SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Take your Bibles with me.
SPEAKER_01: Let's turn to the book of 1 Corinthians together.
SPEAKER_01: As you turn there, I've noticed in recent days something funny about stories.
SPEAKER_01: Something strange.
SPEAKER_01: It's well attested.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody says this that good stories have at least three parts.
SPEAKER_01: Some people might use fancy names for the parts of a story, things like exposition or crisis or climax or twist or denois.
SPEAKER_01: Those are just fancy ways of saying the beginning and the middle and the end.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: But I think that's exactly the thing that's kind of funny about stories.
SPEAKER_01: The good ones, we say, are the ones that are most like real life, while still being incredible or fantastic or fascinating, but still believable, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's a good story.
SPEAKER_01: Dramatic, but still realistic.
SPEAKER_01: But it I think it's funny, though, that if all stories have a beginning and a middle and an end, they're doomed to being unreal.
SPEAKER_01: Like from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: From the jump.
SPEAKER_01: Because real life, reality, doesn't have tidy endings, does it?
SPEAKER_01: Did you ever think about that?
SPEAKER_01: Like what happened to the tortoise after he beat the hare?
SPEAKER_01: Did they have a rematch?
SPEAKER_01: I bet that's what the hare wanted to do.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
SPEAKER_01: The story just stops.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, friends, I think that we we begin to treat the gospel that way.
SPEAKER_01: We look at the gospel like a story, and Bethlehem is the beginning, and then there's all this rising tension until the crucifixion, and just when all hope seems lost, kaboom! The tomb is empty, and Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_01: He's risen indeed, and then that's it.
SPEAKER_01: We close the book.
SPEAKER_01: Tuck the kids in.
SPEAKER_01: See if there's anything else on TV.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: But the gospel is so much more than just a story.
SPEAKER_01: So much more than just a story, because it's real, right?
SPEAKER_01: And Christ's resurrection in particular is more than just the end.
SPEAKER_01: It's more than just the end because it Christ's resurrection means that death is not the end for us either.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're already in 1 Corinthians, turn with me to chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul will show us how Christ's resurrection is more than the end.
SPEAKER_01: Christ's resurrection is essential to our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Christ's resurrection necessitates our own resurrection from the dead, that is.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ's resurrection and the hope of Christ's resurrection transforms our very lives.
SPEAKER_01: Begin in verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Would you look at that with me?
SPEAKER_01: Where would we be?
SPEAKER_01: Where would we be without the resurrection?
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes, now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, and he's referring to all that he said in the first 11 verses of the chapter, right?
SPEAKER_01: That Christ died for our sins, he was buried and raised in the third day according to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: And verse 11 says, So we preach and so you believed.
SPEAKER_01: And so verse 12 picks that up.
SPEAKER_01: Now if Christ is preached that way, if he's proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead?
SPEAKER_01: But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
SPEAKER_01: And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
SPEAKER_01: We are even found to be misrepresenting or literally bearing false witness, bearing false witness against God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, who he did not raise, if it's true, that the dead are not raised.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 16, it keeps going.
SPEAKER_01: For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
SPEAKER_01: And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, not just vain, futile.
SPEAKER_01: And you're still in your sins.
SPEAKER_01: Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
SPEAKER_01: And if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
SPEAKER_01: I'll stop there for now.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know much, really, about what led Paul to confront this problem in Corinth.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know how their denial of the resurrection of the dead worked out.
SPEAKER_01: We do know that some of them, some of the Corinthians, were denying the resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: They may not have been denying Christ's resurrection, right?
SPEAKER_01: I think we can see that.
SPEAKER_01: But the force of Paul's first question is sharp.
SPEAKER_01: If they're denying the resurrection of the dead, at least for all of us, Paul thinks they're crazy.
SPEAKER_01: He thinks they're crazy.
SPEAKER_01: How can you say that?
SPEAKER_01: That's the tone of verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: How can you say that?
SPEAKER_01: His disbelief just lays it all out.
SPEAKER_01: How he thinks that Christians who deny the resurrection of the dead are crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Are crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the logic, I think, that unlocks this whole section.
SPEAKER_01: All that we're going to look at hangs on this point.
SPEAKER_01: If there's no resurrection of the dead, in a general sense, if the dead are not raised to judgment at the end of all time, then not even Christ has been raised.
SPEAKER_01: And the argument goes, all sorts of bad things follow as a result of that.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ hasn't been raised, all these things that are essential to our faith fall apart.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The first thing is that our preaching, in verse 14, our preaching is hollow.
SPEAKER_01: It's in vain.
SPEAKER_01: It's just a bunch of wasted time, a bunch of hot air.
SPEAKER_01: Why spread the good news if Christ has not been raised?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The ESV says vain.
SPEAKER_01: Our preaching is empty.
SPEAKER_01: It's hollow babbling.
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of words about nothing.
SPEAKER_01: We should just go home.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is hollow, and so is your faith.
SPEAKER_01: Your faith is in vain.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14 says.
SPEAKER_01: It's a faith placed in nothing.
SPEAKER_01: In nothingness.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever seen somebody go to sit down on a chair that's been pulled out from behind them?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: They go down, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because they they placed, they didn't just place their faith in a bad chair, they placed their faith in no chair.
SPEAKER_01: There's no chair there.
SPEAKER_01: It's like that feeling when you're climbing stairs in the dark and you get to the top and you think there's one more and there's not one more.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
SPEAKER_01: And your foot just falls through seven inches of vanity.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ has not been raised, your faith, our preaching, it's hollow.
SPEAKER_01: It's null and void.
SPEAKER_01: It's a check you can't catch.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean anything.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: And it gets worse.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 15, we've borne false witness against God.
SPEAKER_01: The ESB translates misrepresented, and that's great.
SPEAKER_01: The idea is lying.
SPEAKER_01: Lying either way, saying something about God that is not true.
SPEAKER_01: One of like those top ten, thou shalt not, right?
SPEAKER_01: Don't lie.
SPEAKER_01: And even more so, don't lie about God.
SPEAKER_01: I've heard it said that a lie is saying yes when you should say no, and a lie is saying no when you should say yes.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul is saying here that if Christ has not been raised, then the apostles, everybody who's ever preached it, is lying about God.
SPEAKER_01: Because we bore witness that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise at all, if it's true the dead are not raised.
SPEAKER_01: See how he continues in the text?
SPEAKER_01: For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised.
SPEAKER_01: And that means your faith is futile.
SPEAKER_01: Your faith is futile or hopeless.
SPEAKER_01: And it leaves you still in your sins.
SPEAKER_01: I want to slow down here a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going pretty fast.
SPEAKER_01: Slow down right there, though.
SPEAKER_01: Because Paul is doing something right here that we we would do well to really consider.
SPEAKER_01: Notice how he turns the heat up from vain to futile, or how I've done it, from hollow to hopeless.
SPEAKER_01: From empty to hypothetically empty.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just vain, but your faith is tragic.
SPEAKER_01: It's one thing.
SPEAKER_01: Think about it this way, it's it's one thing to take ineffective medicines just because.
SPEAKER_01: Just because.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe maybe it'll help, probably won't.
SPEAKER_01: Why not?
SPEAKER_01: That's that's vain.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's pointless, that's empty.
SPEAKER_01: But just imagine how how tragic it would be.
SPEAKER_01: How tragic it would be to learn after an amputation of a of a limb or an organ that there was a speck on the CT scan and you never had cancer in the first place.
SPEAKER_01: That's futility.
SPEAKER_01: That's the tragedy.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just vain, it was futile.
SPEAKER_01: A surgery based on a lie like that is tragic.
SPEAKER_01: And if Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, that's what our faith is.
SPEAKER_01: Believing in him for eternal life is worse.
SPEAKER_01: It's worse than a hollow faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's a hopeless faith.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're still in our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the logic there?
SPEAKER_01: Because we're still in our sins.
SPEAKER_01: The wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And if Jesus is still dead, and there's no real forgiveness of sins, and if Christ hasn't been raised, then we still have to face the wrath of God for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: And if Christ hasn't been raised, then believing in a Jesus who can't save is hopelessly foolish.
SPEAKER_01: Hopelessly foolish.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ hasn't been raised, we're not going to be raised.
SPEAKER_01: And those who have fallen asleep or died, Paul says, those who have died already in Christ, they've perished.
SPEAKER_01: They've perished.
SPEAKER_01: One commentator says here that Paul has in mind the emptiness and waste of irretrievable loss.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ has not been raised, then you and I won't be raised because there's no forgiveness anymore.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul's teaching us that the forgiveness of sins depends also on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's more than just the end of the story, amen?
SPEAKER_01: Without the resurrection of Jesus, Christians die just the same as unbelievers.
SPEAKER_01: And it's over.
SPEAKER_01: Paul makes it a little more personal, though, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01: The Corinthians couldn't read this phrase about those who have fallen asleep in Christ without thinking of at least one person they knew who died as a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they think of Stephen the Martyr or James who was killed by Herod.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure they know more people.
SPEAKER_01: I know you do.
SPEAKER_01: I'll spare us all the pain of listing names from our funeral services.
SPEAKER_01: But if Christ has not been raised, they're just gone.
SPEAKER_01: And that's it.
SPEAKER_01: Like an amputated limb or a removed organ.
SPEAKER_01: The dead in Christ are not coming back.
SPEAKER_01: Because if Christ has not been raised, they died still in their sins after giving their life to a hopeless faith that could not save them.
SPEAKER_01: And he continues if in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
SPEAKER_01: Our lives are pitiful.
SPEAKER_01: I've already tried to lead you to feel the pity that Paul says Christians deserve without the resurrection of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But think about it, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Our whole life, our whole existence, is as tragic, as hopeless, is as pitiful as somebody who crippled themselves for no good reason.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Jesus Christ is so much more than the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we'd be without the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Christ's resurrection is therefore essential to everything we believe and everything we do here.
SPEAKER_01: Our preaching, our faith, our singing, our serving, all of it.
SPEAKER_01: Without the resurrection, it's just vanity.
SPEAKER_01: A waste of time.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ is not raised and there is no resurrection from the dead, then everybody who passes us by outside would sigh and shake their heads and think it's just so sad to see people waste their lives on a lie.
SPEAKER_01: People think about us like that sometimes, don't they?
SPEAKER_01: Without the resurrection of Christ, none of that stuff happens.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ's resurrection is essential to our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: But in fact, but but in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
SPEAKER_01: And so you can kind of work backwards and see that all that stuff's false, right?
SPEAKER_01: Christ has been raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: He's risen.
SPEAKER_01: He's risen indeed.
SPEAKER_01: He has been raised, Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: And that cannot be undone.
SPEAKER_01: It's complete, it's perfect.
SPEAKER_01: It's an absolute matter of historical fact.
SPEAKER_01: That's how Paul says it.
SPEAKER_01: Christ wasn't halfway raised or temporarily raised.
SPEAKER_01: He has been raised and his kingdom will never end.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's already given the first 11 verses of this chapter, the historical testimony to the reality of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: It happened.
SPEAKER_01: At least 501 people saw Jesus alive again.
SPEAKER_01: But here in this paragraph from verse 20 to 28, Paul's moving on to demonstrate from the scriptures not just that it did happen, but that it had to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And that Christ's resurrection necessitates our own resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of the dead is the necessary fulfillment of all that God has planned from the earliest days of creation for all of humanity.
SPEAKER_01: Because, back in verse 20, because Christ is the first fruit.
SPEAKER_01: He's the first fruit.
SPEAKER_01: This idea of a firstfruit, a firstborn, it's that concept of the author and perfecter of a new creation, of the new life.
SPEAKER_01: It's the promise of a full and glorious harvest of the redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: That's what a firstfruit says.
SPEAKER_01: It says there's more to come.
SPEAKER_01: There's more to come.
SPEAKER_01: By Adam came death.
SPEAKER_01: But Christ is the new Adam.
SPEAKER_01: The firstborn from the dead, and the promise of all that is to come, the new creation.
SPEAKER_01: He's the promise of a well-multiplied humanity, just like Adam was supposed to do.
SPEAKER_01: But then from Adam's sin, Adam's sin came the sure expectation of death for all of Adam's children, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because there was enough sin in Adam's transgression to kill us all.
SPEAKER_01: There was enough sin in Adam's transgression to kill all of us.
SPEAKER_01: That's the power his sin had because of the greatness of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_01: And since then, it's not like we've made it much better, right?
SPEAKER_01: We've added more to Adam's sin.
SPEAKER_01: We all deserve death as Adam's children, but the promise, the promise of a new creation, a new life of resurrected humanity was proclaimed in the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: For as by a man, that is Adam, as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And so Christ's resurrection necessitates our resurrection because Christ is the new Adam of a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: So I hope you can see right there just just how important how important the full and the true humanity of Jesus Christ is.
SPEAKER_01: It matters that he's a man or human.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ is not a man, that he cannot forge a way for a new humanity.
SPEAKER_01: If he's not human, we can't be in him like we were in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 22 says, For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
SPEAKER_01: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, deserving death for our sins, the wages of both Adam's sin and our own.
SPEAKER_01: But the free gift of God is eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: That's the resurrection, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul writes that so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order.
SPEAKER_01: Christ the first fruits, and then it is coming those who belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of the dead, your resurrection from the dead, has to happen because Christ Jesus is the first fruit, the firstborn of a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: In Adam, death was extended to all.
SPEAKER_01: And in the resurrected Christ, resurrection life extends to all who believe.
SPEAKER_01: It's necessary.
SPEAKER_01: It happens, it has to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And it happens at his coming.
SPEAKER_01: When he comes, it says.
SPEAKER_01: Which is distinct from the end when he delivers the kingdom to God after destroying every authority and power.
SPEAKER_01: So bear with me a little bit of an eschatological aside.
SPEAKER_01: Because I know some of you are dying to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: And it's there and it's good, and we should.
SPEAKER_01: Even though, hear me, even though verse 23 and 24, they're talking about sequence.
SPEAKER_01: Those thens are sequential thens, not time, not time thens, they're sequential thens.
SPEAKER_01: It's talking about sequence, not timing.
SPEAKER_01: There are still a lot of cool little details to glean about the end of time and how that will all unfold.
SPEAKER_01: But while that's true, even more than that, Paul's point is still the necessity of the resurrection for the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ has been raised, there must be a resurrection from the dead, whether it's pre-mid or post-trip, and regardless of the possibility of two resurrections on either side of the millennial reign.
SPEAKER_01: Either way, Paul makes it super clear that these things don't all happen at once.
SPEAKER_01: When Christ comes back, the dead will be raised at his coming, verse 23 says.
SPEAKER_01: And that is distinct from the end.
SPEAKER_01: When Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: See all that?
SPEAKER_01: And there's a nice little argument there for premillennialism and its most basic understanding if you look for it.
SPEAKER_01: But what Paul is doing in this text is so much more important than that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not his point here.
SPEAKER_01: And his point matters more.
SPEAKER_01: He's showing us that the Messiah must reign over all things.
SPEAKER_01: After he delivers the kingdom to the Father in verse 24, Paul says he must.
SPEAKER_01: It is necessary that he reign.
SPEAKER_01: Until he has put all enemies under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: That's the second reason the resurrection has to happen.
SPEAKER_01: It's because Christ has to rule over all things.
SPEAKER_01: And that includes death in verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
SPEAKER_01: And so the resurrection from the dead has to happen because the Messiah must reign.
SPEAKER_01: It is necessary, Paul teaches us, that he must reign.
SPEAKER_01: And his reign has to be a reign over death itself, where it's not a true reign.
SPEAKER_01: As Paul continues with these little quotations, he's quoting from Psalm 110, where it says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus quoted that Psalm and his earthly ministry to tell us that he was the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul is pulling on the until of that verse to show you that something has to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Something has to happen.
SPEAKER_01: So even though Christ is already reigning, because he has been, ever since the beginning of the world, Christ reigns.
SPEAKER_01: Even though he's already reigning, his enemies are not yet under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: Because verse 26 says, the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
SPEAKER_01: And Christ must reign over death itself.
SPEAKER_01: He must reign over death itself.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Paul keeps going into verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: He's quoting Psalm 8 when he says, For God has put all things in subjection, in subjection under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: But when it says all things are put in subject into subjection, it's plain that he has accepted to put all things in subjection under him.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 8 is talking about humanity in a general sense.
SPEAKER_01: When it says, what is man?
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe who is Adam?
SPEAKER_01: What is man that you are mindful of him?
SPEAKER_01: And the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of Man was Jesus' favorite name for himself, right?
SPEAKER_01: Or the Son of Man that you care for him.
SPEAKER_01: That you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
SPEAKER_01: You've given him dominion over the works of your hands, and you have put all things under his feet.
SPEAKER_01: And so when God subjects everything, when he puts it under his feet, he subjects everything to Christ Jesus, the Son of Man, as the full and proper and true fulfillment of everything that Adam was always supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01: Adam was supposed to exercise dominion over all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And in Christ, as the new Adam of the new creation, he must reign over all things.
SPEAKER_01: Death beat Adam.
SPEAKER_01: It cannot beat Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul is arguing for us that the promises of God necessitate that Jesus must reign over everything, including the last enemy, death.
SPEAKER_01: And so in that way, Christ's resurrection cannot be, it's impossible for it to be, the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Because God has promised that Christ the King will defeat everything, including the death of his own people.
SPEAKER_01: And that way, because Christ is our King, and death is his enemy, he has to save us from death.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see?
SPEAKER_01: Christ's resurrection from the dead and his victory over death necessitates ours.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe it's better to say it, it guarantees our resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ loves you.
SPEAKER_01: And death cannot separate you from his love.
SPEAKER_01: He must reign.
SPEAKER_01: He must.
SPEAKER_01: And then, once all things are subjected to Jesus as King, after every knee bows and every tongue confesses, then Paul writes that the Son Himself, or in verse 28, the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him, that is God, who put all things in subjection under Him that is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And now, friends, we this is one of those verses.
SPEAKER_01: Jason just took a deep breath.
SPEAKER_01: Here we walk where angels fear to tread.
SPEAKER_01: So if you'll bear with me again a little aside, this is a key verse in a massive theological debate.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the question.
SPEAKER_01: How can Jesus be both God and subject to God?
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard one.
SPEAKER_01: How can he be both of those things?
SPEAKER_01: If God the Son is consubstantial, co-equal, and co-eternal with the Father in all power and authority, which is what we confess and have confessed for thousands of years.
SPEAKER_01: Hundreds, multiple, many hundreds.
SPEAKER_01: If that's who Jesus is, how does it work?
SPEAKER_01: How does it work for him to submit himself to God the Father?
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't that make Jesus a lesser God?
SPEAKER_01: Do you see?
SPEAKER_01: It's a hard question.
SPEAKER_01: And this verse gets us so close to thinking that way.
SPEAKER_01: The great 20th century exegete A.T.
SPEAKER_01: Robertson.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't know him, you should be grateful for him anyway.
SPEAKER_01: A.T.
SPEAKER_01: Robertson writes this passage is a summary of the mysteries which our present knowledge does not enable us to explain, and which our present faculties perhaps do not enable us to understand.
SPEAKER_01: And A.T.
SPEAKER_01: Robertson is a lot smarter than me.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's okay sometimes when we hit these verses in our Bibles to say, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: These thoughts are too wondrous for us.
SPEAKER_01: God hasn't revealed the answer.
SPEAKER_01: And so we should be really careful to make too much of applying this idea to all kinds of other stuff.
SPEAKER_01: There's no example for us here of how human authorities work.
SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: We should be very careful not to go beyond how Paul uses that truth.
SPEAKER_01: It's scripture, it's true.
SPEAKER_01: We have to believe it.
SPEAKER_01: How we use it, what it means, we have to be so careful.
SPEAKER_01: And we have to stick to how Scripture uses it.
SPEAKER_01: Because if we stick to the text and we don't go beyond it, there is one thing that's super clear in this text that that means.
SPEAKER_01: That verse means something, and it's in this text.
SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the end of verse 28, there's a little phrase that all of that happens in order that God may be all in all.
SPEAKER_01: So if the son's subjection to the father means anything at all, if it means anything, it does mean that God is all in all.
SPEAKER_01: It means he's the fullness, the completion, the perfection, the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.
SPEAKER_01: If there is some way that we can't understand how Jesus, who is very God of very God, is somehow subjected to God the Father, such that God is subjected to God, then surely everything else in all of creation, on earth and under the earth, in heaven and everywhere else, you, me, and this pulpit, everything is subjected to God too.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is under God's feet.
SPEAKER_01: Enhroned on high.
SPEAKER_01: That's what this means.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we should do with this verse.
SPEAKER_01: And little else.
SPEAKER_01: And that, that is the is my third reason and final reason why the resurrection of Christ necessitates our own resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: It's this God would not be God if death could defeat him.
SPEAKER_01: So in Christ, God conquered the grave.
SPEAKER_01: And of course he did.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's God Almighty.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of the dead has to happen because God must be all in all.
SPEAKER_01: And if death can separate God's people from him, then death is stronger than God.
SPEAKER_01: And if death is stronger than God, then God is not really God Almighty.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see how those three things all fit together, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ has been raised from the dead, the resurrection has to happen, for Christ is the new Adam of a new creation, and he must reign over all things like Adam was supposed to, including death.
SPEAKER_01: And in that way, as God the Son hands the kingdom which has conquered death over to God the Father, death itself is defeated, and God is all in all.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of the dead has to happen because God is God.
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
SPEAKER_01: And so now Paul turns and he takes that and he applies these truths about the resurrection to how we live.
SPEAKER_01: To how we live.
SPEAKER_01: And he shows us that Christ's resurrection is so much more than the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ's resurrection transforms our lives.
SPEAKER_01: By giving us the hope of the resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: That promise, that reality, that hope that our bodies will be raised from dead to eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: That truth, if it's true, and it is, changes everything.
SPEAKER_01: Changes everything about our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 29 with me.
SPEAKER_01: For our third tough verse.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?
SPEAKER_01: If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?
SPEAKER_01: The basic logic of this verse isn't that complicated, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's really pretty simple.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's saying if there's no resurrection from the dead, then being baptized on behalf of the dead is just plain silly.
SPEAKER_01: And that makes his point.
SPEAKER_01: But we have this thorny issue about what does the baptism on behalf of the dead mean?
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
SPEAKER_01: I've never seen it.
SPEAKER_01: Have you seen that?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody be baptized in something that we might call like a vicarious baptism?
SPEAKER_01: As though you can be baptized in somebody else's place and for their benefit.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a loved one has died without being baptized, and so you get baptized and said, this one's for them.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it looks like when you just read it.
SPEAKER_01: But that would be crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul would never advocate for something like that.
SPEAKER_01: Paul might, he might be using something weird that's going on in Corinth among his opponents and turning it against them.
SPEAKER_01: As though there are some people in Corinth who are both denying the resurrection of the dead and practicing vicarious baptism.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul's kind of throwing it back in their faces.
SPEAKER_01: Like, if you don't believe in the resurrection, then what are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: It could be that.
SPEAKER_01: But another line of thinking seems a little more down-to-earth to me.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just that rather than talking about being baptized on behalf of somebody who's dead, Paul's simply referencing the way that baptism itself is connected to death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: That's like Romans 6 says.
SPEAKER_01: It's like Romans 6 says.
SPEAKER_01: Do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
SPEAKER_01: We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: So baptism itself has this death and resurrection idea.
SPEAKER_01: We die with Christ and we're raised with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's what Paul might be talking about in this verse.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's the case, Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15 starts to make so much more sense.
SPEAKER_01: It's like he's saying, if there's no resurrection, why are you being baptized at all?
SPEAKER_01: Baptism is all about dying and being raised.
SPEAKER_01: So then what's the point of the resurrection?
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, what's the point of being baptized without the resurrection?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, Paul's saying that baptism is meaningless without the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01: And so Christ's resurrection transforms our understanding of what baptism is.
SPEAKER_01: In light of the resurrection, baptism becomes the beginning of a whole new life that gets its meaning from the promise of eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: And just like our faith and our preaching are hollow and empty and vain without the resurrection, our baptism, our faith, has meaning only because of Christ's resurrection and ours.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul continues, why are we in danger every hour?
SPEAKER_01: Why are we living in danger all the time?
SPEAKER_01: What's the point of our suffering?
SPEAKER_01: What's the point of suffering?
SPEAKER_01: If the dead are not raised, then suffering is meaningless.
SPEAKER_01: Why risk your neck for anything?
SPEAKER_01: If there's no resurrection and this life is all we have, then prolonging your life is rationally the most reasonable thing you can do.
SPEAKER_01: So your suffering is pointless if there's no life to come.
SPEAKER_01: Now some might argue that Paul's opponents didn't deny the immortality of the soul.
SPEAKER_01: They'd say we die and we go to heaven and we're not raised.
SPEAKER_01: Some might argue that's what they're saying.
SPEAKER_01: That they're denying just the resurrection of the body.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's what they're arguing, then Paul's, then Paul's argument here doesn't make any sense, does it?
SPEAKER_01: But I think, guys, that just the very fact that Paul enters into this argument, this way, means that he understands his opponents not just to be denying the resurrection of our bodies, but denying that we exist after death at all.
SPEAKER_01: It's just speculation on my part.
SPEAKER_01: But it seems like they were very close to saying something like, you know, we die and that's it.
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: Which is wild for us to think about a Christian saying.
SPEAKER_01: We hear we hear atheists talk that way all the time in our culture, right?
SPEAKER_01: Something we associate with them that, you know, after die after you die, that's just that's just it.
SPEAKER_01: Poof, you're gone.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing after that.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine a Christian saying something like that?
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's why Paul is so worked up.
SPEAKER_01: It's because they're denying the most basic truth of eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul keeps going, applying the same logic to his own apostolic ministry, which they're very familiar with, saying it'd be meaningless to fight with wild beasts in Ephesus if there was no resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: There's not much to gain, humanly speaking, from such dangers.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not much of a stretch to hear Paul saying, Why do I even go about sharing this gospel?
SPEAKER_01: If we're all just gonna die and that's it.
SPEAKER_01: His preaching's in vain, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not a it's not hard to imagine the Corinthians receiving this as Paul saying something, why would I waste my time with you people if there's no resurrection from the dead?
SPEAKER_01: But he does.
SPEAKER_01: And ministry's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth all the hardship, it's worth all the opposition, it's worth all the confusion, all the sleepless nights, all the anxiety for Paul that's worth shipwreck and being beaten with rods and being stoned and cast in prison.
SPEAKER_01: It's all worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ has promised the resurrection from the dead, an eternal life with him.
SPEAKER_01: It changes everything.
SPEAKER_01: It transforms our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, Paul quotes this fatalistic scene from the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: And he drives the point all the way home, I think.
SPEAKER_01: He says, in the second half of verse 32 If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
SPEAKER_01: He's quoting something from the book of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: When the Israelites were being attacked by the Assyrians, they're being besieged on every side by the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_01: Rather than cry out to God for help, they just gave up.
SPEAKER_01: They accepted their destruction.
SPEAKER_01: And Isaiah writes in chapter 22, verse 12, do I have it for you?
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't.
SPEAKER_01: I'll read it.
SPEAKER_01: There we are.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah writes, In that day the Lord God of hosts called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth.
SPEAKER_01: But behold, there's joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine.
SPEAKER_01: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
SPEAKER_01: They know they're gonna die in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: So rather than pray that God would save them, they just party up.
SPEAKER_01: And Isaiah says, The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears, saying, Surely this iniquity will not be atoned for until you die, says the Lord God of hosts.
SPEAKER_01: It's Isaiah 22, verse 12 to 14.
SPEAKER_01: The story is with zero faith left in their God.
SPEAKER_01: These Israelites turn to meaningless partying and indulgent sin.
SPEAKER_01: If you can only live once, you may as well live it up as selfishly as you can.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, to bring it back to 1 Corinthians 15, denying the resurrection is the same thing as being a faithless Israelite with no hope left in God's saving grace.
SPEAKER_01: It's spiritual suicide.
SPEAKER_01: Denying the resurrection is spiritual suicide because the resurrection gives meaning to both our lives and our deaths.
SPEAKER_01: Without the resurrection, we may as well just run wild and make a mockery of all that God has done for us in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Instead.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, look to the resurrection and hope of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where you'll find all the reason you need.
SPEAKER_01: All the reason you need.
SPEAKER_01: To feel like your life has meaning.
SPEAKER_01: It has hope.
SPEAKER_01: No matter how hard it gets.
SPEAKER_01: Because in Christ's resurrection, we have so much more than just the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Look with me at the end of verse 33 and 34.
SPEAKER_01: Paul takes all of this thinking.
SPEAKER_01: I think I've given you 14 sub points.
SPEAKER_01: All of this thinking, and he he drives all of that home to an application.
SPEAKER_01: It's one big idea.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I took all 22 verses together, because they go together in Paul's mind.
SPEAKER_01: He says this in verse 33.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be deceived.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be deceived.
SPEAKER_01: Bad company ruins good morals.
SPEAKER_01: Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning.
SPEAKER_01: For some have no knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I say this to your shame.
SPEAKER_01: Three commands.
SPEAKER_01: Three commands, three applications in light of the resurrection that Paul gives to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Don't be deceived.
SPEAKER_01: Wake up.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe sober up.
SPEAKER_01: And stop sinning.
SPEAKER_01: Stop sinning.
SPEAKER_01: All that fits with this letter to the Corinthians, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: If you know this letter that we're almost, that we're near the end of.
SPEAKER_01: The Corinthians have been foolish and selfish, and sin is running amok with these people.
SPEAKER_01: They're fighting, they're suing one another.
SPEAKER_01: A man is caught in a kind of immorality.
SPEAKER_01: Not even the pagans practice, and here near the end of the letter, it seems to me like Paul's diagnosing the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: He's putting his finger on the problem at the bottom of the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: The Corinthians are lost to so much sin because they're deceived, they're drunken-minded, and they're sinning because they've forgotten the character of God and the reality of the resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: So if Christ has been raised from the dead, that means the dead will be raised too.
SPEAKER_01: And that means that you can't live like this life is all there is.
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
SPEAKER_01: You can't live like this life is all there is.
SPEAKER_01: And so I don't know where you're at today.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe sin and short-sightedness have characterized your week.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've indulged in things you know were wrong because you can't bring yourself to remember the bigger picture.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Pick yourself up this week and remember that God sees everything.
SPEAKER_01: And in Christ Jesus, he has forgiven you.
SPEAKER_01: But that at the resurrection, every secret will be made known.
SPEAKER_01: Even the ones you've already been forgiven for.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're struggling to see the point of all this Christianity stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We try and we try and we suffer and we fight for it.
SPEAKER_01: But it never seems like it's enough.
SPEAKER_01: Never seems like it's enough, or it's gonna make a difference.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, we're not laboring at life and ministry just for this life only.
SPEAKER_01: It's not why we do what we do.
SPEAKER_01: So be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, like he says at the end of chapter 15.
SPEAKER_01: Knowing, knowledge of God, knowing that in the Lord, and because of his resurrection, your faith and your ministry are not in vain.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you know that you're just too easily distracted by earthly things.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you forget eternal life because you get caught up in the significance of ordinary things.
SPEAKER_01: You just go through the motions of work, life, marriage, parenting, friendships, taking care of the house, walking the dog, doing the dishes, paying your taxes, mowing the yard, all that stuff, and you lose sight of the bigger picture, then all that stuff is gonna pass away.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna pass away.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection, though, it reorients all of life and shakes us out of our routines to stand up straighter and look to Christ and get to work.
SPEAKER_01: Stop wasting your life on the humdrum next thing and seek first the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you had a great week, though.
SPEAKER_01: I hope you did.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you had a great week, and this is just all these wonderful reminders of the resurrection or just adding fuel to your fire.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Give thanks for him that things are going well.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul would say, be careful and take heed lest you fall.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the God who saved you.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that he has promised you everlasting in life.
SPEAKER_01: And don't trust in the work of your hands because you're doing so great.
SPEAKER_01: Remember to trust in him.
SPEAKER_01: And so the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that gloriously empty tomb, is so much more than just the end, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: For you and me, it's really more like the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: In the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our preaching and our faith have meaning.
SPEAKER_01: Our testimony about God is true.
SPEAKER_01: We get a foretaste of our deliverance because we have hope not only in this life, but also in the life to come.
SPEAKER_01: Our sins are actually forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: Death is not the end.
SPEAKER_01: Our lives are not pathetic because Jesus Christ is the new Adam of a new creation where he will reign over all things, wiping away every tear from every eye, because death will be no more.
SPEAKER_01: Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain for all those former things that passed away.
SPEAKER_01: Our new life in Christ has meaning.
SPEAKER_01: Our sufferings are not wasted.
SPEAKER_01: All of our efforts to spread the gospel and live upright holy lives count for something.
SPEAKER_01: Because if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: The old has passed away.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, the new has come.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: For the one who was seated on the throne has said, Behold, I am making all things new.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day.
SPEAKER_01: And he's opened a new and living way for us through himself.
SPEAKER_01: Only through Christ.
SPEAKER_01: For he is the way, the truth, the resurrection, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: And no one comes to the Father except through him.
SPEAKER_01: So remember your God and keep following Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, we give you thanks.
SPEAKER_01: Such great thanks.
SPEAKER_01: That you have worked such a magnificent salvation for us.
SPEAKER_01: How astounding that we who spend our lives surrounded by death and sin and its consequences have been promised an eternity free from such things.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, you are too good.
SPEAKER_01: You are too kind.
SPEAKER_01: And you are too patient.
SPEAKER_01: But not really.
SPEAKER_01: You're perfectly kind.
SPEAKER_01: You're perfectly patient.
SPEAKER_01: You're perfectly merciful.
SPEAKER_01: Teach us to say thank you more.
SPEAKER_01: Teach us to remember your character.
SPEAKER_01: Help us stand up straighter this week.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to fix our eyes upon Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's risen indeed.
SPEAKER_01: And he has raised us up as well.
SPEAKER_01: And you have seated us with him in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: And we await with such hope the day when he makes all things new.
SPEAKER_01: And death is no more.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to sing as we wait.
SPEAKER_01: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.