I believe No.14 in the Resurrection of the body

But someone may ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come? How foolish. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of corn or of something else.

But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same. Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another.

There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies. But the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another.

And star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable.

It is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory.

It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body.

It is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being.

The last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that, the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth.

The second man, from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth. And as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery.

We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 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. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

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. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Lord.

But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you.

Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Listen to this verse plucked from Romans 8, and then we'll have a prayer together. The 23rd verse of that chapter, we read, We ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

We wait for the redemption of our bodies. Father, bless this evening meditation. And as the gospel message is explained, and some of the implications of that great creedal statement are worked out, may we know the enlivening and the enlightening of the Holy Spirit for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Now, did you not think that that was rather a peculiar statement, the one that I've just read? Listen to it again. We eagerly wait for the redemption of our bodies.

I repeat, that was Romans 8, 23, in case you were looking for it. A curious statement in what respect? Well, do you consider yourself to be redeemed? Do you consider yourself to be a Christian? Now, the answer to the latter question may be, Yes, I do consider myself to be a Christian, but the correct biblical answer to the first question, Do you consider yourself to be redeemed, is partially. Partially.

Well, that makes it even more difficult to understand. What do we mean by partial redemption? Either you're saved, or you're not saved. Surely scripture makes it a sort of clean-cut thing.

Well, not really. Just listen for a moment or two, and as my good friend A.W. Tozer would say, shake your head, and get all those little cogs at the back working properly, and let's just test our concentration for a while. Did you have a look in a mirror this morning? You're not a very honest group of people.

I'm sure you all had a look in a mirror this morning. You don't need to answer the next question. Let's take it as rhetorical.

Were you pleased with what you saw? When I was courting, I was told I had a Roman nose. At least I thought it was a compliment, and then I realized that I'd mistaken the word Roman with roaming, and there is a fundamental distinction. You may not always be too impressed when you have a look in the mirror, and the older you get, the more unimpressed you might become.

Why? Well, as somebody who was splashing grey paint around in refurbishing our buildings last week said to me, if you come any nearer, you'll have more grey hair on your head than you have at the sides already, which was a very cruel way, a very cruel way of indicating that the aging process is becoming more and more obvious, and some have been looking around the rear premises and have seen that little display of historical photographs at the tabernacle, and again have made some very, very unkind comments as to the distinction between me 13 years ago and now. You see, we do change, don't we? Our bodies do deteriorate. Now, the question I want to ask is, do you really want to get lumbered with what you are now throughout the whole of eternity? Let's put that more biblically.

Do you feel that the body that you have at the moment is in such a condition that you would like to take it on into an infinite future that never ends? Well, hold the question, and let me bring something else to your attention. Way back in the earliest book of the Bible, the book called Beginnings, Genesis, you get the story of God making man. Now, man's emergence on planet Earth, whatever they may have told you at the sixth form college or any other school in Worthing, was not an accident.

It was by design. By design. I am not suggesting that we have all the information in those opening chapters, and there may be an element of metaphor, but most certainly what we are told clearly in those opening chapters is that God deliberately designed man in his own image, and he breathed into man the breath of life.

This was after the whole creative cycle. Great things had happened. Marvelous things had been made.

But the apex, the pinnacle of creation, was when man was formed. And alongside man was his helpmate, Eve. And God said of those two, our first parents, when he looked over the work of his hand, as he had declared on every other epoch of creation, it is good.

It is good. Man is made in my image. There is something that is peculiar to man that no other member of the animal kingdom has at all.

And that is that we are born in the image of God, made perfect by a perfect God. And there was nothing wrong with Adam's body. There was nothing wrong with Eve's body at all.

But the day came when sin entered into the world. Adam and Eve, they disobeyed God. And spiritually, they died.

And their relationship with God was severed. And they are expelled from the garden of paradise. But even, I was going to say even more important, I'm not too sure that it has greater importance, but of significance also is this fact that the seed of decay in the human body was planted when Adam and Eve fell in the garden.

And that's the reason for the aging process. I'm speaking very seriously now. That is the reason why as the years go by, greater imperfections come in the body, more imperfections than perhaps you have at this very moment.

So when I say to you, do you really want, and I think I use the inelegant word lumbered, do you want to be lumbered with this body throughout the whole of eternity, your answer would be no, not if you're a thinking person. You want to have something better than this. But why did Jesus come into the world? Well, Jesus came into the world to save our souls.

That's why he bled at Calvary. He hung there on the cross for you and for me. And many, if not all in this congregation, did at some time say to the Lord Jesus, will you take my life and will you forgive me? Will you expunge, will you erase all the things that I have ever done that were wrong? And he did that.

And into your life he placed his Holy Spirit. And he introduced something fresh, something wonderful, something eternal, his Spirit. But what he did not do, and has yet to happen, is this.

He didn't remake your body. You are still subject to the aging process. And ultimately, unless our Lord Jesus returns before then, you will die like every man and every woman who ever lived prior to the days in which we now are alive has died.

So you will. Now look, if there is not going to be a resurrection of the body that you and I have right now, if it's not going to be repaired, rejuvenated, remade, then doesn't it seem to suggest that the devil got an edge of the victory on the Lord Jesus Christ? In other words, unless our bodies are reformed, unless paradise that was lost is regained, unless God achieves something to return us to the type of people that Adam and Eve originally were, then something of his glory has been stolen. And his glory he will not give to another.

And the basic reason, there are many others that I could argue historically and from the point of view of anthropology this evening, many reasons that I could bring to you as to why I cling to the statement in the creed that the body will be resurrected. The most important thing is this, so that the glory of God shall be seen to be intact, shall be restored in the image of men and women who have confessed Jesus Christ as Saviour. So, when you start to come to certain smart Alex writings today who suggest that there can't conceivably be such a thing as the resurrection, the resurrection of the body, you can say, well, if that is so, then there isn't a Christian faith.

If that is so, then the purposes of God have been absolutely frustrated. Bertrand Russell said, when I die, I shall rot. Nothing else, just rot.

At least the theology of John Brown's body was a bit better than Bertrand Russell's, because although the body was a mouldering in the grave, his soul was marching on, and that's a biblical concept, that when the body dies, the soul continues to live, but it's equally a biblical concept that at the end of time, there will be a body corresponding to the body that you now have, only rejuvenated, made perfect, that you will have to enter into the whole eternity that is yet to be. It will be your case, it will be your vessel, it will be your casket, only it will be improved, I would almost say almost beyond, but not quite, almost beyond recognition. No, this isn't some new, fanciful statement that I'm bringing to your attention, it's something that you find scattered, not so often, but nonetheless, scattered on the pages of the Old Testament and flooding through, bespeckled on the pages of the New Testament, the idea that when a man dies, that is not the end of his mortal remains.

Do you know what the oldest book in the Old Testament probably is? You'll say Genesis. Well, it could be, but there's a fair argument that Job is the oldest book, and Job once said, and it's titanic, the faith that he had, the insight that he had into the purposes of God, he once said, though worms destroy this body, remember, suffered from boils, and he's using the word worm as a metaphor, though boils, though worms, though the combination of mother nature and the deteriorating processes in my body, though they combine, and though there's nothing left of Job, or so it might seem, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom mine eyes shall see for themselves. It won't be by proxy.

And when you get to the last chapter of the book of Daniel, you'll find there that the prophet is suggesting, no, he's declaring that the end of time, there will be a general resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous, the graves will be opened, and the righteous and unrighteous shall come forth. Our Lord Jesus takes that statement from Daniel, and he gives it additional authority, because he has more or less the same thing to say, in John 5 and verse 28, do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.

The day will dawn when it will be quite busy round Offington Corner, more busy than even the traffic island and the traffic going round at this moment indicates, for therefore the uninitiated, I should explain, for those who hear this tape, is one of our largest cemeteries. The Bible says that those who are righteous, as well as those who are unrighteous, shall be raised again. That reading which Ted brought to us so strongly makes exactly the same pronouncement that was from 1 Corinthians 15.

He could have read from Philippians and chapter 3. He could have read from 1 Thessalonians, where references also found to what will happen when Jesus returns. Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep, for the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And again, I tell you, there are many other scriptures which I could have read at this particular point. Jesus gave a principle, which on one occasion was very, very apposite to what he had to say.

Every principle Jesus gave was very relevant. But it's exceedingly so in respect of what I'm sharing this evening. Jesus said, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone.

Now what was he doing? Well, he was anticipating his own death. And later on, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the disciples remembered this statement. He was in effect reminding them of something that was already known from the world of nature.

That when the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, then ultimately there is new life. There is fresh growth. There is fruition.

And our Lord Jesus Christ is the illustration of this. He dies at Calvary. Was that the end of him? Well, the Romans perhaps thought so.

The Jews certainly believed that it was. But he was brought again from the dead. And the Bible says that Jesus is just like the first fruits.

What does that mean? Well, again, will you allow an illustration? And I hope it doesn't sound to be too inelegant. You take a packet of Sutton seeds. And let's say you just take one from the packet and you put it in the ground.

Allow a certain amount of time and assume that there's sufficient water and heat and nourishment in the soil. What will happen? Well, the seed will burst forth into life. And you therefore have logical reason to believe that what happened to that one seed in the packet will happen to all the seeds in the packet.

And in this respect, Christian people are like seeds in the same packet as was our Lord Jesus. And as He was raised physically, so you and I will be raised physically. There's not very much that's elegant about dying, is there? I mean literally dying.

Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 15 just for a moment or so. And you can see really what a rotten business it is. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 42.

Paul is using metaphor, but he is describing a funeral. And what does he say? Well, he thinks of the body in terms of a seed. Halfway through verse 42.

The body that is sown is perishable. It's perishable. There's the description of the corpse in the coffin.

Disease is set in. It's lifeless. And the funeral has to be reasonably quickly undertaken because we know that a corpse that is left unattended is the most unhealthy thing.

It's a perishing thing. Says Paul, it is sown in dishonor. However sensitively the funeral agents might put cosmetics on the corpse and clothe the person in his or her good clothes, we know that it's a dishonorable thing.

And that that process on the part of the funeral agents is just temporary. It's just cosmetic. There's nothing wonderful about physical death.

Not at all. The body is perishable. It's sown in dishonor.

Says the apostle, it is sown in weakness. There is nothing weaker than a corpse. You can't stand the corpse up.

It has absolutely no power whatsoever. It is sown, says Paul, finally, a natural body. Now, that is the end of our carcass, of our casket at the human level.

But let's think of it as Paul is thinking of it, not just in terms of a corpse, but in terms of what it really is, a seed. And as Jesus' seed was placed in the ground and it was raised again, so those who believe in Jesus shall discover that their bodies too shall be raised. Paul goes on to draw a distinction between Adam and the Lord Jesus, who he refers to as the last Adam.

In many, many, many ways, we're like the first Adam. He was a sinner, and we are sinners. He suffered the consequence of sin by dying.

And although the thought may not be a happy one, that also applies to us. So we have got a basic correspondence between ourselves and Adam, the earthly man. Ah, but this is the difference with Christian people.

There's not only the correspondence between them and Adam, but the correspondence is between them and the last Adam. As we have borne the image of the earthly, our first parent, Adam, so because we're Christians, we bear the image of the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. And as a result of that, when Christ Jesus returns, when the trumpet sounds in the twinkling of an eye, says the Authorized Version, literally in an atom of time, the smallest fragment that you can conceive of, just like that, the dead shall be quickened and they shall be raised to meet the Lord Jesus.

It does not matter whether their corpse was bared to the flames of some incinerator. It does not matter whether they're six foot under the ground having had a dignified funeral. It doesn't matter whether they were lost at sea, whether they were thrown to the wild animals.

That doesn't matter one little bit. All the molecules that compose that person will be brought together by the creative, miraculous work, Word of God on the authority of Jesus Christ and we shall be raised. And those who are Christians will be raised to meet the Lord Jesus, ready for the new heaven and the new earth that He shall bring into being.

When will it happen? When will this resurrection take place? Well, as 1 Corinthians 15 makes clear and also 1 Thessalonians 4 and a myriad of other scriptures, it will happen when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. But you say, well, let's assume that by that time I'm dead. My soul has gone to be with the Lord but my earthly remains are here on the earth.

Then, when this marvellous thing happens, the resurrection of the body, will you know me? Will I be known? Will I be recognisable? Will we remember that you were the good-looking fellow in track 2? Or 1, or 20s, or middle-aged people, good-looking ones amongst you. The whole congregation. Let's be generous in our description.

You see, will we know you? Well, when our Lord appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration along with Moses and Elijah, the latter two were recognised. So there will be some correspondence between you now and then. But you'll be raised in quality.

The Lord Jesus tells us, or inspires John to write, that beloved, it does not appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. Our bodies will have the perfections that His body has. But we will still retain some basic characteristics.

What about the Roman nose, or the cabbage ears, or what have you? Well, all imperfections will go, but recognition will still be there in the resurrection body. What about relationships? Well, there won't be any marriage because the sexual area of relationships will no longer exist. But perhaps in a very wonderful sense, a whole new vista will open up for relationships because we will be able to love one another without any dangers whatsoever.

Our relationships will be so heightened and our love for each other will be increased to a degree that we've never known on this earth. Is it wrong to say that one loves more than one person? Certainly not in the general sense. We are baptized into a community of love if we are Christians, and yet there are limitations in the way that we can express our love.

Sometimes perhaps too many limitations are placed on this, and maybe we should indicate our affection to one another more. But there will be none of the problems of relationships with this resurrection body that we have. Have you ever thought of a very interesting question? How old will I be? How old will I be? I mean, it would be rather unfortunate if somebody dies at 18 and they're raised at 18, and somebody dies at 90 and they're raised at 90.

It would be somewhat unfair for the 90-year-old, wouldn't it? A.W. Tozer says you'll be 33 forever and ever. And do you know why he says that? Because we'll be like him. Speculation in Jewish writing is that Adam was 33 when he was, I was going to say born, when he was made.

Tozer goes on to say that 33 is, you're just at your height. I've just missed that, so I'm just a little bit further off. You're just at your height there.

You're at full potential. Well, you can take that as you will, but it's rather an interesting piece even if it is just pure speculation. On and on with the Lord without the terror of aging, without the problems of friendship going skew, all these things the Bible indicates are in store for those who love Jesus Christ.

So when the creed says, I believe in the resurrection of the body, then it's really pulling together as Ted so clearly expressed a summary of Old Testament and New Testament scriptures. The body has to be raised, so the glory of God shall be seen throughout the whole of the universe. Satan was not able to plunder God's glory in it being reflected in the image of man.

All this shall be restored when our Lord Jesus comes back and says, Paul, I'm eagerly waiting for that. I'm just like a runner almost losing my balance in utter anticipation of getting to that line. I'm eagerly awaiting the redemption of the body.

Now, my friend, my final word is this. What I've shared is wonderful and there are many, many other things that I could have added. I've just given you a little extract of what's on my heart in respect to my understanding of scriptural teaching in this area.

But remember resurrection does not just apply to the Christian. It applies to the non-Christian. The Times had a leading article yesterday saying that evangelicals as well as others don't believe in hell in these days.

They got it wrong. A resurrection to life eternal with the bliss of being in Jesus' presence. A resurrection of life to damnation away from Jesus.

And that's so horrible I haven't got words to describe. And the thing that's important right now is to ensure that you're on the Lord's side. That His Spirit is within you.

That you're redeemed at that level knowing that one day you'll be completely redeemed at the physical as well as the spiritual level and be ready to enter into the kingdom of God and the eon, the age that is yet to be. Let us pray. Father, we've shared some wonderful things from Your Word.

And we just ask that the challenge of life with Jesus here and on into eternity might remain with us. Help us, Lord, to ensure our relationship is right with You now as we confess our sins. And prepare us for that glad day when the trumpet shall sound.

When in the twinkling of an eye we'll be caught up to be with our blessed Creator-Savior. The One who, by the authority that is His as He spoke eons ago and brought the world into existence shall speak and grant to us that renewed body like unto His own glorious body. Now send us out into this coming week buoyed up by the thought of all that's in store and enable us to live for Him now.

For His sake, Amen. 209, a resurrection hymn. Hail the day that sees Him rise.

Hallelujah. 209 hymns of faith. Hail the day that sees Him rise.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And Father, because of the certainties of what we've been singing, we thank You that we too can go beyond where the Apostle Paul was as he described that funeral scene.

And we can take his words later on in the chapter as our own. And we can mock man's last enemy and say, O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? The sting of sin is death and the strength of death is the law, but thanks be unto God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we thank You that we're just pilgrims going through this earth and the body that we have is not the one that we will have eternally, but rather we look forward to that great day of consummation when our Lord Jesus Christ shall return and when we shall see Him and be like Him and receive that resurrection body corresponding to this, but without all its imperfections and tendency towards being feeble and sinful.

Send us on our way or keep us behind, rejoicing as we take bread and wine or as we go to our own homes for the Saviour's sake. Amen.