The Reality Of The Resurrection

Well, I mentioned to you about Ramona's death. And of course, every time we have someone in our congregation who dies, that causes us to think about our own lives, possibly our own deaths, because inevitably, if we're alive, then we may. Here, in the near future, we may die. We don't know exactly how long any of us would live. But it is important, whenever we think about life and death, and actually you see in Ecclesiastes the statement that Solomon makes.

Actually, in Ecclesiastes 7, you might read a couple of verses here, it tells us that there is benefit. Benefit in going to the house of mourning. That's what you could call a memorial service or a funeral service, a funeral home. You could call a church sometimes a house of mourning, because you're gathering there to acknowledge the life and death of someone else. But here in Ecclesiastes 7, it starts off in a very positive way. A good name is better than precious ointment, the day of death, better than the day of birth. It talks about this in a pretty positive way. It says the need, the value of a good name.

But it also talks about how we may die, and it says in verse 2, it is better. Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. For this is the end of everyone, and the living will lay it to heart. To those of us still alive, we can think about life and death, we can think about the blessings of God, we can think about things that we can be grateful for, but we can also understand our limitations.

Being physical, being temporary, being only here and living in this physical form for relatively a short period of time. Now, for 60 or 70 or 80 years old, that seems like a while.

But it doesn't really seem like it to me. I'm almost 70 and it wasn't just the other day that I was 25. It wasn't very long ago that I felt much younger, or thought I did, or thought about myself as a younger person instead of 60 or 70. But it tells us here that it's better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. Because what are you focused on there? Well, you're focused on the temporality of life.

You're focused on the fact that there are any number of things that could cause us to die. Because we are temporary. We are physical. And yet, as the children of God, and that is the way we should learn to think of ourselves, because that's what God says, that He's working with us in a special way, that He has given us a gift that enables us to be the sons and daughters of God. But He says, as the children of God, we can mourn, and it's not wrong to mourn, it's fine.

That's certainly what we should do. But we also want to do so with the incredible hope that we know what is going to happen in the future. Too many times, people are so uncertain about death because they have an incorrect understanding of what happens after death. They might think they go to heaven or hell, and some of the prospects might not be too good. And yet, that, of course, is not what God teaches.

He tells us that we're going to die, and we're going to be in the grave, and we're going to await His call, await a resurrection. Here in 1 Thessalonians 4, this is actually in the brochure that Tom and Donna had put together for Ramona. I know that they have different verses that are commonly used in funeral brochures, but I don't know that this one would always be one that they would use.

This is clearly what someone with understanding would use. But it tells us here in 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 13, we don't want you, brethren, to be uninformed. We don't want you to be ignorant about those who have died. He tells us clearly. Paul explains to the people there in Thessalonica, some of whom had died. They had had some members, some have died. They had wondered, you know, this is a sad thing, that we mourn the loss of others.

Paul says, we don't want you to be uninformed or ignorant, brethren, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. See, that's the...he says grieving, you know, understandable. You see examples of that in the Bible. There was great grieving for, you know, the death of patriarchs.

They were him, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. They were grieved by the people of their families. Even for a period of weeks, they were in mourning. But he says, we don't want you to grieve without hope. Because he goes on to say, for since we believe in verse 14 that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For we declare to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and are left until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died.

For the Lord himself in verse 16 with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise. That they would rise first. And then he says those of us who are still alive would be changed.

Now he stated this in order, as you see in verse 18, in order to encourage one another. He says in verse 18, therefore encourage one another with these words. Understand that our physical existence is physical for a reason. We are temporary for a reason. We are temporary and physical for a reason. To some degree, that we would learn through the things that we suffer. See, death and pain and sorrow is not a joyous time. That is difficult to go through.

And yet, God wants us to see beyond that. He wants us to understand that, well, there is hope, and there is hope in my word, and I want you to share in that hope, and I want you to live this life in that hope. And that's what I can tell you about Ramona. That even though she was going through losses that she certainly couldn't control, it was continually worse. But she could still have hope. She could still be optimistic that, well, there is life beyond the grave. There is life beyond today, as I like to say, because we, of course, use that slogan, Beyond Today, as a focus of our teaching and preaching about the kingdom of God. But this statement is one that we often go over, and we often think about during a time when we have a memorial and are thinking about the life and then death of someone that we love. The reality that is described here in this verse of the resurrection of the dead, the reality of the resurrection of the dead should not be overlooked.

By any of us. It is a fact of the Bible. It is a part of the hope that God holds out before us, that we will be resurrected, and then He has prepared a responsibility or place for us to serve beyond this physical life. But see, our hope is truly beyond today. It's beyond the grave. We believe in the future eternal life that God offers to His children. That's what we believe in.

That's what we understand from the pages of the Bible. And I know all of you could cite, or you at least should know, the chapter that we can go to and read all about the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15 is a chapter in the first book of Corinthians. And in essence, Paul has been writing to the people there in Corinth. He's needed to correct a lot of things because they had clearly a number of misunderstandings.

He talked about how they were divided, how they were not united, how they were not focused on Christ as the head of the church, and in doing so, eliminated the division and the divisions and schisms that were happening there among the people. He says that's not right. He says Christ is not divided. We need to be united. We need to be together. He addressed that over several chapters. He talked about other problems that they had. Actually, he answered some questions that they had. If you read 1 Corinthians 7, he's actually answering questions about marriage.

There were misunderstandings about that. Things that needed to be clarified, things that needed to be addressed. Ultimately, you see him talking about spiritual gifts. They were blessed with some spiritual gifts, but they often misused them, especially the gift of tongues, of speaking in different languages. Apparently, it was something that was known about and misused.

So Paul had to say, well, I speak in tongues more than all the rest of you. He understood not only a whole lot, but God blessed him with the ability to do that. Don't do it at all if it's not being done to uplift someone else.

And, of course, 1 Corinthians 13 is about the most excellent way, the way of love, the way that God is, and the way that he wants us to be.

But you find Paul concluding this first book of Corinthians with chapter 15. I know chapter 16 is the end, and yet it's mostly a conclusion and wrapping up the book. But why does he spend the whole chapter talking about the resurrection of the dead? Why did he give so much attention? Actually, when you break down the study of the book, you find that he addresses different things in kind of lengthy chapters. But this is kind of the main topic that he concludes with, the resurrection of the dead.

What Paul points out can be encouraging. What he points out should be uplifting. It should be exciting. It shouldn't just be something, well, I know what the resurrection chapter is. It's in 1 Corinthians 15. It should be that I understand that that is my hope. That is, and that's everyone's hope. That's all of our hope, and that's hope for everybody else, because God is going to deal with people through the resurrection of the dead. Now, I want to point out it is necessary for all of us to bear the image of the earthy. See, that's one of the verses that we'll read here.

It's important that we realize that we are going to bear the image of the earthy before we would ever bear the image of the heavenly. We've got to go through this training period. We've got to go through this physical existence with whatever blessings and with whatever difficulties we may endure.

We have to go through that before we're ever going to. Here in 1 Corinthians 15, and that's primarily where I'll be, the rest of the sermon. In 1 Corinthians 15, verse 49, it says in verse 49, just as we have borne the image of the earthy, the man of dust, just as we have been given this physical existence, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven, the heavenly image.

See, we're bearing an earthly image today. We're made out of dust. We've been given the breath of life, but we're physical and we're temporary, and we've sinned, and so we've earned the penalty of death. But God says, I can relieve that. I can forgive you if you repent, and then I can give you hope of life beyond the grave and life that actually will begin at the resurrection of the dead.

At the resurrection, whenever we rise out of the grave in answer to God's call. See, our physical existence with all of our trials, and sometimes our disappointments, and the frustrations, and the pain, and also the joy and the delight, it is essential in God's plan for man. He wants us to endure affliction, looking beyond this life to our resurrection, and then to being glorified with Him and Jesus Christ for all eternity. He wants us to live our physical lives with the focus, not so much on the here and now, although we have to focus on things that we need to do.

Yes, but our primary focus has got to be on what He's going to do with us beyond the grave. How it is that He's preparing us for that. Let's take a look at the beginning of this chapter, 1 Corinthians 15. I want to review this whole chapter, and I'll go through it, and I am going to predict that I'm going to make seven points, and we'll find out later whether that actually turns out.

You might try to write them down. I'll see if I can enumerate them. Usually it doesn't work too well. But the fact is that some of the people in Corinth that Paul was working with and that he dearly loved and that he had drawn to make up the church.

God had drawn them to Christ, and they made up the church in Corinth, primarily an entirely Gentile church. They had some who had a Jewish background. Aquila and Priscilla were there at one time, and they were clearly Jewish.

But for the most part, most of the Corinthians were Gentiles. They had come out of a pagan society, a pagan world, a corrupted world, had all kinds of ideas. And yet, apparently, some of them thought that you could be baptized for the dead. We're going to read that. See, now, if you think through that, you say, that doesn't make any sense. That makes no sense at all. Even though there are some people who think that that actually is something you can do, that's not going to work.

But in another verse, he's also going to say that Paul points out to them, some of you don't even believe there will be a resurrection of the dead. And so you see him writing this entire chapter, a lengthy chapter, you see him making many points about why the resurrection is an absolute surety. And if it isn't, then you have no business being here, because the resurrection is central to the preaching of the Gospel. It's central to a teaching about the Kingdom to come. It's central to the role of Christ as a ruler in the Kingdom of God.

So, let's look at this. It starts off, and this is the first point. The Gospel is grounded in the resurrection. So we understand the Gospel, to not just be what the Church says or what we teach, but what the Bible teaches and what Jesus taught. The good news is not solely about Jesus, although he is very good news, and he is the one who is going to bring all this up to pass. But he said his Gospel was about the Kingdom of God.

It's about the Kingdom that was predicted back in Daniel. It's the Kingdom that was predicted more so in the statements of Jesus and throughout the writings in the New Testament, and about ultimately the conclusion of the book of Revelation. The Kingdom is coming. That's what he says. So that's the first point. The Gospel is grounded in the resurrection. Verse 1, I want to remind you, brethren, of the Gospel that I proclaim to you. See, this is what Paul wanted to keep them in mind of.

He had come and he had taught them about Jesus Christ, but he had taught them about what Christ had taught, which was the good news of the Kingdom of God. And so he says, I want to remind you, brethren, of the Gospel that I proclaim to you, which you in turn have received.

You have become aware of what the Gospel is. You've received it, and you now stand in the Gospel, and through which also you are saved. It is through the Gospel of the Kingdom of God that we will have salvation. And so he says, you've received and you stand, and you are going to receive salvation if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaim to you unless you have come to believe in vain. See, he's going to make a very strong case for the resurrection of the dead.

He's going to go over this over and over again throughout this chapter, and he's going to answer questions that people could have. But certainly he's going to dispel the idea that the resurrection doesn't happen because it is an actual fact. And so the first thing he mentions is just simply that the Gospel is all about the resurrection. Because if there's a coming Kingdom of God, then something has to bring that into existence.

And if people are going to be a part of that Kingdom, then what brought them into that Kingdom? Well, the resurrection of the dead is what brought them to that point. The second thing he begins here in verse 3. He's going to point out that Jesus Christ came to the earth. He lived his life.

He eventually died for the sins of mankind. He was buried and in the grave for three days and three nights, and then he rose from the dead. He rose from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures. That's what we'll read here in verse 3. He says, I handed on to you, after telling them you received the Gospel that I taught, I handed on to you at the very first that what I had received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. And that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that after Jesus was raised from the dead, who did he see? It says he saw Peter, Cephas. He saw the Twelve. We have record of several different times when Jesus would interact with the disciples. And as you know, he was able to do that in a miraculous way. He was able to just appear, or he was able to just disappear, or he was able, as he did later on in John, he was able to cook fish and bread and feed them and eat with them. But he could also just disappear. He had been given spirit life. But here he says after Jesus rose from the dead, he saw Peter, he saw the Twelve. Actually, he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom are even still alive, although some of them had died. I don't know that reference other than this right here, but if Paul says that's what happened, then that's what happened. And yet, you see beyond that, some of those people were still alive. It says he appeared to James in verse 7 and to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared even to me. And you do see Paul writing about his training from Jesus Christ in Arabia for a three-year period of time. And yet, this is the second point that he makes about the validity of the resurrection of the dead. Jesus died, he was buried, and he was resurrected. He was resurrected from the dead to live an entirely different life, a resurrected life.

So the third thing that he points out, and this is actually an incredible section, and it begins in verse 12, Without the resurrection from the dead, then our faith, and our obedience, and our coming to church on a regular basis, it's useless. Without the resurrection, we would otherwise just believe in vain. Here in verse 12, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection of the dead?

Now, that's what he was having to tell them. That makes no sense. Why would you even be a follower of Jesus if you didn't believe what God did with him and what he says he will do with you? If Christ is proclaimed as being raised from the dead, how can some of you say there's no resurrection? He says in verse 13, if there's no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain, and your faith is in vain. And so again, he's going to beat this over and over again.

He's going to point out how that the resurrection is so essential. And it's got to be our focus. We seek the kingdom of God, but see, the resurrection is how we'd even be a part of the kingdom of God. And so he goes on to say in verse 15, even we would be found to be misrepresenting God because we testify of God that he raised Christ whom he didn't raise if it's true that the dead are not raised.

He's going to go over and over this concept of, well, that makes no sense. If the dead are not raised in verse 16, then Christ has not been raised, and if he has not been raised, then your faith is futile. And actually, you're still living in your sins. See, the resurrection is going to happen. It is going to be, in fact, he says in verse 18, then even those who have died in Christ have perished.

If the resurrection isn't a reality, and so he says in this life, in verse 19, in this life only we have hope in Christ, then we are of all men, most miserable. See, that statement is one that you can read, and often you can pull it out and say, well, you know, that's what he tells us. You know, we look beyond this life. We see that the resurrection is a reality, and yet we have hope because that resurrection is going to happen.

Number four is that the resurrection of the dead is required to have eternal life. Being physical, we're going to live and we're going to die. Or we're going to live and we're going to be changed when the resurrection happens. And so the resurrection is required to have eternal life. Here in verse 20, in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the firstfruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being as well.

For as an Adam will die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But he says in verse 23, it is a fact that Christ rose from the dead, and he was the first of the children of God who would rise from the dead. In verse 23, but each of us in his own order, each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, and then at his coming, those who belong to Christ, those who have died and who are resurrected and united, reunited with him, and those at that point who are changed.

As we've already read, if people are still alive, they'll be changed. But if they died in the faith, if died in Christ, then they're going to be resurrected. And then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father. After he destroys every ruler and authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet, and the last enemy that he's going to destroy will be death.

And so clearly Paul is summarizing a lot of what we read about as far as the Millennial Rule and a judgment period beyond that, and ultimately others rising in a resurrection, a different resurrection, a physical resurrection. But we're told at the end of the book of Revelation that ultimately death is conquered, and it's going to say that in this chapter as well.

He also talks, and I won't focus on it because it doesn't directly involve the topic here of the resurrection, but he talks about after that, after everything, is in subjection to Jesus Christ, and then he's going to be in subjection to the Father. See, there's a reason for that. There's purpose in what God is doing, but in understanding how the family of God is being developed, Christ's objection to the Father is preeminent.

It is an extraordinary fact that for the good of the family, he's going to be in submission to the Father. Now, is Christ God? Yes. Is the Father God? Yes. But he is in subjection, as he willingly admits to the Father, and of course he's doing that so that all of us will understand, you know, if I'm allowed to be a child of God, a spirit being in God's divine family, then that's going to be according to his order, according to his direction, not mine.

And so, you know, Paul elaborates on that, but I'm not going to go into that more. He does that in these next few verses. But what we've read here in verse 20 through verse 26 is simply that the resurrection is required for eternal life. And then he describes, as I said in verse 29, an odd thing that some people must have believed, otherwise, all those people do who receive baptism on behalf of the dead. If the dead are not raised at all, why are they baptized on their behalf?

See, again, that makes no sense if you really understand what baptism is about, because as Paul again would write that in Romans 6, he says baptism is a personal thing. Baptism involves faith and repentance and then immersion. It involves a receipt of the Holy Spirit. It involves living a life of developing, a life of faith, training, and ultimately the cessation of that life and then the spirit life to come.

So, obviously, that was a concept that they didn't understand. They were not fully informed on that and needing to grow. But he also says in verse 30, and of course, I don't know that that concept about baptism for the dead is one that too many people are confused about today, but there are, at least in the past, some churches who have taught something along that line, and of course, even the whole idea of heaven and hell and purgatory and trying to do something for somebody else, you know, that has those type of connotation.

But in verse 30, why are we even putting ourselves in danger every day? He says, why should I? Verse 32, if I merely have human hopes, why would I fight with wild animals at Ephesus? What would I gain? He says, that doesn't make sense. Why would I put myself in peril and put myself in danger if I didn't believe that, well, if I died, that I would be resurrected? If I didn't believe that, then there would certainly be no reason to be in that danger.

He would add, well, if the dead are not raised, then there's no reason to worry about what we eat or drink. He said, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. That's a concept of someone who doesn't have an idea of the future or what God's purpose or plan is. So Paul is addressing this topic of the resurrection in a number of different ways. And then, in verse 35, he begins with another question about the resurrection. And this would be number five. What kind of body will we have in the resurrection of the dead?

He says in verse 35, someone will ask, well, how are the dead raised and with what kind of body do they come? See, again, that's, if you believe in the resurrection of the dead, that's kind of a human idea of thinking. Well, wonder what kind of a form, you know, will I look like I do today? Will I look better than I do today? You know, I hope. You know, does that really make any difference? He said this is pretty foolish, is what he goes ahead to say. What you sow doesn't come to life unless it dies. And then he's using an example of a grain of wheat.

And I know a little about this when I used to grow wheat in Oklahoma or grow alfalfa. It's even a tinier little seed. And yet you sow that in the ground, and yet those little seeds, whether it's grain of wheat or barley or alfalfa, those little grains die.

And new life comes out of those with a little sprout and then later a stalk and maybe a head or with alfalfa, just a green leafy legume that can be harvested and used for hay. But he says, need to realize, verse 38, God is going to give a body as He has chosen to each kind of seed its own body. And that's what He did with either the wheat or the barley or the alfalfa. You know, those whole, you know, they grow, the seed is put into the ground, it dies, but then it produces a new life that is like the one that was before.

And by verse 39, not all flesh is alike. But there's one flesh for human beings and another for animals, another for birds, another for fish. And we can admit that all of those are different forms of life, different forms of the creation of God, mankind being, in essence, the, you know, highest form of what God created and placed on the earth and gave dominion over all the other animals. And yet you've got different forms of animals. You've got different kinds. And yet the elephants produce the elephant kind in the horses, the horses, and the cats and dogs.

The cats and dogs kind, not together, but cats or dogs. And he goes ahead to describe that. And he says there are heavenly bodies, and there are earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing and that of the earthly is another. You know, we can look up in the sky and we can behold the sun only for a second.

You know, we're trying to block it. I'm trying to put my visor where it's not shining right in my face. And of course you can pretty much look at the moon because it's simply a reflection of the sun. It's an inert body that is floating around the earth, circling the earth on a lunar cycle, which is every 30 days or so. And yet the earth travels around the sun in a year's time. And each of those are, you can see the stars.

Some of them you can see rather easily. Some of them are much harder to see. Some of them you don't see at all. Again, depending on how far they are away. Some of them light years, which I don't understand. Some of you probably do.

I know what it is, but I still understand it. It's so far away. And of course whenever you start looking into some of the pictures that they have with the Hubble telescope and others of their abilities to look out into the galaxies of the universe, there are so many bodies that you could describe first as galaxies and then beyond.

We've got all kinds of names for them. But see, that's beyond what I can understand. And yet he says God understands all of that. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's reproducing. And he says in verse 41, there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon. Another glory of the stars. Indeed, stars differ from stars and glory. You know, I can pick out the north star sometimes if I can figure out where the big dipper is and figure out where the little dipper is.

And I can kind of know that that's the north star, but I wouldn't be able to pick that out unless there was some guidance there and you were able to find those. So it is, he says in verse 42, so it is with the resurrection of the dead.

What is sown, and so he says like with the grain, the little grain of wheat dies, and then the new stock of wheat with wheat berries in it is made alive. He says, so it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is corruptible. It's perishable. That's what all of us are. What is sown is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable. He's going to make some contrast here. You know, every time I think of perishable, I think of avocados and bananas, because I can buy the greenest banana in the store, and as soon as I get it home and put it in the bowl, it starts turning black. It's perishable. Same way with avocados. Avocados have a mind of their own. I think that's why we have so much guacamole. Because you buy, you can, some of you are better than this than I am, but I can look at the green crate of avocados, and I can see that the really rock hard ones, you know, that won't be ready for a while. And then there's ones that are a little lighter green and maybe a little softer, and some that are starting to turn black and quite a bit softer. And no matter what you do, as soon as you get it home, if it's a green one, then it'll still be green. And it might be green for the next day, and it might be green for the next day after that, but, again, they have a mind of their own. And two days and 43 minutes and 15 seconds later, that's when I should have eaten it, because after that time, you know, this is mushy, this is not that good. You know, it's really hard to figure out when to eat it, when to eat a ripe avocado, and usually end up making dip out of them. But see, the same way with bananas. Like I said, I had a banana in the car for a couple of days, and it looked really good, but the last day or two, once I got it in the house, it still looked kind of yellow, but I think it got pitched today. It was black. And so, you know, well, and I'm sure most of you heard, we ought to eat things that will spoil, but eat them before they do. That's what we should do. And yet, whenever you read about corruptible and perishable, that's what I think about. But here he says, physically, we are sown, we will die being perishable, but what is raised in the resurrection of the dead is incorruptible. It's imperishable. What is sown in verse 43 and dishonor is going to be raised in glory. What is sown in weakness, as all of us are, what is sown in weakness will be raised in incredible power. What is sown, a natural or a physical body, will be raised a spiritual body.

Now, here, as Paul described exactly what it is to have a spiritual body, well, not exactly, but he's shown us that, well, you know, the physical is what we go through to begin with, and then at the resurrection of the dead, then we are raised in a spirit body that is completely different. That is incorruptible. That is powerful. That is glorified. That is incredibly different. He says that there is a physical body, then there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man, Adam, verse 45, being a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. See, that's what we want to recognize about the kind of body that we will have in the resurrection. It will be completely different from what we experience today. And yet, what do we know? What can you actually know? Well, we know Jesus was raised from the dead. We know he appeared to Peter and James and later Paul and other of his disciples in John 21. You see him walking on the shore, and he's going to fix some breakfast of fish head sandwich and make that really nice for everybody.

What did they say? After a little while, I think it was John realized, that's the Lord. So apparently, if he was appearing, walking on the shore, and able to be recognized by John, he must have looked like before. I don't know. That's the impression that you get. Peter didn't even notice. He was busy fishing. And others apparently didn't notice, but John saw that it's the Lord. That's who that is. And of course, they had seen him as well before, and even Thomas had put, I'll put my hand in his side. I want to feel the holes in his hands. Apparently, he could make that look like that easy enough. But here he talks about this spiritual body that is so incredibly different, that it is very hard to describe. But the sixth point that I want to make here, starting in verse 46, is that this physical existence, our physical frame and form, as it described it as a physical body or a natural body, our physical existence and our faith training must proceed having a spirit body. We have to go through what we're going through prior to ever being given a spirit body. In verse 46, but it is not the spiritual that is first, it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical and then the spiritual. So here he points out that it's a requirement. We have to live a physical existence and we have to be introduced by God to the truth. We have to embrace that truth. We have to live a life of growing in faith. And then he says we can be given a spirit body. Verse 47, the first man was from the earth, the man of dust. The second man, the Lord, is from heaven. And as was in verse 48, the man of dust, so were those who were of the dust. But as is the man of heaven, so were those who were of heaven. And so he highlights, and then he concludes this in verse 49 with what I read earlier, just as we have born the image of the man of dust, just as we have born this earthy image, we will also bear the image of the heavenly. We will have a spirit body like Jesus has. We're said to be heirs with God or with Christ, joint heirs with Christ. We're going to have a spirit body and a resurrection from the dead that he has prepared us for during this physical existence.

And of course, the last thing, the seventh point to this, he says in verse 50, what I'm saying, brethren, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Since we're still physical, since we're still temporary, since we're still living in dishonor and weakness, then we're not in the kingdom of God yet. We won't be in the kingdom of God until the resurrection of the dead.

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, he says in verse 51, I tell you a mystery.

We will not all die. We will not all stay asleep, which he uses as a description of dying.

We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. The perishable body that we now have will put on imperishability. The mortal body will put on immortality.

And then, when this perishable body puts on imperishability and the mortal immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled. Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

See, ultimately, as he concludes this description, he has pointed out how that the Gospel involves the resurrection of the dead. He has pointed out how the Jesus rose from the dead. He has pointed out that our faith is useless, unless there is a resurrection beyond the grave. He has pointed out that there is an order to the resurrections that God is going to bring about.

And he has pointed out how that there is going to be a completely different body, not a natural physical body, but a spirit body. And he points out that flesh and blood simply can't inherit the kingdom of God, but at a moment in a twinkling of an eye, that's when that change is going to come at Christ's return, as we read earlier in 1 Thessalonians 4.

See, amazingly, Paul, he writes all of this to people who in some way didn't even believe in the resurrection of the dead. Now, he may say that some of you don't believe that. But see, if you don't, and I would say all of us do, surely in some form, we understand that. But maybe we haven't thought about the reality of what Paul writes here, because he goes through this entire exposition of the resurrection from the dead for a reason.

He supports this in other of his writings, in other books, and other of the apostles. Peter and John also support the resurrection from the dead. But he tells us that that's what gives us motivation. That's what helps us to struggle on against sin, because we do have to struggle against sin. We have to endure pain and sorrow. Here he talks about death. Death being painful. He says, oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? See, death is painful. And whenever someone dies that we love, it is painful, and we do mourn, but we don't mourn without hope.

We have hope in the resurrection, and of course, that's why he concludes this very last verse in this chapter. Verse 58, he says, all of us have the hope of eternal life, and yet that hope will not be realized unless there is a resurrection of the dead. And so God is going to bring that about. And in verse 58, the last verse here, he says, therefore, my beloved brethren, my brethren, please be steadfast.

He said, please be immovable. Ansel gave a sermon two or three weeks ago about being steadfast. That's what we are to all be. We are not to be moved away from the truth of the gospel and the truth of the Word of God.

But he says, be steadfast, be immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord. See, that's why we've been brought to be a part of the Church of God today, to be a part of the developing family of God, but to be a part of a body that is doing God's work, preaching the kingdom of God, and proclaiming the coming resurrection of the dead. That's why we all teach and preach. That's why we believe and that's why, of course, we can be motivated. He says, excel in the work of the Lord because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

We have an incredible hope, brethren, it is wrapped up in the coming of Christ. It's wrapped up in the resurrection of the dead, but he wants us to be motivated.

He wants us to be excited. He wants us to have hope. And that, of course, is what we seek from the Word of God as we mourn the loss of any of our friends, our relatives, our husbands, our wives, because that's the reality of what we deal with. But we certainly are not without an incredible hope that is revealed here in the Word of God in the Paul.

In a sense, not only summarizes, he elaborates on in an incredible way here in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.