When Christ Comes: The Hope of Resurrection!
Scott Bayles, pastor
adapted from Max Lucado’s When Christ Comes
First Christian Church, Rosiclare, IL
Suppose you were walking past my farm one day and saw me sitting in the field crying. (I don’t have a farm nor am I prone to sitting in fields, but play along with me.) There I sit, inconsolable at the head of a furrowed row. Concerned, you approach me and ask what’s wrong. I look up from beneath my John Deere tractor hat and extend a palm full of seeds in your direction. “My heart breaks for the seeds,” I weep.
“Excuse me?” you might ask.
Between sobs I explain, “The seeds will be placed in the ground and covered with dirt. They’ll decay, and we will never see them again.”
As I weep, you are stunned. You look around for the turnip truck off which you are confident I tumbled. Finally, you explain to me a basic principle of farming: Out of the decay of the seed comes the birth of a plant.
You put a finger in my face and kindly remind me: “Don’t mourn the burial of the seed. Don’t you know that you will soon witness a mighty miracle of God? Given time and tender care, this tiny kernel will break from its prison of soil and blossom into a plant far beyond its dreams.”
Okay, maybe you aren’t that dramatic, but you get the gist of it. Any farmer who grieves over the burial of a seed needs a reminder—a time of planting is not a time of grief. Any person who anguishes over the burial of a body might need the same reminder. We may need the reminder that Paul gave the Christians in Corinth. He tells them, “When Christ comes again, those who belong to him will be raised to life” (1 Corinthians 15:23 NCV).
The resurrection should be one of the most anticipated events of Christ’s coming and it’s an essential element of the Christian faith. When Jesus returns the first major event will be the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the Bible says, “the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NLT).
Back in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul gives us some wonderful insights into our resurrected bodies and what they will be like. But before we get into that, some of you might be thinking, what happens to us between the time we die and the time that we are resurrected? Well, I’m glad you asked. The Bible says that when you die, your body “...will turn back into the dust of the earth again, but your spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7 NCV). Paul again, says, “Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8 NLT). Even Jesus chimed in on the subject when he told the thief on the cross, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43 NCV).
Scripture assures us time and again that even though our body is buried our souls are still living. Upon death, our souls will journey immediately to a spirit realm usually referred to as Hades and there we will be in the presence of God and of Jesus. Keep in mind though that a disembodied spirit is nonmaterial, or incorporeal; so it’s not really a location but a relation—we will experience the presence of God and Christ. But this is just an intermediate state while we await the resurrection of our bodies. You see, a spirit without a body is kind of like helium without a balloon. Human beings are by nature a spirit body unity and even in the presence of God we will be looking forward to the day when Christ comes and our spirits are reunited with our bodies.
Now, I know that probably stirs a whole classroom of questions: What does Paul mean, “those who belong to him will be raised to life”? What will be raised? My body? If so, why this body? I don’t like my body. Why don’t we start over on a new model?
Well, come with me back to the farm, and let’s look for some answers. Paul writes:
But someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? What kind of body will they have?’ Foolish person! When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow. And when you sow it, it does not have the same ‘body’ it will have later. What you sow is only a bare seed, maybe wheat or something else. But God gives it a body that he has planned for it (1 Corinthians 15:35–38 NIV).
Paul’s point is simple—you’re going to be different. While there will still be continuity between your current body and your resurrected body (just as a seed already contains all the biological information for the plant it will become), we are going to be different. Changed. Transformed. Were you hoping for a little more information than that? Well, don’t worry it’s there. Paul goes on to give us three pictures or parallels to help us understand what our resurrected bodies will be like. First, Paul says that we will have a physical resurrection.
• A PHYSICAL RESURRECTION
This might come as a surprise to some people, but listen to what Paul says.
All things made of flesh are not the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds have another, and fish have another. Also there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the beauty of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the beauty of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of beauty, the moon has another beauty, and the stars have another. And each star is different in its beauty. It is the same with the dead who are raised to life. (1 Corinthians 15:39-42 NCV).
There is an amazing variety of physical/fleshly creatures God has made. We need only look around us to see the virtually infinite assortment of created beings and things. In the biological world the flesh of men is absolutely distinct from the flesh of beasts, the flesh of birds, and the flesh of fish. For instance, fish have scales, birds have feathers, and some animals have fur, while others have tough leathery hides. And all these living things also have very different life spans. A dog will live to be sixteen or seventeen years old, a person can live to be about eighty or ninety, and some turtles live to be two hundred. It’s the same with our earthly bodies and heavenly (or resurrected) bodies. The point is that God will be making a whole new type of flesh for our resurrected bodies. It will still look like human flesh, as we’ll later see, but it will be different—as different as one star is from another.
Like flowers, the stars have their own colors. At your first upward glance all gleam white like frost crystals, but single out this one and that for observation and you will find a subtle spectrum in the stars. The quality of their lights is determined by their temperatures. In the November sky you will see Aldebaran as pale rose, Rigel as bluish white and Betelgeuse is orange to topaz yellow. “It is the same with the dead who are raised to life” (vs. 42). Just as every star is essentially a ball of burning gas and every living creature has some kind of flesh, there will be continuity between our current earthly bodies and our future spiritual bodies, yet they will be as different as they are the same.
When the Bible says that we will have a body, that isn’t too otherworldly to understand, is it? I mean you’ve have one all your life! And we can certainly imagine a better one, can’t we? This brings us to Paul’s next point. Furthermore, Paul writes that we will have a powerful resurrection.
• A POWERFUL RESURRECTION
That is to say, our resurrected bodies will be immeasurably more powerful than our present ones. In fact, Paul outlines three ways God will transform our bodies. Our bodies will be changed from:
1. Corruption to incorruption—“The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption” (vs. 42 NKJV).
2. Dishonor to glory—“It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory” (vs. 43 NKJV).
3. Weakness to power—“It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power” (vs. 43 NKJV).
Corruption. Dishonor. Weakness. Three unflattering words used to describe our bodies. But who would argue with them?
Julius Schniewind didn’t. He was a highly regarded European Bible scholar. In the final weeks of his life, he battled a painful kidney disease. His biographer tells how, one night, after the professor had led a Bible study, he was putting on his coat to go home. As he did, the severe pain in his side caused him to groan aloud the Greek phrase “Soma tapeinõseõs, soma tapeinõseõs.” The student of Scripture was quoting the words of Paul, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body [soma tapeinõseõs]” (Phil. 3:20–21 NKJV).
You and I don’t go about mumbling Greek phrases, but we do know what it is like to live in a lowly body. In fact, some of you know all too well. Just take a look at our ever-growing prayer list. Nearly every name is there because of the weakness, corruption, and dishonor of theses lowly bodies.
Can you relate? You probably can. Your body is so tired, so worn. Joints ache and muscles fatigue. You understand why Paul described the body as a tent. “We groan in this tent,” he wrote (2 Cor. 5:2). Your tent used to be sturdy and strong, but the seasons have passed and the storms have raged, and this old canvas has some bare spots. Chilled by the cold, bowed by the wind, your tent is not as strong as it used to be.
Or, then again, maybe your “tent,” your body, never has been strong. Your sight never has been crisp, your hearing never has been clear. Your walk never has been sturdy; your heart never has been steady. You’ve watched others take for granted the health you’ve never had. Wheelchairs, doctor visits, hospital rooms, needles, stethoscopes—if you never saw another one for the rest of your life, you’d be happy. You’d give anything for one full day in a strong, healthy body. But you can look forward to much more than a day. One translation says, “They are just human bodies at death, but when they come back to life they will be superhuman bodies” (vs. 44 TLB). Glorious. Immortal. Imperishable. Three words that describe what you have to look forward to. Finally, Paul sneaks over to the shudder and flings it open allowing the light of day to shine on the subject. He says that we have a pattern for resurrection—and that pattern is Jesus.
• A PATTERN FOR RESURRECTION
Listen to what Paul writes next:
What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. Earthly people are like the earthly man, and heavenly people are like the heavenly man. Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man. (vs. 46-49 NLT)
In other words, through Adam we have inherited our natural bodies; through Christ we will inherit spiritual bodies in the resurrection. Adam’s was the prototype of our natural bodies, whereas Christ’s is the prototype of our spiritual bodies. All the descendants of Adam have natural bodies, and all the descendants of Christ will have spiritual bodies. Jesus’ resurrection, therefore, was the prototype of all subsequent resurrections.
The Bible confirms this in a variety of passages: “He will take these dying bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own” (Phil. 3:21 TLB). The apostle John wrote to believers, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2 NIV). So, while we don’t have a detailed blueprint or diagram for our spiritual bodies, from Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances we do get some idea of the greatness, power, and wonder of what our own resurrection bodies will be like.
Jesus was certainly solid enough; he told his disciples, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39 ESV). Clearly, Jesus had a physical, tangible body. He even shared a fish breakfast on the beach with some of his followers after his resurrection. But he was also changed in some ways. Even his closets friends didn’t recognize him at first glance. Was he a taller? Maybe a little younger? Did his spiritual body come with a nose job? Who knows? But there was something subtly different about him. He also appeared and disappeared at will, reappearing again at another location far away. He could walk through walls and closed doors, and yet also could eat, drink, sit, talk, and be seen by those who He wanted to see Him. He was remarkably the same, yet even more remarkably different. After His ascension, the angel told the amazed disciples, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11 NKJV). The body the disciples saw after Jesus’ resurrection is the same body that will be seen when He returns again.
Just as with our Lord, our bodies, which are now perishable, dishonored, weak, and natural, will be raised into bodies that are imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual. The coming resurrection is the hope and motivation of the church and of all believers. Whatever happens to our present bodies—whether they are healthy or unhealthy, beautiful or plain, short-lived or long-lived, or whether they are indulged or tortured—they are but a seed that is placed in the ground and one day our blessed hope and assurance is that these created natural bodies will be transformed into wonderful, eternal spiritual bodies. Although we have only a glimpse of what those new bodies will be like, it should be enough to know that “we shall be like Him.”
Undoubtedly, the best part of our transformation won’t be the transformation of our bodies, but the transformation that takes place inside—the transformation of our hearts. As we are now, we each live with a dual nature—both a sinful nature and spiritual nature that are at war within us. But on that day, when Christ comes, all evil will be abolished, completely purged from our hearts. You will still be you, but you’ll be a better you—the you God intended you to be, free from the corrupting influence of sin and selfishness. Finally and forever, we will truly love like Jesus—we’ll worship with a radiant face, our hearts will explode with love, joy, kindness and goodness. We will, once and for all, have a heart like his!
Invitation:
Unless Christ comes first, your body will be buried. Like a seed is placed in the ground, so your body will be placed in a tomb. And for a season, your soul will be in heaven while your body is in the grave. But the seed buried in the earth will blossom in heaven. Your soul and body will reunite, and you will be like Jesus. Until then, we’ll keep singing and we’ll keep praising! And right now, let’s sing our invitation song…
