The Resurrection Life Series

1 Cor 15:35-49 The Resurrection Life

Do you believe in the resurrection? Do you believe in the resurrection of the dead?

• Do you believe that there will be a bodily resurrection and not some kind of spiritual existence with us floating around as spirits?

• Or for the non-Christians, believing in some kind of reincarnation and becoming like some animals or other creatures after death.

Check what are you believing and ask why are you believing it.

• All theories of the afterlife can only be speculations at best because none of their proponents has died to experience it, nor returned to affirm it.

EXCEPT for Jesus Christ, who talked about the resurrection and the life beyond, before He died and returned to affirm all that He has said.

• Jesus stayed after His resurrection for 40 days before He ascended, proving to us that He was indeed resurrected and alive.

• Without this stay and His appearances post-resurrection, it would be difficult for us, not just in believing the resurrection, but in understanding the resurrection body.

Let’s recap the context of 1 Cor 15. How can you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

• Paul started countering this false belief with the truth of the Gospel.

• 1 Cor 15:3-4 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

• 1 Cor 15:12 12Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

If there is no resurrection, then Christ could not have been raised.

• A denial of the resurrection would mean a denial of Christ’s resurrection.

• And with that, a denial of the Gospel because His resurrection is historically true, attested to by the Scriptures and the eye-witnesses.

• Everything crumbles – our preaching, our faith, our witness…

Paul continues his arguments in last week’s passage. He even uses their false belief as a point of argument:

15:29 “What do people mean by being baptised on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptised on their behalf?”

• This is wrong but some believed that they need to be baptised to be saved, like the Judaisers who believed that they need to be circumcised to be saved.

• And if the dead missed their baptism before they died, then they came up with this wrong notion of baptising on their behalf, just to make sure that they are saved.

• Paul was not advocating this but using it to show their inconsistency. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then why are you so concerned about “baptising” for them?

Then “why should I be suffering for the sake of the Gospel?”

• Wherever Paul went, he has been risking his life for the sake of the Gospel. His conduct makes no sense unless there is a resurrection of the dead.

• 15:32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Today we come to another “excuse”: But how can we inherit such a corrupt body?

1 Cor 15:35-49 ESV – The Resurrection Body

35But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41There 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.

42So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.