resurrection is legitimate, it's real, that the new body will be, by God's sovereignty, a new body with the type of Christ, not the type of Adam.

But we know, because he keeps going, that just in case, he's going to belabor the point. And since he's going to belabor the point, I'm going to belabor the point. Paul had God's inspiration, and I'm going to go with that being more important than mine. Oh, I cut it off right there. Nope. Paul's going to continue carrying on for us.

So not only is it not corruptible, but the body in Adam is sun and dishonor. What's the dishonor? The fall. Sin is inherently part of our DNA. We will sin. We will choose bad things. This week our friends came up from Texas and they have three little daughters and as adorable as they are, the dad, Mike, shared with us, he said he was reminded of Dennis the Menace. There was a movie, Dennis the Menace, some years back. But every time the boy saw something that he knew was naughty to do, he'd hear this ding, like the light was going on, and he'd start rubbing his hands because he knew that he should put them in his pocket and not do something naughty, but he knew he was going to do it. Dishonor, this idea that we have sin, that we have this problem, it has to be done away with.

And it has to be done away with in death. When the rapture happens, these earthly bodies will die. They will be gone. They will be sloughed off the mortal coil, if you will, and we will take on new bodies. These have to die. But that's for the best. Right? It's sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. And whose glory is it? It's God's glory. You. Tom's going to have God's glory. You're okay with that. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with having God's glory. I can't wait to see God in Tom and Roger and all of us. I'm excited about that. Even the little kids who are naughty that are saved and grow up, they're going to be raised, you know, if they believed in God's glory and that's a powerful thing.

It is so in weakness. We've already talked about how weak these bodies are. In my own experience, the weakness of these bodies, when we get older, we get frail. I was once young and able to haul things around with much more resilience. Now I have a damaged disc in my spine, so I can't haul anything around really. If I do that, I get more problems. These bodies age and they start to decay and funny things happen to them. All I can say is I'm grateful I never played football. If I had done that, I'd probably be even more worried. But there's so many weaknesses. at various states of weakness, right?

Even our strongest person is sown in weakness compared to the glorified body and the perfection of God. And he finishes this thought with, it is raised in power. The first thought is that it is sown in weakness, but the new type, the new one, is raised in power. How do we feel about that, being raised in God's power? We're OK with Tom having glory. How about Tom being raised in power? I'm good with that. I think it's fantastic. I'm sure Tom is ready for the new body just as much as the rest of us. And he's OK with it too. He said it was OK earlier.

That's a powerful thing. Raised in power changes our perspective on eternity. Imagine eternity in these weak bodies. Even if we just never had to go to the doctor again, but they were still this weakness with this physical form. Raised in power. No corruption. God's glory and God's power.

Verse 44, to some a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Now that's a doctrine that I think we have to observe as being explicitly stated here, we don't know what a spiritual body looks like per se. We can't just go get the science journals and see what a spiritual body looks like. It can't be done.

We know it's going to be reflective of the type of Christ. We know that much. But I'm kind of excited. I think that's way more exciting than the next model of the next car that's going to come out next year. It doesn't matter who the designer is. be raised a spiritual body. If there's a natural body, there's also a spiritual body.

The problem with the idea of the resurrection to the skeptic is they don't know what that looks like. They haven't seen one. They can't kick the tires on it. They can't lay it out on a slab and dissect it. So the skeptic looks at this and they go, that's nonsense, that's crazy. Randy, we do have a peek at that by looking at Christ's resurrection, post-resurrection experiences.

He did some things that... But the problem is he ascended, right? Well, but we saw him described, he walked, so he could walk, he talked with the people on the mass. He ate some fish. So we know little peaks of what we know. He appeared to more than 500 and for 40 days he was walking the earth. He went through walls. He appeared and brought power. So we say, well, I'll just be able to appear through walls and do all this kind of cool stuff.

At his direction, yeah. These new bodies, these spiritual bodies. But we don't know what that looks like from our own eyes, right? We can't see ourselves, that's true. And it's kind of exciting. I'm alright with that. That would be really cool. So, continuing on here, we have this spiritual thing.

So, in verse 45, it is also written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul. That's a reference to Genesis, chapter 2. In Genesis, chapter 2, verse 7, it says that God made man out of the dust, and he became a living soul. So that's what he's quoting there. And the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

And we talked about how important it was to have a distinction between soul and spirit and body. Because our souls reflect Adam, but Adam reflects God. Our soulishness is reflective of God more than it is reflective of Adam. We have a continuity of person to where our souls appear to be eternal. But our spirits were dead in Adam. When Adam died, he was separated from God. His spirit became dead. It was connected with God and nothing could interfere with his fellowship with God. He sinned and his spirit died. What's our spirit like as believers? Our spirit is alive. Our spirit is alive. We have the Holy Spirit indwells us. He communes with our spirit and God's spirit and communicates with you as we looked at earlier in this book.

But we have two types. We have the first Adam and we have the last Adam. We have the Adam of the garden and we have the Adam of Christ, the eternal Adam. That's the type in which we will be resurrected. Paul can't be more clear in his answering of this question. There's a spiritual body and it's a reflection of God's spiritual body in Christ. That's what's up next. That's the exciting return of Christ's state.

Verse 47, the first man is from the earth, earthy, the second man is from heaven. Adam being earthy is not just cleverness and plan words, but Adam was from the soil and would return to the soil. We looked at that from dust to dust. He's earthy. His start was in the earth and his finish is in the earth. Christ's start was in the heavens and his finish will never be. His start wasn't either, right?

He's an eternal being. I should be careful how I say that. Verse 48, as is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy. And as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. So he's come back to the type issue. He's belaboring this point. If you are of the type of Adam, you will create more of the type of Adam.

The cool thing, and I'm going to draw this distinction out, is that our new heavenly bodies, as far as we know, aren't reproducing. As far as we know, we don't see any spiritual body reproduction revealed in scripture. I'm okay with that, that's fine with me. I just know that even though I'm saved, my children, when they're born, because this physical body is of the type of atom, they get to be born of the atom type and I've got to make sure I preach the gospel to them and clearly live out the Christian life for them to model that so that if the Lord tarries, they can do the same thing.

In verse 49, just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. The earthy bore the image of God, did he not? But then he fell? When God made the image of Adam, he knew his son was going to come in the image of Adam. I think that's kind of a cool thing that God was fully aware. So when Adam was created, he knew his son was going to carry on that image. But his son would be resurrected in a new image.

That was the only way that everyone could be resurrected and carry on in an eternal state. Alright, so last conclusion here, because I'm pretty sure Brian is going to ring that bell any second now. So, last thoughts and conclusions here. We find that our type in Christ offers hope, resurrection, and an eternal state that has no corruption. Paul has established the veracity of the doctrine of the resurrection. We find he brings a conclusion to the doctrine next week that is eschatological. He addresses mortality and how our mortality is impacted by this resurrection. And he also talks about our motivation to action. How are we motivated? So the resurrection is key and it's fundamental to the Christian life. When we understand the two atoms, we begin to understand principles of all the scriptures regarding and it stirs in us a longing for Christ's return. When Adam fell, what was God's ruling principle all the way between Adam and Noah? They had the principle of conscience. You're made in God's image, you ought to know what the right thing to do is.

What's the first thing that happens that we get recorded after Adam and Eve leave the garden? They have kids, and what do the kids do? They murder. And guess what? God had not outlawed murder yet. He does very specifically call out and he institutes capital punishment in Genesis chapter 9. But murder is the first thing that happens and Cain kills Abel and God's consequence for Cain is That's kind of alarming to us today, isn't it? We go, wow, that's pretty crazy. But God instituted only conscience between Adam and Noah. And between Noah and Moses, there wasn't a lot more law other than there was capital punishment.

The animals would be afraid. So a lot of things were coming together, and they're coming into play as these things work together. But we see that without God's intervention in the Holy Spirit in our lives, We needed a different type. It didn't matter if there was law, it didn't matter if there was no law. We see that we needed a new type. And that new type is in Christ.

And the resurrection is exciting. And next week, Roger gets to teach the cooler passage. And I'm excited about that. I think it's going to be really neat for us to see Paul's conclusion on this. He ends with hope, and he ends with empowerment, and he ends with an eternal perspective. You'll have to find out all the details next week. Alright, let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the truth that we got to study in your word. Thank you that our glory in the resurrected body will be your glory. Thank you that we don't have to worry about the weakness, but we can look forward to the power. That we don't have to worry about our earthiness, our dirt-based, carbon-based life forms, but we will have spiritual bodies. Thank you that they will never tire and never weary. We just pray for your return and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.