CHANGES IN THE WIND
#023 CHANGES IN THE WIND
Scripture I Corinthians 15:35-58 NIV Orig. 8-18-63
Rewr. 3-29-89
Passage: 35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[a]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we[b] bear the image of the heavenly man.
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[c]
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”[d]
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Purpose: Continuing a study for Prayer Meeting out of the epistle to the Corinthians.
Keywords: Bible study Resurrection
Timeline/Series: I Corinthians
Introduction
Twice a year we notice instantly the changes taking place all around us. Last Winter we observed the deterioration of nature. Where there had been beautiful flowers, only spindly stalks remained. Where vegetable gardens had produced food for our tables, only a few sparse weeds staked their claims under the diminishing sun. Where trees had spontaneously graced our lives with shade, all that remained was leaf litter to be gathered and burned. But change had occurred.
Change has come once more. From the lifelessness of Winter there is beginning to emerge the incandescent beauty of Spring. Dogwood, azaleas, tulips abound, and share their joy all around.
Change is natural. But something beyond the natural is God’s gift to the redeemed. Paul is determined to share the uplift of this victory.
I. Raising Some Oft Asked Questions. V35 “How are the dead raised? And with what manner of body do they come?” The Jews deliberated such questions. They are questions about the resurrection body. The rabbis windily debated these.
The Greeks did not believe in a bodily resurrection. They believed in the immortality of the soul. The body of flesh was the house of sin.
The text exemplifies the resurrection body. Such debating is foolish. Death is the natural corridor through which such life begins. Not speaking as a botanist, but a plant dies and produces seed, which germinates to form life. There are variances throughout creation: The flesh of man as beast leads to the glory of bodies terrestrial and celestial.
Thus, resurrection is the ultimate hope. There are four antitheses:
a) The perishable vs. the imperishable—Romans 8:21 “The creature . . . shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
b) Humiliation vs. glory—Philippians 3:21, “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body. . . .”
c) Weakness vs. power—II Corinthians 12:9, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
d) Physical vs. spiritual—There are two supreme thoughts here: that the physical body belongs to all, and that the spiritual body belongs to the redeemed.
II. A Vital Difference Between the Two Adams. V45 “The first man Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit.”
The first Adam is a man of dust, destined to return to the ground, and with a nature that guarantees only a grave. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. PBS’s Nova ran a story about the concentration, highest in the world, of Huntington’s Disease in villages along the shores of Lake Maracaibo. This neurological disease is always fatal, and the program was called “The Killer Gene.”
Christ is not a man of such nature, but a man of heaven. Spiritual bodies are for those who share His nature. Romans 8:29 “to be conformed to the image of His Son.”
III. The Mystery of the End-Time. V51 “Behold I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” There is a mystery to be declared. It has a different connotation from I Corinthians 14:2, which is about the mystery of speaking in tongues. There the idea is secretiveness. Here one thinks of unveiling.
Here it involves immortality. In Greek, athanasia means to deny death, euthanasia means “easy death.” Man’s immortality is not natural, but by grace. Hosea 13:14 “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.”
Christ is the One in whom is victory.