What is a resurrection body like?
NB. Sermon recorded at the Arts Centre Fatfield Durham 25 April 1999
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But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.
24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.
28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put every-thing under him, so that God may be all in all.29 Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? 30 And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? 31 I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
33 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”[e] 34 Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.
The Resurrection Body
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.
40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendour of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another.
41 The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour.42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.
48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.
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Personal
Setting the Scene
If someone were to say to me what is the one single reason why I believe Christianity is the one true faith above all other faiths and ways of life - one reason why I can’t walk away from Christianity - there is one very easy and quick answer - The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I can’t help myself from believing in him and in following this Christ for one simple reason - I know there will never be a newspaper headline saying the bones of Jesus have been found. Why? Because Christ rose from the dead, or to quote Handel, “I know that my redeemer liveth.” And I don’t mean as a floating spirit, like a ghost, nor was he a resuscitated corpse like a walking zombie. For 2000 years the Jewish people have not been able to provide the body or bones of a crucified and dead Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus arose with a transformed, resurrection body.
The Church at Corinth
In 1 Corinthians 15:12
‘If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead.”
Paul links Christ’s resurrection to what will happen to us when we die (if He doesn’t return in the meantime). And then in 1 Corinthians 15:20 he says that Christ’s resurrection is the first fruit and thus a pattern for the resurrection of all believers.
One of the things I would like us to think about today is what happens when we die.
I realise this is a sensitive issue - we immediately think of our own loved ones who have died and that is right and proper to reflect on them. BUT since this is such a key aspect of our faith - making Christianity different from any other faith - I would like us to ask ourselves what does Christ risen mean for us. I am going to focus on what will happen when we die and see what effect that should have on how we live our life while we’re alive.
Prof Douglas Davies conducted a survey of over 1600 religious people asking them what they believed about the life hereafter.
Out of the CofE people, he asked:
32% believed death was the end,
33% believed the spirit or soul was released from the body heavenward,
14% believed in reincarnation,
17% didn’t know (in God’s hands)
4% believed there would be a resurrection of the body when you die.
So, today I’m talking about the resurrection, particularly the resurrection body, trying to nudge that 4% up a bit by looking at the teaching of 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 6.
Floating Spirit
The most favoured idea in the Davies survey was also the most favoured idea at the time of the Corinthian Church. That is why Paul is writing to the believers in 1 Corinthians 15.
Acts 18 records that Paul was establishing a church in Corinth during an 18 month stay as part of his second missionary journey.
In Paul’s time Corinth was a thriving centre of commerce and had become a cosmopolitan city where Greeks, Latins, Syrians, Asiatics, Egyptians and Jews rubbed shoulders.’ The diversity of nationalities was an influence within the church as well as in the city.
The idea of the spirit being freed from the body when you die was very much a Greek idea. Some of the Corinthian Christians probably believed that after death the spirit lives on, disembodied from the body, not unlike the tendency today.
A good example was seen at the funeral of Lady Diana. Can you remember what the Archbishop of Canterbury said in his funeral address? Can you remember Elton John’s song and Lord Spencer’s eulogy? Well, it is a trick question because there was no funeral address. The main parts of the service that people tend to remember, both were spoken to or sung to Diana as if she were a spirit hovering around heading for heaven. I believe the Church gave up a golden opportunity to speak about the resurrection body.
I reject the floating spirit idea. 1 Corinthians 15 speaks of a changed or a transformed body and that is not the way Paul would have written if he had meant the spirit would be freed from the body. And besides, if Paul had meant that, then there would have been a body in the tomb on that first Easter Sunday.
We need to look at this idea of transformation a bit closer and at the same time accept that we will not fully understand it on this side of heaven.
Transformation
In 1 Corinthians 15:36-38 Paul uses an illustration of a seed being planted in the ground and invites us to see the similarities with the body that is buried (or cremated). (Read 36-38 again). Think of a bulb, say a tulip. The bulb has to die to itself to be resurrected as a new flower.
The picture of the seed shows that God has written into nature the principle of resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:42 says, ‘so it will be.’ The seed proves that one entity can have two kinds of existence (before and after death). The seed dies and new life emerges.
Paul uses four contrasting statements to emphasise there will be a resurrection body.
‘the body that is sown is perishable is raised imperishable.’
‘The body is ‘sown in dishonour (a lowly state), is raised in glory,’(1 Corinthians 15:43, NEB)
The third statement in 1 Corinthians 15:43 contrasts ‘weakness’ and ‘power’. The weakness of ageing and disease and ‘unwholeness’ compared with the power to conform in wholeness to the will of God.
The fourth set of contrasts illustrates that the natural body is ill-adapted to life in the world to come What is needed is a body that is attuned to the spirit – ‘a spiritual body.’
I appreciate that we will not be able to fully understand this idea, we all know the body decays or is cremated. It sounds a bit gruesome to suggest that somehow it might all be put back together. It is probable that some of the Corinthian believers visualised the resuscitation of corpses as Paul wrote of the resurrection of the dead. What he was in fact teaching was a transformation from natural to spiritual body, emphasising both change and continuity.
The word ‘body’ appears once in the first thirty-four verses and ten times in verses 35-50. Paul weaves the repetition of the word ‘body’ with the repetition of the verbs ‘sown’ and ‘raised.’ In doing this Paul is emphasising the transformation and the continuity of the one body when this age has passed.
What he means by the spiritual body is that somehow the transformation would make us like the risen Lord. That excludes a resuscitated corpse and excludes a ghost-like spirit. Perhaps the best conclusion to the meaning of the ‘spiritual body’ is to remember Paul’s ‘reflection’
“At present, we are just looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face” 1 Corinthians 13:12, JB Phillips.
· When I was preparing this sermon, I wondered why am I saying all this? Does it make any difference (and I hope it does)? We can take a confidence from knowing that Christ was the first of many who have been resurrected and ourselves who will be resurrected.
· It’s important that we know our whole being matters to God, not just a spirit bit, God knows you and loves you as a whole being, body, mind, personality, and spirit all in one.
· All this is important because we need to know what we believe about eternity and about our resurrection bodies. It is in knowing what we believe about this fundamental part of our faith, that we will be more confident to talk about it with our friends, relatives and neighbours.
A friend of mine Steve, after a conversation on eternal life, phoned me up and said “please don’t talk about dying and what happens thereafter again. Me and the girlfriend sat in the car talking about it till 1am”
Lorrie, a friend of my wife’s phoned about two weeks ago, worried about what happens when you die, her daughter had come home from school talking about it. What an opportunity to tell the truly good news, that Jesus was the first to defeat death, the first of many who will be changed in dying from being mortal to becoming immortal. The good news is that Christ made it possible for us to be raised in glory, ready for heaven, for those who follow Jesus.
Please Lord may all hear this truly turn to you and follow you. Amen.
“in a flash, in the blink of an eye at the last trumpet… the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed”
1 Corinthians 15:52
The trumpet sounds
And the dead will then be raised
By His power, never to perish again.
Once only flesh, now clothed with immortality,
Death has now been swallowed up in victory
We will meet Him in the air
And then we will be like Him
For we will see Him, as He is, Oh yeah!
Then all hurt and pain will cease
And we'll be with Him forever
And in His glory we will live, Oh yeah!
© Phatfish
