46 The End of Death: Our Final Transformation (1 Corinthians 15:50-58)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for Wednesday in the Word, my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. I'm Kristan Marotta. We're gonna study 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 50 to 58 today. This is the 46th and the penultimate talk in our series on 1 Corinthians. You can find lecture notes for today's talk on the link below the podcast so you don't have to take notes. And you can find those notes on my website, just go to wednesdayintheword.com slash 1 Corinthians 4 6. Also on the website, you can find previous talks in this series and lots of information on how to improve your Bible study. There is no charge, no spam, no ads, and no clickbait. I'm so glad you joined us today. We're gonna finish 1 Corinthians chapter 15 today, and as you'll recall, Paul addresses a series of problems and questions in this letter of 1 Corinthians, and chapter 15 is the last of the issues he addresses. Some in the Corinthian church are denying that there is a physical bodily resurrection, and Paul is correcting that view. And Paul sees this as a fundamentally important issue. This is not abstract high theology. This is a central concept of the gospel. It's central to where we think the gospel is taking us and therefore how we should live our lives today. In the last podcast, we saw Paul speak to an objection that was raised by his opponents. His opponents charge that the idea of resurrection is silly because how could a body that has rotted and decayed possibly come back to life, and in some cases there might not even be anything left of it, so how could there possibly be a resurrection? And Paul's answer involved three comparisons and contrasts. First, he said, look at a seed. A seed dies in the ground and then is transformed into a new plant. There's a relationship between the seed that dies in the ground and the plant that grows. You don't plant a tomato seed and get corn, but the seed and the plant have very different forms, and this is the way God made the world. So you shouldn't be surprised at resurrection. This is how things work. He also compared two atoms. The first Adam sinned and brought death to his descendants, and the second Adam, who is Jesus Christ, lived a sinless life, died and was buried and was resurrected, and is bringing life to his people. And then the third contrast he made was between the earthly, natural, living, breathing human existence we experience now and the fully transformed heavenly existence we will have when the Spirit's work in us is complete and fulfilled. So what you get when you're born as a human being naturally versus the life we are intended for in the kingdom of God. The life we have now is flawed, it's ruined by sin, death, futility, and corruption, but one day we will have a life no longer ruined by those things where we will completely and fully reflect the character and holiness of God. So he argued this supposed problem of resurrection goes away when you realize that God has intended all along to transform human existence. It is central to the gospel story. God intends to rescue us from sin and death and corruption and futility and bring us fully into life, fully reflecting his justice, peace, righteousness, and holy character. And part of that transformation includes the transformation of our physical bodies when we're resurrected. We're gonna pick up his argument in fifteen fifty. I'm gonna read the whole section and then we'll go back and look at the details. So this is first Corinthians fifteen, starting in verse fifty and going to fifty-eight. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery, we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed, for this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is your victory? O death where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Let's go back and look at fifteen fifty. I'm going to read that one again. Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. If you listen to last week's podcast, you're probably already guessing that I understand this term flesh and blood here to be the third contrast we were just talking about. I don't think Paul is saying we have to be incorporeal or not have a body to inherit the kingdom of God. He is not saying we all have to be spirits or ghosts without bodies, as he goes on to explain the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. And I think he's talking about flesh and blood as we know it, the normal, natural state of the human body as we know it, which is perishable and mortal and subject to sin and death. We have to move on to a transformed existence because this kind of body and this kind of perishable life cannot inherit the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not intended for the kind of corrupt and sinful life we have now and the kind of body we have now. So as I argued last time, Paul cannot be arguing for a ghostly kind of existence without a body because his whole point in this chapter is to argue that there is in fact a physical bodily resurrection. And if you look at these verses as standalone apart from the rest of the chapter, you might come up with that interpretation, but when you put it back into the larger context, you can see that can't be Paul's point because he's arguing throughout the chapter that we will have a resurrected physical body of the same type we see in the resurrected Lord. He has argued that resurrection is a necessary component of the gospel. The kind of flesh and blood we have now cannot inherit the kingdom of God. We should expect we will have to be made different in order to inherit the kingdom of God. We will have to be freed and rescued from bodies subject to mortality, decay, sin, and death. And that's the whole point of the gospel. That's the hope of the gospel. We have to be changed to inherit what God promises us in his kingdom. Because life in the kingdom of God is not perishable. It does not decay. There is no death and there is no sin. So clearly, flesh and blood as we now know it doesn't fit with that. We have to be changed and transformed. We can't inherit the promises in the state we're in now. Then 51 and 52, behold, I tell you a mystery, we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. So Paul's saying your so-called problem of a bodily resurrection is really no problem at all. Transformation is necessary because these mortal, corruptible bodies cannot live in the eternal, incorruptible kingdom of God. Every believer will be resurrected, but not every believer will experience physical death. That's what he means by we will not all sleep. You may object, well, how can you be resurrected to a new body if you didn't die in the first place? And Paul's saying, that's not a problem. We will all be transformed whether we died first or not. Now, obviously lots of people, including some believers, will still be alive when Jesus returns. They will be resurrected too in the sense of being transformed. This language of the trumpet sounding comes from Jesus himself in the Olivet Discourse. This is in Matthew twenty four, thirty and thirty one. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory, and he will send forth his angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of the sky to the other. The trumpet is a very loud instrument. It was used in battle to communicate to a large group of people who were spread out over a large area, like a battlefield. If you wanted to signal the troops to retreat or attack from the left or something, you can't yell because your voice won't carry far enough, but the sound of a trumpet carries over a great distance. And that's where this imagery comes from. When you want to ensure that everybody hears, you use a trumpet, because the trumpet is really loud. And so metaphorically we get this picture that the trumpet is so loud even the dead will hear it and are raised up. So it's this picture of a great sounding call that is heard by everyone everywhere. Paul also describes this transformation as instantaneous. Those who are still living will be changed in the blink of an eye. Now you're probably aware that Paul gives us a little more detail about this subject in 1 Thessalonians four. I don't want to go into Thessalonians in detail, but I do want to bring in some of the details there to help us fill out the picture. This is chapter four, thirteen through eighteen of First Thessalonians. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep, for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. So in first Thessalonians four, Paul tells us the dead will be raised first, and those who remain alive will be next, and then we will always be with the Lord. Now in first Corinthians, Paul is emphasizing that this is a bodily resurrection. He's making an argument that bodily transformation is necessary and we should expect to be physically resurrected. The seed has to die and become a new plant. The second Adam is bringing us into something new. Part of our great hope is that we will leave behind these fragile, perishable, mortal bodies that are subject to sin and death for an imperishable, incorruptible, eternal existence free from sin and death. So Paul's arguing the resurrection is essential. So he's emphasizing in Corinthians that even those living when Christ returned will be transformed because transformation is essential. On the other hand, in 1 Thessalonians, Paul is responding to the grief people feel over death. He's speaking to young, probably immature Christians who are confused by the fact that Christ hasn't returned yet and people have already died. And how are we going to have new life in Christ if we physically die before he returns? So in Thessalonians, Paul is emphasizing what happens to those who have died. And he tells us those who have died have priority. They're going to be raised first. He doesn't even talk about the transformation or resurrection of the body here because the issue he's addressing is grief. The young believers think those who have died are going to somehow miss out on life with Christ, and Paul is ensuring them quite the contrary, they're going to get priority. So he's making different points and he's emphasizing different aspects of the same event because he's speaking to different issues. But in neither case does Paul completely satisfy our curiosity over exactly how the second coming is going to unfold, because it's not relevant to the point he's making in either passage. The only reason he gives us the details he does is to further the point he wants to make in that context. So in Corinthians he wants to argue for the necessity of a bodily resurrection. In Thessalonians, he wants to comfort those who have lost someone to death. And he says what he says to accomplish those purposes. Now notice in 1 Thessalonians he says in four fifteen, this we say to you by the word of the Lord. This is not just speculation on Paul's part. He didn't make this stuff up to find some way to comfort his readers. He's saying this comes from Jesus himself. You can take real comfort in it. Paul has seen the risen Christ, been taught by the risen Christ, and this is part of what Christ taught him. And though he doesn't specifically say that in 1 Corinthians, the same thing is true. Paul did not make up this gospel to satisfy the objections of the Corinthians. It is true and it comes from the Lord through Paul. He's saying, This is what I know to be true because I learned it from the risen Lord, the one man who has conquered death. Now one more thing before I leave these passages. This idea of the transformation of the dead being raised and the living being changed in the twinkling of an eye is often referred to as the rapture. The word rapture comes from the Latin Vulgate translation of this first Thessalonians passage, and the word that talks about us being caught up in the air is a Latin word that sounds a lot like rapture. So when we talk about the rapture, we're talking about the taking up of believers to meet Christ. And there is quite a lot of debate about when the rapture happens, and I'm not going to get into that here. What is clear from what Paul says in these two passages is that those who are alive will be transformed to their new eternal bodies when the rapture happens, and those who have died will be raised in their new eternal bodies when the rapture happens, and that's part of our great hope. Is that before the millennium, after the millennium, during the millennium? Well, that's all debated. If you've watched the Left Behind series, you'll notice that it starts with a secret rapture, and that's a very popular view among dispensationalists, but it's not the only view. I just want to make the point that Paul is not addressing those questions in either of these passages. He's not trying to settle the debate of whether the rapture is pre-trib, post-trib, or whatever. He's got a different point that he's trying to make in each passage, and he tells us what we need to know to make that point. It is clear from what he's saying that Jesus will return and we will be redeemed, and that is our hope, and it will happen. Now he goes on in fifty three through fifty five, for this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is your victory? O death where is your sting? He is driving his point home here. Our current perishable mortal bodies must be made imperishable and immortal bodies. That, by definition, is resurrection. Resurrection is required by the gospel. God's purposes will not be accomplished without a resurrection. And when that finally happens, then will come about the saying death is swallowed up in victory. Paul is quoting from Isaiah twenty five, six through nine. Let me read that for us. The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain, a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow and refined aged wine. And on this mountain he will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord will wipe tears away from all faces, and he will remove the reproach of his people from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day, Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. So here the prophet Isaiah is announcing that salvation is coming to the people of God, and when it comes, God's people will rejoice greatly and say, We've been waiting a long time for this, and that salvation involves the Lord removing the veil that stretches over all the nations and swallowing up death once and for all. I think he's saying more than that Israel will be rescued from her enemies and escape death and destruction that her enemies bring because of this language about removing the veil that covers all the nations and swallowing up death for all time. He's going to remove the sin and the guilt of his people from all the earth, and sin and death will be gone. Now Isaiah says death will be swallowed up for all time. Paul says death will be swallowed up in victory, but I think this is the passage he's referring to. The idea behind for all time is to permanently defeat, which you could easily translate to victory. So the ideas clearly overlap. And remember we're looking at an English translation of Paul's Greek summary of a Hebrew verse. So we're not going to get identical language necessarily, but you can see the ideas overlap. To permanently defeat something for all time is to be victorious. But the key idea that Paul's referring to here is that Isaiah says a day is coming when death will be defeated, and Paul is telling us that day is going to happen when Christ returns and we are resurrected and transformed. Death has ruled our existence. All of us are marked by it. All the people who have come before us have died, with a couple of very rare exceptions. All of us have lost someone to death. In this world, death wins. Death is an inescapable fact of our existence and the bodies we have now. And Paul and Isaiah are telling us the day will come when death will no longer rule us, death will be defeated, death will be swallowed up, and we will no longer feel the sting of death. And this is where God is taking us. And Paul is also borrowing language here from Hosea, and he turns it into a taunt. Oh death, where's your victory? Where's your sting? That comes from Hosea. I'm not sure Hosea means it to be a taunt. Rather, I think Paul is borrowing that language to make his point, the way we borrow language from the Bible all the time today. And the point is right now death seems to be winning. It seems to be victorious. Right now, death will still happen, but Paul's telling us it's not going to win. It may seem to us like the only undefeatable foe, but it's not going to win in the end because we will be resurrected. In the end, death is going to lose. Such that we will be able to taunt death. Where's your victory? Where's your sting? And now he expands on that point. Let's bring in verses 56 and 57. The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Corinthians are wrestling with the problem of whether or not there is a bodily resurrection from the dead, and Paul's saying, Hang on, guys, there is a bigger problem. The problem God is solving is bigger than that. The problem of death is bigger than the absence of breathing or losing this earthly life we have now. Death is even worse than we think, because death is not just the end of my earthly life. Death is the doorway into judgment. When we die, we face our Creator and we're sinful. Death comes upon us because of our sin and it is the doorway into judgment. So the sting of death is not just the end of life, it's the fact that after we die we will stand as guilty rebel sinners before a holy God. We will stop living because we've sinned and then we will fully face the wrath of God as we face judgment at the end of our lives. And that is a sting. So death is not just unfortunate and tragic, it's the final reckoning on us sinners. Death is an even bigger loss than we think it is. It's not just that I lose my temporal earthly life, I lose the chance to repent and believe. The time to follow Jesus and trust in his promises is now while I'm still breathing. After death, it's going to be too late. So the real sting of death is related to the fact that we are sinners heading toward judgment. This is what I think is behind this language, the power of sin is the law. Sin is the thing that gives death its sting, and the law is the thing that gives sin its power. When he says the power of sin is the law, I think he's talking about judgment. Sin brings us under judgment, and the righteous law of God condemns us. Sin has the power to destroy us because we stand condemned under the holy law of God. So that's one way the power of sin is the law. There's another way. In Romans, Paul talks about us being trapped in our sin because of the law. The law shows us that we're sinners, and it also shows us that we're under the wrath of God. So we're in this no-win situation. We are sinners and we need rescue from God, and yet we are sinners and don't deserve mercy and rescue. So the law both shows me I am sinful and that I am under God's wrath, undeserving of mercy, and I'm trapped. So Paul portrays the power of the law as trapping us in this bind in Romans. The law teaches us that we are sinners in need of rescue, and yet the one who could rescue us is rightly and justly angry with us because of our sin. So I can't escape the power of sin over me because I stand condemned under the law. We see both those ideas in Paul's theology. The law gives sin the power to condemn me, and the law gives sin its power over me to keep me a sinner. And both those ideas then fit Paul's theology. They both fit what we know is true. You could argue which one of those he's specifically referring to in this context. I think the first one works better in context, but either one is is appropriate and a way to understand this. The point I think he's making is he's trying to deepen the picture of how big a problem death is, because not only will I lose this earthly life, I will face my creator who has every right to judge and destroy me. Paul is emphasizing how big a problem death is so that he can impress upon us in the next verse how gracious and loving God is to us through Jesus Christ. Read let me read fifty-seven again. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus' death on the cross, we can have victory over death. Death will not destroy us because Christ has secured our forgiveness and rescued us from sin and death forever. That's how big a thing God is doing in Christ. This whole question of resurrection that the Corinthians have been debating is not just a question of will I start breathing again or will I have a body or not? Resurrection is a question of our ultimate destiny. Will my problem as a sinner subject to death be solved? Will I be rescued from the power of sin and condemnation under the law? Will I finally be freed from death and futility and corruption? And all of that is wrapped up in the concept of resurrection that the Corinthians want to just blithely toss out. Paul ends then with an exhortation, therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Now in this context, I think we should understand that be steadfast and immovable to be in the truths of the gospel, because a group of people in Corinth have decided that the idea of resurrection is foolish, it's naive, and they have a more sophisticated academic understanding. But in embracing that idea, they are abandoning one of the central truths of the gospel. And now Paul is calling them remain steadfast in the gospel, be immovable in the gospel. Hold fast to what you first believed. The Corinthians are pulling on a string that's going to unravel the entire tapestry. Paul's saying, don't do that. Stop. Don't let the voices around you distract you and move you away from the gospel. Don't be tempted by a new religious philosophy or a modern twist on the gospel. The stakes are too high. Abandon the gospel and you abandon your rescue from sin and death. So be steadfast in the gospel. Be immovable. Don't get knocked off that rock of what you believe, because your eternal destiny is at stake. And he adds this phrase, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. Paul doesn't specify what this work of the Lord is, but the context suggests to me that it's live out your faith. The work of the Lord is acting and making choices in such a way that we prove our faith to be genuine and steadfast. It's holding fast to the central truths of the gospel and encouraging each other to hold fast to them. So our lives in this world now are work, and they're work we've been called to do. It's a toil, it's a challenge, it has purpose and meaning. It's not meaningless work, it's a work that strengthens and matures our faith. Now we often think of the work of the Lord as creating social justice programs, solving the problems of poverty, being a missionary, organizing vacation Bible school, going into full-time pastoral work. I don't think that's the kind of thing Paul has in mind here. Rather, the work of the Lord is the things I do day by day, choice by choice, where I continue to persevere in the faith. It's everything I do to pursue the things of God in obedience to the Lord. And that can be a struggle. It can be a struggle to believe and remain hopeful when the world around you believes lies and says you're a fool not to believe their lies. It's a struggle to face sufferings and trials and tragedies and loss and continue to trust God. And Paul says this struggle has meaning. It is not in vain. We pursue the love of God and the love of our neighbor. We proclaim the gospel when we have the chance. We take the opportunities we have to encourage each other in the faith and remind each other of what's true, and we live in hope because of the inheritance in front of us. That can be a struggle day after day, but it has meaning. It has great purpose. Living as a believer in a fallen world is hard work. It's a struggle to continue to believe and to remain hopeful. Holding fast to the gospel, investing ourselves in work that makes sense because the gospel is true is not a vain pursuit. It has purpose. It is taking us somewhere we really want to go because it's taking us to the place where death is swallowed up in victory. And Paul is concerned that they see their lives right now in light of the truth of the gospel. I know I teach this a lot, but I just think it comes up everywhere. How I live my life today and tomorrow is greatly dependent on what I believe to be true. If I don't understand the destination of this journey of faith, then I may not know how to choose the right path when I get to that metaphorical fork in the road. It makes a difference what I think this life is all about, what I need most out of it, and how that life is to be found. And we've seen this over and over in Corinthians. Basically in every issue that's come up, Paul has said, I want you to remember what the gospel says is true and strive to live like it. And this is what he's been calling them back to over and over again in each of the issues he's addressed in this letter. God is real, we are sinners who stand condemned before him, but he will graciously forgive us because of the blood of his Son Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, God will bring us life and fulfillment and solve the problem of sin and death. This world and everything in it will eventually be transformed. If you believe the claims of Jesus Christ, you will be resurrected and transformed to a new life without sin, corruption, death, futility, and sorrow. Essentially, that's the story of the gospel. The end of the gospel is triumph and victory. And that gives us perspective on the suffering we face now. Death and suffering are part of this journey, but they don't have quite the same sting because we know that ultimately they will be swallowed up in victory. So the questions we wrestle with daily, how should we live now? What should we value? How should we treat our neighbors and our friends and our fellow believers and people who hate us? What should we set our hearts on? What should we be pursuing? What's the most important things? What should we do if life takes a tragic or unexpected turn? What should we do when God says no to something we really, really want? Those are all the questions we wrestle with when we make a claim to faith, and that's the work of the Lord, I think that Paul is referring to. And he's saying, remain steadfast, remain immovable in what you believe. Don't let anyone knock you off the rock of faith that you stand on. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to teach you both what the Bible means and how we know. I don't accept advertising on my website and I don't ask for donations, but I do love hearing from you about what you've learned. So please drop me an email if you can. And more importantly, tell a friend what you've learned and where you learned it. You can hear previous episodes in this series on WednesdayInTheWord.com. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can find his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Kristan Morana, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.