We should be excited about our new and improved, resurrected bodies. When Christ-followers are resurrected, they will be raised imperishable, in glory, in power and will have spiritual bodies. Join me in this video sermon from last weekend to find out exactly what these resurrection characteristics will mean for us.
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- Download the weekend program without answers.
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- Download my personal sermon teaching notes.
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ARISE Part 2: New and Improved - 03.21.10
Intro: New and Improved has become the way to market products to the consumer today. Everyone wants the new and improved. For the Christ-follower, this is a good way to think about our resurrection bodies. They will be “new and improved.” Unlike product marketing where the new and improved isn’t much changed, our new and improved bodies will be ALL NEW and DRASTICALLY IMPROVED. But exactly what will they be like? THE place in the Bible that tells us about these new and improved, resurrected bodies in 1 Corinthians 15. The entire letter is made up of the Apostle Paul’s answers to questions from the church in Corinth. He saved his best question... and his best answer for last. We don’t have the actual letter from Corinth to Paul, but we can imagine what it asked:
Paul, you keep talking about Jesus being resurrected and about us also being resurrected some day. What will that be like?
Paul gives 3 analogies to help them understand the concept of their resurrected bodies and then gives them 4 characteristics of their “new and improved” bodies. Let’s look at the 3 analogies first.
3 Analogies to Understand our Resurrected Bodies:
- The Analogy of the Seed
Most people in the days of Jesus and Paul were agrarian, farmers. They, better than us, knew about planting. So Paul starts off with the analogy of sowing the seed.
“And what you sow is a bare seed, perhaps a grain of wheat or
some other grain, not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up.”
1 Corinthians 15:37 GNT
There are three things about sowing seed that are like ourselves and our new resurrected bodies. First...
- ____DISSOLUTION_____ of the old.
The seed dies. You plant it in the ground and its bare. It’s naked. You’d never guess what it will become by what it looks like now. The same is true of us. We must first die. There is a dissolution of our present bodies before we receive our resurrected body.
Application: That’s why it doesn’t matter how we die or how we’re interred. It doesn’t matter if we’re cremated or lost at sea or buried in the finest of coffins. No matter what, there will be a dissolution of the old.
Illustration: In your programs tonight, you each have received a little plastic baggie. Take those out. Look at it. These are bare, naked seeds. Anyone have any idea of what they are? (Wait for responses.) These are tomato seeds. If you plant them right now in planting soil in a few weeks each seed will turn into a tomato plant bearing many tomatoes. (Uncover tomato wedges. Pepper one. Eat it. Enjoy it. Pass it around.)
Story of Grandma Wise and her best tomato of the year
This leads us to the second thing we learn from the analogy of the seed:
- ____DIFFERENCE______ of the new.
“You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike.”
1 Corinthians 15:38 The Message
When it comes to the issue of describing what our new bodies will be like, it’s really hard to figure that out from our present bodies. You could never guess that the tomato seed would turn into a tomato plant. It becomes something totally different.
For many reasons, which we’ll look at in a moment, our new bodies will have to be very different than our old ones.
Yet, at the same time there will be...
- ____CONTINUITY______ from the old to the new.
The tomato seed is completely changed. It’s different. But there is a continuity from the old to the new. This is especially true with you and me. Our bodies will be gloriously changed, new and improved, but it will still be me and you. We will have memory. We will be recognizable. Our personhood remains intact.
Some people really struggle with this whole idea of resurrection. They say it’s just not possible. You might be in that camp. You want to believe, but the whole idea of you being resurrected after death just seems too fantastic. Some of the Greeks in Athens in Paul’s day laughed at him when he told them about the resurrection (Acts 17:32). The Sadducees also didn’t believe Jesus when he talked about the resurrection. Jesus’ answer is important:
“You don’t understand, because ... you don’t know about the power of God.” Matthew 22:29 NCV
Paul essentially is saying this same thing about the power of God in...
2. The Analogy of Creation
Paul is saying that the whole idea of resurrection is not all that fantastic when you consider the power of God! Just look around at creation. What you’ll find is...
__DIFFERENT___ bodies for ___DIFFERENT__ purposes.
Paul provides two different examples to prove his point....
Example #1 - Different kinds of flesh
“All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have
another, birds another and fish another.” 1 Corinthians 15:39 NIV
You’d never guess what kind of body a fish would have because you’d never know what it’s like to live in the water. But when you catch a fish it becomes obvious. We don’t know exactly what our bodies will be like, but they will be designed for Heaven!
Example #2 - Different kinds of glory
“There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one
glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars.”1 Corinthians 15:40-41 NKJV
We look up into the sky and see the different stars and planets - and they’re all so incredible and all so different from one another.
Here’s the point. The power of God that is so incredible and so creative in creation is the same power of God that will provide you and me “new and improved” resurrection bodies someday!
The 3rd analogy is one that gives us some real hints of what our resurrection bodies will be like. Paul tells us to consider...
3. The Analogy of First Man: We shall be like ___CHRIST___.
“The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam - that is, Christ - is a life-giving Spirit... Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.” 1 Corinthians 15:45,47,49 NLT
“What we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this:
when he is revealed, we shall be like him. 1 John 3:2 NRSV
Paul tells us that now we are like the first man created out of the dust of the earth - Adam. But then we will be like the first resurrected man, Jesus. So we can look at Jesus after the resurrection and see what we’ll be like. Recognizable sometimes, sometimes not. Physically could appear in places. Scars. Ate.
Paul tells us four more things about our resurrection bodies.
4 Characteristics Of Our Resurrection Bodies:
1. ___IMPERISHABLE___
“What is sown in perishable; what is raised is imperishable.” 1 Cor. 15:42 ESV
ἀφθαρσία (aphtharsia) - not being subject to decay, death or destruction. (7x ἀφθαρσία) (9x φθαρσία)
- Real sense cannot be destroyed (NCV) (treasures moths destroy - Lk 12:33);
- Moral sense incorruption (NKJV, HCSB) (Bad company ruins good morals - 1 Cor. 15:33), (depraved in mind - 1Tim 6:5), (corrupted in mind - 2Tim 3:8);
- Ideal sense cannot decay (ISV) (athlete’s imperishable wreath - 1Cor. 9:25), (outer self wasting away, inner self renewed day by day - 2Cor 4:16)
This word is different than immortal, but has the same effect - we will not die. It’s important to understand that the reason we will be immortal is because we will be imperishable!
“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”
1 Cor. 15:50,53 ESV
Immortality without imperishable would be torture! Immortality with imperishability will be eternal life!
2. _____IN GLORY_____
“It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.” 1 Cor. 15:43a ESV
When you think of a dead corpse it’s easy to think of dishonor, disgrace, even shame (can’t fix your hair or makeup!) More the idea of humiliation or a lowly position, with misery, pitifulness.
The opposite? Glory. We’re uncomfortable applying the idea of glory to humans. Usually use with God alone. We might be more comfortable with “splendor” (ISV). It will be glorious. Scholars render as someone or something “weighty” or “impressive.”
C.S. Lewis captures this beautifully in “The Great Divorce.”
Read first 2 paragraphs of 477.
3. _____IN POWER_____
“It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” 1 Cor. 15:43b ESV
Not hard to think of “weakness” for their could be nothing more weak, more powerless, than a dead body. But what about the “power?” What will we be able to do as a resurrected person that we cannot do now? Pure speculation. But one thing...
“The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Matthew 26:41 NIV
This will NOT be true in Heaven. What the spirit is willing to do, the resurrected body will be able to do!
The great reformer Martin Luther put it this way: As weak as [the human body of the believer] is now without all power and ability when it lies in the grave, just so strong will it eventually become when the time arrives, so that not a thing will be impossible for it if it has a mind for it.”
4. ____SPIRITUAL_____
“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” 1 Cor. 15:44a ESV
Following the cue of imperishable, in glory, and in power, we might understand this best if we think of our bodies now as natural bodies for a natural world. Bodies that gradually decay and die out, often with disgrace and humiliation, weak in strength are natural in a world that is also decaying and dying, disgraced, humiliated and weak. When we are resurrected, we will no longer have natural bodies, but SUPERnatural bodies for a SUPER-natural world - spiritual bodies designed for a spiritual world, bodies imperishable, immortal, glorious and strong for a life lived eternally upon a New Earth that Jesus is now preparing for us.
Conclusion: We should not forget that this is all by grace - all God’s gift. We do nothing to deserve it. It is on the basis of Christ alone. When we say that, we mean we cannot work to deserve it. Rather it’s on the basis of our faith in Christ, our trusting in Him for salvation - for a resurrected body in a resurrected world. Have you placed your trust in Christ alone?
Nate and Worship Team lead in singing “In Christ Alone.”
